On the Brink of Paris (8 page)

“Jean-Michel, nous avons besoin d'aller au Musée du Louvre tout de suite, s'il te plaît. La demoiselle ici est bien en retard.”

My goodness! While I was still relatively certain Lindy could not correctly name all the continents, I have to admit I was impressed by her French.

The limousine moved surprising fast through the traffic, in a
Titanic
sort of way.

“What are you going to do when you get there?” Tim asked. “I mean, isn't the Louvre supposed to be huge?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm making this up as I go. Everybody was supposed to meet at this place called ze glesspairmeed. Do you have any idea what that is?”

“
Glace
means ‘ice cream,'” stated Lindy.

“
Père
means ‘father,'” added Tim.

“So you think it's an ice-cream stand?” I asked eagerly. “Called Father something?”

Tim pulled a small dictionary out of a little pocket by his door.

“Don't leave home without it,” he said, flipping through the pages. “What's the last part?
Meed?
I don't see…there's a
midinette
.”

“What's it mean?” I asked.

“Uh…silly young townie.”

“Father's Silly Young Townie Ice-Cream Stand?” I asked.

“It's catchy,” said Lindy.

“Keep looking,” I said to Tim.

“The only other thing that sounds close is
midi
. It means noon.”

“Father's Noon Ice-Cream Stand,” I said thoughtfully. “I don't know. It could be a French thing.”

“I've never heard of it,” Lindy said. At this point I was
willing to accept her opinion as expert.

“Well, do you have any ideas? Do you remember any ice-cream stands from your photo shoot?”

Lindy wrinkled her nose. “We had an on-set buffet,” she said. “You don't really think I'd go to some ice-cream stand with all of the Other People, do you?”

As one of the Other People, I felt mildly offended. But this was not a good time to launch a grass-roots Other People movement.

“I just thought you might have noticed something,” I responded diplomatically.

“I have people whose job is to notice things FOR me,” Lindy said. “I have a STAFF. Hair guy, makeup guy, Pilates guy, nutrition guy, color consultant guy, life coach guy. You know.”

Uh-huh. Well, I had Charlotte. So I could kind of relate.

“Voilà, nous sommes arrivés au Louvre,”
the driver was saying.

I perked up at the sound of the word
Louvre
. I looked out the window. This must be the place. Victory! Yay!

Jean-Michel hopped out of the car and opened the back door. I started to slide out, then paused.

“Listen, I seriously want to thank you. Both of you. You're, like, saving my life here.”

“Whatever.” Lindy shrugged. She pulled out her cell
phone and began to fuss with it.

But Tim kind of smiled a little, which seemed as dramatic a change as Helen Keller at the pump spelling out w-a-t-e-r for the first time. Progress.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“I'm not sure,” I replied. “Once I'm inside the museum, at least I'm there. It may take a while to find everybody, but we'll be in the same building.”

Tim nodded thoughtfully.

“What about you?” I asked.

Lindy had called someone on her cell and was chattering away about a stylist whom a friend had fired. She sounded outraged and bored at the same time.

“We'll drive around, maybe go over to the Tuileries or Versailles or something. Except for you, nobody's recognized her yet. Maybe we'll get lucky and stay anonymous.”

“Definitely,” I told him. Secretly, I have to say the chances of Lindy Sloane's remaining incognito for long, even in her monster hat and bug glasses, were slimmer than she was. And that's saying something.

“I'll be back at the VEI before you guys,” he said.

“Don't worry about it if you're late,” I said. “I've got your back.”

Then I made this ridiculous little “key locking the lips” motion. I don't know what I was thinking.

But Tim seemed pleased.

“Later,” he said.

“Later,” I replied.

I admit, Dear Readers, I snuck a final peek at Lindy Sloane before stepping back so that Jean-Michel could close the limousine door. It was just as well that I didn't plan on telling anybody. I can't think of a person in the world who would believe it.

I waved a cheery good-bye to the sleek whale of an automobile. It was impossible to tell through the tinted windows if anyone waved back.

