Ben seemed to tense up and he cupped a hand over his chin with his elbow leaning on the counter. “Alright, Alice, I did go and look for you. Like I told you, I just couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I was a little worried about you, especially when I saw the neighborhood you gave the receptionist as your address.”
“It’s a perfectly fine neighborhood.”
“Well, Pigalle has a certain reputation, and I thought you might be in trouble. When the girl I spoke to while I was looking for you at your old apartment said nobody had seen you in a few days, I really panicked.”
“That was my friend, Sara Cinnamon.”
“She was, um, lively,” Ben said, straining his face as he found the delicate words.
“It’s okay, you can say it, she’s strung out.”
“More accurate, you’re right.”
“Well, Pigalle is made up of all kinds.”
“I understand that. The city certainly has its character’s, but I don’t necessarily think Pigalle is the right place for you. Alice, when I saw you on the street that day here in my neighborhood, I was relieved. Seeing you again was the best thing that could have happened. If you want to know the truth, I believe it was fate.”
I looked down into the coffee cup. “I believe it was fate, too.”
He moved in and gave me a passionate kiss before pulling away to say, “All this reminiscing about our first meeting and I do believe I’ve made myself late for returning to work. I was only home on a lunch break to get my bills sorted out.” He stood up and I adoringly brushed the rainbow macaroon crumbs from his scrubs. I kissed Ben goodbye in the doorway.
I hugged myself inside the blanket on Ben’s sofa. I was thrilled that Ben was so in love with me, but it didn’t ease my worry about how I would keep hiding from Motley. Or how I would ever get back Rabbit the money I promised him.
Chapter Thirty-nine: Thanksgiving
AFTER THAT, THE days seemed to blur together.
The couch became my haven. Ben didn’t seem to mind. He was working a lot of hours at the hospital. With him being gone all the time, I occasionally felt a twinge of jealousy about that flirtatious blonde who had climbed him like a set of monkey bars that day I visited him at the hospital. But I had no reason not to trust him. He came home every night, and as it turns out, he had been in love with me since the moment he saw me.
I spent a lot of time lying on the couch, shoulder-deep under a blanket, obsessing about Rabbit’s money being down in that hole. Once a day, I padded to the linen closet and pulled out the dynamite stick and dangled it over the toilet. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it. I knew I might need it as collateral in case Motley ever went after my family.
Ben’s apartment wasn’t a bad place to crash. He kept it neat. And you could see the tippy top of the Eiffel Tower out his window. At night it looked like the North Star. And just because he was technically a bachelor, Ben didn’t take the decorative route of sport teams and busty bimbos with his wall décor. He had tasteful pieces of art and colorful paintings on the wall. He had this one watercolor of a pretty girl wrapped in yellow floating down a river, flowers all around her. He said she reminded him of me.
Thanksgiving was coming, but Paris, as usual, didn’t care. The anticipation I felt for the holiday amidst an indifferent city awoke a feeling of homesickness deep within me. The Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving, Ben was getting ready to leave for his shift when I padded, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen, dragging the cuffs of his borrowed pajamas. “I am going to make us a traditional Thanksgiving meal this year,” I announced.
“Wow, Alice,” Ben said. He whirled a spoon like a wand in his coffee. “That sounds amazing.”
I climbed one of the breakfast counter stools and started writing down a list of groceries. I listed a turkey, cranberries, marshmallows, yams, and flour for homemade rolls. I handed the list to Ben.
He looked down at the paper beneath his nose. “You can’t be serious. You don’t really expect me to have time to get these groceries.”
“Can’t you just pick them up on your way back from the hospital?”
“Alice, you know I will be utterly wiped out by the time I get off my shift. Plus, I usually get home well past when the markets close. I doubt I will be in the mood to scour Paris for an all-night grocery store after a grueling twelve hours in the emergency room.”
“But, Ben,” I protested, feeling the tip of my nose going cold like a kitten’s, “I really want to have a nice Thanksgiving.”
