Bad Marie (12 page)

Marie could begin to see it, the movie star’s appeal, his smooth approach.

“Where’s her father?”

“Dead. He killed himself after we were arrested. We’d made a suicide pact, but I couldn’t go through with it, not after I found out I was pregnant.”

“No shit.”

“No shit. We had some bad timing, me and her father.”

“Like Romeo and Juliet.”

“I guess so.”

It was lovely, to think of it like that, Marie and Juan José, star-crossed lovers. Marie put her finger in the hole in the right knee of the movie star’s expensive jeans. “You were really nominated for an Oscar?”

“You don’t make up shit like that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s too easy to check.”

“In case you’re lying.”

“You’re making me blush, Marie. I’m not lying to you. I can’t believe this. You think I’m lying.”

Marie smiled, pleased with the way the conversation had turned, that she had a beautiful young man trying to impress her. Benoît Doniel had lied to her about
Virginie at Sea
, but Marie did not see how the young man in front of her could be anything but a movie star.

“I just wrapped a new film,” he said. “We shot in Paris, all over the city. It was awesome. Paris is fucking gorgeous, don’t you think? I shot my final scene this morning, and I had this amazing brainwave. Why rush home? I’m going to chill on the beach. The French-fucking-Riviera. I have never been there before.”

Marie nodded, only half-listening. The French-fucking-Riviera. That was where she was going. It was not a place she had ever thought of visiting before. She also wondered how she could get the movie star to talk more quietly. He would wake up Caitlin.

“Have you heard of Lili Gaudet?” she asked him.

The movie star looked at Marie blankly.

“Who?” he asked.

“An actress,” she said. “A French one. She claims to be a movie star, too.”

“You’re tough,” the movie star said. “I haven’t heard of her, but I don’t know much about French movies. I just met Audrey Tautou. She’s a real sweetheart. She’s probably the most famous French actress there is. Have you heard of her?”

Marie shook her head, smiling. The movie star smiled back. His teeth were perfect. They were gleaming. He couldn’t have been twenty-five. When Marie was twenty-five, she learned how to fold clothes. There was some technique to it. At the end of six years in the laundry, Marie’s manual dexterity had increased enormously. If she had worked in an actual place of business, she would have demanded a raise.

Marie looked out the train window. It was black outside, the middle of the night. There was nothing to see.

“I gave birth to Caitlin while I was in prison,” Marie said. “I had a friend take care of her until I got out. I didn’t want Caitlin to know me like that, you know? A prisoner. I wanted her first memories to be of a happy place.”

“That’s intense,” the movie star said.

Marie had forgotten the movie star’s name. She traced a circle with her finger on his knee. An actual movie star. She wished she could confirm this information with someone else. Besides
Duck Soup
, the last movie she had seen was about the vengeful babysitter with the knife. Marie had forgotten about that film. She never got to see how it ended.

“Her hair is so blond,” the movie star said, meaning Caitlin.

Marie’s hair, of course, was dark.

She would hear this again, she realized, if she did not return Caitlin to her mother. She could dye Caitlin’s hair. That, however, seemed wrong. It was not Caitlin’s fault that she was so fair. Marie would dye her own hair. She liked the idea, becoming blond.

A new, improved Marie. Maybe in Nice.

“So you are going to the beach?” Marie asked, glad for the fact that her finger was where it was, on the movie star’s knee. She moved it an inch or so beneath the fabric, hinting at the possibility of upward movement. The movie star had posed a tricky question, asking about Caitlin’s hair, but he didn’t seem suspicious. “Is that your plan?”

“Yeah. It is. I’m going to lie on the beach and get drunk. You want to come?”

“Sure,” Marie said. “Yes.”

“You could hang with me. I’m heading to this supposedly big fucking house my producer loaned to me. I’m not allowed to say whose it is. Because of privacy.”

“I want to come.”

“Awesome.”

