Zwerfster Chic

by Billie Kelgren

  “That has to be the most stressful thing I’ve ever done,” she says.

  She had gone into the office to help me with getting my work permit. She tells me that the man in there wouldn’t, at first, understand why she couldn’t just find a Belgian national to fill the position that I need this permit for.

  “Finally I just blew up and told him ‘Look, what do you think my chances are of finding a trained intelligence and undercover operative who speaks French, Dutch, and English, can serve as a nanny, and who won’t look unnatural holding my mixed-race child from among available Belgian nationals? Especially down here in the middle of Wallonia.’”

  I laugh.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he could see my point, then asked what I do for a living. I told him I do social work.” She takes a moment to close her eyes and try a few deep, calming breaths before adding, “But I think he thinks I’m an international arms dealer or something.”

  I dig through her purse to find a packet of tissues and hand her one so she can wipe her lips.

  “No, I’ve met one of those. You don’t look anything like an arms dealer.” I indicate the aggrieved bit of shrubbery and tell her, “Sorry about putting you through this.”

  “Oh, no, that’s not this,” she says, pressing a fist into the small of her back as she puts her other hand protectively on her belly. I massage her back for her. “That’s you going down to the shop and getting me that spicy sausage whenever I ask for it. Don’t let me do that again. At least, not for breakfast. Not on an empty stomach.”

  Let me tell you, ninth-month sisters make the worst employers.

  28

  Charleroi — Paris — Copenhagen

  One thing you learn in the Bureau — cases can take a disheartening amount of time, if they reach a meaningful conclusion at all. You have to learn this fact because, otherwise, you’ll throw up your hands after a year and go on to become a teacher or something. Every case is unique, and you take your best guesses as to what the bad guys are doing, and sometimes you find out that you’re close, but not exactly the way you thought, and sometimes you find out that you’re nowhere in the ballpark, because criminals have this irritating tendency to disregard their own profiles.

  It’s what makes an investigation both thrilling and infuriating, Jonesy used to tell me.

  Let’s face it, you spend a great part of your career working on shit that goes nowhere. Or worse, you know you have the answer but you don’t have enough to bring it home. Those are the worst cases of all. Those are the cases that make you want to get drunk, quit, sign onto a freighter, join a circus, and put a gun to your head, all at the same time.

  And you have to live with the fact that there will be questions for which you’ll never find the answers.

  The first sense of things going on outside of our little world is a small blurb in Reuters, a business newspaper, announcing that some unexpected link has been found between David Getting’s hedge fund and West Coast organized crime. The way the article puts it, it’s assumed that Getting has no knowledge of this connection.

  The tiny head. The tiny body. I’ve never felt so much like a giant in all my life and if I smile any harder, I’ll become physically ill. People warn you about this, and it happens every day all around the world, but like so many other things, when it happens to you it’s as if it’s never happened to anyone else before.

  And I didn’t even have to go through the bother of the whole giving birth part of it. Seems kind of unfair because I can’t believe Naddie can be feeling any more alive and wonderful as I am at this very moment. Matter of fact, she looks pretty much worn through.

  “What did she mean by that?” I ask, though I cannot bring myself to take my eyes off of the beautiful little face that I cradle in my hand. “Did she say ‘your daughter?’”

  I figure I just misunderstood. My French is far from perfect.

  “She thinks we’re married,” Naddie tells me with an exhausted expression of amusement.

  “What?”

  “Gay marriage has been legal here since about the ’90s, so she thinks you’re my wife. I keep trying to tell her but she doesn’t seem to listen. We look too different, I guess.”

  I bring tiny Josephine — Baby Jo — to Naddie and carefully hand her over. I’m not yet ready to trust myself fully. I’ve dropped stuff before.

  “If we were married, I don’t think I’d be the one considered the wife,” I say.

  “If I were to ever marry again, I wouldn’t marry someone so temperamental,” she tells me as she marvels at the bundle in her arms. “Or so short.”

