by A W Hartoin
“Two hours! Screw that!”
“Fashion is time and effort,” said Madam Ziegler.
“Do I look like some kind of pansy fashion guy to you?”
She nodded. “Yes indeed. You are perfect for the styles I have in mind for you.” She gave him a stinging slap on the forearm. “Stay still and do as you are told. I will not have you escorting a Bled in a shirt covered with…a substance that shall not be named.”
I peeked around Monsieur Barre’s well-tailored shoulder. “You did agree to this.”
“The timing sucks. Don’t leave, Mercy. I’m ordering you,” Chuck said.
“If you think you can order me to do anything, you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t take orders. I give orders.”
Where the hell did that come from?
“I’m leaving and, if you know what’s good for us, you won’t follow,” I said, slinging my purse over my shoulder.
Chuck stared at me. “You sound like your dad.”
“Get used to it. There’s a lot of Tommy Watts in here.” Seeing the dismay on his face, I decided to throw him a bone. I did love him, after all. “Les Invalides in three hours. I’ll meet you at the ticket counter. Don’t be late.” I flounced toward the door and tossed over my shoulder, “Enjoy the fitting. See you at Les Invalides.”
“I didn’t agree to that.”
“Nobody’s asking you to agree.” I grabbed Aaron’s arm and steered him around the racks of men’s clothing and out the door. I slammed it shut, cutting off Chuck’s protests.
Three hours to get what I needed to decide Angela Riley’s fate. I prayed it was enough.
Aaron and I stood across from Angela’s apartment, unsure how to approach it.
“When Novak said under construction, he meant it,” I said.
Angela’s building was having a full facelift. Scaffolding covered the entire façade with a company logo on a placard on every level. Heavy construction sheeting draped the top four floors, concealing what they were actually doing. Workmen swarmed over the various levels and a jackhammer wrecked the peaceful air of the avenue, breaking up the sidewalk in front. A small company trailer sat on the sidewalk, blocking it off completely. The foot traffic had to be diverted into the street with a roped off walkway.
I couldn’t see Angela’s apartment on the fifth floor, but there were guys on that level. I’d planned on talking to the building management to weasel my way in, but there wasn’t any management to speak of.
The front entrance wasn’t blocked off. The double doors, huge rough-hewn things, were propped open and two workmen argued, pointing at a bunch of snaggly wires coming out of the ceiling and the walls. What a mess. I couldn’t sweet talk them. Even if I did, they’d want to walk me to my door. They were bound to notice me picking the lock, and that might be a tad bit suspicious.
“We need Novak,” I said, digging out his phone.
He answered on the first ring. “Miss Watts, are you in the apartment?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where are you exactly?”
“Across the street.”
“What is stopping you?” he asked.
I scanned the building again, looking for someone in charge and coming up empty. “I need some help.”
“Yes.”
“Can you call the construction company and tell someone to let me in? There’s no way I can just walk in and pick the lock.”
Novak laughed. “What do you suggest I say?”
“I suggest that you make the building management company name pop up on their phone so they’ll think you’re official. Then you tell them that I lost my keys and I need to get in to grab my spare set. They’re working on the inside and outside. They have to have keys.”
“Is that all?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Can you do it?” I asked.
“Of course I can do it. Do you have a number or do I have to find that out, too?”
I gave him the number and waited a half-hour at the corner café, having breakfast with Aaron. When my phone dinged, I paid the waitress, slathered more Insolence on my lips and sashayed down the street with plenty of swing in my hips.
“Okay, Aaron,” I said. “You’re my boss, a chef at Guy Marin’s atelier. I’m a dingbat and you’re helping me out. Got it?”
Aaron shot me a look that suggested that that was exactly what was happening.
