by Ann Lambert
“Hi! Are you still coming?”
There was a slight hesitation, then, “Absolutely. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”
“They’re forecasting Snowmageddon. Again. What do you think?”
Roméo’s baritone voice was as reassuring as a hot bath on a cold night. “I think that I will be about one hour ahead of the storm before it hits its full stride, and I will be at your place in…forty-three minutes.”
When Marie had at first told some of her old friends she was dating a cop, they howled with laughter at the irony of it. Back when they were college activists, the police were the enemy, the fascist enforcers of a corrupt capitalist state. Marie smiled at the memory of their implacable certainty and tried to return to her work, but she couldn’t focus on anything anymore. Hearing Roméo’s voice reminded her that tonight was the night. Again. The Decision deadline that Marie and Roméo had postponed twice already. After almost two years in a relationship, were they going to move in together? In Quebec, most couples started living together well before the two-year mark. But Marie and Roméo weren’t most couples. They both guarded their independence ferociously. She kept her little apartment and house, and he kept his flat, because as head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec in the St. Jerome district, he preferred to maintain his residence in the area. Despite Marie being sixty-one years old and Roméo fifty-one, their relationship was very physical. The best part was that Marie also felt no pressure at all if she wasn’t feeling like having sex, and neither did he. There was a kind of shorthand in their communication, probably from their many combined years running around the romantic track. Roméo seemed content with whatever she wanted, and she with him. Yes, things were good between them—very good in fact. But Marie worried their moving in together could upset the delicate emotional ecosystem they each inhabited separately. Not to mention the many demands on their lives from work and children. Marie’s two kids were finally sorting themselves out after a few years of twenty-something existential angst and agony. Ruby was in her second year of law school at McGill after giving up the acting dream and she didn’t seem to hate law school for it. Ben was the father of her delicious two-year-old grandson, Noah, and might even be thinking of the next one with his partner, Maya.
Marie was also wary of moving in with Roméo and the greater proximity it would bring to the tempest of Sophie, his twenty-year-old daughter, a drama queen. She smiled at the irony of Roméo siring such a child—she must take after her mother, whom Roméo didn’t discuss much. He was a discreet, honorable man who never gossiped, and it drove Marie crazy. As much as she would like him to, he would not expose the mother of his only child to Marie’s scrutiny. Once again, Marie felt a frisson of joy at the thought of Roméo. The idea that she might have missed out on him altogether was horrifying to her now. Marie had felt so lonely in the early years after her divorce that she would actually go to a hairdresser to get her mop of curls tamed once every few weeks just so someone would touch her. Just so she could feel someone’s hands on her with no expectation of reciprocation. The first few times Marie and Roméo had made love, her appetite for him, the wonder of his skin on her skin overwhelmed her. But still, she was ten years older, so she always got under the covers first and dimmed the lights so he couldn’t see the roll of fat on her belly, the dimples of cellulite on her thighs and legs, the roadmap her body resembled after almost sixty years around the track. One night, he gently asked that he be allowed to look at her. At every inch of her. She couldn’t quite believe how thrilling it was. To have a man actually see her again. But they were both of a certain age as the euphemism goes and set in their ways—another euphemism for wanting to do what they want to, when they want to, where they want to, and how they want to. Neither Marie nor Roméo liked to give ground. So now it came down to this: Marie wanted them to live in her little house—this one right here. Roméo wanted them to buy a new place together, so they could start fresh, no baggage, no tracks behind them—only looking forward. They couldn’t afford to do both. Marie would not give up her house. Marie remembered Ruby, her daughter, warning her that she might end up a cat lady if she didn’t seize this chance to deepen the journey with Roméo. A dog lady, actually. Marie didn’t like cats. And Roméo did. Reason enough to slow things down.
Marie glanced at the clock on her stove. Twenty minutes had passed, and she hadn’t marked a second assignment. She thought of the stir-fry waiting on the stove and sighed. Roméo was a vegan, Marie an omnivore with strong carnivorous tendencies. She felt an impulse to shelve the stir-fry and pull out one of those T-bone steaks from her freezer. Add a pat of herbed butter to it, then a wallop of mashed potatoes and butter. Lots of salt and pepper. She had a few asparagus she could steam with butter and lemon. Her gastronomic reverie was interrupted by her cell phone. The opening notes of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” It was Roméo.
