Hidden in Paris

Avril





Chapter 16


Being on the péniche was painful in ways she had not anticipated. Annie was fighting a feeling of claustrophobia that had nothing to do with the movement of the boat. She already regretted being talked into playing tourist on the Bateaux Mouches.

This was the first day of April and the weather was beautiful. The boat was traveling at a slow pace on the Seine River as she sat on one of the uncomfortable wooden benches in the deserted cabin without looking out the window. Lola and Simon were up on deck and she had needed time to herself, giving nausea as an excuse. There was no nausea, only a sense of anxiety, like a shallow feeling high up in her chest indicating that something was terribly wrong. Something was terribly wrong with her.

Lola had insisted that she come, but she should have listened to her gut feeling and stayed home. They had boarded and sat in the large cabin filled with rows of benches, waiting for the rest of the passengers to embark. Simon was toddling from seat to seat, climbing on a bench, then another. The tourists were Japanese for the most part. The Japanese women were so pretty and fresh, smiling. Young Japanese men wore their hair spiked. The rest of the tourists were couples, and she suspected many of them were foreigners on their honeymoon. Everywhere couples embracing, couples kissing, couples holding hands, on the boat and on the banks. Maybe it was the sight of all those couples in love that made her feel sick to her stomach. She and Johnny had started out together in much the same way. She wondered if all these lovey dovey couples would experience Paris as an enchanting, magical place and a few years later see everything change, the memory of lust and love forgotten.

“Are you all right? You look green,” Lola said.

“I get anxious when I’m far from the boys,” she said, which was also true.

“Is this since the accident?”

“I’m always more comfortable at home sweet home.”

“I always feel incarcerated in my own house,” Lola said, watching Simon trot between the rows of benches. “How come I can’t achieve that, a happy home?”

“My guess is that your demonic husband is getting in the way.”

“The expectations are so Hallmark,” Lola said. “The inviting home, happy children, supportive husband.”

“And great sex!” Annie had added, inexplicably.

Lola stared at her intently. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Lola said. She checked to make sure Simon was out of earshot. “But you have to be completely honest with me.”

Annie shrugged. “I can try.”

Lola hesitated, “Would you like there to be something between you and Lucas?”

Annie looked at her wondering if Lola had recently fallen on her head. “Of course not, silly girl. Why such an idea?”

Lola smiled knowingly. “Just watching the two of you together, I guess.”

Annie frowned, shook her head and laughed. “Could you imagine me and old Lucas together?”

“Quite easily, actually.”

“Eek, don’t!”

Lola looked conspiratorial. “It never crossed your mind, though? The two of you have never... you know?”

It was annoying how insistent Lola could be. “Never,” Annie answered in a tone that left no ambivalence.

“I would have bet. And you know the funny thing is, Althea thought so, too.”

Lola and Althea talked behind her back? Nobody could talk to Althea. “Why do you ask? Are you interested?”

Lola spoke in earnest. “I happen to find Lucas very attractive.”

The first time Annie had met Lucas was on a double date. She and Johnny, Lucas and his girlfriend of the moment. It was at the Rothonde de Passy over an extravagant assiette de fruits de mer. Lucas had been warm and charming and from the get go she had felt very comfortable with him. Lucas’s date was a beautiful Parisienne dressed elegantly, her hair, her manners so refined. Annie had thought they made a very glamorous couple. The next time she had seen Lucas, and the next, he was in the company of yet another beautiful Parisienne. As the years passed, Lucas became one of the friends she and Johnny could not do without, and he introduced them to dozens of petite amies. It was only after Johnny died that Annie found the nerve to ask him to keep the women to himself. Maybe he could not grow up but she was tired of pretending to remember who was who. Lucas never brought another girlfriend over, and became very discreet about them.

“I must warn you,” she told Lola, “Lucas is a serial dater. He is mister papillon, fluttering from girl to girl. Believe me, I’ve seen him in action when we went to his house in Saint-Tropez.”

“A house in Saint-Tropez?” Lola said. “Now I find him extremely attractive.”

