by Mary McHugh
“You may all leave now,” the captain said. “Obviously, there will not be a performance here tonight. Or probably for the rest of the week.”
“Does that mean we’re free to go back to the United States?” Tina asked.
“If you wish,” the captain said. Then she looked at Pat. “But perhaps you would like to explore Paris a little more before you go. There are so many things going on in the summertime. I would be glad to tell you about some of them.”
“Maybe,” Tina said. “Our apartment is all paid for. We’ll think about it.”
Captain Chantal took Pat aside, and I heard her say in a low voice, “Perhaps we could meet for tea later, chérie?”
“I’d like that,” Pat said. “Where?”
“See you at the George Cinq at five o’clock?”
“I’ll be there,” Pat said.
The captain left the boat.
“Wow! The George Cinq!” Gini said. “Very posh. Things must be progressing with you and the captain, Pat.”
“Oh, Gini, cool it,” Pat said. “She’s just fascinating to talk to, and I’ve never been to the George Cinq.”
“It’s the best,” Gini said. “Très expensive and worth every penny. You’re supposed to call it the Four Seasons George Cinq, but nobody does. It will always be just the George Cinq.”
“Have you talked to Denise since you’ve been here?” Mary Louise, our worrier, asked Pat.
Pat smiled at her friend. “Don’t worry, hon,” she said. “I talk to her every day. I’ve told her all about the captain, and she’s fine with it. She trusts me. She just wishes she were here too.”
“I’m glad,” Mary Louise said. “I really like Denise.” She looked at the time on her phone. “Since we don’t have to rush back to the apartment to dress, we’ve got time to see more of Paris. Who wants to come to the Pompidou museum with me?”
“I’ll come,” Tina said. “I’ve never been there, and I hear it’s sort of odd and fascinating.”
“It is,” Mary Louise said. “I can’t wait to see the Lichtensteins.”
“I’ll join you,” Gini said. “I don’t care about the Lichtensteins—they just look like cartoons to me—but there’s a great photography section there with both stills and videos. I missed the Cartier-Bresson exhibit last month, and I want to see who’s there now.”
“Wait for me,” Pat said. “I’ve never been there either. Jan, how about you? Are you a Lichtenstein fan?”
“Not really,” I said. “I think I’ll check out the Louvre. There are a couple of Vermeers there I want to see. He’s more my style.”
“Want company?” Ken asked, putting his arm around me.
“Sure,” I said, “I always want your company.”
We started down the ramp to leave the boat when Alan pulled me away from the others.
“Have dinner with me at the club tonight, will you, Janice?” he said. “I may not have another opportunity to be with you. I’d like one more dance, one more chance to hold you in my arms. Please say you’ll come.”
“Oh, Alan, I told Ken I’d go to the Lapin Agile with him.”
“You can do that another night,” Alan said. “This is my last chance to be with you.”
“Go ahead, Jan,” Ken, who had overheard, said. “We’ll go to Lapin Agile tomorrow night. It will still be there. And I’ve got you all to myself this afternoon.”
Such a sweet man. I kissed him on the cheek. “If you’re sure you don’t mind,” I said.
“Of course not,” Ken said.
A last evening with Alan couldn’t hurt, could it? Why not?
“I’d love to, Alan,” I said. “Pick me up at the apartment at seven.”
He kissed my hand. “I’ll be there,” he said.
“Let’s go, Ken,” I said. “I have a couple of hours before I have to be back at the apartment. Let’s take the Metro.”
A short train ride later, we were in the line waiting to get into the glass pyramid that led to the Louvre. It was fairly short. Almost everybody around us spoke English. American English.
“I’ll never forget the first time I came here,” Ken said. “A sculptor friend of mine said he would show me the Louvre in half an hour. Half an hour! It’s huge. Massive. I asked him how he could do that. ‘Watch me,’ he said. First he took me to the wide staircase going up to the first floor. You know the one that Audrey Hepburn posed on for Fred Astaire in Funny Face wearing all those beautiful clothes?”