Then I turned to have a look at the Louvre and evaluate my next move.

Crapstick.

I've been to large museums before. But this building looked like its own CITY. It seemed to stretch elegantly and endlessly in every direction. I was willing to bet the entire population of Greenland could be inside that building AT THIS VERY MOMENT, and there would still be plenty of elbow room. How did a person even get INSIDE this place? There were crowds of people everywhere. But in the midst of the frenzy of activity, I noticed a stream of bodies going in and out through an archway. Quickly, I followed them.

The courtyard seemed roughly the size of Rhode Island. To my left I could see another huge arch monu
ment. They seemed to be following me. And to my right was the heart of the U-shaped palace that was the Louvre. There might be an admission door over there somewhere. Who could see anything with that huge glass pyramid smack in the center of things?

Glass pyramid.

Glesspairmeed.

EUREKA!

T
here was an entrance right in the glass pyramid, which led to an escalator going down to a gleaming marble-floored reception area. Now, I say “reception area,” but it looked like a very streamlined version of the engine room on the starship
Enterprise
. Overhead, the glass pyramid soared into the sky. I pitied the Louvre's Official Window Washer.

I had stumbled upon a mecca of English speakers. Even women in saris and men in elaborate headdresses were speaking English. At the admissions desk I didn't bother explaining my situation. The nice lady in the trim blue suit who spoke perfect English certainly wouldn't know where Madame Chavotte and her students had gone. I paid for a student ticket, took a few authoritative
steps down a hallway, then stopped.

How was I going to locate my group in a four-story building of this magnitude? Being lost in the Louvre might be just as hopeless as being lost in Paris, and statistically I was unlikely to run into another celebrity willing to direct me where I needed to go.

Then I remembered Lewis. He'd said to text message him when I got to the museum. Sadly, he hadn't told me HOW to do that. Or maybe he had, and I wasn't paying attention. I pulled out my phone and stared at it. I pushed a button. Nothing happened. I pushed another button. Nothing happened. I pushed a bunch of buttons in succession. All at once the phone produced a high-pitched single-tone version of Mozart's
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
. I let out a little yell, shook the phone and smacked it, then tried sticking it under my arm to muffle the sound. People began staring at the Little Chicken with Mozart coming out of her armpit, so I started pushing buttons again. Miraculously the music stopped. What a nightmare!

I decided to push one last button. I picked one on the side of the phone. A menu flashed onto the screen. Now we were getting somewhere! With things looking more computerlike and less phonelike, I became more confident. Even the superpowers of Lenny Blennerhassett had not prevented me from getting a moderate amount of experience using e-mail. I found my way through “text message” to
“address book,” and YAY! Lewis had indeed entered his address there.

 

After a few wrong turns, I finally sent Lewis a message:

The response came back almost immediately.

Eureka! I made a dash for the elevator, holding the phone out in front of me like it was a homing device. As I got into the elevator, my hand froze over the buttons. Was floor two the second floor or the
deuxième étage
that made it the third floor? But I had come in a floor
below
street level. So maybe in this building the
deuxième étage
was the second floor because the ground floor was the first floor and the subterranean level the ground floor?

I hit “2” and let the elevator decide what it meant. When the door opened, I got off and text messaged Lewis:

A lady with a baby stroller almost ran me down as I waited for his reply.

Well, thank you very much. That was Extremely Helpful. I'm in the world's largest collection of artwork, and Lewis tells me to meet him BY THE PAINTINGS.

I made a face at the screen when I hit “send,” just to reinforce my feelings of exasperation.

I looked around frantically in every direction, but I didn't see any of those things. Well, not exactly. I saw a guard with a teeny mustache, but he was thin. I saw a group of about a hundred kids, but they looked Japanese. I saw two ladies with strollers, but both had sets of twins. Paintings I saw. Paintings EVERYWHERE. Millions upon millions of them.

Crapstick.

I would have to search systematically, wing by wing. That should only take, according to what I could glean from the map the admissions lady gave me, about three hours. Per floor. I had barely started down the Hall of
Painted Grim Guys in Big Hats and Dark Colors when my phone wiggled. (I preferred to think of it as wiggling; vibrating sounded too dental.)