“Lucas’s family tree can be traced to before the French Revolution, when they were beheaded for the most part. The family lost most of their heads and wealth, but Lucas has managed to remain in that world. He knows people all over Europe, people with houses in Biarritz and Chamonix and London. Lucas has a Paris apartment, a house in Honfleur right on the beach, which he coyly refers to as a ‘cabane,’ and a dreamy little house in Saint-Tropez that he rents out. I went once with the kids. He invited us last summer.” Describing to Lola how much those weeks in Saint-Tropez had been a turning point would have been hard. She remembered crying with relief when they entered the property after seven hours of being cooped up in the old van, as though a vise had been removed from around her chest. The place was so lovely, with the sound of crickets, the smell of the Italian cypress, and that sea breeze from the Mediterranean “There is a retired couple who lives there year-round,” Annie said. “They keep up the property, cook, and clean for Lucas and his guests in the summer months. Madame Denis and I hit it off. She taught me everything I know about Provençal cooking.” In truth, Madame Denis had reminded Annie of her own mother and they had both cried when it was time to go. “We went to the beach, went boating, and discovered the region. In the evenings, we had dinner alfresco under trellises covered in grapes. We ate and ate. No shoes for weeks.”

“It sounds like heaven.”

“Aside from the leeches.”

Lola removed her jacket. “Leeches?”

“There is a type of person that gravitates to the wealthy. Parasites. They might be wealthy themselves, but they basically take advantage of your hospitality. You have to be really hardboiled to shoo them away, and Lucas is just not that kind of guy.”

She had come to dread the sound of tires on the gravel driveway. Madame Denis would perk up and go wash yet more sheets. She tried to instigate a rebellion, but Madame Denis had no idea what she was talking about.

“If it were up to me, there would be some serious friend reassessing. But it’s not up to me. Lucas has always lived this way. Then again, as he pointed out himself, he gets to hop between so-called friends’ properties all year long. He skies in Val d’Isere, and paraglides in Ibiza. He’s in London for Wimbledon, in Cannes for the film festival. It’s a different world altogether.”

“A perfect bachelor’s life,” Lola said.

“Anyway, that vacation was free, and that’s our only option lately. So it kind of makes me a leech as well.”

“That’s totally different. You’re a real friend.”

“I was quite the pain in his ass regarding the girls.”

“What girls?”

“He was pretty discreet about it, but his friends were not. They were constantly picking up women in local night clubs and bringing them home.” She told Lola about those suntanned girls that woke up around noon, swooned towards the kitchen, nude under a man’s shirt, and asked Madame Denis for breakfast. “Not the best example for my boys. Apparently Madame Denis was pleased with the men’s exploits, as though they were her own sons. She regaled me with the stories of Lucas’s past conquests.”

“Lucas is unhitched, French, and loaded. I guess it would be expected that he has a sex life.”

“I’m just saying, don’t get too close. I don’t think Lucas can commit to anyone for any length of time.”

“I’m pretty committed myself.”

“How so?”

“I love Mark,” Lola said weakly.

“You have a funny way of showing your love.” She looked at Lola’s beautiful lips, the angle of her cheekbone. “I guess you can’t stay a saint forever. Mark’s far away, and you’re probably peaking.” Lola removed her sweater. Under it, the T-shirt was stretched to its limits. Annie frowned at Lola’s chest. “Right as we speak, in fact.”

“Hey,” Lola said laughing, “same for you. You love an unavailable husband, and you too can’t be a saint forever.”

“Cute,” Annie said, not laughing. She realized that everyone had left the cabin. The boat was now moving smoothly along the Seine river. “Everyone’s up on deck, should we go?”

Lola grabbed Simon, walked up and stepped outside. “Before I get all excited about Lucas,” Lola whispered, “you and him would have to get things straight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious he’s into you.”

Annie, to her own dismay, felt a burning blush in her neck and face, which she quickly hid away by turning her head. “I certainly don’t think so.”

“I bet he’s great in the sack,” Lola added.

Annie laughed. “Well, he does have tremendous self-confidence in that domain.”

“He’s got some French hotness, he’s got je ne sais quoi up the kazoo.”

“There is only one way for you to find out,” Annie said with a sigh.

“You’d have to swear to me that you have absolutely no interest.”

“Me!”

Lola peered at her. “You.”

That’s when she began to feel uncomfortable. Up on deck, it was windy, too sunny, the light was too bright. “Look, I’m not sure how else to convince you.”

“The other factor,” Lola added, “is that Lucas would have to want me.”

Annie narrowed her eyes. “Could a man possibly not want you?”

“It does happen, you know,” Lola said, beaming.

