Hidden In Paris Part 7

Annie should have waved, called her attention, but she found herself needing time to adapt and gather herself. She crossed her fingers like a schoolgirl as she walked towards Althea, hoping it wasn't her, knowing it was her. "Althea?" she called.

"Annie?" Althea smiled. She had the mouth movement down, but her eyes were not smiling.

Nervousness kicked in. Annie cringed at her own glibness, which had a life of its own. "Welcome to France!" she clamored. "We are so glad to see you. Did you have a nice trip? Here is Lucas. He's got a horrendous French accent. He sounds like Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther," she added with a big fake laugh. "His English is actually pretty decent, but you'd never know 'cause you can't understand a word he says."

Althea shook hands with Lucas and blushed intensely. Annie had never seen someone turn so red, so fast. That made her want to get rid of Lucas at once, but then she'd be stuck without a driver. Althea crouched in the middle of the airport and opened her suitcase, foraging for something. Annie whispered to Lucas "Elle est tres timide. She's very shy." Lucas groaned and rolled his eyes.

"La panthere rose, hmm?"

Althea retrieved a small package, closed her suitcase, got up, and handed it to Annie.

"This is for you," she said.

"Oh, dear, you didn't want to...need to, have to I mean," Annie said as she fumbled with the wrapping. Did that woman have parents, a family who would take her back? The package contained a bottle of expensive perfume, Nina Ricci's Air Du Temps.

"Oh, honey," Annie exclaimed. "Are you crazy? I mean...insane? Sick. Hum, huh...this wasn't necessary!"

"I wanted to," Althea answered with an enthusiasm that felt forced. "This is so nice to come to the airport and pick me up so early in the morning, especially with the traffic. I'm sure I really should have taken a cab. This is so inconvenient."

Annie and Lucas waited for Althea in front of the restroom, and it occurred to Annie that they could escape and Althea would never find them. She didn't even have the address. Lucas's look of contrition encouraged Annie to convey her anguish. "She's skin and bones," she said.

"You're speaking to her as though she is a child. A r.e.t.a.r.ded child," Lucas said.

"I'm certainly not," Annie snapped.

"My dear, this, honey, that."

"That's how American women talk to each other. You're just not used to it, that's all."

"Well, I would stop," he said.

They walked out of the airport and towards the garage. Annie was ruminating over Lucas's comment. What a jerk. She decided to aggravate Lucas by sitting in the backseat with Althea and shouting the address: "Onze rue Nicolo, dans le seizieme, s'il vous plait, driver." Lucas stuck his tongue out at Annie in the rear view mirror.

"Quel gamin!" Annie giggled.

"Tous les hommes sont des enfants," said Althea.

Annie wailed, "Haaaa, she speaks French! Lucas, we're so busted! Have we said anything totally embarra.s.sing so far?"

"Non, rien Madame," she answered like a good child. "So this is Paris!" she said, looking at the inside of the airport garage with apparent ecstasy.

Remembering her experience with Lola, Annie believed a disclaimer was in order. "First we'll go through the suburb. The good stuff is coming up. If you're not too tired, we'll take the scenic route, won't we, chauffeur?"

"Your husband took time off work to pick me up. That is so nice."

"That's not my husband, Heavens forbid! My husband pa.s.sed away several years ago. A tragic accident. I haven't driven since. Lucas is a doll to give us his time, nonetheless."

"I... Apologize. Thanks. Sorry," said Althea, who continued to blush unexpectedly at Lucas.

The entire way back, for a whole forty-five minutes, Althea spoke, seemingly without breathing, about her sudden decision to visit France, taking a sabbatical from her exciting career, saying goodbye to loved ones. She spoke in a rapid, excited, enthusiastic tone. Annie noted that Althea was saying all the right things, as if she really wanted to be liked, or blow smoke on the real issues that made her come here. Had she forgotten their middle-of-the-night conversation? Less than thirty-six hours ago, her life didn't seem so rosy. Maybe she would get real once Lucas was gone.

They left the suburb and Lucas made the same detour through Paris he had for Lola. But unlike Lola, Althea hardly looked out the window and said not a word about the city. More bothersome, she hardly looked at Annie. Instead, she stared straight ahead as she spoke, lost in her words as though she was reciting a lesson.

