Even our red lacquered front door seems to glow. I’m putting my key into the lock when I hear laughter through the closed doors and windows.
Someone turns on music. It sounds like a party.
I sigh, crushed by the weight of obligatory socialization even before I enter the flat. I remind myself that it’s New Year’s Eve. Just because I’m worn out doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to tiptoe around me.
Plus, if Cressida and T have friends over, there’s a chance I can fly under the radar and sit out Jemma’s soirée after all. So bring on the pre-party. The more the merrier.
I let myself in, hang my coat in the hall closet, and toe out of my boots. That’s when I hear her voice over the music.
Oh my God, no. Please tell me she’s not here. She doesn’t even have my address.
Does she?
“Mom?” I say when I walk into the lounge. “What are you doing here?”
Someone turns down the music.
She jumps up and moves toward me with the agility of a much younger woman.
She’s wearing sunglasses. Huge tomato-red plastic frames that clash with her crimson lipstick and auburn hair. The gold quarter-size interlocking c’s on the sides of her glasses scream to the world that they’re Chanel, but there’s something slightly off about them. I’d wager they’re knockoffs.
But the spicy-fruity-floral tang of her trademark Coco perfume is 100 percent authentic. She’s worn it for years. It mixes with the aroma of the once-fresh Christmas tree that’s been languishing in the corner.
“Oh, Hannah! You have the nicest friends. After the cab dropped me off, Cressida and Taboola let me come in and they’ve been taking such good care of me.”
“Taboola? Mom, her name is Tallulah.”
My roommates erupt in fits of laughter. I’m seething.
You’re drunk. And you got my mother, the alcoholic, drunk. Or did she forget to tell you about that?
“Oh, sorry. My bad.” Marla laughs and dismisses the blunder with a wave of her hand. “They’ve been simply delightful. They opened a bottle of champagne, and we’re all getting in the spirit for tonight’s party. I am so happy that we’ll get to ring in the New Year together. I really think it’s the start of good things.”
Marla throws her arms around me, gives me a squeeze, and sets me free. She’s too thin, but she still manages to be larger-than-life. Her energy commands attention and draws people to her.
Her long hair falls in rope curls over her shoulders and down her back. She’s wearing black leather pants and a sheer black nylon blouse that showcases the lacy black bra underneath. It’s just this side of indecent, yet she manages to pull it off.
She’s put her own touch on the ensemble with a statement necklace, dangling earrings, and several bangle bracelets on each arm. In true Marla fashion, when it comes to makeup, accessories, and fragrance, more is always… more.
I feel frumpy in my khaki cargo pants and red uniform polo shirt with the Heart to Heart logo of two interlocking hearts embroidered over my left breast. Usually, I love wearing a uniform because it takes all the guesswork out of packing for the six-day tours. The pants and shirts stay wrinkle-free. Since I walk an average of 125,000 steps during a tour, cute shoes are out of the question.
“Where’s Don?”
Don is Marla’s fiancé. I met him at Gram’s funeral. My gaze searches the lounge for evidence of him—a suitcase, a coat, all the air being sucked out of the room—but there’s nothing.
Marla’s mouth flattens into a line. She pushes her frames up onto the bridge of her nose with her index finger. “I left him, Hannah. I called off the wedding.”
She squares her shoulders, lifts her chin as if convincing herself that it was the right thing to do. But she’s not fooling me.
“I’m a single woman now.”
Marla hates to be alone, but I’d be flattering myself if I thought she’d run to me for comfort. Her usual MO is to have another man lined up before cutting the old Joe loose.
Which begs the question, why is she here? And why the hell couldn’t it have waited until tomorrow? Or next year?
Before I can ask, Cressida fills the silence. “Hannah, you never told us your mother was so fun. And so lovely.”
Marla answers for me. “You’re sweet and your home is fabulous. You girls must be doing well for yourselves.” As she turns in a slow circle to take in the flat, I glance around the living room and try to see it through her eyes.
