“This is my fate.” Lifting her camera to the sky, she spins in a circle, presses the shutter release so that the camera whirs, clicks, and snaps pictures in all directions. Her dream lodged in the back of her brain, covered itself with Randall’s rejection and Harmon’s consideration. “A keen eye. A connection to what others want to see. Creating art. Sharing it.”
“And me, Lena, let fate bless you with me, too.”
Lena stumbles with the realization of Vernon’s prediction and kisses Harmon—long, slow, hungry, hard. This old friend has helped her to understand, to put what she wants into words.
Chapter 30
Harmon and Lena run at a steady pace alongside the Seine before the bookinistes open their stands filled with antique leather-bound books and twenties-style postcards wrapped in cellophane, before the damp streets overflow with tourists and working Parisians, before the shuttered windows of the ubiquitous apartments open to the dreary sky. It may not be true that Americans are the only people jogging these uneven streets this early in the morning, Lena thinks, but every other voice that greets them carries a distinctive, American twang.
Like they have each of the three days they’ve been in Paris, Harmon and Lena slow their pace as they approach rue Buci. In the evenings this street’s sidewalks are full of music and people dining contentedly under extended awnings. Mornings, the stands are stocked with lemons, plump tomatoes, strawberries, white hydrangeas, red roses, and bread.
“Ça va?” Harmon slaps high five—in the manner of men who have known each other for years—with the African who sells the biggest, flakiest croissants on the street from a cart stacked with tarnished baking trays.
“Tout va bien, mon frère.” The African adds an extra croissant to Lena’s already full paper sack. “Pour votre amie.”
“A perk,” Harmon calls this generosity, “of being a brother in Paris with a pretty woman by his side.”
The street from the rue Buci back to the hotel has become a classroom. They practice everyday French: le cordonnier at the shoemaker’s repair shop, nettoyage à sec at the smell of the dry-cleaning chemicals, poissonnerie at the window where empty aluminum trays will later be filled with fresh fish, le tabac. “The fun,” Harmon says, “is to figure out what the words mean by looking in the windows.”
“Bonjour, monsieur. Madame.” The hotel receptionist greets them as they enter the lobby.
“Bonjour!” Lena replies. So much for the myth of French aloofness. Every morning the bellman, the receptionist, the doorman greet them in the same warm way. Is it because their black skin makes them so easily identifiable, Lena wonders, or is it because they look like they’re in love?
“Let’s see what the kids are up to.” Harmon punches the elevator button for Bruce’s floor one above theirs.
“What’s the plan?” Harmon asks when Bruce opens the door. The question has become both mantra and joke. Beyond Bruce’s terry-robed back, a footed silver serving tray sits atop the king-sized bed with two full-bloomed white roses, a silver coffee carafe, the Herald Tribune, and a porcelain pitcher artfully loaded on top.
“Montmartre,” Cheryl shouts from the bathroom.
“It’s hilly up there,” Lena shouts back. “You sure?”
After exploring the rue Mouffetard, Lena and Harmon returned to the hotel to meet Cheryl and Bruce. Like first-time tourists, the four rushed through the upstairs gallery of the Musée d’Orsay so Lena could see Gauguin’s Tahitian studies; took two Métro trains to the first arrondissement and strolled the Champs-Élysées; walked under the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the interior steps, until Bruce refused to go any farther. From the Métro they wandered past city hall, past bridge after bridge to the golden statue that marks where the Bastille stood before the French Revolution.
Bruce was in charge of food and surprisingly serendipitous in his dinner choice: he peeked into a restaurant that intrigued him and chatted, in broken French and hand signals, with the chef about his food. The cozy brasserie served the best foie gras and paté de campagne any of them had ever eaten, and the chef, after many compliments from Bruce, concocted an original chocolate dessert for them.
Dialing the concierge, Bruce’s words are final: “Today, we’re taking a taxi.”
f f f
“That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Cheryl sticks her head out the taxi window and squints to get a better look at Sacré-Coeur. The seven domes visible from the front of the stark, white church end in long pointed tubes, like spiked pith helmets. “But, there is no way this girl is climbing those steps.”
