There’s a long line inside the shop, with endless chit-chatting between the sales ladies and customers. I rock back and forth on my heels, checking anxiously over my shoulder on the taxi parked illegally outside with its lights flashing.
Praise the Lord, once my turn comes, I manage to get the lemon sorbet in a Paris-minute—which equals five in New-York—rush back to the taxi and hot-foot it back home.
“Ma Cherie, you look absolutely dreadful!”
“Good afternoon to you too, Mother!” I’m out of breath after running up the stairs to her apartments. “You look radiant.” I dangle the pink bag which contains the sorbet in front of her eyes. “I’ve got what you asked for.”
She waves back at me with her perfectly-manufactured fingers. “Give that to Jeanne and tell her to prepare two Coupes Colonel. I’m in need of some refreshment.”
“Nice try, Mom.” A Coupe Colonel is a lemon sorbet drenched in vodka. Not. A. Chance.
She pouts. “I was only joking. Anyway, go and change out of your party clothes and join me for some ‘girly time’.”
“Okay,” I answer with muted suspicion. The definition of ‘girlie time’ has yet to be determined.
I hand the sorbet to Jeanne and quickly change into a pair of jeans and a cashmere jumper. Its softness reminds me of Zach’s quilt. Now that my fears for my mother are gone, I let myself think back over the last few hours, I let myself miss him. I should never see him again. In Paris or anywhere else.
By the time I’m back at my mother’s side, a movie is playing on the TV. The cups with the sorbet scoops are on the round table between her loveseat and the Louis XVI chair I usually favor.
“So we’re watching a DVD.” It seems to be the theme of the day.
“Yes, I need to revisit the classics.”
My mom and I don’t have the same definition of the word ‘classic.’ I mean Casablanca, she means Dirty Dancing… in French. I psych myself up to concentrate because I tend to tune out of the French language pretty quickly. But Dirty Dancing? You have to have been born on Mars—while Neanderthal was still strutting around on Earth—not to know the plot.
Jeanne kindly refills my bowl of sorbet twice, but my mother declines the offer each time. With the light taste of the lemon melting on my tongue, I focus on Johnny and Baby’s story. They keep my mind—and my heart—from flying back to Montmartre. The final scene draws a happy sigh out of me. I wish I could leap into the air just like Baby and be caught in Johnny’s strong arms.
I hear a sniff.
My mother has drawn her legs up against her chest, with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her face is moist with fat tears.
“Why are you crying?” I rush to her side. “It’s a happy ending.” As if logic and my mom’s psyche have ever gone hand-in-hand.
She mumbles, “I know.”
I grab a handkerchief from a set of drawers in her bedroom and hand it to her. She proceeds to blow her nose noisily. “I watched it when it first came out right before I met your father.”
I bite my lower lip to suppress the giggle that brews inside me. My dad and Patrick Swayze have nothing in common. But I keep that to myself and let my mother open up.
“I expected love to be just like theirs. Pure, solid, true. And then I had you.” Her words slap me so hard my cheeks sting. “Oh darling, I didn’t mean...” She reaches for me but I recoil. “I lost it after having you. I couldn’t cope but it had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me.”
She isn’t opening up, she’s baring her soul. God only knows the dark secrets this conversation can unearth. “Mom, please, don’t feel guilty, I—”
She hushes me with a wave of her hand. “You were the easiest baby any mother could dream of. So docile and cuddly and well-behaved.”
My mom tucks a wisp of my hair behind my ear. I lean my face against the palm of her hand, breathing in her scent. Chanel Number 5. The same as mine.
“I couldn’t cope with being a mother and I turned to alcohol and then pills. Your father wasn’t the man I expected him to be, but I pushed him away too. After his first affair,” she stops, shuts her eyes and continues in a rasp. “It was like I had nothing left to lose and I spiraled out of control. But I still had something to lose, it was you and I did.”
