by Lucy Silag
Guests—and there must be more than a thousand of them here—are wandering about the château like it’s their own home, so I feel comfortable doing the same. Imagining that there must be an old library somewhere, I start to poke into the little rooms lining the corridor. Some look like offices, with stately desks and a thick layer of dust over all the papers, while others are storage rooms full of antiques. I even see a suit of armor in one of them. I long for Annabel, or even Olivia or Sara-Louise or Mary—someone else to explore this magical place with me. At the moment, I’d even take Alex—how envious she will be when I tell her the company I kept this weekend!
Farther down the hallway, I see a door cracked open, the light from a fire making shadows on the floor. I hear voices, making me curious. What is it about rich French people that compels me to go traipsing through their houses as if hunting for treasure?
I push the door open.
Mme Lafontant is spread out over a large banquet table on her stomach, her black satin skirt hunched up around her waist and her pale hips and thighs looking shockingly white against her black garter belt and silk stockings. And with her, I’m absolutely shocked to find, is M. Marquet. The bodice of Mme Lafontant’s dress is pulled down, and M. Marquet’s spotted hands are squeezed harshly around her breasts. M. Marquet lets out a loud, awful moan that I’d just as soon forget I ever heard.
I try to back out as quietly as I came in, but in my haste I smack face first into the doorframe. “Fuck!” I say aloud, trying not to cry in pain as I rush back down the hallway toward the ballroom. The train of this stupid blue dress is so long I keep tripping over it, slowing me down.
“Penelope!” M. Marquet calls after me, catching up with me easily. He’s tucking his tuxedo shirt back into his black pants. He still has the scent of Mme Lafontant’s perfume on him, plus another rich smell that makes me gag. He feels too close, too heavy.
“What are you doing?” I spit out at him. “Isn’t Mme Lafontant a close friend of Mme Marquet?”
“Ah,” M. Marquet says. “You Americans are such sensitve babies. Don’t be upset, Penelope. Nothing is the matter here. In France, marriage is much more open than in your country. Affairs are accepted; it’s commonplace . . .”
I lift the heavy hem of my dress and walk briskly away from him. The whiskey on his breath makes me nauseated, and remembering how affectionate Mme Marquet had been to me earlier, how she called me ma princesse, my loyalty is to her. When I come back into the ballroom, I can’t look at her. I might throw up at the memory of what I just saw, or cry. I put my hand to my forehead, willing the mental image to go away.
“Penelope!” Mme Marquet rushes to my side. “Are you ill?”
What if I was? Would you call me an ambulance? Or would you sneak me out the back door and call someone who wouldn’t embarrass you?
I breathe in for three counts, out for six, just like my mom said. “I’m . . . I’m . . . not okay, actually.” I take another long breath. “M. Marquet is—I just saw him—Mme Lafontant—on the table—”
“My husband was fucking Mme Lafontant on a table?” Mme Marquet asks archly. “Says who?”
Me! I want to say, but something about her tone tells me this is one of those situations she’d rather not discuss in real terms.
“That’s an ugly rumor, started by jealous, silly girls,” Mme Marquet says with finality. “Silly girls who don’t belong with the good society of this ballroom. Go find our driver. It’s time for you to go home. Just look at you.”
“But, Mme Marquet . . .” This has all gone horribly wrong. I look down and see with horror there is dark blood seeping through the front of my dress. I must have cut my knee when I banged into the doorway. “Oh, God,” I choke out.
“And Penelope?” Mme Marquet goes on, clasping my forearm forcefully. “Don’t think I don’t know about your trouble back in the United States. Don’t think I don’t know how badly you are relying on our generosity. I know all about the lies you’ve told, the things you’ve neglected to tell us, to tell Mme Cuchon.”
I gape at her, panic taking over me. “You want me to pose as your daughter so that M. Marquet can look like a family man to French voters. What about the lies you tell? The things you’ve neglected to tell me?”
