Life, Only Better, Page 2

  I called her back and we giggled like crazy. I told her about my haul—no little blue dress, but a to-die-for pair of heels, some adorable barrettes, and the most gorgeous undies—yeah, a bra like the ones from Eres, with cups like this and straps like that, and these fantastic little panties—I swear!—not expensive at all and just too cute, yep, you know, the kind that say you’re really a minx under those conservative clothes, blah blah blah, hee hee hee, ooh la la.

  Next I told her about my anal-retentive roommate and the saga of the envelope without a logo and how I hung my Upla around my neck like a goddamn overgrown Girl Scout to make Julie feel better, which of course made us laugh even harder.

  Finally we talked about serious things: the plan for that evening, and who would be there, and what we should wear. And, of course, we had to discuss every single eligible guy we knew in great detail, down to the mileage on their cars, the wear on their tires, their family situations and marketable skills, and whether they were worth considering as boyfriends or not.

  All that chatter made me thirsty, and I’d ordered another mojito to keep up my strength.

  “What are you crunching on?” demanded my friend. Crushed ice, I told her. “Ugh, how can you do that?” she’d asked, horrified, and I made some stupid double-entendre about the benefits of liking to chew ice in certain situations.

  It was all just bluster, of course. Pure, pathetic bravado; just something stupid I said to make my friend laugh, something I forgot as soon as it was out of my mouth. But it would come back to haunt me a few days later, and plunge me into complete terror.

  You’ll understand why soon enough.

  Marion had hung up, and I’d dropped some cash on the table and grabbed my bags. It wasn’t until I was out on the street, rummaging for my keys to unlock my bike, that I started to lose it.

  I had everything else—the shoes, the antiwrinkle cream, the polka-dot panties—but I was missing the only bag that really counted.

  “Shit,” I murmured, “I’m such a fucking idiot,” and I started retracing my steps as fast as I could, hurling abuse at myself the whole time.

  6.

  I was dripping with sweat all of a sudden. Cold sweat, little drops of it trickling down my spine. My legs had gone all wobbly too, and it was like I could hardly walk, as if the ground were crumbling away under my feet.

  But I kept trying to talk myself down.

  I muttered to myself as I ran frantically back across the street, ignoring the crosswalk and the blaring horns of irritated drivers: Come on now, it’s only been a few minutes, I’m just a block away. It’s still there. The waiter will have noticed it when he came back to get his (generous) tip, he’s put it aside for me and he’ll hand it back to me in two minutes, rolling his eyes, like, women! . . .

  Calm down. Calm down.

  I barely avoided getting mown down in the street, and I didn’t calm down at all.

  The bench seat was still warm, the impression of my thighs still visible. My money still lying on the table. My bag, gone.

  7.

  The servers were clueless. The manager was clueless. No, they hadn’t seen anything, but hey, it wasn’t surprising in this part of town. Someone had stolen their soap dishes only last week. Yes, that’s right—soap dishes. Unbelievable, right? They’d been unscrewed from the wall. What a world we’re living in. Not to mention the potted plants on the terrace, which they had to chain down every night. And the silverware! You wouldn’t believe how much of that goes missing every year! Go on, see if you can guess.

  Of course, I didn’t hear a word of their babbling complaints. I didn’t give a shit. I was in a state of total panic, and if they hadn’t seen anyone leave after I did, it meant that the thief was still around the bar somewhere.

  I combed the room and the terrace, scrutinizing the benches, the seats, customers’ laps; looking under tables and on coat-racks. I bumped into people, apologized, choked back tears. Searched the bathrooms, men’s and women’s; opened doors marked “Staff Only.” Barged into the kitchens, asked questions, pushed back when anyone tried to give me shit. Begged, promised, melted down, swore, smiled, joked, explained, scanned, zoomed in, watched the front door, and finally resigned myself: there was no bag and no suspect to be found.

  Someone was lying to me. Either that, or I’d lost my mind.

