Bad Marie

by Marcy Dermansky

  Marie looked at Benoît.

  He needed to control his French actress.

  “I’m hungry,” Caitlin said.

  They left their unpacked bags in Lili Gaudet’s apartment in the best neighborhood in Paris and went to the restaurant down the block, where Marie ordered the first thing she recognized on the menu, the steak frites, which she loved. Marie drank the delicious red wine Benoît ordered and she ate her steak, charred on the outside, red on the inside, drizzled with a thick pepper sauce, and she marveled at herself, sitting in a restaurant in France, eating delicious steak.

  Ruby Hart was still in prison. Juan José was still dead. Marie’s mother was simmering in the same old, ugly house she’d lived in for the past thirty years. Marie was in Paris. The French bread was just as good as Benoît Doniel had promised it would be.

  At the restaurant, the French actress resumed talking in French, talking talking talking, but Marie did not feel jealous. In fact, she felt relieved. Marie did not want to talk. She did not want to explain herself. She did not want to understand what had once happened between Lili and Benoît or know what they were saying to each other. She did not want to know. She wanted to eat. She wanted Caitlin to eat. In a strange way, with the horrible French actress commanding all of Benoît’s attention, Marie was alone again with Caitlin. They had been happy together, before Benoît.

  “Hi Caitlin,” Marie said.

  “Hi Marie,” Caitlin said.

  “Hi Kit Kat,” Marie said.

  “Hi Marie,” Caitlin said.

  “Everyone speaks French in France,” she told Caitlin.

  Caitlin reached for a french fry off of Marie’s plate.

  “This is called a frite in France,” Marie said.

  “Frite,” Caitlin echoed.

  She ate it and then she reached for another.

  Marie drank her wine. Caitlin drank her milk. Instead of chocolate pudding for dessert, they ordered the chocolate mousse.

  “This,” Marie said, “tastes better.”

  She enjoyed her dinner, despite the fact that Benoît Doniel had abandoned them. The French actress had taken him, brought him over to the bar, introduced him to the bartender and a woman with short hair wearing a red blouse and blue jeans. Marie watched Benoît kiss the cheeks of these people.

  “Daddy is over there.” Caitlin pointed.

  Marie nodded.

  “Mommy is at work.”

  “Your Mommy works hard,” Marie said. She looked into the almost empty bowl of chocolate mousse and ate the last spoonful.

  When the waiter returned, Marie ordered a whiskey and another chocolate mousse. She asked for these things in English and the waiter understood.

  When the bill came, Lili Gaudet paid.

  “I am very rich,” she told Marie, leaning over to get her wallet out of her purse, flashing the thin straps of her black camisole beneath a shapeless gray sweater.

  Back at her apartment, while Marie got Caitlin ready for bed, the French actress continued to talk. She had Benoît Doniel cornered on the edge of the leather couch, with no choice but to listen, her skinny arms waving wildly. At some point, Marie realized she had reverted back to crying. She was, clearly, hysterical, and she was also waiting for Benoît to react. Marie wondered if Lili Gaudet might suffer from some sort of acute mental condition.

  The French actress could enter a mental hospital, and they could live happily in her big apartment in the best neighborhood in Paris.

  Marie recognized the fact that Benoît might need saving, but she had just saved him from his wife. His wife. Ellen Kendall. That had required heroic effort. They had been standing there, defeated, at the sea lion tank, and he had tried to find a way to say good-bye to Marie. Instead, they were together. In France.

  She would rescue Benoît again, later. Before that, Marie would give Caitlin a bath. It was the same routine, in New York or in Paris. They took the bath together, Marie and Caitlin. They were more than fine on their own. Caitlin, at least, seemed fine.

  “Bubbles,” she said.

  Benoît had remembered Caitlin’s plastic ducks. Marie found them in the third suitcase. She took Ellen’s lavender bubble bath from her backpack. She then located a good bottle of Irish whiskey in the French actress’s kitchen and poured herself a glass. It had been a long, long day.

  Caitlin was too tired to play with her ducks.

