Hidden in Paris (31 page)

Annie turned around. In the mottled light filtering through the canopy of trees, her face was shining. “It’s time to announce to the world that this respectable widow isn’t in mourning anymore.” She had a small smile. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

As they emerged from the woods, light bounced off the surface of the lake’s water and blinded him. His eyes adjusted to the light. Around the lake, the large grassy areas were bright green. He was taken aback by the sight of dozens of couples, men and women dressed in business attire who lay entwined on the grass. The entire park was a grown-up’s recess. The business crowd from the nearby buildings had descended to the Bois de Boulogne Lake for a refuge from the heat, and was clearly taking full advantage of their two-hour lunch break. Those who were not already kissing or groping each other sat in the grass, biting into baguette sandwiches, and flirting. Everywhere, tucked in the shade of trees, on the freshly cut lawn, and on benches, couples kissed. Lucas felt embarrassed.

Annie whimpered, “I need to stop thinking about my loneliness, not have it thrust upon me at such a vulnerable time, thank you very much.”

Lucas guided her toward the dirt path that circled the lake. Would Annie let him rent a rowboat for an hour? Would that sound too romantic? She would probably laugh at him. What had she meant by not “being in mourning” anymore? But Annie began walking faster. He had to hurry to catch up.

They passed a couple lying in the grass. The woman, in her forties, pretty but not stunning had her business skirt as far up as decency permitted in a public park. She stared at the sky as the man, in a white shirt, caressed her thighs with the tip of his finger and whispered in her ear.

“The French in heat!” Annie mumbled after they had passed. “The way men can be so completely satisfied with themselves is beyond me.” Annie was apparently going from edgy to furious before his eyes and for no good reason. It was one thing to sense when Annie was egging him on for a fight, but stopping her was another thing.

A pack of strollers advanced on the path, pushed at high speed by closed-faced nannies. Inside the strollers, babies looked right through them. Annie and Lucas stepped onto the grass to avoid a stampede.

“And look at this,” Annie cried out. “Where are the moms? Can you tell me where these poor babies’ mothers are? I’ll tell you exactly where they are: frolicking in a park like this one. They’re busy cheating on their husbands while their babies turn into zombies.”

Lucas thought he saw tears in Annie’s eyes, but she was walking fast again. Good mood or not, he was glad to be with her in the park on a hot day like this one. He enjoyed her furious presence, the now cooler breeze, the lace of fresh new leaves above their heads, the tiny wild daisies on the grass, the baby ducks on the lake, the dirt path that absorbed his footsteps, the smell of Annie’s shampoo when she was close enough.
She wasn’t in mourning anymore
.

Annie came to a halt, made a 180-degree turn and brutally put her hands flat on his chest. It felt nothing short of being punched. “What’s with you?” she muttered in a rage. “You’ve gone mute? Have you turned into a fucking zombie too?” Her eyes
were
filled with tears. Her cheeks were red, and there was a mist of sweat over her upper lip. As always, her bangs were too long and fell over her eyes. She was beautiful. Her hands on his chest made Lucas’s breath quicken.

“I’m not sure what we’re talking about,” he whispered.

“Of course, you never listen to a word I say.”

“Men are self-satisfied, the babies are zombies, and the mothers are...irresponsible?”

“Exactly,” she cried out. She stood erect facing him, shorter than he was by a foot. Her bangs covered her eyes completely.

Lucas did not mean to move his hand. His hand moved itself, rising slowly, approaching Annie’s face, and his fingers brushed away the hair from her eyes. Annie did not move. She looked at him. And the way she looked at him... he didn’t know what that look meant. But his thumb stayed on her forehead, then he caressed her cheek. Her wet eyes had a crazy glow, an angry glow, maybe an expectant glow. Lucas knew that if he stopped right now, everything would return to normal, his relationship with Annie would go on as it had, crucial, reassuring, unfinished. But he did not feel reasonable at the moment. He enveloped her chin with the palm of his hand. Annie was motionless, still looking at him with eyes overflowing with tears. With his other hand, he cupped her neck, and he felt Annie softening. A slight softening, but a softening, nonetheless. He approached her body, did not let go of her chin and her neck, that elusive suppleness guiding each one of his moves. When he brought his mouth to hers, the impossible happened. Annie, instead of tensing, instead of jerking back, became lighter and softer, a surrendering with which he was very familiar. He kissed her and she melted further, and his heart beat wildly, as wildly as he always hoped it would, the day he would, at last, kiss her.

He was the one who stopped. They were still in the middle of the dirt path. Annie was lost for a moment. He, however, knew that he would have the rest of his life to kiss her if he played this moment just right. He had, after all, nearly a lifetime of experience seducing woman. He guided a now weightless Annie away from the path and laid her onto the daisy-sprinkled grass. He laid down next to her and kissed her again, and she kissed him back like any other couple on the lawn by the Bois de Boulogne Lake.

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.