Searching for Tina Turner (29 page)

Lena can’t recall if they discussed a plan when Harmon phoned earlier that morning, although the high and winding Corniche
is a sight she wants to see.

f   f   f

“Do whatever you would do if I wasn’t taking your picture. Talk.” Lena points the camera lens to Harmon’s face and adjusts
it to the left and right until his profile is clear through the viewfinder. She waits for him to expose the tips of his teeth,
then presses the shutter button twice. “Be serious.”

“I’m on vacation.” Harmon poses, makes a face like a naughty ten-year-old, and tugs at the sides of his mouth with both hands.
He sticks out his tongue. She snaps again. Harmon points to the sturdy metal railing and guides Lena to the potted olive tree
in front of it. He entwines Lena’s waist with both arms and presses his cheek to hers. They smile while the server figures
out how to take their picture and include the dreary sky and smoke-colored clouds at their backs.

When the server places the check and his credit card on the table, Harmon signs the slip, draws a heart, and scribbles the
initials HF + LH inside it. “Maybe that’s not a manly reaction, but it’s me. My sons would whoop up a storm if they could
see me. Bruce is having a field day. Blustery lawyer, supposedly adamant and logical. I feel like a kid who found a special
something he thought he’d lost, that’s been lost for a long time.”

“How can you care so quickly?” She asks, praying that he won’t ask her to answer the same question.

“I know what I want when I see it, and frivolous youth doesn’t count.”

“You were thirty-six. I was almost thirty. Since when are the thirties frivolous?”

Litigation, he explains, requires well-timed assessments of facts and circumstances, and strong arguments. “So your unasked
question is: if I hadn’t run into you would I be paying as much attention to someone else I picked up between my bike trip
and my return home?”

Eze is too beautiful, the day too divine to question Harmon’s flirtation, but Lena wants answers nevertheless. Once again
their deep conversations are surrounded by food and water.

“As a matter of fact, there was a woman on the biking trip. We were checking each other out, on the verge of… you know. My
point is, you’ll notice she isn’t with me.”

“And she’s probably pissed as hell, too.”

Harmon shrugs.

“You dog. I better watch myself.” Lena shrugs, too, unsure if her sarcastic admonition is for herself or Harmon.

Harmon and Lena wander from the limestone terrace of Château Eza’s restaurant high above Nice, closer to Monte Carlo and Menton,
and through its arched entryway back to the village. The uneven and narrow streets of Eze are filled, but not crowded, with
other tourists wandering about, their single intention to browse. In this medieval town, history has settled in brick walls
washed with the acid of time.

Lena focuses her camera.
Snap.
For the most part, the ancient buildings of every street are filled with boutiques and galleries. An iron gate—Porte des
Maures—blocks the curious from a craggy path leading down the mountain.
Snap. Snap.
A sign, in French and English, tells all that in the year 900, Moors passed through the gateway to invade the village and
occupied Eze for more than seventy years. Lena points out to Harmon that this was probably the last time a multitude of dark-skinned
people were ever in Eze or any city around the Mediterranean.

Does it bother Tina that she stands out? Stardom would do that anyway. Perhaps this is a difference between Lena and her celebrity
heroine. Oakland and the Bay Area is a melting pot that Lena loves. The lack of diversity, this different kind of diversity,
at least in Nice, is what makes Lena know she couldn’t live here.

Harmon changes direction and leads them to a small plaza off the main street. The church, Notre Dame de Asuncion, connects
to a cemetery where French veterans from the two World Wars lie in rest. From where they stand, even though the sky is overcast,
they can see the topography of the land. The dark promontories of the southern coast are stubby like papier-maché hills against
the dull gray water. The view is far better than what can be seen from a plane; almost touchable, closer without queasiness.

“It’s like having one foot in the plaza and the other in heaven.” Lena plays with the exposure meter on her camera and snaps
more pictures with and without Harmon in them.

“I have an idea.”

“Just look at the view and act like you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Let me help you look for Tina’s house.”

“Even though you’re a wonderful diversion, Harmon Francis, meeting Tina is a promise I’ll fulfill on my own.”

“So, substitute me for Cheryl, or add me to the equation. Take your pick. I’ll be your guide.”

