Hidden in Paris (9 page)

Lola felt drained of all strength. What had she done? But she needed to be strong as Annie introduced her boys who uncrossed their arms to shake her hand gravely. Simon showed no sign of waking up, so Lola carried him over her shoulder fast asleep from room to room, conscious of the three pairs of eyes that followed her every gesture and, of course, of Lia’s anger at her. The way Annie’s boys bombarded her with questions inquisition style and argued with each other confused her. Was she making a good impression on them? “Your baby, there,” Laurent told her, “he’s drooling all over your shoulder.”

“So, Einstein,” Maxence answered. “That’s why he’s a baby. Duh!”

“How tall are you?” Paul, the five-year-old, asked.

“That’s rude to ask.” Maxence said.

“You’re rude,” Paul responded.

“Put a lid on it, all of you,” Annie said, and, to Lola’s surprise, the three boys did.

Annie took Lola and Lia up the creaking stairs and made a dramatic pause, her hand on the knob of a room. “Lola. I’m giving you the pink room, but I must warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.” They entered a large room basking with warm light. Lola felt a bit of a shock at the sight of the almost entirely pink room. In the center was a smallish canopy bed with a powder pink gauze curtain. The window that opened to charming rooftops was draped with sumptuous candy-color striped silk. The only furniture was a miniature desk painted glossy red, an antique armoire lacquered in black, and an armchair covered with raspberry velvet. “I reupholstered it,” Annie said, like an apology, “with vintage fabric. It’s a bit like stepping inside a box of valentine chocolate, this room, no? But I had fun. It’s my girly-girl room.”

“I love it,” Lola exclaimed, meaning it.

“The walls were a piece of work. Took me forever to mix the plaster evenly and get just the right shade.”

“Did you make that?” Lia asked, pointing to slightly darker polka dots painted haphazardly on the walls.

“Not finished yet.”

“And that?” Lia showed the gauze veil on the canopy, which was covered with miniature silk daisies.

“I used hot glue, stupidly, and the glue kept on melting the gauze. A real drag. In typical fashion, instead of stopping and getting the right glue, I continued. When I start being creative, I’m possessed.”

“It’s pretty,” Lia said.

Lola took notice of this rare show of endorsement. “This is charming and lovely,” she insisted.

“Well, it’s...me,” Annie responded. “I bet you guys are accustomed to the best.”

The children’s room did not get the same response. The room was barely large enough for the two children’s beds and the large trunk between them. The smallness of the room and the low, slanted ceiling gave it a tree house feel. The wallpaper added to the effect with a mossy shade of green adorned with rather gory hunting scenes, dead ducks, guns and scattered feathers.

“I’m not sleeping here,” Lia exclaimed.

As on cue, Simon started whimpering.

“The room’s plenty ugly, I must admit,” Annie said matterof-factly. “It’s got the previous owner’s touch, and I never got around to decorating it.”

Lola tried to put Simon down, but he climbed up her body like a small marsupial and reassumed his position. “Oh, it will be just fine,” she said.

“I hate this place. I’m still not sleeping here,” Lia said.

“They’re starting to feel the jet lag,” Lola apologized.

Annie looked at Lia. “Think of it as a blank canvas. We can make this room anything we want it to be. Sky’s the limit.”

Lia considered this. “Pink like the other one?”

“If you can convince my boys. They hate pink. I personally think it’s the new black.”

“I like purple, too.”

“Only if you help me. I can’t do it by myself,” Annie responded.

Lola watched the exchange between her daughter and this perfect stranger with incomprehension and a maybe a tinge of jealousy.

How did this materialize?” Lucas cried out in delight an hour later when Annie placed a steaming dish of chicken lasagna and a large
Salade Niçoise
in the center of the dining room table. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Annie said for Lola’s benefit. She did feel a touch of pride at her planning skills. She had prepared the lasagna and washed the ingredients of the salad the day before, then warmed up one dish and tossed the other with homemade vinaigrette, and a meal was ready to eat within a half hour of arriving from the airport.

It did not get easier to find things to say during dinner. But thank heavens for Lucas who spoke at length about various American presidents, foreign policies, current art exhibitions in Paris that she had to not miss, the weather, and whatnot. Lola responded the best she could, eating with one hand, an impressive balancing act since Simon was back to sleep over her shoulder, but she spoke charmingly, making every effort to seem approachable and tried, unsuccessfully, to include her daughter in the conversation. Meanwhile, Paul and Laurent goofed off throughout dinner and Maxence wasn’t making eye contact or speaking. But since Annie was herself having trouble making eye contact, could she blame him? Maxence was staring, and that was rude, but then again, what was she doing? She did not so much look at Lola as detail her inch by inch, goggling at her, counting the pores on the skin of her nose. She found no flaw, though she wondered about that mouth. Where did she get that mouth? Was it from an Angelina Jolie body part catalogue? Whoever had mouths like this? And her breasts were huge. Huge!

After dinner, Lola took Lia and Simon to bed and Annie walked Lucas to the door. “Your job here is done,” she whispered to him. “Very well done. Please be back tomorrow at 6:00 AM sharp for further assignments.”

“Would 4:00 AM be too soon?” he whispered back. “As a matter of fact, I never want to leave this house again.”

“Oh, she’s that hot, huh?”

“There’s something too perfect about her makeup, though,” he said, whispering lower. “And her nails are strange.”

“How strange?”

“They seem fake.”

She laughed, “they
are
fake.”