I elbowed him. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m still the brains of this operation.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Wow them with your French.” I smiled broadly at several workmen that noticed our approach and I gave them a finger wave before trying to turn the wrong way. Aaron snagged my arm and turned me around before we went to the trailer. He knocked on the door and did indeed wow the foreman with his French. Before that moment, I thought I was okay with the language, but the sheer volume of words and musicality of the explanation of who we were and what we were doing made me understand that every French person I’d ever spoken to had been humoring me. I sucked. It was a humbling experience, but all I had to do was look vacant and flirty while saying “Bonjour” with a terrible accent. I imitated Sarah Susanne from my tenth grade French class. She was from South Boston and I could barely understand her English. Her father struck it rich with some kind of invention and that’s how she ended up sitting next to me at Whitmore Academy. We were the only two blue-collar girls in that white collar world and we stuck together. Her accent had served me well on several occasions, but never before in French.
Somehow the conversation—what I could follow of it—went to restaurants. The foreman named one. Aaron would counter with another. Roast chicken was a popular topic and it was a strain not to lose my dingbat pose and poke the little weirdo in the ribs. We had a timeframe, but, with the mention of food, Aaron forgot all about it.
Finally, after a half-hour of just about crawling out of my skin, I interrupted and asked in halting Sarah Suzanne French if he had my key. I’m not ashamed to say I flicked my tongue over my lips as I did it. The foreman immediately forgot all about who had the best roast chicken, Chez L’ami Louis or the chicken lady at Marché Bastille, and found my key or rather Corinne Sweet’s key on the pegboard at the back of the trailer. I held out my hand and he dropped the key in my palm while looking deep into my eyes. I felt a little sizzle as he did. It’s a French thing and an Italian thing come to think of it. Those men, no matter what they look like, can look at you and make you feel as though no one, absolutely no one, has ever seen you before. This guy was older than my father, craggy and lined from a life in the sun, and he smelled faintly of diesel fuel, but I still kissed him on the cheek and loved it.
We left the trailer and the foreman shouted that we were to be let in. The guys with the wiring pulled it back to make way and I smiled my best smile as I passed.
I overdid it and four guys tried to follow us to the stairs since the elevator was part of the jumbled wiring problem. I didn’t know when Angela thought she was moving back in, but it was no time soon.
Aaron told the guys that we didn’t need any help. I think he may have said something suggestive about me and him, but it was in slang, so I didn’t really understand what he meant. The meaning was clear when I saw the smirks on their faces.
When we made it to the third floor landing, I did jab Aaron in the ribs. “That took forever. Why did you have to bring up food?”
“It’s Paris,” he said, staring to the left of my head.
I turned and dashed up two more flights. “We don’t have time for chicken. If we don’t make it to Les Invalides on time, Chuck will have a freaking fit and I’ll never be able to Fike him again.”
Five floors with no elevators suck. I about keeled over when we stumbled into the hall. Aaron kept up with me surprisingly well. I blame the heels, which didn’t hurt yet but slowed me considerably.
Three workmen at the elevator jerked their heads up from their own jumble of wiring, blocking the hallway. I did my little girly w
ave and let Aaron explain that I was très débile and lost my keys. The guys gave me the once over and decided on the spot that I was obviously an idiot and that letting the idiot through was fine. They helped me over the wires and I found Angela’s door at the end of the hall. Aaron opened the door to keep up the moron persona and waved me in.
Angela’s apartment fit her perfectly, a small studio with the world’s smallest kitchen. Kitchenette might’ve been more accurate. She had two electric burners and no oven, certainly no dishwasher. A tiny microwave was her only appliance. She didn’t have room for more. This would be the only apartment I could afford if I moved to Paris. Even then, I’d probably have to sell my blood every so often.
Aaron set about searching the kitchen and I went through the bathroom and living room/dining room/bedroom. Angela didn’t have much, but what she did have was neat and clean. I saw a cord for a laptop, but the laptop was gone. In the way of paperwork, she had bills, some sales circulars, and exactly sixteen birthday cards. She must’ve given Corinne a different birthday from herself. I doubted she’d hung onto the cards for seven months.
“I’m done,” announced Aaron.
“Find anything?” I asked.
