Standing Room Only

by Heidi Mastrogiovanni

  The view from the estate was gorgeous, and Lala was sent into paroxysms of delight with each explosion of lights and colors. She was sitting on one of many picnic blankets, and had chosen her spot to be as far away from Gérard as possible so that she wouldn’t be tempted to embarrass herself again by wearing her heart on her sleeveless arms. That concern being momentarily abated, Lala gave herself free reign to wax loony about the patriotic fireworks display.

  “Wow! Look at that one! That is incredible! Omigosh, look at that one! It’s even bigger ’n’ better ’n’ brighter than the last one! Wow! That one might be the best so far! Wow! Wow Wow Wow Wow WOW!”

  Lala turned to the man sitting next to her on the blanket and raised her champagne glass.

  “Those are some fabulous feux d’artifice, huh!”

  The man smiled and nodded and clinked his glass against Lala’s.

  “Vive la France!” Lala cheered. “Listen, Pascal, can you get someone to hit ‘Pause’? I really need to run inside for a brief bathroom break, and I don’t want to miss any of this! It is Pascal, isn’t it?”

  Lala scrambled up off the blanket and ran into the house. As soon as she got inside, she felt just a little dizzy, possibly from having stood up too quickly and having jogged the short distance to the house too exuberantly after having so much delicious champagne. Lala noticed that there was a door ajar just down the hallway to her left and glimpsed a wall of books through the opening. She immediately thought that the trip to the bathroom could wait, and that her equilibrium would no doubt benefit from being in a library. She slipped inside the dimly-lit room and peered at the titles on the shelf nearest to the door at her eye-level. The books all looked old, and all of the titles were in French. She continued on along the wall and saw several titles in English and Italian in the next sections of the shelves. She returned to the first shelves she had seen and stood on her toes to search the titles higher above her head. One of the first books she saw on that upper level made her gasp. Lala carefully extracted a thick volume with ornate letters on the spine reading Le Comte de Monte Cristo.

  As Lala turned to the center of the room with the idea of picking out a comfortable chair to sit in so she could wallow in the original French of her favorite classic novel, she was startled when a door at the far end of the room opened and a petite woman in a sleek black pantsuit entered the room. The woman had a tight grey bun and she wore a large pair of glasses that somehow managed to look elegant even as they took up much of her small face.

  “Oh, je suis désolée, Madame. Excusez-moi,” Lala said.

  The woman smiled and strode across the room with her hand extended.

  “Ah, Gérard and Marie-Laure’s American! Welcome. Je suis Arlette, Gérard’s grandmother.” She spoke with a voice that sounded somewhat strained and raspy.

  Arlette shook Lala’s hand, then kissed her on both cheeks and took a look at the book Lala was holding.

  “You have excellent taste, my dear! That’s my favorite.”

  “Mine, too!” Lala said. “Je m’appelle Lala, and I am so happy to meet you. How was the protest?”

  “Effective,” Arlette said.

  “Brava! I’m so sorry I snuck into your library. It is heavenly.”

  “Not a bit. Come sit with me for a moment. I’ve been standing all day shouting and waving signs.”

  Arlette led Lala to a small sofa. They sat down next to each other, and Arlette put her clenched hand to her lips and tried to clear her throat.

  “Wait,” Lala said. “Perhaps some of your family’s incredible champagne would help soothe your voice?”

  Arlette smiled and said, “I feel sure it would.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Lala ran out to the lawn, grabbed a bottle off the buffet table, secured two clean glasses, and rushed back inside, calling back to Gérard, who was on the patio as she zipped past him.

  “Your grandmother is, I suspect, utterly fabuleuse!”

  Lala scooted back onto the couch, where she popped the bottle, poured, and handed a glass to Arlette. Arlette took a deep sip and patted her collarbone with her fingertips.

  “Much better. Merci mille fois. My dear, am I remembering correctly? Did you and Gérard work together in New York?”

  Ohhh, merde, Lala thought. She knows. He told her.

  “Mmm,” Lala said.

