Justin Kramon (22 page)

“Ramon comes all the way from Madrid,” Mona said. “People normally pay two hundred dollars for a trim. This is not a haircut. This is”—she seemed to hesitate, struggling for words—“a blessing.”

“I really just wash and go,” Finny said. She felt uncomfortable being fussed over. But she looked at Earl, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows, like he couldn’t help the situation. Mona was practically panting with excitement.

“But yeah,” Finny went on, “why not? It’s worth treating yourself once in a while, I guess.”

Mona sighed. She smiled, then called out, “Rrramon!” rolling her
R’s
in the Spanish style.

Almost instantly he appeared from behind the silk screen, in a sort of flourish, like a flamenco dancer at the first strum of a guitar: a handsome man hardly five feet tall, with earrings in both ears, his black hair slicked back from his face the same way Mona’s hair was slicked into her bun. He wore all black, too, which was evidently the dress code in the salon; his wardrobe was made up of a black T-shirt and some extremely tight-fitting slacks that produced a considerable bulge at his crotch. He walked toward Finny, around the drying chairs and the sink, and Finny noticed he had an odd way of navigating a room, walking in very straight paths, with short quick steps, and making sudden turns, only at ninety-degree angles.

“El Maestro,”
Mona said to Finny as he approached. It took him a bit of time to get to Finny, considering all the objects in his way, and the fact that the room was not conducive to perpendicular walking. When he finally arrived in front of Finny, he offered a quick nod to Earl, who nodded back.

“Bonjour. Buenos días.
Hello,” Ramon said to Finny, who held out her hand to shake. Again she was disappointed in her attempt, though, because instead of reaching for Finny’s hand, the maestro grabbed a tuft of Finny’s hair and said, “Esplendid.” He then let go of her hair, made a quick ninety-degree turn, and held out his hand toward the chair in front of the sink.

After Mona had washed Finny’s hair, Finny sat in the empty barber’s chair, the other being occupied by Ramon. She expected him to get up and start cutting her hair, but instead he stayed seated, watching her with his eyes barely squinted.

“Oh,” Finny said. “Just a little trim. Kind of like it is now, but maybe with some more layers and—”

Ramon shook his head. Mona waved Finny off frantically, as if she were stepping in front of a speeding truck.

Ramon kept watching Finny. She wondered what was happening.

Just when the staring contest was becoming painful, Ramon got up from his chair and walked over to stand in front of Finny. He stepped on a bar, and her chair went down, nearly to the ground. He leaned over her, looked straight down at her scalp. Then he stepped on the bar and her head came back up to nearly the same level as his. He bit his lower lip and looked hard at her temples, her hairline.

Then, for no reason Finny could discern, he began to nod. He held out his hand, palm up. Mona placed a comb in the hand. He took several swipes at Finny’s hair with the comb, parting it strangely in the center of Finny’s scalp.

“Ah,” Mona said.

“Ouch,” Finny said.

After several more swipes with the comb, Ramon transferred it to his left hand, then held out his right again. This time Mona placed a pair of scissors in the open hand. Ramon shook his head, grimaced, looked tortured. He sighed. He put his hand on his chin.

And then, out of nowhere, inspiration struck. He nodded and grinned, raised the scissors to Finny’s bangs, and took four decisive snips. He then walked around behind Finny and took a series of eight or ten snips in what seemed to be random places around Finny’s head.

Then he stopped, rubbed his forehead and breathed loudly, put his fists against his waist and stomped.

But here inspiration seemed to find him again, because his eyes widened and he made a final snip just above Finny’s left ear. He then gave Finny a quick nod, like he’d given to Earl when he’d walked out from behind the silk screen.

“Ah,” Mona said.

The maestro looked pleased with his work. “Esplendid,” he said again, handing the scissors and comb to Mona. He then zigzagged his way to the rear of the shop, his shoulders back, hands on his hips, his substantial pelvis thrust forward like a bullfighter exiting the ring.

“It looks fantastic,” Mona said, with a kind of childlike awe.

To Finny it looked exactly the same as it had before it was cut, but since she didn’t want to hurt Mona’s feelings, she said, “It’s the best haircut I’ve ever gotten.”

