by Zelda French
Little Jérémy and his friends are skateboarding outside. Jérémy comes to my rescue, effortlessly opens the door for me. He’s twelve.
“What’s up, Lou?”
“Nothing, Jérémy, nothing,” I say, my voice dark. “Only Death comes to us all.”
The kid throws me a look that guarantees his parents are gonna knock on my door tonight.
Eugénie is on her way down when I drag myself into the hallway.
“I was looking for you, to wish you a happy birth—” She takes one look at me and hurries down. “My goodness. Who died?”
“Only love, Miss Eugénie.” Sighing, I help her down the last step. There is little else to do for me now but to spend the rest of my life in sighs.
Eugénie doesn’t look impressed. “Young men. All the same.”
“Sorry Eugénie,” I say, my voice mournful. “I forgot about your groceries.”
“Never mind that.” She takes a look at Tony’s bike. “Why do you have a bike?”
“Tony gave it to me, it was supposed to be my ride…”
Defeated, I slump against the wall of mailboxes.
“You look terrible, Louis.” She takes my wrist. “Will you tell me what happened?”
I stare down at her anxious wrinkly face. Eugénie, my old friend. We can both live as old people haunted by the ghosts of our lost loves, from now on.
“You remember Doriane, Miss Eugénie?”
She taps her foot impatiently on the cement tiles. “You’re joking, right?”
“Doriane did love me.” My eyes immediately fill with bitter tears. “It was a terrible misunderstanding, and now I’ve lost her forever.”
The tragedy of lost love! Miss Eugénie will never understand.
Muttering to herself, Eugénie takes Tony’s bike and parks it against the wall. We return upstairs together to her flat, where she plops me down on the sofa. Rubbing her hands anxiously, she asks:
“Do you want some tea?”
Eyes brimming with tears, I hold up a hand. “No. Nothing British, please.”
A minute later she slaps a tiny glass of gin on the coffee table and comes sit next to me.
“Isn’t Gin British?” I ask, sniffling.
“Drink.”
The delicious Gin, British or not, does its job. Grateful, I give my old friend’s hand a gentle squeeze.
“Doriane’s gone.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sniffling. “Home, perhaps. The cleaning lady said they left the flat. She was extremely unhelpful.”
I explain to her everything that happened, every thing except of course, the real identity of my Doriane.
“I’m so stupid. If I hadn’t lost so much time trying to figure out...” I almost give myself away. “Trying to figure out whether she really liked some idiot like me or not…”
Eugénie tilts her head. “Louis… my dear Louis.” She chews the inside of her cheek. “I don’t want to say anything offensive, kiddo, but it seems to me your girlfriend’s a boy, a very handsome English boy, to be exact, or my name isn’t Eugénie.”
I look at her in disbelief. “How? How did you know?”
She snorts. “You think yourselves so smart, but it was plain as day.”
I take a moment to digest these news. You know, if I learn any more things today, I might just burst.
“And… you don’t mind?”
“Mind what?”
I give her a pointed look. “Come on.”
“The only thing I mind, dear,” Miss Eugénie says, “is that it took you so long to figure out what you wanted. That’s the real shame. This beautiful boy looked like he was mad about you.”
“You know, Eugénie… I didn’t think you’d understand.”
“Me?” Eugénie gives a harsh laugh. “You don’t know me, Louis. I have lived a little. More than a little. I was dancing with people like you at a time where they were risking their neck just for a stolen kiss! But more importantly… Once, a lifetime ago, I was in your position, and just like you, it took me too long to choose.”
Her revelation sends me into a coughing fit. “You? Miss Eugénie?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I was young and in love too, once.”
“With…” I lean in and whisper: “A Doriane?”
“No”, she says, in a regular voice. “A James.”
I stare into her face, confused.
“What happened?”
“Don’t move. I’ll show you something.”
Miss Eugénie disappears into the back rooms for a short moment. She comes back with the metal box which landed on my head the day we met, the one coming from the cardboard box on top of her wardrobe.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE ART OF TRAIN CATCHING
MISS EUGÉNIE CAREFULLY opens the metal box while I wait with bated breath. Inside the box lay several trinkets and old yellowed photographs. A picture of a twenty-something Eugénie in a bikini catches my attention. I immediately make a move for it, but Eugénie slaps my wrist away.
“James was the risky option, and my first husband was the safest. I picked wrong, Louis. I picked wrong and I always regretted it.” The picture shows Miss Eugénie in her early twenties, in jeans and a plaid shirt, in the arms of a young and handsome black man. “When I got divorced, James was long married to someone else.”
“Damn, Eugénie. He’s almost prettier than me.”
She nods. “And smarter, too.”
“Hey!”
Eugénie gives a small laugh, her eyes glittering.
“How did you meet?” I ask.
“We worked on a a few Hollywood pictures together. Back in the early sixties.” She lifts a hand to her mouth. “I wish I’d run away with him every day.”
I watch my old friend’s face contort from emotions.
“It’s not too late, Miss Eugenie, to try to find him.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “Old geezer like him, he probably uses Facebook.”