“She likes Pâté Lorraine.”
“Very helpful. Anything to link her with her former life?”
He shrugged.
I guess I didn’t really expect to find a glaring clue. Angela had been careful and very well organized. She left with nothing, not even her purse. She was committed. Angela’s world made me sad. She left her kids for this. What the hell? Why? The apartment was in Paris, but that’s where the awesome ended. It looked like the apartment came furnished with serviceable stuff, blond wood IKEA-type furniture. It said nothing about her. Except…
The artwork. She had three Robert Doisneau prints, not big poster-sized pictures but twelve by nines. The Girls had several signed and numbered prints by Doisneau. He was famous for his shots of post-war Paris. Angela had picked the most famous of his works, Pipi Pigeon, Un Regard Oblique, and the kissing one. They were the only pictures to grace her walls. Her only mirror was in the bathroom. It was so small, my rear barely fit in there.
I sense a theme.
“What do you think of these?”
“Huh?”
“Only three pictures, all sort of romantic and vintage.” I took the kissing one, a staged work that The Girls disdained but that I loved, off the wall. It looked professionally mounted, but the back was messed up. The brown paper had been peeled away and then pressed back into place.
A clue. A clue. Yeah me.
I slid my nails under the paper and held my breath as I prayed I wouldn’t wreck it and leave my own clue. The paper cooperated and stayed intact, revealing a trio of three pictures, all printed on a home printer, low quality but serviceable. They were all of a man, not Phillip, Angela’s husband. None of the pictures were particularly romantic, no nudes or anything like that. Just a man, dark-haired and moderately handsome, sitting in a restaurant, on a park bench, and in a car.
I waved Aaron over. “Check it out.”
“Panera,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.
“What did you say?”
He pointed to the restaurant picture. “Panera Bread.”
I looked closer. “Really? Wait. You’ve been to Panera Bread? That doesn’t sound right.”
“Had to check out the competition.”
“I don’t think they’re your competition.”
“Me either.” Aaron lost interest and started chewing on his thumbnails, both, at the same time. He looked especially weird, considering his new hairline and lack of eyebrows, but who was I kidding? Aaron was never going to be normal. I couldn’t imagine what his sisters were like.
I laid the three pictures on the counter and took several shots of each, then put them back in the frame and hung it up. Next was the boys at the urinal picture, my dad’s favorite. He thought it was hilarious. The back of the picture wasn’t as neatly replaced and seven pictures and a couple Mother’s Day cards fell into my hands with no effort at all. Angela had looked at the pictures and cards so often that the paper wouldn’t restick and I could see why. They were all of her children, two of her holding them as newborns, the same shots I’d seen at Phillip’s house. The others were of Christmas mornings and birthdays. The cards had “I love you, Mama” written in uneven block letters.
All the pictures and cards were well-worn. Angela had probably looked at them hundreds of times. My heart twisted in my chest.
“She didn’t want to leave,” I said, my voice thick. “She does love them.”
Aaron glanced at the little mother’s horde of love and asked, “How can you tell?”
“If she left because she hated her life, why would she keep these? She’s not a sociopath. She cares, deeply.”
My life just got a whole lot harder. Crap on a cracker.
I took pictures of everything and placed the picture back on the wall. The third print came undone as easily as the second. The back contained pictures of an older couple I assumed were Angela’s parents, Gina, various women that struck me as friends, and Phillip. Her husband got one picture, but he was as well-thumbed as the rest. I took shots of each one, replaced them, and stuck the print back on the wall.
I checked the time. An hour until we had to meet Chuck. An hour until I had to look happy and not demoralized at all. Angela didn’t want to abandon her babies. That meant she had to. I couldn’t imagine what would be bad enough to make her do that. Or maybe I could. My mom drove me nuts practically on a daily basis, but she’d die to protect me. Maybe that’s what Angela was doing, protecting her family. But from what or who? Calpurnia? No, that didn’t track. Phillip was still with the family and Angela had nothing to do with the business. Calpurnia didn’t think Angela was any kind of threat and she had to be a good judge of character or she wouldn’t be where she was.
