This pissed me off. I wanted to say, “You didn’t hold up my sister, you gutless fuck.”
Instead, I said, “Really? I bet it had nothing to do with health hazards or holding up the city. I’ll bet the Catholic churches wanted to evacuate the cemeteries because they saw a windfall in valuable real estate.”
He didn’t respond. In fact, his tanned face darkened. As we walked down corridor after corridor, silence ensued.
And here they were, the six million bodies that held up the city. The femurs and skulls of the very long departed had been carefully and, at times, artfully arranged. Sophie would have noted the details and said, “Oh, look, Ang. Those small skulls. You know they were children. And this one? Oh, my god. There’s a gun shot hole in this one. This is all too sad.”
Yes, Sophie. This is all too sad. You’re gone.
Gerard stopped and turned. He looked concerned. “Should we leave?”
I shook my head as I stared at skulls that had been arranged in the shape of a heart. “No, I’m fine. Continue.”
Thankfully, I had Sophie’s remains. I had picked up the urn with her ashes and sat on the couch with it, running my fingers through what once had been my sister. The ashes weren’t all fine as I expected. They were more like a mix of ash, gritty beach sand and tiny pieces of bones.
At least no one would put her bones up for viewing.
13
We exited the Catacombs far from the entrance and in an alley that had a map to the nearby Metros. While I tried to get my bearings, Gerard said, “What are you doing for Christmas Eve? Would you like to have dinner with my sister and her husband? I’m sure they won’t mind.”
Oh, god, no. The less I knew about him personally, the better. I couldn’t do away with a guy after meeting his family. I had limits. Yet, the invitation was hard to turn down. I couldn’t deny the sexual appeal of this murdering son of a bitch. He waited patiently and nervously for my answer. What excuse could I use to refuse?
Before I could answer, two beautiful women walked over and asked something of Gerard in French that I didn’t understand. The three of them carried on a lively conversation, leaving me forgotten on the cobblestones. There was no mistaking their flirtation, or his. Did he ignore Sophie like this too? Well, surprise, Gerard. I’ll keep flirting with you until I slip the poison in your champagne. You and the article will never see the light of day, never mind a new year.
I started walking. Halfway down the alley, he caught up with me and took my arm. “Helen?” He smiled. Bastard. Sophie deserved better. Quickly, I recognized a Metro entrance, slipped from his arm, and rushed off without a goodbye or thank you.
14
On Christmas Day, I took to the streets, unable to sit still, walking, walking, walking, under a gray, cloudy afternoon. I’d really blown it. The Frenchman had handed me New Year’s Eve, and now he’d never speak to me again. Why had I acted that way? I was a fool. Jealousy had ruined my plans. So what if he flirted?
The heaviness of the day and my mood forced me down on a bench in a park near the Eiffel Tower where I watched a group of tatted, punk twenty-somethings smoke cigarettes and pass around chips and a bottle. They seemed happy. I hugged myself.
Along the edge of the Eiffel Tower, I wandered past the many kiosks of takeaway food, colorful clothing, and souvenirs, and quickly left when I noticed the small frozen pond where children happily skated and squealed with delight. Sophie’s suicide didn’t make sense. She loved babies. If she’d known she was pregnant, but had been dumped, she would have come to me and Hank. We would have helped. She had to know that, didn’t she? So she couldn’t have known about the pregnancy. No way. In fact, maybe her crazy hormones had pushed her to suicide. Yes. That made sense.
I spent the rest of the day walking streets and wondering what to do next. My nerves fired my anxiety and the physical exercise helped a little. But I’d walked so far away from the apartment that I eventually took the Metro back. I needed to get Gerard back on the hook. But how?
At the apartment, I took a shower and ate a few cheese and baguette slices, my mainstay. When the phone rang, I jumped. Who had this number? Breathless, I looked at the ID. Gerard. Now I knew I was out of control. Of course he had my number. I had called him from the burner phone. I hesitated too long and the ringing stopped. A few seconds later, the phone buzzed with a voicemail.
