Generation of Liars (14 page)

“I was just saying that stuff to be
a pain in the ass.” I tapped my foot nervously under the table, my mind
stirring to invent an excuse to say out loud. “I was embarrassed about what
really happened, so I figured making up some grand story would impress you.”

“I figured as much. People get
wheeled into the ER saying all sorts of crazy things, from bar fight stories to
claiming they were abducted by aliens.” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to insinuate you were crazy.”

“No, no, it’s okay. You have permission
to use the
C
word, I was acting crazy.”

“It’s just that I’ve seen it
before, tourists coming down with Paris Syndrome.”

“Paris Syndrome?”

“Yeah, it’s a little bit like
Jerusalem Syndrome, when a pilgrim visits the holy land and convinces themselves
that the guy they’ve just bought a roadside falafel from was really the
messiah. It’s a form of intense delusion and hysteria. Well, Paris Syndrome is
no different; tourists get caught up in the vivid romance of the city and start
having delusions of grandeur. They start seeing Monets in their ketchup stains,
or run around crazy thinking they’re starring in a car chase scene from The
French Connection.”

“Well, I’m not a tourist, I live
here. But I’ll keep an eye out for Monet or a messiah next time I grab lunch at
a falafel stand.”

Ben’s face got serious and he
leaned into the table. "Alice, I have to ask, what were you really doing
when that bullet grazed your shoulder?"

I lurched out a sigh. I was peering
out the window, watching people on the sidewalk in order to get some distance
from his attentive glare. I saw smoke doodles from chimneys rising like incense
over the city. "Oh, you know, the usual, international espionage, illicit
dealings, car chases; it was like a scene from The French Connection.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Alice, we both know that stuff you
said at the hospital wasn’t true, but I need to know, are you in some kind of
real trouble? Do you need help? Is there really an ex-boyfriend after
you?"

“I’m fine. I’m sorry that I made up
all that crazy stuff at the hospital. I was just feeling exhausted. It’s just
my line of work, it’s a little hectic." I felt Ben’s eyes burrowing into
me, awaiting me to say more. I knew he was wondering just exactly what it was I
did for a living. I blurted out the first lie that popped in my head. “I’m a
flight attendant.” Lying about being a flight attendant always seemed like the
perfect fit, since it accounted for so much travelling and an erratic schedule.

“Flight attendants don’t usually
have people shooting at them.”

“No, getting shot had nothing to do
with my job, it’s just all the traveling and flying, it’s why I’m so tired.”

“What about the ex-boyfriend?”

“Okay, I will admit, the shooting
did involve an ex-boyfriend, a very possessive, jealous ex-boyfriend. Things
got out of hand, one thing led to another…and bang. He didn’t mean to do it.”

“Alice, that’s terrible. Have you
gone to the police? I don’t think you should be making excuses for him. A
shooting is a shooting.”

“Ben, you seem like a sweet guy,
and I don’t want to burden you with this. There’s someone taking care of it,
don’t worry.”

“The hell I won’t be burdened,” he
blurted loudly enough to draw the attention of the table next to us. “There is
some rabid lunatic out there who gets his kicks out of pointing a gun at you
and I sure as hell will worry. Frankly, I think you’re being a little too
lackadaisical about this.”

“Ben, please chill.”

"How old are you, Alice?"

"I’m in my twenties, but
that’s all I’ll tell, since I can see you’re about to make a comment about
immaturity and not taking situations seriously, and I don’t want to provide you
with any concrete fodder. How old are you, Ben?"

"I'm thirty five, and I was
not about to make a point about immaturity, I was genuinely curious." He
sipped his coffee with a jagged eyebrow raised at me. “Why did you assume I was
going to make a comment about immaturity and then ask me my own age? Is it
because I look like an old curmudgeon to you?

“No, you don’t look old at all you
look, you look -.” I nearly lost my breath looking into his deep brown eyes for
a descriptor to say about him, and I had to discretely fan my face. “So, have
you been in Paris long?"

"I came to Paris when I was in
my twenties, for my residency as part of an exchange program through my
university, and I liked it so much I never left."

“How about you? How long have you
been in Paris?”

“Just a few years. I came here for
a job.”