The movie star, however, looked slightly confused, now that Marie had accepted his offer so quickly. Maybe she was not supposed to have said yes, but Marie was pleased. She had tomorrow taken care of, and maybe the day after, the day after that.

“Do they sell champagne on these trains?” Marie asked.

Marie’s mood had turned celebratory. Caitlin was asleep. The French policeman had not tried to arrest her. She was on her way to a villa in the French Riviera with an Academy Award–nominated movie star. Even Ellen’s mother had never thought such glory would be possible. Not for Marie.

“That’s a good question. Why don’t I check it out?”

Marie smiled.

Caitlin rolled over in her seat.

“She’ll need some milk,” Marie said. “And maybe a snack, when she wakes up. She likes baguette sandwiches.”

“I guess I can do that.”

“Because you’re a movie star,” Marie said.

“You stop that.” The movie star shook his finger at Marie.

“Champagne,” Marie repeated, watching him go.

He would, of course, pay for everything.

Marie looked at Caitlin, sleeping. With every second, she was getting farther and farther from Paris, from Benoît Doniel, and from Ellen, who was certainly looking for her, carrying a lifetime of barely contained wrath. But Marie was going to the sea, to stay in a villa. Out the window, Marie could see stars, French stars, lighting the sky. She smiled, feeling a gratitude bordering on love when the movie star reentered the train car, returning Marie’s smile.

“I got it all,” he said.

Six miniature bottles of champagne, three baguette sandwiches, a jug of milk for Caitlin, and three plastic containers of chocolate mousse.

“I didn’t know,” Marie said, as the movie star poured the contents of a mini champagne bottle into plastic champagne flutes, “that you could get champagne this way.”

Life kept on surprising her.

The beach in Nice was not what Marie had imagined it
would be. She expected the paradise she had discovered in Mexico: crystal clear blue water, smooth white sand. Here, there was no sand. The coast was rocky; it was all rocks. This was the beach where Virginie had walked out to her own death.

Walking along the rocks was not easy to do. Caitlin fell, not once, but twice, and after that she refused to go farther, sitting down on the rocky beach and putting her thumb in her mouth. The movie star had chosen not to join them for the afternoon. He was getting a haircut in town.

“What if I carry you?” Marie said to Caitlin.

Caitlin agreed.

“I carry you all the time now,” Marie said.

Caitlin was starting to remind Marie more and more of her mother, of Ellen. Marie could not hold that against Caitlin, but somehow, she did. They were on the beach, in Nice. It had been Marie’s brilliant idea, and she decided to embrace it, being there.

“Look at us,” Marie said.

After six years in prison, she was vacationing with the world’s rich and famous. Staying in the French Riviera, in a borrowed villa, rooming with a movie star. In the morning, a chef would cook her breakfast. Ruby Hart wouldn’t believe it. She had worried about Marie during her final days, had said repeatedly that Marie wasn’t ready for the real world. Marie walked into the sea, and dangled Caitlin over the incoming surf, dipping only her bare feet into the cold water.

“It’s cold,” Caitlin said.

Marie couldn’t adjust the water temperature like a bathtub. She hoisted Caitlin way up into the sky and then lowered her down, Caitlin’s feet touching the water, again, barely, and then Marie raised her back high.

“Up,” Marie said. “Down.”

And then up and then down.

“Wild ride,” Marie said. “Caitlin going fast. Up and then down and then up and then down and then up. Then down. Then spinning around and around.”

Caitlin laughed. Marie could still make her laugh. “This is the biggest bathtub that you have ever been in.”

“It’s not a bathtub,” Caitlin said.

“It’s the biggest bathtub,” Marie said.

“No,” Caitlin said.

“Yes,” Marie said.

She spun Caitlin around until Caitlin stopped disagreeing with her. Still, Marie could not get herself to like France. It was not what she thought that it would be. Caitlin was clean, wearing a fresh diaper and the new clothes that the movie star had paid for earlier that day at an expensive children’s clothing store on the Promenade des Anglais, but Marie could not quite shake the panicked feeling she had had in Paris, in the bathroom of the McDonald’s, her hands covered in runny green shit.