The sleek furniture, the expensive art, the Persian rugs on the parquet floors.
She’s right. It’s a great place. I totally lucked out when Cressida, whom I’d met at university, asked me to move into the empty bedroom when her former second roommate got promoted and moved to Dubai.
Under normal circumstances, I could never afford a place like this on my salary. None of us could. The townhome belongs to Cressida’s family and what I pay in rent basically covers my share of the utilities.
I swear if Marla does anything to jeopardize my living arrangement, I’ll never speak to her again.
Oh wait. We don’t really speak to begin with.
“They put my bags in your room. I hope that’s okay. It’ll be like a slumber party, Hannah.”
Marla smiles, but I know that behind those sunglasses, her eyes are daring me to throw her out.
“I wish I would’ve known that you were coming,” I say, pausing for an apology or an explanation, then filling the awkward silence when it doesn’t come.
“I guess you can stay with us tonight. Then we’ll find a nice hotel for the rest of your visit. I only have a full-sized bed, and you know I don’t sleep well with others.”
Marla raises a brow. I hold my breath, waiting for her to make a wisecrack about that being my problem. How maybe if I loosened up a bit, let myself have fun for a change, my bed wouldn’t be quite so empty.
“How long are you in town?” I ask.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She hesitates, and I can tell she’s holding something back.
“Okay, two, three nights max. Who knows if I can even find a room, with the holiday. If I do, it will probably cost a fortune. I promise I won’t be too much of an imposition.”
Cressida and Tallulah are watching us as if we are the cast of a dysfunctional mother-daughter reality show. Like it’s the calm before the storm when one of us flips a table or yanks out the other’s hair extensions.
No extensions for me, that’s for sure, but Marla might have some. Her hair looks a little too perfect after the flight from Florida.
There’s no denying that my mother’s still a natural beauty underneath all the accessories. Her flawless ivory skin, bone structure, and willowy figure have opened doors for her throughout the years from modeling jobs to wealthy boyfriends to general preferential treatment.
It’s her curse and her blessing. If I’m perfectly honest, I can’t help but be a little jealous.
I did not inherit her delicate looks. I like to imagine that I got my nose that’s a little too big and my lips that are a little too full from my father, though I’ve never met him. Marla swears she doesn’t know who he is. When I was younger and would ask about him, she would say, “Oh, Hannah, don’t ask so many questions.” As I got older, she added, “It was a crazy time in my life. There were lots of men.” As if that was supposed to sate my curiosity.
“Two or three nights?” I ask, snapping back to the present. “You show up and expect us to accommodate you? And on New Year’s Eve no less!”
“Oh, come on, Hannah. Surely you can take pity on your ol’ mum and put up with me for a couple of nights?”
When I don’t answer, she laughs. “Your roomies said it would be fine. Didn’t you, girls?”
Cressida and T smile but say nothing. It’s not the show of support Marla was expecting, and I thank God her fun-mom act doesn’t have them completely bamboozled.
That’s what I love about my friends. They may n
ot always have the best judgment—case in point, the holy trinity of bad blind dates—but they have good intentions always and my back when it matters.
“Are you en route to somewhere?” I ask, unmoved. There’s no way she wouldn’t have mentioned this transatlantic trip when we spoke last week, unless she had an ulterior motive. “Surely you didn’t fly to London to surprise me on New Year’s Eve.”
Marla purses her lips. She glances at Cressida and T, who are trying really hard to look like they’re not listening. Cressida is flipping through a magazine and T is scrolling through her phone.
“I’m glad you brought that up,” Marla says. “Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk and I’ll fill you in?”
“Or we can give you two some time,” Cressida offers. “I need to pick up a bottle of something to take to Jemma’s tonight. T, why don’t you come and help me pick it out?”
“That’s a great idea,” T says a little too enthusiastically.
