Hidden in Paris

Juin





Chapter 23


Not much, even the sight of Jared with a five-day-old beard and bloodshot eyes, could have dampened Lucas’s enthusiasm the next morning. Outside, the temperature was thirty degrees cooler than it had been the day before. In the café, the collective mood was glum. This first day of June felt like January, and the blustery rain seemed to scoff at the suede shoes now covered with mud, and the linen suits ruined by rain. The heat wave had ended as abruptly as it had begun but it didn’t matter. It had lasted just long enough for him to kiss Annie!

By the look of him, Jared had not gone to sleep yet. He was drinking his second espresso without a word. It suddenly seemed almost impossible for everyone to be in such a cranky mood while Lucas felt like getting up on the counter and bellowing his love. He turned to Jared and said, beaming, “you might want to consider taking a shower in the next few days.”

Jared stared into his coffee. “You might want to consider getting off my back.”

Lucas whistled “Singing in the Rain” softly between his teeth. “Another round of espressos, Monsieur Jean. My friend might not make it through the hour otherwise. And how is business today, with all this rain?”

Monsieur Jean didn’t bother responding and walked to his coffee machine. So what if everyone gave him the cold shoulder for transgressing all rules of common sense by being happy on a nationally observed day of depression. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m so serene today?” He asked Jared.

Jared slammed change on the zinc counter. “I got to go.”

“Ask me,” said Lucas excitedly.

Jared turned to Lucas exasperated. “You banged Annie?”

Lucas was caught by surprise. “Well, it is far, far more complex than that.”

“You banged Lola?”

Lucas’s mood was fading. “You want to hear what happened or not?”

“Not really.”

“We kissed! Yesterday! We did! We really kissed like teenagers. It was unbelievable.”

“And then?”

“She was late to pick up the kids from school so she took a cab home.”

Jared dropped two words like they were rat poop. “That’s it?”

“You can’t rush perfection.”

Jared shrugged it off. “You lost your one chance, man.”

Lucas was taken aback and stuttered, “You th-think?”

“Women are horny one day a month, two days tops. Yesterday was her day, and you blew it.”

“She was sincere. Best kiss I’ve ever given...or received. I’m in love! I’m utterly in love.”

“You’re just horny.”

“Past the age of forty-five, people actually become capable of other human emotions.” Lucas considered the gaunt color of Jared’s skin, the slight shaking of his hand on the cup. “I hope you’ll reach this ripe age of wisdom before you die of cirrhosis of the liver or some other alcohol-related degeneration. Or worse, cynicism.”

Jared put a cigarette in his mouth. “Your only chance at this point’s to play it cool.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled. “Maybe she’ll forget the whole thing happened, if you’re lucky.”

“It’s on me,” Lucas said. He folded a bill under a saucer, and walked away. As he exited the café, he covered his head with his newspaper. He stepped into the rain, and made a little dancing step in case Jared was watching.



The morning rush was over. Thick raindrops pounded at every window in dramatic gushes. The children had left for school accompanied by a neighbor and her children. Annie and Lola waved good-bye to the cortege of colored raincoats and umbrellas and ran giggling to the kitchen as soon as the front door was shut.

Lola put Simon down on the kitchen floor and gave him pots and pans to stack, wooden spoons and metal ladles to bang. They poured themselves coffee into mugs and ignored the remnants of the children’s breakfast that were still scattered on the table, crumbs, milk spills and half-empty mugs of cold cocoa. Annie put a sugar cube into her cup and plopped another one in Lola’s, realizing too late that Lola took it black.

“Sorry.”

The order of business was the incident they had titled The Kiss.

Lola tossed the contents of her mug down the sink and poured herself a fresh cup. “He puts you in a cab yesterday after all that kissing, and nothing since?”

“It wasn’t that much kissing, maybe forty-five minutes tops.”

“That’s a whole lot of kissing. Not exactly an accidental kiss. Did he tell you anything? Do you think it was premeditated?”

“We didn’t talk at all. I mean talking was not what we were doing. And I was too embarrassed to talk.”

“Does he usually show up here by this time? ” Lola wondered, reading her mind.

“It’s not like that. He shows up sometimes every day, sometimes not for days. It’s not like we have a relationship. He doesn’t owe me an hourly account of his schedule.”

“Still,” Lola said, her hand wrapped around her coffee mug, “this is not business as usual.”

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

“So what do you think is going on?”

Annie put her mug down on the table and began pacing the kitchen. “Oh I’ll tell you precisely what’s going on: He made a mistake. He is mortified and doesn’t know how to get out of this one. He doesn’t dare present himself at my door, and neither can he dump me since nothing has officially happened between us.”

