Hidden in Paris (29 page)

“It’s me.”

Apprehension dropped out of her mother’s voice to be replaced by anger. “Why are you calling us at three in the morning?”

Althea’s fists tightened. “Hi.”

“I certainly hope you’re not waking us in the middle of the night just to say hello.”

“I. Said. Hi,” Althea repeated between clenched teeth.

Her mother’s voice turned to ice. “What is your problem?”

“You’re
not dying. That’s the problem
!” Althea screamed.

“What’s
wrong
with you?”

Althea looked at her face in the mirror as she screamed at her mother. “
Everything
is wrong with me, and you don’t give a shit about me.”

“At three in the morning--”

“I’ve worried about you my whole life. I’ve spent my whole life thinking you’d die if I weren’t around. I’m in Paris, and you’re not dying. You’re just fine without me. You’ve never even bothered to ask for my number here. You only think of yourself.”

“I won’t stand for this.”

Althea wasn’t sure of the nature of her tears. Sadness, relief, rage? “It’s me, Mom.
ME
! I exist, you know.”

“I have no idea what you are saying.”

“How sad I feel? How depressed I am? How lonely I am? I’m invisible to you. And to Dad.”

Annie entered the room carrying a pile of dinner plates. Althea didn’t care. Annie placed the plates in the cabinet, gave Althea a quick two thumbs-up and left the room.

“Are those French people putting ideas in your head?” her mother screeched. “You hate America now, and your parents? Why am I not surprised?”

“Well, at least I’m not invisible here.” Althea understood now. It wasn’t just about Jared. They accepted her here. More than her mom ever had. Here she was herself. She didn’t have to be pleasing. She could have a fit. They all could. It was all right.

“Good for you. Stay there then. We don’t need that attitude here in America.”

“I can stay in pajamas all day here, and leave my room in a mess. I can be lazy. I can be useless!” Althea knew how silly this was, yet how true.

Her mother’s precise voice came across the phone line. “Useless? Isn’t that what you’ve always been, Althea?”

This, Althea saw, wasn’t going to be the usual pummeling. This was her first fight with her mother, a fight where she could punch back. “I’m glad you’re saying that, Mom.
I’m glad
. Because it shows you’re a mean bitch. And a shitty mother.”

“You, you...Look at yourself in the mirror.”

“As a matter of fact, I
am
looking at myself in the mirror,” Althea said. “I’m looking at myself in the mirror, and I’m holding my head up. I’m looking straight into my own eyes and making the decision not to talk to you anymore.”

And Althea hung up.

After dropping off Simon at daycare, Lola walked fast along rue de la Pompe. Her previously frightful anxious baby had simply waved goodbye. She and Lia had changed in just a short time in Paris, but Simon was the one who had made the most astonishing transformation.

Lola looked so unlike herself these days, and at the same time, she looked at long last like herself. Oh she was a mess by any standard. Her hair was bicolor now: an inch of blond hair at the root, and an inch of jet black at the tip. She used Lia’s barrettes to keep her hair out of her face while it grew out. She wore no make-up and lived in Birkenstocks. Over her yoga clothes she had put on a sweater that had belonged to Johnny and that she had rescued from the trash can.

Why did she feel perfectly at ease looking entirely unstylish in a city where appearance was laced with codes and rules? Why was it that unlike in Los Angeles where she felt she never looked perfect enough, in Paris she felt just fine dressed in rags? Of course there was the daily reinforcement from unknown men willing to stop her in the street just to tell her she was beautiful, the fact that age didn’t seem
to matter here as French men celebrated women of all ages and flirted almost as though,
not
flirting would have been the rude thing to do. And women flirted right back. She saw it happen all around. French life was all about men and women playing, enjoying each other.

She had other reasons to feel beautiful. She felt much lighter on an emotional level. Mark had set her free in a way during their last phone conversation. He had been despicable. Out of control. His absolute inability to reach out to her, his condemnation of everything she represented, his utter lack of effort to win her back had been sobering. That conversation had been followed by an entire night of tears, much like a giant draining of every cell of her body. In the morning she had felt brand new. It was as though years of anxiety and tension had melted off her shoulders, her face, her skin. If Mark did not want her anymore, if he wasn’t planning on taking her back, then she needed to start life anew, just like Annie had after Johnny had died. Wasn’t it almost the same? Mark was, in fact, dead to her, and she to him.

She entered the building through the arched doorway, felt the coolness of the stones reverberate on her skin and climbed the stairs towards the Yoga studio. In the staircase she said
bonjour
to two women who had come a few minutes early to get a better spot in the room. She wondered if
he
would come today. With her own key, she opened the door of the studio. It was the first time she had done that, and her throat tightened. How long since she had last felt in control of her life? How long since she had last experienced her life through her own perceptions, not Mark’s? Owning a key to the studio made her the official teacher. Substitute teacher, but teacher nonetheless. She belonged here. Even as a model, she had been somebody’s tool. With yoga, she was not only belonging, she was contributing. For the first time in years, she felt capable, and important.

Fellow yogis walked in behind her and unrolled their yoga mats at the front of the class, close to where Lola would be putting hers. As yogis entered the yoga studio, they exchanged the French ritual of a kiss on each cheek and whispered a few words.