  Marie would have to rouse herself, make sure to actually wash Caitlin before they got out. She lay back in the bathtub with her drink. She would not fall asleep; she would not pass out.

  “I’ll wash your hair,” Marie said. “What do you say?”

  Caitlin nodded her head.

  Marie blinked, taking in the bathroom, remembering again where she was. In Paris. On the run. Not in a hotel, but the apartment of Benoît’s French actress. The off-white rectangular bathtub was tiny, basic—much too small for Benoît to join them. The bathroom itself was also simple, unexceptional. Lili Gaudet couldn’t have been much of a movie star.

  They were quiet in bed, having sex in France in the French actress’s apartment. Because Benoît did not want Lili Gaudet to hear them.

  “Why have sex at all?” Marie said.

  But she didn’t mean it. Silent sex was exciting in its own way. They were quieter than they had ever been; it had been safe before, Ellen had always been at work. The danger, then, had been in the cleaning; keeping the sheets fresh, not leaving any hairs in untoward places.

  Benoît and Marie had never had sex at night, never in the dark, and this was different for Marie, not being able to see Benoît’s body, his face, but still to know him, to taste him, to recognize his touch. His mouth, teeth, on her breast, sucking. Marie was silent, silently reclaiming Benoît Doniel from the French actress.

  Sex. It reminded Marie, who was drunk and tired and angry, appalled by this ferretlike French actress in their life, why she was with Benoît. Reminded her that she was hopelessly in love. Marie was glad she had not fallen asleep after her bath. Silently, she pushed him in deeper and harder. In those six years of prison, there had been no sex. Every time she was with Benoît, Marie felt grateful. Alive. She wanted more.

  She could be quiet.

  Nothing was lost.

  They had run away together.

  They still had this passion.

  In the morning, when they awoke, there would be fresh croissants, made in Paris.

  “I love you,” Marie said.

  It felt especially generous to say these words, given the way the day had gone. It was the first time that she ever told Benoît that she loved him, and Benoît returned Marie’s declaration with a soft murmur, delivered into the bony flesh of her shoulder. “Moi aussi,” Marie heard him say, meaningless words, more so because they were spoken in French, but Marie was appeased. She believed in the promise of the coming day. The certainty of breakfast.

  Marie had forgotten how it felt, to fall asleep with another person. Benoît was smaller than Marie. She held him tight, spooning her body around his.

  Marie woke up and saw Lili Gaudet sitting on a black leather beanbag chair in the corner of the guest bedroom, watching them. She was wearing a sheer black nightgown that barely covered her thighs.

  “You have nice breasts,” she told Marie.

  Benoît lay on his side, sleeping. Marie reached for the sheet, covering their nakedness.

  “They are much bigger than mine,” the French actress said.

  “Leave,” Marie said.

  “Are they real? Your breasts?”

  Marie did not answer.

  Lili chewed on a strand of long blond hair.

  “Thank you for bringing him back to me,” she said. “Really, I am grateful. He’s been gone for too long. I have been waiting for him to come back. I knew someday he would come back. I will give you money. You can travel. Or go home to your America.”

  “And my hot dogs.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hot dogs,” Marie said. �
�Americans like hot dogs.”

  “Dégoûtant,” Lili Gaudet said. “I will give you money. You can go home. Or you can stay in Paris. Why not? It is a big city. It does not matter to me where you go. I am a very successful actress. I will help you. He belongs to me. He knows that. You know that. Comprends?”

  Marie lowered the sheet to show off her large, real breasts.

  “You know it won’t last,” the French actress said. “He will have sex with anyone. He was always like this. Nathalie did not want him to meet any of her friends. He did not care how it made her feel. He’ll fuck anything. Comprends? Ask him. Wake him up. Wake him up.”

  Marie leaned over, gently shaking Benoît Doniel’s shoulder. Benoît tried to kiss her, put his hands in her hair, and Marie let him pull her down. She wanted the French actress to watch, to let the French actress know what happened between them in bed.

  “Arrête,” the French actress said.

  This stopped Benoît.

  “She is in our room,” Marie whispered.

  “My room,” Lili said. “My apartment, my room.”