“No, really, you don’t have to leave,” I insist. The subtext is please don’t go. Don’t leave me alone with her.
She’s not a serial killer or anything—don’t get me wrong—but she is an emotional vampire, and having Cressida and Tallu here is much-needed moral support.
“No, it’s fine, really,” Cressida says as she makes her way toward the foyer. “I’d rather pick it up now than wait until later.”
“We’ll be back in twenty or so,” T says. “That should give you girls time to catch up.”
They’re out the door and then it’s just the two of us. My mother and me, staring at each other. Or at least me staring at her bug-eyed sunglasses.
Suddenly, the room feels very cold.
“What is going on, Marla?”
“Why don’t we have something to drink?” she says.
“You’re drinking again.” My voice is flat. A statement, not a question.
She winces and looks wounded. “No, I’m not drinking alcohol, if that’s what you’re insinuating. Though most people do believe it’s bad luck if you don’t ring in the New Year with a toast.”
The way I remember it, it was always bad luck when she drank. Alcohol landed her in jail and then kept her away after she was released.
“I was suggesting that we share a spot of tea,” she says.
I raise my chin, refusing to let her relegate me to the role of disapproving parental figure, even though our roles have always been reversed. When Gram was alive, she did her best to shelter me from my mother. She let me have as much of a normal childhood as possible, but there was nothing she could do on the occasions when Marla would swoop in and take me away.
Before Marla went to jail, Gram didn’t have legal custody, because she didn’t want to put me through the court battle. When my mother would come around, she always seemed so earnest, swearing that she’d cleaned up her act and the only way she could prove herself was if we gave her a chance. She’d always manage to make us feel like the bad guys—me for not wanting to go with her and Gram for trying to protect me. That was vintage Marla: deflect and play the victim.
“It would’ve been nice if you’d let me know you were coming,” I say.
“I tried. You weren’t picking up my calls.”
“I mean before you landed in London. You could’ve mentioned it when we spoke last week.”
Marla does a full-body shrug and sighs like I’m being unreasonable.
“When we spoke about Gram’s house last week, I had no idea I’d be here.”
“How could you not have known? People don’t just fly to London on a whim.”
Well, most people who aren’t Marla need time to plan.
I move into the kitchen and put on the kettle. She follows and parks herself on one of the stools at the marble-topped island.
An empty bottle of champagne and three glasses litter the island’s otherwise tidy surface. And she said she wasn’t drinking.
At least it was only one bottle split three ways.
I busy myself measuring loose Darjeeling tea into a white ceramic teapot, and grab a small yellow-and-blue creamer pitcher from the refrigerator. I can feel her gaze on me in the quiet. I’m surprised she hasn’t filled the silence, which has stretched on for a while now.
“Please take off your sunglasses. I can’t see your eyes.”
I turn and look at her, arms crossed.
After a few beats, she slides off the glasses to reveal the purple-red remnants of a black eye that even her heavy makeup can’t cover.
“What the hell? What happened to your eye?”
She touches it gingerly, then cups her hand around it as if shielding it from my scrutiny.
“How did you hurt your eye?” I ask.
“I ran into a door.”
“Really?”
At Gram’s funeral, I remember noticing a bruise on her leg and seeing Don pinch her arm in the church when they were having a quiet disagreement. I know she’s lying about the door. But the teakettle is whistling. I remove it from the burner and pour the water into the teapot.
“Aren’t you fancy?” I know she’s trying to change the subject. “I usually drink Lipton.”
We sit in silence again until the tea has steeped. I pour it into the mugs and slide one in front of her. Her cup says, THERE IS NOTHING LIKE STAYING AT HOME FOR REAL COMFORT—JANE AUSTEN.
It’s a quote from Emma.
Marla squints her blue eyes. Her lips move as she reads. “Is this from your work? That tour thing you do?”