“Shut up! Just shut up you stupid, ignorant vache,” Mme Marquet says. “You slut. You tramp.” She’s drunk, and slurring her speech. Mme Marquet staggers as she pushes me out the front door, past the caterers and the servants and the butlers and the long line of valets and chauffeurs waiting for their passengers to come out. “I told you! It’s time for you to go home!”
“How can you be so cruel?” I ask, truly flabbergasted.
Our driver spots Mme Marquet and pulls up the car. “Go! Just go,” says Mme Marquet. “You think I’m cruel? You think I’m cruel? You don’t know anything about cruelty, you whore. Just go.”
I’m trying to go, but she won’t let go of the back of my dress. I fling her off me, and the strap she was holding breaks, ripping the back of the dress so it’s hanging off my back. The driver looks away as he opens the door for me. He’s the only witness, and he’d lose his job if he tried to stand up for me.
As we drive away, I see Mme Marquet fall to her knees on the gravel driveway, clutching a tuft of light blue fabric in her hand.
22. ALEX
The Right Girl for Him
Idon’t know how Olivia puts up with her parents staying at the Hilton. It’s so tacky and . . . American. It’s not her fault, but sometimes Olivia is hopelessly gauche.
“Well, where is Madame Caroline staying?” Zack counters as we move up the stairs of the Ternes metro station on Monday afternoon. We’re headed to the Lycée, but just for a few hours. Mme Cuchon wanted to have a last meeting with us before the holiday break, most likely to lecture us on staying out of trouble while we are out of her direct supervision.
Zack knows how excited I am for my mom to finally come visit. I can’t wait to show her off! And she’s been so distant since the credit card incident and bailing on fashion week, barely emailing or texting me at all. She must have been really pissed! I’m ready for her to forgive, forget, and reinstate my line of credit.
“My mom is staying at the de Crillon, like always,” I tell him breezily. “You’ll have to join us for dinner there one night.”
“You’re kidding,” Zack whistles. “At the Place de la Concorde? You guys don’t mess around, do you?”
“Nope,” I say, lighting a quick cigarette as we walk to the Lycée. My mom was definitely not messing around when she canceled my Amex, that’s for sure.
Miraculously, we have time not only for me to smoke before school but to check our mailboxes in the office as well. It will be the last time we can check them before the break.
“Empty as always,” Zack groans, then goes to find Olivia. I bite my lip, noticing how careful he is to avoid Jay and the guys sitting on the couch in the computer lab, waiting for the twins and a bunch of other home-obsessed girls to finish checking their email and Facebook accounts. I really screwed that up for him, I think with a sharp pang of remorse.
“Zack!” I gasp. “Look!” Zack, out of earshot, doesn’t respond. There’s a package in my mail slot. Having a package in your mailbox is the most wonderful thing any Programme Americaine student can hope for at the beginning of each school day. A student who gets a package is the center of attention throughout the whole of the day, everyone wanting to know what American goodies they have and whether they will be willing to share them. Katie from Ohio is always getting gingersnaps from her mom, which are gone by the end of our first class. George’s mom sent him the Bourne trilogy, immediately sending all the other kids to their email asking for all their favorite movies on DVD. Mary orders books in English from Amazon.fr, and can usually be seen furtively reading a British version of Life is Elsewhere or One Hundred Years of Solitude for the rest of the day after she gets her package.
Personally, I’ve yet to have a package, and I want
to make the most of it. I pull Jay up off the couch. “Jay!” I whoop. “Help me open the box I just got from my mom in New York!”
A bunch of kids surround us as Jay pulls out his Swiss Army knife and struggles to cut cleanly through the heavy layer of packing tape. They all must be dying to know what I would be getting from my mom. I mean, my mom is practically a celebrity. CAB works for Luxe! And I’m the only New Yorker on this program. My package is going to be good.
“I hope its chocolate from Jacques Torres,” Sara-Louise says excitedly. “My daddy got me some of that on his last trip to New York, and I could eat those chocolate-covered macadamia nuts with the powdered sugar for the rest of my life. . . .”
“Is it from Barneys?” another girl, Elena from Chicago, who watches too much Gossip Girl, asks breathlessly.