“He’s a minimalist,” Mona explained. “It’s as much about the cuts he doesn’t make as the ones he does.”

“Interesting,” Finny said. “What do you think, Earl?”

Earl looked up from his magazine. “Nice. I really like it,” he said. She could have been sporting a mullet and he would have said the same thing.

“Well, you two should go enjoy the afternoon now. I’ll meet you back at the apartment before dinner, Earl?”

“Yeah,” Earl said. And they walked into the Paris streets.

Chapter
24
La Maison des Fantaisies

“So that’s my mom,” Earl said as they headed down a street called Rue Montorgueil toward the Seine. They’d walked into a market area and were now passing shops displaying cheeses of every shape and color, some looking like they were dusty, even covered with mold; or meats of vibrant reds and pinks, little roasted hens or rabbits tied to spits, spinning round and round; or pastries, lacquered with butter or sugar and bursting with fillings. Even on this winter day, some of the shops were open to the cold air. Finny saw one store that sold only foie gras, the stuff Earl had told her about in one of his first letters from Paris. Colorful tins lined the walls.

“She’s great,” Finny said about Earl’s mom. “I want to get her something to thank her for setting up the haircut for me.”

“Come on, tell me the truth. Do you even notice a difference?”

Finny smiled. “It was still nice.”

“Ramon said he’s going to take her in as a partner in the business soon. They’re going to call it Ramona.”

“That’s great.”

“It gives her something to look forward to,” Earl said.

“Is she not happy?”

Here Earl took a breath, then let it out slowly. “It goes up and down with her. She can be excited and bubbly, like today. Then there are times when I catch her crying for no reason. There’s a lot I didn’t understand about her for a while. She’s not the most stable person in the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she has a history. When she was with my dad, it was right around the time she had a breakdown. She was barely eighteen. She cut all her ties with her family and joined that traveling act my dad told you about. Part of the reason she couldn’t see me after I was born was that she was in a psych ward. I think my dad didn’t tell me that stuff because he wanted to spare me—or at least to respect Mom’s privacy. But gradually the story came out. She told me some weird stuff, Finny. She started hallucinating when she was in the hospital and she said that all day she could smell the color purple, and when she ate, it tasted like the sound of birds chirping.”

“Jeez,” Finny said. “I had no idea.”

“I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but that’s one of the reasons I came back. To check up on her.”

“That’s why she thinks you’re a wonderful son.”

“She thinks everything is wonderful, when she’s happy. Then when she’s sad, it goes the other way.”

“So is she all right? I mean, you said she’s not so stable.”

“She takes a lot of drugs now. Medicine, I mean. It keeps her within range.”

“What about Ramon?” Finny asked. “Is there anything going on there?”

Earl smiled. “You mean, like sex? I don’t think Ramon sleeps with women. I actually don’t think he sleeps with men either. He’s pretty content with himself.”

“Does your mom date at all?”

“Once in a while. But her French isn’t good, so she doesn’t have many options. And I’m not sure she’s really built for relationships. She has some weird hang-ups about sex. She can be very frank about it—like before when she embarrassed me—but then sometimes she also seems afraid of it.”

And Earl? Finny thought. What mark had it left on him?

Now the street they were walking on ended, and they came upon a plaza with some pretty gazebos in it where Finny could imagine people eating lunch in warmer weather. There were some benches, and small trees, even a fountain.

“We can walk right through this,” Earl said. “It’s a shortcut. The Pont Neuf is on the other side.”

They walked down another short street, and came out by the river. Holding hands, they walked onto the bridge, over the wide water. Because of their long walk, Finny didn’t feel cold anymore. She squeezed Earl and made him pose with her for a picture along the railing of the bridge, which another American tourist ended up taking for them. Earl pointed out some of the sights: the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Orsay, Ile de la Cité and the buttresses of Notre Dame at its far end. They planned some places to visit. Earl told her about the
bateaux-mouches
you could take a ride on at night, and how the rich people who lived on the Seine complained about the lights from the tour boats shining in their windows.

