Hidden in Paris (41 page)
Lola entered the kitchen where it was as hot as the inside of a furnace with the strong aroma of mint and roasting lamb clinging to every part of the room. Annie’s elbows were up as she stirred taboulé in an immense pot. She looked a bit like a witch by her cauldron. Lucas and Jared walked in and out of the kitchen, carrying baguettes, cases of wine, and crates of fruit. At the table, Althea was chopping and peeling carrots, turnips, and zucchinis with a glow in her eyes that was new and beautiful.
“The floor, Annie, look at the floor!” Lucas bellowed. The kitchen floor was caked with mud from everyone’s back-and-forth and resembled the pavement of a train station on a rainy day. “It will never come back,” Lucas insisted.
“The floor has seen worse,” Annie said. “Look at my hair. Now
that’s
worrisome.” Her hair was frizzy from the steam and all over the place. “I look like Don King’s mama.”
“Your hair is the most beautiful thing I’ve even seen,” Lucas said as he huffed and puffed under the weight of the last case of wine.
Lola approached Annie at the stove. “I’m done with the packing,” she said. “How can I help?”
Annie continued stirring without looking at her. “I don’t need help,” she responded coldly.
Lucas and Jared dropped the last box and left the kitchen.
“Please, don’t be mad,” she told Annie. “I’m sure you need me.”
“I better get used to being on my own.” Annie stirred the contents of the pot with violence. “You can’t even help yourself. Tell me how in the world you’re going to help
me
?”
At the table, Althea sat still and looked up at Lola in a way that said, “she’s going to blow,” and promptly put down her peeler, wiped her hands and left the kitchen.
“Come on, Annie,” Lola began, her voice weakening already, but she was not a coward and she was going to tackle this. “This couldn’t last forever. You know that.”
Annie turned on her feet, both comical and threatening, a wooden spoon tight in each hand. The frizz of her hair sprinkled with what looked to be fresh parsley.
“And why not? You’re happy here and you’ll be miserable there.”
“You might not approve...”
“Rushing back home solves absolutely nothing. In fact, it’s idiotic.”
“But it’s no more idiotic than what
you’re
doing,” Lola said, her tone more confrontational than she had meant it to be.
“And what might that be?”
With amazement, Lola heard herself speak. “Well, for example, renting out rooms to people and expecting them to live their lives according to your whims and desires.”
“That’s a low blow. Well, fine, Lola. Run back to stupid Beverly Hills. Go paint your toenails for hours on end and wonder where your life went.”
“Annie,” she said softly, “we’ll still be friends.”
“A phone call every so often is not friendship, it’s pitiful! You’re not doing what’s right for you, only what works for Mark.”
“What is it I should do, since you have all the answers?”
“You came here to start over, remember? That was the whole point. Look at Althea, she’s starting over! Right, Althea?” She turned her head and saw that Althea was gone. “All you’re doing is crawling right back to the womb.”
Lola felt heat rise to her neck. “Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to let him walk all over me. I’m not going to let
anyone
walk all over me.” She paused and said, “Starting with you.”
“
Me
? I walk all over
you
?”
“That’s right. You can’t have tantrums every time someone disappoints you. It makes it very hard to be around you.” Lola regretted her words immediately.
Annie stopped, set down her wooden spoon, and sat at the table. She put her face in her hands and her back began to shake. Lola thought she was laughing at first, but soon she was appalled to realize that Annie was weeping. She sat next to her.
“Are you all right?”
“Is that why people leave me?” Annie said through her sobs, “because I’m too horrible to be around?”
Lola wasn’t sure which “people” Annie was referring to, but suddenly there was nothing amusing about Annie’s fit. Her sorrow came from somewhere deep. Lola wondered if she should rub her back. “Of course not. I’m going to miss you terribly.” Lola searched for the right words. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had. You’re not pushing people away. I take it back. I’m sorry. It’s the opposite. You attract people. People love you. I...love you, all right? Gee, I wish we didn’t have to go through this.”
“Sorry I’m making
you
uncomfortable,” Annie said. She lifted her tear-streaked face toward Lola. “So why are you so damn uptight? Give me a hug and cry a little.”
“I’m not going to cry. But, I’ll give you a hug. I just hate goodbyes.”
Annie was now laughing and crying at the same time.
“Get over here!” She gave Lola a big old hug. Lola wiped her own tears.
“What a pain in the ass you are,” Lola sniffed. “I can’t believe it!”
And they went back to cooking, sniffing away all afternoon.
“Am I clownish in this dress?” Annie asked Lucas over the sound of Lady Gaga’s music. Lucas took her hand and led her into a twirl on her pole dancer’s heels. Her Flamenco-style dress, a low-cut, ruffled, black-and-red polka-dotted thing that seemed sewn to her body, twirled along.
“Clowns have never given me erections in the past,” Lucas said seriously.
The atmosphere was getting raunchy. Women were showing a lot of skin, and Annie was sober enough to notice joints popping from pockets.
“I better take the children out of harm’s reach,” she told Lucas. She swayed her hips to the music as she walked away from him. Cutting through the dancers, she began searching for Lola. She went upstairs and quietly opened her bedroom door. Six little kids, including Simon, were fast asleep on the bed and on the floor. Lola wasn’t in the room. She went down the stairs and said a few words to people she knew only vaguely but had invited anyway. Maxence, Paul, Laurent, and a dozen other children were running wild throughout the house. It was past midnight.
“Kids, we need to settle down. Come to the salon in five minutes. I’ll put on a movie.”
She went back outside. Under the canopy, couples danced to a reggae beat, while others sat on pillows around the low tables, drinking, eating, and talking. The party, as far as Annie was concerned, was fabulous.