The taxi slows at the foot of the funicular and points to a rail car as if he understands. “Six cent escaliers, madame.” The motion of the crowd working its way mostly down, not up the flights of steps, is like a winding river of upright bodies flowing away from the highest point in Paris after the Eiffel Tower.
“Six hundred stairs.” Assuming the role of tour guide, Harmon steps onto the crowded sidewalk. “We can walk down that street and weave our way past the street where Picasso once lived and back to the top. That way we’ll get a two for one tour: neighborhoods and Sacré-Coeur.”
Shops surround the base of the stairs, each wooden stall crammed with souvenirs: scarves on hangers flutter in the breeze, postcards spin on wobbly racks, and handsized replicas of the church beckon from the shelves. Harmon picks up a liquid-filled globe with plastic snow that tumbles onto a miniature Sacré-Coeur inside when he turns it upside down. “You’ll accept this, won’t you?” He passes the souvenir to Lena. The look on his face is devilish, like the old Harmon, who was as funny as he was serious.
“With pleasure.”
Harmon and Lena weave past a circular park and stone-colored buildings. Cheryl and Bruce’s huffs are audible and labored behind them. The hilly area is the kind of neighborhood Americans understand: a man washes his car in the driveway of a house that could be a mansion or an apartment building, garages attached to houses with gardens, front porches and picture windows, children playing on the sidewalk.
“Give me that guidebook.” Bruce takes the green guidebook from Harmon’s hand and sits at a rest stop with benches and a dog run behind it. Across the street, a reddish building and its faded sign peek from behind an overgrown bush and a rickety, green-tipped fence. “You walk. I’ll find a good place for lunch.”
“Rest a minute.” Cheryl hooks her elbow into Lena’s and leads her across the street. “I want to take a closer look at that building.”
Tourists with guidebooks and cameras gather around the brick building and point to the sign: “Au Lapin Agile.” Cheryl tells Lena that she suspects that this is the famous cabaret of artists and writers that Picasso memorialized in his 1905 painting. Instead of singing for his supper, Cheryl tells Lena, he painted for it.
Harmon waves from the other side of the street. A dog, no bigger than Cheryl’s tote bag, on a long leash held by a frail-looking older woman, sniffs around the men’s feet. Harmon is attentive; his smile is constant, and the older woman looks as if she is ready to hand her diminutive pet over to him.
“Well,” Cheryl says, “this is a different trip from what we planned.”
Lena examines the worn plaque bolted onto the building’s side. It repeats the same information that Cheryl has just shared with her. “I love this detour, but I should know where Tina Turner lives by now. I hoped I might run into her.”
“Listen,” Cheryl says. “When Harmon and Bruce knew they’d had enough of Nice and decided to follow their plan to come to Paris, Harmon explained to his buddy how he feels about you.” Cheryl condenses what Bruce told her in between shopping sprees. In a small wine-tasting bar, twenty-four full bottles in front of them, Bruce and Harmon tried to decide which wines they would send back to Chicago while Harmon confessed that he wanted to be with Lena. That she is a good combination of what he likes in a woman: smart, sexy, and easy to be around. He didn’t want to lose that. He had passed the notion of making up for past sins.
Bruce listened before offering advice. Harmon confessed that Lena’s sadness offered an opening and that was what smart litigators look for. “Man, what did you expect? It’s like the exclamation point on your damn theory of fate.”
“When we first started this trip, Lena, you were sad. Sad face, sad eyes, sad aura. Now you’re different. Have you asked yourself why?”
“Because this is Paris! Because I don’t have to think about divorce or my kids hating me or my direction—I’m going to see Tina.”
“Harmon has a lot more to do with your being happy than you give him credit for.”
“I can’t deny that he has something to do with it, but my happiness comes from me, from inside.” Lena points to Bruce and Harmon. The two men tease the small dog, seemingly content to wait for Lena and Cheryl to decide what comes next.