“A couple who took my Jane Austen tour last year gave it to me as a thank-you gift. You must have hit the door pretty hard for your eye to bruise like that. Did you have it checked by a doctor?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She blows on her tea and takes a noisy slurp.
“Did Don hit you?”
She sits perfectly still for a long moment before her face crumples, and she nods. “That’s why I called off the engagement.”
She won’t look me in the eyes. Head bowed over her cup, she blows on her tea and slurps again.
“Is that why you came to London?”
“One of the reasons. Hannah, I need your help.”
Her words are quiet but matter-of-fact. They lack the usual melodrama she uses when she’s trying to convince others of how trying her life is. “I can’t go back to Orlando. I’m afraid Don will kill me.”
And cue the theatrics.
“You can’t move in here.” I realize how utterly cold I sound. “I’m sorry. The town house doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to Cressida’s family.”
I start to tell her that I could never find another place like this for the rent I’m paying, but then I realize that would only make Marla more determined to stay.
“I’m not asking to move in with you.”
Marla swallows hard, then studies the mug again.
“They must really love you to give you a gift like this.”
I sip my tea, unsure of what to say.
“No, seriously,” Marla presses. “I’ll bet you’re really good at what you do.”
“I try.”
“You’re so smart, Hannah. I think you got that from your grandma. It must skip a generation.” She holds her mug with both palms, as if warming her hands.
I fight the urge to fill the silence, to ask her about the other reasons she’s here.
She said Don was one of the reasons.
Since Gram is gone, maybe this is the only place she could go to get away from him. I don’t know if she’s being dramatic about him wanting to kill her. He certainly left a mark on her face. That’s not something to test.
“You can stay for one night. One. Not a moment longer.”
Tomorrow, I will find her a hotel room and personally move her bags if I have to.
“Thank you, Hannah.” She’s tearing up. “Oh, thank you.”
I half expect her to fling her arm over her forehead and succumb to a case of the vapors.
But suddenly, she sets down her tea.
&n
bsp; “Hang on,” she says. “I have something to show you. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be right here.”
She ignores my sarcasm and returns a moment later clutching a large manila envelope. She sits down, puts it on the island, and places her clasped hands on top of it.
I take the bait. “What’s that?”
She hands it to me. “This is the other reason I’m here. Open it.”
March 1927
Paris, France
Dear Diary,
The interview was a disaster.
I was so full of hope when I set out this morning toward Mademoiselle Chanel’s atelier at 31 rue Cambon to meet Madame Jeanneau, who had responded to my query for a position.
In her letter, she had instructed me to use the steps that led to the back door. I had paused at the top of the stairs when I heard a clatter behind me. A woman pushed past me, threw open the door, and raced into a workroom.
Right in front of everyone, a stern old crone reprimanded the poor, breathless woman, whose name, I learned, was Brigitte. Apparently she was late for work again. Brigitte pleaded with the woman, whom she addressed as Madame Jeanneau. Alas, it was futile, because Madame dismissed her on the spot, saying her services were no longer needed.
Next, Madame Jeanneau turned her ire on me and bellowed, “What do you want?”
I raised my chin, hoping to look more confident than I felt, and told her my name and that I had an appointment to interview for a job. I did not want to celebrate poor Brigitte’s misfortune, but I couldn’t help but feel hopeful since clearly there was an available position.
She motioned for me to follow her down a hallway papered with fashion sketches that were unmistakably Chanel. For a moment, it was as if Madame was leading me to the inner sanctum of couture, where my dream would come true. I glanced around, half expecting to see Mademoiselle Chanel appear and welcome me with a beatific, Madonna-like smile.
Instead, the stern Madame entered an office, sat behind a desk, and held out her hand, wiggling her fingers. I handed her my sketchbook, praying I’d correctly understood what she was asking.
As she flipped through, I remained standing, waiting for a single word or even the lift of a brow to hint at what she was thinking, but her face remained impassive.
Lost in Paris Page 3