“I loved that movie,” I said. “In fact, I loved anything Audrey Hepburn ever did.”
“Me too,” Ken said. “Well, anyway, this guy took me to this staircase and pointed to the Winged Victory at the top. We ran up and walked around it—fast. It is incredible. It’s a marble statue of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, supposedly on the prow of a ship greeting a naval fleet just after they won. She has no head or arms, but nobody cares. She represents winning.”
“It’s the first thing you see when you come into the museum,” I said. “Standing there at the head of that impressive stairway, it’s awesome.”
“Then my sculptor friend said, ‘Come on,’ and we ran back down the stairs and through a corridor to a small room with the marble statue the Venus de Milo in it,” Ken continued. “He told me she was the Greek goddess of love and beauty and her name is really Aphrodite. She has no arms either, but her body and face are gorgeous. He pointed out all the things I should appreciate about it. His own sculpture was wood and as far from a classic sculpture as you could get. They were large shapes. I didn’t know what any of them were, but I liked to look at them.
“Anyway, after the Venus de Milo,” Ken said, “he pulled me up the stairs again and into a large room with walls crowded with paintings. There were people everywhere, but mostly in front of one painting set off from the others in a bulletproof, climate-controlled booth. It was da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, of course, smiling that smile. It used to hang on the wall next to all the others, but in 2005, he told me, they put it in a protected place, where people can see it but can’t touch it. Anyway, I can say I’ve seen the Mona Lisa. I never did understand why it’s valued more highly than all the other paintings in the world, but what do I know? My friend said, ‘Now you’ve done the Louvre,’ and we left to get a drink somewhere.”
I laughed. I thought that was so typical of Ken’s attitude toward life. Just do the essentials. Play music, eat, live somewhere beautiful, love whoever is nearby, do the Louvre in half an hour.
“Let’s go find my Vermeers,” I said.
“They’re upstairs,” he said.
We headed right for the seventeenth-century Dutch painters on the second floor. First we found Vermeer’s The Astronomer, a painting of a man reaching up to examine a globe showing the constellations. The light from the window illuminates the globe so that it is the centerpiece of the painting. The astronomer (possibly posed by the scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the identifying plaque said) is more in the shadows, as are the charts and pictures on the wall to his right. He wears a blue robe, and his hair is shoulder-length. I like this picture, but my favorite is The Lacemaker, which was displayed in another corner of the room. I dragged Ken over to see it.
There’s something about the women that Vermeer painted that I identify with completely. I could imagine being that woman concentrating intently on the bobbins and pins with which she is making lace. Not that I can sew, you understand. It’s her total involvement with what she’s doing that gets me. She wears a yellow dress with a lace collar; her hair is parted in the middle, and a long curl coming out of her cap is silhouetted against the plain beige wall behind her. In front of her is a dark blue sewing cushion holding red and white threads. Her eyes are looking down at her hands making the lace, so you don’t know what color they are. She is totally engrossed in her work. I’m there in that room with her in the seventeenth century.
Ken watched me dive into the painting, so absorbed in it that he probably felt invisible.
“You really
like Vermeer, don’t you?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“There’s nobody else like him,” I said. “His paintings are smaller than Hals and Rembrandt’s, for one thing, so I can take them in better, I think. And his subjects are always doing something. They’re not just posing for a picture. They look as if they’ve been caught at work or talking to someone. As if they’ve been photographed almost.”
“Didn’t I read somewhere that he used a camera obscura—whatever that is—when he painted?” Ken asked.
“I try not to think about that,” I said, “but I did read that he projected an image of what he was painting onto a canvas with a camera obscura and painted over that to achieve the realistic look of his subjects. I’d rather believe that he was incredibly good at what he did and didn’t need any kind of device to do it. I’m an expert at suppressing facts that don’t fit my idea of what I want them to be.”
“What exactly is a camera obscura?” Ken asked.
