What Mother Never Told Me

by Donna Hill

  "I'll be in as soon as I'm done."

  Celeste nodded, opened the sliding glass doors and stepped back inside, closing them behind her. In the few short minutes that she'd taken to speak with her father, the number of guests had multiplied. The noise level ballooned and food, drink and music flowed with the gusto of rushing water after a heavy rain.

  "They should gather up all the poor, the blacks and the Jews and ship them off," one man was saying to another.

  "Aren't they all the same?" his friend quipped.

  They laughed at the joke and raised their glasses in a toast.

  "The problem is the Democrats."

  "They'd love to have the whole country on welfare and have us pay for it."

  Celeste cringed and kept walking.

  She didn't see Clinton or her mother and that was a good thing. She threaded her way around the bodies until she'd reached the front door, where she'd been ceremoniously relieved of her coat upon her arrival. She dug in her evening bag, took out a ticket stub and handed it to the young girl on coat duty. Shortly her coat was given to her and Celeste took one last look over her shoulder before slipping out. Of course, she'd never hear the end of it from her mother but her mother's diatribe would be the punishment she was willing to accept simply to get away from the oppressive scent of success.

  Celeste stepped out into the chilly March night, drew her mink jacket around her and began walking.

  Leslie Evans lay curled up on the well-worn couch. A half-eaten bowl of potato chips rested on the smudged glass coffee table. CNN played in the background rehashing the latest on the political landscape. Since the election of President Obama, she'd become addicted to politics after years of malaise. It had become her refuge, a way of turning her mind onto the problems of the world and away from her own--the life that she'd come to dread waking up to day after day.

  Anderson Cooper was in the middle of discussing the plummeting stock market prices when the doorbell rang. She glanced at the clock that hung above the mantel. Five more minutes and it would be time for MSNBC, she thought absently. The bell rang again. Annoyed at being disturbed and by the fact that she had to get up or else the next ring would surely wake her mother, she pulled herself up and padded barefoot across the cold tiled floor to the door. She drew her robe tighter around her.

  "Who is it?"

  "Les, it's me, Celeste."

  Leslie frowned and opened the door. "Cee, what in the world are you doing here? I thought you had that thing with your mother tonight."

  "I did. I should have called...."

  "Girl, please, come on in. You're letting in the cold air." She shivered.

  Celeste stepped in. "Thanks."

  "I was watching--"

  "CNN." Celeste finished the sentence, knowing her friend all too well.

  "So how bad was it?" Leslie asked, leading the way to the living room.

  "As bad as I expected." She slipped out of her expensive fur and tossed it to the side like a pair of dirty gym socks. She plopped down on the love seat and kicked off her shoes, wiggling her toes in relief.

  Leslie resumed her position and tucked her bare feet beneath her. "What did you do with Clinton?"

  Celeste waved off the question. "He'll be fine. By the time he realizes I'm gone, it won't really matter. I'll simply tell him I came down with a splitting headache and didn't want to pull him away."

  Leslie pursed her lips, flattening their plumpness into a tight line of concern. Her dark eyes rested on Celeste. "Why do you put yourself through all this? I could never understand. You are so unlike them." She uttered the last word with the puckered bite of one who'd sucked on a lemon.

  Leslie and Celeste's lifestyles were polar opposites. Yet it was their differences that bound them in a way that was incomprehensible to those outside of their intimate twosome. It was the inconsistencies about their lives, the cracks in their personalities and the internal angst that they shared that strengthened their fledgling sisterhood. One black, one white, one wealthy, one poor.

  Celeste could only imagine what life must have been like living in the projects of New York City. She'd only seen pictures and heard commentary by those who'd laid the foundation for generation upon generation to be entrapped there. Of course their perspective was couched in myth and sanctimonious rhetoric. But if there was any truth in the notion that you are a product of your environment, it was certainly true, at least in part, about Leslie. She had a hard edge to her soft roundness, a wariness and often pessimistic view of the world and a resiliency that Celeste often marveled at. Although she wouldn't want to change lives with Leslie, she respected where her friend had come from and how far she'd taken herself...at least on the surface.

