The Color of Light (10 page)

“There are Vietnamese temples around now,” I said. “But you still have the celebration in your backyard.”

“Of course we do. That's where Mom is.”

The store was getting busy.

“I'll be sure to say hello to her tomorrow,” I said, rising. “Thank you for lunch.”

He put his arm through mine and walked me to the door. “Talk to him, Maggie.”

“That's up to him.”

As I walked back toward the lot where I parked Mike's truck I glanced at a shop window and spotted Larry following me from across the street, staying several yards behind me. It was creepy. He had to know where I was going, so why dog my steps if he wanted to talk to me? I stopped and turned to face him. But he ducked into an open doorway and I wasn't about to chase him down. Instead, I got back into the truck and headed for the closest supermarket for some staples.

No one was behind me when I pulled into Mom's garage and closed the door. I thought immediately about the person who had aggressively pushed on the locked back gate when Evie Sanchez was with me, and then the break-in. Both times, whoever it was had run away. Larry both times? Possibly. Father John said he was resourceful. Stymied by the locked gate and possibly the thorny bougainvillea on the trellis beside it, maybe he had found another entry point. But why? If he, or anyone, wanted to talk to me, he could knock on the front door.

Before going upstairs to make beds for weekend guests, I made a circuit of the downstairs, taking care that every door and window was securely locked. When I left the house to meet Jean-Paul, I double-bolted the front door. Striding to the downtown BART station, my bag of evening clothes slung over my shoulder, I saw no one lurking, but I was still wary. I regretted turning down Jean-Paul's offer to pick me up in a car.

Funny, I thought, during all those years that Isabelle stalked me I remained completely oblivious to her and any peril she might have presented. So why, when no one was there, was I feeling as spooked as I was? It wasn't Larry; I didn't think he intended harm, even if it was he who broke into the house. Maybe it was all the talk about hungry ghosts. Or was it that I had been sleeping in my old bedroom for the last several days knowing that I had yet to pack away the monsters that lived under the bed? In any case, for the weekend, Jean-Paul and I would be using the room across the hall.

When I came around the curve in the street and caught the first glimpse of Beto's driveway, I knew what at least one source of my discomfort was. I had seen that damn picture of Mrs. Bartolini's battered corpse.

On an ordinary Monday morning, in a peaceful neighborhood, a monster had slipped through our veneer of safety and created mayhem. Was he still among us? Had he been inside my house the night before?

Jean-Paul was on the sidewalk
in front of the French consulate, watching for me. He came to meet me, smiling his shy, upside-down smile, holding his arms wide for me to walk into. I put my arms around him and offered my face for
les bises
, the kiss on either cheek, plus the third for close friends and lovers that is the standard French greeting.

He was dressed for the evening in a beautifully tailored silk tux, minus the jacket.

“You're gorgeous,” I said. And he was.

“I've missed you.” He kept his arm around my waist as he led me inside to the guest apartment where I was to change; I clung to him. Looking down into my face he asked, “All is well?”

“All is well. You're here.”

While I dressed, he lounged across the guest bed, looking as gracefully elegant as a panther, talking to me as I transformed myself from bedraggled commuter to evening butterfly. Or dragonfly, as it were.

Mom had sewn a piece of felt into the shoulder seam of the black dress as an anchor for the dragonfly brooch so that it wouldn't pull the delicate fabric. Jean-Paul watched me engineer the placement of the brooch, as I had watched Mom do the same.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“The brooch?” I said.

“No,
chérie
, the woman who wears it.”

I stretched out beside him, curling myself into the contours of his body. “I've missed you.”

“I am afraid,” he said, kissing the side of my neck, “that if we don't get up from here right now, we will not get up at all. And, sorry to say, we will be greatly missed.”

We weren't in a hurry about it, but we did get up, and we left. A driver named Rafael, who doubled as a security guard for the San Francisco consul general, ferried us to the de Young Museum of Fine Arts in Golden Gate Park. At the door we were greeted by the museum people, the staff from the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris that had accompanied several of the Matisse works, and the chocolatier who was underwriting the event as a way to announce the opening of his first American shop, a confectionary in the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero; commerce and culture wed.

Before the invited guests arrived, we were given a brief tour of the reception preparations and the exhibit. The museum's main concourse had been transformed to represent a street in Montparnasse, with faux sidewalk cafés and shops, and a street musician playing an accordion. The terrace at the far end of the concourse, where dinner would be served, had become a Parisian garden bistro, lit by candle light. As we walked through the special exhibits gallery on the lower level, I turned to Jean-Paul and asked, “Where is your San Francisco counterpart?”

“Monsieur le consul general of San Francisco?”