  “Lili?” Benoît broke away from Marie, sitting up in the bed.

  “Three years,” Lili said, addressing Benoît and only Benoît, but speaking slowly and deliberately in English, for Marie’s sake. “Three years you have been gone. Not a word. You have another woman’s baby.”

  “I had to leave,” he said. “I didn’t have to explain it to you. I owed you nothing.”

  “You did owe me,” she said. “You made promises to me.”

  “My sister died.” Benoît’s voice was angry. “She killed herself. She hanged herself in your summer house. You were there. You discovered her body.”

  “Every night and every day, that summer, you fucked me.”

  “You misunderstood, Lili,” he said. “We were crazy. With grief. That’s all it was. I had to get away. You are fine. You are a big star. You knew you would be.”

  With that, Lili Gaudet started again, speaking in rapid French. Marie heard that one same word at the end of almost every sentence, repeatedly. Comprends? Comprends? Comprends? Because apparently, Benoît did not. He did not want to give her whatever it was that she required. The French actress waved her arms, she chewed on her hair, and then she came over to the bed, she pulled the sheet off of Marie and called her a name. Marie did not know the word, but she understood what it meant: whore, slut, something hateful. Marie thought that women didn’t get to call other women whores or sluts anymore. And then she noticed that the French actress was staring again at Marie’s breasts, and when Marie looked down, she could see the spot where Benoît had sunk his teeth. He had bitten hard, as if he had literally tried to consume her.

  Benoît got out of the bed, naked, and he went for Lili before she could get to Marie. Marie was grateful. The fingernails of the French actress were long, her rodentlike eyes crazed. Benoît grabbed Lili Gaudet by the shoulders and tried to force her to the door. A strap from her nightgown fell off her shoulder, revealing a breast. Her breasts were small, much smaller than Marie’s, but they were perfectly formed, and Marie noticed, while Benoît tried to force the French actress away from the bed, that his dangling penis had become aroused, and Lili Gaudet was crying, again, as she started to punch Benoît with her fists. “Je te déteste,” she repeated, striking wildly.

  Marie felt more tired than she had ever remembered being. More tired than the day Ellen’s mother explained that she could not pay for her college education, but offered her a small sum for textbooks. More tired than the day she was released from prison and realized that there was no one to pick her up. Marie sat upright in the bed and watched them: the French insanity show. She did not defend what was hers.

  Served her right.

  That was what her mother would say. She said that every time Marie got into trouble: for shoplifting a lipstick at the mall, for getting caught cheating on an algebra test, for going to prison for abetting a violent felon.

  Served her right. Her mother’s words.

  Her mother would be ashamed if she knew what Marie had done to Ellen’s marriage. Her mother had taken Ellen’s side when it had all come out about Harry Alford. She’d think Marie was getting exactly what she deserved, witnessing the sick and twisted dance of Marie’s adulterous lover and his insane French actress.

  “Comprends?” the French actress screamed. She punched Benoît in the chest. Over and over. With every comprends.

  The ridiculous hair that Marie loved swooped down into Benoît Doniel’s eyes, but Marie couldn’t miss the change that had come over him; at a certain point, Benoît had stopped defending himself against Lili Gaudet’s crazed punches. He had stopped trying to push her to the door.

  Marie watched as he broke down and did the absolute worst possible thing that he could do. Marie watched while Benoît kissed Lili Gaudet, his hands in the French actress’s long, tangled blond hair, his tongue in her mouth. Marie even understood, a little, the pull of nostalgia. To get a second chance. To slip back into your past, to be the person that you once were. To return to your youth, your lost love. Marie had never thought that Benoît Doniel would take the place of Juan José, but he had left his wife for her. He had left the safety and comfort of his wife and taken his child and traveled across an ocean. He had done all of this for Marie, and here he was, embracing this French actress right in front of her, as she sat naked on the bed where he had just fucked her, and if Marie believed in fate, which she seemed to, then there seemed to be something fated about this, too. Fate had given Marie Benoît Doniel, and now fate was taking him away.