  Leslie reached for a potato chip then changed her mind. "Go on and say it."

  Celeste's green eyes glanced up. "Say what?"

  Leslie huffed. "That I don't have any business laying around wolfing down a bowl of potato chips. Why don't I have something healthy, like a yogurt or some carrots?" she singsonged in a mocking voice.

  Celeste screwed up her nose. "Do I really sound like that?"

  "Yes. You do." She rolled her eyes.

  "You know I don't mean any harm. I'm just worried about you. We already had a scare with your blood pressure and that fainting spell a couple of months back. And your mother..."

  The albatross had entered the room with the mention of her mother. Theresa Evans had been a strong, dominating force, wielding and molding Leslie into a mere caricature of the woman she might have been. That woman was now a shadow of her former self confined to bed and a wheelchair, needing assistance to eat, wash, dress and even speak. Some days Leslie was so overwhelmed with the enormity of the responsibility that she often felt that this was yet another way for her mother to control her life. The resentment battled constantly with the guilt of her ugly thoughts. Depending on the day and her mood, one or the other won out. Today resentment clinched the title.

  "How is she today?"

  Leslie's gaze drifted away. "The same." Her eyes suddenly filled. "I'm just so tired." She pressed her fist to her mouth.

  "Leslie, you need a break. I told you I would help you pay for someone to come in and take care of her."

  Vigorously she shook her head, the tumble of naturally curly hair spilling back and forth across her shoulders. "I need to do it. It's my responsibility. And I still have her home attendant Gracie at least for a little while longer."

  They'd had this conversation a least a dozen times since Theresa had been felled by a devastating stroke nearly a year earlier that left her trapped in a shell of her former self. It was incomprehensible to Celeste that someone would want to take on that role of nurse when you could easily pay someone else to do it. She couldn't imagine taking care of Corrine Shaw on an everyday basis. Being in her repressive presence when she was well was exhausting enough. But Leslie had been adamant from the beginning. Her mother's insurance only covered someone coming in twice per week for four hours, which was the tiny window that allowed Leslie to try to run her design business, take meetings and deal with clients. The rest of the time she was as trapped in this two-bedroom apartment as her mother. And she comforted herself with eating. While Theresa seemed to shrink week by week, Leslie mushroomed, seeming to take on every pound that Theresa lost. And their already adversarial relationship only added to the strain that lived in the apartment as the rent-free third tenant.

  "Let's talk about something else, okay?" Leslie adjusted herself on the couch. She reached for the remote and turned off the television. "So, tell me all about the deal?"

  Celeste's expression brightened. She sat up straighter in the seat and gave Leslie all the details about the place and how excited she was to have closed such a major project. "I know that Nick is going to ask you to come in and work your magic. He said as much. Well, I actually suggested it to his girlfriend, Parris."

  "Girlfriend? Don't you mean Tara?"

  Celeste frowned. "I don't know about anyone nam
ed Tara, but there is something definitely going on with the woman he was with--Parris. She's apparently staying at his place."

  Leslie's tapered brows shot up. "You're kidding. Parris McKay, the singer?"

  "You know her?"

  "I've heard her sing in the club. Phenomenal. I thought there might have been a vibe going on between them, but I was pretty sure Tara wouldn't let that happen." She slowly bobbed her head as the images and pieces came together. "They make a great couple. Wow. Good for them." She focused on Celeste. "What did you think of Parris?"

  "Actually, I think she's really great. Kind of reserved with a little bit of Southern naivete, friendly, very pretty." She leaned forward, resting her arms on her thighs. "I thought maybe the three of us could get together when she gets back."

  "Back from where?"

  "She went to find her mother."

  Leslie frowned. "What do you mean, 'find her mother'?"