“Then go to the market and get these things for yourself.” His voice was sharply irritated. “You’re home all day long with nothing to do.”
“You don’t have to be such a jerk about it.”
“I’m serious, Alice, why do you have such an aversion to leaving the apartment? You think I don’t notice, but I see you crying all the time, even in your sleep. When I get home from my shifts at the hospital, your eyes are always raw from crying. I have a suspicion that once I leave for work you just spend the entire day on the couch.”
“You’re such a jerk.” I slid off the stool and torpedoed to the bedroom as a rush of hot tears began streaming down my cheeks. I slammed the door shut. I slid down against the back of the door and sobbed with my knees against my chin.
“Please let me in, Alice.” Ben was pounding the door. “I only have a few minutes before I need to leave for work. Please don’t let me leave with things between us like this.”
“You think I’m lazy. That I just act like a slob on the couch all day.”
“No I don’t think you’re lazy, Alice. I think you’re depressed.”
I sucked back my tears and blew my nose onto my sleeve, sounding like an obtuse horn. “I’m sorry if I can’t be perky all the time, Ben, not like the peppy blonde you were hugging at the hospital.”
“Oh, Alice, for goodness’ sake, not this again. We’ve been through this.” He slammed one fist on the door. “Oh gosh, I think I’m going to start pulling out my hair.”
“Admit it, Ben, you’re sick of me. You think I’m just a big, boring lump taking up room on your sofa.”
“Alice,” I heard him sliding down to his knees, leveling his lips to the keyhole on the door. “I don’t find you boring at all. I love you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I sniffled again, and when I opened my lips to speak, I couldn’t think of anything to say back, so I licked at the dryness of my lips and stayed silent. Ben got up from the floor and I heard him reach for his keys and slam the front door on his way out.
* * *
When Ben got home from work that night, I was sitting on the couch, pretending not to see him walk through the door wearing his aqua-blue scrubs.
I slid my eyes to the side and observed that he was hefting a grocery bag in each hand, and when he set them down on the counter I sprang up to my feet and ran towards him. I peeked into the bags and saw that they were stuffed with my Thanksgiving grocery list.
“Oh Ben!” I gasped, pulling out an enormous frozen turkey. I began methodically lining up the rest of the ingredients on the counter.
That night, I didn’t go to sleep. I stayed up all night thawing the bird and then basting it in butter and rosemary and setting it inside the refrigerator to be cooked in the morning. Then I got to mixing, with maniacal pace, a batter for fresh rolls from the flour Ben had brought home.
“Alice, are you coming to bed?” Ben was leaning against the bedroom doorway with his jaw unhinged into a yawn.
“Not until I finish everything.” My hands were covered in white flour, pressing into the dough to roll out flat sheets.
“Alright,” Ben said, dragging his feet over the floorboards and shutting the lights off behind him on his way to bed.
Chapter Forty: Ophelia
THE TURKEY, FULL of buoyant air, bobbed along the diamond white sidewalk pavers. Snoopy was there too.
It was the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Even though I was in Paris, I had to find a
station that broadcasted it. I proudly put the finished bird on the table as the television cut to a commercial break.
“I can’t believe you cooked all this,” Ben said, his eyes taking in the cornucopia of colors and textures on the table. “I am really impressed.”
“There’s cranberry too!” I declared, spinning to the counter and grabbing a glass bowl that was overlapping with red, juicy pearls.
His face lit up and he reached across the table for one of the fluffy dinner rolls. “You know, this is the first time I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving since coming to Paris. I forgot how much I missed it.”
I wiped my eyes because I felt the hotness of tears fill the rims as I began to cry. I missed it too. I missed everything. I missed Thanksgiving. I missed my mom, and the way she made cranberry at Thanksgiving. Then I wondered how Heather Gilmore’s family celebrated Thanksgiving. Did her mom make cranberry and put an extra setting on the table? The terror of all my guilt and fear was crashing around me like hail and lightning. I could barely catch my breath. I did big heaving sobs and collapsed between Ben’s shoulders.
