Romancing the Dark in the City of Light (8 page)

“No. Walking pharmaceutical lab. Throw in alcohol, I’ll combust.”

“Well then. More for me.” She downs the rest. He’s staring at her. “What?” she asks. “Everybody likes champagne.” Her friend Grace drank it for breakfast. “Some university found links between champagne and cognitive health benefits.”

“Keep it in your flask?” He raises one scarred eyebrow.

She looks at him a beat before answering. “No. I keep chicken bouillon in there.” She pulls back the blackout curtains so they have enough light to see.

“Can you conjugate?”

“Of course. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Wonder how you can function well, is all.”

“Lots of practice. I study
better
when I’ve had a drink.” He does disapprove. He’s wondering how much it all runs in the family. She sucks in her cheeks. If Moony
really
knew her, he’d probably march out of here. But she’ll show him. She knows how to be a good student. She places his rejected full glass and her empty glass at the far edge of her bedside table and then plops down on the king-sized bed.

“Now can I ask you something?” she says, kicking her shoes off and sitting cross-legged.

He answers warily. “Okay.”

“Why do you care?”

“Didn’t say I did.”

“Oh, fine. Feel free to pry into my personal life whenever you want, then.”

Moony sets his jaw. “Need the tutoring income.”

She chuckles. “Whatever you’re charging, it’s not enough.”

SIXTEEN

Later the next evening, after a long day at school and a deep, fortifying shot of vodka, Summer marches into her mother’s room. She has some questions.

Mom’s seated in her gray marble bathroom, wrapped in an oversized terry-cloth bathrobe. She’s stroking moisturizer upward on her thin chicken neck. Not someone Summer should be intimidated by.

“Oh, there you are,” says Mom, as if she had called Summer in. “You know I’m leaving tomorrow, don’t you?” Camus lies at her feet. He shows Summer his teeth. With his underbite, he’s ridiculous, not menacing.

“Yep. You mentioned it.”

“Winston’s going, too. And I have two invitations to hear the poet laureate speak at the US ambassador’s residence tomorrow evening. Since we won’t be here, I thought you might like to use them.”

“Okay.” It’s not exactly a big windfall, but she’s surprised Mom thought of her. “Thanks.” Mom’s sure spending a lot of time with Winston lately. “Um, thanks for the shirts and jeans, too.” Yesterday, Mom set her up her with a personal shopper at one of the old
grands magasins
department stores. It was an exercise in frustration on so many levels, but she did find stuff afterwards at the Gap across the street.

“Did you and Winston have a chance to chat?” Mom talks to Summer’s reflection in the giant mirror as she smooths on liquid foundation.

“You could call it that. Why is he here again?” she says to the back of Mom’s head.

“Trust business. He wants to know about your progress toward your diploma.”

“I know. We discussed it. I keep telling you guys, every day, that I’m working and that things are fine.” Despite everything, she doesn’t really want to disappoint Mom again. But if things
aren’t
fine, then it may not matter anyway.

“Darling,” Mom says to the mirror, “he and I both are worried that if you forfeit the terms of your grandpa’s will, these vultures will fight us even harder than they already are.”

Vultures. “What happens if I … forfeit?”

“I believe the money’s meant to go to an ‘eliminate the whales’ charity.”

“No! Really?”

Mom chuckles without wrinkling her face. “No, not really. But some right-wing foundation.”

Mom’s trying to head her off. Summer demands, “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“If I get the money, do you get any?” She puts her hands on her hips. That would sure explain why Mom gets so worked up about all this.

“No,” Mom says with a prim expression. “My grandmama and your father left me very comfortable and I have my work, even though it’s hardly lucrative. But you would certainly be able to take care of yourself.” She chuckles. “And anyone else you could think of.”

“Oh.” That would be good, Summer thinks. She likes money and knows she’s too wimpy to get by without it. Maybe that’s all there is to it. Mom just wants her to take care of herself. She has been for years, emotionally anyway, if not financially. It’s no secret that Adrienne never wanted to be a mom in the first place.

“How is it with Dr. Garnier?” Mom asks.

“Fine. She’s, uh, well dressed. We were going to discuss Dad’s death last session, but we didn’t have time.”

Mom doesn’t bite. “Have you made some friends?”

“Yes. Loads of them.”