My throat constricts. Tears wells up in my eyes. “You never lost me. If you had, I wouldn’t be right here, right now.” She opens her eyes and it’s as if she’s seeing me for the first time, and I her. “You almost died, Mom, and I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“I know, I know.” She kisses my forehead. “You’re the reason I’m still here.”
“I’m not. I wasn’t even there when you…” I can’t say it. “Without Zach—”
“You’re the reason I’m still alive. I came back for you. I’ve never been good to you. I felt threatened by you right from the start. You were getting more attention from your father than I did, which doesn’t say much. And later, I started resenting how men were looking at you, how everyone liked you, and how you seemed to have everything.”
“I didn’t have everything because I didn’t have you.”
“And I didn’t know then that the only love I really needed was yours.”
A shameless sob bursts from my mouth.
“Come on, my darling. You never cry, so don’t cry for me. Divorcing your father is a way to claim back my old self, when I was stronger and still able to love.”
“Maman!” My arms wrap around her neck and I hide my face in her nape.
And I cry and cry and cry. And it feels so good because, for the first time, I know my mom loves me back.
I hear someone clear their throat behind me. “Am I interrupting?”
I look over my shoulder. “Charlie?”
Mom relaxes her hold on me. “Vous ne pouvez pas vous passer l’une de l’autre. Vous venez de vous quitter.” You can’t get enough of each other. You said goodbye only a few hours ago.
I frown discreetly at Charlie to remind her that, officially, I’ve slept at her place.
“J’adore ma cousine,” she mumbles. I love my cousin. “I can’t be without her for too long, but sorry for showing up in the middle of a sob-fest. I asked Jeanne to let me in unannounced.”
“I’m sure you girls have plenty to talk about. Go and chat about boys or something.”
I want to tell my mother I’m not sixteen anymore. “Mom, you wanted some company.”
“And you were there for me, so now go and spend some time with people your own age.”
Umm…My mother has never openly acknowledged not belonging to the same generation as me. Maybe it’s an after-effect of reaching the gates of heaven.
“You’ll tell me more about Le Duke around dinner, won’t you?” There’s longing in Mom’s voice.
“I will, I promise.” Frankly, I’m not sure I can discuss last night with a straight face.
Charlie has started to fidget, her hands wriggling. Something is up. I kiss my mother’s cheek and leave the room with a warmth in my heart I haven’t felt for so long.
“J’ai un truc a te raconter.” I’ve got something to tell you.
“Charlie, I’m not a people person but I could have said that much.” After the heart-to-heart with Mom, I need some fresh air. “Is it still raining outside?”
“Nope.”
“Let’s go to the garden.”
We head downstairs, stopping in the kitchen to grab two Cokes. The main reception room has wide French doors opening onto a garden surrounded by a high iron fence. It isn’t big by any means, but given that we are right in the center of the most exclusive part of Paris, it's a privilege few people enjoyed.
My family townhouse isn’t a home to me, but I’ve always loved retreating to the garden. It manages to stay plush no matter the season and right now, after the heavy rain, I’m welcomed by an earthy scent.
We sit at the round table—ignoring the moisture left on the chairs by the earlier rain—and I take a generou
s gulp of my Coke. The bubbles bounce between my tongue and the roof of my mouth.
“So what’s up?” I ask.
Charlie straightens upon her deck chair, links her hands together and rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, I met the most amazing guy last night.” She’s sticking to French.
“Wait a minute! I thought Zach was going to send you home in a car...”
“That’s how it happened. Zach’s chauffeur—”
“Ziggy?” The man looked decent to me. “You were drunk, Charlie. Wait…did he take advantage of you? That’s just wrong.”
“He didn’t! We started talking during the drive. He’s a writer moonlighting as a chauffeur. I dared him to create a poem for me and he did on the spot. When we got to my place, I was so drunk that he had to carry me to my apartment.”
I bury my face in my hands. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him.” I’ve invited her and I should have made sure she was safe instead of getting sloshed myself.
“I didn’t!” Her hand rests on her heart as if I’ve offended her or Ziggy. “He put me to bed fully clothed and placed a blanket over me. How sweeeeet is that?”
