21 Steps to Happiness (27 page)

But that won't do.

Because this is
Jodie Blanchett!

The woman who would rather wrap you in paper and call it fashion than care for her daughter.

And don't you go thinking that she would have cried over what she realized about us in Moscow!

This woman can't cry because she's dry as hay, has always been dry as hay and if my arm wasn't paralyzed, if I could just move it, or cut it off, I would run away from her. I would run away from this apartment and this city and make a fucking pilgrimage to Mars!

“I remembered something in Moscow.”

“Jodie, I'm okay, let's leave it at that.”

“You were the most beautiful thing I ever saw,” she says and it cuts straight through me. “You were so beautiful, it frightened me. I was waking up at night. Going to your room. I was checking that you were still breathing. My life at that time was…” She puts her lips together, blows, that's how mad and sickening her life was at that time. “But there, listening to you breathing…It was all I always wanted to be.”

You'd imagine a couple of violins and a heartbreaking angel choir psalming to this, but no, it's Marion's latest tune on my cell phone.

“I have to…you know…” I finally manage to move my hand away and look at the screen. It says the magic word: “Nicolas.”

“I need to take this one,” I say.

“Lynn…” is all Nicolas has time to say before my battery dies on me.

I shake the stupid thing. It finds just enough energy to ring again, but as soon as I pick up, it turns off.

Lynn?

What about the rest?

1. Lynn, leave me alone, please.
   
2. Lynn, Clarice Kleron and I consider your message a real winner! Ha, ha, ha!
   
3. Lynn—why don't you just not exist?
   

“It was Nicolas,” I say awkwardly.

Jodie looks exhausted. Communicating simple emotions takes a lot out of her.

What am I going to do with her?
My
mother.

“Hell of a time in Moscow, then,” I say.

“Hell of a time most of the time, Lynn.”

I look at her. Really look at her not as Jodie Blanchett, but as a regular woman. There used to be a place, back then, in my room. A place I knew nothing about. A place where I was sleeping and she was listening to me breathing and everything was
right
.

It's not much. But it's a start.

It's my turn to do her hand trick. “You know, Jodie, we're messed up, but in the end, we'll be fine,” I say.

 

I've walked all the way back to Rue des Martyrs. I wanted to think about my next move.

I will find Nicolas, wherever he's hiding and whatever it takes. I will turn each single stone in this freaking city if I have to. I will start by recharging my cell phone and see what he has to say other than
Lynn!

I walk upstairs to my apartment.

“Hi…”

So that's where he's hiding then, right in front of my apartment—where I least expect him.

“Hi…How long have you been waiting?”

Nicolas is sitting at the top of the stairs, at the edge of the last step. Step number 21.

“I don't know. Since you started to hang up on me.”

“I wasn't…It was my cell phone,” I say awkwardly and show him the damn thing as if it would explain all.

“Anyway, I was not really waiting. I was preparing what to say.”

“And…”

“I repeated it again and again….”

“And…”

“It doesn't matter anymore, because the second I saw you walking upstairs, I forgot everything.”

He shows me his cell phone. We're into a showing-each-other-our-cell-phones mood. “I got your message from the airport. The one where…
you know
…”

“Oh, that silly message! Yes! You should clear your voice mail sometime. I had much more to say.”

“You said…anyway, I came to pick you up at the airport. But…I missed you. And then, well…so your battery died, right?”

I nod. I'm afraid if I speak he'll quit talking forever and I'll never know what he wants to say.

“Lynn…I…can't imagine myself without you, either.”

Am I still standing? Because I swear I feel myself falling.

“We make a clumsy couple.”

Did he say
couple?

Nicolas runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “We made a big mess out of this.”

Nicolas, Nicolas, NICOLAS!

“Do you want to come in?”

“Do you want me to?”

There's only one way to answer that. I hop over a few steps and we kiss.

Kiss.

Kiss.

Kiss.

You shouldn't worry about the future when you kiss the man you truly love.

It's not the right time to think about tomorrow.

Tomorrow?

Who knows?

Paris? New York? Milan?

What's important is right now, and right now, I unlock the door to my apartment and we make it over the last final step.