Maybe in Paris

by Rebecca Christiansen

  And looming on the horizon is the Eiffel Tower, tantalizingly close.

  I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe I got us here.

  I point at the pantheon. “That’s where Napoleon’s tomb is.”

  Levi grunts. “Not bad.”

  “I’d say he did pretty well for himself.”

  We cross a busy street with a gaggle of other tourists, and as we amble down the forever-boulevard, Levi talks. “Depends on your definition of ‘pretty well.’ Yeah, he has a nice place now that he’s long dead, and he’s considered one of the greatest military commanders of all time, but he was exiled to far-off islands twice in his lifetime. Also, the autopsy said stomach cancer killed him, but a lot of people think it was arsenic poisoning.”

  “Isn’t that kind of a thing, though?” I ask. “Important people from the past dying under slightly suspicious circumstances and everyone being like, ‘it was arsenic poisoning’?”

  “Everyone loves a conspiracy.” Levi squints up at the dome of the Pantheon. A reflected sunbeam lights up his cheek with a square of gold. “Keeps things interesting.”

  “Some people think Jane Austen died of arsenic poisoning.”

  He barks in laughter. “Who’d wanna poison Jane Austen? Yeah, she was a real threat. Sure.”

  “Well, she was the greatest novelist of her time.”

  “That’s hardly a reason to poison someone. You only poison important people.”

  “And Jane Austen isn’t important?” My blood is starting to boil because my brother insulted Jane Austen in front of the Pantheon. My life is weird.

  “Not important enough to assassinate.”

  “Some people might have wanted to assassinate her. Other writers, maybe? To claim to have written her novels, which were published anonymously?”

  He makes a disgusted face. “You actually believe Jane Austen was poisoned? God, I knew you were dumb.”

  “Levi!”

  “Well, you’re being stupid.”

  “I never said I believed it, but God, you don’t have to be such an asshole.”

  Stupid tears burn my eyes. I try to tell myself he doesn’t mean it, doesn’t mean to hurt people when he says stuff like that, but I’m not convinced.

  “Jane Austen is so overrated. If you like her books you must—”

  “Why do you have to judge everyone else for liking things you don’t?” I snap.

  “I can’t help it if her books are so bad,” he sneers.

  “Shut up, Levi. I can’t take your negativity, so shut up for like one second.”

  This is the conversation we’re having in front of the ticket agent’s booth to enter the military museum. The ticket lady looks concerned, but hands us our tickets and bienvenue’s us in.

  I swallow my anger so Levi can have his. As always.

  The military museum is nothing like the Louvre. Everything here is wide open, white, and clean, and a lot of displays are outdoors, to my relief. Under the soaring dome of the Pantheon, staring at Napoleon’s red clay tomb, I don’t feel menaced by death. I feel detached, but not in a bad way. I feel calm and peaceful as we glide through the place.

  Levi wanders the courtyard, looking at all the cannons on display.

  “Do you know Les Misérables?” I call to him.

  “Isn’t that the movie where Russell Crowe’s singing is awful?”

  “Yeah. But do you know the story?”

  He shakes his head.

  “These guns remind me of when the revolutionaries are putting up the barricades to try to stop the army.”

  “It takes place during the revolution?”

  I nod.

  “Huh,” he says. “I thought it was just some historical romance.”

  “It’s mostly about the war.” I get a sudden idea. “I wonder if we could go see it. I mean, this is Paris. I’m sure it’s playing somewhere.”

  “The movie?”

  “No, the musical.”

  Levi groans. “I don’t want to see a play where people prance around singing.”

  “There are lots of guns and bloody wounds,” I offer. “Lots of people die. Pretty much everyone dies.”

  He sucks in a huge amount of air.

  I sweeten the deal. “We can have crêpes for dinner before we go.”

  He exhales like a popping balloon. “Okay, fine.”

  That night, after eating crêpes cooked by a courteous man who didn’t make fun of us, we make our way to the theatre district. When the teller told me the price for last-minute tickets, my heart disregarded anatomical rules and slipped into my stomach. For the two of us to see this show, it costs more than a night at our hotel. It’s a bunch of meals. It costs the same as a day trip to tour castles in the Loire Valley.