The escargot did not disappoint.

They were served six to a plate at the restaurant inside the Famous Palace Hotel, each snail swimming in a pool of melted butter and garlic.

They had been seated, Marie and Caitlin and her movie star, beneath a chandelier in the center of the dining room. Marie wore the new clothes the movie star had bought her, a black halter top from Chanel, new jeans without holes in the knees, a pair of high-heeled sandals. Marie hadn’t felt the specific need for new clothes, but he had made the offer when they were shopping for Caitlin, and Marie accepted.

“Do you want to try one?” Marie asked Eli Longworth, ridiculously pleased with her food. She was surprised by her impulse to share when she knew, instinctively, that she wanted every escargot for herself, and then, even more.

Eli Longworth shook his head.

“I dig France,” he said. “But not snails. They are like sea bugs. Gross. But you enjoy.”

Marie thought of the French actress.
Dégoûtant
, that was what she had said about Americans eating hot dogs. Lili Gaudet could keep her Benoît Doniel. They could rot together in their shared grief. Marie smiled at her movie star; he did not seem particularly smart. She ate another escargot. She broke off a piece of French bread and dipped it into the sauce.

It was a delicious dinner, one of her very best. Marie had also ordered the lobster bisque and the hanger steak, which was still to come. A tuxedoed waiter regularly refilled her glass of champagne. Marie gazed at the beautiful people in the restaurant. Marie
was
one of the beautiful people. She smiled at a roving photographer who passed by. She ran her hand through Caitlin’s white-blond hair.

“I love them,” Marie said. “Escargot. I do.”

“Order more,” the movie star said. “This restaurant is awesome. You look awesome.”

Marie wondered, idly, what it would be like, having sex with Eli Longworth, with his long legs and his perfect teeth. Marie also wished she had not ordered an entrée. Her thoughts had drifted, already, to dessert, to the chocolate mousse that would end the meal.

“Hi Caitlin.”

“Hi Marie.”

“Hi Kit Kat.”

“Hi Marie.”

“Hi Caty Bean.”

“Hi,” the movie star said, amused, “hello,” but really he had nothing worth contributing to the conversation.

“Soon we are going to have chocolate mousse,” Marie told Caitlin. “You love chocolate mousse.”

“I love chocolate moose,” Caitlin said.

Caitlin clapped her hands. She was grinning, swinging her chubby legs, bouncing them off her thick wooden chair.

This was how it was supposed to be, Caitlin and Marie, happy, pleased with each other, with the food before them, with whatever life offered next.

“You need to try the crème brûlée,” the movie star said. He ordered that, too.

Marie did like the crème brûlée, though not nearly as much as the chocolate mousse. She happily ate both desserts, drinking champagne between every bite. It was not much of a sacrifice. Marie returned her fingers to Caitlin’s hair, closing her eyes, content.

“We are having fun,” Marie said.

This was what tomorrow looked like.

Back at the villa, the movie star did not want to have sex
with Marie.

“I am engaged,” he told her.

Eli Longworth told Marie the name of the woman he was engaged to. Marie shook her head.

“You haven’t heard of her, either?”

Marie had not.

The movie star said that he would be all right with a blow job. “That’s generous of you.” Marie was sitting on his bed, watching as he took off his expensive ripped jeans. The villa the producer had loaned him was impressive. It was old, made of stone, had a green lawn in front, a vegetable garden in the back, and a view from the master bedroom of the Mediterranean. Marie looked out the window, at the rolling sea. “But no.”

Marie remembered her negotiations with Ellen, when she said that she would not clean or do laundry. She had not expected to have negotiations with the movie star. Even before the escargot, when they were still on the train, Marie had assumed that sex was an unspoken agreement. She was staying in his villa. He was paying for everything, which had seemed only right, considering that he was the movie star and he was also staying there for free.