After showing Althea the house and then her room, Annie ran back down to the kitchen to make lunch. The boys had walked back from school by themselves for the first time. Already, Annie could see the ma.s.sive changes to their routines, and how it would affect them. Of course Maxence was old enough to bring his brothers the few blocks from school to the house. But to walk back alone only to find their house invaded by Lola and her children? She shuddered. No, this was better than moving to the suburbs, better than switching schools and her having to work a regular job. The boys would have ended up walking themselves to school then too. Life was hard. To expect it to be easy was to set everyone up for disappointment. It was a fine thing to empower Maxence. So why then did it feel like such an irreparable loss, a moment with her children lost forever, never to be recovered?

Lucas appeared in the kitchen. He clearly was expecting to stay for lunch. "This suicidal friend of yours seems to be in a jolly mood," he said smugly, "and she's quite the fascinating talker." Annie took a deep breath, opened the refrigerator door and stared at its contents without understanding. "She's weird."

"Possibly you had meant to say that she would drive all of us to suicide?"

"I'm a little down right now and could do without the sarcasm."

"Oh yes, honey, my dear!" he responded.

She turned to him, slammed the refrigerator door. "Lucas, why are you continuously trying to push my b.u.t.tons?"

"Well, next time you need me, don't hesitate to push my b.u.t.ton. The word 'chauffeur' is written on it!"

Paul entered the kitchen, came to his mother, hugged her tight around her waist, and then just as abruptly left the kitchen singing, "First-comes-love-then-comes-marriage-then-comes-baby-in-the baby-carriage."

Althea stood in the center of the tiny bedroom. The white ceiling slanted toward a small window from which she could see only the top of brick chimneys and the bare branches of a tree where a dozen sparrows were making a racket. The walls of the room were a golden yellow, the bedspread a vivid orange and crowded with pillows covered in brilliant fabric. On the bedside table was a bouquet of silk gerbera daisies.

She stayed petrified for a few minutes, and then stepped toward the desk under the window. One by one, she lifted the scented candles and smelled them. On a hook behind the door was a fluffy white terry cloth robe. She put the candle down and took the terry robe in her arms and held it close to her like a teddy bear. She sat on the bed. The bed was soft. Her fingers brushed against the bedspread. She needed to remove her coat. She needed to unpack her suitcase. A spiral of panicked thoughts started emerging, and she braced herself. But there were loud footsteps coming from the stairs, screams and laughs and a huge knock at her door. Before Althea could react, there were five children inside her room taking over the s.p.a.ce. Two younger boys sat on her bed. A young girl with a frown held the hand of a toddler. The oldest boy looked at Althea suspiciously. "Are you a vegetarian?"

"Are you a Republican?" another boy asked.

"Mom hates vegetarians," the older boy continued.

"We're supposed to tell you that dinner is ready," the girl said.

"How long are you staying here?" Althea heard, but before she got a chance to answer, the children were galloping down the stairs, leaving behind two plastic swords, a wet but empty water pistol, and a crying toddler. Althea took off her coat, gathered the toys, took the toddler's hand, plastered on a happy mask, and walked downstairs with him.

Mark was about to demolish the plane's phone. "What do you mean they haven't been home?"

"No, Mister Mark. Miss Lola and the children are not home."

Mark gave a small nod to the businessman next to him, who, like Mark, sat in first cla.s.s, sipped champagne and toyed with a top-of-the-line laptop. Mark lowered his voice. "When were they home? I've been calling for twenty-four hours!"

"I don't know, Mister Mark. They were not home yesterday either. Miss Tamara and I were here all day yesterday. I cleaned. Miss Tamara waited all day. Oh, and, hum...Mister Mark, Miss Lola's car is still here. And there is a... letter."

"What letter?"

"You want me to open the envelope, Mr. Mark?"

Mark growled inaudibly. "No, don't touch that envelope. Pa.s.s me Tamara." He thought for a moment. Tamara gossiped with all the other nannies in town. He was about to land and would be home within a couple of hours. "On second thought, tell Tamara to go home. Lola must have forgotten to tell you she was flying with the kids to...Vegas for a few days."

"On a school day?"

Why the f.u.c.k not on a school day? "We'll call you. Don't worry; I'll cover your pay. Oh, and make me dinner. I'll be at the house in two hours." Mark hung up the phone and saw that his hands were shaking.

Chapter 9.

It was always fascinating to watch her children from the particular angle of being a fly on the wall. The key was to not interfere, to play deaf and dumb. Annie continued waxing the wood of the staircase banister, a silent task that allowed her to snoop on what was going down. She observed Lia through the bars of the banister. Notwithstanding the angelic face and long golden hair of a maiden, Lia was mighty. Her eyes shone with fury as she stood in the living room, standing as tall as she could make herself, arms crossed, chin high. "My dad is very rich," she was saying. "We have a really big house, much bigger than yours. And we knows tons of famous people."