Mom takes a sip from her drink, then backtracks. “I know you feel like we’re riding you hard about your school and the will. I suppose we are. But it’s a lot of money at stake. A lifetime of financial independence. What’s being requested of you is not that difficult.”

Summer bristles. “How do you know? How can you say that? Maybe not hard for you, but it is for me.”

“Don’t raise your voice. Why is it hard?” Mom asks evenly.

“I don’t know. Studying is so … I can’t focus. Anymore.” Or care, she thinks. What’s hard is to describe how she feels lately. If she could only use one word, it would be “gray.” Or one phrase,
Trapped in a giant cobweb of blah.
Nothing is exciting. Not parties, not clubs, not movies or TV, not new clothes or shoes or a convertible. Not even Disneyland Paris.

Moony is a bright spot, but she’s not even sure about that anymore. Explaining any of this to Mom is not worthwhile.

Mom resumes, “Dr. Garnier should be able to help you with that. But you’ve got to make a big effort here, Summer. To throw all that money away—a huge gift like that, would be like throwing away … your whole life.” She gazes at Summer in the mirror.

“Why are there so many flipping strings attached? Why can’t I just get my GED? Then an online degree or something?”

Mom says lightly, “Everything has strings attached, darling.”

“Right.” Mom’s love and approval falls into that thousand-dollar category: Things with Strings Attached.

Summer reminds herself that Mom’s mother ran off with a tennis pro, when poor Mom was only seven. And Aunt Liz was five. Another fascinating but verboten topic.

Mom continues but looks like she just sniffed an off wine. “Also because your grandfather was a very controlling man. He didn’t want you to turn out like your dad.”

“Jesus.” Summer wishes for the thousandth time she had siblings to divert family attention. And the whole toxic thing between Dad and Grandpa. She didn’t see Grandpa much, and doesn’t really remember or was too young to understand it.

“There was so much antagonism between them that I’m sure in their next lives the two of them will be sent back as Siamese twins.”

“
Conjoined
. And I don’t get it.”

Mom blinks at her reflection. “They’d have to learn to live with one another. Settle their bad karma.”

“I didn’t know you believed in reincarnation,” Summer says.

“I’m just saying.” Mom sighs. “Was there anything else?”

Yes, there is. She plunges ahead. “I wanted to ask you about Dad.”

Mom’s elbow juts in the air, holding the curling iron in her bangs. She shifts to see Summer at a better angle in the mirror, one thin eyebrow raised.

“How did he die? I mean I know his death certificate says brain hemorrhage. But what exactly happened? And why?” Their housekeeper had realized he was locked in the bathroom, she knows that much. Summer had been spending the night with a friend and was taken to the hospital before they took him off life support.

“Your father’s drinking problem had gotten serious. He had alcohol-related complications.”

“What complications?”

“Liver issues. Esophageal bleeding.”

“What does that have to do with the stroke?”

“He had certainly been drinking that day.” She pauses. “He … may have had a reaction to some meds he was taking. And he fell, too.”

“So—wait. Did the stroke cause the fall?”

“We don’t know.”

“Then he went into a coma.” Summer’s feet are planted on the gray carpet, hands back on her hips.

“He did.”

“And no one found him for a while.”

“Yes.” Mom bows her head. She had been at the country club the whole day. Scores of witnesses.

Summer presses, “So what are you saying?”

Mom closes her eyes. “His death was complicated.” She sets the curling iron down, then turns to look at Summer in the flesh. “His depression, which he refused to deal with, affected everything. His drinking. How he took care of himself—or didn’t.”

Mom raises her eyebrows at Summer. Summer’s own eyes in the mirror are wide with surprise. “He was depressed?”

“I thought you knew this.” Mom frowns.

“I am not Sylvia the Psychic!” Summer explodes, throwing up her hands. “You’re the only one who could tell me and this is the most time we’ve spent under the same roof for decades! Plus you never will discuss any of this.” In truth, she had suspected that Dad was depressed, as a therapist at St. Jude’s suggested, but it’s still weird hearing it now. In the context of his death.

Mom forces her breath out her nose. “Wally wrestled with depression off and on since he was a teen.” She pauses and looks at Summer pointedly. “It runs in his family.”

“Wasn’t he getting treatment?”