Truthfully, Marie would have liked to put out; it wasn’t the equivalent of vacuuming and making beds. Having sex with a movie star would have felt like an accomplishment. Later in life, she could have told people:
I had sex with Eli Longworth in a villa in France,
and that would have been a good thing, because someone, somewhere, must have heard of him. Marie wanted to have accomplishments she could be proud of, like having finally seen a Marx Brothers movie or eating an escargot. She remembered once, before prison, going to a party and admitting to an older man that she had never seen a Marx Brothers movie. He had looked at her with less interest when he learned this.

“Are you sure you don’t want to?” The movie star’s voice was plaintive.

Marie was not a prostitute. She did not provide services. She looked at the movie star’s knees. Tufts of dark hair grew from a surprisingly skinny leg. He would need to work out, she thought, if he wanted to get truly famous. Marie could no longer touch it, his knee, now that the movie star was no longer wearing pants. Staring at that one specific part of his body, Marie could see nothing attractive about it.

“I find that request insulting,” Marie said.

“I get you. I totally do. That was insensitive of me. I sound like a selfish dick. I thought I would have no problem cheating. When I met you on the train, I thought we could have a good time together, but then I just talked to Jess. She is the sweetest person, you know. She is an angel.”

“I believe you.”

“A real angel.”

“I believe you,” Marie repeated.

Benoît Doniel had loved his wife.

The movie star’s fiancée was an angel.

Sometimes Marie felt like she was the only person alive with any integrity.

The roving photographer at the Famous Palace Hotel, where Marie had tried her first escargot, was a paparazzo. By morning, the pictures he had taken were making the rounds on the Internet. There was speculation that Caitlin was Eli Longworth’s secret love child, that his engagement to the famous actress Marie had never heard of was over. The movie star had been alerted to this photo by his publicist in Los Angeles. Now, he wanted Marie and Caitlin to leave. He had rescinded his offer.

“Really?” Marie said.

Marie was wearing a pair of black silk pajamas she had found in the villa. Caitlin was thrilled with her new pink nightgown, which had purple lace flowers delicately stitched onto the edges. Marie had woken up hungry, still expecting a world-class chef to prepare her a fancy breakfast. Marie wanted an omelet with runny French cheese and sausage.

The movie star had opened a laptop computer on the old-fashioned wooden kitchen table. Marie leaned over to look. Marie had not had sex with the movie star, but the outside world seemed to think otherwise.

“Motherfucker,” he said. “I can’t believe this. I am in France.”

“It’s not the best country,” Marie agreed.

“Fuck,” the movie star said.

“You cursed,” Caitlin said. “Mommy says no cursing.”

Marie kissed the top of Caitlin’s head. She wished that Caitlin would stop thinking about her mother. It would take more than chocolate mousse. Marie stared at the images on the movie star’s computer and she knew that she was supposed to be upset. Instead, Marie was fascinated. This was what she looked like. Her hair had gotten long. Her arms were thin, but also strong. This was how Marie looked, out of prison. She looked good. The picture had been taken inside the Famous Palace Hotel. Marie was wearing her new Chanel halter top. Caitlin was on her lap, with her pretty white-blond hair.

Marie did not necessarily like France, but she did like her life; she appreciated life outside of prison. She had had so much fun during dinner at the hotel the night before, eating the expensive food the movie star had bought for her.

“Does Caitlin’s nose look sunburned?” Marie said, peering at the laptop. She would not want Ellen to see this photo and become angry.

The movie star shook his head.

“What are you talking about?” he said.

Marie noticed a second photo on the Web site; Eli Longworth was leaning over the table, staring directly into Marie’s abundant cleavage.

“My fiancée,” Eli said, “is flat-chested.”

Marie hadn’t worried about the photographer. She had been intent on the meal, one of her best ever. The movie star clicked on to three other Web sites and there were those same two pictures, over and over again.