  A tuxedoed man takes our tickets and we enter the theatre. Everyone is wearing fancy clothes. Not exactly black tie, but enough to make me extremely self-conscious in my floral blouse and cable-knit cardigan and jeans, and downright embarrassed by Levi’s sweatpants and rain boots. I skip the merchandise table, skip the snack bar. I just want us to disappear into the dark theatre.

  The usher glances at our tickets and points at the ceiling. “The balcony,” he says. “Up, up!”

  “Uh …”

  He jabs a finger to the right. Down a hallway is a dark flight of stairs, only a handful of theatre-goers on their way up. We follow them to a deserted second floor, where another usher shows us to our seats.

  We’re so far from the stage that it looks like a little diorama project made by a fourth grader. A three-digit price tag—in Euros—for this. Feeling disappointed comes with a side dish of feeling ungrateful. It’s still Les Mis. It’s still going to be awesome, crappy seats or not.

  Levi lowers himself into his seat, taking forever to get comfortable. He wiggles and jiggles and sighs, finally settling on the most embarrassing position possible: slumped down so far his head is the only part of his body even resting against the back of the chair, his arms folded on his substantial belly. A woman down the row from us raises her eyebrows.

  “You aren’t going to be able to see anything,” I tell him.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Fine.” I get out some brochures and look over them in the dim house lighting. “Be miserable.”

  “It’s in the title of the play,” Levi says.

  I smirk. “Very clever.”

  It seems like we wait an eternity, and Levi announces this about twenty times, but when the lights go down and the stage explodes into life, nothing matters anymore. Not the bad seats. Not the lady down the row, tsk-ing at us. Definitely not my lingering irritation with Levi. All I care about is Jean Valjean and the music that soars up from the orchestra, rattling my seat and gripping me by the throat.

  I’m no theatre geek. I don’t know any musicals by heart and I don’t squeal at the mere mention of Stephen Sondheim. I’ve only seen Les Misérables because of a Hugh Jackman fangirl phase. I have an ebook copy of the novel I downloaded only because I knew it had to do with Paris and Victor Hugo wrote it, but I’ve never even opened the file.

  Despite all that, watching it live is amazing. When Fantine sings “I Dreamed a Dream,” my whole body trembles and tears pour down my face. When Jean Valjean runs from the law, I squeeze my crossed fingers so hard they ache through intermission. It feels like my will for him to escape is the only thing keeping him safe. I hated Cosette and Marius and their angsty romance in the movie, but here they make my heart flutter. And Eponine … when she sings her unrequited love song, “On My Own,” the way I was around Jacques comes rushing back. The actress whispers “I love him” repeatedly, and it chills me. She sings the last line and my cheeks burn in the darkness, even though I’m the only one who knows that that pining, pathetic character was me.

  The whole show is chilling and amazing, but it isn’t just the story and music doing it to me.

  There’s one character, one actor on stage, who captivates me. Enjolras. He’s the leader of the revolution
, the bright-eyed roguish friend of Marius. The actor’s fervor is contagious; he makes me want to leap out of my chair and into battle with a bayonet. His hair, strawberry blond and wavy, breaks out from under his hat, and his costume has a swashbuckling flair to it, lots of movement, the character’s daring all demonstrated in fabric. He’s rash, he’s overly optimistic, he only sees the glory of battle and not the imminence of his own death.

  He’s super hot.

  He dies in a hail of bullets. I have to whisper to myself, it’s fiction, it’s fiction, it’s fiction, and breathe deeply to stop my chest from caving in.

  The play goes on and of course it’s marvelous, the best thing I’ve ever seen, but then I notice that Levi is sleeping, mouth wide open. I’d hear snoring if the French Revolution wasn’t raging. How could he fall asleep through trumpets and sword fights? I’m wired, and he’s dead to the world in a room full of noise. And I paid a lot of money for the seat he’s slumped in.