"Like who?" Maxence said.

"Like Rosie O'Donnell. Her kids are in my school."

Maxence, who was only a month older than Lia, stood a full head taller than her and used it to his advantage. He looked down. "Rozy what?" he said, detaching each syllable. "Never heard of your Rosy-O-Josy." Lia opened her mouth to respond, but Laurent cut her off and trumpeted, "Rozy-O-Jozy...Rozy-O-Jozy..." Paul echoed his brother, "Rozy-Oooo-Jozy!"

"Well, you couldn't have heard about her, could you?" Lia cried out victoriously. "You don't even have a TV!"

Maxence, Laurent and Paul seemed stunned by the blow. They turned their head toward the small cabinet where the house's diminutive TV was under key.

"We do too have a TV!" Paul blurted out. "Liar!"

Laurent sang, "Liar, liar, your a.s.s is on fire."

Lia twisted her mouth for an instant. "I have four TVs, all plasma. We even have one in the kitchen, just for the maid. And we have, like, five thousand channels. You guys are poor."

The word stung Annie. Her boys had no concept of being poor. They were not poor. The little b.i.t.c.h had no right to make them feel less than. This was only a financial crisis. Johnny had been a good provider. It was her fault. She should not have been obsessed with keeping this d.a.m.n house. She was a horrible mother.

Laurent screamed, "you're lying!"

Maxence, meanwhile, appeared perfectly composed. "Even if we had three billion channels, we wouldn't watch them," he said. "We're not zombies like you Americans."

Lia's face and fists tightened and she was evidently close to tears. "When my dad comes, he'll slap you around until your teeth fall out. You little Frenchie Fries will go wee wee wee in your pants and stuff your mouths with rotten frogs."

Maxence raised an eyebrow as a response, but Laurent could not rise above the infamy. His brother and personal hero was taking a verbal beating, and by a girl! "Shut up!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Should she intervene? Her own blood was boiling. Too poor? She'd show her.

Maxence only shrugged. Did he look like Lucas doing this, or was it her imagination? "It looks to me like you're stuck here for a while without your rich Daddy this and Daddy that. And tonight..." Maxence made a dramatic pause and gave his brothers a meaningful look. "Tonight, we'll see who is peeing in their pants, right, guys?" Laurent, Paul, and adding insult to injury, little Simon, who had been witnessing the exchange in silence, nodded their heads in hopeful unison. "In the meantime, live in fear," Maxence added. And he simply walked away with Laurent, Paul, and Simon in his footsteps.

Annie crawled up the stairs hoping she had not been seen. A moment later, Lia was coming up the stairs, dragging Simon, whom she had reclaimed, by the arm. She stormed pa.s.s Annie, barged into her mom's bedroom and slammed the door.

Lola had been hunched over the miniature desk for over an hour, staring at a sheet of paper half covered with crossed-out sentences, her attempt to write the letter to Mark that stubbornly refused to be born. This was the letter where she would set the record straight and tell him everything she had been too paralyzed to say. She had left him and taken the children. She was doing something both morally wrong and likely punishable by law, but still easier than writing him this letter. The letter would open a dam. Things would be said that might destroy him. For example, what if he found out that she had been faking o.r.g.a.s.ms? What if he found out that his anger-or was it her anger?-made his touch unbearable? What if he found out that the way he treated her and the world in general made her want to puke? Wasn't disappearing less horrible than the truth? There was a balance in their marriage but it had been a balance based on lies. The truth, if it came out now, would reveal that she had been a complete fraud. Also, once the dam was open, then she might discover Mark's truths about her, those things he could tell her that she may never recover from. He might tell her that she was looking old. That he didn't desire her. That she was dumb. That she was good at nothing. That she had no talent, no value, no worth. That she did not challenge him, and that was why he treated her the way he did.

The moment she put the pen to paper, those anxious thoughts screamed like Furies. She ached to drop the pen and deal with the situation the only way she knew: by pus.h.i.+ng it away from her thoughts. She put the pen down. What she should do now is go through the house and hopefully find Annie busy with some ch.o.r.e, and maybe help her, chat with her about everything and anything. Maybe she would be able to tell Annie about all this one day, but not just yet.

The door to her bedroom opened suddenly and Lia barged in, holding Simon by the hand. Lola gathered her papers quickly out of sight. Lia was crying, and so was Simon. Lia let go of her brother. "What's up sweetie pies?" she asked Lia.