“You really are famous,” Marie said.

“I told you.”

Marie helped herself to a cup of coffee. Someone had made a pot, though there was no chef in sight. She found milk in the refrigerator, and she poured some into her coffee and also a cup for Caitlin. It occurred to Marie, staring at the contents of the refrigerator in this borrowed French villa, that Ellen would eventually see these pictures on the Internet and she would know where Marie was. It said so in the caption:
the Famous Palace Hotel
. Marie with her daughter, drinking champagne, laughing. Ellen would come, she’d come to Nice, she’d find the movie star, but she wouldn’t find Marie. Because Marie had been asked to leave. Asked politely, but asked nonetheless. The movie star did not seem to mind Marie at the moment, drinking coffee in the kitchen, breathing the same air that he breathed, but soon she would have to go.

But where?

Back home? To her mother’s house? That was precisely where she had not gone after prison, the place where she was grudgingly expected, where she was still expected to pay back her debt from the car she had driven to Mexico, a car that had been worth next to nothing. If the police were looking for her, they would have already contacted Marie’s mother, told her what she had done. Marie knew whose side her mother would take. Her mother would turn her in to the authorities. Send her back to prison. Marie had no doubt.

Sometimes Marie still could not believe that she had gone to jail. She had run off with her boyfriend; it had been young love. She had done nothing wrong. She had not robbed the bank. She had not shot the security guard. The court-appointed lawyer didn’t put up much of a defense for Marie. The white middle-class jury looked at Marie and Juan José with thinly veiled disgust, and she was charged and sentenced, an accessory to murder.

This time, Marie thought, giving Caitlin her milk, this time Marie was guilty. Caitlin was on the wrong side of the ocean.

“You know what?” Marie said to the movie star, not caring what he thought, because a random idea had popped into her head. “I don’t have an e-mail address. Actually, I must have one, I had one before I was arrested, but I haven’t checked it in forever. Since before prison. I am like an old person. Like that president who did not know about scanners in supermarkets. That is what I am like.”

Marie felt a sense of deprivation, looking at the movie star’s sleek laptop computer. Her picture was on a page full of celebrities. George Clooney had broken up with his girlfriend, a former cocktail waitress. But it was not just the computer she didn’t have, that she was being forced to give up. It was the refrigerator full of food. Real French cheeses and bottles of sparkling water and cured meats and fruits and vegetables. French yogurt. Marie didn’t want to leave. She had not had time to take a proper bath.

“You really are going to have to leave,” the movie star said. He did not say this gently.

Marie would not be rushed. She drank her coffee. It was good coffee. She had poured her coffee into a bowl. She closed her eyes and she saw Ruby Hart shaking her finger at her. Always giving Marie lectures in the laundry room, that was the part of their friendship Marie had not liked.

“Can’t you just call her and explain?” Marie said. “The fiancée? She’ll believe you. Because she is an angel. Aren’t we having a nice time together?”

Marie was surprised by the urgency of her request.

“Look,” Eli Longworth said, but he no longer looked at Marie. “This isn’t going to work out.”

“I can give you the blow job,” Marie said. “If that’s what you want.”

The movie star sighed.

Marie noticed a beefy-looking man in a suit standing in the doorway. She had not seen him enter the room. His face was stern. It was like a scene from a movie. He had been sent in to deal with her.

“Who is this guy?” Marie said, incredulous.

“Philippe will drive you into town,” the movie star said. “When you are ready.”

“After I finish breakfast,” Marie said.

“Fine,” the movie star said.

He no longer liked Marie, which was not a problem in itself, because she no longer liked him. It was unfortunate that she still liked his villa.

Marie got up from the table and returned to the refrigerator. She helped herself to butter and jam, fruit and cheese and a slab of salami. She took a baguette from the counter and broke it in half, and then sliced it down the center, the way Benoît had taught her. She gave Caitlin a piece of this baguette. She allowed Caitlin to put her hands in the jam jar.