  “She does look more like me, you know.”

  “Yes. Small and wrinkly.”

  “Just so you know, I never really liked you. I’ve always liked Tonya better. I ever tell you that?”

  “Quick, take a picture.”

  I snatch up Naddie’s phone and come around to snap a few well-framed shots of beaming mother and disinterested infant before we hear that same nurse speaking to the woman in the bed on the other side of the curtain. I slip the phone into my pocket. She had offered to take photos of Naddie and me shortly before the delivery, of the three of us when Baby Jo was first brought in, but we convinced her that we already have enough to suit us fine.

  In reality, there are no pictures where I can be seen. No evidence that Naddie and I — or even Jo and I — are together.

  Apparently, at some point when I’m not really paying attention, all hell breaks loose.

  I guess Nash and his boys finally reproduced that data card because suddenly the story becomes one about David Getting himself funneling billions in hedge fund money into questionable schemes in an effort to launder West Coast money, which involves drugs mostly, but includes gambling, prostitution, firearms, lotto scams, development scams, legit development, direct-to-video, direct-to-web, porn, fitness, for-profit education, pharmaceuticals, and just about everything that falls under the RICO Act — all the usual pastimes that bring in so much cash that they needed industrial-strength washers like Getting to get it all clean. Getting, in turn, financed people like Roland Park-White, who used the money for basics, like arms shipments, and more philanthropic interests, like managing elections, overthrowing governments, and reshaping legislation. In exchange, Roland Park-White made sure that the drug-producing nations kept their products at discount warehouse pricing for the West Coast.

  Byrone goes to prison, and I find it strange that I have mixed feelings about this. He was once a friend, a mentor, and he tried to have me killed. I was just another stepping stone along his path to bigger and better things. I should hate him — really, I should — but seeing Kel again brought back memories of some of the good times. There were some good times.

  Anyway, I guess we’re even now. I finally got him. I’ve finally done my job.

  Mélanie has freakishly straight legs and freakishly thin arms and an oversized head with blonde hair that’s more frizzy than my own because it’s combed out every day with brisk yanks of an inappropriately sized comb. Jo holds her by her bare feet because we haven’t yet found a pair of shoes that will fit Mélanie and match her rather ill-fitting sack of a dress. The poor girl’s entire body bobbles when she speaks because Mélanie’s spine is pretty much fused straight.

  We found Mélanie in a cluttered little junk shop in the Couillet neighborhood and Jo had to have her despite all signs of this little plastic girl’s troubled past. There are tiny puncture marks from where I’m sure a dog has chewed on her head but I try not to think about that during our many, many conversations.

  “Bonjour. Je m’appelle Mélanie. Comment tu t’appelles?”

  Hello, my name is Mélanie. What is your name?

  Also, Mélanie is showing signs of going bald because of the constant combing. This doll has had a tough life.

  “Hello, my name is Iben. What is yours?” I return quietly in Dutch.

  (We whisper Dutch in this household. This is Charleroi, after a
ll, in the middle of the Walloon region. No need to cause trouble.)

  “My name is Mélanie. I am pleased to meet you,” she returns in Dutch.

  “I am happy to meet you,” I return in French.

  “D’accord, au revoir.”

  “Okay, goodbye.”

  This can go on for hours and hours, the two of us sitting…. Actually, the whole lot of us piled onto that little loveseat — Jo, Mélanie, me, Maggie, Lilli, Anna, Iben, Marie, Vivi, Cerise, Romina, Giuliana, Bergey.

  Not Mia. I can never be Mia.

  Anyway, we never get beyond Hello, my name is…. Happy to meet you. Okay, goodbye. This, apparently, is enough to be entertaining to a tiny, talkative child. When Naddie comes home at the end of the day and asks what we’ve been up to, all I have to say is We played the Mélanie game today to get a sound of sympathy from my sister — Naddie hates the Mélanie game. I’m pretty sure it’s the reason she leaves for work early each morning, to avoid Mélanie and her constant, redundant chatter.