“Don’t rush to judgment.”

“I rush to judgment. That’s what I do,” Annie said, shuffling around the kitchen in her hole-ridden slippers. Her pajama legs were too long, and made her trip. At least Lucas wasn’t around to see her look like a hobo. It dawned on her that he had probably seen her dressed like this, unwashed and uncombed time and time again. There was something very wrong with this picture. “I will die of embarrassment,” she said. She stopped at the table, added a third sugar cube to her cup and offered the sugar to Lola who put a hand over her coffee to protect it. “I can’t think straight. What do I need to think?”

“You need to think positive.”

Annie rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “It was the heat of the moment. What an idiot I am! Lucas so regrets this.”

“Maybe he doesn’t.”

“Take a look at me.” Annie pointed to her troll-like hair and her ill-fitting pajamas as sufficient evidence.

“I bet Lucas knew exactly what he was doing.”

“I’ve known him ten years. He’s never looked at me once!”

“You are so blind.”

“I am?” Annie plopped down on a kitchen chair. “The last time I had sex was almost three years ago,” she said. “That’s a lot of years without an orgasm.”

“Shhh!” Lola signaled in the direction of Simon who was happily banging away. “None at all?”

“None that involved another human being.”

“At least you had you-know-whats with Johnny, whereas I haven’t had a you-know-what with Mark in years.”

“No you-know-what whatsoever?”

“In the beginning I did, but he rushes through things. I can’t be rushed. I wasn’t really missing it per se, but now I can compare. Gunter is a master at giving me you-know-whats.”

Annie sighed heavily. “I would not know how to get—she mouthed the word naked—in front of a man, and the idea of getting—she mouthed the word naked again—in front of someone I know so well. I would be mortified. Do you know how perfect the women he goes out with look? Besides, should I introduce a man into my life, I mean for the kids’ sake.”

“He seems like a master you-know-whater to me, that Lucas,” Lola mused.

“And I like things done my way. And I’m hardly a catch.”

“Stop the self-flagellating!” Lola said. “You’re the biggest flirt. You’ve been flirting with him for years. This was going to happen, and you know it.”

Annie could not help a grin from growing on her face. “I do not flirt with Lucas!”

“Not just with Lucas. You’re a flirt.”

“But not with Lucas.”

“Absolutely with Lucas.”

Annie grabbed her face. Things had happened that could not unhappen. Things that she had not meant to happen. But then again... “And don’t start telling me that life needs to go on,” she said.

“Life needs to go on,” Lola responded.

Annie made a little pile out of the breadcrumbs on the table. “With Lucas, though?”

“There are many reasons why it could be with him,” Lola mused.

“Well, he is cute, and supportive, and a great friend.” Annie looked at Lola. “He is funny, too, don’t you think?”

“Very funny.”

“Don’t you find him cute?”

“He’s cute, yes.” Lola agreed.

“And don’t you just adore the way he dresses?”

“Yep.”

“And the kids like him a lot.”

“They do.”

Annie felt the tears, tried to contain them. “But he can have any girl he wants,” she said.

“Maybe he can, maybe he can’t. The fact is, he kissed you.”

Annie said the words that she had not dared tell herself and let herself cry openly, “Oh, Lola, I’m so afraid to hope.”

Lola nodded. She seemed to understand precisely what Annie meant.

“Listen, I’m not holding my breath. Okay, so he kissed me. He will realize this is going to ruin our friendship. We have a very special friendship.” Annie blew her nose loudly. She stopped crying as abruptly as she had started.

Lola shook her head in disbelief. “You never realized that a single, handsome, heterosexual man wouldn’t spend so much of his time with you if he didn’t desire you all along?”

Desire? Now the big words. But could Lola be right? “So you think he might actually like me? Wow,” she added. “Far out.” She laughed out loud.

“You do like him!” Lola exclaimed. “You’ve always liked him! Of course! Even the kids can see it. In fact, I spent my first month here convinced you were together, remember?”

“So you think he might like me, and you think I might like him?”

“This conversation is really weird. The real question to me is how come you haven’t kissed before?”

“No, no, the real question is, how can I get him to kiss me again and not look like a total slut.”

Just as she was saying the word slut, Althea entered the kitchen. Annie exchanged glances with Lola and they waited in silence as Althea opened a folded-up Kleenex, retrieved a used tea bag, and dipped it into a mug filled with cold water. Strange. That girl was strange. They watched as Althea placed the mug into the microwave and the three of them stared as the seconds went down on the microwave screen for a whole minute. The microwave beeped and Annie noticed she was holding her breath.