  Lala paused. Arlette covered Lala’s free hand with hers and gave it a quick squeeze. They both took several sips of champagne before Lala spoke again.

  “I had such a crush on your grandson. Of course I didn’t know about Marie-Laure until . . . and then . . . I kind of had a bit of a complete and utter meltdown at work.”

  “Mmm,” Arlette said.

  “Gérard looks just like my late husband.”

  “Oh, my dear. You were widowed? I’m so sorry.”

  The door Lala had entered the library through opened wide and a gangly older man stopped in the doorway when he saw the two women inside the room.

  “Ah, Étienne, mon cher,” Arlette said. “Come meet my new friend, Lala. She’s the American.”

  Lala stood and Étienne took her hand and kissed it.

  “Enchanté,” he said. He bent to kiss Arlette on both cheeks and clasped his hands together in supplication as he straightened again.

  “Will you two lovely ladies forgive me if I leave you so soon? I must retire.” Étienne tilted his head toward Arlette and smiled at Lala. “Protesting with my wife is exhausting for an old fellow like me. I shall see you tomorrow, yes?”

  “Absolutely,” Lala said.

  The women watched Étienne leave the room and close the door behind him.

  “How nice that Gérard’s grandfather supports your causes,” Lala said.

  “It is nice, indeed,” Arlette said. “Étienne is not, however, Gérard’s grandfather. My first husband died many years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Lala paused and took another sip of champagne.

  “And you found love again.”

  “Twice,” Arlette said. “Étienne is my third husband.”

  “Wow,” Lala said. “You are brave. And you are my hero. I’ve found love again. Once. What happened to your second husband?”

  “He died.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. You were widowed twice. I imagine the second time was just as awful as the first time. Or worse?”

  “Worse in some ways, yes. It was a long time ago. Are you and your second love getting married?”

  Lala shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m too scared. I don’t think I can do it again. I can’t be brave like you. I can’t be widowed again.”

  Arlette picked up the bottle and filled their glasses.

  “This is why the Good Lord made champagne,” she said. “And why he made us strong.”

  “I don’t know. It’s just that . . . I keep thinking about how I have no hope of ever seeing or speaking to Terrence again. Not in this lifetime. Afterlife? I hope so. But I miss him now.”

  Arlette nodded.

  “He had this way of saying ‘sure’ that was a little different from the way I say it, and I always thought it was so adorable. And he said it a lot, because he was so agreeable. I’d say something and he’d concur, and he’d express that by saying ‘Shore, shore.’ Not ‘shur,’ the way I pronounce it. It was ‘shore.’ I have video of Terrence. I haven’t been able to watch any of it yet. But I know I don’t have video of him saying ‘Shore, shore’.”

  Lala paused and tried to catch her breath so she could then whisper a thought that she often returned to.

  “If I could just have dinner with him once a year. Once every ten years. That would be enough. I could look forward to that and it would be enough now.”

  “You know I understand,” Ar
lette said. “Most of us who have experienced what you have understand.”

  “David is wonderful. Kind and lovely and wonderful, just like Terrence. And he’s alive. Now. Even if he breaks up with me because I’m basically a high-functioning lunatic, at least I could still see him every five or ten years. Unless he takes out a restraining order. And even then I could at least force a hug on him and hear his voice before the police show up to enforce it.”

  Arlette let out a hearty, dirty laugh that sounded like a bark. It made Lala love her even more than she already did. Lala beamed at her.

  “You’re so fabuleuse. You remind me of my favorite aunt. You two have to meet sometime. This may be the best champagne I have ever had. Kudos to you and your family. If David dies, I’ll never be able to see him or speak to him again. No matter where I go, no matter what I do. I don’t think I could stand that again.”

  Arlette took Lala’s hand. Neither of them put their champagne glasses down.

  “My dear, may I tell you a little story?”

  “Of course,” Lala said. “I would love that.”

  “I was devastated when Gérard’s grandfather died. I felt as though my life was over, as though I wanted it to be over because I couldn’t bear to be in so much pain. And then I met Antonio. He was Italian and he was wonderful and he was fifteen years younger than I was.”