“I’ll think about it.”

f   f   f

Inside the church a box of votive candles and wooden matches rest on a creaky table in front of a statue of Our Lady of the
Ascension. Wind teases the flames beneath the statue. Lena strikes a match and lights four candles before depositing euros
in a metal coin box.

“It looks like a traveler’s prayer written underneath the statue.” Harmon sticks his face close to the verse and translates.
“‘Let this light that I offer be my hope before my Lord and the Virgin and guide me to contentment wherever I go.’”

“Now, that,” Lena says, teasing and truthful at the same time, “strikes me as divine.”

L
ena!” Cheryl yells from the terrace. Reading on the sunny balcony has become her ritual. Each morning she pores over pictures
of European celebrities and decodes the French words that look like English ones. She buys several papers every day from metal-framed
kiosks and periodical stores jammed with gossip, crossword, and cooking magazines in layers six inches thick. The covers are
brilliant: handsome politicians, gorgeous film stars, lush red tomatoes, bouquets of deep green basil, country châteaus, skinny
models clad in outrageous haute couture. “There’s a picture in this paper of Tina Turner shopping in Villefranche-sur-Mer.”

The only evidence of Lena’s presence in the room is the long, crumpled lump in her bed. Apprehension has taken hold of her
body; nervous anticipation. The covers hide the top of her head. Can she sink any deeper into the soft mattress? Should she
try to find Tina now, before the concert? Does she want Harmon, Cheryl, and Bruce to go with her? What will she say if she’s
allowed through the gates that surely must protect Tina from outsiders and autograph seekers?

If this were a trip planned for Lena’s family, every detail of it would have been written, memorized, and ready to execute.
She should have thought through the possibilities: written a letter to Tina and asked for fifteen minutes like she used to
grant to community groups seeking an audience with the mayor. Just fifteen minutes, Tina, fifteen minutes to get an autograph,
to take a picture and say thanks.

Underneath this six hundred thread-count tent, she checks her cell phone for messages in case Lulu, or one of the kids, has
called. Randall’s picture appears on the screen—the one she took when she got her new phone over a year ago; he sits on the
couch, arms reaching to the camera, thumbs up. He looks like Kendrick or vice versa.

“Lena?”

“It’s Randall. He called.”

“Ignore him. Leave it to the big shot to spend money on an international call to find out what cleaners you sent his shirts
to or the name of the store that carries his precious little-eared pasta. Yuck.”

For a minute, one short minute, Lena wonders what Randall needs, how she can help. She presses her finger against the button
to retrieve Randall’s message: call me.

“Did you hear me? Tina is in town. We can all meet her.” Cheryl reaches for the phone. “I’ll tell Bruce to get the car.”

Lena hits the delete key, thankful once again for Tina—to take her mind off Randall this time—and wonders when finding Tina
Turner became a
we,
instead of
me,
quest? Is the
we
she and Cheryl or is it what has now become their almost inseparable foursome? Harmon and Lena have scoured Nice for new
sidewalk cafés and local gossip about Tina. They have pondered this question—Lena more than the others—as the captain of the
yacht Bruce and Harmon rented sailed along the southern coast. It is their morning routine, familiar if only after five days.
They’ve studied maps and travel books and combined stops at antiques shops that sell old Rolexes, Baume & Merciers, French
military chronographs, and Jaeger-LeCoultre watches on the way to visit ancient mansions converted into art museums.

“I’m feeling like this is something that only the two of us, or maybe I, should do.”

Cheryl hangs up the phone. “Bruce says to be ready in thirty minutes.”

Lena lies back down on the bed. “I’ll wait until Harmon and Bruce leave. And what do you think Randall wanted? I wonder if
the kids are okay.”

“Well, if they’re not, he’ll call back. Or better yet, call them yourself. Duh. Go with the flow.”

“If you’ll notice, if you can notice anything other than Bruce and shopping, you’ll see I
am
‘flowing.’” She hadn’t planned on Harmon, she continues. Hadn’t planned to sleep with him, to spend virtually every waking
hour with him. Hadn’t planned to feel happy—not in this way. They’ve held hands as they walk the cobblestone streets. Harmon
opens doors for her; offers her a first taste of his wine, his main course, his dessert, and she takes it. They talk late
into the night, aware that their days together are numbered, and made love more than they should, they’ve said, for people
their age.

