Hidden in Paris

by Corine Gantz

  Chapter 18

  The kitchen air was thick with heat and steam when Lucas entered. Annie was tipping a pot of boiling water the size of a small car into a giant colander. From Lucas’s angle, steam from the angel hair pasta appeared to rise from Annie’s body and she looked good enough to eat.

  Annie glanced over her shoulder and saw him. Did she know he had been looking at her back and her beautiful butt in those pants? “Where’s Jared?” she asked.

  “How should I know where Jared is?”

  She poured the pasta into a bowl and dabbed steam from her cleavage and forehead with a kitchen towel. “He’s gone M.I.A for three days.”

  “And you can’t live without him suddenly?”

  “Not me...”

  Annie went quiet when Althea materialized in the kitchen cradling an oversized gray clay mug in her bony hands like it was life support. Lucas could not help but feel uncomfortable around this strange woman. Maybe it was the white sweater and pants that gave her that air of translucence, but today she looked more like a ghost than ever. “Bonjour!” he bellowed gregariously to hide his dismay. Again, he thought he must have misunderstood. There was no possibility that Jared was interested in her.

  “Hello,” Althea mumbled without looking him in the eye. She advanced slowly towards the stove like a somnambulist, wrapped her long fingers around the handle of the teapot, poured boiling water into the mug that already contained a used-up tea bag, and vanished from the kitchen through the backyard glass door.

  Annie nodded toward the door. “That’s why I need Jared, and quick.”

  “You think they have a thing going?”

  “Of course. How could you not notice?”

  “Well, Jared did mention something.”

  Annie frowned. “So it’s true? Why didn’t you tell me anything? Anyway, he’s disappeared for three days and nights and Althea’s waiting for him, I know that much. But no one can talk about it. Oh no! Or the way she eats! I asked her why she looked so haunted. She said she was fine and had no idea what I was talking about. It’s like a frigging 800-pound elephant in the room.”

  “Or an 80-pound elephant in her case.”

  “Since Jared’s been gone, she has barely left her room during the day, and she roams through the house all night. She’s not even calling her mother. I heard her crying in her room at four in the morning.”

  Lucas approached the stove. “What smells so good?”

  “And Lola’s no better since that last phone call to her husband three days ago when he essentially told her to come back to the marital bed or bug off. She’s crying all the time. I’m thinking of adding a surcharge for Kleenexes.”

  “What are we eating?”

  “Fish stew.”

  Jared’s voice came behind them. “I’ll have some.”

  “Look who’s back!” Annie exclaimed. “God’s gift to mankind! Where have you been?”

  Jared made an evasive hand gesture. “Is it all right with you if I bring the food to my room?”

  Annie gave Jared a dirty look, shrugged and took a large plate from the cabinet. Lucas watched her fill the plate with pasta, pour over it a heaping serving of fish stew that overflowed with mussels, shrimp, and red sauce, and top it with a sprig of parsley. She handed the plate to Jared. “You want something else? Dessert? Bread?”

  “Non, c’est parfait,” he said. He thanked her and left the kitchen like a robber carrying his loot, the aroma of fish, white wine, and tomatoes following him up the dark stairs.

  “The hell with these people,” Annie said.

  Lucas uncorked a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé, poured it in a glass, and handed it to Annie. “Even me?”

  Annie put down her towel and took the wine glass. She leaned against the kitchen counter and took a sip. “No, you get an A-plus for entertaining me.”

  The dinner turned out to be a real dîner de fou. Once their mothers mellowed out thanks to the wine, the children, sensing a window of opportunity, began making bullets out of bread and throwing them at each other. Simon’s apparent function was to retrieve the bullets that had landed on the floor and pop them into his mouth. Lucas struggled to make conversation but it was no use, as Lola and Annie roared with laughter every time his accent sounded particularly hilarious to them. No one paid any attention to Althea who ate her own meal in the most peculiar way: She was cutting cooked beets into even squares, placing them between her fingers and dipping them in moutarde extra forte. The result was that her fingers and mouth were stained red and made her look as if she’d just feasted on someone’s neck.