"I want to go home! Right! Now!" her daughter screamed. Lola reached one arm out towards Lia who jerked back. "I hate it here. I want to go home!"

"Angel, we've barely been here half a day! We have yet to get out of the house and be tourists, which I was just about to--"

"I hate you!" Lia hollered, and she pushed Lola's shoulder, hard. Lia's rage was uncontainable. She looked precisely like Mark when she was furious. The same redness in the face, the same tightened fists. Lola made a movement to dodge the push, but not really. "I don't want to go anywhere. I want to go to the airport, right now!"

"That's somewhere! There is hope," Lola teased with a smile.

"You shut up!"

Lola recoiled, looked at her daughter's face in horror. Her heart sank so deep she thought she might burst into tears. Lia looked at her, almost as horrified as she was, and then she was the one who burst into tears.

"I want Dad right now!" she said, her voice drowning in tears.

Lola held back a gesture to wipe Lia's tears off her cheek. What if Lia pushed her again? Then where to go from there? "We are not going to see Daddy...for a little while, love," she said. Lia continued crying but didn't ask any questions. Was it possible she knew? Was it possible she didn't want to hear her mother's reasons? "I just want to talk to him!" she cried.

"It's night over there. He's probably sleeping. We'll call soon."

Lia threw herself at her, or was it into her arms. The only difference was that after she had thrown herself at her with all her might, Lola opened her arms and held Lia against her. Lia was shaking and crying uncontrollably. On the rug, on the wood floor beside the bed, Simon was rolling back and forth gently b.u.mping his head on the baseboard and humming to himself.

"We're all tired right now. It's the jet lag. Things are going to be all right," Lola said. Still holding Lia tight, she opened a free arm to Simon, hoisted him onto her lap and kissed him again and again on top of his head. Maybe Lia wanted to be calmed down by her, and maybe everything would be okay.

"I hate you!" Lia said in a small voice. But she let her mom take her in her arms and rock her for a long time while she wept.

Hunched over her cutting board, Annie chopped parsley and juiced lemon for the salmon stuffing as she rehea.r.s.ed imaginary conversations with Lola and Althea. What was she going to talk about with these women, day after day, week after week? The weather, check. Children and school, check. Parisian idiosyncrasies, check. She felt the stress in her shoulders, in her jaws, even in the way she murdered her herbs on the chopping block. If she didn't slow down, she was going to cut herself. Finger-stuffed salmon, check.

Maxence walked into the kitchen and stood next to her, stiff and serious. Precisely the way a nine-year-old shouldn't be. "Those people are all creeps," he announced without preamble. It had been three hours since the kids had their fight. This was very much like Maxence to mull things over like this. Not like Lia who obviously had ratted on him right away. She washed her hands, sat on a chair and pulled Maxence towards her. He stayed there but this was no embrace. "Can't you try to make it work for your poor old mommy?" she asked, knowing it reeked of manipulation. Maxence raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest of her bulls.h.i.+t with an air of bafflement on his face. He reminded Annie so much of his father at the moment that she wanted to cover him with kisses, although she didn't have such fond memories of her arguments with Johnny.

"You want me to put up with this mean girl and that screaming baby for six months? And now some woman gets my room in the attic? You promised!"

"What promise? I said I would think about moving you to the attic."

"Plus, we have to see their stupid faces at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As if we don't see enough strangers with Lucas coming over all the time."

Right, right, right, and right again, she thought. "Wrong, Maxence, this is wrong. You like Lucas, you said he was fun!" she exclaimed, all too happy to divert the issue to Lucas.

"When I was young, yes. Now he gives me the creeps big time, sniffing around you and all that."

"Lucas is not sniffing a thing," Annie said, with all the indignation she could summon. "And I've known him since before your birth, so he is certainly no stranger."

"And the woman who got my room. She gives me the creeps."

She thought of Althea's gaunt face, her black clothes, her silence alternating with bursts of verbal diarrhea. "Name one thing that doesn't give you the creeps, Maxence."

"Well, the four of us being home by ourselves, for one," he said, lowering his eyes and turning his face away slightly.

That her preteen would favor being home with his brothers and little old her brought tears to her eyes. "Maxence, we're in this together, you hear me? We need money and this was the only short-term solution that made sense. I'm thinking of going back to school, maybe pa.s.s the bar exam here."

Saying those words, she thought of the Dr. Seuss rhyme: I said, and said, and said those words. I said them. But I lied them. "Renting out rooms will buy us time, that's all. Hopefully, in the meantime, you'll start getting along with Lia. She is without a dad, and you know better than anyone what that feels like."