  "Apparently she'd spent her entire life thinking that her mother was dead and only found out recently that she was alive and well and living in France."

  "You're kidding."

  Celeste shook her head. "Nope. That's what she told me."

  "That must have been a shock."

  Silence joined them and they contemplated what life would be like for each of them had their own mothers not been in them.

  Her rudimentary high school French came to her in bits and pieces, after she'd landed at Nantes airport southwest of Paris, at least enough to tell the cab driver to take her to the town of Amboise in the Loire Valley.

  "I'm going to Ninety-Eight rue Pascal."

  "Ah, in Amboise, Loire Valley."

  "Yes," she said on a breath of relief, cringing as she'd listened to herself mangle the language.

  As the cab wound its way through the early evening traffic, Parris's heart thudded and banged in time to the bounce and roll of the cab along narrow cobblestone streets before darting out onto the A10 motorway. She smoothed the yellowed envelope with her mother's last known address across her lap. The lamplight from the street intermittently streamed in through the window, casting short shadows and bits of illumination upon her destiny. Her fingers shook. She gripped her knees and concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply. She peered out of the window as the city of lights flickered and grew dim and the rolling landscape of countryside took its place. She had no idea how long the trip would take but surely an eternity had passed.

  It began to rain, slowly at first and then with torrential force. The wipers slashed furiously against the window. The driver slowed as the road disappeared in front of them. She barely made out the sign that read Entering Loire Valley, exit No. 18. Her breath caught. She gripped her knees tighter as the pounding in her chest reverberated in her head. After about another fifteen minutes the driver drew to a stop along a winding path braced on both sides with cottage houses in varying sizes and degrees of splendor with overhanging trees silhouetted against the deep purple sky. At the end of the path cushioned in a cul-de-sac was a three-story structure with a wraparound terrace, towering trees and a sprawling lawn. Lights glowed on the upper floor illuminating the rain.

  "Ninety-eight rue Pascal. This is your address."

  Parris could not move.

  "Madame? Your address."

  She nodded numbly. What if her mother wasn't there and this was no longer her address? She had no plan. No way of getting around or even a clue as to where to stay.

  She gripped the back of his seat. "Can you...wait?"

  The driver glanced at her over his shoulder. He held up his hand. "Five minutes."

  She made a move to get out.

  "You pay now."

  She fumbled around in her purse and took out twenty dollars. "Is this enough?"

  He looked at the American money and bobbed his head once. Parris opened the car door and stepped out. For a moment she stood stock-still, the rain tumbling down around her, plastering her clothes to her body. She shivered, reached back into the cab for her umbrella and cautiously moved toward the front door. She unlatched the fence and walked forward.

  Three steps separated her from all the answers that had eluded her. She put one foot in front of the other, reached out and rang the bell.

  In the distance she could hear the chime but no movement, no voices, when suddenly the door was pulled partially open. A woman of medium height with dark sleek hair pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, peered at her with suspicion from the crack in the opened door.

  "Yes, may I help you?" Her lilting French accent was faint, but her English was clear.

  Parris swallowed over the tight knot in her throat. "I came to see Emma McKay...Travanti."

  "The Mrs. is out with Mr. Travanti. Was she expecting you?"

  "Uh, no, she wasn't. Do you know how long she'll be?" Rain slashed against her and her umbrella turned inside out and blew out of her hand, tumbling across the lawn.

  "As I said, she is out for the evening. Who should I say you are?"

  "She...doesn't know me."

  The woman looked closer through the rain, attempting to make out the figure in front of her. A light flickered in her eyes.

  Parris turned. Those three steps were like falling from a cliff. A sickening sensation, one of a swelling magnitude, rose to her throat, gagging her as she heard the door shut behind her. Tears of a strange kind of relief flowed and were just as quickly washed away with the rain, only to be replaced with the sorrow of defeat.

  Emma squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her back to the door and dragged in long gulps of air. She didn't dare move until she heard the car pull off.

  "Em, who was that at the door in this weather?"