“Oui.”

He lifted one shoulder, pretending to be studying a painting. “We did le swap. He is in Los Angeles tonight at the opening of a French film.”

“Le swap, huh?” I said, putting my palm against his cheek and turning his face toward me. “When did this come about?”

He made a moue, trying to hide a smile. “It took two days to negotiate with my colleague, but the deal was sealed day before yesterday, just before I called you. I thought an evening out would be a nice break for you. All I had to do was persuade my colleague that he would enjoy spending an evening with some film stars more than he would an evening with Monsieur Matisse.”

“Et voilà,”
I said.

“Yep.” He kissed me quickly.

M. Matisse's opening drew an interesting collection of local luminaries, both political and social. I ran into an old friend from my days working at KQED, the PBS outlet in San Francisco. We had a good catch-up conversation while Jean-Paul took care of some official duties. He made a charming short speech in two languages, thanking various dignitaries for their support, and hanging medals around the necks of some of the people responsible for mounting the exhibit in furtherance of Franco-American friendship. Or something.

As he escorted me in to dinner, he put his head close to mine and said, “There is a bit of a stir among the Centre Pompidou staff about your dress.”

“What? This old rag?”

“Exactly.” There was a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I was asked—accused might be a better word—of having the dress lent to you for the evening out of the couturier's archival collection.”

“And you told them?”

“That I know nothing about such things, which is the truth.” We found our seats and he held my chair for me. “But, if you don't mind, what is the provenance of
la belle robe
?”

“I found it in Mom's closet yesterday after I spoke with you. I hadn't brought evening attire with me.”

“Of course,” he said, taking his seat beside me. “She perhaps acquired it at the couturier's shop during a trip abroad?”

“Hardly,” I said. I looked over and saw the staffers with their heads together, watching us. I smiled. “She bought it at a rummage sale.”

“What is that?”

“Like a
brocante
.” A French flea market.

He laughed, his gaze following mine to the little clutch of curious women. “Let's tell them nothing.”

Afterward, as we rode together in the backseat of the Town Car, headed across the Bay Bridge toward Berkeley and the work that awaited me there, I felt a bit like Cinderella after the ball. Except that Prince Charming was riding in the coach with me.

Jean-Paul was quiet, looking out his window at the play of lights on the water below us. The Bay Lights installation was still up, twenty-five thousand LED lights illuminating the length and height of the west span of the Bay Bridge. It was dazzling, but I'd had a very bad night before and a very long day, and the car was very plush, so I was struggling to keep from nodding off. When Jean-Paul took a deep breath and cleared his throat, I came to a bit, wondering if perhaps I was about to find out why he had gone to all the trouble to arrange le swap. He broke the silence with a question.

“Has your network come across with funding for your film in ­Normandy?”

“Not yet,” I said. “My producer wants it, but the network hasn't, or won't, approve a budget.”

“What is the hold-up?”

“I think it's me,” I said, patting the flesh under my chin. “Jean-Paul, I am old for television.”

He folded my hand into his. “In Europe, a woman your age would just be coming into her own.”

“Maybe,” I said, “if her own wasn't a career in front of a camera.”

He tipped his head slightly to one side, acknowledging that what I said could be correct. He asked, “Perhaps the issue is the cost of making a film abroad?”

“Not if I can shoot the film I want,” I said. “The heart of the project will be conversations with my grandmother at the farm in Normandy during harvest, and then at her Paris home late in the fall. To keep the point of view at an intimate level the only crew I need is a camera­man.”

“Guido?” he said.

“Yes. Guido and I can do this one alone, the way we did field reports when we were still covering news stories together. Because we will stay with Grand-mère and we don't need a big crew, the production costs will be minimal. But if we don't get funding soon, we'll miss the harvest this year. Grand-mère is ninety-three. Next year may be too late.”

“If the network does not come through, would you go ahead with the film if an alternate source of funding could be found?”

“If I could come up with both funding and a distributor I would certainly give it some serious thought,” I said.

“May I make inquiries?”

I tried to read his expression as freeway lights danced across his face. “Why do I think that line is the opening gambit for something?”

He laughed when I defined gambit; though his English seemed flawless, occasionally a word or its use would stump him.

“All right, yes,” he said. “I am caught.”

“So?”

“I have some contacts,” he said. “Perhaps, if you approve, I could make some calls.”

“Of course. Thank you.” Something was up. I could hear it in his voice. “What am I missing?”

“Maggie, you know I am nothing except a businessman who accepted a political appointment to serve as consul general.” When I acknowledged that I did, he said, “On the other hand, the consul general here in San Francisco is a career diplomat. His appointment to San Francisco is a stepping stone for him. But for me? Well, I am an interloper. What do you say, a temp?”