  “I hope you can find me a couple cases of this fabulous wine, Lucas. I’m throwing a party,” Annie said, emptying her glass and handing it to Lucas to be filled.

  “A party?” he said in surprise. Annie had not mentioned a party, let alone attended one in the last three years. “What does it mean?”

  “It means, I am back, baby!”

  “She’s back!” Lola howled and burst into laughter.

  Wasn’t this the same woman who, according to Annie, had been crying for three days? Lucas pondered the unpredictability of women. Scientists have demonstrated that as they live together, they can fall hormonally in synch. Could this be what was going on? Both of them on their emotional time?

  Annie proceeded to tell Lola about what she had in mind, which made it apparent that this was not a spur of the moment decision, but something Annie had been planning for quite a while. This might not be drunken or hormonal talk, but perhaps a rebirth of enthusiasm for the very things Annie had shunned ever since Johnny’s death. Maybe she was indeed coming out of her shell in some way. “It will begin as a kids’ party and transform into an adult party toward the evening. An all day and all night affair. Something huge,” Annie explained. “You remember my old parties, Lucas?”

  Lucas groaned. “I thought they had been outlawed.”

  “You’re an old party poopydoo!” Annie said.

  “Please allow me to give Lola an account of past events,” Lucas suggested. “About thirty well-mannered children under the age of ten arrive here, and within moments, they become raving hooligans. Memorable indeed. They’ll look back on it and say ‘You know that party at Annie’s, the one where I lost my left eye?’”

  “My parties are a riot,” Annie agreed.

  “Alas in the proper sense of the term.”

  Annie ignored him. “Later in the evening, the grown-ups arrive. They bring something to drink, but the French don’t do potluck; they don’t even have a word for it. So the food will be up to me. I’m thinking of cooking a whole lamb, mechoui style. It will be served under a tent in the garden. That’s what the pillows I’ve been working on are for.”

  This announcement confirmed the deliberate, premeditated nature of Annie’s decision. This was news he should have rejoiced about, but he could not help but be aware of the fact that his friendship with Annie had started, been possible even, when Annie had isolated herself and become antisocial. “See Lola,” Annie continued, “you have never partied until you’ve partied with the French. We’ll be dancing, drinking, and eating all night. This thing won’t end until the wee hours of the morning, with fresh baked croissants from the bakery, espresso, smeared makeup, and hangovers for everyone.”

  “How fun!” Lola cried.

  “I’ve seen many couples created and destroyed during your parties, Annie.”

  “Oh, it’s a meat market! People bring people, and I usually make a few new friends.”

  “And lose one or two.”

  “Let’s party!” Lola bellowed.

  At that moment, the dining room door opened. Jared was standing in the doorway, his hair a tangled mess, his black shirt riddled with moth, or perhaps acid, holes.

  “Did you like the food? How come you...” Annie began, but before she could complete her question, Jared had walked around the table to where Althea sat, taken her beet-stained hand, grabbed bread from the bread basket, and taken her away from the dining ro
om table and out of the room, the whole thing without uttering a word. Althea had appeared violently surprised, or embarrassed and had turned a shade of red that would have made the beets envious. The door shut behind them and the kids giggled hysterically. Lucas looked at Lola and Annie who looked at him perplexed.

  “No one told me that Frankenstein and his fiancée lived here!” he told the children who burst out laughing. Even Simon, who did not know why, laughed out loud showing the content of his mouth, filled with bread.

  “What the hell?” Annie whispered to Lola.

  Althea was too rattled from her abduction from the dinner table to understand what it was she was looking at. Inside Jared’s room, on the small pine desk, the table was set for two. There was red wine in coffee mugs, two plates framed by forks, spoons and knives, and in the center a bowl covered by a third plate. In a tall glass were two long-stemmed white roses that threatened to topple over. Jared placed the bread he had just taken from the dining room table next to an overflowing ashtray, then, realizing the ashtray did not belong, he emptied its content into a trashcan and put it back on the table. He took out a cigarette, lit it, put it in the corner of his mouth, took off the plate to uncover the bowl which was filled with the same food Annie had served for dinner and said “Ta-dah!” sounding apologetic.