“Very sweet,” I exhale in relief. I guess that adjective applies to how Zach has behaved towards me as well.
Charlie folds her hands together and raises her eyebrows in an exaggerated plea. “Lenor, you must ask Zachary for Ziggy’s number. I have to say thank you. I have to see him again.”
That will imply getting in touch with Zach and I’ve promised myself I won’t do that. But Charlie is still in full-on imploring mode.
“Zachary and I, we—he—I mean, I—” I stutter. “It’s complicated—”
“You slept with him.” She bangs the table with her hand. “I knew it. I felt the vibe between you guys even back at the hospital. You lucky minx!”
Heat rushes to my cheeks and I flick my hair over my shoulder. “I did not sleep with him. Not last night. Not ever.”
“Then why is it so complicated?”
I stall. “I was in love with him once.”
“When?”
“My whole life until the summer I turned eighteen.”
“What happened then?”
“We had a fling, but he wasn’t really into me. Not the way I wanted him to be anyway.” Which was alla Rick and Ilsa, plus the Happy Ending.
Charlie takes a sip of Coke, her eyes scrutinizing me over the rim of the can. The silence between us is making me twitchy. She lets it linger on.
“Are you still angry with him?” she finally asks, her voice a couple of notches lower.
I ponder her question inside my head for a minute. “No,” I lie.
“Then what’s the problem? The guy saved your mom and he clearly wants to be there for you too.”
I lower my gaze to my empty can of Coke, fiddling with the ring-pull. “Charlie, I’m not in a good place in my life right now. The last thing I need is—”
“What you need is to start over, and starting over begins with getting closure. Kicking Zach out of your life because you’re not over him is not starting over.”
“I am over him.”
“Then prove it to me. Call and ask him for Ziggy’s number.”
“You’re going all Freud on me so that you can get the number of a guy who drove you back home while making up some stupid poem.” Her face fizzles. “I’m sorry, Charlie. That was uncalled for.”
“Don’t apologize because you want to be perfect all the time.”
“I’m not trying to be perfect—“
“Yes, you are. You always have and it used to drive me crazy when we were kids. I was the naughty one, the one who talked too much, too loud. I wish you could let your hair down.”
And here I was thinking we had been best friends back then. “I am letting my hair down.” I articulate. “I’ve been partying for a full month now. I’ve gotten drunk more times that I can remember. I’ve had two one-night stands.” With the same man, yes, but on two separate occasions. “Isn’t that relaxed enough?”
Charlie jumps to her feet. She runs her fingers through her short dark bob and starts pacing around her chair. Her agitation is contagious and I fidget on my seat.
She stops abruptly. “You’re faking it.”
“I am not faking anything. I am having a good time.”
“No, you’re not. You’re miserable,” she says while looking at me with genuine concern. I can’t hold her gaze and focus instead on the empty can between my fingers. She sits next to me. Her hand seizes mine and she gives it a gentle squeeze. “Lenor, your mom has been through a very tough patch and it’s been difficult for you with the whole broken-engagement-secret baby thingy but it’s time to start living.”
I stomp my foot under the table. “I am living.”
“Living means taking some risks.”
“Should I jump off the Eiffel Tower? Would that be risky enough?”
Her head flips backwards as she bursts out laughing. “Just make sure someone is filming when you do.”
I clear my throat. “So if I were to take a risk, which one should it be?”
“Face what you fear the most,” Charlie throws back. “What is it?”
I take back hold of my hand and start fiddling with my fingers tips. I clear my throat again but croaked, “Rejection.”
“Good. Then, think about whose rejection you fear the most and tackle it.”
She holds my gaze in an open challenge but I’m not fearless enough yet to voice the name. She doesn’t push any further—I guess she has a pretty good idea already—but drops a kiss on my cheek instead and stands up.
The sound of her retreating steps echoes in my head until I look over my shoulder and call her in one breath, “Charlie?”
She stops and turns to face me. “Yes, cousin.”
“I’ll get Ziggy’s number for you.”
