Searching for Tina Turner (23 page)

“There’s your sign,” Cheryl says.

“I love it.” Lena picks up her camera and focuses on Cheryl and the gold and green awning above her.
Click.
“It means I’m on the right track.”

“So the concert is”—Cheryl counts on her fingers—“eighteen days from now. That means we have time for a little exploring.
The light in the south of France is extraordinary. Good for photographs. Lots of artists—Matisse, Chagall, and Picasso—came
here to paint. If I visit those museums, I can write off part of our trip. The train goes to Cannes and St. Tropez. And the
nightlife in Monte Carlo—”

“Wait.” Lena stretches out the palm of her hand like a stop sign in front of Cheryl’s face. “You’re going too fast for me.
Plus, I want to check out Villefranche, where Tina lives. Let’s look at our options, then decide.”

“Expand your horizons. We need… diversion.” Cheryl inclines her head in the direction of a dark-haired man on the opposite
side of the café’s terrace. Diversion for Cheryl, Lena recalls, means more than museums, means more than scouring the streets
for historical sites, for the perfect cup of coffee or unusual architectural details. “These Frenchmen look very good, Lena.
And who knows what French there is to learn from chatting.”

“Men aren’t what this trip is about.”

“I know that, but let me remind you, like that man’s eyes over there, you’re not dead. It does
not
hurt to look, Lena Harrison. Should I go over there and introduce myself?” Cheryl scoots her chair back and mocks the panic
that stiffens Lena’s face. The couple next to them ogles. Their French is cacophony of guttural noises and nasal blends.

“They’ve probably never seen American blacks before, except on TV. They’re probably saying something racist, about ugly Americans
or worse—ugly black folks.”

“Don’t think racism, Cheryl, we get enough of that at home. Maybe they’re staring because we’re beautiful; maybe they’re staring
because you’re talking so loud.”

“You know the French are very racist,” Cheryl whispers.

“The world is racist, but I’m not going to let it keep me from having a good time.” Lena opens her handbag and pulls out a
pen and the little orange notebook filled with things she wants to do, places she wants to see: Matisse and Chagall museums,
the early morning markets, a jazz concert in the park atop Cimiez, and a cooking class. On the inside cover she draws a series
of horizontal and vertical lines. The lines turn into boxes and she labels them with numbers.

Cheryl reaches over and shuts Lena’s handmade calendar. “All we need to know is that Tina’s concert takes place in eighteen
days. We have our tickets. We’ll worry about how to get there when the time comes. Otherwise, no planning.”

Lena grins, glad that Cheryl is with her, despite her flamboyance, despite her disorganization and toss-it-to-the-wind outlook.

Cheryl motions to the waiter. “Gauloises, s’il vous plaît.”

“Since when do you speak French?” Secondhand smoke catches in Lena’s throat.

“Please, everybody knows ‘please.’ Gauloises are cigarettes.”

When the waiter returns, he brings a pack of unidentifiable cigarettes and tells Cheryl that Gauloises are hard to find these
days. “C’est la vie,” Cheryl says and accepts the compact, blue pack. “It doesn’t matter.” She opens the box top, pulls out
two cigarettes, and hands one to Lena. Putting the cigarette between her lips, Lena strikes a match and leans into its flame.

C
heryl approaches the last roundabout before Vence: five-foot-wide, circular cement mounds of grass and flowers built at one-mile
intervals in the middle of the road to the hilltop city. At each one, multiple thoroughfares converge and crook, snakelike
arrows direct traffic left, right, or straight ahead.

Lena points to a tall tower. GARAGE/STATIONNEMENT is stenciled in white letters across its front. The tower’s cement angles
are almost an insult to the weathered merry-go-round and the frilly, lace curtains in the restaurant windows behind it.

When the elevator lets them off atop a grassy mound, Lena and Cheryl follow a cluster of people to a narrow opening in a fifteen-inch-thick
stone wall.

Inside lies a medieval city: winding streets no wider than eight or ten feet, dusty colored bricks, open markets with tables
of eggplant, oranges, leafy greens, and more lined in even rows that resemble art more than food for sale; whole, wall-eyed
fish and inky squid atop ice-covered bins, pigs’ heads, tails, and feet; wine and pungent disks of cheese.

“It’s like—” Cheryl whispers.