  Personally, I like Mélanie. Yes, she’s repetitive but at least you know she won’t fuck you over. And we have a lot in common.

  Getting eventually goes to prison, for what it’s worth. There’s lurid tales on both sides, ranging from “Getting’s Private Country Club” to “Getting’s Supermax.” I figure it’s somewhere in between, but what does it matter? The important part is that they drain his accounts.

  But before the Feds can clamp down on his access, Getting shifts a large sum into the name of his daughter, set up in an overseas trust fund so fucking tight, written by lawyers that were probably paid more by the hour than I used to make in a year, that the government finally throws their hands in the air and move on. After all, when you’re after hundreds of billions, what is…one hundred million? Less than a tenth of one percent — not worth fussing with a poor, uninvolved girl who’s lost both of her parents and now her unscrupulous, estranged father.

  Good for you, Marie.

  I find Jo already in the bathroom, standing tiptoe on her little stool, leaning over the sink so she can make a closer examination of the side of her face in the mirror. It’s my night to get her teeth, brush out her hair, and read her her bedtime story. Naddie has the most calming cadence when it comes to reading — it puts Jo out within minutes — but I’m willing to do all of the strange little voices that makes the girl laugh and fidget which makes my reading sessions much longer but I don’t mind that at all.

  “What are you doing, little girl?” I ask as I come in suddenly, hoping to startle her into action, but she continues to study her own reflection as she runs her fingers down her cheek and neck.

  “I’m looking for the lines,” she tells me. She traces a path along her jaw with her fingertip. “I think I’m getting a line here.”

  “I think you’ve scratched yourself is what you did,” I say. I kiss the top of her head as I poke my fingers into her ribs, causing her to squirm and giggle. “Now teeth.”

  She fixes her Uki toothbrush with an inappropriate amount of paste and dutifully starts scrubbing while I pick her play clothes up off the floor. On the way to her bed, I’ll drop them into the pillowcase we use for dirty laundry because the apartment is so small that we can’t afford the luxury of a hamper taking up floor space. When I’m upright again I find that Jo has turned herself on the stool and is watching me closely as she slowly works on her back molars.

  “What?” I ask.

  She falls forward until she’s leaning into me with her hands on my shoulders, a blob of toothpaste threatening to run the length of the handle clenched in her teeth and drop down onto my feet. She reaches up and attempts to push the hair back from the side of my face. I try to dissuade her gently.

  “Why do you never do your hair right?” Jo asks around the toothbrush and a mouthful of foamy paste.

  I pull my head back so that the hair falls again. It doesn’t bother me, what she’s doing, because Jo sees my scars — the “lines” — as completely normal — no different than the nose, the mouth, and the eyes on my face. She doesn’t understand that I hide them. She just thinks that I don’t know how to properly brush my hair. She’s always wanting to brush my hair for me.

  But I’ve seen how this girl treats hair. She’s not getting anywhere near me with a comb or brush.

  I find Marie in Paris, during one of our trips to the city. It’s our third time since little Jo was born and we’re staying in a cheap little hotel out on the fringe of the Montmartre district. I’m out trying to get to know that part of the city, trying to not get myself lost, while Naddie naps back in the room with Jo. Traveling knocks both of them on their ass, so I have time to myself. A little later, once the city warms up a bit, I plan to bring them to a park I found so Jo can run in frantic little circles, giggling as she runs away from equally frantic mother and aunt. That is, if I can figure my way back to the hotel before tomorrow.

  I’m not sure what it is exactly that draws my attention to the young woman walking along a quiet side street, away from the crowds swarming around la Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. Maybe it’s the way she has her hands stuffed into the pockets of her dress, or her gait, or…shit, I don’t know. I can’t even say if she reminds me of someone, I only make the connection with Marie when she stops at one of those small sidewalk cafes and speaks to two people sitting at a table beneath a honey locust swaying gently in the breeze, sipping at their espressos.

