We made real tomato soup at school. First we roasted the tomatoes, then put them through a Foley mill, cooked a lot of vegetables for stock, sautéed shallots and garlic, and then sprinkled in dill, which we’d grown in pots. If I’d been sick, I think I’d rather have stayed hungry than go through all that.
Anyway, speaking of hungry, I was. Usually at the end of class we got to eat whatever we’d made that day, but after all the horrible things I’d done to my poor bird, all I wanted to do was give it a decent burial. My stomach started growling on my way home.
Except for my morning croissant and coffee, consumed standing up at the zinc bar near the school, I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I hadn’t sat down all day either. So, throwing my dirty chef’s coat over my shoulder, I took a stroll down the treelined avenues of the sixth arrondisement, where the school and some of the more comfortable Parisians could be found, to look for a café where I could buy myself a special dinner.
Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Mary Cassatt, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson had all walked these elegantly cobbled streets before me. They had looked up at the tall windows showing glimpses of gilt-paneled rooms and chic salons. They, too, had followed their rumbling stomachs to the finest food the world had to offer, available on every street corner.
Unfortunately, my meandering route took me past no restaurants that weren’t American burger joints. I was about to give up and order a Blimpie’s special when I spotted a street sign reading Rue des mes Perdues.
It rang a bell. Fabienne had said her mother lived near the school, and that she herself would be in Paris before long. She’d even given me her address on a card I’d stashed somewhere in the backpack I used instead of a purse.
On impulse, I scrambled through my things until I found it. There it was: 24 Rue des mes Perdues. I checked the house numbers around me. It wouldn’t be far, I realized, five or six blocks.
It occurred to me that I really wanted to see Fabienne. I’d been in Paris for weeks, but I hadn’t made any friends at all. I certainly couldn’t count Margot the snooty middle-aged Canadian. The other students in my cooking class seemed all right—some of them were actually my age—but, being French speakers, they understandably preferred to be around people they could talk to. My grasp of the language was still limited to statements like, “We get bird chop head?”
I hadn’t spoken a word of English, except in my dreams, when someone promised to love me for a year and a day . . .
Witches called it handfasting. That was when two people promised to stay together faithfully for a year and a day. It wasn’t marriage, but it was more than dating. Handfasting meant you loved someone, and wanted to look after them and would never hurt them.
Peter and I were handfasted, although I didn’t know if that meant much to him anymore.
I walked more quickly, trying not to remember. The sun was beginning to set, a wash of pink and blue over the stately grays of the city.
Then I saw the house, if you could call it that. Number twenty-four was a magnificent three-story mansion shaped like a gigantic horseshoe behind a tall iron gate. There was a courtyard in front with green grass and a lot of pretty flowers, entrances at both ends of the horseshoe—one for people and one for cars—and a grand entrance in the middle, above a long flight of marble stairs and between imposing columns.
“Wow,” I said out loud as I double-checked the address. Fabienne hadn’t told me that her family abode was a palace the size of most big-city museums. Even the gate intimidated me, with its wrought-iron fleur-de-lis design nestled between its forbidding bars. There was a button of some kind tucked near the upper left hinge. I pressed it, not really expecting anything to happen, but after a few seconds a buzzer sounded and the gate clicked open.
I walked inside, marveling at the gorgeousness of the tall windows and decorative stonework. Most of the buildings in Paris, I’d read, were either seventeenth or eighteenth century. But this place didn’t look like anything I’d seen in the guidebooks I’d amassed for my journey here. There was something timeless and ancient about the place, as if it held the secrets of the whole city.
As I walked toward the main door, I occasionally saw a face gazing down at me from behind the draperies in one or another of the windows on the upper floor, and felt my heart beating faster as I approached two enormous stone lions on either side of the broad stairs leading to the colonnaded entrance.
Sweaty and out of breath, I finally made it to the top, looking up at a huge brass knocker in the shape of a stylized wolf’s head. I lifted it and let it fall with a thud. No one answered. I tried again. The third time, the heavy door swung open.
I’d been hoping Fabienne herself would answer the door, so I wouldn’t have to deal with parents or housekeepers, but that was not to be. The person who stood in front of me was a guy, a tall, handsome guy with honey-blond hair and gray eyes and a mouth that dropped open in surprise when he recognized me.
“Peter?” I croaked.
CHAPTER
•
SIX
I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t eaten enough, or because I just wanted to die then and there, but before I could make my escape, my legs gave out from beneath me and I felt myself spiraling toward the marble landing.
No! I kept shouting to myself as Peter swooped me into his arms. I didn’t want him to rescue me! Not after what he’d said to me at Pizza World! I didn’t want my ex-boyfriend who no longer cared about me to be smelling the odor of sautéed pork fat in my hair, to see dried bird blood on my clothes.
“Please,” I grunted as he set me down on an uncomfortable chair upholstered in white damask. “I’ll be all right.”
“Just take it easy,” he said, unbuttoning my collar. I pushed his hand away. Then I blacked out.