  The show ends, and I rise with the crowd to give a standing ovation. With everyone on their feet, I can’t see the stage anymore, and this becomes a problem when the cast is bowing and grinning and I can’t see Enjolras. I stand on tiptoes, but no dice. I clap and clap and clap, and by the time I can see the stage again, the curtains are pulled and he’s gone.

  I wake Levi with a couple of shoves. He’s instantly cranky.

  “It’s finally over?” he grumbles, stretching his arms above his head and almost hitting the old man trying to exit the row behind us.

  I grab his wayward arm. “Careful! And yes, it’s over. You slept through almost all of it.”

  “I saw enough to know that it was lame.”

  I feel like a punctured balloon. “Let’s just go,” I snap.

  Of course, it isn’t as easy as that. The theatre is so packed it takes ages to even get out onto the upper floor, never mind to descend the stairs to the lobby and leave. I have plenty of time to wallow in my misery, but I stave it off by flipping to the cast list in the big glossy show program.

  It takes me a few minutes to find Enjolras, because actors always look ridiculously different in their professional head shots than on stage. His is combed and gelled like a 1940s rat-packer, with a crinkle-eyed smile. He looks much tamer than he did in character, but there’s still something roguish in that smile. His name is Alec Rideout, and his bio says he’s studied at Cambridge and Oxford. Wow.

  I wonder what he’s like in real life. If I were the kind of girl who did such things, I would want to search for him after the show and find out for myself.

  My first instinct is to laugh at that thought. My second instinct is to do it.

  I’m in France. If I don’t take at least a few risks, do at least a few things that scare me, what use will any of this be? As we lumber slowly down the stairs to the lobby, I imagine it. Me, a naïve tourist. Him, a dashing British actor. I would coyly ask him for an autograph, and we would talk, and he would ask me out for a drink or something and we could spend an evening under the stars, gazing at the Eiffel Tower when it’s all lit up and dazzling. My whole body tingles, imagining it.

  “Levi,” I say to the big lump shuffling along next to me. “I think I’m going to go find one of the actors.”

  He sighs the heaviest, world-weariest sigh I’ve ever heard. “That’s so dumb.”

  “I don’t care what you think. I’m going to do it.”

  “I’m not going with you.”

  “Just wait for me.” We’re in the lobby now. I scan around for a good meeting place. “How about that palm tree over there? Just go stand there. I’ll probably be like, ten minutes.”

  Levi drags himself over to the palm tree, frown in place.

  I have no idea how one would go about meeting an actor after a play, but taking a deep breath, I push against the flow of people exiting the theatre and find the nearest usher. I ask him if I can meet Alec Rideout.

  The usher doesn’t look at me. “Enter the stage,” he says.

  Enter the stage? I take that to mean the theatre. I push through the people and back into the emptying theatre. The curtain hides the stage, but as I watch, a girl’s head pokes out and grins at the huge room. “Oh my God, this is what it’s like being famous!” she says, in a broad Texas drawl. She withdraws but I hear her ask, “Can we go see your dressing room?”

  In that moment, it’s like the spirit of an adventurous girl possesses my body. I climb the stairs onto the stage and slip behind the heavy velvet curtain, into a world of darkness. I almost crash into a body lurking nearby. They don’t seem to notice me. I stumble toward the light.

  Dozens of people bustle around. The crew pushes set pieces back and forth, racks full of costumes rush by, and people yell a million directives into headsets. A few cast members are among the rushers. I start my stakeout.

  There seem to be lots of hangers-on around, especially once I find the corridor full of dressing rooms. Names from the program adorn the doors, some open, some closed. I look for Alec Rideout and find his name listed on a shared dressing room. The door is open. I peek inside.

  Three actors, in various stages of uncostuming themselves, laugh and shout together.

  “I nearly tripped, rushing out from stage left,” a British actor says. “Disguised it okay by pretending I just started jogging, but I’m sure Maurice caught it. Catches everything, he does.”

  “Nothing compares to my pants slipping down my ass during ‘One Day More.’ I thought for sure I was going to lose them.” That voice sounds American.

  “How were you, Alec?” the British one asks. My ears prick up. “How’s your throat?”

