The Grandfather Clock (19 page)

“
The most plausible
explanation is that the famous painting and the gun traveled
together. Whether they were recovered by Russians, or Western
troops we may never know. Whoever came upon it, knew the painting,
but not the gun. So they sat together, waiting to be
claimed.”

“
By Uncle
Alfred.”

“
He probably bought it as
an interesting collectible and returned the painting to the museum,
which then returned it to Monaco.”

Klara arrived and I ordered a carafe
of wine. We toasted the great discoveries. Suddenly, in one
afternoon, pieces were falling in to place. We ordered dinner and I
told Marianne that I had good news. I would tell her when I reached
the apartment that evening.

“
So,” Klara said. “It’s
not yours.”

“
No. It belongs to the
Prince of Monaco.”

“
That’s too bad,” she said
with a smile. “I thought it would make you rich.”

“
Does that change things
between us?”

“
Yes. It does. I wanted a
rich American,” she teased. “Of course, you’ll probably drop me
like you did the last girl.”

“
Be nice and I
won’t.”

“
I’ll try,” she said with
a laugh. “So, if the gun belongs in Monaco, what happens to you and
the Malmaison?”

That was a question I hadn’t pondered.
“I can’t worry about that,” I said. “It’s out of my
control.”

When I got back to the apartment,
Marianne was on the phone and Celeste was crying. More Marco
trouble. He’d been back a few weeks and had reinjured his ankle.
She was on pins and needles that the French team would not ask him
back.

“
Are you okay?” I
asked.

“
No,” she said.

Marianne looked serious. It wasn’t
Marco.

Celeste walked me into the living
room.

She composed herself and said,
“Claudette. She had a stroke. She’s in hospital.”

8

I didn’t get to tell Marianne
everything that I had learned until we were over the Atlantic.
Claudette was stable but not responding. She needed surgery to
relieve pressure and tests to determine the damage. We wouldn’t
know anything until we landed, but the news so far was not
good.

It was a mad rush to get tickets and
get packed. We spent an hour looking for Celeste’s passport. It
would be late morning when we hit the ground in New Orleans.
Marianne was stoic about the situation. She took a seat alone and I
sat with Celeste. Before we left I called Klara and told her that
they had asked me to go to New Orleans with them. I could tell she
was disappointed, but I couldn’t be sure if it was because she was
going to miss me, or because she was afraid I would not come back.
Staying was out of the question, I told her. I would come back to
her and, of course, I had to come back to the gun.

The conversation on that seven-hour
flight was something I could not have predicted. It started slow.
She asked me about everything I had learned about the gun. She was
genuinely thrilled by the story and really felt that I was
responsible for a great find that may never have occurred. And she
was right. The story of the gun might have been lost with the clock
if I’d let it go. The Hitler connection only made the story more
remarkable. I thought back to that bar in Orlando, the call to my
brother, the frenetic night of volleyball and drinking. Erica, the
sweet bartender who almost joined me across the country. Erin, the
beautiful southerner who drew me in with her quiet
confidence.

For some reason, I was nervous
traveling with Celeste, and I handled it by talking.

“
You stereotyped me when
we first met,” I said.

“
Stereotyped? No. How do
you mean?”

“
You shrugged me off,” I
said, and imitated her accent adding, “Typical
American.”

“
You are American,” she
said, rolling her eyes.

“
When we met at the bar in
New Orleans, could you have imagined that I would be living with
you within a few months?”

“
No,” she said, trying to
contain laughter. I could tell it felt strange to laugh under the
circumstances. “I would have never thought that. Actually, to be
honest, you aren’t like the Americans I meet in Paris.”

“
How so?”

“
The Americans I know who
are living in Paris have their shit together. And they all think
they are fucking incredible.”

“
Wow. Ouch,” I
said.

“
No, it’s good. You do
have a little of that American arrogance, but you’re sincere, and
you’re good to people.”

“
Tell that to my ex,” I
said.

“
No. You care. I mean, how
else does a thirty-year-old man befriend my Aunt Claudette? That’s
sweet. She loves you. At first, maybe I thought it was a little
strange. But now I know you. And look where you are
now.”

“
I sometimes feel like my
life has been a series of missed opportunities.”

“
No, that’s me.” Celeste
swallowed hard. “Marco is going back to Argentina. Permanently.
Don’t tell my mother. I don’t want to see the satisfaction on her
face.”

“
She’s just doing her job
as a mother. She’s required to disapprove of your dating an
athlete. Same for musicians,” I said in an attempt at
levity.

“
Whatever. She married an
Englishman. She’s a hypocrite.”

“
You are her
world.”

“
She wants me to date
someone like you,” she said, her tone bordering on resentment.
“What’s the fucking difference between an Argentine soccer player
and an American bartender or whatever you are now?”

I didn’t quite know how to respond. I
was starting to understand the hot and cold treatment Celeste had
given me. And now I was dating her best friend.

A strange thing occurred to me as we
had that quiet talk. I couldn’t ever remember having so much time
to talk with one person, without any interruption. When I met
Celeste at Claudette’s house in New Orleans she was an aloof French
girl with her guard up. A part of her reminded me of the way I had
felt with Christie, who always made sure I knew where I stood, and
always willing to knock me down a rung. Now I looked at her and she
was completely different person. I couldn’t remember her on that
visit to New Orleans anymore.

She walked to the front of the plane
to check on her mother and returned with four tiny vodka bottles.
She slipped two to me with a wink.