“I think—and I don’t really understand it,” I said, “but I think it’s a sort of box that reflects an image onto a piece of paper or a painter’s canvas. It was used before the modern camera was invented. It’s like a camera without film. Get it?”
“Not really,” Ken said. “I do know what you mean about suppressing facts that you don’t want to face, though. When I want to blot something out, I play music. Works every time.”
“My favorite way to escape is acting,” I said. “For a couple of hours while I’m on stage I’m somebody else. My problems are the problems of my character, and they’re all solved by the end of the play. All I have to worry about is making that character come alive, making the audience believe I’m her and not Janice Rogers.”
“You must be really good at it,” Ken said. “I’d love to see you in a play.”
“I keep telling you, come to New York,” I said.
“I might do that,” he said.
I looked at my iPhone to see what time it was. “Oh, Ken, I’ve got to get back,” I said. “Thanks for coming to the Louvre with me.”
“I’d spend all day long with you if I could,” Ken said. “You’re not like other women. You have a sort of luminous quality that shines out wherever you are.”
“That’s the best thing you could say to me,” I said. “Sure you don’t want to come back to New York to live?”
“Not even to see you every day,” he said. “New York is a great city. But Paris is even better. Can’t you see why I love this city?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “It’s seductive. The longer you stay here, the more you want to stay here. It’s an addiction.”
“You got it,” he said.
“The only trouble with it is that if you live here as an ex-pat, you’re not really part of it. You’re always an observer. You don’t get caught up in the politics of the city or the country.”
“Bingo,” he said. “That’s exactly what I love about it. I don’t have to get involved.”
I love to get involved in everything that interests me, right up to my eyeballs, but I didn’t tell him that.
“Walk me out to the Metro, will you, Ken?”
We wound our way out of the second floor and went down the stairs to the exit from the museum.
He put me on the Metro going back to my apartment. “See you tomorrow?” he said.
“We’ll see,” I said. “I’m not sure how long we are going to be in Paris. Thanks for today, Ken.”
Back at the apartment, I was the first one to get there. I had forty minutes to dress before Alan came for me. Since this might be my last night in this city, I wanted to look smashing. I kept pushing aside the question that wouldn’t go away. Was I going to that room upstairs with him after dinner? He was so good-looking. When he held me in his arms when we were dancing, I wanted more. Why was this so hard for me? Never mind, Scarlet, I thought. I’ll think about that tomorrow.
I showered, washed my hair, and was considering which dress to wear when Pat came in.
“Hey, Pat,” I said. “How was your tea at the George Cinq?”
“Unbelievable, Jan,” she said. She had a dreamy look on her face, which is not like Pat at all.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
She sat down on the bed while I slid into my black-and-white, slinky dress, which seemed just right for this rendezvous with the unknown.
“You look incredible in that dress, Jan,” she said.
“Tell me about you and Geneviève and the George Cinq,” I said, brushing my hair so that it fell smoothly around both sides of my face. “What happened?”
“Jan, she’s one of the most interesting woman I’ve ever met,” Pat said. “She studied criminal law at Oxford, came back here and worked in the justice department, was appointed police captain of Paris, and has met everyone you’d ever want to meet—presidents, prime ministers, movie stars, writers, everyone.”
“Is she more interesting than Denise?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. We’re all protective of Denise because she’s our agent and a really neat lady.
“She’s interesting in a different way,” Pat said. “The trouble is, I’m fascinated by Geneviève’s face. It’s hard to look into those big blue eyes and not fall in love with her.”
“And?” I asked.
“There’s another woman in her life too,” Pat said. “We’re both committed to someone else. But Jan, she kissed me in the taxi coming back here, and it wasn’t a casual kiss. It was asking me for more. I don’t know what to do.”
“Wow. Serious, huh?” I said, surprised at Pat’s emotion.
“I’m not sure,” she said. She stood up. “I’m thinking about it, though.”
“I know you’ll make the right decision,” I said.