  Bouchard and Mia.

  “Please tell me that I wasn’t the ‘Blowjob’.”

  Mia laughs, bemused at first, then amused when she catches on. Of course it amuses her. After all this time, all that happened, this is the thing I ask about.

  “You are funny, bokkie. That’s why I loved having you around.”

  She touches her cigarette lightly, to drop ashes to the damp, moss-skimmed surface of the sidewalk — an old sidewalk constructed of bricks either laid centuries ago, or by the most drunken bricklayers the café owner could find in all Paris. My chair clunks back and forth while we speak. She looks at me, regarding me in much the same way as when we sat across the table from one another in that restaurant at Logan — the one right before I threw myself into the TSA.

  “Do you realize how long it’s been since we met?” she says. She pauses again before adding “Are you doing okay?”

  “I’m doing okay.” Am I really? “I mean, in the context of my life, things are pretty okay.”

  “You seem much more subdued. You were such an intense little thing.” She looks at me almost wistfully. “I miss you sometimes.”

  Really? Do you want me to believe you, Mia?

  “Then why’d you leave me?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the reader?”

  Neither of us will be getting our answers, so what’s the use. I shake my head.

  “You are resilient, I’ll give you that, bokkie,” she says with a smile. “It’s hard enough, trying to gauge how a person will react to a situation. You were damned near impossible. I always felt like I was running to keep up.”

  She gazes across the café patio at Marie and Bouchard…or Rémy, I guess. He’s lost the goatee and his hair’s still blonde but darker and longer, brushed back instead of tousled. He’s still sporting his tailored suits but he also wears a pair of aviators, like the ones he wore in that photo I found at the summer home in Bogense. Marie’s hair is also longer, more styled, and it seems that all of the mannerisms that I had attributed to Getting are now gone. They are both vague shadows of the people I knew.

  “Oh, and to answer your question. No, you weren’t. You were the ‘Beast’.”

  “And Marie’s the ‘Beauty’.”

  Mia cocks her head quickly and smiles, almost to the point of blushing, which is strange coming from her.

  “She is a cute thing, isn’t she?”

  She then leans back and grabs her purse, a small handbag she has tucked under her foot. She digs through its contents a moment before finding a small envelope holding
a business card. She slips it out, ensuring she has the right one, before handing it across the table to me.

  “I’ve been carrying this around, in case we were ever to run into one another.”

  The outside is blank, but inside is the name of a bank, a phone number, and what looks like an account number and PIN. She wants me to ask her about it, but I don’t.

  “Things became surprisingly more profitable because of you. You deserve it.”

  I think for a moment.

  “There’s no way you could’ve planned it, my getting a hold of that reader.”

  She sits back, taking the time to pull a slow drag off the cigarette as she quietly studies me with one eye closed.

  “No. Nothing happened as intended,” she finally says. “Plans rarely go according to plan. You know that.”

  I open my mouth to say something — something witty, something that will make her smile — but it quickly slips away. For everything…everything…everything that happened, there’s only one thing that keeps coming back to mind.

  “Tu m’as abandonné,” I say.

  There’s a moment, a fraction of a second, where there’s a hint of regret in her eyes, but it vanishes and she immediately becomes the calm, cool Mia I knew.

  “Désolée, mais that’s simply the way it is, isn’t it. Sometimes it’s best to walk away.”

  I spend nearly a month considering the account, the money it contains, but Naddie takes all of ten seconds.

  “We’re moving to Copenhagen,” she announces.

  She has already forgotten that I’m angry with her for going through my stuff. Dammit, little sisters never listen when you tell them to stay out of your stuff! When I protest, she actually pulls My house, my rules! on me, the little shit.

  “It’s cold there,” I tell her.

  “We don’t care! We’re from Boston! We love the cold! Don’t we, Snow Princess.”