“We better go or the guys in the hall will—” I turned and a poof of white hit me in the face. I sneezed and sputtered. “What the what? Aaron, have you lost your damn mind?”
He stood in the kitchen with a small flour sack in hand. “Got to look the part.”
“Why would I have flour on my face?” I sneezed again.
Aaron shrugged. “It’s you.”
Dammit. He was right. Flour on the face did seem like something that I would do. “But there’s a mess. What do you say to that?”
He dug in a cabinet and came out with a paper towel. He wet it and cleaned up the floor before stuffing the dirty towel in his jean pocket. It wasn’t a good look.
I held out my hand. “I can’t have you walking the streets of Paris like that.”
“Huh?”
“Give me the towel.”
Aaron gave it to me, but I could tell he didn’t get it and I wasn’t about to explain. We locked up, said goodbye to the elevator guys, who, unfortunately, noticed the wet spot on Aaron’s jeans. They gave me sly, questioning looks and I whispered, “Riche.”
They nodded and we jogged down the stairs, returned the keys to the foreman, and hurried away to the metro. No one followed us or, if they did, they were very good.
We actually got seats and I texted Novak and Spidermonkey the pictures that I took. Both wanted to know what I wanted to do. I had no answer for them. Why couldn’t Angela turn out to be a soulless, child-abandoning witch who was slutting it up in the City of Lights? I’d turn her over to Calpurnia and let her do whatever she wanted. Now I couldn’t. Dammit. All I knew was that I wasn’t ready to out Angela before I knew why she did it. I had to know. I was going to be a mother someday and I had a feeling that figuring out Angela might stop me from screwing it up royally like she did.
Chapter Nineteen
Novak texted me as we walked through the gate of Les Invalides. I didn’t look at the text. I looked at the building down at the end of a long cobblestone road with conical trees standing guard. I’d spent an uncountable number of hours in there. For old lad
ies, The Girls sure did love the army museum. I think they had the armor memorized. On one notable visit, they noticed a mistake in a set of German armor. The armor had been cleaned and put together wrong. It took three hours of arguing, but they finally got through to the head curator and got it fixed. We had to watch it happening. Myrtle and Millicent refused to leave until they saw it properly displayed. That was one of the longer days of my life. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about 800-year-old metal.
I took Aaron’s arm. “Don’t you just love this building?”
“Never been before,” he said.
“But you lived here for five years. What about Napoleon’s tomb?”
“Nope.”
“What the heck were you doing with your time?” I asked.
“Cooking.”
Ask a stupid question.
A big group of students with backpacks passed us and flooded the security tent, dropping their packs on the wobbly folding table to have them searched. The female guard in her black uniform and odd hat gave us the stink eye. Loitering wasn’t seen the same way it had been in view of the recent terrorist attacks in the city.
“Let’s get in line,” I said, steering Aaron down the rope aisle and queueing up behind the raucous students.
Another guard with a stern face and a hint of greying stubble stepped out from the little guardhouse, saw us, and waved us past the line. It’s good not to carry packs in Paris. My little boho bag barely had enough room for my cellphones, wallet, and lipstick. Despite that, the guard looked through it good and hard, examining my cellphones. He was the first security guy to take an interest in them.
Thank god Chuck isn’t here.
“Pourquoi avez-vous deux portables?” he asked with an edge in his voice.
“Un pour le travail et un pour personnels,” I said.
“Travaillez-vous à Paris?”
“Non. Aux États-Unis.”
He asked what my work was and I showed him my ACLS card. My ability to run codes satisfied him, but just barely. He cracked a rusty smile and waved us through. We walked down the long drive and stared up at the enormous building with its Mansard roof and arched entrance that reached all the way to the ridgeline. Louis XIV wanted it to impress and it certainly did. Only the Sun King would build an army hospital to look like a palace. He never did anything small or restrained.