by Vella Munn
I hit the delete button on my cell before my caller could proceed to do just that. A robotic female voice assured me that the message had been deleted. The next had been recorded at eight-forty-two last night. I cast my memory back to a takeaway dinner—spring rolls and stone oven pizza, a veritable ode to multiculturalism—the containers of which still crowded my kitchen counters, and listened for the next voicemail.
“Hello, my name is Josh Barnes. I’m calling about your father—”
There was no point in letting the recording play out till the end. I recognized the voice. Anything Barnes had to say to me on message twenty-six could only be a variation of the tested and tried, We’re running a story about your father and we’d like your input.
The calls were a year-long annoyance, but they got especially bad around February. March usually marked the apogee.
“End of messages,” said the robotic female voice.
Nothing from Javier. Nothing from Melanie. I smothered the spark of disappointment already kindling in my chest. It was a relief. That meant Javier and I were still on for tonight. And I could call Mel at my own leisure.
I tossed my cell to the couch and dragged my feet into the bedroom, coffee mug in hand. My reflection stared back at me from the vanity mirror. Bags under the eyes, pillow wrinkles etched onto my cheek, my hair riotous and tangled—I looked like I’d had a wild night. Me and Hugh Grant, a flat screen between us, separated for all eternity.
I took a fortifying sip of coffee. It was just bitter enough to wake me up without making me grimace, although post tooth brushing, the taste was nothing to write home about. I started with a layer of foundation rubbed deep into the skin. The rosy patches vanished as if by magic, leaving my reflection sickly pale and making my nose stand out. I bent close to the mirror to dab concealer under my eyes, my back creaking like snapping twigs.
I really needed to stop sleeping on the couch.
Then came powder, bronzer and blush for contour. I left the eyes for last, Melanie’s advice be damned, and carefully wove my way through a long stripe of liquid liner across my lids. Practice made perfect and I’d been playing with crayons since I was a kid.
By the time I’d finished, my coffee had cooled and the woman staring back at me from the mirror looked sophisticated and ready to take on the world. I hardly recognized myself.
The phone rang in the other room, startling me from the staring contest.
I contemplated not answering. Could be Javier calling to cancel. Could be Melanie blowing me off again. Or it could be work, I reasoned. Maybe there was a strike again, the city center paralyzed by disgruntled teachers, doctors or farmers, and I could sleep in.
One look at the caller ID stole the wind from my sails. I made a mental note to change the ringtone to this particular number from Beethoven to Wagner and pressed ‘Answer’. “Grandmother, you’re up early…”
“Good morning, Laure. You’re awfully chipper for the hour.” Her own voice was crisp and disapproving, a tone I’d come to associate with a long-suffering obstinacy in doing her duty.
“Oh, you know me,” I deflected. “Eager to get to work.”
“Ah. You’re still at the shop?”
The note of surprise stung every time—not least because ‘the shop’ was Paris’ largest department store. We sold everything from Calvin Klein to Vivienne Westwood. It wasn’t Prada or Versace, sure, but our clientele was wealthy and the commission I made was more than generous.
Were I willing to rent in a less prestigious part of town, I could easily have lived within my means.
I swallowed my ire, made my voice saccharine and pleasant to a fault. “Yes. In fact, I was just about to run…” What do you want?
I suppose there must have been a time when my grandmother and I were close. I couldn’t fathom why else I’d elected to leave the only country I’d ever known and move to Paris with her and Grandfather. I was hard-pressed to recall my prepubescent motives twenty years after the fact.
Grandmother cleared her throat on the other end. I guessed I wouldn’t like what she had to say. “For tomorrow night… Are you certain you’ll be able to make it? It’s just that your grandfather has invited the Komorovs and I wanted to make sure we weren’t an odd number. It’s important,” she added, “for the seating.”
Coffee threatened to rise up in my throat. I knew what she was asking—was I going to show up for dinner by my lonesome again or had I been successful in acquiring a steady boyfriend?
The answer to that question was obviously no. The same no I’d delivered for nineteen years, barring those few times when I was in high school and I insisted on dating boys whose names sounded about as French as falafel.
“It’ll be just me… As usual.”
“Ah, all right.” Judgment was never overt with my grandmother, but I could hear it in her tone. You’re not getting any younger. What’s wrong with you that you can’t find a man?
I could provide her with a list.
“I really need to go…”
“Yes, yes. We wouldn’t want you to be late, would we? I will see you tomorrow, Laure.” The line went dead before I could respond. I had been dismissed.
Tempting as it was to slam my head into the wall, I’d worked too damn hard caking on the warpaint to ruin all my efforts in a fit of pique. I did hurl my pajamas at the bed while imagining it to be my grandmother’s head, which felt slightly cathartic.
A glance at the clock told me that I truly was running late. I grabbed the first clothes I found in my wardrobe—a spaghetti strap top and an Oscar de la Renta ribbed black sweater that folded over to reveal my shoulders. Black trousers and a pair of red pumps completed my armor.
I snatched my purse off the couch on my way out and nearly forgot my cell phone. I turned back just as I was about to lock the door behind me. I was a twenty-nine-year-old woman. Being parted from my cell was like being hobbled.
Well, there was that, and I still held out hope that Javier would cancel that evening’s rendezvous.
I shrugged into my trench coat with one hand while struggling to sneak my keys into my handbag with the other, a perilous balancing act that took up most of my focus. I didn’t see the man coming up the stairs until we nearly collided. He tilted back, narrowly avoiding my fist. I probably would’ve struck the wall with my head as I tried to right myself if he hadn’t caught me.