“Dr. Kong prescribed him antidepressants, but he wouldn’t take them properly. And, there were his issues with Grandpa.”

“Yeah, why was Grandpa so mean to Dad?”

“Mainly because your dad tried to stand up to him,” Mom says with a sigh. “Grandpa insisted that Wally take over the business, and then later humiliated him by stripping him of authority and all his shares in the company.”

“Grandpa took Dad’s shares in the company away?”

“Yes. With a bunch of expensive legal wrangling. And put them in trust for you.”

“Those were Dad’s?” It’s a punch in the jaw. Summer sits down on the hydrangea-blue upholstered bench.

Mom shakes her head and says softly, “He just seemed to lose all energy and will.”

“You could have saved him. You should have had his back!” Summer’s voice quavers.

Mom glares at Summer in the mirror again. “I tried dozens of time to get him to help himself.”

“I mean you should have been home. Found him sooner.” Now Summer’s voice cracks and she furiously blinks away the burning in her eyes.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t.” Frowning, Mom picks up a sleek silver case of blush, and brushes some on her cheekbone. “The tickets are on the front table.”

Mom is not sorry. She packed Summer off and moved to Paris so fast, it blew Summer’s hair back. But she’s too tired and dispirited to generate any snarky comebacks.

“Have a nice trip, Mom.”

SEVENTEEN

Summer and Moony stand in line outside the wall of the US ambassador’s residence on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honor
é
across from sleek haute couture and jewelry boutiques. Oversized luxury cars disgorge their multinational, expensively clad passengers. Students and bourgeois alike must go through security.

Moony’s wearing a blue-striped button-down shirt and a forest-green sweater, grinning and bouncing like a kid. It makes her smile. She wasn’t sure if he’d turn up or not and has to admit she would have been crushed if he hadn’t.

Please don’t let me mess this up, she thinks, standing as close to him as she can without being creepy.

“You’re quiet today,” says Moony.

“Am I? This is a long line.”

“Everything okay?”

“Absolutely.” She touches her nose ring.

“You look great,” he says.

She smiles. She’s wearing a skirt that minimizes her butt, and a pair of Mom’s smooth leather boots. “You brought your passport, right?” she asks. “Not the Gulf one. The American one.”

“Of course.” He gives her a
How clueless do you think I am?
look.

A guard directs them into the compound courtyard and to another queue that winds into a small building. Summer takes the mint gum out of her mouth and sticks it in a thin, bullet-shaped trash can. She had a strong vodka and OJ before she left home and hopes there’s no trace.

Moony asks, “How did the French test go?”

“
Super
.” This is an exaggeration, but she’s sure she passed. “You’re an excellent tutor.”

“Thanks.” The line has moved ahead and he steers her by the shoulder. She memorizes his touch. He’s slow to remove his hand.

They slide their passports and the invitations to a uniformed guard behind a counter. “Zee names do not match zee invitations.”

“Oh,” says Summer. “They’re my mom’s. Adrienne Barnes. See? I’m Summer Barnes. It says ‘and guest.’ Moony”—she picks up Moony’s passport—“Munir Butterfield Al Shukr—is my guest.”

“
Pas possible
. Zee names must match.”

“My mother was invited. She gave these to me.”

A tall guard eyeing Moony’s complexion and shaggy hair says, “Sir, could you step over here, please?”

“Sure,” says Moony.

“What’s the problem?” Summer demands, her whole head heating even though something inside her is sluggishly congealing. They search her backpack, pulling out the flask, opening it, sniffing it, and then putting it back in.

“We need to do a search. It will just take a moment.” The guy nudges Moony through the metal detector. It shrills.

Moony explains in his clearest speech, “I have metal in my leg, hip, and arm.” He points with his good hand. “And my shoe.”

“Yes, sir. I just have to check.” The guard makes Moony remove his fleece jacket, then roughly pats his shirt and jeans down.

“Through here, mademoiselle.” Summer goes through the metal detector and stops on the other side. Somehow, the guy pushes against Moony’s bad leg, causing it to buckle. Moony has to grab for the table edge to keep from falling.

“What the hell
is
this?” she explodes. “You heard him, he has metal in his
leg
. His bones are pinned
together
with it! He was crunched in a car accident.” She feels like her dad is watching her. Refusing to let her back down.