by Lois Cahall
“It’s only young people celebrating New Year’s Eve,” says Mrs. Gagne. “Seem to be excited about somebody’s entrance.”
“Probably Americans,” says Jacques, still seated.
But something strange is going on down there. For one thing, the limo is a real rent-a-wreck – a late-90s model with one door badly repainted and a giant gouge in the other, dented fenders, a smashed headlight. And the man who has jumped out, the one everyone’s mobbing, didn’t come from the back seat. He’s the driver.
“Daddy!” screams Kitty. Sure enough, it’s Screamin J Pepper, who is making his way through the crowd to open the passenger door for his companion.
“Timing is everything!” says Jacques, tossing his napkin. “My soufflé!”
Mrs. Gagne moves to the entry, but the new arrivals have already made their way up the staircase.
“Sorry we’re late,” says Screamin’ J Pepper. We were at Nicholas and Carla’s. Once he gets talking about the unions…” Screamin’ J moves his hand to mimick the open and close of a blabbing mouth.
We do the round of greetings and our eyes fall upon Screamin’ J Pepper’s date, a gorgeous woman of a certain age, dripping in pedigree and pearls. Her blonde hair is swept up in a flawless chignon. “Hope you don’t mind I brought Janey,” he says.
“Oh, Princess Windisch-Baden,” says Mrs. Gagne. “So honored you could join us. Please…” Mrs. Gagne extends her hand to direct the two newcomers to the dinner table and then Jacques places a ceramic pot of coq au vin in the center. It joins the tray of grilled sea bass with white butter sauce and chervil that Jacques previously placed on a trivet there. I know. I’m keeping notes for my French food blog.
We return to our seatings, Janey sitting next to me in what would have been Bebe’s chair. I look across at Kitty and raise a glass to Screamin’ J without saying a word. He knows that I’m thinking how grateful I am that he bailed us out of the Barbizon jail. He raises his goblet in return and I tip my head and flash a sentimental grin, but my mind is someplace else. It must be said that if somebody asked who would play the role of Screamin’ J Pepper in the movie version of my life, it would have to be, hands down, that ageing rock star Bill Nighey, in the movie “Love Actually.”
My thoughts drift back to our Barbizon escapade, so frightening at the time, and now so in retrospect, so silly and absurd. And speaking of absurd, Kitty seems to have launched into one of her insanely hard-to-follow stories. And poor Screamin’ J is actually trying to follow it….
“…So as I was saying,” says Kitty, “this friend of mine, she was engaged to a guy in wheelchair. He was a refugee from Albania. They crossed the Mexican desert…”
“In the wheelchair?” asks Screamin’ J Pepper.
“Okay, maybe he wasn’t in a wheelchair,” says Kitty, and we all break into laughter. “Forget the wheelchair. I’m on my fourth bottle of wine. Anyway, he cut his foot on coral…”
“In the desert?” says Jacques. “Coral in a desert?”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t coral, but anyway, it’s a long story but she got pregnant,” says Kitty.
“By the guy in the wheelchair?” asks Screamin’ J Pepper.
“No, forget the wheelchair. Just think of the sex,” says Kitty. “The point is she realized he was a virgin. The guy didn’t know the difference between her clitoris and a light bulb!”
“He clearly wasn’t a Frenchman,” says Jacques.
Everyone laughs.
“Then one day I’m visiting them,” says Kitty. “And I walk in the guest bedroom looking for something and there’s the guy in the wheelchair banging the cleaning lady!”
“Maybe he thought she was the light switch,” I say.
“He must have been a Brit,” says Jacques.
“How did you know that?” asks Kitty.
“The French may be arrogant in bed, but we love sex and we understand it. The British are….bent,” says Jacques calmly sipping his wine.
We all laugh but Kitty isn’t hearing it.
“Clive isn’t like that,” she says. And I’m proud of her for defending him.
“What do you mean, ‘Clive isn’t like that,” says Jacques “Sure he is. Throw him on a train going through a blizzard in Siberia, and I’ll bet Clive would sleep with the young man in the next bunk.” More laughter as Jacques refills all our wine glasses.