  It was possible. Had already happened, probably. I couldn’t think anymore; my head was spinning. Had I lost it on the way to my bike? Had the shoulder strap of my bag broken to punish me for making fun of the Girl Scouts? Had I been the victim of some expert pickpocket on the Champs-Élysées? Was this my afternoon away from the funny farm where I lived during the rest of the week?

  I finally left the bar to the depressing accompaniment of their efforts to be helpful: “Really sorry, young lady. Leave us your phone number just in case. And check all the trash cans in the area. They only care about the money, you know; they always dump the rest right away. Wait a little while before you file a police report, though of course IDs are worth their weight in gold these days. With all the Gypsies hanging around on the Champs in the last couple of years, nothing should really be a surprise anymore . . .

  “Anyway, best of luck.”

  As soon as I was outside I burst into tears.

  At myself. At my stupidity. At the ridiculous shopping bags still looped over my arms. All this stuff I didn’t need, didn’t give a damn about, weighing me down . . .

  And my lucky charms, and all my little bits and pieces, and my photos . . . and my phone, and my pretty makeup bag, and my keys, and my address—and my address along with my keys—and the locks would have to be changed, and the girls, who were far away and weren’t very understanding about this kind of thing anyway—and my bank card, and my wallet that I loved so much, and my money, and their money. Christ, their money—ten thousand euros! Ten thousand euros, which I was supposed to give to that guy tomorrow morning! How goddamn worthless could I be? Oh, I was great at chattering on the phone with Marion, a total champion at that, but give me one important thing to do and this is what happens.

  What had I done? What should I do? What was my name? Why was I so overwhelmed? Why? And where would it end? Where was the Seine? Mom. Virgin Mary. God, help me.

  Please, God. I promise I’ll . . . Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I know it doesn’t seem like it but really I think about you all the time, and . . . Ten thousand fucking euros! What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I such an idiot? Saint Anthony—Saint Anthony of Padua . . . please reveal all your little hiding places . . . have pity on me. My photos, my phone, my archived messages, my contacts, my memories, my life, my friends . . . and now my bike. My chained-up bike, which looked at me like I was a moron and decided to get stolen too! And I don’t even have the money to get a taxi, much less pay back the de Rochefort girls. My God—my bank card, and my PIN, and the emergency phone number to call to stop payment . . . and my friends, and my unlimited movie pass, and the video of Louison’s first steps, and my Dior mascara, and my Coco rouge . . . and my day planner, the office keys, the Fotomat picture of me and Philou that I love so much, from the Hyper U store in Plancoët . . . and my little address book, which I loved, and all the memories in it, and my nail file . . . and the ten thousand euros . . . and . . .

  And I cried.

  A lot.

  Too much.

  Sometimes, a few tears just open the floodgates for all the others. I cried so much. I cried it all out. I cried for everything I didn’t like about myself, for all the stupid things I’d done that I hadn’t confessed, and for everything I’d lost since I was old enough to understand that some things went away forever.

  I cried from the Place de l’Étoile to the Place de Clichy.

  I cried all the way across Paris. I cried for my life.

  8.

  The concierge had a duplicate key. I could have kissed her. I even patted her dog
in gratitude. I used our landline to cancel my bank card, riffled through the “Renovation” file for phone numbers, and left a message for Senhor Carvalho to buy a little time (I was overjoyed, in the midst of my misery, by my luck at getting his voicemail)—though I doubt he understood more than a word or two of my babbling. Didn’t matter, since I was unreachable at the moment anyway. I double-locked the front door, sent a desperate e-mail to Marion, took a shower, rummaged through the twins’ stuff, filched a couple of their sleeping pills, wrapped my nervous wreck of a self in the duvet, and closed my eyes, repeating Scarlett O’Hara’s ridiculous words over and over in my head: Tomorrow is another day.

  Sure it is, lady, sure it is.

  Tomorrow’s going to be a lot worse.

  I wanted to die. It’s stupid, I know; it’s not like two sleeping pills can cause miraculous things to happen, but that’s what I wanted that night: my mom at my bedside, singing me a lullaby and stroking my temples, forever and ever.