  She looked at him, still not understanding. Althea’s stomach turned at the sight of that dish. She had not touched it at dinner, not even glanced at it, and now it was there, facing her like a reproach. The shrimp, mussels and pasta looked congealed, like those plastic meals one might find in the window of some Japanese restaurants. Did he mean for her to eat this? But what panicked her the most, what she could not take her eyes away from, was the attempt at a bouquet that stood on the table. Were those store-bought roses? For her?

  Jared gave Althea the one chair and sat Indian-style on the bed, across from her, the desk between them serving as a dinner table. He was close, much closer than those times he had painted her, and he was peering into her eyes. There was absolutely nowhere to hide. Jared put the single bowl of food in front of him and she breathed in relief. She watched him wrap pasta expertly around his fork with the elegant ease that French people have when it comes to table manners. She followed the fork from the bowl, then up. The fork seemed suspended in the air for a moment, then began to advance toward her mouth.

  Her eyes widened as Jared brought the food an inch from her lip. “No, No, Merci, non,” she said, shaking her head furiously.

  Jared gazed intently into her eyes and whispered a soft command. “Mange. C’est bon.”

  Althea blushed terribly. She was cornered. She opened her lips slightly.

  “Plus grand. Bigger,” he said gently, but with extreme seriousness.

  She felt she had no choice but to part her lips and let him slide the pasta into her mouth. Her taste buds sent conflicting information to her brain about salt, tomatoes, danger. Her lips noticed the food was in fact still warm. The roof of her mouth and her tongue remembered the lusciousness of the sensation of eating forbidden food. She chewed slowly, not knowing where to look as Jared scrutinized her face. She chewed all the while eying the door, planning an escape. But already Jared had wrapped more pasta on the fork and aimed it at her mouth, his eyebrow raised in concentration. And again. And again. Althea chewed and swallowed powerlessly while her body rebelled, while, under the table, her fists tightened and her legs wanted to spring from under her and run out of the room. But, tangled with that rage, her heart ached for the way he gathered the pasta and slightly opened his own mouth like a mother does, how he whispered encouraging words, and smiled approvingly when she swallowed.

  By the fifth forkful, she was gagging and her eyes were watering.

  “Good for today. Très bien,” he seemed pleased. “Demain aussi, d’accord?”

  Althea nodded.

  He did not offer to paint her that evening. Instead he helped her up from the bed, away from the table and out of his bedroom, then walked her back to her own room. At her door, he filled her hands with bread like a grandfather gives candy to a child. Then he seemed to remember something. “Attends,” he said suddenly. She stood in the hallway and watched him hurry to his room, then come back with the two roses. “Belle comme toi,” he said, handing them to her. She took the roses, shaking from head to toe.

  Althea waited five minutes after Jared had left and ran to the bathroom. Once there, she fell to her knees in front of the toilet, and put two fingers down her throat.

  The next day, they were in the kitchen attending to dinner and homework. So this was her new life, Annie pondered as she sat at the kitchen table picking at the baguette. She was enjoying the spectacle of Lola’s frightened attempt at soufflé making while her own chicken with tarragon was gently bubbling on the stove. How familiar those strangers were already, and how surreal it was that she actually liked this new life. And how fun it was to watch Lola squint anxiously at the cheese soufflé recipe. The ingredients were all on the table. All Lola had to do was read, measure, and mix, but by the look of her you’d think she was navigating a crocodile infested swamp. Also at the table, Lia and Maxence were studying less than half-heartedly and Althea was peeling the carrots necessary for the carottes rapées, prompting Annie to wonder once again why Althea insisted on joining them in the preparation of meals she would not eat. Meanwhile, Paul, Laurent and Simon ran around the kitchen, throwing ill-designed paper airplanes at each other that invariably landed on Althea who ducked them humorlessly.