“The flight attendant job, right?”

“Yes.” I took a sip and cleared my
throat. “So tell me, where are you from in the States?"

"Oh, something like forty
minutes and a lot of cows outside of Columbus, Ohio. How about you, Alice,
where are you from?"

I reached for the sugar dispenser
from Ben’s side of the table and thumped some into my waning cup.
"Nebraska,” I blurted, it being the first thought that came to mind.

“Where in Nebraska?”

“Benny,” I replied. “Benny,
Nebraska.” I immediately regretted my reply.

“Hmm.” A pondering expression was
overcoming his face as he tried to make an association to the town. “Never
heard of it.”

“Small town. Very tiny population.
So tiny I like to try and forget it even exists.”

"You’re hiding something back
home, aren’t you? Another jealous boyfriend, perhaps? I bet a girl like you has
a guy waiting for her in every port."

"Not exactly. I guess you
might say I’m just a simple girl running from a plain old boring life.”

“Is Heather Gilmore part of that
old boring life?” he asked.

A lamplight-strength flush crossed
my cheeks. The very mention of the name made my lips go dry. He had remembered
what was written on the note he found inside my stocking at the hospital.
Damn
it
.

“No,” I replied, “Heather Gilmore
isn’t a name that means anything to me.” I hadn’t noticed that my hands were
trembling until Ben reached over the table and rested his hand over mine to
make it still.

“It’s a name that’s important
enough for you to carry it around everywhere with you folded inside your sock.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t remember
that.”

“Well, it was unusual. I tend to
remember unusual things. Is that your real name? Heather Gilmore? And Alice is
just the name you give to doctors you don’t want flirting with you?”

“Heather Gilmore is not my name.”

“Then who is she? Why does she
hitchhike everywhere with you inside your sock?”

“Okay, listen, Heather Gilmore is a
girl from back home and something bad transpired between she and I before I
left for Paris. I just need her parents to know the truth of what happened, if
I should meet a disastrous fate.”

“That sounds pretty mysterious,
Alice.”

I sniffed my nose into the air, an
ugly horse-nostril kind of sniffing. “Do you smell food? Are they serving
real
food here?”

“I’ve been here quite a few times,
and yes, they do serve assorted breakfasts and pastries.”

“Do you think they serve omelets?”

“Omelets? I’m not sure, but I think
here they call them quiche and serve them ice cold.”

I flagged down the waitress
clearing off silverware from the tables beside us. She was a beautiful Parisian
girl with pouty lips and hair like silk cords. “Excuse me, are you serving
quiche?”

She answered in French, which I
don’t speak a word of. I looked up at Ben, red-cheeked and unsure how to
answer. He surprised me by offering a perfect translation, which was that, “Yes
they were serving quiche, and it came in a variety of flavors, including
spinach, vegetarian, and a special house recipe.”

“One of the house
version,”
I said. Ben relayed the information and the woman twirled away towards the
kitchen. “My gosh,” I said when she was gone, “you’re full of surprises.”

“Most of my patients at the
hospital speak only French, so I consider it a job necessity. I still contend that
you’re the one who is full of surprises.”

“Not surprises,” I corrected him, “
mystery
.”
The electricity we had felt during our meeting at the hospital was back in full
force. I liked my lips, tasting coffee but wishing for his lips. The waitress
came back with a slice of quiche, and I wasted no time in tearing into it. So
far, the distraction of ordering lunch had managed to steer us away from the
topic of Heather Gilmore and what her name was doing hidden inside my sock.

“Well, one thing about you that
isn’t a mystery is that you are a fan of eggs, from what I see.”

“Better these eggs on my plate than
the grown version attacking me.”

“You mean chickens?”

“Yeah, I suffer from
Alektorophibia
.”

“Daddy issues?”

“No, you’re thinking of the Elektra
complex.
Alektorophobia
, I re-pronounced it for him, accentuating the
A
at the start, is a fear of chickens.”

“A fear of chickens?”

“Yeah, and I had a particularly
nasty run-in with some recently, which is making this meal feel exceptionally
therapeutic.”

“Wow, Alice, never in my life have
I heard of a fear of chickens. And I grew up in the cow poke.”