Jay has successfully opened the package. “Thanks!” I say breathlessly. I reach into the box to find . . . a stuffed animal. I grab it and show it to everyone.
“My mom knows I just love baby seals,” I gush, though until this moment I’ve never once professed to have any affinity for baby seals. “Look! There’s a card.”
This is it, I think. My mom’s put a check into the card, which will have a message on it that all is forgiven and understood, that my expenses in Paris are much more than in New York, and not only is she sending me this check so I’ll have some cash to last me till her visit, but the Amex has been reinstated as well.
I open the card, careful not to rip the check. French banks can be very finicky about sloppiness. I don’t want them to hassle me when I cash it.
But there is no check. The card is simple, my mom’s regular monogrammed stationery she’s had my whole life. CAB.
My dearest Alex,
You will be so pleased with me. I’ve found a way for you to pay off your astronomical debts. My dearest friend Margerite—you remember, from Lyon all those years ago?—has a friend from school who lives in the fifteenth like you. Madame Sanxay—1 555 234 23—call her right away. Give the seal to her lovelies!
Yours,
CAB
With blurry vision and barely able to comprehend what I’ve just read, I smile at everyone around me. “My mom’s not the gingersnap type,” tell them, and cradle my seal in my arms as I walk off to find Zack. When I find him, I don’t say anything. I just show him the note and burst into sobs.
Zack hustles me into the hall.
“Hey, hey,” Zack comforts me. “What’s the deal? I don’t get it. What is she talking about?”
“Look at what she wrote!” I point at Yours, CAB. “She doesn’t even call herself Mom! She doesn’t even write that she loves me, or misses me!”
Olivia joins us in the hall. “What’s going on? Alex, why are you crying?”
I wipe at my eyes. “No reason.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “But I have to tell you guys something.”
When Olivia tells us she’s going home with her parents the day after Christmas, she can’t hold back her own tears. “I never told you guys how hard it was for my family for me to be here. They need me at home. Vince needs me, too.”
“I need you!” I wail. “Please don’t go.”
“You’ll be okay,” Olivia sniffles. “You guys will take care of each other.”
Zack takes both of us into his arms, burying his face in my hair. I think he’s crying, too.
I call Mme Sanxay from the privacy of my bedroom at my homestay. Some morose-sounding child answers the phone.
“Je cherche Mme Sanxay,” I tell him in my kindest voice.
“Quoi?”
“Get your mother,” I command him in English. The kid drops the phone and shrieks for Mme Sanxay to get the phone. I shudder.
“Bonjour, Alex!” Mme Sanxay greets me. She starts explaining the after-school job to me in rapid French. I can’t understand a word she is saying.
“Sorry,” I interrupting, forgetting how the French despise bad manners. “How’s your English?”
Mme Sanxay pauses. “Your mother told me you speak French.”
“I do,” I say. “Just not right now. Long day. So what’s up?”
“Can you come by Thursday? I know it’s Christmas Eve, but I’d love to introduce you to the children before we fly off to Mallorca.”
“What children?”
“My children! The ones you’ll be taking care of,” she laughs, confused. “Didn’t your mom tell you?”
“No,” I say. Now I’m confused.
“Everyday from three to six,” she goes on. “You’ll meet us here after school. I’m just so eager to have a few hours to myself.”
I can’t believe it. I numbly hang up with Mme Sanxay, telling her I will see her tomorrow.
Never, ever, in my whole life, has my mom done anything so cruel. I dial her number on my cell phone, even though I know the call will cost a fortune from my Blackberry. Another thing for my mom to get mad about.
“MOM?!?” I shriek into her voicemail. “What is going on? You can’t do this to me! You can’t just get me a job without asking me! I don’t even like kids. How am I supposed to survive?”
The voicemail cuts me off. I stare at my cell phone in my hand.
A cold sense of injustice descends onto me.
I call her again. This time she picks up.
“Yes, Alex?” my mom answers.
“I hate you. I really do. You are a terrible parent,” I say quietly, and hang up.
A few hours later, I write my mom on my Blackberry.