Lola turned on a switch. In the center of the ceiling, where intricate stucco molding remained from a time when the superfluous was essential, the single immense crystal chandelier reflected the light like drops of sunshine. She opened a window to let the warm air mix in with the pungent scent of the room, a mix of wood wax, incense, and humidity, that timeless scent she associated now with yoga, and with Paris.

The room was vast and the walnut floor, which the instructors took turns waxing meticulously, a floor probably as old as the building, had a patina so lustrous that it seemed alive under her bare feet. Lola had fallen in love with this room the first time she had come here for a class over three months ago. Now she was the one giving the class. Those years of practice when she clung to yoga like a buoy did have a purpose in the end.

The room filled with mats and students. Lola discreetly searched among the faces and glanced too many times in the direction of the door. She inserted a CD of Indian chants into the CD player and felt a thrill when
he
entered. He was German and she had found out his name was Gunter. He looked younger than she by a good ten years and had the graceful musculature of a cat. The first detail she had noticed about him was the blond hair on his arms. He looked absolutely delicious. There had been enough looks between them to give her a sense that he was attracted to her as well. When her glance met his piercing blue eyes, he always seemed to smile in a slightly ironic way that made her feel weak in the legs.

Once he asked her if she’d like to have coffee after class. She had said, “no thanks.” He had said, “maybe another time.” She had flirted back, “maybe,” before running off. Since then he had always left before she could continue to play hard to get.

She read some well-prepared words in French that Annie had translated for her.

“Thank yourself for coming to practice today.”

She began her class by demonstrating, then moving among the mats to alter postures. She walked by Gunter’s mat and paused, mesmerized by the pearls of sweat on his flexible back. She moved on to the following
asana
.

Later, when the mats were rolled back, and the class had ended, when shoes were gone from the floor and the students had waved good-bye, Lola gathered her CDs and closed the window. She turned toward the door, and her heart leaped in her chest.

Gunter was standing by the open door, watching her with his smiling eyes. Her heart started beating way too fast. He extended an arm and shut the door. Now it was just the two of them in the beautiful room. He turned the key in the lock and walked toward her, still looking into her eyes until they faced each other.

She liked that he was taller than she was. She didn’t budge.
I’m breathing in. I’m breathing out
, she repeated to herself, but her breath was heavy. They stood in the center of the wooden floor, surrounded by the whiteness of the walls and the soft light in a room that suddenly felt immense. He kissed her neck. She stopped breathing. He kissed her mouth and she opened her lips. He slowly proceeded to undress her, right there in the middle of the empty room and she had never felt so deliciously naked. He caressed her body with the tips of his fingers, taking his time as she waited, breathlessly for more.

Outside
Bistro de l’Aval
, the thunder and lightning came simultaneously, and rain began dropping from the sky with the force of a waterfall. The humidity was quickly transforming the place into a sauna as Parisians began flocking in for refuge. From their table near the fogged up window, Annie watched the servers, the maître d’, the owner and his wife, all of whom she knew by name, go into overdrive. In minutes, tables for four had to accommodate six, the floor was becoming dangerously slippery, and the smell of wet coats and wet hair overpowered the smell of
Plat du Jour
.

Lola, using her fork to hunt bits of olives and anchovies the chef had refused to leave out of her Salade Niçoise, was describing in whispers what had happen at the studio with Gunter. Annie stabbed her
grillade
for relief, but it gave her none. She gave up on eating, stopped chewing and dropped her fork and knife on the side of her plate as Lola went on, giggling away as she spoke, not even bothering to mask how thrilled she was.

“I don’t think your husband actually meant it when he said you should have an affair,” Annie said.

Lola beamed. “Do you think I planned this?”

“You took off the ring!” Annie accused.

“I must have been sending out ‘I’m available’ signals. Unconsciously.”

Annie thought about this. If that was all it took, her own signals must be very weak. “But what about Lucas? You told me you liked Lucas?” she said breathlessly.

“I like Gunter better.”

“But you don’t even know him!” she blurted out, scandalized.

Lola laughed. “Believe me. I know plenty now! And the best part is how perfectly uncomplicated it is.” Lola put her hands over her face. “And oh my goodness... If you only knew the things he... did to me...”

“Tell me every detail,” Annie said grimly as she cut a piece of grilled meat and put it in her mouth. Her
grillade
tasted like cardboard now.

“I don’t know if I should, I’m a married woman,” Lola said coyly.

“
Now
you feel married?”

People were continuing to crowd in. Wasn’t it obvious they would never be able to accommodate everyone? Weren’t there restaurant regulations about this? Annie’s eyes searched for a sign indicating a maximum occupancy. The wool of her sweater made her neck itchy. Outside, thunder roared.

Lola leaned over the table. “It was the single sexiest, kinkiest experience, of. my. life!”

The word came out of Annie despite herself. “Ouch.”

Lola opened her eyes wide, innocently. Was she finally aware of how insensitive she was being? “What’s bothering you?” she asked. She really had no clue.

“No, please go ahead, rub my nose in it. I can only get laid vicariously, as you know.”

Lola frowned, “Annie, you can get laid whenever you choose to.”