“You should know what it is, I
mean, you’re a doctor. You know all about weird things like Paris Syndrome. But
what if I had shown up in your emergency room with convulsions and my tongue
half-swallowed down my throat because of a chicken-induced panic attack?”

“If that’s the case, maybe you
should develop an irrational phobia to the Eiffel Tower, just to keep yourself
safe in the future, since that’s where you seem to find danger.”
Dr.
Handsome just wasn’t going to quit digging, was he?

I opened my mouth to argue, but was
interrupted by the chirp of my phone. I knew exactly who would be calling.
"Crap.” I chugged back one last slurp of coffee. “I gotta go."

"Will I see you again,
Alice?"

I rushed up from my seat so
violently that my bag knocked the silverware off the table and it made an
obnoxious clatter, causing everyone in the café to turn their head and look.

"Maybe,” I told him in a
breathless way, as undone whisks of my hair blocked my eye.

*   
*    *

A moment later I was marching in
circles on the sidewalk outside the café with fuzzy reception, tingly palms
from Ben, and a knee-crossing coffee bladder. I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Hello.”

“How do you like the new
apartment?” Motley asked without returning my hello.

“I love it, Motley.”

I wasn’t about to throw a hissy fit
over being moved out of my old place. Piss him off enough and he could make
being shot off the Eiffel Tower look like a water slide by comparison.

“And the neighborhood is to your
liking?”

I marched briskly away from the
café so Ben wouldn’t try and follow me. “Motley, the neighborhood is to die
for, simply to die for.”

He cleared his throat. “Alice, I am
still working on investigating Pressley Connard.”

“Oh? That’s good.”

“You haven’t run into him since
you’ve been back in Paris, have you?”

“No.”

“That’s a good sign. Perhaps he has
left the city.”

“I doubt he stuck around Paris
after he shot me, he is probably already back home in the States working as a
paper pusher with the rest of the CIA wannabes.”

“I hope you’re right. In the
meantime, I’m still finishing up working on the leads from the hard drive you
bought off Benny Nebraska in Rio. So stay close by in case a job springs up.”

Chapter Eight: An Afternoon in the Park

T
HE
NEXT MORNING I was hunched over my sink spooning a soggy breakfast into my
mouth when someone punched the buzzer to my apartment. I dropped the bowl in
the sink, and when I got to the door I expected to see Cleopatra, adorned with
her sharp teeth and shiny key, standing in the hallway again. But when I swung
the door open, the hallway was deserted.

I ducked back inside my apartment
and hit the intercom button that clicked down to the lobby. “Yes?” I cautiously
asked.

“Hi, Alice, it’s Ben. I’m down in
the lobby. The doorman wouldn’t let me up.”

I stood still for moment with my
fingers poised on the intercom button, wondering how Ben knew where I lived.
Normally, I would use my snub-nose revolver on an unexpected visitor on the
spot. But Ben was so cute, and then there were those dimples. It was a dilemma.

“Come on up,” I called into the
speaker. I nervously arranged the rogue strands of my slapdash ponytail during
the time it took Ben to climb the stairs.  

I swung the door open. Ben was
standing in the hallway with a disarming smile triggering his dimples. “Alice,
it’s so nice to see you again. You look amazing.”

“Ben, it is so great to see you.”
My reply sounded flat and wary. “But how did you know where I live?”

His fingers disappeared into the
pocket on his jeans, retrieving a plastic laminated card. It was the photo ID
Cleopatra had given me when she dropped me off at the pier outside my new
apartment. “You left this at the coffee shop yesterday. You were in such a rush
taking off after your phone rang that you didn’t even look behind you.”

“Oh my gosh, how stupid of me.
Thanks for bringing it to me.” I let him drop it into my hand. “Did you just
come here to return this? Or are you here to visit?”

“Actually,” he was leaning into the
door frame, giving me a sideways smile, “I was going to ask if you wanted to
take a walk. In the formal gardens, perhaps?”

“What gardens?”

“Come on, Alice, don’t you know
your own neighborhood? The Jardin du Luxembourg
,
why,
it’s only
one of the most famous spots in Paris, and it’s only right in our own backyard
practically.”