“Lucas has personally told me that you’re one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen. Be reassured.” Lola hardly seemed shaken by this revelation. Annie clenched her teeth at how easy Lola had it while beautiful, unsuspecting Lola faced the wind with a blissful smile on her lips. Probably picturing herself with Lucas, deciding what she wanted to do.

“I’ve never considered adultery before. Maybe I should,” Lola said finally.

“Maybe you should,” Annie snapped. “You know what, I think I’m beginning to feel sea sick. I need to go back downstairs.”

“Do you want us to come too?”

“No, please stay.”

Annie came down the metal stairs and went to sit on a bench in the cabin abandoned by all except for a young couple who was giggling and kissing passionately. She had to look away. Could she ever inspire lust in a man again? Would she want to? Ten years ago, the Bateaux Mouches had been for her and Johnny alone. They had spent the nights making love and the days strolling around Paris, inhaling the romance of the place, the beauty of it. Paris was brighter then, it smelled better, was imbued with life force, with possibility, with bright shining love. But at the moment, Paris felt grey and small. The Bateaux Mouches were grey and small. She was grey and small.

She got up from her bench, deciding the kissing couple was actually making things worse for her. She went up the stairs and stepped into the light, the reflection of the April sun on the Seine River blinded her and she had to cover her eyes. She walked to the back of the boat. The banks of the Seine stretched before her, the Hôtel des Invalides, and soon, the Musée D’Orsay. There was a gush of cold wind and her hair whipped her face painfully. She buttoned up her coat and removed from around her neck her prized Hermès scarf, the one Johnny had given her for her thirtieth birthday with a request that she start dressing more Parisian. This had been his last gift to her. She tied it over her hair and looked at her reflection in the window of the boat. She looked more Bosnian refugee than Parisian chic. Wrong, wrong. She looked all f*cking wrong. She made her way past Japanese tourists and found Lola, her tall silhouette against the blue sky, standing by the railing, holding Simon and pointing at other péniches. Lola looked very happy, Annie noticed, and so did Simon. He had stopped crying at night altogether. Maybe that’s why Lola looked so rested, so carefree.

She leaned against the banister and inhaled the air, crisp and clear. She removed the scarf from her head and opened it to look at the prints on the silk, maybe for the first time. Seashells. Why seashells? Why not walruses or hummingbirds? She held the scarf by a corner, and let it billow in the wind. Simon was watching her intently, his eyes fixed to the scarf like a dare. She smiled at him, and then, let go. They both watched the scarf float in the sky, up and down, gracefully for a few minutes. Simon pointed to the scarf, followed it with his fingers in silence. It finally touched the water and became a small point in the distance. She turned around and walked to the front of the péniche. She was surprised to find herself alone at the very front of the boat, like Kate Winslet minus Leonardo. The péniche glided along the Seine River, passed the Pont du Carrousel and made a turn.

And suddenly, inexplicably, Paris rushed in, astoundingly beautiful, and she was taken completely by surprise. Colors became sharper and the ribbon of the Seine was like a silk path between the silhouettes of Notre Dame and the Hôtel de Ville. In the distance, the Pont Neuf, like a bridge made of lace, gleamed in the morning light and she felt alive for no reason at all. Alive and hopeful.

She came back to Lola and Simon and they took turns taking pictures of themselves with Simon in their arms and the monuments as backgrounds. They then sat on a bench and Lola took Petit Beurre cookies from her backpack and hand-fed them to Simon. As the péniche approached the bank, Annie wished the trip had not ended so soon. Closer came the dark, old carcasses of the chestnut trees. Back came her self-imposed limits, the reassuring drudgery of her life. But as the boat approached the banks, Annie noticed that the trees were in fact far from bare, the branches were covered in fat buds, overripe and ready to burst. Spring was under the surface of everything. In a matter of weeks the trees would recover their leaves, that impossibly green, lush foliage. Nature could start over after almost dying to nothing, time and time again, so why couldn’t she?



Mark shut down his laptop, ordered a scotch from the flight attendant, and removed the godamned suffocating cashmere turtleneck he and Lola had picked up at Fred Segal’s just a few weeks before, when everything was fine, when there was not the slightest sign of her being miffed, no hints, no nothing.

The woman across the aisle eyed his bare arms and his Diesel T-shirt more or less discreetly but he wasn’t in the mood. Had he been in a better mood, he might have flirted but nothing more. Truth was, he had absolutely nothing to blame himself for.