  Lola jerked up like a jack-in-the-box. “I can’t make this. We’re out of Parmesan.”

  “Substitute,” Annie said.

  “Substitute with what?”

  “You could try cement. If the soufflé rises, it will make a very practical door stop.”

  Suddenly the kitchen went silent. “What? What did I say?” She turned to see that Jared had entered the kitchen.

  He mumbled hello and went about the room gathering plates, utensils, bread, and fruit. Annie exchanged a meaningful glance with Lola, silenced Paul’s giggles with a death stare and got up. She didn’t miss a beat. She took a ladle and a medium-size serving bowl, scooped out a generous portion of tarragon chicken, and handed it to Jared as though this were the most natural thing in the world. She might be festering with curiosity but she’d be damned if she showed it.

  “Don’t forget to come back later,” she told him, “Lola is making concrete for dessert.”

  Jared left with inaudible grumbles, and, on a tray, the makings of a setting for two people.

  No one made a comment about what had just happened. A few minutes later Althea finished peeling, cleaned up the table, and was gone.

  Lola approached the stove and whispered so the kids wouldn’t hear, “Do you think maybe he is helping Althea with her anorexia?”

  “What anorexia?” Annie said through a mouthful of bread. “She’s weird about food and too skinny, but she’s a grown woman. If all it takes to be an anorexic it to whine about your thighs, then I’m anorexic.”

  Lola considered this and said “I’d say your thing is more bulimia.”

  Annie stopped chewing, opened her mouth wide. “Yaa reaaaaly thhhink?”

  “Who am I to judge anyone,” Lola sighed.

  “You think I eat like a pig, don’t you?”

  Lola looked at her apologetically. “Sometimes.”

  Annie considered the baguette in front of her. A good half was missing, and this was before dinner. She was a bottomless pit of hunger. Food: hunting it, preparing it, and ingesting it was how she self-medicated. “I’m glad Jared’s paying attention to Althea,” she said, “because I sure as hell don’t have that kind of patience.” She turned to the children. “If your homework is finished, put it in your backpacks and go watch a few minutes of TV before dinner.” The children were out of the kitchen before the end of her sentence.

  “What am I going to do when I’m back in L.A?” Lola asked the contents of her bowl. “My life is out
of control. My own husband is encouraging me to have an affair.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve been faithful to him all these years and this is the appreciation I get? He’s right, I should have an affair. That’s what he deserves.”

  “No one deserves that,” Annie answered. It occurred to her at that moment that sooner or later, Lola would be going back to that ape she had married. That was obviously what she really wanted to do. Annie removed her apron that read, “Don’t Provoke the Chef” and threw it on the kitchen counter. “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life either.”

  “You? But you’re happy!” Lola exclaimed.

  “Who says?”

  “You have your house, your crafts.”

  “Realistically, how many times can one sofa be reupholstered? One wall stenciled? What am I going to do with myself for the next forty, fifty years of my life? And will I ever get laid again?”

  Lola contemplated her quizzically. “Is that what you worry about? Love?”

  “I’m a frigging tub of lard,” Annie said, holding whatever was left of the baguette against her chest.

  Lola wrestled the baguette out of her hands. “Sorry, but that’s it. No more bread for you until further notice Madame.”

  Mai

  Chapter 19

  Between the surprising heat and the cobalt blue of the sky, Annie asked herself how those people in the office buildings were going to make it through the day. She was drenched just from walking three blocks. Granted she was walking kind of fast. Okay. She was exercising. She had retrieved a pair of forgotten gym shoes from the closet earlier in the week and begun walking around the neighborhood at a brisk pace. This was something she kept to herself. She did it while Lola was at yoga and the kids in school. No need to make a big statement about it since she couldn’t guarantee she’d stick with it. Also, she cut pasta and bread out of her diet cold turkey, and the combination of both made her feel lightheaded, almost saintly.