Eugénie’s laughter escalates, but so do her other emotions. Soon, tears are streaming down her face. This time, I push the tissue box toward her, hoping there’s more than one left, after all the outbursts I’ve had on her sofa.
“Alas,” Eugénie says, exhaling a steep breath, “James passed away a few months ago. Now all I have is a few memories, and a lifetime of ‘what ifs’. You can do better.”
I nod toward the wall, where all of her friends are smiling down on her. “Should we put James on the wall, with the others? It doesn’t seem right that he should be in a box.”
Eugénie turns to me. “You’re right, my dear. Sometimes you want to keep precious things hidden so you can protect them from any influence, but you just end up boxing them away, letting regrets take over.”
She puts the picture down and takes my hand.
“You, my dear, you don’t have to spend your life in regret. You should go after him.”
“But Michael went back home…”
“So?” I like the wicked glint that flashes in her eyes. “What’s stopping you from going to London? It’s only a train away. Come to think of it, what’s stopping you from going now?”
“Now?” I gaze around the flat in alarm. “I don’t even know where he lives!”
Of course, my phone rings. But considering I was friendless not two hours ago, I do not hesitate this time, and I pick up without even taking the time to read out the caller’s name.
“Lou!” It’s Lucie, shouting fo both Eugénie and I to wince ahead from the speaker.
I figure she’s calling about the bike.
“Lucie look, tell Tony sorry about his bike—”
“Fuck Tony’s bike!”
“Hey!” Tony says behind her.
Next to me, Miss Eugénie gives a delighted squeal of laughter.
“Louis,” Lucie goes on, breathless, “I just talked to Sacha, I wanted to apologise, you know—”
“Get to it, Lucie!” Tony begs.
“Put them on speaker p
hone.” Eugénie says.
I obey her command and switches the call to speaker mode.
“Who was that?” Tony asks.
I never got around to tell Tony about my elderly neighbour who’s also my best mate, but now’s not the time.
“Never mind, Tony. Speak, Lucie.”
“Yes!” Lucie’s back. “Sacha said Michael is on his way to London, with his mother.”
Eugénie and I exchange an animated look.
“Listen, Lou,” Lucie says. “It’s the 15h30 Eurostar from Gare du Nord.”
Eugénie seizes my arm and shakes it brutally, pointing at the clock. It’s close to 3h00. On the other side of the line, there’s a commotion. Lucie swears loudly.
“You can make it,” Tony says, now in possession of the phone. “But you’ll need a better ride than my stupid bike.”
I desperately start throwing looks around me, hoping to find a Lamborghini hidden under Eugénie’s cushions.
“I’ll never make it on time!” I hang my head. “Especially if I take the RER B!”
Eugénie keeps pulling my sleeve. I try my best to break away.
“What?”
She waves a set of car keys, a smirk on her face.
“Holy shit! Eugenie, you can drive?”
Eugénie is already putting up her coat.
“Only a moron wouldn’t know how to drive.”
“Tony!” I lurch, bellowing, into the speaker. “I’ve got my ride!”
Tony whistles. “Fantastic. Meet us at the Shark as soon as you get your man back. I hope you’ve got some—”
I hung up. Who has time for this?
Eugénie tries her best to climb down the stairs without missing a step and breaking her neck. I buzz the front door open. To my utter shock, my father arrives just as we’re exiting. He’s inexplicably holding an enormous red balloon that says ‘Birthday Boy’.
“You’re here!” My father says, beaming. He then sees Eugénie in her black coat and pink slippers. “What’s going on?”
“Get out of the way, David.” Eugénie pushes past my dad, her set of keys dangling from her fingers. He jumps sideways to let her through. “We must go to Gare Du Nord, now! No time to explain.”
I point at the ridiculous balloon.
“How about you? Care to explain?”
My father’s face turns an embarrassing shade of pink. “You needed cheering up, and I thought—”
I stare into his mortified face, trying hard not to laugh. “You thought a balloon would do the trick, for your eighteen year old son?”
“They had nothing else, you know. I was planning to take you somewhere nice.”
The sharp bark of an old car horn has us nearly jumping out of our skins.
“Are you done?” Miss Eugénie shouts from the driver seat of her car, which is, naturally, none other than the old Coccinelle I have seen parked out on the street my entire life. “We’re a little pressed by time, here!”
“Come on!” I tell my father.
Flipping the passenger seat so that my father and his new helium-filled friend can cram themselves into the back seat, I check my phone for the time, my heart racing.
“Get in!” Eugénie slams the honk again.
I slip into the passenger seat, and we’re off!
Well, not really.
Miss Eugénie has trouble getting out of the parking spot. When at last, she squeezes out of her tight spot and slams her fluffy foot on the pedal, the car lurches forward, groaning and sputtering.
“Do you want me to drive?” My father asks nervously, gripping the passenger headrest with both hands.
“Nice try.” Eugénie says, smirking. “I have more experience driving than the sum of both of your ages. Now shut up and let me do my thing.”
My father and I exchange a look, and as I’m trying to calculate real fast how old Miss Eugénie really is, she blows through a red light.
My father gasps. “Eugénie!”
“I saw that!” I hide my face behind my hands.