I rise from my chair and grab a few empty dishes. “May I help clear the table?” I ask.
“No,” says Mrs. Gagne. “I have kitchen help from the restaurant downstairs. You sit. Relax. You Americans are always so rushed.”
“Even Louis XVI ate a relaxing meal before being guillotined,” say Jacques.
“That’s insane,” I say.
“Insane but true,” says Jacques. “Aperitifs, soups, fowl, roasts, cheeses, compotes, the best Champagne, a fine Bourdeaux…”
“The works,” says Screamin’ J Pepper.
“Even topped it off with a cappuccino,” says Princess Janey.
I excuse myself again for the powder room, persistent to drop off a few dirty plates along the way. I swing through the louver door and see my pumpkin pie sitting on the counter. I pop it in Jacques’s oven knowing it’s best served warm with the cool fresh crème whipped earlier. Sliding it on the metal rungs, I close the oven door and can’t figure out the French words on the dial, so I take my chances. I turn the knob to the left and then glance up at the clock. My heart stops: 11:15 p.m. in Paris. Exactly forty-five minutes until the stroke of twelve. Forty-five minutes until there’s nobody to kiss after screaming out “Happy New Year!”
I wonder what Ben is doing in America just now. My elbows slump against the sink edge and I gaze out at the moon. For him it’s six hours earlier, but would he call my cell when midnight strikes here? Will he call my cell when midnight strikes there? And, if he did, would I finally take the call?
I place some dishes in the sink still gazing out the window. Is Ben staring at the same full moon right now? Does he wish he were kissing me? Is he missing my lips the way I’m missing his mouth, missing his smell? I miss the smell of his breath and the way I’d practically bury my nose under his, halfway between his lips and what felt like heaven.
My gaze picks up a shadow that’s moving in the courtyard below. I’m sure that this time it’s not a wild boar. In fact, it appears to be – yes, it is. It’s a man…
Chapter Thirty-seven
Kitty storms through the louver doors startling me from where I stand at the window. With Jacques practically on her heels, she loses her balance, but the kitchen counter saves her. Jacques is giggling. The effects of that last bottle of Cote-Rotie have clearly kicked in. I drop the tail of the curtain through which I’m spying at the man in the courtyard below. I’ve just realized who he is and I’m bursting to tell her…
“Kitty,” I say. “How do I tell you that the British are coming?”
“The British are coming…” interjects Jacques, dumping a gallon of ice from an ice bucket into the sink. He then lifts the trash bag from its barrel. “Excuse me,” says Jacques, knotting it. “I have a date with the downstairs dumpster.” He takes the bag and heads for the front door.
I turn to Kitty. “Listen, Clive said ‘he’s pathetic. A right chancer’ I think those were his words.”
“Clive said that about himself?” says Kitty, moving to the louver door.
“Not about himself! About Helmut.”
“Clive’s right,” says Kitty, stopping in the doorway and then turning back to me, “Wait, how do you know all this?”
“I called him,” I say. “After we got out of jail. I thought it was best.”
“No, you didn’t,” says Kitty.
“He knows everything…”
“Everything?”
“Well, almost everything. He saw Helmut’s latest wall on Facebook. All that bragging about signing with a new gallery. Clive thinks Helmut used you and then dumped you.”
“He’s right about that, too.” Kitt
y stares into the sink at the melting ice cubes as they slide toward the drain.
“Kitty, what I’m trying to say is that Clive is downstairs. I saw him in the courtyard! He’ll be at the door any minute!”
“You mean the Brit is here ?” Kitty stands up straight. “Now ?”
“And he said, ‘Helmut’s crazy to up and leave a woman like you. He deserves a good boot up the arse!’”
“That’s nice,” says Kitty grabbing the counter edge for support.
“Yes, it is! I asked him why he’s being so nice after all that you’ve done.”
“What did he say?” asks Kitty.
“Clive said ‘She’s appalling, infuriating, shallow. But I love her.’”
“Love?” says Kitty with a gentle slur, “But that’s so last year.” She lowers her head into the sink and then looks up. “Isn’t it?”
“No. And it’s about to be very this year.”
Kitty considers this for a moment, then lowers herself back to the reassurance of the sink. “I think I’m going to die.”
