Can't Buy Me Love

by Chris Kenry

  Part Two

  La Vie En Rose

  As you’ve probably guessed by now, Ray and I have settled in Paris. The scarlet spotlight had become too glaring in Denver and, even though the publicity slackened after the trial, we were still local celebrities, and everywhere we went there were pointed fingers and snickers behind our backs. We needed to get away for a while—at least until the next local scandal arose to eclipse ours—so we chose Paris, mainly because it is the location of a great taxidermy school at which Ray decided he would like to study, but also because I thought it would be a good place for me to work on this book.

  The gallery’s finances had stabilized since the auction, and we had exhibits booked for the next two years, so we felt fairly safe leaving it behind. Before we left we convinced Andre to quit his job with the airline and contracted him to be the gallery manager. We have been in contact with him by telephone and fax several times a week, and so far no problems have arisen that we could not overcome. He is an able, diligent manager and enjoys the air of prestige and elegance that goes along with his position. Not to mention the fact that it gives him a place to display himself and all of his latest outfits.

  Paris is the perfect place to come if you want to recover from a scandal. Perhaps that is why so many overthrown dictators and ostracized movie stars seem to land here. The French lead the world in the practice of haughty indifference, but more than that they welcome moral, social, and most political outcasts with open arms and a kiss on both cheeks. Although some people here know who we are and what we’re famous for, it’s really nothing to be ashamed of. When we go to parties and are introduced it is almost never with a reference to our former careers, but to what we’re doing now, which I like. To use a tired cliché, it is like opening a new chapter in a book.

  As for books, MacNamara proved to be a better negotiator than I’d thought and managed to snag me a book deal with a hefty advance, which enabled us to live fairly comfortably when we first arrived. My days here have not, as you might expect, been whiled away smoking Gitanes in cafés, or aimlessly wandering the cavernous halls of the Louvre. No, those days are gone. Since we arrived I have been hard at work on the very product you are holding now, and it looks as though I’ll actually have it finished a few weeks before the deadline. And yet, I’m afraid this book is not going to be what many of you, or the publisher, expected. It is less a seamy expose of a hustler and more a personal account of my own messy growth process, so for that I apologize. I apologize to all of you have eagerly scanned page after page hoping that the next one would be the start of the naughty bits and are now disappointed to reach the last page, unsatisfied. That “naughty book” was the one I’d intended to write, but somehow the story didn’t come out like that. It had its own direction, and there wasn’t much I could do to steer it elsewhere. Oh, that’s not true. I certainly could have lied, could have made it a work of fiction, but tomorrow I’ll have to face myself in the mirror and ... well, you know how that goes.

  Please turn the page for

  an exciting sneak peek of

  Chris Kenry’s newest novel

  UNCLE MAX

  coming in May 2002

  to a bookstore near you!

  After our performance with the insurance adjuster, Max drove us into Denver. I had not been downtown at all since I started at my new junior high, but I still knew my way around fairly well, having lived there with Lana and James for several years, and could orient myself by several different landmarks. The area of town that Max took us to that morning, however, was completely foreign to me: a run-down, forgotten strip of land between the highway and the Platte River. It was a single street, with old, mostly abandoned buildings on either side. There was a grizzly looking bar, crowded with patrons even though it was not yet noon; a fenced-in warehouse with two vicious looking German shepherds on patrol; an abandoned factory of some sort; and last, but certainly not least, a small coffee shop called Paris on the Platte.

  Paris was a small low storefront, sandwiched between two much taller buildings, each of which were unoccupied and had their windows boarded up. In contrast, the small café looked inviting and alive, with its pink neon sign and tables and chairs spread out on the sidewalk. Inside, it was dark and cluttered. There were more tables and chairs, chaotically placed around the room, and nearly all the walls were lined with shelves of used books. To one side, there was a glass case from which they sold a variety of exotic cigarettes, and in the back, resting on another display case containing cakes and pastries, was an enormous antique espresso machine.