  Emma opened her eyes. Her husband stood in front of her, looking at her curiously.

  "No one," she whispered.

  Chapter Seven

  "Do you know of a hotel in the area?" Parris asked the cab driver--Amin--while she struggled to hold onto her composure.

  "Back in Town Square." He stole a glance at her in his rearview mirror. "The people were not home?"

  "No." She lowered her head. Water dripped from her hair onto her lap.

  He peered at her again and the longing that draped her like a cloak caused him to reflect on what had brought him to this foreign land. "When my daughter Mya left our homeland of Senegal to live here to attend the university, I was never so worried about her being away from home and friends and family." He shook his head. "Every night my wife, Akewi--rest her soul--and I prayed that she would be safe. All a parent can do is hope and pray that their grown-up child will remember all the things they've been taught and that life will treat them with kindness. Our Mya believed in the goodness of people, and she was right. Those who were once strangers became friends. And it made me believe, too. When I lost Akewi to the fever, there was nothing to hold me in Senegal. Nothing but memories and loss. So I took my chances, trusted my daughter's instincts. And here I am!" He chuckled lightly. "May I ask who you were looking for? Perhaps I know them."

  Parris blinked rapidly to stem the tears that burned her eyes. "Um, her name is Emma Travanti."

  "Ah, Ms. Emma!"

  Her heart pounded. "You know her?"

  "Everyone knows Ms. Emma. She owns Voile Bistro."

  Her thoughts raced. "In town..."

  "Yes, on Monoir Square. You can't miss it. Perhaps you will find her there tomorrow. They open at noon. I can point it out to you before I take you to your hotel."

  "Thank you." She squeezed her hands together on her lap. Noon. Tomorrow. Parris turned to stare out of the window. Tomorrow. She would meet her mother tomorrow.

  Amin reversed course and drove back toward the center of town. He drove up and down several narrow commercial streets before finally slowing. "There, on your right, Voile Bistro."

  Parris peered out the window, memorizing the brown-and-white overhanging awning, the plate glass window that advertised plates of mouthwatering treats--Voile Bistro. Her stomach rolled over and again, m
imicking a beach ball kicked across the sand.

  She swallowed over the knot in her throat. "What is the name of this street?"

  "Rue Venier."

  She repeated the name over and over to herself. Rue Venier.

  After a bumpy twenty-minute ride filled with wondrous stories of Amin's life in a tribal village of Senegal, and talk of the first Black president in America and his impact on the world, Parris had begun to push to the back of her mind her current dilemma and almost imagined herself on an exciting vacation, until they came to a stop in front of Le Moulin du Port, one of several bed-and-breakfast inns that Amin had recommended. Amin hopped out of the cab and helped Parris, holding his own jacket over her head as they ran to the front door. He darted back to get her bags.

  "I'll stay and be sure you get a room," he offered.

  She looked into his eyes, the caring eyes of a father, his midnight black face lined by years of sun and struggle, and she understood the kindness of strangers. She tilted her head in question. "You never told me where your daughter is now."

  Amin smiled. "She works for a local radio station in the city of Paris. Perhaps you will get a chance to meet her."

  "I'd like that very much."

  He rang the bell and moments later a woman answered. She appeared to be around sixty years old, and was exquisitely dressed in a long sea-blue cotton dress that gently wrapped around her long slender figure. Her silver hair was pulled back into a tight bun, which seemed to be the hairstyle of choice, Parris thought absently. She'd noticed the coif on every other woman she'd seen since she landed in France. The only things that gave any hint to her age were the fine webs at her eyes and the loss of firmness at her exposed neck.

  "Oui?" She looked from one to the other.

  "I was hoping you had a room for the night. I only just arrived today from the States and...I thought...I'd planned to stay with a...friend." She brushed wet hair away from her face.

  "Ah, yet another lost American." She smiled. "You are in luck as I had a cancellation today." She threw a sharp look at Amin. "And you?"