Four
MICHAELA CRUZ HAD NEVER, ever seen anything like it in her life. Except in old movies, maybe. A guy about her age wearing a tuxedo and white gloves took her crappy old coat and faux-leather boots like they were precious, placed the latter in a clear plastic bag with her name on it, and then tucked them into a coat check area the size of a small apartment. He then gently handed her off to another guy about her age who escorted her into the most dazzling room she had ever entered. He whispered a soft “Bonne chance, mademoiselle,” as he released her near a table covered with more food and alcohol than she had ever witnessed in one place at one time, and that included her nonna’s Sunday afternoon family meals. There was a ziggurat tower of every imaginable fruit. There were cheeses of every possible configuration, bowls of jumbo shrimp, a mountain of lobster claws and tails, with small, personal-sized jars of garlic butter for dipping. A gorgeous man was cutting into a side of beef that fell away into pinkish perfection at the touch of his knife. There were martini glasses filled with saumon tartare or caviar russe. Michaela turned to her friend Brittany and said, “What’s the dessert table going to look like?”
Brittany just squeezed Michaela’s hand and whispered, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Michaela didn’t even have time to respond before Brittany disappeared into the throng of talking, laughing, eating, dancing people.
She would have liked to check her hair and makeup before she exposed herself to this crowd, especially after the snowstorm had done its worst, even in the few short steps from the Uber to the building’s entrance. She figured she was still looking pretty good though, until she saw the bevy of Amazon women in the room. Each one towered over Michaela. Each one was effortlessly gorgeous. She spent the first few minutes of the party at breast-level of almost every woman in the room. Suddenly, Michaela felt very short and dumpy, and hated herself for feeling that way.
She hastened to the man standing by the Pur Vodka bottles embedded in a frozen igloo (cultural appropriation, or what?) and ordered a Cosmo. He shook one up in a matter of minutes and handed it to her with a knowing smile that she did not appreciate. She hovered near the bartender, though. The idea of stepping out into the party was terrifying. She scanned the room trying to spot Brittany, whose bright auburn updo was usually a beacon at any party, but in this world she just faded into the crowd. Michaela was trying not to feel resentful for being talked into this and then abandoned so abruptly. She hated big parties, especially full of people twice her age and a world away from her actual life. But Brittany had insisted. She explained that everyone who was anyone would be there, especially vedettes from the film and TV scene, and Mika had to start networking. Brittany was convinced that Mika was a genius—it was one of the reasons Mika liked her so much. Brittany sincerely believed that Mika’s talent would make her a huge star one day, and talked her up to anyone who’d listen, without a trace of jealousy. Mika couldn’t help but be drawn into her grandiose plans.
Suddenly, Michaela’s drink splashed onto her neck and down her dress. It was shockingly cold. An enormous man loomed over her, swayin
g slightly, and started to dab at her chest with his napkin.
“I…I am sooooo sorry. Here. Lemme—”
Michaela swatted his giant paw away and gasped as the icy liquid trickled lower. “Get off of me!” When she looked way up to meet his eyes, she recognized him at once. Dimitri Golikov—The Flying Russian—the new superstar left-winger for the Montreal Canadiens. In spite of herself she smiled back at him goofily. “It was an accident. It’s okay—I got it.”
He returned the smile—all his teeth amazingly intact and dazzling in their whiteness—and tilted dangerously backwards when a woman as tall as he steadied him with a firm arm. “Dima. Time to go.” He turned to Michaela and tried to wink. Then he put his arm around the tall woman’s shoulders and nuzzled her neck. She gave Michaela the once-over, hovering very briefly at her breasts as though assessing if they were real or not, and then looked down at her with very yellow-green wolf eyes.
“How old are you?”
Michaela was not expecting that. She folded the wet napkin and dropped it on the bar. “Older than you think.”
Wolf Eyes smiled without baring her teeth. Then she turned away and taking Dimitri Golikov by the hand like a little boy, steered him deftly through the throng and out of sight.
On her way to the bathroom to clean up her dress, Michaela was grinded on by two guys old enough to be her grandfather, smacked on the back of her head by the wayward hand of a woman dancing some weird sixties thing, and then accosted by a schlubby guy in a bow tie who kept insisting he was George R.R. Martin. She squirmed away from him and fled to what looked like a promising direction, but found herself in an enormous industrial kitchen, packed with frantic waiters who didn’t even notice she was there. As Michaela retreated from their brutal efficiency, she found herself wandering down a cavernous hallway lined with black and white photos of female movie stars, each in an old-fashioned glamour pose, each signed by the star herself. She didn’t really know who most of them were, but there were definitely a few she recognized and found mesmerizing. She peered closely at the inscription on one. It was from an ingénue Jane Fonda. “Dear Jean Luc, Here’s one of me from many lifetimes ago! Love, Jane.” Michaela only knew Jane Fonda from this show on Netflix she’d watched once or twice, about two old ladies whose elderly husbands fall in love with each other. She had no idea Jane Fonda had been a sex symbol.
“An inspiring woman.”
Michaela startled to a man standing right behind her.
“Oh, pardon mademoiselle. I am sorry. I thought you saw me.”
