Hidden in Paris

Hidden in Paris - By Corine Gantz



Prologue

Paris, Two Years before.


Johnny dressed like a Frenchman these days, Annie noticed. The cut of his sport coat was flashier than anything he would have worn in the States. As usual, Annie’s curves, the good ones and the not-so-good ones, overflowed from her burgundy Chantal Thomass dress in a very un-French manner.

They kissed their boys goodnight, and asked the sitter to put them to bed before ten. Then Johnny pushed open the massive front door of their Parisian Hotel Particulier, and from this simple push, his stiffness, Annie knew Johnny was mad. At what, or whom, she did not know. She just hoped it wasn’t at her.

The night air, humid and warm, caressed her skin as they walked in silence on rue Nicolo under the old-fashioned street lamps. She put her hand in Johnny’s but he let go of it after only a minute. “You drive,” he said, stopping in front of her minivan. “You hold your liquor better than I do.”

Annie drove. He sat in the passenger seat. She rolled her window all the way down, dangled her bare arm, and caressed the air as she drove down rue de Passy towards Trocadéro. This was June 21, the summer solstice and night of the Fête de la Musique. This was a night for dancing in the streets, a night of ivresse and amour, and Annie’s great hope for the night was to get a little bit of both.

In the passenger seat, Johnny sat and cringed at the usual mess of candy wrappers and kids’ broken toys.

“You’re all right?” she asked tentatively. Johnny only shrugged.

Rue de Boulainvilliers and Avenue Mozart bustled with people on foot. In the streets, the collective mood was electric. A woman moved her hips to the rhythm of a bongo, while the drummer’s blond dreadlocks swayed against his back as he played.

“Let’s go dancing after dinner,” she said. “We have to go dancing on a night like this.”

Johnny didn’t respond.

From Place Rodin, notes of jazz floated in the air. At Place Costa Rica, that odd man with the rickety tuxedo, the one she had seen whistling opera at métro Ranelagh, bellowed “Nessun Dorma” as he stood in the middle of the sidewalk.

“You don’t seem all right,” she said again.

“Annie. We need to talk.”


When they were done talking, her whole body was trembling. Johnny was quiet, his hands resting on his lap, his chin down like a falsely repentant child. She could notmake it to the Champs-Élysées. She parked the minivan the best she could on Avenue Victor Hugo and rested her elbows and her forehead on the wheel, her heart pounding. It was a struggle to think straight, to breathe right. An instant later, rage overtook her. She felt herself grabbing junk—toys, her cell phone, an old map, anything she could get her hands on—and launching them at Johnny. He had his arms up, a three-hundred-pound gorilla victim of domestic violence.

“Annie...”

“Get. Out!” She screamed.

“Listen...”

“Get the f*ck out of my car!”

“Annie, you better calm down,” he said in his warm reasonable voice, a voice like expensive red wine. But his hand was already on the door.

She launched out of her seat, threw herself at him, pummeled his shoulder.” Get the f*ck out!”

Johnny got out of the car, shut the door without looking at her, and walked away.

“A*shole!” she screamed at his disappearing silhouette.

She drove aimlessly. Her senses had abandoned her. She drove, not seeing the streets, not hearing the music. She drove for an hour or more and wept like a child.

For an eternity, she circled the block around her house, unable to find a parking space through her tears. Home. She needed to be home. She removed the five-inch Manolo Blahniks she had purchased just for this night, and walked barefoot toward the house, thankful for the cool asphalt under her bare feet. Then she sat at the bottom of the stone steps, cried some more, dried her eyes, and walked up the stairs.

On the other side of Paris, Johnny and Steve were leaving the bar rue des Pyrénées. They were laughing. Steve could barely walk. Johnny took the wheel of Steve’s Jaguar and veered left towards the Périphérique, all tires screeching.

By the time Annie entered her house, Johnny and Steve were already dead.