“Love comes from inside. Go for it. Women like you always end up screwing for love anyway.” Arm in arm, Cheryl and Lena move away from the old cabaret. “We haven’t had the chance to spend much time together,” Cheryl says. “I miss catching up like old times. What do you say to going to the Matisse exhibit at the Luxembourg? Just you and me.”
“Deal.”
f f f
From this location a partial view of Paris spreads out before them in an orderly fashion: flat, no hills between Montmartre and a hilly mass of green on the far side of the city. There are pointed rooftops of varying heights. Notre Dame stands out, as does the Île de la Cité, the island some call the true heart of Paris.
“Richard Wright, Chester Himes, and James Baldwin wrote in Paris. The next time we come”—Harmon looks at Lena who holds his gaze—“we’ll take one of the black tours. Every one knows Josephine Baker, but there was a big jazz following here—Sidney Bichet had a nightclub. Black soldiers were here during both World Wars. I wish we had time to see it all.”
“I know there must be at least one soul food restaurant here.” Cheryl taps Bruce’s shoulder lightly with her fist and pokes out her bottom lip like a spoiled child. “Let’s have fried chicken in Paris!”
“Fried chicken in Paris. Ha!” Bruce playfully pinches Cheryl’s cheek. When it comes to food, he readily voices his opinions. His cheeks and stomach jiggle with his joke. “As long as I can go to my mother’s house and eat the best fried chicken in the world, I will not be eating any soul food in Paris.”
f f f
Two hours later, the plaza in front of Sacré-Coeur is crowded with groups led by tour guides lecturing in Spanish, German, and Japanese. All of Paris—the streets skinny like lines, the gold roof of the opera house, the Eiffel Tower—is within sight. A British guide addresses his group from atop a wooden box.
“Take note of the stone. Sacré-Coeur was built in the late nineteenth century with the stone of Château Landon. The brilliant white is actually the effect of rainwater. When wet, the stone secretes a white substance similar to paint. Thus, it is always a brilliant white.” The guide smiles as if this is a fact that everyone in his group, and Lena, and the other English-speaking eavesdroppers around the perimeter of the group, should be proud of.
Lena points her camera at a waddling toddler making his way up the stairs without the help of his parents. “I haven’t the vaguest idea how to describe this to Lulu. I’m going to the top and take a picture.” Bruce gently taps her shoulder before she climbs to the vestibule of the Byzantine-styled building and points to the funicular. “Cheryl and I are going down.” He glances at Harmon. “Sorry, man. It’s flat there…”
f f f
The libraire’s sixteen-foot walls are covered from floor to ceiling with shelves of books. Lena asks the woman behind a tall desk if she speaks English. “Petit peu,” the woman says, holding a space between her thumb and forefinger of no more than an inch.
“I want to buy a gift. A special memory of Paris.” Lena points to Harmon browsing the tables on the outer edges of the store. “A surprise.”
“Ah, oui, madame.” The woman’s face fills with glee while she questions Lena on Harmon’s likes and dislikes. The woman pauses for a minute, her eyes move from left to right as if recalling her entire inventory. She eases off of her stool and enters the back of the store through a draped curtain. A man comes out and drags a wheeled ladder attached to the shelves until he spots what he is looking for. He climbs to the very top step, his head grazing the ceiling, and pulls a book out with both hands. He holds on to the book loosely while descending the stairs like he seems to have done a thousand times. The shopkeeper holds her arms out to him when he nears the bottom of the ladder, relief visible in her eyes, and places a loving hand on the man’s balding head.
Lena flips through the book—the pictures are sharp and show the detail she is looking for. The text is in French, but the pictures need no translation. “Perfect.” She thanks the woman three times until the woman steps from behind the tall mahogany pulpit that passes for the sales counter and thanks Lena, in the French way—cheek to cheek. “I am hopeful your ami finds enjoyment with this book.”
f f f
At three o’clock in the afternoon, this sidewalk café still serves ham-and-tomato sandwiches on crunchy baguettes and hunks of cantal—the hard French cheese Lena loves the most.
“Two more days here and then it’s back to the south of France, Tina’s concert… and home.” Lena passes the brown bag from the bookstore to Harmon across the table. “Thank you for sharing Paris with me. This is for you.”