“Alice. Oh, Alice,” said Ben. He scooped me in his arms and carried me to the couch, where he bended to his knees and made his lips dance along my cheeks. “What’s bothering you?”
“It’s nothing, Ben. I didn’t sleep last night. I’m probably just overly tired.” I didn’t want him to see me cry because I knew he would worry, so I looked away. I looked up at the girl in the yellow painting on the wall, the one Ben had said I reminded him of. Alabaster skin and angel-wisp hair surrounded by yellow flowers. She looked like she was crying too. I rested my head on Ben’s shoulder. “What’s her name?” I asked. “The girl in the painting, I mean.”
Ben stroked the hair from my eyes. “You don’t know it? It’s a very famous painting.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I had only gotten as far as freshman year art history before I ran away from my real life, so I shook my head and told him, “I like Andy Warhol, mostly.”
He smiled. “Her name is Ophelia.”
“Ophelia?” I asked. My posture edged up. It had been a while since I had thought of the name, since I had thought of Ophelia Le Fur. Even longer since I had endured a nasty encounter with her, the ruthless disgraced blond Olympian.
“Yes, it’s a very famous print by the artist John Everett Millais. It’s a depiction of the character Ophelia as she tragically drowns herself in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s my favorite painting in the world.”
I tensed up and repeated the fated name. “Ophelia?”
“Yes, but is something the matter, Alice? You’ve gone a little pale.”
He pressed his hand to my clammy cheek, and I stared up at him, into his dreamy mocha eyes. I asked myself what the odds were of my buxom, Olympian arch nemesis, someone who I had a suspicion could be Motley’s ex-wife, having the same name as Ben’s favorite painting. I turned my neck and looked at him, though I was not quite sure what I was hoping to see. He was calm, cool, casual Ben. My Ben. Why was I getting worried over this? It was a famous painting; probably millions of prints had been sold and were hanging in living rooms around the world. There was such a thing as coincidence, I reminded myself.
“No, Ben, nothing is wrong. I’m fine.” I faked a smile.
“Surely you have heard of the play Hamlet before? I thought everyone read it in tenth grade back home.”
“I – I think I remember reading it.”
“Well, it certainly is one of my favorites.” He brushed his thumb over my chin. “I never knew that about you, that you liked Andy Warhol. I suppose I should have asked about your taste in art sooner.”
“It’s just a passing affinity that I have for him.”
“Are there any other artists that capture your heart, Alice?”
“To be honest, I don’t really know a lot about art. I really only like Andy Warhol because one time, in the eighth grade, my class took a day trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and I saw this giant neon print of a beautiful woman’s face hanging up on the wall. Her eyelids were painted like acrylic rose petals and her teeth were white as chalk. And when I looked down at the accompanying plaque, I saw Andy Warhol’s name.”
“Hmm.” Ben’s eyebrows were scrunching.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s just, well, wasn’t it a bit far for your class to take a day trip to New York City, when you grew up in the Midwest? You said it was some little town in Nebraska, that day in the coffee shop. Benny, Nebraska.”
“I did,” I stammered, “I mean, for part of my childhood. I did. We moved around a lot for my dad’s work.” I let my eyes float to the kitchen, where our plates sat abandoned at the table. “Guess what? I have dessert.”
He reluctantly let his eyebrows unbend and he forced a smile. “Dessert sounds great, Alice. You’re just full of surprises.” I pulled out the pumpkin pie and we ate it out of the tin without ever slicing it onto plates.
Maybe I can hang up a print of something by Andy Warhol in the apartment, too,” Ben said through a mouth full of pumpkin pie.
“I would love it, Ben. Then we could hang up Andy right alongside Ophelia.” Just saying the name out loud nearly caused me to want to choke on my pie crust. Ben was completely unfazed.
“Good idea, Alice. It might cheer you up a bit, really make the apartment feel like home for once.”
Chapter Forty-one: Lights
THEN CAME THE illumination.