For a moment, we stood like that, his arm around my waist, our syncopated breaths catching in our throats—the prototypical rom-com scenario. Or it might have been, were he not the perfect image of a kindly old dentist. He wasn’t much taller than me, but his face was testament to a lifetime of zero moisturizer. Wrinkles creased the corners of his eyes and deepened the pleats in his brow. His hairline was receding at the temples, something I found all-around unattractive in men.
I pulled back with a stilted chuckle. “Oh, wow, you should be more careful.”
“I should be more careful?” His accent shone through his outrage. American, I figured, and felt my skin prickle with discomfort.
“The number one cause of household accidents in Paris is high heels. I thought that was common knowledge?” I stuck to French not to torture him but because I didn’t want to blow my cover.
Wisdom dictated that I should be on my way, not making small talk with a man who, admittedly, I’d nearly pushed down the stairs.
A man who laughed—presumably at me. “The guidebooks certainly don’t mention that.” He rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t holding the plastic bag.
The smell of fresh croissants enveloped me. My stomach gurgled mortifyingly in response.
We both pretended not to notice.
“I’m Ashley,” my would-be victim said, holding out his free hand. “Ashley Compton. I just moved in down the hall. Four-D.” He gestured vaguely with the shopping bag.
I wasn’t generally a big fan of unisex names, but there was nothing even vaguely androgynous about Ashley. He struck me as the typical alp
ha-dog type—one more bullet point in my ‘reasons never to speak to him again’ column.
“Laure.” Even though I had no desire to give my name out to strangers, good manners compelled me to reciprocate. His hand was big and warm around mine, the pads of his fingers much softer than I’d anticipated. I let go as soon as I could. I needed to get a move on. Instead, I found myself saying, “Welcome to the neighborhood. And to France, I guess…”
“Oh, no. I was in Nanterre for a bit. Too quiet in the evenings, you know?”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway. The last time I’d taken the train out to La Defense, Melanie had wanted to meet for lunch but couldn’t step out for more than thirty minutes. As easy as I found it to make my way through the labyrinthine streets of the capital, so too did I get lost in that austere chrome and glass tangle of skyscrapers and high-rises.
“You won’t have that problem here,” I said, for the sake of conversation. “The Marais gets pretty lively.” Too lively, by Javier’s tastes, but I didn’t mind him having one less reason to want to spend the night.
Ashley held my gaze, a strange little smile tilting up the corners of his lips. “That’s good to know…” He seemed to snap out of his trance when I cleared my throat, which was more than I’d come to expect when strange men gawped at me. “Sorry, you were walking with a great sense of purpose. I’ll let you run. It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around.”
I smiled in a way I hoped was polite but not eager. “Maybe.”
“Well. Goodbye.”
We skirted around each other—him making his way down the hall and me trying not to take the stairs two by two as I replayed our encounter over and over in my head. Had he said anything to make me feel wary? No. But that was no reason not to speculate.
More importantly, had he seen which door I’d walked out of?
I shoved the thought out of my mind as I pushed through the front door and onto the sidewalk. The chime of idling engines and tut-tutting scooters greeted me like a fanfare.
The morning gridlock was already in full swing, Paris paralyzed into a maze of choked streets and impatient motorists vociferating in the privacy of their vehicles.
The subway platform was no less congested, but at least I didn’t have to wait long before I could cram into a car with the other commuters and drive away. We zoomed beneath the city at great speed, leaving behind Île de la Cité and Notre Dame. I changed lines once, my heels marking a dull counterpoint to the buskers playing We Will Rock You on a trio of djembe, guitar and violin in the depths of the subway tunnels.
The train disgorged me onto the platform at Babylone with five minutes to go before my shift began. I was at my post within three, albeit with heart thumping violently against my ribs. I checked my makeup in a changing-room mirror. A rosy flush stained my cheeks, but that was about the extent of the damage. I dabbed a fresh coat of lipstick on and tugged on my sweater to banish all creases.
“I have a bottle of Caligna with your name on it,” Yvonne said, her voice not quite a sing-song as she peeked around the corner. She did a double-take when she saw me. “Look at you… Date tonight?”
“How did you guess?”
Her answer was a hitch of slim shoulders. “It’s a talent. Also, you’re wearing your favorite push-up.” Yvonne held her wrist up to her nose. “Why don’t I have a hundred euros to blow on perfume?”
“Because you spent it on that Hermès scarf?” I suggested.
Yvonne scoffed. “The answer is that I need a hot-blooded Latin lover to keep me in the lap of luxury. You know, like you.”
I had mentioned Javier to her a grand total of one time. And, fair enough, I might have exaggerated our chemistry. I’d been regretting it ever since. Yvonne had turned me into something of a Wailing Wall as a result. I found it increasingly difficult to distinguish between ‘my boss Yvonne’ and ‘my maybe-friend Yvonne’.
I let her spritz me with perfume even though L’Artisan’s grassy concoctions weren’t my fragrance of choice by any stretch of imagination. Give me a 1944 Bandit or a Chanel No. 19 and I was in heaven. I went as gaga about vintage perfume as men do about vintage cars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wear any at work because my tastes tended to veer toward the daring overdose end of the spectrum.
Yvonne got to add the finishing touches to my take on ‘Laure Reynaud, shop assistant extraordinaire’ while inside ‘Laure Reynaud, daughter of a serial killer’ quietly seethed.
At ten on the dot, the doors of the store opened.
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About the Author
Vella Munn writes because the voices in her head demand it. She has had upward of 60 titles published both under her own name and several pen names. A dedicated hermit and shopping loather, she’s married with two sons and four grandchildren. She’s owned by two rescue dogs.
Email: [email protected]
Vella loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com.