“Will you get your face out of the sink?”
“Why should I?” she gurgles.
“You can’t drown in less than an inch of melted ice.” I lift her head and she stares at me, a look of disgust coming over her blurry eyes. “Don’t you see how lucky you are, you crazy art dealer?” I say. “Clive is here. Downstairs. He’s been waiting in the wings all along.”
“Here? Omigod!” Kitty begins peeling at the edge of the linoleum counter.
“Kitty,” I say, “You’ve had such a damn hard-on about Clive and your crazy porn notion. The irony is that you’re the one who’s spent the last six months servicing some penis artist!”
“Hey, what’s that smell?” says Kitty lifting her nose.
My nostrils flare. I’m inhaling cinnamon and nutmeg. And chemicals. “It’s my pie in the oven!” I leap to the stove and pull at the door handle. But it won’t open. It’s locked. “Oh my god! It’s a French stove. I couldn’t read the buttons!”
“You’ve got it on self-cleaning mode!”
And down in the courtyard, a clearly intoxicated Clive is fumbling unsuccessfully for the light switch to the staircase. His fingers crawl across the wall, but he’s unable to find it. Mounting the steps very cautiously in the dark, he hears a rustling sound. Somebody is fast approaching. Clive squints and sees a man coming down the staircase carrying a green garbage bag that blocks his face.
Jacques lowers the bag, but Clive still can’t make out who he is. Is this bloody Helmut? Clive pokes an unsteady finger under Jacques’s nostril. His breath heavy with whiskey, he mutters, “I may know fuck-all about art, but I’m English. So I’m not going to make a fuss…”
Clive launches himself at Jacques, shoving him against a wall.
Jacques cries out, misses the wall, and tumbles down the last few steps into the courtyard, the over-filled garbage bag cushioning his impact on the cobblestones. Clive dives toward Jacques but misses, instead slamming his head on the cobblestones.
“Fuck!”
No idea who his drunken attacker is, Jacques stumbles to his feet, kicks the garbage bag out of his way and scurries through the back door of his restaurant, searching desperately for a weapon. He seizes the first large object he can find – a foot-long wooden pepper grinder. He swings it, just missing Clive, who is rising from the cobblestones, blood dripping from his eyelid to his nose.
“Well, we’ll just see about that!” says Clive lunging and missing Jacques again. Jacques drunkenly calculates Clive’s next move, holding the pepper grinder over his head and ready to swing again. Clive circles toward the backlit kitchen door and grabs another pepper grinder, even larger than Jacques. Like twin Musketeers, they circle each other, swinging and missing, swinging and missing, looking like complete fools.
“This is your big chance to get your man back,” I say to Kitty, holding her elbows firmly. “He’s come all this way to get you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Kitty, who always seems like she was born without tear ducts, begins to cry. But it’s me who’s now gushing like an opened fire hydrant. “Women want to be heard. Clive hears you loud and clear!” I say, wiping my eyes and sniffling. “So let’s practice how you’re going to behave and what you’re going to say, because here’s the deal… the past is past. This is your big moment.” I’m not sure what I just said made sense. I am drunk, after all, but Kitty’s nodding between whimpers, so somebody is buying it.
I suddenly find myself wondering what Emma Thompson would do? You know the actress… She’s been in so many of these situations in romance movies and usually with Brits.
“History doesn’t have to repeat itself unless you let it,” I say, very Emma Thompson in a petticoat and bonnet, and Kitty nods. Listen to me, doling out drunken advice that I ought to be taking for myself. If only Ben would come after me… “Now Kitty, you’re going to march into that room and let Clive in. Whenever he gets here. Lot of stairs…. And you’re not going to be a bitch. You’re not going to interpret or interrupt anything he says. Basically, you are not going to be Kitty for at least, five - well, no, let’s say ten minutes. Do you think you can do that?”
Kitty shrugs. “Yes,” she says. “I think I can do that.”
“Is this the booze talking?” I ask.
“Oh, stop,” says Kitty wiping her eyes. “I’ve learned a lot. And besides, this is no time for jokes.”
“Good. Now are you ready? Let’s practice this.”