“No time!” Eugénie barks, switching gear. “Michael’s train leaves in fifteen minutes.”
Dad leans in between us. “Will someone please tell me what in the name of Amélia Earhart is going on?”
Now in a shocking twist, I finally got to witness how my father puts his intensive reading to use in real life. This day is probably the strangest day of my life.
“Shut up, David, let me concentrate.” Eugénie jerks her head toward me. “Louis. Tell your father what’s going on.”
I shift around in the old seat to tell my father, or more exactly, the balloon floating in front of his face, about our mad plan to stop Michael from going back home to London where frankly, the food is awful, the weather is shit and football is way too much of a thing.
“But I thought you wanted to move to London.”
My dad punches the balloon away from his face. The thing bounces against my headrest and punches my dad right back in the face.
“That’s not the point, dad!”
We hit a massive bump. My head smacks against the roof of the car. Looking over my shoulder, I see Eugénie drove the car in the middle of the bus lane and several pedestrians are yelling at her.
“Miss Eugénie?” I speak in a small voice. “Do you even know how to drive?”
She slips me a quick glance. “Now’s not exactly the right time to ask me that, is it?”
My father has never looked more anxious. And each bump in the road sends the balloon up and down and bouncing off his head.
In an awe-aspiring effort that that would have indubitably impressed Tony so much that he would have begged Eugénie to try her luck at GTA, we reach Gare du Nord seven minutes before the departure of the train. Shameless, Eugénie slips into a taxi spot at the last second, earning herself an strong reaction from the taxi driver who was coming in at the same moment.
“Go, go!” Eugénie shoos me out of the car.
“Will you be alright?”
She blows a raspberry.“I’ll play old and dumb, trust me, I’ll be fine.”
My father leans forward, his eyes alive. “Good luck!”
Springing out of the car, I charge into the station, my heart pounding. I haven’t been here in a years. Slaloming through the harassed crowd, my eyes dart left and right, up and down, anxious to to find exactly which platform does the Eurostar leave from. I can’t find it. I can’t find anything at all! I soon stop in the middle of the station, my arms falling limply at my side.
A voice shouts. “This way!”
It’s my father, a finger pointer toward the platform one level up, and still holding the infamous balloon. We start to a run, doing out best to dodge irritated travellers, failing at it, getting remonstrated left and right. A woman clutching a large handbag hisses at me. Nothing has mattered less to me than their annoyance.
My goal, my Michael is close, I can feel it.
On top of the platform, the way is closed, barred by a security guard in uniform with unusually bushy eyebrows.
“I need to get through!” I try to force my way in, my tone imploring. “Please!”
The guard holds up a hand the size of a frying pan. “You can’t, unless you have a Eurostar ticket.”
“But it’s important! I must get through.”
“And I’m telling you, you can’t without a ticket.”
My father, who was at my heels, stop before him, panting, the balloon tied to his wrist.
“Please! He really needs… to…”
“I’m in love!” I shout out loud in the station, bringing my hands together in an attempt to soften the guy. “And I must talk to my love before the train leaves.”
The security quirks an eyebrow.“And I earn minimum wages. I don’t have time for this.”
With a pathetic sound, I sink to my knees in front of everyone. People start throwing us odd looks, irritating the guard.
“Don’t fret, little guy.” He jerks his head toward the tracks. “You wouldn’t have ma
de it anyway.”
“What? What did you say?”
“Look.” He’s pointing at a train slowly leaving the station, on level below us.
I gasp in horror. “Is that—is that my train?”
“It’s the 15h30 for London.”
I turn to my father, heartbroken. “But…”
My father put his arm around my shoulders and turns back to the guard, seething. “When he’ll cry about this, I’ll remind him it was your fault!”
The security guard shrugs. “Fine by me.”
Despair submerges me, draining me of the last of my energy, my spirit.
My fight is over. I’ve lost.
Michael is gone back to London. My life will never be the same.
My concerned father peels me off the floor, limp and lifeless, and we slowly make our way back to the front of the station.
“I’m sorry Louis.” Dad speaks in a muted voice, as though not to set me off. “Perhaps you can give him a call.”
“He hates being on the phone.” I heave a sigh. “He was perfect for me.”
Aware of the sobs stuck in my throat, my father pulls me closer. We emerge from the station, blinking in the sunlight. The weather, once again, is oblivious to my suffering.
Ahead of us, Eugénie is still sparring with the same taxi driver. He’s waving a newspaper in her face. An elbow resting on the roof of her car, Eugénie admires her nails, unfazed.
“At least one of us is having fun.” I slouch against one of the pillars, in front of the station, exhausted.
“Oh, no!” My father jumps when Eugénie seizes the taxi driver’s newspaper and starts beating him with it. “I better get in there.”
Dad pushes the string of the balloon into my fist and runs to the taxi driver’s rescue. I look up at the balloon, snarling, angry at its blotted representation of happiness, its happy hopping, its vibrant colours.
The red balloon is just like the people coming in and out the station in great swarms, bustling about their life, all knowing, but not caring that without Michael, I will never be happy.
And then, the familiar scent of apples. Filling my nose, enveloping me, before I even hear his first words.