Bright lights. Sparkling Christmas lights, in a winter carnival of electric ice, draping like jewelry from every building and tree branch within city limits. When December arrived, like it did every year, little by little, Paris transformed into a vibrant universe of cosmic sparkles.
There were red ribbons and sparkling bulbs lining the streets, and all the apartment windows that lined Ben’s block seemed to have tiny little wreaths in them. At least this was the impression that I gathered from the view behind the windows inside Ben’s apartment. It had been nearly two months and I still hadn’t left the apartment. It’s what I remember most about this dull mid-winter period of my life, the icy lights.
From my cloistered spot on Ben’s couch, I thought a lot about my old life, and the sins I had committed to land myself in such a desolate existence. I hoped the people I had hurt were faring better than I was; that Rabbit and Vivienne were still together, living somewhere in a little apartment, one with a clean crumb tray inside their toaster oven and all the computers you could ever dream of playing World of Warcraft on. And I hoped that Rabbit wasn’t driving himself crazy over the money that had gone to pot. The money I promised to get back, but had failed to.
Before I knew it, it was Christmas Eve. Ben was scheduled for a shift at the hospital that morning. After he woke up and drank his coffee, he dropped his cup in the sink and canvassed his drawers for warm clothes to line beneath his scrubs, on account of the frost that had formed over everything the night before. I sat on the edge of the bed and hummed jingle bells to him as he layered his scrubs over his thermals.
When he left I crawled back into bed and sobbed. I cried all morning like that.
There was nothing left of me.
I was flat broke.
I was depressed.
I was constantly lying to Ben.
I had no real identity here in Paris, and I couldn’t go back home, not as far as the words on my confession note were concerned. Plus, Motley had knives out after me, and if I ever so much as stepped back onto my hometown soil, he would probably be waiting to make good on his promise to harm Margaux Fix and her family. I thought of him and Cleopatra plotting my demise, that million-dollar key around her neck gyrating as she let cold, calculated laughs rupture inside her throat.
When noon hit, the streak of sun casting in from the window made it impossible to hide in the darkness. I rolled the covers off, grabbed a cigarette from the nightstand, and padded to the window to look out onto the busy street. My depression was black and thick like tar.
I pulled one of Ben’s heavy fleece zip-ups over my head and opened the bedroom window.
The frigid air blasted over me like cold smoke stinging my face. The disorientating traffic below me roared and I heard a car horn beep sixteen stories down, as though I was trapped in a dizzying funnel. The sun was climbing in the gray sky and turning the city windows into mirrors.
I slid one leg out the window, balancing myself as I crawled out to the ledge. The surface was thinner than I anticipated, so I had to flatten my body against the building, and when I looked out over the busy street below, I experienced vertigo that made me grip the edges of the windows. I thought of my training with David Xad in Tokyo three years earlier when he had put me through the rigors of survival testing and gave me the arrogant motto Kitto Katsu. I thought back to the lantern-lit raft crashing against salty waves and to scaling the Sky Tree, so much higher than this ledge I was trembling on now, running on nothing by adrenaline and fear. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. A time when I thought I could actually scheme my way out of the trouble I had rained down upon myself. Back when I thought, if only I could control my world, I could save myself. How wrong I was. Kitto Katsu, I will surely win. Except that I had lost. I had lost at everything. I tiptoed a few inches across the ledge away from the window and I dangled my toe over the edge, like I was testing a body of water before plunging.
“Alice!” I heard a voice call from the street below.
My knees buckled and I had to brace my palms flat against the side of the building to avoid falling. I looked down, scanning the sidewalk, ready to dismiss hearing my name as a delusion, and that’s when I saw Pressley Connard waving his arms and shouting, “Alice!” He was wearing a black trench coat and his hair was hidden beneath a black skull cap.
“What do you want?” I shouted down to him. I patted myself down looking for my Zippo lighter before lighting the cigarette dangling from my lips.
Generation of Liars Page 30