  I hummed to myself instead—you know, to complete the nervous breakdown—and when I ran out of tears I went in search of a couple of bottles of wine to help me work up some more.

  * * *

  It had already taken everything I had in me to borrow three thousand euros from my brother-in-law, to complete my share of the money we owed. I couldn’t imagine asking him for ten thousand more. I’d already had to listen to his little fables about squirrels and grasshoppers and ants. He hadn’t said anything nasty; just a bit condescending, which was much worse. Almost fatherly.

  I didn’t like being talked to as if I were a child. My mom died when I was seventeen, and Arthur Rimbaud can go to hell with his bocks and his limonade; you can, in fact, become very serious at that age. The trick is not to show it. You keep on going, like an empty sack; you might buy all kinds of crap to compensate for the hollowness, but you will always lose what matters the most. It’s sad, yeah, but it’s just how it is, and you muddle through like everyone else. Sermons, on the other hand? Fuck that. I can’t deal with that shit anymore. People who know everything and want to explain life to me? I cut them off at the root.

  Sitting on the kitchen floor in the dark, my back against the oven door, I left it to Mr. Gordon and Madam Smirnoff to take the edge off my pain. I wasn’t about to go off into some kind of psychotic delirium, but when she died I just had to grit my teeth and bear it (did I have a choice?), and the loss of my bag, which belonged to her, and was full of ties and tokens and memories and all kinds of little sweet irreplaceable things, finally allowed me to grieve for her.

  I laughed, I blew my nose, I laughed some more. I mumbled things about my bag that didn’t mean anything. It was like a cathar . . . a cath . . . caf . . . fafar . . . fsis . . . it . . . my . . . like a dam . . .

  I let everything out.

  Everything.

  Everything.

  Everything.

  9.

  I woke up at 1:38 in the afternoon, according to the oven clock, with quite a hangover. Maybe the most impressive one in my whole collection.

  I was curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor. My eyes followed the cracks between the tiles, counting the dust bunnies under the furniture. Hmm, I thought, there’s that little knife we thought we’d thrown away with the orange peels . . .

  How long had I spent like that? Hours. Hours and hours. The sun was already slanting into the living room. Our pretty living room, all brand new, that we hadn’t finished paying for.

  Hang on a minute, Madam Chaos. Just let me spend a moment or two with my head in the wastebasket and then I’ll go to the police station, I promise. I’ll let my dear roommates know what’s happened, and call my brother-in-law. I’ll say Hey, I’ve got a good one for you, bro! I need another 10,000! Now, now, be nice. I’ll write idiotic comments for you for the next hundred and fifty years, to pay you back what I owe you. That’s all I’m good at, anyway. Being an anonymous nobody, and talking nonsense.

  I was in the Marevskis’ garden in La Varenne. My mother was explaining why we couldn’t cut the tiny white cyclamens that grew at the foot of the lime trees.

  “It’s so new ones can grow, do you see?”

  She’d already told me that hundreds of times, but I was so thrilled to see her again that I didn’t dare interrupt her. And then we heard loud noises in the distance. Is that thunder? she asked, worried. No, I said, laughing. It’s the renovations, remember? They’re knocking down everything in the apartment, so . . .

  Someone was hammering on the door. Shit, what time was it? Now the doorbell was ringing, and there were shouts, a horrible goddamn racket. Oh, my head. I stood up. I had a . . . something . . . stuck to my cheek. A bread crumb. 6:44 in the evening. Christ, I’d spent the whole day under the kitchen sink. Ow, fucking U-bend . . .

  “Open up or I’m calling the fire department,” screamed the voice.

  The concierge. She was flipping out. This was the third time she’d come to the door. She’d been trying to call me since this morning. My roommates hadn’t been able to reach me either, and kept bothering her in her office.

  “And since I kept insisting to them that you were at home, they got worried, you see? They thought you’d had some kind of accident. My God, what a hassle! You’ve worried us all so much!”