“
Tiny bottles of
relaxation,” she said, cracking one open and swallowing the entire
thing with a grimace.

“
My mother has never been
to New Orleans,” she said. “She’s going to die when she sees what
they think is French.”

“
French, Spanish, African,
and a little of everything else,” I said.

“
I told her it was what
the French become when no one is watching.”

“
You like to get under her
skin, don’t you?”

“
You don’t know her. You
didn’t grow up with her. My father, he’s wealthy. It was parties,
trips and business. For me it was school, nannies and divorce.
Suddenly, I turn twenty and she wants to be the world’s greatest
mother. Too late.”

I took a drink from the small plastic
bottle. “Remember, she was only a little older than you are now
when you were born. Life is going great and then suddenly you are
divorced, back in Paris, working in a castle that is a shadow of
its former self.”

“
The Malmaison is a
metaphor for my mother,” she laughed.

“
Maybe.”

She leaned toward me with her dark
hair falling over half of her face. “Is this where you tell me that
my mother is just trying to keep me from making the same mistakes
she did?”

“
I hope you don’t think
I’m that preachy. I try to mind my own business.”

“
To a fault,” she said
taking a sip from the second bottle.

“
What is that supposed to
mean?”

“
Nothing.”

“
Okay, we’ll ride the next
four hours and ignore it,” I said, pretending to read Sky
Mall.

“
You embarrassed
me.”

“
What?”

“
That morning, after you
stayed with Klara.”

“
How did I?” I said,
stunned. “I never meant...”

“
You came back into my
home, after being with my friend. And I was throwing myself at
you.”

“
Throwing yourself? There
was another guy with you!”

She laughed. The comment took her by
surprise. “Yeah. Other than the man. There I was, hardly wearing
anything. Never...,” she lowered her voice, “never in my life has a
man looked at me with such indifference.”

I didn’t know what to say. She was
right and she was wrong. I wasn’t indifferent. I tried for
something. “Celeste, by that point I wasn’t playing anymore. One
day you ignored me, the next day you were my best
friend.”

“
You have to understand,
when this whole thing came about ... you coming to live with us.
Between Claudette and my mother, they thought you were the answer
to my prayers. I was seeing Marco. I had already met you in New
Orleans. Yeah, you were charming. You speak French. You’re too
perfect.”

“
The truth is I’m
not.”

“
Whatever. Good looking
American. Falls into a pile of shit and smells like ... whatever
the saying is.”

“
I broke off an
engagement. I had a middle management job hawking credit cards,
which I quit so that I could tend bar. I have a car parked in
Florida and a bunch of boxes in New Orleans, and I sleep on a
futon.”

She interrupted, “And you found a gun
worth millions, live rent free in Paris, and date the coolest, most
unpretentious woman in Europe.”

It was all about
perspective.

“
Please don’t take this
the wrong way,” I said.

“
Oh boy, here we
go.”

“
You look at people for
what they mean to you,” I said. “You don’t actually see what is
happening to them. When I got here, you saw me as walking in like I
thought I was going to own Paris.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I was scared to death. I
didn’t know what I was doing.”

“
Oh, man. That first
weekend. I thought we were going to kill you.”

“
So did my liver,” I
laughed.

“
That was the night I knew
I’d be okay if Marco left,” she said, looking down.

She was fishing, so I took the bait.
“Why’s that?”

“
You made me think about
not being with him. Don’t think I’m trying to say I wanted to be
with you. But I realized that there are lots of guys like you. So
many that I just ignore.”

“
Gee, thanks,” I
smiled.

“
No, sorry. You know what
I mean. I do always go for the wrong guy.”

“
The bad guy...” I
said.

“
No, not really bad. Just
guys who are a waste of time. Marco, for example. What’s the point?
He’s a soccer player. He’s a man-child. Here and gone. I know this.
Did I think it was going to last? Of course not.”

“
You’re afraid of that,” I
said.

“
No, I want it. And yes,
I’m afraid of making a mistake.”

“
Like your
mother.”

“
I look at my mother and
Claudette and I think I’m doomed to their fate. So I make it
happen.”

After our mini-shots of vodka, I made
Celeste drink a Budweiser, which she was surprised she liked. I
promised her an Abita in New Orleans.

“
Maybe you can show me
around a little,” she said. “Of course, if Claudette is doing
better.”

“
I hope so.”

“
Klara must have been sad
to see you go.”

“
She understood,” I
said.

“
She’s probably afraid you
won’t make it back.”

“
Well, there’s no way I’m
staying in New Orleans. I hope it’s not weird for you, me dating
your best friend and living with you. I’m trying to find a
place.”

“
You could move in with
Klara.”

I almost choked on my beer. “No. Not
ready for that. I’ve made that mistake before.”

“
She likes you. Watch out.
Behind that Bohemian exterior, she’s pretty
traditional.”

I wasn’t sure where she was going, and
in this case, I didn’t want to find out. I didn’t know if it was
that other side of Celeste coming out again. She closed her eyes
when she realized I wasn’t going to respond. We sat in silence for
a few minutes before she stood up.

“
I should go check on my
mom.”

It took us almost 14 hours to get from
Paris to New Orleans. We had to go through customs in Atlanta. I
breezed through, and waited for Celeste and Marianne. It was early
evening when I rented a car. I had a connection who got us rooms at
a nice hotel on the river for a good price, but our first stop was
Tulane University Medical Center.