One Christmas in Paris

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Julien said. ‘I will show you the Place des Vosges.’

  ‘Really?’ she said. His favourite place. He wanted to show her his favourite place.

  ‘Oui,’ he said. ‘But for tomorrow to come... I need to go.’

  She smiled and loosened her grip on his hand.

  ‘Goodnight, Madonna,’ he said again. He brought her hand up to his mouth and dropped a kiss on the skin.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she replied, taking a micro step backwards.

  He waved a hand and she watched him walk into the night, the snowflakes an almost fluorescent white against the darkness of his coat. Ava sighed and let her eyes roam to the city line of Paris. The dark sky, the Christmas lights flashing from brickwork along the street, the hotchpotch rooftops, small loft windows hiding tiny city pads, balconies and balustrades in front of large, airy apartments with a view to the Eiffel Tower, shop fronts and restaurants getting ready to close. It was a heady mix of Christmas, capital city and French romance. Who knew this had all been waiting for her when she got here?

  She took a breath of the cold air and turned to the hotel entrance, pushing at the revolving doors and looking forward to dreaming about what tomorrow might bring.

  Her boots had hardly touched the carpet of reception when she stopped walking and her stomach dropped to below basement level. At the front desk, talking to the concierge, was someone wearing jade pixie boots with a six-inch heel, a silver sequinned dress and a three-quarter-length fox fur coat she really hoped was a fake. The urge to creep silently like a ninja towards the bank of elevators was so tempting, but one wrong move and the game was up. And then the option was taken out of her hands. Her mother turned around and faced her.

  ‘Ava,’ she greeted. ‘I was just telling this awfully rude man behind the front desk that you were staying here and he was refusing to believe what I was telling him.’

  Ava took a step forward, body still braced for combat. ‘What were you telling him?’

  ‘That I was here to see you and... never mind what I was telling him! Look at you! You look radiant! Is that a Vera Wang?’

  Ava felt her mother appraising her from the heels of Debs’ boots to the red dress she hadn’t really wanted to wear in the first place.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Ava asked, standing still and watching Rhoda pull along her Louis Vuitton case until she was only a few feet away.

  ‘Listen, darling, I know how you felt about going all that way to Goa but—’

  ‘Are you still on about Goa? Seriously...’

  ‘Shh! Decorum, Ava. We are in public,’ Rhoda reminded her.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Ava asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be face deep in skin-firming mud from the Ganges?’

  ‘As I was saying... I know how you felt about going all the way to Goa and the assignment in the Azores, so I’m here to offer an alternative,’ Rhoda continued.

  Ava’s blood was humming through her veins wondering what direction to take. Her mother was stood in front of her, she hadn’t even attempted an air kiss or a false hug, and she was already talking about modelling assignments.

  ‘It’s late,’ Ava said, looking at her watch even though she knew the time. ‘I really ought to get to bed.’

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ Rhoda suggested. ‘I’m sure that lovely little man behind the front desk can get us a nice cognac or something.’

  ‘So he’s a lovely little man when you want something.’ Ava shook her head. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘You told me you were in France.’

  ‘I remember I didn’t tell you I was in Paris or the hotel I was staying at.’

  ‘No, but a quick look on Facebook at Deborah’s page, a photo of her in a ridiculous Christmas jumper and the hotel location tagged and I had my answer.’

  ‘You stalked my friend!’ Ava exclaimed.

  ‘I obtained a little information that’s all,’ Rhoda said almost sternly. Then the expression changed again. Her mouth widened into a smile and her eyes lit up. Those whitened teeth on display and the nose altered to look like Nicole Kidman shifted to side profile. ‘Anyway, that’s by-the-by and you are going to love me when I tell you what I’ve managed to line up.’

  Ava put her hands on her hips. She had to be imagining this. This couldn’t be real.

  ‘This new job is so much better than the Azores,’ Rhoda continued.

  ‘I thought the Azores was going to be the pinnacle of my career.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that.’

  Ava sighed. ‘Mum...’

  ‘Ava, this is Fate. And it isn’t far. It’s actually in Paris.’

