Hating Olivia: A Love Story (30 page)

Suddenly he was afraid that everything was about to change—that it had already changed.

For a while Dack lost himself again. In Paris, there was always somewhere to lose yourself. The colorful little markets and shops. The bistros and clubs.

There were always interesting characters on the sidewalks. He especially liked the man who sharpened his knives out of doors with a foot-operated instrument like in the old days. He was moved to dole out coins to the beggars he saw everywhere. This gesture somehow justified his existence, salved the guilt he felt from time to time as a result of his tremendous good fortune in life. Whenever he dropped a Euro into a filthy outstretched hand, he understood why there were so many “limousine liberals” in Hollywood. It was because they too were assaulted by remorse over the fact that they had so little natural endowment, except in some cases, good looks, and yet paradoxically they’d been given so much by way of worldly reward. Raising their voices in outraged indignation, paying court to America’s enemies, tossing pennies to untouchables, was the least they could do to redress the balance.

After several hours of fruitless wandering, Dack began to question his strategy. Maybe he should just go to a sex club and get it over with; he’d read about such a place on the Rue Marcadet. Or maybe he should find himself a prostitute, but he didn’t want to get ensnared in one of those café scams where he ended up paying all kinds of money for expensive booze and coming away with nothing, and he sure as hell didn’t want to risk picking up some disease….

He passed through the Parisian crowds like a ghost, which did nothing but increase his anomie. Feet aching, he’d made it all the way back to the neighborhood near his hotel when he found himself waiting for the change of a traffic signal on bustling Boulevard Saint-Germain. She was waiting too, in a beige London Fog and leather boots to her knees. Her hair was dyed ivory and it was cut short, almost like a man’s. Yet she was very much a female, there was no mistaking that. Her nose was straight and perfect, her cheekbones high, her lashes long. He figured her for thirty-five, forty at the outside. Very attractive. Self-possessed. French. A little older than he might have liked, but he could certainly make do with her….

Their eyes met. When hers lingered, Dack knew that he’d been recognized.

“Bonjour,” he said. Whenever he spoke French he felt like a fraud, a philistine American.

She laughed, perhaps out of nervousness. “I know you, don’t I?” she answered tentatively. Her English was the British-style, perfect, better than that of Dack’s countrymen.

“Everyone says that,” he answered with false modesty. “But you really are, aren’t you …? ”

The movie star felt a swell of his old power, and grateful suddenly for the cinemas that were as plentiful in the City of Light as the beggars, even if his face hadn’t been seen on the silver screen in a couple of years.

And so he was forced to reluctantly admit it. Yes, he was indeed Dack Lambert.

She looked more than a little flustered now. “I have to confess to being a fan…. ”

Yes, they all said that too, didn’t they? And even if he was old enough to be her grandfather, he was still needy enough to suck up the flattery like a giant sponge.

And, just like that, they were having a conversation. From the corner of his eye, Dack could see that the traffic signal had turned from red to green twice but that neither he nor the woman were making a move to capitalize on it, which meant he’d already won half the battle.

The longer Dack took her in, the more he liked what he saw. Being alone as he was in the city, he suggested a drink. There was Danton’s, conveniently, on the corner. It was late afternoon, and the singular radiance of Paris was taking on its classic melancholy hues.

They were shown to a small table near the window, where they could watch humanity in all of its incarnations pass by. As they waited for the waiter to bring their drinks, Dack exhaled:
Mon dieu,
it had been so easy. Just like the old days, when he could bed a woman with, literally, a nod of the head. Why, he hadn’t lost a thing….

Adriana—that was her name—worked in publishing, for a small company committed to bringing out the overlooked, politically engaged voices of the Third World. It was nothing in the scheme of things, but she’d had years of working for the big companies, and this was a refreshing change, because now she felt as if she was doing something that really mattered. Besides, a person had to do something, didn’t she, even if this was France, where people knew better than in other places how to live….

But she wanted to know all about him. When could she expect to see Dack Lambert in something new? Would he ever work here, in France, again? She could see him doing a movie with a man like Chabrol, who was still active and creative and vibrant in his old age, had he ever thought of that?

Yes, well, there were projects in the works, he assured her, and soon she’d be seeing him right around the corner at the local movie house.

He was growing a little anxious. It wasn’t just that Adriana was socially conscious—always a bad sign—but that sense of psychic discomfort was stealing over him again, along with the spreading twilight of the city. He needed to get Adriana into bed, and as quickly as possible, before the moment slipped away.

Where did she live?

Across the Pont Neuf, but her office was here in the 6th.

He casually dropped that his hotel was only a couple of blocks away.

When the significance of this sank in, Adriana darted him an enigmatic look. What the hell was it supposed to mean?

As he had since the beginning, he felt out of his depth, as if in some way the night, if he let it too close, could devour him. And there was that accursed man who’d been dogging him. He feared being drawn into a vortex, losing his equilibrium. The only thing that could save him was getting inside this woman’s body.

Adriana began talking about her husband.

“He has lots of tattoos. And he writes music like Bruce Springsteen.” “Ah,” said Dack, not knowing what else to say. But he wasn’t tempted to extend the thread of the conversation. Why would he want to talk about some
nobody loser when he, the great Dack Lambert, an icon of the modern silver screen, was sitting right here?

Then he reminded himself that this was France, for Christ’s sake, and marital ties meant nothing, nothing whatsoever. No doubt Adriana was just being open and honest and stating the obvious.

“But things are complicated sometimes,” she went on.

Yes,
he exulted,
this is where we want to go.
He was all for “complications” if they benefited him. And Dack Lambert was certainly someone who knew all about complicated lives.