“I said I don’t need to practice.” Kitty waves me away. “I’m going to be nice. I am capable of being nice. Even to the Brit.”
“Kitty…”
“Fine,” she says, and then correcting herself. “I mean I’m capable of being nice to Clive. My husband.”
“Good girl.”
Suddenly we become aware of slamming and muffled yells coming from the courtyard below. At the window we can’t see who they are but we can see their weaponry because the wildly-swinging pepper grinders reflect in the lamppost light.
As amazed as we are, we are even more amazed when we see, seconds later, the silhouette of a third Musketeer jumping from the bottom two steps, running to the restaurant’s kitchen door and emerging with yet another pepper grinder. Though this one is only six inches tall. Even the dog, General Patton, is completely out of control, jumping, nipping and barking ferociously at the grinder squad.
Kitty peers into the darkness attempting to recognize the scoundrels. She can’t. So she does what any drunken, slightly insane, damsel-in-distress would do. She throws open the window sash and screams into the blackened night: “Police! Police!”
I run to the front door and flick on the upstairs lights to illuminate the courtyard below. Like cat burglars caught in a spot light, the three men freeze, their grinders raised about their heads. They stare up to Kitty and me.
“Clive?” Kitty screams out the window. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Great, Kitty,” I say, “Just like we rehearsed.”
Clive and Jacques lower their pepper grinders. “I was going to kill the bastard,” says Clive.
“Kill who?” asks Kitty.
“Helmut!”
“That’s not Helmut, that’s Jacques!”
“Another lover?”
“Of course not! He’s a goddamn famous chef, you useless dumb-ass half-wit Brit!”
“Oh I just love it when you’re saucy! ” says Clive, beaming up at Kitty as if she were Rapunzel. As if he’d take her, throw her over the banister and have his way with her from behind right now, if only he could reach her. English men might not have great teeth but you have to admit, they’re blessed with huge dicks. According to Kitty.
“Are you out of your mind?” screams Kitty.
“Kitty,” says Clive gathering his composure. “I know I’m English and supposed to be well-mannered, but get your fucking arse down here now. Please.”
See
ing an opening, Jacques now decides to slam Clive over the head with the pepper grinder, knocking him to the ground. “That’s for ruining my soufflé!” says Jacques.
Clive looks as though he sees birds spinning round his brain. “Oh, blimey…” But he extends a shaky hand to Jacques. “Guess I had that coming. Sorry, mate. I had no idea…”
And then the third man steps from the shadows. It’s Screamin’ J Pepper.
‘Daddy!” yells Kitty.
“Father?” says Clive.
“Clive?” says Screamin J Pepper.
“Clive?” says Jacques. “Clive!”
Jacques brushes pepper off his pants and so does Screamin’ J Pepper brush pepper off his pickled pepper.
Clive, Jacques and Screamin’ J are babbling apologies when a breathless Kitty appears from the staircase and runs to Clive.
“Kitty…” says Clive, “I tried ringing but you don’t answer.”
“I was being aloof.”
“Aloof? Well I take you very seriously,” says Clive. “For fuck sake. I just had my teeth cleaned for you.”
“So?”
“At a dentist!”
“When a British man goes to a dentist…now that’s love,” says Screamin’ J Pepper.
“I took the first bloody flight I could. I want to sort this all out,” says Clive, sounding sincerely defeated. As well he might. Kitty was American, and he was British. As a country, they’d already lost us once. He didn’t want to lose America twice.
“I do love your honesty,” says Kitty.
“Well, I try to be honest, honestly, and apparently fuck everything up in the attempt…”
“No you don’t,” says Kitty. “I’m the fuckup. Now shut up and kiss me, you fool!” says Kitty, grabbing Clive by the collar, and pulling him in. And I thought I was playing Emma Thompson in this scene….
Watching them kiss, my emotions soar and then dissipate. Remember when the grammar school principal announces a snow day, then changes his mind, but you already had the sled out? It feels like that.
Mrs. Gagne and Princess Janey arrive in the courtyard. Mrs. Gagne makes her way to the restaurant to get a cold cloth and some ice for Clive’s forehead.