  Paris catered more to the late night crowd so when we arrived, at ten o’clock in the morning, it had just opened and was nearly deserted. Its sole patron, Jane, was seated in a sunny spot by the front window, casually flipping through a magazine. She was dressed smartly, in a pale blue skirt and suit jacket with a simple strand of pearls around her neck. Her long hair had been twisted back tightly into a bun and was capped off with a pill box hat of the same hue as her skirt and jacket. As before, her eyes were concealed behind enormous sunglasses. She had not seen us come in. We wove through the labyrinth of tables and chairs and stopped in front of her.

  “Good morning, Miss Nguyen,” Max said, bowing deeply. She looked up and her mouth widened into a smile. She closed her magazine, got up and offered her cheek to be kissed. Max obliged. She then took both his hands in hers and gave them a squeeze.

  “Oh, it’s good to see you!” she said, and leaned back to take a look at him. Her brow wrinkled then and the smile disappeared from her face.

  “What are you wearing?” she exclaimed, lifting her glasses and casting a disapproving glance at Max’s borrowed outfit. “You’re not actually thinking of going out and getting a job, are you?”

  “God, no,” he replied, “but you know me, always working! The clothes are borrowed, just until I can get something else.”

  She nodded and then turned her gaze to me and extended her hand. It was an extremely small hand, all the nails a uniform length and painted with a clear polish. On her ring finger she wore a large sapphire, encircled by small diamonds.

  “Hello again,” she said, smiling at me. “I don’t believe I introduced myself last time. I’m Jane.”

  “Dillon,” I mumbled, shyly taking her hand and looking at the floor.

  “Well, Dillon,” she said, leaning back and picking up her purse. “I’m starving! Shall we get something to eat?”

  I nodded, and she took me by the hand and led me to the counter.

  “The usual for you?” she called back to Max.

  “Please,” he said.

  When we returned, with more pastries than we could possibly consume, Max was gone. He emerged from the shelves a few moments later carrying several books and a fresh pack of cigarettes.

  “So,” Jane said, addressing me, “has your uncle here been getting you into trouble?”

  I looked at Max and smiled, but said nothing.

  “Only potentially,” Max said. “We haven’t been caught yet.”

  Max and Jane then lapsed into a conversation I found hard to follow, speaking of things I knew nothing about. They had been friends a long time, that much was clear, since they were both at ease in each other’s presence and spoke with a vocabulary full of their own slang and internal references. The conversation went on, lively and animated, and it was only when the tone changed that my attention returned to it.

  “You don’t look so good,” Jane commented, reaching across the table and running a finger along Max’s pale cheek. He pulled away and an impatient expression crossed his face.

  “Yes, well, it wasn’t a fucking picnic,” he said.

  “Bad?” Jane asked gravely. Max thought about this. He cocked his head to one side and gazed up at the ceiling.

  “More like a long exercise in patience.”

  “I don’t know how you got through it,” Jane said, a pitying look on her face. “It must have been awful!”

  “Oh, it wasn’t so bad,
really. It had a definite beginning and a definite end. That helped. You can get through anything as long as you know it will end someday. I knew I would get out, so I just put it on autopilot until then. Focused on what I’d do when I was released.”

  “And what might that be?” Jane asked.

  “In due time, chérie, all will be revealed. But I’ll tell you this much: it doesn’t involve sticking around in this cow town much longer. But enough about me, let’s talk about you. How’s the family?”

  Jane’s expression clouded over at the mention of the word family and it was obvious that she didn’t welcome the change of subject to this particular topic.

  “The same,” she groaned, and her shoulders fell, “only larger. New ones step off the boat every day and my father tries to get me to marry every one of them.”

  “And how’s the shop coming?” Max asked.