“Right for whom?” She smiled. “I’m meeting her later for supper and whatever.”
“Hang in there, Pat. You’re one of the smartest women I know.”
“I don’t think smart has much to do with it,” she said. “I’ll let you finish dressing.”
She went into the other bedroom, and I put on makeup and a pair of long, dangling diamond earrings that my last husband, the rich one, had given me for Christmas one year. I didn’t marry him for his money, but it didn’t hurt. I’d still be with him if he hadn’t tried to stop me from acting. Ironically, he fell in love with me when he saw me in a play, but after we were married, he wanted me to stay home and wait on him, give elaborate dinner parties, be available to travel with him at a moment’s notice. That didn’t work when I was in the middle of a long-run play, so we parted amicably, with a sense of relief on both our parts, I think. I see his photo in the Times Style section, accompanied by his smiling, perfectly coiffed fourth wife, surrounded by other smiling, perfectly coiffed wives and paunchy rich husbands.
Shoes. Which shoes should I wear? I had one pair of white stiletto heels, which I could hardly walk in but which made my legs look fantastic. I figured I wouldn’t be doing much walking, so I put them on. They were perfect with the dress.
I hobbled into Pat’s bedroom. “What do you think, Pat? Are these shoes too much?”
“They’re definitely too much,” she said, “but they look terrific. If you can walk in them, wear them.”
Alan arrived to pick me up at seven before the other three hoofers got back from the museum. When I opened the door, he looked at me and then took me in his arms and kissed me. “You are so beautiful I want to hold you every minute I’m with you,” he said.
“You’ll spoil me, Alan,” I said, taking his hand and pulling him to the elevator.
The limo was waiting outside the apartment.
François took us to the club and opened the door for me.
“Bon appetit, mademoiselle,” he said.
“Merci, François,” I said.
Janice’s Fashion Tip: Don’t forget your feet! Get a pedicure before you wear those sandals.
Chapter 12
Sleepy-Time Gal
The door of the club opened, and Ahmet bow
ed when he saw us. “Bonjour, Ahmet,” I said to him and then froze. Now I remembered where I had seen that gold earring that Captain Chantal showed us on the bateau. The earring the police had found in Madame Fouchet’s apartment the day she was killed. I had seen it in Ahmet’s ear when Alan and I went there the night before. His earlobe now was bare, unear-ringed, guilty. I couldn’t move. He must have killed Madame Fouchet and probably Monsieur Fouchet too. I remembered somebody saying they had seen Henri talking to a man with an Indian accent on the top deck just before he was murdered.
“Entrez, mademoiselle,” Ahmet said. “Welcome.” He was cordial, but he had seen me staring at his ear. He led the way to a table hidden away from the other tables, and said to Alan, “Champagne, monsieur?”
“Yes, Ahmet, please,” Alan said, sitting down next to me. “Let’s make it Dom Perignon tonight.” Ahmet left to get the champagne.
“Alan,” I said.
“What’s the matter, Janice?” he said. “You look funny.”
“Ahmet wasn’t wearing his earring,” I said.
Alan looked at me, confused at first and then serious. “What earring are you talking about?” he said.
“The earring he had on last night,” I said. “The gold one.”
“He probably just forgot to put it in tonight,” Alan said and picked up the menu. “He doesn’t wear it every night.”
“But it’s the same earring that Captain Chantal showed us on the boat,” I stammered. “The one the police found in Madame Fouchet’s apartment. The gold earring that Ahmet was wearing when we were here last night. You must have seen it.”
“Janice, calm down,” he said. “Don’t get hysterical. There are thousands of earrings that look like that,” Alan said. “It’s just a coincidence.”
Ahmet brought the champagne in an ice bucket and put it beside the table. He filled two glasses and handed them to us.
“Ahmet,” Alan said, chuckling, “Madame Rogers noticed that you weren’t wearing your gold earring tonight, as you usually do. She thinks you must have dropped it in Madame Fouchet’s apartment when you killed her.”