  She clenched her hands into fists and dug them hard into the corners of her pockets. Forget dreaming about tomorrow, this was the nightmare of today.

  ‘Mum, please listen to me...’ She swallowed. Could she actually say the words? Her mind went to the life-affirming love lock. The celebration of her hanging from the Eiffel Tower. Julien. Gorgeous, sweet, Julien who had told her she had her whole life to make new choices. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Mum, I’m not doing any modelling any more.’

  Rhoda shook her head like Ava was an irritation she could do without. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ava. What else are you going to do with your life? You’ve shot yourself in the foot with Leo, you need to focus on your career.’

  Leo. She gritted her teeth, not rising to the bait. ‘I know that,’ Ava said. ‘But why can’t I do anything I want to do?’

  ‘Because modelling is what you were born to do.’

  ‘No, Mum, modelling is what you forced me to do. You were the one that wanted that life. I never did.’

  ‘That’s madness,’ Rhoda said. ‘You have a gift. You can’t just waste it.’

  ‘You don’t even think that. It’s always been a size six isn’t a size zero, your hair needs to be straighter, your legs need to be longer, your lips need to be wider. Well, I’m happy this way. I’m fine with what I see in the mirror. I’m not a supermodel – not you, not the bloody photographers, not the pictures in the magazines, have ever made me think I was beautiful. But you know what? Tonight I feel beautiful. For the first time.’

  ‘Ava, I don’t think you understand,’ Rhoda said, exasperated. ‘Hazel Yashenko has had to drop out of Katya De Pierrot’s fashion show tomorrow night. You’re taking her place.’

  47

  Ava opened her eyes as the laptop tapping became too noisy to ignore. The smell of ylang-ylang infiltrated her nose and she suddenly wanted to be sick. She coughed and pawed at the duvet wrapped around her legs.

  ‘Bonjour!’

  Didier sprung up from the twin bed next to her like a jack-in-the-box on speed and Ava screamed, a hand going to her heart.

  ‘For God’s sake! You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ She tried to breathe again as her eyes blurred into focus.

  ‘I apologise,’ Didier said, grinning. ‘You would like some fruit tea?’ he offered.

  ‘No... no I don’t.’ She looked over to the table where Debs’ fingers were still moving faster than The Flash on a mission, her hair muzzed up like Chewbacca. ‘Am I allowed to talk to Debs yet?’

  ‘I can hear you, you know,’ Debs called, eyes unmoved from the screen.

  ‘Good, so—’ Ava started.

  ‘So I want to hear everything about romantic cruises up the Seine in thirty minutes. I’ve ordered room service to bring us breakfast.’

  ‘My mother is here,’ Ava said.

  Debs knocked her teacup off the table and it hit the carpet, slopping fruit tea into the shagpile. ‘What?!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ava answered. ‘Surprise!’ She sensed now wasn’t the time to get annoyed that Debs’ Facebook posts bearing their pinpoint location were somewhat to blame.

  ‘That is so nice,’ Didier said, still grinning. ‘Family coming to visit.’

  ‘It isn’t nice, Didier, it is totes terrible,’ Debs answered, spinning around in the chair and facing Ava. ‘What is she doing
here?’

  ‘She’s got me another job,’ Ava said, tone coated in mock excitement.

  ‘That is wonderful!’ Didier stated, eyes bulbous, belt of the dressing gown he was wearing slipping a little as he stood up.

  ‘It isn’t wonderful, Didier,’ Debs snapped. ‘Ava’s mum is... difficult.’

  ‘Eloquently put,’ Ava agreed.

  ‘I hope you told her what to do with her job,’ Debs said. ‘I take it it’s another modelling event.’

  Ava nodded. ‘Yes, probably the biggest, most prestigious one I’ve ever been offered.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘One of the models for Katya De Pierrot.’

  ‘Zut alors! She is very famous!’ Didier exclaimed.

  ‘Fuck,’ Debs stated. ‘That’s huge!’

  Ava nodded. ‘I know. She must’ve sent them shots from when I was a teenager. Ava, eighteen, pre-tattoo, the reluctant anorexic. How she thinks I could even get into shape in time... She’s delusional.’