Lola was a scatterbrain. That drove him crazy. And she always had an excuse to not do this or that. But when had she become such a professional victim? So he had a temper. She would too if she was carrying his load. But she was the one he loved, always had been, always would be.

Mark put the laptop away in his briefcase and tightened his grip. Nothing to blame himself for. Lola’s move was so transparent. Clearly, she wanted him to find her, sending those postcards from Manhattan, of all places, where her friend Alyssa lived. The equivalent to scattering white pebbles to help him track her down. Manhattan was where he was headed now. For business. If this had been serious she would not have sent the damn postcards, right?

How long did Lola expect whatever money she had brought with her to last, with the lifestyle she was accustomed to? She had used none of her credit cards. He was almost impressed she hadn’t cracked yet. He had given her space to think things through, had let her do her charade of postcards and had not budged.

Now the joke was on her. Her manipulation backfired, of course, and now she was at the point where she didn’t know how to make the first move to come back. He was going to New York City on business, and he’d go get her and the kids. He’d forgive her about that stunt, and she’d come back home. She was very lucky that he would take her back, no questions asked.



The living room whirled, and no sound came out of her mouth. Lola sat down on the couch, the receiver sticking to her burning cheek as she listened to Alyssa’s beautiful Jamaican accent trail on the phone. If only Annie had not picked up the phone and saw her turn livid and her tears begin to flow. Now Annie was standing there, arms crossed over her chest, her oven mitts still on. Soon she would know the truth.

“Mark totally expected to find you and the kids here in SoHo, honey,” Alyssa was saying. “He was sure you were staying with me. Of course he put two and two together, with me mailing the postcards you sent me. I thought he was going to trash my loft. It was horrible. I mean, I had friends over. I was dying inside. It was embarrassing for everyone, especially Mark. You should have seen his face.”

Alyssa was younger than Lola and still worked as a model. She didn’t have children, had never wanted to. Lola didn’t expect her to understand. And the pressure of Annie standing there, waiting to find out why a friend of hers had called and asked to speak with her urgently, that was all too much “On the other hand it was kind of cute,” Alyssa added, “romantic you know, him flying across the country looking for you.”

“Did you tell him where I was?”

“He said he’d talk to the police.” The shrill tone of Alyssa’s voice showed she wasn’t worried, only exasperated. “I told him I didn’t know, honey. I really tried to cover your ass. But I just don’t want to be part of this. I mean, he talked about abduction, and subpoenas and witnesses.”

Lola looked apologetically at Annie. “Alyssa, please don’t tell him,” she whispered.

“I see his point,” Alyssa said coldly.

“Please wait.”

“Look,” Alyssa said, her tone sharp, “you better call him. He’s at the Four Seasons or on his cell. You tell him where you are yourself. If you don’t do it, I’m sorry, sweetie, but I will.”



Lucas let himself into Annie’s house and found Lola doubled over on the living room couch. Annie was at her side looking like she was having the time of her life. To his silent puzzled expression, Annie raised her eyebrows as if to say “I told you so.”

“Mark’s on the horizon,” she said. “He found her. Or thinks he did, that dope!”

Lola, whom Lucas had never seen looking anything other than serene, sat curled up on the couch in a semi-fetal embrace, arms wrapped around her body and shaking slightly.

“Is he here?”

“Worse. He’s in New York looking for her. He thought he was going to find her there.” Annie rolled her eyes dramatically. “And now he’s really mad.”

“What should we do?” Lola said in a small voice.

“We?” said Annie.

“Just stay put and call the police. Tell them your story and they will protect you,” Lucas said, all of a sudden noticing Annie’s inexplicably smug smile.

“There are no laws that can protect me,” Lola said weakly.

“I understand that this is precisely what restraining orders do,” he assured her.

“That’s the thing,” Lola sighed and put her head in her hands.

“That’s the thing,” Annie echoed, looking thrilled.

“There isn’t really a restraining order,” Lola said in a very small voice.

“Not really?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Annie said.

He looked at Annie disapprovingly. She shook her head to explain this was news to her too. He tried to wrap his mind around this revelation. “But you said--”

“It wasn’t really true,” Lola admitted.

“I knew it!” he exclaimed.

“But you have every right to protect yourself and the children,” Annie said. “You only left him for self-protection, self-preservation.”