  My father had called them. My father, who I hadn’t spoken to in years, but who was still in my phone’s contact list as “Dad” out of pure weakness or some leftover shred of daughterly devotion, or something. Finally realizing that I was only half-awake and that her words were going in one ear and out the other, Mrs. Starovi reached out and took my arm, shaking it gently.

  “Someone found your bag.” Her eyes widened and she let me go. “Why are you crying? Come now, there’s no reason to cry like that. Everything works out in this life, you see.”

  I was bawling too hard to agree with her. I tried to get hold of myself, to reassure her, but I could tell she thought I was crazy, and even as I gave her a snot-smeared smile I could hear a tiny voice in the depths of my jumbled-up mind saying, “Thank you. Oh, thank you, Mom.”

  10.

  I called them back up there in the Great White North and by some fluke I got Pauline; otherwise I was still good for the trial of the asbestos Vase of Soissons. That being said, I got a pretty lukewarm reception, complete with heavy sighs, short snippy sentences, and tight-lipped little responses. It annoyed me so much that I ended up feeding her a huge lie (I know, I know, I’m worthless. It’s my job.) instead of telling her to go fuck herself like I wanted to. I’d had enough emotions for the day. I just said in a tired voice that she didn’t need to speak to me like I was a half-wit; that their envelope wasn’t in my bag anymore, and that their cash was safe and sound. Everything’s fine. End of story.

  Hahahaha . . . that calmed her down immediately, the little dear. Her voice turned ten degrees warmer and her explanations got a lot clearer. Of course I listened to the very important stuff she had to tell me, but I knew at that exact moment that our careful years of entente cordiale were over, and I’d be leaving the Rue Damrémont as soon as possible. Life was too short, and I’d rather exile myself to the suburbs (gross) than keep living with people who got their kicks from frowning disapprovingly at me.

  I don’t give a shit about morals or moralizers. They can go fuck themselves. Especially when the holy fire that drives them, their homilies and sermons and their noble wrath, is measured in banknotes.

  I know that’s a fancy sentence full of bells and whistles straight out of a Victor Hugo novel, but it rang hollow in my poor head, because those 10,000 euros had vanished into thin air and I’d stopped believing in Santa Claus a long time ago. The guy who called the number marked “Dad” in my phone’s address book found my bag, yes, but he wouldn’t be returning it to me fully loaded.

  Nope.

  Everything had worked out, yeah, but it was a big leap from there to saying that life was al
l rainbows and buttercups.

  Where was I going to find that fucking money? Bang, I was back in the meat grinder again—except that it was okay, because this was something tangible, and I don’t give a damn about tangible things.

  Tangible things don’t die in a hospital bed.

  The only hitch was that the guy had told my dad—who had told my two airheaded roommates—that he wouldn’t be in Paris over the long weekend (Monday was a bank holiday), and that I should meet him in the café where I’d left my bag, but not until next Tuesday at around 5:00 in the afternoon.

  At first I was annoyed by his nerve—he could have just given it to the bar manager—but then I told myself it might be because of the cash that he hadn’t wanted to risk it. The envelope was open, after all. And, pathetically, I started believing in Santa Claus again.

  Then I went over to Marion’s and we celebrated my resurrection.

  In a dignified way, of course.

  11.

  The next three days were strange. The girls had scheduled their leave (yeah, they were twenty-eight years old and still spent their days off together, with their parents and Tickles) so I was alone until Tuesday evening.

  I spun my wheels, waiting. For someone, something; some relief, or disappointment.

  A story.

  I threw myself into tasks I would never have cared about normally: straightening up, cleaning, mail, ironing. I sorted clothes, papers, books, CDs, listening to tracks and rereading pages along the way. I didn’t turn on my laptop. I kept my hands busy to trick my mind. I pulled out my coursework and thesis notes, and rediscovered a series of sketches I’d made at the Compiègne transportation museum, on a beautiful autumn day about a hundred years ago. The softness of my highlighting strokes took me back.