“Allo, Helen. I hope you’re all right. You left so suddenly yesterday.” He paused. “Would you like to get a drink today? I’ve arranged a tour of the Château de Vaux le Vicomte if you’re still interested. Can you go tomorrow? I think this could be the centerpiece for your article. It’s still decorated for Christmas and very romantic. I await your call.”
15
I remember seeing Thelma and Louise with Sophie, how angry we both were that the women ended up acting like men and then drove their car off a cliff instead of being taken by the law. “That’s a feminist movie?” she almost shouted as we left the theater. “We don’t need to kill ourselves to escape a misogynistic world. That’s just bullshit.”
Yes, it was bullshit. So why’d you do it, Sophie?
16
The Frenchman picked me up at the corner of Desaix and Grenelle in his blue Peugeot and drove the thirty-four miles through French countryside, all the while telling me about the Baroque 17th century chateau, a forerunner of Versailles, with its optical illusion of a massive formal garden, how Nicolas Fouquet the owner, King Louis XIV's superintendent of finances, had to demolish three villages to build the place. Then Fouquet, because the king was jealous of the chateau and Fouquet’s grand, lavish fetes, was imprisoned for the rest of his life.
“It’s astounding to think Fouquet was only twenty-six when he started the chateau,” he said.
“Silicon Valley millionaires are younger than that,” I said for no reason at all. “My sister wouldn’t be caught dead visiting this place.”
Oh, God. What made me say that? I glanced over at Gerard. What was he thinking? Had I slipped?
“Is your sister part of the Occupy Movement? We have that here in Paris, too.”
Then he reached out and took my hand. I froze, but I didn’t pull away. It felt so good to have human contact.
“Are you OK?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
What the hell was I doing? I must be mad. But when I glanced over at him, I could see the delicate hairs on the back of his neck, the lushness of his lower lip that I imagined on mine. He looked genuinely concerned for me.
“My sister died not long ago. I miss her, that’s all.” When I said this, I couldn’t control the tears that rolled down my face.
“Je suis tellement désolé.” He didn’t have to translate. I knew by the way he pulled me over to him and held me that he was truly sorry.
God, I was so fucked.
17
Gerard had given me his hankie to wipe my face. I was determined not to crack like that again, so I threw myself into the tour of the chateau.
The chateau was everything a chateau should be and more. Again, Gerard showed ID and we skirted around the mass of people standing in line for entry. Once past the service building, I stopped for a moment, taking in this beautifully designed chateau with its moat and bridge, the formal gardens, its gorgeous backdrop.
Inside, Christmas was everywhere. Tiny lights for candles and fireplace garlands, Christmas trees with themed decorations in each room, the first with artificial snow, antique blue decorations, angels. Gerard followed, the crowds pushing us ever closer. I could almost feel his breath on my neck, making his nearness unbearable. I hurried to the next room with its all-white decorations. Angels, owls, teddy bears, ribbons and doves. A white rabbit beneath the tree, tall white angels with wings spread.
Every room was filled with tapestries, chandeliers, statues, paintings, vaulted ceilings with Sistine Chapel-type paintings, all with their own story told on plaques nearby. But I couldn’t concentrate enough to read, not with Gerard right behind me.
&
nbsp; He said, “Eighteen thousand people were once employed to keep this place running.” I snorted, turned to look up at him, and as I thought about kissing him, said to myself, I bet he didn’t say things like that when he was screwing my sister in some fancy hotel room.
I darted off to the last room before the bedrooms and drew to an abrupt halt. A room for children. Red, green and blue stars sparkled on white giraffes. Toadstools. Clowns of all sizes dressed in red and blue. Carousel-type horses. Hula-hoops. Four trees decorated with big bows, shiny and sparkling, silver moons, tiny clowns, and presents beneath.