Suddenly there seemed to be a whole lot of people in the room, all gathered around me. Most of them were women. They were of vastly different ages, but all of them were dressed beautifully, their hair saucy, their makeup flawless as they all talked at once in rapid-fire French. I caught a few words—“homeless” seemed to have been repeated more than once—but after a few seconds, I gave up on trying to follow anything they were saying. I just wanted to get out of there.
“Zut-zut-zut!” an elegant elderly woman said, cutting through the throng with a wave of her perfectly manicured hand. To my surprise, she knelt down, offering me tea in a delicate porcelain cup and saucer.
She smiled at me. Her teeth were perfect, but it was her eyes, crinkling kindly at the corners, that were smiling. For the first time since my arrival, I felt that I could breathe.
“Marie-Therèse,” she said, indicating herself. She pronounced it Ter-EZZ. “Drink this.” She said it in French, but slowly enough so that I could understand her.
The tea she gave me was hot and sweet, and honestly did make me feel better. I looked around, first at my legs that were sprawled on the floor. My dirty chef’s jacket was bunched up in a ball over my stomach. I tried to arrange myself more attractively, but there’s only so much dignity you can muster after collapsing in the middle of a house full of beautiful European strangers. Peter was wearing a black band-collar silk shirt and slim jeans over a pair of expensive-looking loafers. He didn’t look even slightly American.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Me?” I shrieked. “You were supposed to be in New York. Or something . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t pass out again. Peter was the reason I’d left Whitfield in the first place. Now here he was, dressed in black silk and surrounded by beautiful women.
“Katy—”
“I’ll let myself out,” I said, staggering to my feet.
He caught my arm. “Why are you acting like this?”
Suddenly I was blinded by tears that welled up, unbidden and embarrassing. “Forget it,” I said. I projected myself toward the front door. “Merci,” I said to the woman who’d offered me a cup of tea. Then I tripped
over the threshold and hurled myself down the marble steps.
“Don’t go,” Peter called after me. With his long legs, he caught up with me before I reached the street. “How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I didn’t come to see you,” I said, feeling the corners of my mouth trembling. “And you didn’t come to see me. So we’re even.”
“I just got here myself. I was going to look for you, I swear.”
“Oh, go away.” I ran down the street, my vision blurry with tears. I would have collided with a lamppost, but Peter caught my arm. “Please, Katy,” he said. “Just talk to me.” Then he wrapped his arms around me.
I covered my face with my hands, willing myself not to feel anything. But I did. I felt as if I was where I’d always belonged.
“You didn’t answer your cell phone,” he said.
“It got stolen.”
“You called your Aunt Agnes. She told me.”
“That was from the post office. I didn’t want them to know I’d been robbed.”
“Did you get my e-mails?”
I shook my head. “My laptop got stolen too,” I said into his chest. “I send them e-mails from an Internet café so they won’t know.”
He stroked my hair. “I couldn’t believe you left without saying good-bye.”
I looked up at him. “You said I acted like a mom,” I whispered.
“What? That was what you were so mad about?”
I pulled away from him. “I need to get home,” I said.
“I’ll go with you.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Seventeen Rue Cujas, right? Agnes gave it to me.”
I kept walking, although I didn’t really know where I was, and in the dusky light, I couldn’t read the street signs.
“You could have written to me,” Peter said.
I had. I’d written to him every day. I just hadn’t sent the letters. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in hearing from me.”
“That’s insane,” he said.
That wasn’t worth answering. We walked on in silence for a while. I saw a couple of things I recognized, like the Pompidou Center and the Rue des Rosiers, where all the Jewish bakeries are.
“Are you still mad at me?” he asked softly. “For the mom thing?”
I shrugged.
“I was hoping that maybe you’d be glad to see me. At least a little.”
At that point, I didn’t know what I was thinking anymore. Of course I was glad to see him. I’d been hungry and lonely and tired and disappointed since I’d arrived, and seeing Peter was like going to heaven.
It just hadn’t happened the way I’d wanted.
“I wish we hadn’t fought,” he said.
“Me too,” I squeaked. Somehow, what had been so important to me back then suddenly seemed pointless. “Okay,” I said, pulling myself together. “So what are you doing here?” I ventured. “In Fabienne’s house?”
“Fabienne’s?”
“The French girl from school,” I said for what must have been the tenth time.
“I know who she is. That’s her house?”
“It’s the address she gave me.”
“I really don’t know who lives there,” Peter said. “A bunch of people, from what I can see. Jeremiah stays there when he’s in Paris.”
“And who else? Are all those people related to him or something?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Those are his friends, I guess. His driver picked us up at the airport and dropped me off about an hour ago. Nobody in the place even seemed to know I was coming. A maid took me to my room.” He grinned and shook his head. “It was all like a movie.”
We were back in my neighborhood. “This is where I live,” I said.
Peter looked up at the dingy, narrow building that leaned toward the street like a nosy old woman. “Here?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe anyone would actually set foot inside.
I nodded. The place looked even worse than I’d remembered. “Want to come in?”