  Benoît Doniel was kissing Lili Gaudet in front of Marie. Lili was still crying, pressing herself against him, stroking his unmistakably erect penis with one hand, holding him close with the other. Marie listened to the French actress moan with pleasure. And Marie, she just watched, paralyzed on the bed that her lover and the reprehensible French actress would soon need, before she decided, finally, that this was more than she could take. Struggling to stand on legs that would not bend, Marie dragged herself out of the bed.

  She wrapped herself in the sheet, a beautiful pale lavender sheet with small pink flowers, maybe the nicest sheet Marie had ever slept on, and she left the bedroom, walking carefully around Benoît Doniel and his French actress, hoping that he would cease in this madness when she passed by. But he didn’t, and Marie made it safely into the living room, where earlier she had tucked Caitlin into a makeshift crib, couch pillows lined up on the floor next to the couch, a row upright, blocking her in. Beautiful, sweet Caitlin, asleep on the living-room floor, thumb in her mouth.

  “Paris,” Marie said to Caitlin, staring at the cobblestone street that lay ahead of them. There were expensive-looking shops lining both sides of the street. There was a lingerie store, a bakery. A bar. The restaurant where they had eaten steak frites. A bookstore. There were beautiful people, walking dogs, in stylish clothes.

  Marie also found a bank, though she was too early. Marie did, at least, have money. She had four weeks’ babysitting salary, practically untouched, and the five one-hundred-dollar bills, the guilt money Ellen had handed over the last time they saw each other. Marie would change these dollars to euros. She had money; she and Caitlin would be able to last awhile.

  “We are in Paris,” Marie said again. “Those birds you hear singing are French birds.”

  “French birds,” Caitlin said.

  “You got it,” Marie said. “Exactly. French birds. They don’t understand English. Not even a little bit.”

  Caitlin looked at Marie, not sure how to respond.

  “And over there,” Marie said, pointing to a little white poodle on a blue leash, “is a French dog.”

  “Doggie!”

  Caitlin clapped her hands. The Frenchwoman walking the dog kindly allowed Caitlin to pet her dog. Caitlin was always happy, petting someone else’s dog. Marie watched as the poodle licked Caitlin’s face. Caitlin squealed. The woman smiled at Marie and Marie smiled at the Fr
enchwoman. Marie realized she would do fine on her own in France. French people did not look at her and think kidnapper.

  Benoît Doniel could have his French actress. If that’s what he wanted. It was unthinkable, really, that that was what he wanted, who he wanted, but Marie would be okay with that. She would revise her opinion of him. She had believed that she truly loved him, but that might have only ever been an idea. A concept. A crush on the author of Virginie at Sea. She did not need him, no, she had used him to get to France, a place she had never been before. She would go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. She would take Caitlin.

  “We need breakfast,” Marie said. “Are you hungry?”

  Caitlin shook her head.

  “I am hungry,” Marie said.

  “The doggie licked me,” Caitlin said, smiling.

  “I want to eat the best croissant in France,” Marie said. “That’s what I want.”

  They started to walk. They turned the corner onto another cobblestone street without shops, but lined with old and beautiful buildings, one after the other, flowers planted in beds of grass lining the sidewalks. Marie had no idea where they were. She could see the Eiffel Tower, but could not tell if it was near or far. Where were the museums the French actress had promised, or those famous gardens? Marie only knew that they were getting farther away from the French actress’s apartment. She wondered how late Benoît would sleep, if he had managed to sleep, after he’d finished fucking his French actress. Maybe he had heard them leaving the apartment and he was racing to find them after waking up and discovering them gone.

  With every step farther from the French actress’s apartment, Marie felt a return to her better self. The Marie who did not care, who did not worry. Who took everything that was offered to her. Who did not look back. Caitlin was not unhappy. They started to walk as if it were any old day, as if New York was Paris and nothing had changed. They heard people speaking other languages in New York all the time. They walked one block and then another, turned right, and then right again; the view changed, the name of the street changed, and Marie found an outdoor market and a bubbling fountain. In the center of the square, near the market, French children were playing in the water. Dancing and splashing.