“I didn’t plan on Bruce—or let’s just say I planned to meet a man, and Bruce more than qualifies. That’s where the fun comes
in.” Cheryl flicks her hand.

Randall—what the hell does he want? Last night Harmon asked Lena if she was over her husband. Lena was shocked to hear him
refer to Randall, less by his question than how difficult it has been to get rid of thoughts of Randall. She admitted that
her soon-to-be ex creeps into her thoughts in restaurants when the menus are full of nothing but the crab, shrimp, and exquisite
cheese he loves; on the steep hills of Cimiez that she and Randall would have walked instead of driven. She won’t admit what
she thinks when they’re in bed, though his ghost is fading there.

“I envy you, Cheryl.”

“No need to be jealous. Follow my example.”

“I’ll work on it,” Lena says, dialing her phone. “After I touch base with Kendrick and Camille.”

f   f   f

“They’re fine. Or at least Camille says she is. Kendrick didn’t answer his phone.” Lena signals to Cheryl before the valet
pulls the rental Mercedes in front of the hotel. Harmon eases behind the steering wheel so that Lena can sit beside him and
avoid the new sensation of motion sickness she suffers whenever Bruce takes the sharp curves of the winding roads at twice
the posted kilometers per hour.

“Tell me what you know about where Tina Turner lives.” Harmon drives up a hill toward the middle of the three mountain roads
that meander above and away from Nice.

She rifles through a manila folder. The hours spent scouring the Internet have left her with an inch-thick file on the woman,
the vicinity of her villa, what she likes and doesn’t like. “I don’t have a street or an address.” Harmon winces, and Lena
braces for a complaint like Randall would issue if they were lost or undirected. His eyes stay on the road, and he whistles
as they slowly approach a curve.

“Isn’t there some kind of map to the homes of the stars?” Cheryl asks.

“This isn’t Hollywood, Cheryl.”

“Well, what’s the plan? If there’s no plan, let’s head to the casino. I’m feeling lucky.” Bruce’s loose plans have redeemed
him from his rudeness and overeating and helped them see all of Nice. “Thanks to my lucky charm.” He wraps his arm around
Cheryl’s shoulder. Bruce’s silk shorts swish with the touch of what Lena sees from the corner of her eye is Cheryl’s hand
in a place she wishes she didn’t see.

“I’m not in the mood to gamble.” Lena faces the road ahead and the worn asphalt. The sides of the mountain are sandy white
with bits of cactus-like shrubbery protruding from random jags.

Cheryl scoots close to the front seat and Lena’s ear. “The mantra is, ‘Have fun.’ Remember?”

Lena dismisses Cheryl’s advice with a wave of her hand. Being with Harmon has been fun; roaming the streets of Nice and all
the surrounding hill towns has been fun. This is not fun. It smacks too much of what she came to Nice to forget. Harmon reaches
his hand to free Lena’s from their tight clasp in her lap. Vernon’s words come back to her: delight in what can be. Definitely
worth the hundred bucks she spent. Lena takes Harmon’s hand and squeezes it. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Bruce asks again. “In my business, success requires planning.”

Just like with Randall. She has no plan. Why, she wonders, isn’t she learning from all that has happened? “I wasn’t prepared
for a group.”

“What’s the matter with all of us looking? That can be the plan.” Cheryl rejoins. “I’d like to meet Tina, too.”

At the arrow marking Villefranche-sur-Mer, Harmon turns right and down the main road where the city slopes toward the sea.
Heat vapors rise from the medieval rooftops blurring together orange, ochre, and blue.

“Since we’re here, I guess there’s no harm in asking around.” Lena releases and relaxes into the leather seat.

“We’ll walk around, have a little something to eat. Shop and see what happens.” Harmon’s words are meant to encourage. “If
we do see her, I’ll make sure you get to her first. I promise we won’t spoil your plans.”

This smaller city is as busy as Nice and full of cafés with limestone terraces and smartly dressed women dining on paltry
portions of food. Nice, Menton, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Mougins, Villefranche, Eze, Vence all resemble one another: time-stained brick
walls connecting the twenty-first century to the Middle Ages; twisting streets, famous artists—this one Cocteau—a house or
hotel marking where each lived and created art. Fortresses that provided protection against invasion that look the same, but
don’t look the same, and Lena marvels at the beauty man can create when survival is of the utmost importance.