A cheeky smile radiates across her pretty face. “I thought you would. What do you guys say? Something like ‘killing two birds with one stone’?”
My own smile freezes on my face. I’ve definitely been found out.
Chapter 12
I’m a bit of a fetishist in a photographic, un-kinky kind of way.
The truth is that I love taking pictures of people, but only parts of them. Eyes are an obvious choice, but I snap ears, mouths, hands and—my all-time favorite—necks. The nape more precisely. I don’t only do it in a studio, but absolutely anywhere, and anywhere can very much be Montmartre.
I sit in the terrace of a café right in the busiest spot of the butte—the hill—la Place St-Pierre. Around me, there’s no French being spoken. Japanese: check. Russian: check, and it’s impossible to miss the drawl of my compatriots. I chose this spot because it’s at the foot of the funiculaire—cable car—carrying tourists up to the Sacred Heart Basilica. The potential subjects are lining up for their turn to climb into the antique-looking cabin.
I lay my camera on the round table and take a sip of my citron pressé, freshly squeezed lemon juice loaded with sugar. It still tastes bitter, but it always manages to settle my stomach.
After my little heart-to-heart with Charlie, I’ve spent the rest of the day and the whole of last night chewing over the challenge thrown at me by my cousin. The Will I?, Dare I?, and Should I? have ping-ponged within the walls of my skull. I haven’t slept much.
Early afternoon and I’m finally gearing up to face my biggest fear: Rejection. Zachary Murdoch’s rejection, to be more precise. Now, I’ve no intention of knocking at his door, naked under my Burberry trench coat, with a bottle of Dom in my hand, waiting to see what will happen next. Non. The first step on my journey to sentimental recovery is to heal the still throbbing heartache of the past.
I’m still angry with Zach. Humiliated by him. Sad. Very sad because of him. I’ve carried these bad vibes around with me for five years and more importantly, throughout my relationship with Josh. They aren’t the reason Midwest-Boy broke up our engagement—true love and a five-year-old boy are—but I now kn
ow how those feelings about Zach tainted my love for Josh. They made me so insecure I never gave myself entirely to him.
I won’t let that happen again. My dating prospects look rather bleak right now but, one day maybe, I’ll meet someone—a good man—who will fall in love with me. I want to love him back unencumbered by the ghosts of my past relationships.
I slide a five-Euro note under my empty glass and leave the café. To dull my nerves, I continue snapping pieces of other people’s lives with my camera: the street musicians or the stalls on the Rue de Ronsard. This morning I Googled a map of Montmartre and identify Zach’s street, Rue du Beau-Passé. Street of the Beautiful Past. Pretty ironic, isn’t it? I have his house number imprinted on my memory: sixty-nine. Ironic too.
When I finally turn the corner of his street, my pulse quickens and continues to do so the closer I come to Numero Soixante-Neuf. My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach, then leaps back up. I manage to place my camera back in my satchel without dropping it because of the trembling of my hands.
There I am, in front of the wooden door I remember through my tequila-hazed-memory. I check the names on the frame next to the buzzers and press the one next to Z.M.
“Oui?”
I feel my mouth shaping itself into an ‘o’ or maybe an ‘a,’ I’m not sure, but no sound emanates.
“Qui est-ce?” Who is it? His tone is short.
“It’s me… Lenor.”
Silence stretches out for five heartbeats.
“Come in.”
The buzzer rings and I push the door open. Everything is still as it was in my memory of two nights ago. The thick carpet and the minuscule elevator with the grated door. I force-march myself into the cabin and press the button with number six on it. I focus on the muted sound of the elevator climbing up to the top floor. When it stops, I take a big breath, dry my clammy hands on the sides of my beige slacks and pull the door open.
And there he stands.
The door behind him is open and he’s barefoot. The faint stubble on his face, his tousled hair, the expectant light in his emerald gaze, I make my eyes flicker over them all. I take two steps toward him as if I’m treading on a tightrope between the towers of Notre-Dame. The noise of the elevator door closing startles me.
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