“Yes,” I said. “You've told me.”

“If I were at all political, and I am not, I would have been recalled a long time ago so that a true diplomat could take over. But, the new administration has been kept very busy, crisis after crisis. As there has been no emergency to handle in my assigned region, and I have managed not to disgrace my country and have actually been of some small service, I have been left in place.” He turned and gave me a pointed look. “I have been here far longer than I expected to be.”

“Have you been recalled to France, Jean-Paul?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Not yet,” he said. “But I understand that it will happen.”

“When?”

He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close. “After the summer holidays, perhaps. When the government goes back to work.”

“How do you feel about that?”

He raised his shoulders, frowned. “My son received his exam results.”

“Yes?”

“Dom qualified to enter the preparation course for admission to the
grandes écoles
,” he said.

“Congratulations,” I said. This was big news, indeed. Very few French students pass the
baccalauréat
exams at the level necessary to qualify for the nation's premier public universities. The bombshell here was that, having qualified to prepare for the
grandes écoles
, seventeen-year-old Dominic would not be finishing high school in Los Angeles. And I doubted his father was ready to send him back to France, alone. “When do his classes begin?”

“In September.”

“Ma'am?” The driver, Rafael, interrupted the dark pall that settled over the car after Jean-Paul's announcement. “Were you expecting someone?”

I looked up as we slowly came to a stop at the curb in front of Mom's house. A man sat on the top step, holding a baseball bat across his knees.

“It's the next-door neighbor,” I said. “Something must have happened.”

Rafael opened Jean-Paul's door first, and then stood close beside me after he handed me out of the car and walked me up to Jean-Paul.

“Mr. Loper?” I called, staying near the car as George Loper rose and started down the steps toward us. “Is there a problem?”

“That damn hoodlum.” He smacked the side of his leg with his bat. “I told him that if I saw him hanging around here anymore, I wasn't going to call the cops again. Next time I'll take care of him myself.”

“Are you talking about Larry Nordquist?” I asked.

“Damn right,” he said.

I saw some movement behind the big hydrangea next to the front porch. So did Rafael. Before he could move or say anything, I gripped his elbow. When he looked down at me I mouthed,
No
. He got the message and he stayed where he was.

Loper, sounding like the patronizing jerk I remembered him to be, said, “I don't want the guy skulking around, not with you alone in the house.”

“I'm not alone now,” I said. I introduced Jean-Paul to him.

“Well, well.” Finally, Loper smiled as he offered his free hand—the one without the bat—to Jean-Paul. “The boyfriend we've heard so much about. My wife would love to meet you, Mr. Bernard. She's a regular Francophile. Can I offer you a drink? A little nightcap?”

“Thank you,” Jean-Paul said. “Perhaps another time. I'm afraid that it is quite late.”

“Rain check, then,” Loper said, releasing Jean-Paul's hand.

I wished him good night and thanked him for his concern. As he turned to leave, he winked at Jean-Paul while aiming a finger at me.

“Take good care of our girl, now,” he said. “Trouble seems to follow her around.”

Jean-Paul said, “Good night.” He sounded genteel; he meant
Go away
.

We watched Loper until he reached his own front walk.

Rafael asked, “What do you want done?”

I knew he was referring to the person hunkered behind the hydrangea. I said, “Would you please help us with the things in the trunk?”

The three of us huddled over the open trunk. I explained to them who Larry was and that I wanted to speak with him. “Please don't let him get away. He'll probably try to run.”

Rafael laid out a strategy. Jean-Paul gathered our bags and Rafael collected the two towers of green silk-covered candy boxes that the chocolatier had given Jean-Paul to hand out as promotional gifts. With Jean-Paul on the porch beside me and Rafael waiting at the bottom of the steps, I unlocked the front door.

As soon as I opened the door, the two men sprang into action. Jean-Paul dropped the bags and dove right, toward the hydrangea, flushing out Larry. Larry, rising from a crouch, was off balance, easy pickings for Rafael, who grabbed the smaller man, pinned his arms behind him and marched him into the house.

“Hello, Larry,” I said, as he was quick-walked across the threshold past me.

“Yo, Maggie,” he said, giving up his resistance to Rafael. “Long time no see.”

“Do come in.”

Rafael sat him down in a chair in the living room as Jean-Paul moved into position blocking the most obvious escape route, with Rafael standing as backup near the locked front door. Larry seemed agitated, sweating profusely, as he noted where Jean-Paul was. I wondered, as Beto had, if he was on something.

I said, “Can I offer you a cup of tea, a glass of juice?”