“He isn’t violent,” Lola sighed between tears. “Not physically.”

“You lied?” Lucas said, sounding utterly shocked.

“Would you have taken my fear of him seriously unless I said he was violent?” She pointed at Annie. “You made me say it.”

Annie’s eyes widened in indignation. “So it’s my fault?”

Lucas scratched his head. “But isn’t taking the children to another country without telling him somewhat illegal?”

“I’m going to jail,” Lola wailed. “They will take the children away!”

Annie shook her head. “I just wish you had thought about these small details before you abducted your kids!”

At this, Lola burst into sobs. “It wasn’t an abduction. Gee, of course not! I... I sent postcards.”

“Do you realize what position you’re putting me in?” Annie asked.

Lucas listened as he reorganized his next day mentally, moving appointments so he could drive Lola and her children back to the airport in the morning. With a little luck, the travel agency would find them a plane leaving that night.

“You did talk about it, gave him an ultimatum, something?” Annie was asking. “You told him you were leaving, just not where you were going, right?”

“No, I just picked up my kids and left while he was on a business trip. He came back to an empty house.”

Annie held her face. “Merde!”

“Merde,” Lucas echoed.

“Did you write to him? To explain, since?”

“I tried... I swear, many times I tried... But, I couldn’t...put it into words. I didn’t want to make him mad. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I just sent postcards. I sent them in an envelope to Alyssa, and she removed the envelope and mailed them from Manhattan as soon as she received them.”

“A red herring.” Lucas stated.

“I didn’t want him to worry. And I wanted him to know how well the children were doing. Simon sleeping through the night, and Lia making new friends in... New York. You know... I kept in touch.”

Lucas turned from Annie to Lola as though watching a slow-motion ping-pong match and said finally. “So she just disappeared?”

“You’re quick!” Annie said, laughing now.

But Lucas found none of this amusing, and he certainly wasn’t feeling a shred of pity for Lola. Behind that beautiful façade was... what? He could now see why Annie might feel vindicated. He gave her a significant look.

“Everyone thinks I’ve got it so good, so easy,” Lola cried. “People, even you two, think that you can just talk things out, and they get solved, but you don’t know Mark. You don’t know me. He has this...power over me. I can’t talk to him. Whatever I say to him doesn’t make a dent.”

“But how in the world did you expect things to turn out?” Annie asked. Lucas was surprised to hear a shift in Annie’s tone. She sounded suddenly empathetic. Lola didn’t respond, she was mumbling almost to herself.

“Even when I really plan what I’m going to say, even if I know I have a point, he doesn’t listen. He just puts me down, he crushes me, I mean, mentally. He doesn’t need to hit to hurt me. You don’t understand.”

Everyone was silent for a moment. There was just the sound of Lola sniffling. Finally, Annie said, “Maybe it’s not him. You’re terrified of conflicts in general. That’s what I’m talking about when I say that you need to be in touch with your anger. And you poo-poohed it!”

Lucas could stand it no longer. He turned to Lola and pointed his finger at her. “You say you didn’t want to hurt his feelings? Well I think you wanted to hurt him and you chose the cruelest way to do it! And the most cowardly.” Lola buried her face in her arms and began sobbing quietly as he continued. “I can’t believe you women. You think men are just big idiots with no feelings, no emotions.”

He was interrupted by Annie grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the room and into the hallway out of Lola’s earshot. She leaned against the wall and looked at him smiling. “Of course we know you guys have emotions,” she whispered. “Only not as important as our own.” Annie was actually having fun with this. No, he would never understand this woman.

“I’m disgusted. It’s not cooking lessons you need to give her,” he said. “Maybe you need to teach her how to ... I don’t know... grow a backbone.”

“Nah, who needs a backbone when you have her cheekbones.” Annie laughed.

“Well, personally, I find a lack of backbone particularly unattractive.”

Annie looked at him as if for the first time. “So it’s not style over substance for you?”

In the darkness of the hallway, Lucas stopped pacing and put a hand on the wall, coming close to Annie in a sudden move that surprised even him. “Very few women come with the full package,” he whispered, looking her in the eyes. Annie searched his face for signs of irony. He waited for a repartee. It did not come. Instead she continued looking at him.

“You want me to look into plane tickets?” he asked to break the awkward silence.

“Tickets? What for?”