What? They were switching floors? Now I'd have to switch floors too, assuming I was on the right floor to start with. At this point everything felt like the dumb-
ième étage
to me. I shot off a message:

And after a moment, I got back:

I went back in the direction I'd come, once again through the Hall of Painted Grim Guys in Big Hats and Dark Colors. There was a little group of plump blond women posing for a picture, the escalator beyond them. I dashed through the shot just as the photographer was exhorting them to “say cheese.” I have no doubt I will make a notable addition to someone's vacation photo album.

As I sprinted out onto the first floor, my phone wiggled again.

I stopped and listened. I seemed to hear crying babies from every direction.

Another wiggle from the phone.

International jackpot! I scuttled over to the closest security guard.

“Hi there…um…English?”

“What are you looking for?” he said in slightly accented English, eyes half closed like I'd caught him napping.

“Mona L—”

He cut me off.

“Down that hall, right, fourth hallway on the left, look for the crowd.”

“Thank you,” I said. He seemed to have fallen back asleep. I guess an American asking directions to the
Mona Lisa
wasn't very unusual or interesting. He probably stood there all day telling people where the
Mona Lisa
was. I hoped, for his sake, a tiny but ultimately failed armed robbery might happen after I'd left—just a little something for him to talk about with his buddies after work.

I shot down the hallway like a speed skater, bobbing
around and between people. When I got to the fourth hallway on the left, I saw the crowd right away. If I'd been anywhere else, I would have assumed there'd been some kind of accident. But I could see very well what the crowd was staring at. Hanging by itself on the wall, protected by velvet ropes preventing anyone from approaching too closely, was the
Mona Lisa
. The painting looked a lot smaller than I'd expected. Like maybe the size of one of those posters of a kitten hanging off a branch that say, “Hang on, it's almost Friday!” When something is a Universally Recognized Artistic Icon of Epic Proportions, you expect it to be at least the size of a station wagon. Still, I needed to capture the moment for my Mental Pool, which is what I was doing when I heard an unmistakable voice above the crowd.

“She is
magnifique, n'est-ce pas?
She is
formidable
!”

I sidled over, all casual.

“She's not even French, Janet. She's Italian.”

Janet whirled to face me.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “Lewis keeps saying he just saw you, but I haven't laid eyes on you since we got separated at
le métro
.”

“Where else would I be? I've been right here,” I said.

Janet regarded me suspiciously. I gave a little carefree laugh.

“What, you don't believe me?” I asked. “You need, like,
proof? We rendezvoused at the glass pyramid. Upstairs, where that big security guard with the tiny mustache was, I almost fell over a stroller pushing triplets. Right by that big group of German kids. And you…you've been speaking in French since the moment we got here!”

Janet looked genuinely puzzled to be confronted by these truths, so I took the opportunity to flounce away. I flounced right into Charlotte. My soaring spirits were immediately dampened by the severely outraged look on Charlotte's face. She glanced around to make sure no one was listening, then tugged me by the shirtsleeve until my ear was just inches from her mouth.

“Do. You. Have. Any. Idea. How. Worried. I've. Been?”

The words came out like a machine-gun blast. She opened her mouth to continue, but I was way ahead of her. I pulled her aside, by my own shirtsleeve.

“Charlotte, I am a DISGRACE!”

Charlotte opened her mouth to disagree with me, registered what I'd said, and closed her mouth.

“I've come to Paris completely unprepared! I've relied on you for all my knowledge and allowed myself to remain ignorant! The only French words I can remember are ones I can't use in conversation! I haven't so much as glanced at a map! I LOST my information packet before we even left America! And I don't know the address of the VEI!”

Charlotte's eyebrows shot up at that last part. I rapidly
left the Admission of Wrongdoing portion of my speech behind and proceeded to my Humble Request for Forgiveness.