  “Wow,” Lala said. “That is very cool.”

  And a much better bet, statistically speaking, Lala thought.

  “And very safe, wouldn’t you expect?” Arlette asked.

  “That’s actually exactly what I was thinking,” Lala admitted.

  “By rights, he should have been the one to lose me. But it didn’t work out that way. Because there are no guarantees.”

  “Mmm. It would be nice if there were,” Lala said.

  “Mmm,” Arlette agreed. “Étienne is several years older than I am. Who knows what will happen? Perhaps we’ll both die on the same day, within minutes of each other. That happens sometimes. Sometimes you just get lucky. And how lucky we are to find more than one person to love us.”

  “But . . .” Lala began. “If we’re widowed again . . .” She realized that she had to wipe away a few tears.

  “Oh, I’m not going to be widowed again,” Arlette announced. “Everything I just told you is entirely theoretical. I have made it very clear to Étienne that I will be going first. I have told him this many times.”

  “Oh?” Lala said. “And what does he say when you tell him that?”

  “He doesn’t say much. He usually just wags his finger at me in a very affectionate way, which I take as an indication that he knows that I know how poignantly ridiculous my demand is. And then we have lovely sex.”

  “Oh,” Lala said. “Nice.”

  I think I’ve found a new mentor, Lala thought. Not to replace Geraldine. In addition to . . .

  Arlette tapped the cover of the book Lala was holding.

  “Our favorite,” Arlette said. Lala nodded her head vigorously.

  “It’s my Bible. My Talmud. My Qur’an. My Baghavad Gita. My Atheist’s Guide to the Universe. I just made that last one up. I don’t know if it actually exists.”

  “The last words of our favorite book?” Arlette asked.

  Lala nodded again.

  “Wait and hope,” Lala said at the same moment that Arlette said, “Attendre et espérer.”

  “And the subtext?” Arlette said.

  “The . . . the subtext of what?”

  “Of those words?”

  Uh oh, Lala thought.

  “Umm . . . gimme a sec . . . That we should wait and hope?”

  “That we should live. Without fear. As I have learned, my dear, if you give up on love you give up on your life.”

  Lala smiled at Arlette and nodded.

  “I’m very literal, so subtext is not my forte. That’s why I need a writing partner when I work on a screenplay. You know, where subtext counts for a lot ’n’ stuff.”

  There was a knocking at one of the tall, wide windows and they both jumped up a little at the sudden sound. Thankfully, no champagne was spilled. They looked over to the window and saw Gérard standing outside on the patio, peering into the library. He waved at them. Arlette went to the window and opened it. Gérard leaned in and enveloped his grandmother in a very loving hug.

  “When did you get back?”

  “Just now, mon cher,” Arlette said. “I have been having a lovely visit with our dear Lala, and I think now you want to have her back, oui?”

  “Si je peux,” Gérard said. “The pool beckons.”

  “It’s excellent timing. I shall join my husband and you young people shall go swimming.”

  “Wonderful. Vite, vite, Lala.”

  Gérard shut the windows and waved at them again before he hurried out of their range of sight. Arlette walked back to the couch and took Lala’s chin in her hand. She looked Lala in the eyes with a warm and earnest gaze.

  “Please tell your dear aunt and your dear David that I will hope to meet them one day soon. Perhaps on a very celebratory occasion. And I suspect you may have some idea of what my subtext is when I say that. If not, ask your writing partner.”

  Lala had hugged Arlette and had promised her that she would reflect on Arlette’s example. Then she had rushed upstairs and had put on her favorite bathing suit of all time, and in fact the only swimming ensemble she currently owned. She bought it many years ago when she still lived in New York for a bachelorette weekend at a resort in Montauk for one of her college friends. Like a classic little black dress, it was one piece and slimming. She loved the way she looked in it.

  Yes, she had thought as she did an enjoyable once-over in the mirror, no one will notice my hobbit toes in this.