He seemed dubious about entering, but finally stepped into the dark entryway with me.
“Run,” I said, turning on the minutière and heading full speed up the stairs. Peter sprinted behind me, nearly colliding with one of the Norwegians coming out of the (ugh) communal toilet (the shower was separate, and two euros extra) and eliciting an appreciative murmur from Hernan the transvestite, who had come out to spy so quickly that he forgot his wig.
“Hey,” Peter called when the lights went out. There was never enough time to make it up to my door.
“Follow my voice,” I said.
Inside, the place smelled like three hundred years of dirty feet. Plus it was July and sickeningly hot, with no hope of anything resembling air conditioning. I turned on my lamp with its twenty-watt bulb to show off my two decorations, a wall calendar from the meat market displaying a color photograph of a raw rack of lamb, and a wallet-size junior class picture of Peter, put up with a thumbtack. Quickly I took his picture off the wall.
Peter stood in the doorway for a time. I suppose he was trying to get used to the ugliness of the place. “That a friend of yours?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Hernan. “The bald guy in the dress?”
I ignored him, and turned on the hotplate. It sparked. The smell of electricity filled the room. “Tea?” I asked.
“No, thanks.” He looked around incredulously. “What are you doing here?” He sounded genuinely astonished.
“I live here,” I answered truculently.
“Good God.”
“That bad?”
“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, and walked outside. In a few minutes he was back. “I’d like you to move into the place where I’m staying,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“I asked Jeremiah. We can go back to the house now. I’ll help you pack.”
“Wait a minute,” I objected. “You can’t just order me out of my home like some kind of policeman.”
“For crying out loud, Katy.”
“Not everybody has a rich uncle!”
“But I do,” Peter said. “And he says it’s okay if you move in.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to,” I shrilled. “Why would I want to move in with you, anyway?”
He sighed. “It wouldn’t be with me,” he said. “There are more than a dozen bedrooms at the house. People move in and out all the time. Jeremiah says it’s like a hotel. In fact, I think it’s called a hotel.”
“That’s a French thing,” I said. “A lot of big old houses are called hotels. It doesn’t mean they rent rooms or—”
“No, not a hotel. An abbey, that was it. L’Abbaye des mes Perdues.” Peter smiled. “Did I totally fracture that?”
“Totally,” I said. “Not that I could do much better.”
“What does it mean?”
I picked apart the words. “The Abbey of Lost Souls, I think. Strange name for a house. Or the street it’s on, for that matter.”
“Jeremiah said that some of these places are hundreds of years old. Who knows who named it, or why?” He touched my hair.
“Don’t butter me up,” I said, pushing his hand away.
He spread his hands by his sides. “Okay, Katy. Be as stubborn as you want. But you’ve got to admit, Jeremiah’s house—or Fabienne’s, or whoever owns that place—is going to be a lot less dangerous and more comfortable than this dump.”
I was about to object, but really, I couldn’t. It was a dump. I’d called it that many times myself. He looked out the window. “Don’t do it for me,” he said. “Do it for your Gram. She’d want you to be safe.”
Of course she would. And Peter was right. I just hated to admit it. “I’ll be okay,” I whispered, wondering how true that was. “I’ll stay here.”
He slid down to the floor. “Then I will too,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
He nestled his head on my lap. “Well, if you won’t come with me, I’ve got no choice but to stay here in
Hotel Cucaracha with you.”
“Why?” I asked defensively.
“Because I need to know you’re not being murdered in an alley someplace.” He was struggling to keep his eyes open. “And because I love you,” he added softly.
“You . . . you love me?”
“Of course I do,” he said, frowning and making smacking sounds with his lips. “I always love you. No matter how cranky you get.”
Within a few minutes he was asleep. I guess he’d had a busy day too. When he started to snore, I took the sheet off my bed and draped it over him. Then, after thinking about it for a second or two, I crawled under it with him.
He shifted toward me. Then, with a soft sleep-noise that sounded like a kitten’s meow, he put his arm around me.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll move in. For a while. I mean, I can think of worse things than living in a mansion with the person I love most in the world, even if we do argue a lot.”
He twitched and snorted a little in response.
I lay my head on his shoulder. It was a perfect fit.
CHAPTER
•
SEVEN
So here I was, hobnobbing with the Haughty Queens of Evil.
Oh, did I mention that my half-dozen new roommates were obnoxious, rude, arrogant, and horrible? Tzchtzchtzch. That is the sound of my teeth grinding at the mere thought of my fellow residents at the Abbey of Lost Souls.
To begin with, Fabienne wasn’t even there. She was in Italy somewhere buying shoes. Her mother, Sophie, was, though.
Let me tell you about Sophie. First, picture the most beautiful face you can think of, and then multiply that beauty by ten. Or twenty. With thick, wavy, blond hair pulled into a casual chignon and a Barbie-doll figure. Blinding white teeth. Four-inch heels, at home. Couturier clothes. And the disposition of a Tasmanian devil.
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