“I am CONSTANTLY taking advantage of your superb organization, your intelligence, and your sense of responsibility, Charlotte. You are right about me not being detail oriented. I am detail DISoriented. And it's going to stop RIGHT NOW!”

Charlotte scowled at me for a good five or ten seconds before shaking her head in disgust and perhaps a wee portion of affection.

“Honestly, Lily, you're going to turn me into a nut job,” she said.

I shook my head in disbelief at my own level of moronification and turned both my palms toward the ceiling in an expression of self-disappointment.

“Where's Bonnie?” I asked, in a shameless bid for an Abrupt Subject Change.

Charlotte jerked her thumb in the direction of the crowd.

“Getting an up-close look,” she replied. Then she leaned in and whispered, “We think she may have recognized somebody from one of the portraits back in Flemish Seventeenth-century Oils and Watercolors. How did you find us, anyway? This place is gargantuan.”

“Oh my God! Lewis! He text messaged me all the way up from reception!”

I looked around for Lewis, but I couldn't pick him out of the
Mona Lisa
–admiring crowd.

“Text messaged you?” asked Charlotte, incredulous. She was well aware of the technical backwardness of the entire Blennerhassett clan.

I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Lewis standing by the window, peering at his Sidekick.

“Be right back,” I said to Charlotte. Then I quickly made my way over to Lewis.

“Lewis Pilsky, you are a god among men,” I said dramatically.

Lewis looked up at me, and his face turned a remarkable shade of crimson.

“Oh, well…you know.”

“You SAVED me,” I said, waggling my eyebrows for emphasis.

“Oh, well,” he repeated. “How did you end up finding your way to the museum?”

I won't tell you I wasn't tempted. Every cell in my body—every single strand of DNA—was silently screaming “LINDY SLOANE SHOWED ME THE WAY!” Instead of replying, though, I let a few heartbeats pass while I thought of a technically honest yet completely discreet response.

“You know, I ended up just asking somebody,” I said. “And they turned out to be American and basically gave me door-to-door service.”

Lewis nodded and continued to look embarrassed.

“I have COMPLETELY REVISED my feelings on portable communications technology,” I said earnestly. Before Lewis could nod or say “oh, well” again, I sensed a looming presence. I felt like a chipmunk that has just noticed a hawk circling overhead.

“Leelee!” said Madame Chavotte. “Are you also seek wees ze stomak big?”

WHAT? Was Madame Chavotte accusing me of being FAT?

“Ze stomak big? Like Teem? Always, your frenz say you are running to ze bassroom. Every time I am looking for you, again, you are in ze bassroom. I am afraid we will all catch zis terrible stomak big.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, rubbing my stomach ruefully. “You know, Madame Chavotte, I think the trouble has, um, passed. I'm feeling much better now.”

Madame Chavotte scrutinized me for a moment, her monobrow furrowed. For a moment I was gripped with the fear that the game was up. That Madame Chavotte knew the Truth and was about to bust me. She took a step toward me, and I thought it was entirely possible she was about to put me in handcuffs. Instead, she reached out and pushed my hair out of my face, like my mother sometimes does.

“Zees ees good, zen,” she said. “A young girl's first treep to Paree should be full of wonder and
amusement.
It
ees sumsing she should remember 'er whole life,
non
? No one should 'ave ze stomak big in Paree. I am glad you are
en bonne santé, ma petite poulette
.”

Wow! Every native of France seemed to recognize my innate Little Chickenness.

“What was that all about?” whispered Charlotte after Madame Chavotte moved out of earshot.

“She was just—she was just making sure I was feeling okay,” I said.

“That's because Lewis and I kept telling her that you were in the ladies' room during the head count,” Charlotte said, giving me a stern look.

“I've TOTALLY learned my lesson,” I declared.

“I've heard that before,” Charlotte said, and she linked her arm through mine.

“Allons-y, mes enfants,”
Madame Chavotte was calling. “We go now to eejeepcheyan
antiquités
.”

Whatever eejeepcheyan on tee kee tay turned out to be, I didn't care. As long as I didn't have to find them by myself, I was happy as a lark.