Harmon strips away the tape carefully as if his gift is wrapped in expensive paper.
“Les Églises de Paris.” He pronounces the words slowly. Lena muses at how much his accent has improved. He traces the outline of the steepled church on the cover with his finger and opens the book to the first page. Triforium is a word that will stay with me as much as the memory of you and our little church. If that word describes an opening, it is what you have built in my heart. Love, Lena.
“Don’t go back to Nice. Come to Chicago.” He reaches his hand to Lena’s cheek and holds it there. His touch holds all the tenderness he has shown her over the past days.
“I’ve already let you take me off track, no matter how much fun it’s been.” She dips a cookie into her dark wine and bites into it.
“I can rearrange a few appointments. I’ll stay longer if you do. Let’s see where this—us—is going.”
There is nothing she wants more. Nothing she wants less. She cannot help herself because being taken care of by someone who cares makes you feel like chocolate ice cream on a summer day. Lena caresses Harmon’s hand. The action, his request, feels comfortable: a promise of security, a predictable future.
“We’re moving at the speed of lightning. I’m not done with one man. I have to be sure that it’s not this.” Lena waves her arms from the curlicued Métro station gate to the ornate buildings rising on the hill beyond the café. “And when the time comes, I’ll be looking for a partner, not someone to take care of me.”
“I hear you loud and clear.”
“This is what vacations are: we laugh, we talk, we fool around. Once we’re back home, we’ll visit. I’m not going anywhere, and I won’t lose sight of my goals. Not this time.”
“I love you, Lena. I love your search for change. I don’t think you know how indomitable you are.” He presses his hand to her mouth. “You can’t say anything to me that I haven’t said to myself, or Bruce.” Harmon looks straight at Lena and searches her eyes for assent. His wide smile, his toothy smile, spreads across his face. “Marry me, Lena. I was going to ask you at dinner tonight. The concierge even found a bottle of that Cheval Blanc, St-Emilion, to celebrate.” Frown lines disappear as he pulls a small satin pouch from his pocket and opens it. The ring is a band of diamonds that shimmers in the afternoon light. “I know marriage is a bigger commitment than you’re ready for right now. So think of this as a promise ring.”
> “Too fast, too soon.” Can he hear her fear? she wonders.
“I’m not a capricious man, Lena. I know you’re still married—even if it’s not for much longer. I know what you’ve got to get out of your system. But, I told you. I assess facts, and I make decisions—business or emotional. I trust my intuition, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
Lena signals with her hand for Harmon to keep his distance. She does not want to cry, does not want to cry. Didn’t the optometrist tell her that her eyes were dry? Didn’t she laugh and tell him it was because in eight short months she had cried an ocean, a lifetime of tears, that there were no more, that her whole body was dry?
“I love you because it’s taken you a long time to realize what you want, and now you’re ready to go for it. You admire Tina Turner and, no matter how odd everybody else thinks that is, you hold on to her as role model. I love you because you’ve let go of thinking of power as the most important thing in your life. I love you because you don’t want anything from me. If you go, I’m not sure I’ll get the chance to ask again.”
Lena swallows hard to wet her throat and checks her fingers for nonexistent hangnails. “I don’t love you the way a woman should when her man proposes marriage.”
“Yes, you do, Lena. Don’t deny it. You wouldn’t be here with me right now if you didn’t.”
Chapter 31
Take it from your buddy—accept love. It’s a gift. Two marriages, and a whole lot of men in between, have taught me that.” Cheryl hooks her arm through Lena’s like so many French women do. The gesture confirms the importance of alone time with her friend and convinces Lena that encouraging Harmon and Bruce to sample eau-de-vie on their own at a private tasting room near the Place Vendôme was the right thing to do.
The days of this short stay in Paris have toppled like dominoes under a child’s heavy hand. Lena has lost count, can barely tell Tuesday from Thursday. All she knows is that they have two days left in Paris and that Cheryl is trying to convince her that love can truly conquer all.
Searching for Tina Turner Page 25