“We stepped back in time,” Lena finishes, “or more like into a fairy tale.”

Lena removes her camera from its case, focuses the lens: a whole fish ogling them from atop a bed of greens and ice, the word
traiteur
printed in calligraphy across a striped awning of what looks like a delicatessen, laundry dangling from a window, a small
chalkboard with the specials of the day—
plats du jour
.

“Food now, pictures later.” Cheryl flips through the pages of a small guidebook and wanders in the direction of a restaurant
she read about that serves a great coq au vin.

Lena snaps pictures without compromising Cheryl’s search. Each turn reveals more of the city’s charm.
Click:
a rusted door.
Click:
a flowering tree beside an old church.
Click:
a watchtower. The stone streets are spotless. Wine shops, clothing stores, bookstores, shops selling postcards and the ever-present
images of
cigales
carved into music boxes, the tops of ceramic crocks, and scented soaps; all of southern France loves their melodious cicadas.

At the end of an empty, narrow street that seems to have been ignored by scattered tourists, the sound of sizzling meat and
the nutty scent of butter just turning brown beckons them: a tiny restaurant, Chez Philippe.

“This is it!” Cheryl shouts. “This is the restaurant in the guide.”

A menu in French and English is taped on the open door. Lena takes pictures while Cheryl scours the two pages. A smiling man
with a menu in each hand rushes to the door.

“Bonjour, mesdames. Lunch for two or four?”

Cheryl holds up two fingers. “But, how did you know we speak English?”

“I’d like to tell you it’s your shoes or clothes, cherie, because they are
trés chic.
” The man looks into Cheryl’s eyes. “But I heard you talking. And women as beautiful as you are hard to ignore.”

“Your English is perfect.” Cheryl returns his straightforward look.

“I’m from Upstate New York. I’m Philip—Philippe.” He exaggerates the French pronunciation—Phil-leep—and cocks his head at
a table for two in the corner of the nearly full restaurant. “This is my restaurant.”

“California.” Cheryl extends her hand. “The land of sunshine and loose women.”

Lena slaps Cheryl’s arm lightly. “I’m Lena. She’s Cheryl.”

In between seating new diners and busing dishes, Philip— host, sometime chef and sommelier—returns to their table to chat
with the two women as if they are long-lost friends.

“I hardly ever have a chance to talk to anyone from California. We get a lot of people from New York and the East Coast, but
not as many from the West Coast.” He sips wine from the glass he leaves on their table. Philip is beefy. His clothes are loose
and fashionable in a 1920s movie kind of way that makes him attractive though his face is not. His dark brown hair and blue
eyes follow Cheryl’s while he summarizes his story: he has lived in Vence for almost ten years, and he used to run the restaurant
for profit, but since 9/11 there have been fewer American tourists; although business is getting better because he’s had some
publicity. Now he runs the restaurant for fun and earns his living as an English language teacher at a nearby elementary school.

“He is
so
sexy.” Cheryl nudges Lena as Philip guides a couple to a small table near a piano pushed against the back wall. “I love the
way he looks right at my mouth when he talks to me.”

Lena rolls her eyes in a way that has now become habit and reminds her of Camille and even Kendrick whenever they disapproved
of something she did or said.

“Join in the fun.” Cheryl pulls out a gold compact and checks her lipstick. Cheryl only wears red lipstick, preferring to
draw attention to her heart-shaped lips; her skin is smooth save for a noticeable scar above her right eye—a leftover from
chicken pox; her cheeks bear the slightest tinge of her natural blush that flares when she’s angry or excited.

Cheryl motions to Philip. Leaning into his side, she points to her lunch selection and smiles. “Are you open for dinner, too?”

Philip shoos away the only waiter in the restaurant. “If you like our food, you must come back for dinner. I sing and play
the piano, and there’s a wonderful café around the corner that stays open very late.”

Lena shrugs and picks at her sweater and pants. “I’m not sure about the roads at night. And… we’re not really dressed for
dinner.”

“But you both look fabulous, and my house specialty is on the menu tonight— a pork that will melt in your mouth,” Philip says,
grinning at Cheryl. “You think about it, and let me know.”

Cheryl winks. “Perhaps you can invite a friend in honor of our first time in Vence.”

“Mais oui!” Philip holds his chin between his thumb and forefinger and closes his eyes as if those actions will help with
his answer. “I think I can arrange something.”