When Gerard took my arm, I let go an angry exhale, wrenched free and pushed through the crowd, past a miniature working Ferris wheel, down stone stairs, through the underground passages lined with wine barrels and into the servants’ kitchen where a taxidermist boar lay on a thick table and I thought of how sick that would have made my vegetarian sister.
Finally, outside, I found myself at the top of stone stairs, looking toward the horizon at the rear of the chateau, the perspective of the pools causing a surreal view of the great gardens. I was breathing hard when a woman and her daughter asked if I was all right. I said yes and thanked them. When I turned, Gerard was standing there and I said, “I’d like to leave now.”
18
We were silent on the way back. He probably thought I was crazy. But then again, he was French and weren’t they used to public displays of emotion? I wasn’t angry anymore, just broken-hearted and bereft. I almost confessed to Gerard why I was in Paris, but that would have been crazy.
As we entered the city, he said, “Can I help? Would it help for you to talk about your sister, your anguish?”
Anguish? Such a formal word.
I said nothing.
He kept a polite distance from me, even in the car. “I’m attracted to you, Helen. I feel as if we’ve known each other before.”
I dug my nails into my palms to keep from raking them down his face. Known each other before? Was he serious? Did he finally see Sophie in my face?
“You don’t know me and you never will,” I said quietly.
Now he was the one who looked anguished. Good. He’d destroyed Sophie, and I wasn’t going home without getting justice for the both of us. But I was too angry to make nice. Maybe I could call him later and lean on his sympathies, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to talk to him about my sister again. Anguish? You bet, you bastard.
We said nothing to each other when he dropped me off a few blocks from the apartment. He didn’t try to stop me. He didn’t call me back. Shit. What in hell possessed me to mention my sister to him? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why had I forgotten my meds, of all things? I’d probably blown it for good this time. I’d probably never see him again.
Part III
19
The following day I found a pack of playing cards in the apartment and, in an attempt to pass time and stop thinking, I played solitaire. After hours of never winning a game, I realized the ace of hearts was missing.
Sophie would have teased me about not playing with a full deck, but I was rattled. How could I have played that long and not noticed? Especially an ace. Then I reminded myself—I wasn’t taking my meds.
I had to get some air, had to get out of this apartment.
I slipped into my disguise and set out to the Jeu de Paume and the Halsman exhibit. I’ve always been able to lose myself in museums and galleries, spending hours listening to an audio guide while Hank swiftly swept through. Even on our first trip to Paris, he sped through the Louvre, bought coffee somewhere, read the paper, and waited for me on the Pont des Arts watching private boats, bateaux mouches, and houseboats on the Seine. He never rushed me. How did I luck out with love while Sophie always struggled?
At the Jeu de Paume, I passed through the security system and headed upstairs to the Halsman “Astonish Me!” exhibit. I was beyond being “astonished,” or even wanting to be astonished. All I wanted was to stare at photos of Marilyn as if I could call forth her spirit and bring back my sister.
But who was I kidding? Marilyn couldn’t even save herself.
Soon I found Halsman’s “jumpology” shots, photos of celebrities jumping that he considered “disinhibiting” because the act of jumping “took off the mask.” In Marilyn’s jump shots, she looked more frightened than disinhibited, except for when Halsman jumped with her, and she finally looked as if she might be having fun. Maybe the human contact of holding his hand helped. I tried to picture Gerard and Sophie holding hands and jumping, laughing, but couldn’t. Instead I imagined his hand on her breast, her ass, helping her in and out of a taxi. Had he spoiled her a little? She deserved to be spoiled.
Then I saw the contact sheet of Marilyn’s first shoot for Life, before she had work done and years before her entanglement with the Kennedys.
Her long wavy hair fell around her baby cheeks and smiling face.
I stopped and stepped back, the fate of my sister suddenly paralleling Marilyn’s. Both had died because of a lover.