Mom—don’t bother coming to France for Christmas this week. I was really excited to introduce you to my new boyfriend, George, but now I don’t want to subject him to the cruelty of having to be in the same room as you. I’ll have a better Christmas if you just stay in New York.
If she wants spitefulness, spitefulness is what she is going to get.
All I have left in this ruthless world is George. And I will have him. Make no mistake about that.
My mom, before she worked for Luxe, was a young fashion publicist working the Paris shows right out of college. Her best friend in Paris was a model named Margerite who now lives in Lyon. Margerite’s brother, until about three months ago, was married to Mme Sanxay and is still, of course, the father of the Sanxay children. I won’t be meeting M. Sanxay today, however, because he’s in the south of France with the woman he left Mme Sanxay for.
Say hi to my dad, I think. My dad has a house on the beach in St. Tropez. The Riviera must be where all the worthless cheating husbands congregate.
Mme Sanxay leads me into her living room, the carpet lush and elegant but the floor strewn heavily with gaudy plastic toys. Two shrieking children, the boy a little smaller than the girl, wrestle each other in front of a blaring television set. Off to the side is a playpen with a little baby in it, wailing helplessly. I cower in the doorway, not wanting to get any closer.
“Les enfants!” Mme Sanxay barks at them sharply. “Silence!”
All three children stop for a moment to register her presence, then go back to their loudmouthed misery. I shiver in horror.
Mme Sanxay picks up the baby. “Je te présente Charles,” she tells me, holding out the little squirming child for me to hold. I shake my head quickly. “No, merci,” I say, as politely as possible. He smells like Johnson & Johnson bath powder, a scent that has always made me want to barf. I gag.
“Let’s go into the kitchen, shall we?” Mme Sanxay leads me to a messy table covered in old junk mail and French newspapers. Like my own homestay and in fact, the apartments of my friends in New York, Mme Sanxay lives in a reasonably sized flat that probably costs a fortune with rent and maintenance. Right now, it’s looking particularly un-maintained.
“Pardon the mess. It’s just so hard to keep everything together. That’s why I was so thrilled when your mother called me last week to offer your services. My nanny lost her work permit and was sent back to Venezuela. Alexandra, you’re a godsend.” She smiles at me for a long time, too l
ong. I look away.
“I know you are busy, dear,” she continues, shifting the baby from one hip to another. Charles screws up his little face, mashing his lips together. To my horror, Mme Sanxay responds by unbuttoning the first few buttons of her shirt and unhooking one of the large cups of her maternity bra underneath, exposing a large, veiny breast that the baby hooks onto immediately, sucking vigorously.
“Charles is eating some solid food now, but he still loves his mother’s milk best,” Mme Sanxay tells me, looking down at the little beast fondly. I clench my jaw to keep from gagging.
“I wanted to put together some information for you, emergency phone numbers, maybe a list of what the kids like to do and eat, but I ran out of time. When you come back, I promise to be more organized! Alexandra, dear,” she goes on, reaching for the pocketbook on the chair next to me. The purse has some liquid dripping from it. She doesn’t even notice. “I’m so grateful to you. Here’s the money you’ll need for incidentals—diapers, metro fare—while you are caring for les enfants next month, if you want to put it in your checking account, and I’d also like to give you a deposit to show you how glad I am to have you working for me in the coming months. I couldn’t find anyone in Paris willing to donate the kind of time I need for the amount I’m able to afford to pay.” Mme Sanxay pulls a large wad of cash out and folds it into my palm. For the first time since I stepped into this filthy, miserable apartment, I smile.
“Go and play, cherie,” she says to me. “We’ll see you soon.”
I skip down the stairs to the street, unable to flee fast enough. She’ll see me never. That place was a den of pure wretchedness. How does the old song go?
Oh, right. Take the money and run.
I take the money (there is quite a lot of it, actually) and run right to Le Maurice, the little boutique hotel on the Rue de Rivoli I’ve always begged my mom to let us stay in when we visit Paris. My mom always says that Le Maurice is not for little girls and their mothers. It’s for lovers. Which is what brings me here tonight, on Christmas Eve.