Mark alone did not seem too happy. He sat alone in a corner, watching the dancers. She had observed him from a corner of her eye and saw that he was mostly watching Lola, who turned out to be an indefatigable dancer. But where was Lola now?
In another corner of the tent, Althea and Jared were huddled like conjoined twins. Althea spoke in Jared’s ear, who in turn put food in her mouth. Hey, who was she to judge. It worked for them.
She found Lola involved in a whispered conversation with a gorgeous guy. She waved at Lola who left the man to walk toward her. Together they entered the tent.
“And who might that be?” Annie asked. “He looks good enough to eat.”
“That,” Lola said proudly, “was Gunter!”
“The Fuckenator?”
“Shhh! I’ve been trying to reach him for days. He was in Nepal. I just about fainted when he showed up. Anyway, I just told him all about my husband.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wasn’t jealous! The break-up was as satisfying as the affair.”
“Lola, we need to create a diversion, gather the kids, and put them in front of a movie. People are smoking pot, and some of the salsa dancers are getting borderline R-rated.”
As if to illustrate, a couple was slow dancing and the man’s hand was surreptitiously creeping under the woman’s skirt.
“You’re not kidding.”
They gathered the children and put on a movie in the TV room, then closed the door.
“You’re having fun?” she asked Lola.
“Yes, but it would be a hell of a lot better if Mark wasn’t around. He’s not dancing or drinking. Meanwhile I have the urge to rip off my shirt and show off my sexy top.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Mark’s definitely the stern parent in this relationship.”
“You allow him to take on that role. You don’t have to shiver under his disapproving glance, hand him your life, and then blame
him
.”
“Now you’re defending Mark?”
“Well, he does look absolutely miserable at the moment. Save him from himself.”
“But what if he won’t--”
“Make him!”
Annie watched as Lola walked to the bar and mixed vodka with orange juice in two glasses, took a big gulp of one and coughed. Then she proceeded to remove her shirt to reveal her black lace top, the one that propelled her breasts like missiles. She swooned languidly toward Mark, holding a glass. Mark looked up at her and stared at her cleavage uneasily.
“Are you finally going to get stinking drunk and dance with me?” Lola told him. She offered him a drink with one hand and reached out for him with the other.
“You know, I’d rather stay clear headed. We’re leaving tomorrow,” Mark answered without moving.
Lola put the glass in his hand almost by force. “It will be good for both of us if you just loosen up a little bit.”
Mark brought the glass to his mouth and took a long sip. “Not bad. I’m just not sure, you know, with the pills I’m taking.” He nodded toward the dancers. “How do you do that thing?”
“The salsa? Let me show you.” She gave him her hand and he got up. From there she grabbed his hips and showed him.
Annie thought she was going to burst before the night ended, and it wasn’t just the corset of her crazy dress. She was bursting with joy. She was bursting with sadness. She had been right about the party. It wasn’t a luxury; it was a vital necessity. Everything she thought she knew was on its head. Her old best friend was now her lover. The woman she had been so envious of was now her best friend. It had become perfectly legitimate to hate Johnny. And as much as she loved her house, it was not all that important to her anymore. The house was where her life happened to take place. She no longer needed the house to live.
She walked around, swaying her hips with the music, saying hello to old friends who, one by one, were thrilled to see she was back to her old self and told her so. She picked up empty cups and plates. A wild Latin beat came on. She saw Gunter dancing with a beautiful woman Lucas had once dated. Where was Lucas? She felt a pang of nervousness and scanned the dancing couples, searching for him. He was dancing indeed. With a woman. It was a frenetic salsa, and the woman was a great dancer. Lucas, stiff like a dignitary on a mission, was trying to keep up. Annie marched toward them, and in an instant, she had pulled Lucas away from the woman.
“
C’est mon homme
.”
“I feel very in demand, and I like it,” Lucas told the woman as Annie dragged him away.
Holding his arm, she took him through the house and out to the street. Outside, the air was clear, and the sounds of the party came muffled. The only light was that of an old streetlight. She stopped and faced him. In an instant, water was flowing freely from her eyes and onto her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said, as she stepped a couple feet away from him, shielding her face with her hands.
“Why? What?”
“I didn’t mean to come on so strong. It’s the kind of thing that has gotten me in trouble before. Johnny said I have a jealous streak.”
Lucas took her arm and brought her close, “Of course he did!” he said. “Johnny was a philandering bastard.”
Annie sniffed, wiped her eyes. “Yes, he was.”
“You’ll never have to worry about that with me,” he said and kissed her nose.
“By what miracle?”
“I’m not planning on being away from you more than three minutes at a time. How does that sound?”
“Terribly claustrophobic.”
“Tomorrow’s the happiest day of my life with everyone leaving. I can finally get some attention,” Lucas said. “Let’s take the kids to Saint-Tropez for a week or two.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Wow. Now you’re talking!” She was silent for a few breaths. “I wonder what they will be like,” she muttered in his ear.
“Who, what?”
“My future tenants.”
Lucas looked at her in horror. “Ah,
non
!”
About the author
Corine Gantz was born in France where she spent the first twenty years of her life. She studied Contemporary Art at the Sorbonne and worked in advertising and marketing in Paris, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
She is the author of the popular blog
Hidden in France
where she uses her particular brand of humor to meditate on relationships, food, décor and all things French.
She lives near Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2011 by Corine Gantz
Hidden in Paris
Carpenter Hill Publishing
eISBN-13: 978-0-98343-660-7
Cover Art by Robin Pickens
Cover copyright © Robin Pickens