They spent the first part of the afternoon walking around some Left Bank neighborhoods, which Earl said he liked better than the Right Bank. He took Finny to a café where Gertrude Stein used to come for parlor sessions with her writer friends. They stopped at a fancy ice cream shop on Ile Saint-Louis, with brass tables and counters. Finny tried a flavor with chocolate and orange and hazelnuts, and when Earl asked if she was ready to go, she considered getting another scoop, but decided not to spoil her dinner. He took her to a little Picasso museum in the Marais, which he said was one of his favorite museums in Paris. He taught her some useful expressions, like
“Où est le métro?”
and
“C’est combien?”
which Finny then proceeded to butcher with her abominable French accent. Earl laughed, then tried to correct her and ended up bungling it himself, which made Finny laugh. They were practically falling over by the time Finny learned to say “I would like to order the steak.”

They got back to Earl’s apartment building around seven. Finny was exhausted, so Mona suggested they stay in for dinner. They made a meal of baguette and cheese, salami, some rabbit pâté Mona had picked up at the farmers’ market held every week on her street. Mona walked them to the door of Earl’s room, then said to Finny and Earl, “You two must have some catching up to do. You can relax, give each other massages, talk dirty if you like. I’ll plug my ears.”

“Mom,” Earl said. “Please.”

“Sorry,” Mona said.

Then they all said good night.

After Finny had washed for bed, they made up the red cushions for themselves, and Finny lay down on them while Earl was getting ready. She must have closed her eyes at some point, because the next thing she knew she was blinking awake in a shower of sunlight from the high window. Earl was asleep, and Finny got up on a chair to look out the window. She heard voices below, and when she looked into the street, she saw children congregating in front of an iron gate. Since it was the holidays, Finny imagined they must have been friends meeting up for some outing. One very big child pushed a small one into the road and laughed. Cars honked at them. Finny got down off the chair, and she saw that Earl was now awake.

“Sorry I fell asleep,” Finny said. She wasn’t sure if he was disappointed they hadn’t had sex. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

But if Earl was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Come here,” he said to Finny, holding out his arms, and she got back in bed with him. They hugged each other under the warm covers, and for some reason it put Finny in mind of chickens in an oven.

“We’re roasting,” she said.

It would be what they’d always call this morning time together, when they held each other under the covers. It was Finny’s favorite part of the day. On this particular morning, though, as Mona had predicted, it led to more than just holding. Soon they were kissing, undressing, and Finny was scrambling into the cold air to find a condom in her bag. Earl laughed at the sight of her running naked through his room. Then she was back under the covers, and they were moving through all the familiar, warm routines they’d established that weekend in New York. They moved slowly, and it took a long time, but by the end they were both breathless. What a wonderful way to begin their vacation together! What a perfect morning in Paris!

It became the way they started every morning. Too tired for love—and usually a little drunk—when they returned at night, they went straight to sleep. But in the mornings they lingered, roasted, made love, sometimes fell back asleep for a while longer. Then they’d eat cereal, or else go to the corner for an espresso and a croissant. (Finny always got chocolate.) They didn’t make a lot of plans, but they always had enough to fill a day. There were exhibits they wanted to see, restaurants they wanted to try, walks they wanted to take. They went to Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli to drink
chocolat africain.
Finny bought postcards, chocolates, key chains for her friends and family. In the evenings they told Mona about their days, and she relished every detail. She licked her lips when Finny described the hot chocolate. Earl showed Finny a little square in Montmartre with a bust of a French actress in it, surrounded by some lovely old houses that had been converted into apartments. There were a few park benches, a circle of lawn, some walls draped with ivy, a fat oak tree. He said this was where he’d choose to live in Paris, if he ever had the money.

That evening—it was the first week of January, a scoured winter smell in the air—Earl and Finny ate crêpes in a piano bar and listened to a man play Billy Joel songs for tips. Afterward, walking down the slope of the Rue de Maubeuge, they saw a prostitute who was clearly a man—though he was wearing heavy makeup and a fur boa—pick up a client in a business suit. The couple walked into an alley, whispering and laughing. The man behind Finny and Earl—who walked with a noticeable limp, and kept wriggling inside his overcoat, as if his clothes didn’t fit properly—shrugged at the couple who walked off together. Finny laughed.