“For a honeymoon in the Bahamas bien sûr”

“You think I’m going to just send her back? Let her be eaten alive by that jerk?”

“Yes.”

Annie opened the door and led him out of the house. “Never. Lola is my friend, Lucas.”



If Annie was clear on one thing, it was that Mark and Lola needed to speak, and not about the weather. Silence in a marriage, Annie knew now, was the real killer. The assumptions one makes, the secrets one lets the other get away with, the slow creeping into one’s own role, the impossibility to change within the confines of non-communication were all part of that silence. How easy it was to play one role and one role only for an entire marriage, even when there was love. Especially when there was love. In her marriage to Johnny she had painted herself into a corner. Because she loved him so, she had not wanted him to see sides of her that he had not chosen her for. He had chosen her as a spouse, the mother of his children. He had chosen her for her independence, her lack of neediness. Indeed she had been the most independent, the least needy of wives. But only in appearance.

After she and Lola put the children to bed and cleaned the kitchen in silence, they went into the salon. It was after ten at night. Annie moved the logs around in the fireplace waiting for Lola to dial Mark’s number. But Lola wasn’t dialing. She was sitting stiffly on the couch’s armrest. The piece of paper with Mark’s hotel number was at the tip of her shaky fingers, and she was staring at the telephone as if it might any moment uncoil and jump at her throat.

“Aren’t you going to dial?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Lola said. She looked so white Annie wondered if she might throw up.

“Seriously, how bad can it be?”

“Bad,” Lola whimpered.

There was a master plan. Lola would not mention Paris since Mark assumed she was in New York and there was no advantage in telling him otherwise. Annie was to listen in on the conversation on the cordless phone for moral support. She’d help Lola be strong, level headed and firm. This was an excellent plan.

“You want me to dial for you?”

“Okay, you dial.”

Annie dialed, handed Lola the receiver, and picked up the cordless feeling perfectly confident about the plan. She began to feel some sense of alarm when she heard Lola give the Four Season’s receptionist Mark’s name and room number in the voice of a six year old. After an interminable silence and the sound of musak, a man’s voice on the line said: “Yes?”

“Mark?” Lola said in a minuscule voice. She looked like she might faint.

Annie was walking towards the living room with the phone against her ear when Mark uttered his first sentence to his wife in weeks. “Lola, where the F*ck are you?” This somehow was not what Annie expected. What had she expected? She realized in an instant she had no experience dealing with an abusive, yelling spouse. She had been the yeller in her marriage. Johnny was the quiet, calm one. She promptly came back to the couch, sat right next to Lola, and squeezed her free hand with her own. Lola’s eyes widened, filled with tears and she shook her head as if to say she wasn’t up to this. Annie sent her a look that said, “you’ll be all right.”

“Hi honey,” Lola said still in the smallest of voices.

“Give me your goddamn address,” Mark said coldly. “I’ll take a cab.”

Lola’s voice had turned plaintive. She sounded like a scared little girl. “I’m not--”

“Give me the address.”

Annie recognized from the adrenaline that suddenly pushed though her veins a sudden and unequivocal hatred for the guy. She wished she could soothe the stricken expression on Lola’s face, but how could she when she felt overwhelmed herself. Lola might have been right. It could be that bad.

Lola tried to speak: “I just wanted to say that--”

Mark’s voice came, cold, matter of fact. “You have nothing to say. You’re in no position. You listen to me Lola. I’ve run out of patience for your bullshit. Give me your address. I’m getting really pissed. Believe me, you don’t want to see me really pissed off.”

“I wanted to say,” Lola continued, “that I’m not...in New York.”

What about the plan! Lola wasn’t sticking to the plan! Annie wiped her sticky palms on her jeans. But as long as she said nothing about France...

“Then where the f*ck are you?” Mark roared.

“I’m...in France, honey,” Lola sing-sang.

There was a silence, and Mark said and Annie mouthed in unison: “What?”

“Lia really likes her new school,” Lola chirped. On the line, there was a long silence. Annie could almost hear Mark’s brain gears making painful rotations. Lola timidly added, “she’s learning French so rapidly. And you should hear Simon!”

“Listen,” Mark said, his voice no longer containing his rage. “You can’t take the kids out of the country. That’s kidnapping. Is there another guy? That’s it? There’s another guy? Some sissy French guy with a f*cking beret?” Annie found herself chuckling. This was playing out like a bad soap opera.