  “Still nonexistent,” Jane sighed, and her shoulders fell even further. She pushed up her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “At least for the moment anyway. I’ve got a booth in one of the antique malls. Me, and all the bored housewives and retirees in the city, arranging and rearranging the petty stock we amass from thrift stores and garage sales. Small potatoes, really, and it’s just a wee bit degrading. Percy helps as much as he can.”

  “Percy?” Max asked.

  “Oh, yes, I guess you wouldn’t know about him, would you? He’s one of my Tottering Ogres.”

  “Your what?”

  “Tottering Ogres. At least that’s what I call them, in private, anyway. They’re all old and ugly and very rich, and I’m young and pretty and, how shall I say? hungry for a life I can’t afford. There’s a nice symmetry there, don’t you think? A sort of yin and yang? Oh, now don’t act all shocked!” she cried, shaking her head at Max, whose eyes had widened as she spoke. “You of all people.”

  “I didn’t say a thing,” Max protested.

  “You didn’t have to, I can tell by the way your brow went up. I should be used to it by now. Anyway, Percy is very nice, the nicest of all of the Tottering Ogres, and it gives me an excuse to get out of the restaurant and the nail salon. Of course my dad’s livid and doesn’t like Percy at all, so at first I told him Percy was just a business friend. When that wasn’t enough, I’m afraid I told him he was gay. ‘Like Maxey?’ he said. ‘Yes, just like Max’ I said. ‘Only older.’ That quieted him down a bit, but I don’t think he believes it.”

  When I heard this, I choked on the scone I was eating.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Jane said.

  “You all right, Dil?” Max asked.

  I coughed and smiled, took a sip of my water. What Jane said had jolted me as much as if I’d stuck my finger in an electrical outlet. Suddenly I knew my suspicions about Max and Serge had been right and my heart raced.

  “Dil didn’t really know about that yet,” he said to Jane.

  “About what? Your being gay? Please!” she scoffed, and then looked at me. “I guess I’ve known for so long it just seems obvious to me now. Well, Dillon, your Uncle Max likes boys,” she said, matter-of-factly. “But don’t worry, I think you’re a little young for his taste.”

  They both laughed and then went back to the subject of Percy as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said. But I was shaken. I could hardly believe what I’d heard. My mind was spinning. I sat watching Max with a newfound sense of awe and respect and I couldn’t wait to tell him that I was gay, too.

  “And how is your dad’s restaurant?” Max went on, taking another sip of his coffee.

  “Booming,” Jane said. “It has to be, really, to support our ever-expanding family of boat people. I’ve managed to weasel out of my shifts a few nights during the week, but he’s still adamant about me putting in time on the weekends, and to tell you the truth, I need the money. I can usually get away with doing lunch on Saturday and dinner on Sunday, so that leaves my Saturday nights free. Which reminds me,” she said, changing the subject and lowering her voice. “Doris came in last weekend. She wasn’t happy. Asked a lot of questions about you.”

  “What did you tell her?” Max asked, leaning forward on the table, trying to appear unfazed. His lip twitched.

  “Relax, darling. There was nothing I could tell her. You haven’t been very communicative these past two years, never calling or answering letters. In fact, I probably learned more from her than she did from me. I mean, I knew nothing about your release.”

  In these last words there was a tone of angry sarcasm, and she paused after she said them, for effect.

  “She’s not pleased with you,” she continued. “That much was clear. I thought you were done with her ...”

  “Yes,” Max replied, but his tone was vague, and he casually lit another cigarette. She reached over and placed one of her hands on his.

  “She’s not one to toy around with,” Jane said, looking straight at him, her tone level. “You do know that.”

  Max nodded.

  “What is it she wants?” she whispered, looking around to make sure no one was listening. I continued eating my scone, trying to appear preoccupied, but aware that the conversation was moving into deeper waters.

  “Oh, I have something of hers,” Max said airily. Jane waited for him to elaborate, offered nothing.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “No,” he said, crushing out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I’m not.”

  “It’s not drugs, is it?”

  “No. I will tell you that. I’m not going there again.”

