An Inconvenient Woman

by An Inconvenient Woman (retail) (epub)

During the interval between my saying a word and Ray repeating it, the world seems to stop, and time ebbs and flows on a series of images.

  The house I lived in with my mother. The smell of bread. La bûche de Noël she baked for the season.

  That same house without her, my room locked against any intrusion from my father, those sleepless nights when I feared he might try again, press a pillow over my face and lean all his weight into it.

  My grandmother’s high-windowed apartment on Boulevard Raspail; looking down from its balcony.

  The house I shared with Max and Melody, its backyard strewn with toys, palm leaves floating in a plastic swimming pool.

  The house I return to each night.

  Dark.

  Silent.

  Empty.

  “May-sohn,” Ray says.

  “No,” I correct him. “May-zohn. The s here is pronounced z.”

  “In French the s is pronounced like a z?” Ray asks.

  “When it comes between two vowels, yes,” I tell him before going on to the next word.

  “Voiture,” I say. “Car.”

  Now I am a little girl in the back seat of our family car, the windows rolled down, the desert sweeping out in all directions, the rounded boulders of Joshua Tree rising before us, my mother suddenly excited: Look, Claire. A coyote.

  Then she is gone, and I am in the passenger seat of that same heavy black car, eating an ice cream and trying to be happy but mindful of the oddly stricken look on my father’s face as he accelerates suddenly, only to slow down just as suddenly, as if caught in the grip of a fearful indecision. Where are we going, Dad? How grimly he’d given his answer: For a swim.

  Ray sees none of this. We go through the words I choose in order to illustrate French pronunciations. He catches on a little faster than usual for someone who has never studied a foreign language. It’s his mental stamina I notice. While many people are exhausted at the end of a lesson, Ray is clearly energized.

  The lesson runs over an hour, but thanks to Ray’s enthusiasm it seems much shorter.

  He tries to pay me for the additional time. “It’s only fair,” he says as he offers me the money.

  “No, thank you.”

  Devotion, commitment, passion. There should be no extra charge for these values. I take his $50 and we agree to meet at the same time in two days.

  “I hope you had as much fun as I did,” Ray tells me.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You have a lot of patience, Claire,” he says when I turn to leave.

  I look back at him. “Thank you.”

  On the way out, I see a group of teenaged girls heading across the parking lot. They are carrying their school bags. Talking and laughing.

  After that, it’s Ray Patrick who captures my attention. I watch as he walks to his car, a black Mercedes. There is an elegance to his stride, the sort one sees in men who are completely comfortable in their own skins.

  I realize that I like him, and this attitude seems warm and natural and safe, a feeling I enjoy during the brief interval before I coldly remind myself that I’d liked Simon, too.

  •

  A call comes in while I’m driving to my next client. It’s from Linda Bergman, who runs a service that provides translators “for all occasions.”

  A French tourist has been taken to Cedars-Sinai.

  “Her name is Delphine Perron,” Linda says. “She’s evidently traveling on her own, so there’s nobody here to help her. She fainted right on Hollywood Boulevard. The hospital wants to make sure she understands what the doctors tell her. Room 517 at two o’clock. Can you make it?”

  I glance at my watch. I will have only thirty minutes to get there, park my clattering PT, and make it to the room. But my fee for this kind of translation is twice what it is for teaching, well worth the effort.

  “It’ll be tight, but I can make it.”

  On the way I pass Spago, a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant. A black Mercedes is parked on the corner. I can make out the driver, but only from the back. Briefly I find myself wondering if the man behind the wheel, whom I can see only in silhouette, might be Ray Patrick.

  Cedars-Sinai is a sprawling complex, but I manage to get to Room 517 five minutes before the scheduled consultation. The patient appears to be around twenty years old. I introduce myself in French, but she answers in English, then tries to speak English until it becomes obvious that she can’t. After that we speak only French. She has come to LA because she is much taken with American film stars. She has always wanted to see the city in which so many of them live. It is a short vacation. She must be back in Lyon by the middle of the month in order to resume her job as a cashier.

  I ask her which movies stars are her favorites. She names Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, both of whom are “des grands artistes.” She wants to be an actress, but not in France. French movies are boring. French actors are snobs.

  The doctor arrives. He is short, with thinning hair, an appearance that reminds me of Mehdi. I can’t help but wonder if he has secreted a Burger King crown.

  I ask him to speak in brief phrases then pause long enough for me to translate.

  He nods and begins.

  An X-ray has revealed a tumor in Delphine’s brain. Whether malignant or benign cannot be determined without surgery. She will need to consult a neurosurgeon as soon as she returns to France.

  I pass on this news in as calm a voice as I can manage given how frightening it is.

  Delphine is dazed and uncomprehending, as if hit by a hammer. She blinks slowly. Her lips part slightly. She is trying to absorb this terrifying news.

  I turn to the doctor.

  “Can you tell her something else?”

  I want him to say something hopeful, or at least less horrifying. This diagnosis has taken so much from Delphine; some shred of hope must be given back.

  He only stares at me gravely.