“No, of course, not,” Lola said.

“Bull—Shit!”

“Really, Mark, it’s just that...I had to...I needed to take some time off.”

“Some f*cking time off what? Your life is loaded with time off. That’s all you f*cking do, take time off, flee your f*cking responsibilities.”

Obviously the guy had Tourette’s syndrome, and Annie wasn’t the most verbally scrupulous person. Lola swallowed and looked at her with despair. By now, Annie’s bloodstream was laced with adrenaline. She scribbled furiously and handed Lola a piece of paper, which Lola looked at, frowned at, but nonetheless read to Mark verbatim.

“Time off from your tyranny,” Lola read flatly.

“My motherf*cking what?”

“Tyranny,” she repeated, rolling the word in her mouth like a piece of chocolate. She smiled at Annie. It must have felt good.

Annie smiled back, and they braced themselves with heads sunk in shoulders. But Mark stopped yelling.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. His voice was calm again. In fact, he sounded surprised.

“Well,” Lola stuttered, “It’s hard to say...” She looked up at Annie apologetically, and Annie sensed Lola was about to say something horrible in the vein of “you don’t buy me flowers,” if she didn’t get involved. There was no time, so Annie, figuring that her one advantage over Mark was that she was in the room and that Lola seemed to respond well to intimidation, looked at her with lightning in her eyes.

It worked. Lola swallowed and spoke fast. “You, you...put me down, you abuse me emotionally, you treat me like I’m an...idiot. You...scream.”

Another long silence, then Mark said, “Who’s coaching you right now?”

Lola and Annie had an identical silent nervous laugh. The guy was no dummy. Or else he knew his wife well. Annie had an unfitting jolt of appreciation for him.

“No one,” Lola assured him. His lowering his voice seemed to instill her with some form of strength. “I...had to leave because I couldn’t stand the abuse anymore.”

Mark had little he could say to that. “Tell me where you are, exactly.”

While Lola stuttered, Annie scribbled frantically on the pad and brandished it before her eyes.

“I have every intention to come back,” Lola read. “But if you don’t make some changes, this relationship is over. Think about that. I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time.”

“I’ll be back in L.A. tomorrow,” Mark said matter-of-factly. “I have meetings.”

Annie sliced her throat with the side of her hand.

“I’ll call you tomorrow at the same time,” Lola repeated like a robot, looking at Annie. And before anything could ruin this perfect moment, Annie tore the phone out of Lola’s hand and hung up for her. For an instant, they were stone-faced, a second later they were breathing a collective sigh of relief. Annie brushed her hand across her forehead. It was drenched in sweat.



In Althea’s room, a dozen canvases stood on the floor against every free inch of wall space. She kneeled next to a painting of a desolate urban land that reminded her of home. At the very bottom, lying on her side was the fragile silhouette of a small girl with blonde hair. How did this painting have anything to do with her?

Every night that week, long after the rest of the house had gone to sleep, Jared had tapped at her door. Each time she let him in and he apologized for being late, which made no sense at all. It took him a while to decide on a position. He moved her and she made herself like soft clay under his beautiful hands. Once he moved to his colors and started mixing, it was her clue to freeze in position. From there on, and unless he came to her and moved her again, she would not budge for hours. Her body as outwardly still as it was pulsating wildly under the surface. She kept her face still as well while her mind buzzed with a mix of euphoria and burning questions as to the whys of this.

Jared mumbled to himself in French and asked her dozens of questions per session in terrible English. Was she comfortable? Was she cold, hungry, thirsty, tired? But he asked her no personal question, and she told herself she preferred that. He sometimes spoke about his painting in French, saying “tu comprends” and she nodded yes. He did not enquire as to how much French she knew, and she did not offer the information, which might have then forced her to speak, something she did not want to do for fear of breaking the enchantment.

Sometimes Jared drew instead of painted: the back of her neck, her hand. Sometimes he mixed colors and looked angry. Sometimes he mixed color and did not or could not paint at all. After an hour, or five, Jared stopped. He thanked her. He seemed shy then. Apologizing, he left her room like a criminal, and Althea felt flustered and ashamed. But then, the following night, she’d hope he’d come, and he would, amidst the mighty smell of turpentine fumes that made her dizzy.

On the glass of her bedroom window droplets of condensation collected like a testimony to the unacknowledged heat their bodies generated.