  “Then it must be money.”

  “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  “Because Doris doesn’t value anything else. Money for money’s sake. That’s Doris. It’s money. Or drugs, which she’d just sell to get more money.”

  It took a moment but soon the significance of what she’d deduced sunk in.

  “You stole money from Doris!” she whispered, her voice urgent.

  “Not stole, really,” Max replied. “It’s more like I took what I feel I’m entitled to. A little something to compensate me for two fucking years of my life!”

  “How much?” Jane whispered.

  “Not enough,” Max said bitterly. “But it’s a start.”

  “But you can’t stay here. She’ll find you.”

  “She already has,” Max said. “Dil met her. Didn’t you Dil?”

  I looked up, my mouth full, and nodded.

  “She came to the house,” I whispered, thrilled to be included in the conversation. “Just before you did.”

  Jane looked at me, her face troubled, then returned her attention to Max. “So she knows where you’re living?”

  “I suppose.”

  “What are you going to do? You can’t stay. Where will you go?”

  Max shrugged. He took a chunk of brownie and tossed it up in the air catching it on the way down in his mouth.

  “What are you going to do?” Jane asked again, more insistently this time.

  “I’ll stall her,” Max said. “At least until the end of the summer. Then I’ll have enough money to get where I want to go.”

  “And do I even need to ask where that might be?” she asked, her voice tinged with sarcasm, but returning to normal volume.

  “Probably not,” Max replied, grinning.

  Jane shook her head and rolled her eyes. She fell back in her chair, both hands clinging to the handle of the dainty purse on her lap. She gave an exasperated sigh and looked across the table at me.

  “Your uncle,” she said, shaking her head. “For as long as I’ve known him—and what has it been, my dear, ten years now?—has had an unnatural obsession with the country and people of France.”

  I looked at Max and then back at Jane.

  “Confused?” Jane asked. “Well, you’re not alone there, young Dillon. France is his brass ring, his promised land, his El Dorado. French fries, French toast, French movies, French perfume, anything having to do with the place, or even the idea of it, sends him into a swoon.”
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  She leaned forward, picking up items from the table.

  “Look here, Dillon, just look at these cigarettes, Gitane! Look at the novels he’s picked up.” She reached over and plucked them off the table. “Maupassant, Balzac, Molière!” she said, reading the names off the spines and tossing them over to me. “Good Christ! I could have guessed without looking.”

  “What’s there to guess about?” Max countered. “French writers are some of the best, most sophisticated, and most innovative in the world. France is the world capital of style and fashion, a notorious center for visual artists, a country that produces the most coveted food and wines in the world. I could go on and on—”

  “And he will,” she said, rolling her eyes, “ad nauseum.”

  “It’s a dignified, civilized country, full of educated and enlightened people,” Max replied.

  “Tell that to my father,” Jane said. “They did wonders for his native land.”

  “I’m sure other countries were just as bad in their colonial practices, chère Jane. It was the U.S. and not the French that made a mess of it all. Why do you always have to be so cynical about it? Why is it so strange that I’d want to live there?”

  “Oh, it’s not,” Jane said, and her voice took on a softer, almost sympathetic tone. “I know it means a lot to you; it’s just that I think you may be unpleasantly surprised when you arrive, that’s all. You want what you see in the travel brochures, when what you’ll get is a lot of cheap souvenirs and crumbling architecture. Men who don’t bathe often enough and women who don’t shave their pits. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been there so I don’t know for sure but I have a gut feeling that it’s not all April walks through the grounds of Versailles. I doubt that every window in the city has a view of the Eiffel tower, and I’d be willing to bet that there are one or two women in Paris who aren’t quite as beautiful as Catherine Deneuve.”

  “Of course I know all that,” Max replied. “I’m not expecting a cultural Disneyland for Christ’s sake, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be better than this,” he said, gesturing out at the city. “France will be less ordinary,” he said confidently. “More exceptional and rare.”