Marie returned to the table and proceeded to eat. The movie star and the man in the suit watched Marie, the expressions on their faces deadly serious. Clearly, they regarded Marie as a threat. Marie ate until she was done eating. She did not want to leave, but she also suspected that the man in the suit would forcibly remove her if she did not go on her own. He might call the police.

“I am ready to leave,” Marie announced.

As if it were her choice. As if she knew exactly where she would go. As if she was not insanely scared of the situation she was in. Marie had no idea where she would go. She had nowhere to go. Her picture was on the Internet. She could not stay in Nice.

She looked at the movie star.

He drank his coffee and continued to curse at the computer screen, behaving as if Marie was already gone. Marie picked up Caitlin and carried her upstairs to gather their things.

Alone in the master bedroom, Marie found the movie star’s wallet in the pockets of his expensive jeans.

“Look, Caty Bean,” Marie said to Caitlin, who was jumping on the movie star’s unmade bed. “Rich people are careless.”

Caitlin continued to jump. Marie hoped she would not fall off. She opened the movie star’s wallet. There was no money inside. Marie removed a credit card and put it in the back pocket of her new jeans, but then she returned it. What could she do with his credit card? He was famous. She couldn’t possibly use it and get away with it.

Still.

Marie put the credit card back into her pocket after all, a souvenir, and then, on an impulse, reached for a small green glass rabbit that was perched on the windowsill.

Marie moved the rabbit in front of the window pane. The bright light of the day shone onto the glass, spreading streaks of translucent green down the white walls and across the wood floor. Caitlin slid off the bed and tried to chase the beam’s light with her hands, smearing red jam on the white wall.

“It’s a magic rabbit,” Marie said.

“A magic rabbit,” Caitlin said.

“The airport,” Marie told the driver, surprising herself with how simple it was.

She had to go home. Not back to her mother in the suburbs, but to Mexico, to the place that she belonged. It was so obvious. Marie would return to Juan José’s family. To his tiny, dark-haired mother, dressed in black, who would be thrilled to see Marie again, to have a piece of her son’s life, returned to her.

Marie spent nearly all of her remaining euros on the plane tickets. Roundtrips were less expensive than one-ways; to go one way was to be considered a potential terrorist and Marie was not that. She had to pay full fare for Caitlin. Before long, she would also have to buy Caitlin new shoes, and replace the books and the toys and the clothes and whatever else it was that Caitlin wanted. That was a worry for another day. In Mexico, Caitlin would play with her Mexican cousins. She would learn to swim in the warm water. She would no longer require things.

Caitlin behaved for Marie in the airport. She sat in her stroller, clutching her glass rabbit, while Marie made her purchase. Her hand shook as she handed over her thick wad of cash, and then her passport and then Caitlin’s passport, knowing that the airport could be the place she would be apprehended, arrested. Marie had eluded the police in Paris, but her picture had been plastered all over the Internet. They could be looking for her in Nice. It was the right thing to do, leaving fast. The movie star had done her a favor, pushing her out the door.

Marie’s money was accepted. She was given the tickets. She was going to Latin America. Nazi Germans had escaped to the same hemisphere at the end of the Second World War to live long, happy lives.

“I want to hold the tickets,” Caitlin said.

“Are you going to be careful?” Marie asked Caitlin. “With the tickets?”

“Yes.”

It was not the kind of question Marie had ever asked Caitlin before. She used to rely on Caitlin’s judgment completely. Only recently, on the train, Marie had entrusted her with this responsibility and Caitlin had performed ably. The hostility in Caitlin’s eyes seemed only fair. She used to be an equal to Marie, would tell Marie when she needed a nap, when she needed to eat, when it was time to go to the park. Now, Marie made all the decisions. The nature of their relationship had changed. They were no longer friends; Caitlin had become Marie’s responsibility.