Lucas opened his eyes wide, “how can one fake nails?”

“Never mind. It’s an American thing.”

“Her lips,” he said wistfully “are... pornographic. And those breasts...”

“Always the poet,” Annie laughed as she pushed him out of the house. She
rounded up the boys and together they tiptoed upstairs, whispering and giggling,
unclear as to how to navigate a house that already smelled and sounded
different. In bed, peeking from under his blanket, Maxence said, “aren’t they weird? I think they’re really weird.” She straightened the cover and moved the hair away from her nine-year-old’s eyes. “What’s so weird about them?”

“How do I know?” Maxence shrugged.

“How tall are they?” Paul wondered, his eyes closing already.

“It’s time for bed,” she said. She went from Maxence, to Laurent, and then to Paul for kisses and hugs.

“I love you a gazillion,” Paul said in her neck.

“I love you a googolplex,” Annie whispered back.

Annie went back downstairs to clean the dishes, relieved to be finally alone with her thoughts. She filled one of her Japanese cast iron teapots with water. Each time Johnny had come back from Japan, it was with a teapot, each one a small piece of art. “For your collection,” he would say.

“Why do you call it my collection? It’s your collection,” she remembered saying.

“It’s my collection for you.”

“I think I should come along the next time you go to Japan. Choose a collection for myself.”

“Next time? What’s the big hurry?”

She put the teapot on the stove and began cleaning the dishes. Of course she never ended up going to Japan, but that’s hardly what bothered her. What bothered her is that she no longer had any desire to. Here she was, encouraging strangers to start over, but the fact of the matter was, she was stuck in her solitude, her circular thoughts that revolved around a single day less than three years ago. She rinsed a pan and moved it to the drying rack to the right of the sink.

“Your water is boiling,” said Lola’s voice.

Annie jumped. “Oh goodness, I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Lola was wearing jeans and had taken off her makeup. Her face looked a bit strained from lack of sleep, but beautiful. “Didn’t mean to make you jump,” she said as she took the pan from the drying rack and began to wipe it dry. Annie cringed in horror.
Now, during her teatime? Her solitude, invaded? “You don’t have to do that!”
she said rather bossily. “You must be exhausted. Go to bed!”

Lola seemed nonplussed by her tone. “I want to,” she said nonchalantly. “I could use a cup of herbal tea too.” She took a wet plate from Annie’s clenched fingers and began drying it. “I guess I’m the one who gets to sleep in the duck room tonight. Lia and Simon are sound asleep in my pink bed. So,” she added, “Lucas doesn’t live here, then?” Annie was appalled. Did she want to make conversation now? “Heck no!” She said.

“Have you ever been married?” Lola asked.

“Once,” was Annie curt response.

“You’re divorced?”

Annie’s answer came out sounding rehearsed. “My husband, the love of my life, was killed in a car accident two and a half years ago. D.O.A.” Lola looked at her and stopped wiping. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “So am I, believe me,” Annie said, removing her plastic gloves. She resigned to the fact that her solitude was ruined for now. Would any place in the house be safe from now on? She offered Lola a cup of tea, and the two of them stood at the sink. Annie did not invite Lola to sit down in the hope to hurry things up. Maybe she should have. Lola was tall enough to make her—along with the entire kitchen—seem smaller. And shouldn’t she have looked worn out from all those hours of traveling? Instead, in her jeans and white shirt, she had a calm, groomed air about her, a quiet loveliness and effortlessness that was mesmerizing. Annie’s inadequacy flared up in a big way. Lola pulled up a chair and sat at the kitchen table without being invited to. Of course. This was her house now. Annie sat down too, feeling defeated. “If you want to call your husband, or ex, or someone this is the perfect time,” she told Lola. “It will be morning for him.”

Lola took a sip of her tea. “Truthfully, I’d like to postpone that a while.”

Annie had a vague premonition. “What do you mean by a while?”

Lola seemed to be stalling. “What do
you
mean?”

Annie looked at her significantly.

“Mark should be coming back home from Atlanta in two days,” Lola finally said. “I wrote a postcard and mailed it to him from New York where we changed planes on our way here. So...”

“So?”

“So, with a little luck, he’ll be fooled for a while.”

“You. Did. What?” Annie gasped.

“I sent a postcard from--”

“You did
not
take your children and fly to another country without his okay, did you?”

Lola stared at her cup. “Well, it’s very complex.” she said with a bit of a rattle in her voice.

Annie’s heart began pounding.
Was she harboring fugitives
? “You’re not doing anything illegal are you?” She had sounded terribly accusatory and belligerent and regretted her forcefulness immediately. Lola open her mouth to answer but Annie spoke instead, trying to soften her stance. “You
did
say on the phone that he was abusive.”

“It’s a question I keep asking myself,” Lola said. “What’s the definition of abusive?”

“Is he physically violent?” Annie asked. At that point, she needed Lola to say yes.

Lola hesitated, looked away. “He, yes, he is violent...can be quite violent, yes,” she said. “But he is very remorseful each time. That’s the thing about him, he always comes back and apologizes. I have to give him that. But then, he does it again. The situation at home was getting unbearable. He is so unpredictable. And it’s gotten so much worse with the stress of having children.” She lifted her face. “You know what I mean. Men get so jealous of the attention.”

“I know precisely what you mean,” Annie lied. The boys had been nothing but a strong, wonderful bond between her and Johnny. “You poor thing, and the children! How bad is the hitting, I mean, is it hospital-bad?”