  “She needs to have this surgery right away. As soon as she gets back to France.”

  The size of Delphine’s tumor is in the doctor’s eyes. He has not told her more because the “more” is worse.

  The tumor is probably malignant, he tells me with a glance, and if it is, twenty-year-old Delphine will be dead within a few months.

  I look at her. “Tu dois te faire opérer dès que possible.” You must have an operation as soon as possible. And because it seems called for, I add, “Immédiatement.” Immediately.

  Delphine’s eyes fill with tears, but she doesn’t speak. She’d no doubt imagined her life as more or less unending. She would have long, delightful years ahead of her. Time to fall in love, have adventures, achieve fame in the movies. Now that future has been derailed.

  She reaches up to touch the side of her head. Her fingers are trembling.

  “Si tu veux, je peux rester avec toi,” I tell her. If you want, I can stay with you.

  “Oui, ce serait bien,” she says. “J’ai besoin de toi.” Yes, that would be nice. I need you.

  Later I go to my car, but I don’t start the engine. My nerves are on edge, death terribly real again, as if everything is shadowed by oblivion. I think of how briefly we live in time before we rejoin eternity.

  Where Max is.

  Where Melody is.

  Then I think of Emma.

  I have so little time to stop Simon.

  But how?

  What next?

  I have written to him. There would be no point in doing that again.

  Have I already reached a dead end, or just taken the last reasonable step?

  Does that leave only an unreasonable one?

  I can’t step back from the precipice of this question, and yet I must face it:

  What are you willing to do?

  I yearn for someone to show me the way. As if searching for that person, I stare out into the garage. People are moving in and out of it. People in lab coats. People in wheelchairs. Some of them glance toward me.

  What they see is a woman sitting motionless behind the
wheel.

  Still.

  Very still.

  If someone painted me now, I would look lonely, isolated.

  Because I am.

  The full realization of this falls upon me. More than anything, I want someone simply to believe me. Someone who can see the same threat and feel the same peril. A friend.

  2.

  After my last client, I decide to go by the pier before heading home. There’s no reason for this except that I feel a need to acknowledge the young girl who drowned here. It is a distant gesture of respect, I realize, but it is . . . something.

  On the boardwalk the mood is lively, as always. Tourists wander from booth to booth, playing games. Couples stroll with their arms around each other. I stop to watch a clown in a flaming red wig. He is blowing gigantic bubbles into the air. Children chase them and scream with delight when one bursts. Melody once had the same excitement. Dashing around. Eager to explore. On this same pier, when she was older, Simon and I watched as she strolled over to buy a cotton candy. “She takes my breath away,” he said.

  I keep walking until I glance to the side and see a yellow tent. Several police officers are in the process of taking it down. I watch as a woman joins me at the railing. She is tall, slender, dressed in a gray jogging suit. She peers out over the beach, her gaze focused on the cops as they continue to dismantle the tent.

  Suddenly she turns to me.

  “Did something happen on the beach?” she asks. “All those cops.”

  “They found a girl in the water yesterday,” I tell her. “She hasn’t been identified yet.”

  The woman looks back toward the beach.

  “Water,” she says. “I’ve always had a fear of it.”

  She looks at me almost playfully, as if dismissing this anxiety.

  “No reason for it at all. I’ve had it since I was a little girl. It was worse back then. I didn’t even want to take a bath. Now I can swim. But I never get over my head.”

  “Sounds like you’re not really afraid of water,” I tell her. “You’re afraid of drowning.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s it.”

  She laughs at this inexplicable anxiety, but I can feel her residual dread. It isn’t in her voice. It’s in her eyes.

  Suddenly she seems to shy away from revealing anything more about herself.

  “I wonder if she was from the streets,” she says. “The girl they found.”

  She pulls her gaze back to the beach.

  “They get hurt a lot, those girls.”

  “Yes, I know. I mentor a girl who was once like that. It’s a hard life.”

  I sense that I’ve just sparked something in her mind.

  “You said the girl you mentor once lived on the street?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “She doesn’t live on the street anymore?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How long has she been off the streets?”

  “A year.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “And she’s doing okay now?”

  “Yes. She’s doing fine. She has a regular job. An apartment.”

  The woman offers her hand. “I’m Julie Cooper.”

  “Claire Fontaine.”

  “When you mentioned this girl you’re mentoring, it struck a chord, because I’m a freelance writer and I’ve been thinking of writing an article about girls who once lived on the street but have managed to get their lives back on track. Do you think the girl you mentor would be willing to talk to me?”

  “I don’t know, but I can ask her.”

  “Okay. In case she’s willing, let me give you my number.”

  I take out my phone and add Julie Cooper’s number to my contacts. “I’ll let you know,” I assure her.

  She glances toward the Ferris wheel, then back to me.

  “I’d better be going.”

  She smiles.

  “I hope to hear from you. And by the way, you can call anytime. I stay up late.”

  When she walks away, I turn, look out over the water, and think again of the dead girl.

  Though I have no idea what happened to her, I wonder what evidence might have been washed from her body as she rolled in the sea.