A very blond and rather hunched-over man in the corner snaps at Philip. “Garçon,” the man calls out, confusing the soft French
C
with the hard American
K
. Philip turns toward the women and makes a face behind his stack of menus. “Duty calls.”

“He’s being friendly,” Cheryl says as Philip walks away. “Besides, if the white boy wants to treat us, what have we got to
lose?”

“Nnnnnnn…” Lena’s tongue rests against the roof of her mouth so that the
N
for “no” buzzes in her nose. She shrugs again and tugs at her hair. Open up. Drink coffee here. “Why not?”

“That’s my girl. Remember, we’re here to have fun.”

“As long as your
fun
doesn’t interfere with my plan.”

“This
is
the plan.”

f   f   f

The Matisse museum in Vence is a short trek from the center of the old city. Lena and Cheryl take the orange trolley across
a small bridge to the building where Matisse completed the colorful stained glass windows for the Chapelle du Rosaire and
the Dominican sisters of Vence. As the trolley approaches the front of the whitewashed chapel, the last of a queue of men
and women load into two large vans topped with bicycle racks and luggage. Once they’re all inside, a hand sticks out and pulls
the van door shut, then the van pulls away from the curb.

“I swear those people are black.” Cheryl waves at the van frantically. “It would be great to make a connection and really
have the chance to party.”

“Just ’cause they’re black doesn’t mean they want to party. Or include us. Or, that they’re American. This isn’t Oakland.”
Two days in the south of France and, except for Cheryl and the backs of a couple of tall brothers Lena thought she spotted
turning a corner in Vence, these are the only people of color she’s seen. Or thinks she’s seen.

“You never know.”

The inside of the tiny chapel is stark white and simple: Matisse’s stained glass windows and angled, wooden pews.

“Matisse worked on these windows from around 1948 to 1952. He wanted to convey an easing of the spirit. These windows represent
the tree of life.” A priest clothed in a white, floor-length cassock holds a finger to his lips as Cheryl describes Matisse’s
work. Late afternoon light shines through the windows and casts yellow, aquamarine blue, and bottle green rays onto the floor.

“You know so much!”

“Art is, after all, what I do.” Cheryl points out a lesser sketch of the windows as they walk through the hall to the small
gift counter. “He’s my favorite. I love all of his work. There’s more in Nice. That museum’s larger.”

The hallway walls are lined with draft sketches of different portions of the windows: a flower here, a winding vine there,
repeated from one frame to the next to show the artist’s thought process and practice.

“I wonder if Philip likes art.” Cheryl dismisses the thought with a wave of her hand. “Oh, who cares. We’ll have a good time
tonight.”

Lena concentrates on Matisse’s sketches. “It says here that Matisse was searching for one-dimensional movement in this series.
What does that mean?”

“You understand exactly what it means, Lena. Don’t change the subject, and stop frowning.” Cheryl shakes a finger at Lena.
“You act like I’m forcing you to pose naked in the town square. You’re rusty at the dating game, so just follow my lead.”

“If I do that I’ll be in bed with a stranger before the night is over.”

“And, the problem with that is?” Cheryl pinches Lena’s cheek lightly and grins. Postcards line the small glass-topped counter.
Lena selects postcards for Lulu, Bobbie, Camille, Kendrick, and Candace, and steps out onto the terrace of the chapel. Camille
would love the art and history here; Kendrick would love the winding roads. From the terrace, old Vence is like a postcard:
spires and turrets peak above slanted slate roofs clearly outlined against the darkening sky. Lena points her camera at the
city and the valley below; she hopes that she has captured the setting sun’s rose-tinted cast, hopes that her tingling stomach
will calm down or, better yet, that Philip has changed his mind and never wants to see the two of them again.

f   f   f

The restaurant is crowded. Votive candles are everywhere: on the tables, in the windowsills, and on the beam that rests a
foot below the low ceiling. Candlelight intensifies the ebony wood. Each table is covered with a soft beige tablecloth and
napkins folded into triangle points.

Philip’s face brightens when Cheryl and Lena walk through the door. He sits very erect at a small upright piano in the middle
of the room where tables were arranged during lunch. The wide lapels of his old-fashioned tuxedo shine in the candlelight.
He croons a lazy French song, somewhere between ballad and jazz, in a raspy alto.