  Silence reigned and Ava looked to Debs, waiting for her to comment further. Nothing was forthcoming and Ava pulled the covers off her T-shirt-clad body and stood up.

  ‘You are thinking of not doing this?’ Didier asked.

  Ava let out a breath. Everything she held dear was screaming at her to run in the other direction but it was Katya De Pierrot’s brand new collection. She loved her clothes – the whole time Ava had been modelling she’d thought it might just be bearable if she got to wear the clothes of someone she truly looked up to as an artist. And then there was the money. She had longed to work with someone of her magnitude the whole time she had been modelling. But if she said yes, what did it mean? This was a step back into the modelling world and her mum’s chance to regain control.

  This was the problem. She always buckled in crucial moments. She’d given into the personal trainer last spring and then it was the acting class the previous summer when she’d just recovered from a ‘nasty sprained ankle’ that had got her out of one of those awful industry fairs. It wouldn’t end here. It never ended here. There would be job after job, a treadmill of little sleep, red-eye flights and calorie-controlled everything until she got too old and saggy to get jobs for anyone other than SAGA holidays. She wasn’t the same person who had got on the Eurostar to the French capital. She now had it in her mind she might really think about doing something with her drawing.

  ‘What do you want to do, Ava?’ Debs asked. ‘What do you really want to do?’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘Right now,’ Debs asked.

  ‘I want to go to the Place des Vosges,’ she said with a sigh.

  48

  Place de la Concorde

  Neutral ground was best. Ava had been repeating that mantra to herself ever since she snuck out of the hotel before calling her mother and setting the meeting place. Before that she had recounted the romance of the riverboat sail up the Seine for Debs to turn into Shakespeare-esque magazine fodder, leaving out the bit about being kissed in front of the Assembelée Nationale. Her friend was on a deadline and Ava didn’t want her relationship with Julien dissected just yet, not while it was still so new to her.

  She bit into a brioche and found when the chocolate hit her tongue she was already wondering how many calories she was ingesting. She put the pastry down. That’s what a few hours with her mother had done already. She sipped her hot chocolate – about four hundred calories with the cream – and put her eyes on a taxi that had pulled up outside the café. She knew before the tan-stockinged legs even appeared in perfect formation that it was her mother. Used to living in London with the Tube at her disposal but always calling a taxi, there was no way Rhoda would have got on the Metro.

  Ava wiped the crumbs from her hands and took a deep breath. It was just one job. The biggest job she had ever been up for. It was a huge deal. Was she really ready to do this?

  As Rhoda walked through the door, Ava got to her feet and waved. If ever there was anyone inappropriately dressed for the weather, and her age, it was her mother. A white linen dress skirted her mid-thigh and she was wearing only a slim-fitted cardigan, no coat. Hair and make-up looked like they had been provided by a stylist.

  Rhoda wrinkled her nose as she pulled out the chair opposite Ava. ‘Ava, is that a chocolate brioche?’

  Ava nodded. ‘Yes, would you like one?’

  Rhoda looked like she had been Tasered. ‘Is that a joke?’

  ‘No it’s a rather delicious French bread. I’m sure you’ve had one before... well, I mean, at least given one half a glance.’

  ‘You can’t eat that sort of thing, Ava. How many times? Bread bloats and... is that hot chocolate?’

  ‘With cream,’ Ava answered, taking another sip and ensuring she got the white fluffy topping on her lips.

  ‘You are aware no one working for Katya De Pierrot is larger than a size six.’

  ‘Really? That’s a shame. I’m usually about a ten these days.’

  ‘We can fix that,’ Rhoda said, moving her hot chocolate cup. ‘We have three days. Granted it’s not going to be a full detox in Goa but—’

  Ava nodded. ‘The thing is, Mum. I don’t want to model for Katya De Pierrot.’

  ‘Now you’re just being ridiculous. Last night—’

  ‘Last night you railroaded me,’ Ava stated. ‘Last night you turned up at my hotel, without warning and—’

  ‘Ava, I left you several messages and a voicemail.’