  Are there bite marks that can no longer be distinguished as human? Bruises that might have been inflicted by driftwood?

  Does whatever identification she might have had now lie buried in a grave of silt?

  Will she forever be just another inconnue?

  3.

  Once at home, I call Destiny.

  We chat idly for a while before I get to the reason for my call.

  “I was on Santa Monica Pier this afternoon,” I tell her. “I met a woman there. A writer. She’s doing a story about girls who’ve managed to get their lives back. She’d like to talk to you.”

  Destiny is instantly suspicious.

  “Why were you at the pier?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. I was just thinking about the girl in the water.”

  This only heightens Destiny’s alarm.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that girl.”

  “Of course not. The article isn’t about the girl. It would be about you. And other girls like you. Girls who’ve gotten off the street.”

  Now Destiny is interested.

  “So I’d be like a . . . source?”

  “Yes.”

  She warms to the idea.

  “My name in print? Wow.”

  She sounds like an actress who has just landed a major part.

  I tell her that I’ll make contact with the writer.

  “Wow,” Destiny repeats. “Me in an article.”

  We spend the rest of the conversation talking about whatever pops into Destiny’s mind, though it’s clear that she is already considering what she might say to the writer.

  When the conversation is over, I make a quick dinner, read awhile, then go to my bedroom.

  I have only one print on the wall over my bed. In the painting, a woman dressed in black lies facedown on a sofa. She is clearly overcome with grief and guilt. It is Jean Béraud’s Après la Faute, a title usually translated as “After the Misdeed.”

  I hear the ting of an incoming email.

  The sender calls himself the Watchman.

  His message is: Watching you.

  A streak of fear races through me.

  This must be Simon’s next move.

  I hit the Reply button and write back.

  I won’t let you do it again.

  I grow tense as I wait for the Watchman to reply. I feel his cyberfingers reaching for me, probing me without being seen.

  But no ting comes.

  His silence stokes my fear.

  It’s one of his tactics, part of his strategy.

  He knows it will unnerve me.

  And it does.

  As the minutes pass, I begin to feel Simon everywhere, eyeing everything. I think of my Facebook page, my ads on Yelp, Thumbtack, Craigslist. He can see the paintings I post on Pinterest. Perhaps he can do more than that. Has he found some hacker who can trace my purchases, find what books I’m reading, what songs I listen to, read my emails, my text messages?

  I suddenly envision Simon in possession of all this information, thinking of how he can use it against me.

  Crazy Claire compulsively watches the Femme Fatale Network.

  Crazy Claire repeatedly buys books about men who abuse women.

  Crazy Claire posts paintings of drowned girls.

  I can’t bear the thought of how deranged I can be made to seem.

  I close my computer, then check the doors, the windows. All locked.

  I resist the urge to keep a light burning in every room, because I imagine Simon somehow being aware of this, eager to report it.

  Crazy Claire never turns off the lights.

  I switch them off and sit in the darkness.

  For some reason, I think of the woman on the pier.

  It is la
te, but she’d said I could call her anytime.

  I pick up my phone and tap out her number.

  I feel strangely comforted when she answers immediately.

  Sloan

  MY WORKDAY ENDED just after six.

  On the way home I passed the Home Plate Bar, a favored LAPD watering hole. Nick Devine was just getting out of his car. He’d retired nearly ten years ago and was now living comfortably on a full pension, despite the fact that there wasn’t a shady deal in LA he hadn’t known about and profited from. He’d never owned a credit card, my father said, because he’d paid for everything with wads of cash collected from drug lords and corrupt contractors. He’d skimmed money from stolen-car rings, loan-sharking operations, anywhere a buck could be grabbed from a dirty hand.

  From behind the wheel I watched as he got out of his car and strolled toward the entrance to the Home Plate. I knew that inside, he and his cronies would be laughing and high-fiving each other, retired cops who’d been no better than crooks.

  During my time in the department, I’d seen cops gradually go wrong. I knew it started with a small gift. Not much at all. Just a little expression of appreciation. After that they went along with the other offers that came in. They told themselves that it wasn’t bribery or a payoff. So what if you get a little help with the mortgage each month? Over time the fees and services got more serious. Because they took more, they had to give more. Before long they were doing things they’d never dreamed of when they were in the academy or a rookie on the street. That was what my father had always warned me against. Not some outright larceny that comes on suddenly, like accepting a big-money bribe, but the small ones that take little bites out of you every day, continue month by month and year by year, corroding you slowly, steadily, like rust.

  I had always been watchful with regard to these small failures.

  What I didn’t know, and hadn’t yet learned, was that temptation doesn’t always come from the outside. There are weaknesses within, like a house built on an unsteady foundation and thus vulnerable to collapse.

  At home, I felt my father’s absence once again. The chair he’d sat in was empty. There was one plate on the table at dinner. At the grocery, I no longer bought his little treats: butter cookies, White Castle cheeseburgers he popped into the microwave. I no longer heard the creak of the floor beneath his feet, the clattering sound he made when he pulled up the blinds in the morning. All of that was gone.