  And then she had paused for a moment to remember how her critical friend had once asked Lala if she was concerned that her lack of foot digits might one day result in her not being able to stand upright, and basically just tumbling forward whenever she stood because her feet had nothing with which to balance and grip? To which Lala had responded, “It’s worked for me so far, you snippy bitch.” And then Lala had laughed insouciantly to indicate that her friend’s cutting observations were of no consequence to her. Which they kind of were. And kind of always would be to an extent as tiny as her toes.

  When Lala got downstairs and approached the pool, the first thing she immediately noticed was that no one else was wearing a bathing suit. Or a tee shirt. Or a pair of shorts. Or anything at all.

  Because, what with the naked shoulders bobbing out of the pool and the unclothed bodies lounging in the lounge chairs, it was a detail that was hard to miss.

  Oh, Lala thought. Well.

  Gérard saw Lala and swam over to the edge of the pool. He walked up the stairs and approached her. Naked.

  Yikes, I’ve never seen his wiener before, she thought. I’ve never actually even seen his bare chest before. Don’t stare. No need to stare. Everything probably looks exactly like Terrence’s. God, how am I not going to swoon? How am I not going to do something crazy tonight?

  “Hey! Hi! Yeah! Fun!” Lala said. “I’m overdressed!”

  I sound demented, she thought.

  “Pas du tout,” Gérard said. “Nudity is not obligatory. I need more champagne.”

  He put his arm around her waist and led her to one of the buffet tables.

  Don’t stare, she thought. Do not stare. I would absolutely love to get a good look at it, though. Omigosh, there’s Marie-Laure. God, her boobs are fabulous.

  “There you are!” Marie-Laure said. She jogged over and kissed Lala. On the mouth.

  Whoa, Lala thought. Hello. That was very pleasant. And more than a little surprising.

  Marie-Laure grabbed a champagne bottle, grabbed Lala’s hand, and ran back to the pool with her. Lala planted h
er feet halfway there and stopped. Marie-Laure gave her a questioning look. Lala quickly slid the straps of her bathing suit off her shoulders, wriggled it down her hips, stepped out of it, and kicked it off to the side. Then she grabbed Marie-Laure’s hand and continued to the pool.

  “I was feeling conspicuous,” Lala explained. “Don’t look at my toes.”

  The two women stood at the top of the double-steps that led into the center of the pool. They grasped the middle rail as they walked down together. Lala tried not to make it obvious that she was checking out the other guests checking her out.

  I feel good, she thought. This is fun. I wish David were here. So we could have fun like this. Together. Naked.

  “You have such lovely breasts,” Marie-Laure said.

  “Ditto,” Lala said. “And I think I’m blushing.” And how’s your boyfriend’s wiener? she silently asked. I’m guessing great, n’est-ce pas? I’ve kind of always wanted to know. Not kind of. Actually.

  “This water is amazing,” Lala said. She stepped off the stairs and the water, which was as warm as a Jacuzzi, enveloped her up to her shoulders. She noticed that there was no chlorine smell to bother her nose. She dipped her index finger in the water and touched the tip of it to her tongue.

  “Are you serious? This is saltwater? This is a saltwater pool?” Marie-Laure nodded happily and Lala shook her head admiringly. “Damn it, y’all are so cool!”

  Marie-Laure drank directly from the champagne bottle she was holding and passed it to Lala. As Lala took a big swig, Gérard landed next to them in the water in the form of a smooth cannonball. Lala and Marie-Laure laughed and sputtered and wiped saltwater off their faces. Gérard emerged from the water like a male Venus. Lala fully expected him to be standing on a gigantic half clamshell.

  The champagne bottle made a full round through the trio and then was passed around one more time in the opposite direction. Lala could feel her fingertips starting to prune. She was staring at her right hand and rubbing her fingertips together when Gérard calmly handed the champagne bottle back to Marie-Laure and grabbed Lala and kissed her. Their bodies were suddenly right up against each other in the pool. And she was kissing him back. And then while she was reeling from having a years-long fantasy become a tipsy reality, she was suddenly kissing Marie-Laure, and it was a great kiss, and it was even better than the kiss she had shared with Gérard. The two women released each other, and Lala saw that Gérard had been watching them kiss and that he was really enjoying it.