  ‘I know but I only got them this morning. I turned my phone off last night because I was sick of getting emotional blackmail from you and from Leo.’

  Rhoda’s eyes lit up. ‘Leo is still messaging you?’

  Ava sighed. The voice was coated in so much glee it was almost a cover version of a Justin Bieber song. ‘Leo and I are over. Dead in the water. Absolutely no going back.’

  ‘Until he sees you dressed in Pierrot.’

  ‘Mum, stop!’ She sighed. ‘It isn’t a case of wearing six-inch heels and having my hair rolled up like Princess Leia...’

  ‘At the moment we’re going to have to get you a hairpiece.’

  She wanted to scream. She wondered if she just let her lungs produce the kind of noises that Bjork could make, her mother might actually stop and listen. And then she remembered all the soft, kind, reassuring things Sue had said to her before they left for Paris. That Leo wasn’t good enough for her, not the other way around.

  ‘Last night you were on board with the idea,’ Rhoda stated.

  ‘No, last night I listened to you and then I went to bed. This morning I’ve realised that this opportunity is just like all the ones before it and I don’t want it, or them... any of them... any more.’

  She hadn’t quite screeched like a dolphin but the gentle festive music and the chatter from the other customers was definitely now muted and there were pairs of eyes on her. She made a grab for her hot chocolate and hid her face in the cup.

  Rhoda shook her head and Ava looked across at her mother. There was something about her expression that was different. This wasn’t a woman ready for battle; this was a woman on the verge of tears.

  ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ Rhoda stated. ‘I mean I thought Goa and the Azores would do it, I really did but then... then I had to pull out all the stops. I’ve been up for days, Ava. Days and nights searching for the opportunity of a lifetime and then... well, I wouldn’t wish an accident on anyone but it seemed like Fate. Hazel Yashenko breaks her femur and here you are, already in Paris.’

  Ava wasn’t sure if her mother was aware tears were springing from her eyes, threatening to undo all the Max Factor she had been liberally applying from the birth canal to today. She swallowed, just watching and waiting for Rhoda to carry on.

  ‘I want you to want what I want, Ava,’ Rhoda spluttered, her head shaking, her hand batting the marble of the table in search of something. Ava used her index finger to push a metal square of serviettes towards her.

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘No,
I didn’t mean that. I just... want you to want me.’

  Ava almost dropped her cup of hot chocolate. Steadying the porcelain until it found the tabletop she tried to decipher what exactly Rhoda was saying.

  ‘Your father’ – she said the word like she’d ingested Dettol – ‘he seems to just pick up the phone and... you’re there... with that Thai bride.’

  ‘Mum—’ Ava began.

  ‘I mean who does he think he is? Hugh Hefner?’ Rhoda wrestled a serviette from the holder on the table and dabbed at her eyes with the edge of it.

  ‘Mum... what are you saying?’ Ava asked.

  Rhoda shook her head. ‘I just want... things to be how they used to be.’ She sniffed. ‘Before you joined the estate agency and didn’t come home for weeks on end.’

  Ava furrowed her brow. Was she hearing this right? Were her mother’s attempts at getting her back in the modelling profession nothing to do with modelling but everything to do with wanting to spend more time with her?

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I liked Leo,’ Rhoda said. ‘He was always clean and he took care with his hair and...’

  ‘Mum, he cheated on me,’ Ava reminded her.

  ‘And I thought if I convinced him what a mistake he’d made and he said he was sorry then you would be happy and you’d thank me and... we’d maybe have low-carb Asian some Saturday nights again.’

  Ava shook her head. Was their relationship really so fractured that Rhoda felt she needed an excuse – or several excuses – to spend time with her? Why hadn’t she just talked? Or had Ava been closed-off to listening?

  ‘Did you ask Leo to send those picture messages of us together?’ Ava asked.

  Rhoda sobbed and nodded her head. ‘You were meant to be with me, in Goa, when they came through, so I could comfort you and... well I thought he hadn’t done it and...’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Ava said. ‘I’m not twelve.’