Michaela took a step away from him and hastened towards the door at the end of the hall. “I was just looking for the bathroom. I need to—” She gestured towards her dress. “Do you have any idea where it is?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he bowed his head as if to ask her permission, and gestured for her to follow, which after a moment’s hesitation, she did.
The bathroom was twice the size of Michaela’s parents’ living room, but did not contain a sofa covered in plastic, or little bowls of stale mixed nuts strategically placed. It had a huge sunken marble tub, with steps leading down into it like a Roman bath. There was a giant three-way mirror, so she could check herself out from every angle. There were hand towels monogrammed with J.L & M, as well as thoughtful little baskets containing everything a woman might need: hand wipes, individual tissue packs, cotton swabs, tampons, and condoms. It took Michaela a while to figure out how the faucets worked—but when the water came it fell into the wide shallow sink like a waterfall. She slipped off her high heels and nestled her toes in the thick, silky carpet that she felt like having a little nap on. It was the most gorgeous carpet she’d ever seen, and it was in a bathroom. Not the bathroom. Just a bathroom. She touched up her mascara and lipstick, and poofed her hair up a bit. She would give this party fifteen more minutes, then she was dragging Brittany out by her red hair if she had to.
As she stepped into the adjoining room, she was startled a second time by the man, who was sitting in an armchair swirling a bit of ice in his glass. She realized she was in some kind of office or study. One of the walls was just one enormous window. Through the snowstorm that raged mutely outside she could just make out the spire lights of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, the church made famous by Leonard Cohen, and beyond that, the lights along the St. Lawrence river. The remaining walls were covered in photographs and framed diplomas. She also noticed several trophies on a glass display table, and the man caught her eye doing so.
“Emmy Awards. Seven of them. That’s just this year.”
Michaela nodded and smiled, but she wasn’t stopping here. “I’ve got to go find my friend.”
“Don’t you want to know what I won them for?”
“No, thanks. I’m sure there’s no shortage of women here who’d love to, though.”
The man laughed so hard he sprayed the liquor in his mouth back into his glass, and all over his hands. He wiped them first before extending one. “Let me introduce myself. Jean Luc David. That was my bathroom you were admiring.”
Michaela tried not to smile. It came out as a smirk. She shook his dry, soft hand.
“It’s ostentatious. And a bit obscene. I did appreciate the carpet, though.”
“Everything tasteful and classy is my wife’s choice. Everything over the top and vulgar is mine. What can I say? I am nouveau riche boy from Terrebonne. What do I know?”
“You’re not really Jean Luc David—?”
“Yes. I am. I’m better looking in the flesh though, aren’t I?” He tilted his head into a pose. He had thick, salt-and- pepper hair, deeply blue eyes, and two long dimple lines down his cheeks that did in fact, make even an average face quite handsome. “What is your name?”
Michaela refused to smile but was dying to talk more to this man. When would she have the chance again?
“Oh, sorry! Michaela Cruz. And I am a huge fan of your show. I know, you must hear that from everyone—but I mean, you changed the entire playing field. Finally, you know, we have a story full of complex female characters who don’t have to be superheroes or, or morally righteous. Flawed women who sometimes make poor choices with little…redemption. No apologizing, no moralizing, just real fucking…authentic women. With Nasty Women? You are one of the great feminist producers, Mr. David.” Michaela tipped an imaginary hat in his direction. Chapeaux!
“Please call me Jean Luc. Mr. David was my father.”
“There will be a season two? And three? And four?”
Jean Luc David eased out of his chair and approached Michaela. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but he had an authority that made him seem so. He reached behind her and gently lifted the hair that had gotten tucked inside the back of her dress. “There.” Then he turned abruptly and announced he had to get back to the party. Michaela just stood there, still feeling where his hand had touched her neck.
When Michaela finally found her way through the labyrinth of halls and back through the kitchen to the dance floor, Brittany had resurfaced. Michaela snaked her way across the dance floor and held onto both of her friend’s hands, as she was very drunk and stumble-dancing. Her updo was down in ragged ringlets. She had lost an earring, and the heel on one shoe was gone. In a slurry voice she yelled into Michaela’s ear that she had to pee and started to lift her skirt up right then and there. Michaela half-dragged her towards the room where they had checked their coats, managed to gather all their stuff, and dressed Brittany back into her winter gear as best she could. Before Michaela could stop her, Brittany wobbled back into the main hall. Michaela fell back against a wall, completely overheated now and exasperated. She couldn’t leave Brit there. But then there she was, red-faced and laughing, pulling a full bottle of vodka out of each coat pocket like a six-gun. By the time they hit the stormy street, they were pulling each other along the slippery sidewalks, laughing like teenagers and feeling alive the way only the young and the new can.