She’d just been in court the other day, she went on, providing support for her husband as he tried to win custody of his daughter from his ex-wife. And yet when she went home just last night after a long day’s work, he was passed out and hadn’t heard her when she’d rung the buzzer and banged on the door trying to gain access to their apartment. Nic had his issues with substances and alcohol, and the emotional strain of a legal battle made everything more nerve-wracking.

Yes, thought Dack again—exactly where he wanted to go. Adriana needs a distraction, an outlet. She’s unhappy, too. Like me.

“But none of that matters. The important thing is that there’s passion between us,” she continued, tilting her lovely head. Realizing that Adriana was truly beautiful made Dack’s craving that much more insistent.

The word “passion” disturbed him. Not in itself—it was the fact that she used it in connection to this Neanderthal of hers. He actually felt a little jealous.

“You are married too, no?” she asked. As if she read the celebrity rags like everyone else.

How could he dodge it, really? This was precisely where his fame was a trap, a trap he could never completely escape but only attempt to negotiate. “Well, yes … but like you, it’s not easy.” Her head twitched. “How, ‘not easy'?”

Damn it, he didn’t actually want to explain any of this! To be forced to do it smacked much too much of a sleazy extramarital affair. And now here he was, in the position of having to do just that. It was as if this Adriana had subtly turned the tables on him, that she was now in control of what was going to happen.

“You love her still, your wife?”

“Well, you know…. My wife is a very fine woman…. ” “Of course—she’s your wife.”

No, this wasn’t where he wanted to go. It was the wrong direction altogether. And so it was now or never, before his chance slipped away. “Will you come to my hotel …? ” Adriana blinked. “Why?”

There was a kind of challenge, something Dack was unused to, in Adriana’s question. He laughed, a little uneasily. “Well, why do you think?”

Her eyes turned out the window. It was dark now. Perhaps she was looking at her reflection.

“No, I don’t think so. Life is tangled enough, isn’t it?”

“But this isn’t at all tangled. This is just…. This is easy, simple—
facile.”

How in hell had this happened? Christ, he hadn’t seen it coming.

He wasn’t about to beg. He’d never begged for anything in his life, except for mercy from his ex-wives, but that was something very different. Every divorced man could relate to that weakness.

Adriana peered at him across the tiny table.

“You’re just sad, that’s all,” she whispered.

Dack was at a loss for how she meant the word, whether that she thought he was in a negative emotional state, or that his life was a disaster, and he didn’t understand how she could grasp any of this about him so quickly.

“You’re a sad man,” she repeated. “I could tell the moment I saw you. You’re lonely, being here by yourself. Why don’t you just go back home to your family?”

“Because—”

The waiter reappeared. He and Adriana began to discuss something in French. The words tumbled out so rapidly that he couldn’t make out the meaning of any of them. Just this morning Dack had been thinking that he could care less if he never heard American English again, but now he loathed the sound of a foreign tongue.

When Dack and Adriana exited the bistro, they headed wordlessly in opposite directions, without so much as a farewell. He halted on the sidewalk, undecided about what to do with himself. Then he stepped across the narrow Rue Odeon and into another place, where he went straight for the bar.

He knocked back a bourbon. His mood had soured—he didn’t want anyone recognizing him now.

But when he looked up and into the dim recesses of the bistro, there was that man again, his back half-turned, flitting from one table to another. Whether or not he wanted it, Dack had been seen, and recognized.

Three drinks later and back at the hotel, he placed a call to Los Angeles, where, by some miracle, it was still morning, and got Anna on the phone.

“Where’s Mommy,” he slurred when he heard her little voice.

“Having a beauty treatment,” said the child. “Jimi’s watching us…. ”

Not even noon yet, and his wife was already frittering her time away—or … or something else. Maybe there was someone else. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Mercedes was cheating on him out of revenge for this trip, but he didn’t care.

He went on chatting with the little girl, which, combined with the alcohol, had the effect of making him want to weep. He said hello to his other kids. They each asked the same question: “Daddy, when are you coming home …? ”

He wanted to be rid of them, but they still loved him. Nothing in life made sense.

After hanging up, he looked out the open window, which gave onto a view of the sumptuous, glimmering Eiffel Tower. From the street five stories below he heard the incessant churn of life and, donning his coat, decided to go out again.

The man who’d been following him these past few days was nowhere to be? seen. Dack wended his way through the bustling streets to the river, crossed Quai

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Malaquais, and started over the Pont des Arts. There were all sorts of bodies milling about on the span: lovers, pickpockets, scammers working con games. None of them concerned or interested Dack.

At the apex of the bridge he leaned over the parapet and peered into the black waters of the antediluvian river. He could feel the presence of the dead, from centuries past, all around him. He would soon be one of them. A long boat full of noisy tourists was passing beneath him. As soon as it was all the way through the arch, he was going to jump.

From somewhere in the distance came the wheezy strains of an out-of-tune accordion. If Dack Lambert was confused before, he was no longer. He realized now that this was what he’d come for. This is what his journey had been about. His life was beyond empty … it was nothing, a void. And he was tired, too tired to fight the strange urge beating at the insides of his brain.

The vessel seemed to take forever to emerge from the mouth of the bridge. When it finally passed, Dack didn’t move. Instead, he remained transfixed by the colorless depths below.

From the shadows shambled a cripple in a white shroud holding out a half-crushed cup for alms. When he spotted Dack with his leg up, he smiled and shook the cup, producing a sound like a tambourine.

Dack let his leg drop and felt around in his trousers pockets. No coins.

He shook his head. The apparition frightened him—it was his pursuer again. Shaken to the core, he dashed across the busy boulevard, dodging the flow of vehicles, and kept running, running, until he was swallowed up altogether in the bowels of the city.

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

P.S.™ is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

HATING OLIVIA.
Copyright © 2010 by Mark SaFranko.

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