  “Bad,” a voice says, weary and scratchy. “Very bad.”

  “That’s not good,” the American murmurs darkly. “You wouldn’t want to let your understudy have a go.”

  “’S not that,” he croaks.

  “I’m just playing. But if you don’t want my ugly mug taking center stage, you’ll give your voice a rest, pronto.”

  Before I can come up with a plan, a tall, broad man in revolutionary garb, hair still stuck to his forehead with sweat from the night’s performance, waltzes out the door and right into me.

  “Whoa, there!” He grabs my arms to steady me, even though I don’t really need steadying. “Who’s this, then?”

  “Um, I’m—I’m looking for Alec Rideout?”

  “Alec! Someone here for you! Go on.” He gives me a push into the room. “Just don’t keep him talking all night. His voice is squeakin’ like a prepubescent’s.”

  And then I’m standing in the same room as the actors I watched all night on stage. One, the not–Alec Rideout, leans against the vanity counter and pulls off his eighteenth-century puffy shirt. He puts on a plain T-shirt and rather pointedly leaves the room.

  Alec Rideout himself sits at the vanity, head in his hands, shoulders bent forward. Beside him, a kettle bubbles away, steaming up the mirror. He looks miserable as he glances up at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Can I help you?”

  His voice is so pained, I wince and reach for my own throat. “Oh, um, I don’t want to trouble you,” I stutter. “If you want, I can just go.”

  He sighs and shakes his head.

  “I just wanted an autograph.” My program slips between my sweaty palms. “I thought you were amazing tonight.”

  He smiles faintly and reaches out his hand. I give him my program.

  “What did you like in particular?” he asks in that faint voice.

  “Your … passion.” The word almost makes me blush. Why does it always sound sexual? “How expressive you were. I could really get that you were in your character’s situation. You know, fighting for what you believe in.”

  He laughs a little bit. His permanent marker swings and loops around over his bio in the program. When he’s done signing, he flips back through pictures, action shots of the play. “I love the role,” he says. “Sorry, I would say more, but …”

  “No, it’s okay,” I blurt out. “You
obviously need to rest your voice. In your line of work, I can’t imagine anything more important.”

  Alec nods, and as if on cue, the kettle whistles. He pours boiling water into a mug with a waiting teabag and squeezes an ungodly amount of honey into it from a bear-shaped bottle. He sips it slowly, wincing in discomfort. I kind of feel like I should leave, but he hasn’t handed back my program yet, so I wait, fidgeting awkwardly.

  He sighs, looking at a picture in the program where he’s perched atop the barricade, musket in hand, eyes fiery and mouth open wide in song. “I can’t believe I got this part,” he says. “I never expected anything so professional so soon. There are so many more qualified actors than me here, and if—” His voice squeaks and he stops. He sips more of his honey solution. His eyes are the opposite of fiery now: full of worry. “If my voice gives out,” he whispers, “it could all be over before it begins.”

  I just stand there, arms hanging uselessly at my sides. I feel like I weigh a million pounds.

  “Well, I think you’re fantastic,” I say. “Take care of your voice and you’ll do great.”

  He nods and finally hands back my program. “If only it were that easy.”

  I leave the room. He closes the door.

  Jesus. Talk about a killjoy. Talk about broken dreams. My expectations are like a shattered ornament, beautiful only in hindsight.

  On top of the abrupt, heavy sadness, I’m also hopelessly lost. I try fumbling my way toward the stage, but it’s all completely dark. Stagehands pack away props and actors are laughing and undressed and obviously on their way somewhere else. How do I get back to the stage? I’m too scared to ask the many busy, clipboard-toting people, since I’m pretty sure I’m not really supposed to be here. When my wandering and fumbling proves to be fruitless, I just use the nearest door marked EXIT.

  It dumps me out into an alley. Theatre people line the brick walls, smoking and laughing shrilly. I clutch my sweater around myself and head up the alley toward the front doors.

  But the theatre lobby is dark. I tug on the doors. They’re locked.

  Levi is nowhere to be seen.

  “Levi?” I glance around the street. People mill about, but I don’t see my hulking brother anywhere.