Now I was livid and grief stricken at the same time. I hugged myself, pinching my upper arms to force back tears, wishing I had told Hank, asked him to come home and help me plan justice for my sister. He’d once lamented how “the scumbags inherit the earth,” sounding like a disgruntled character out of an old TV series, but actually plan revenge? Murder? Underneath his occasional blustering, he was the most moral man I knew.
I quickly left the exhibit. Outside rain spit on stone. As kids, Sophie and I would roll up our jeans and stomp mud puddles in our bare feet, catch frogs, spy on the neighborhood boys. We’d make lunches, wrap them in kitchen towels, and eat them down by the lake. We pretended we were orphans, and we were in a way. Both our mom and dad had to work long hours to stay afloat, so they relied on the neighbors to keep an eye on us. But the neighbors had their own kids, so Sophie and I relied on each other. That made us orphans. No one understood what that meant. Like the time a man followed us home and tried to get in the house, and we screamed our fool heads off until he ran. Or the time Sophie fell off her bike and I patched her up. No one knew what we’d gone through, except each other. The Frenchman had taken away my only sibling, my best friend, my fellow orphan. He needed to pay.
On Place de la Concorde, the wind carried rain and street grime across the bricks. People huddled or scurried past, their faces covered, and I felt as if I could be in any big city anywhere in the world. I put a hand up to cover my eyes and hurried toward the Ferris wheel.
I was not fond of heights, but today didn’t matter. Nothing did. Let the damn wind blow me away. I paid my twelve euros and because there were few people riding, I had a pod to myself. When the wheel stopped at the top, the clouds allowed a limited view of Champs Elysees, Eiffel Tower, Place de la Concorde, and a skyline of high-rise buildings in the far distance. Below, the walkways were almost deserted.
“Wish you were here, Soph,” I said, my eyes welling. We’d never take a trip—to Paris, or Venice, or any other place together. I’d never see her again. The finality of it caused a gut punch that folded me over. Without looking I reached beside me and felt her small, warm and familiar hand in mine, and I said, “He won’t get away with this, Soph. He won’t hurt anyone ever again.” When I said this, the wheel began to turn again but her hand was gone.
20
At the apartment, I poured three fingers of scotch. I had no idea what to do next, but once the liquid courage hit, I called Gerard. I didn’t get past a greeting before he said, “I can’t stop thinking about you. I think something went wrong and I hope I wasn’t to blame. I am not a bad person or a player.” He sounded so sincere. “Can we have a glass of wine or meet for coffee? I really think we—”
“Fine. Not tonight though.”
I didn’t want to be alone with him. No coffee or dinner. I’d keep it professional. Ironically, this time I was the one who couldn’t be trusted. So I arranged to meet him at the opera house the next day.
21
I a
rrived early, paid and waited in the mirrored gothic rotunda of the opera house with the guided tours. When the Frenchman walked in, I watched him look for me.
God. No wonder Sophie fell for him. He turned heads, but seemed oblivious to it, like Hank. Some men who went to prison had magnetism too. Maybe it was self-assurance. Maybe they’d been told all their lives they were sexy. Maybe they had more pheromones or. … I had to stop obsessing. I applied lipstick for the third time. How do women keep this on all day? My dress felt too tight and the bench too hard. I pushed back my shoulders and tried to look relaxed, waiting.
Finally he saw me, walked over and smiled awkwardly. “Thank you for letting me join you.”
“Of course,” I said a bit too loudly. I joined him, withdrew pen and notebook, found a blank page, and said, “Do you know much about the opera house?”
We remained formal with each other. He told me he held season ballet tickets for here. The opera itself had long since moved to a different venue. “Would you like to see the grotto? I could arrange a tour on another day, if that interests you.”
I wondered if Sophie had told him about her love of Phantom of the Opera. What perfect justice to kill Sophie’s lover in the grotto. But that didn’t fit my plan.
Revenge in Paris Page 4