“May I?” Althea said, taking two apples from the fruit bowl.

Annie shrugged yes. They waited for Althea to leave and Lola said, “I’ve tried to not seem like a slut all my life, and for what?”

“Yes, for what? Sluttish is good!” Annie said, and laughed ferociously.

“But you’ll take it slow, right?”

“What do you think I am? A slut? I have all the time in the world.”

She did not yet know just how little time there was, and how frantic the next twenty-four hours would turn out to be.



Lying on Althea’s bed, his arms behind his head, a cigarette in his mouth, Jared watched Althea as she stepped over canvases, tubes of paint, dirty glasses, a filled ashtray and picked her clothes up from the floor. It was pouring outside and rain whipped the tree branches against the bedroom window. “I’m getting breakfast,” she said, leaving the bedroom. It was eight in the morning and they had not gone to bed yet. They had gone out until five in the morning and then he had wanted to paint her. He realized this was unfair to Althea for two reasons: he knew she would not be able to say no, and she did not know he had taken speed at the beginning of the night. But now it was the morning and he hated himself for it, for invading her space, for taking advantage of her, for not letting her sleep. He had meant to paint her to capture her stomach-churning beauty, her smiles so quick to vanish. As a small boy he tried to make his little sister smile, and then his mother smile, and it worked for a while until they got too sick to smile at all. He had always been surrounded with sick women. Now he could see that Althea was more of the same and he was furious at her and at himself.

Althea re-entered the bedroom, carrying a cup of tea and three apples.

“That’s our breakfast?” he said, feeling mean.

“They were there,” Althea said as an explanation.

“Who?”

“Annie and Lola. And they were laughing. They always laugh. I mean, I went in and out of the kitchen, I don’t think they even noticed that I was there.”

Althea looked spent. What kind of selfish bastard was he to not let her sleep? Was this love? Would he love her if she were well?

“And I’m a burden to them,” Althea said. She reddened, looked away. “Sometimes I think I’m also a burden for you. Like you feel that you have to take care of me or something.”

Was he an angel of death, killing one by one all the women he loved? “What burden?”

She sat on the bed and looked at him. “Every day I know you’re going to feed me, and I don’t want to say no to you.”

He had wondered how long they could go on, not saying what needed to be said. “You need to eat.” He moved his chin in the direction of the tray. “And not only apples.”

Althea looked at him with a sort of defiance. “When you feed me I eat too much. So then I end up eating nothing else the rest of the day or...” she stopped herself.

Jared searched his memory for the word in English. “Do you throw up?” he asked.

“It just kind of happens sometimes, after I eat like a pig.”

He could see her ribs under the thin sweater, hidden behind the red mass of her hair. He felt sick. His cowardice made him sick, feeding her all this time without talking about why, letting her be insane.

“Althea, you can’t do that to yourself. You’re too skinny,” he said, knowing this was more of the same cowardice.

Althea spoke more to herself than to him. “Models are skinny, but they don’t have the veins and the bones that show like I do. I don’t feel skinny. I feel fat.” She looked at him, powerless. “I’m too fat and too skinny.”

Jared sprung up and sat next to her before he knew it. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “This has to stop, Althea,” he growled.

Althea’s eyes widened in horror. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“You know damn well you’re doing something wrong. Don’t lie to me.”

She shook her head and began crying. “I’m not lying.”

“I can’t always be here to make sure you don’t starve yourself!” he yelled.

“Then don’t!” she yelled back. “I don’t need anybody. I’m so sick of eating, and not eating, and being hungry, and throwing up. And Lola and Annie could care less; they’re eating wads of butter. Like my mom, always cooking greasy food. And selfish.” Defiant, Althea raised her head and, through her tears, said, “I know why they remind me of my mom. I could be dead for a week, and they would not notice. Maybe then they’d realize they should have paid attention.”

“Is that what you want? Starve yourself and die?” he yelled. He let go of her.

Althea collapsed on the bed and he suddenly understood. His desire to paint Althea was no different from his desire to feed her. It was, in fact, an urgency to keep her alive. Jared had been there before. Up until his mother died, he painted her desperately. He had painted her so that there would be something left of her, like an insurance policy. Jared stood up and felt wobbly. He was not with Althea because he loved her. He was with her because he was supposed to sit with her and watch as she slowly killed herself. “I can’t take care of you, Althea.” He whispered.

As Althea sobbed in silence, Jared grabbed his clothes. He didn’t have the words, or the courage to explain. He left the room, ran down the stairs, left the house, and he felt that he was followed by the cloud of stench, of darkness, of illness he carried everywhere with him. He left taking with him his destruction.