Out of Orange (3 page)

I panicked a little and cut my shower short. I was chronically late to everything. This was not a day I could let time get away from me while I cataloged the bathroom. I dried off, wrapped myself up, and scurried back to the room.

Henry swallowed the last of his capsules, rose, and walked to the opened window. The sun was breaking over the city. The sky behind Notre-Dame was deep blue where it had been black a few minutes earlier. The telltale signs of a new day were popping up everywhere. Below the window, a drunk was being prodded from the sidewalk by a whistling street cleaner and his big green broom. Tables and chairs were being moved back out onto the sidewalk at the café across the narrow street. Henry stood tranquilly staring out at the cathedral and down on the few people already taking their seats outside the café. He didn’t move. The wet breeze tossed his hair while he waited for his full stomach to settle.

I was still wrapped in my towel. Henry handed me the thick terry-cloth robe he had used earlier. He had packed my hotel robe away in my luggage. He had once told me that it’s a good idea to give the cops something to find, something other than dope. Little hotel knickknacks, towels, and robes were great. Everyone has stolen something from a hotel room at some point in their lives, even Customs agents. Being snared in a miniscule crime like this by a Customs agent was awesome. They would flag us away, certain they had discovered all that was discoverable about us.

I stepped over to the armoire and pulled the chair close to its mirror. I stood there looking at myself. I had this strange sense of unfamiliarity with my own reflection. Behind me, I could see the boys scurrying around the room in an oblivious blur. I took the robe off, still looking for myself in the mirror. Four weeks in Africa,
swimming madly to maintain my appetite every day so I could eat the nasty food, and a bout of
Giardia
had left me thinner and in better shape than I had been since I was a teenager. This combined with weeks of Henry’s tutelage in Paris, efforts to turn me into a convincing art critic, made it no surprise that I didn’t know who was looking back at me in the mirror.

Any modesty that might have existed in this elegant little room with Henry and Bradley had been wiped out by weeks of bathing, shitting, and puking over each other in the shower room we had all shared at Alajeh’s compound in Benin, Africa. I continued to inspect myself, moving about in ways that flattered my new physique. I smiled, thinking about seeing Joan, my ex-lover, and potentially watching the tables turn on her—now I would be the one rejecting her. I sat on the chair, facing the mirror, and began putting on my new face.

I gently patted under my eyes some creamy goop Madame Calignion had concocted. It felt cool and smelled of peppermint. Once done, I carefully replaced the small silver cap on the glass bottle. My manicure had made it through the night without getting any dings or scratches. I wanted this preserved for as long as possible. I pulled each item from my toiletry bag with care not to scratch my nails. This amused me for a moment. I remembered watching Henry on the train ride to Belgium, where this adventure had begun. I had watched him put things away in his satchel this carefully. I was acting like Henry.

The person in the mirror seemed isolated. I was surprised and saddened. I looked at the boys and felt the ties that bound us all together. I would not be able to recount any of this to anyone back home. Although I might try to tell interesting stories about where I had been and what I had done, I could never really express what this all felt like, not without being judged. I wondered if that would create a huge gulf between me and almost everyone else, forever.

I finished my face and packed away my toiletry bag. Returning to the armoire and the mirror, I grabbed the three black velvet boxes that contained the jewelry Henry had chosen for me. First, I put
on the pearl earrings, then the pearl necklace, and finally the fake diamond ring. It looked real. In my bra, panties, and heels, with the pearls against my tan and my hair up in such a neat bun, I looked like such a lie. Nonetheless, I couldn’t stop staring at myself.

This was the first and only complete dress rehearsal I had. Each of the additions to my look or cover story had been an incremental change: a shopping trip here, a facial there, and so on. Putting it all together now, I saw what Henry and I had created and it was truly bizarre. I looked like my mother. I took my pumps off, stopped playing in the mirror, and slid into the creamy white hose and my slip. I pulled one of the mirrored armoire doors toward me so that I could see my ass. As I turned the glass, I saw Henry watching me. He had in his outstretched hand a delicate white lace girdle. It didn’t look like the girdles my mother wore; it looked more like lacy white bike shorts. I put it on and it made my butt cheeks lift a little. I laughed at myself. This was better. Now I looked like a fucking stripper.

The next hour passed in a whirlwind, like time was speeding up, as the point of no return got closer. All bullshit aside, until we walked through security at the Charles de Gaulle airport, I could still turn around, I could stop the train and get off, consequences be damned. I could call Mom and Dad and tell on us, me and my sister. They would be pissed, after they got up off the floor. When I told them where we were and the mess their precious daughters had gotten themselves into . . . Oh my God! They would faint, shit their ever-loving pants, and fucking kill us when we got home. Mom would probably have us committed to a nunnery or just flat-out committed. I pushed this thought out of my mind. We could get through this. Then it would be over, period, no big drama.

I looked myself over, as did Henry and Bradley, one last time before we all paraded through the hotel and down to the street, where a taxi waited. I was the last into the taxi. I took my seat and the driver closed the door. At one of the café tables, I saw my sister smiling and waving. “Catch you on the flip side!” Hester yelled. She looked calm and happy.

When the taxi pulled up to the curb at the airport, everyone
was quiet and calm. Henry paid the cab fare. He was the keeper of money. He had been so the whole trip. He handed me a one-hundred-franc note and Bradley one too. This was where we would all go our separate ways. We would pretend like we didn’t know each other until we stepped back into a taxi in Chicago, hopefully, all of us.

“This is it.” Henry was right too. This was it, my last chance to bail. He walked away and Bradley followed just a couple of seconds behind him. They both entered the stream of traffic inside the revolving doors.

I had not eaten any heroin-filled capsules; all I had were the jackets packed in my bag. Henry and Bradley had both. Bradley couldn’t leave his stomach behind, but I could leave the jackets somewhere and bail. The only thing standing between me and getting home safely was a decision: How did I want to do it? I had one hundred francs in my sweaty little palm, the cost of a phone card. I could buy one in the airport
tabac,
call home, call Hester at the hotel, and what? I could also just fucking get this shit over with. Do the stupid deed, make ten thousand dollars, and deal with my sister and her boyfriend problems later. I couldn’t stand out on the curb forever. I would miss my flight. I walked into the airport, past the tobacco shop, and without hesitation right up to the security checkpoint. The feeling was just like walking right up to the end of the high dive, gracefully turning, and stepping back so that only my heels were free and my toes held me there.

When I got to the gate, I saw Henry and he didn’t so much as look in my direction. But Bradley caught my eye and gave me a look that said he was about to cry. I looked away from him as if I hadn’t noticed the face he’d made.

We boarded the plane and I took my seat, carefully stowing my garment bag full of the heroin-packed jackets in the overhead compartment. I pulled a French language tutorial out of my bag with a pen before taking my seat. I had definitely crossed the line. This was past the point of no return.

I stayed awake the whole flight back. I did the French lessons
from front to back. I had bought the book in the O’Hare Airport six weeks earlier, before the trip had begun. I watched a movie,
The Last of the Mohicans,
and cried at the part where one of the sisters throws herself off the waterfall rather than be raped. I studied what I had already written in my fake journal, making new fake entries for each of the days I had been in Paris. By the time they passed out the customs and immigration forms before landing in Chicago, I had created a story for each and every day in Paris, even for the ones I was actually in Africa. My new passport had no stamps indicating my venture to Africa, which was the point of replacing it.

I watched a plane crawl across a map on the screen where the movie had been playing. It approached the Great Lakes and then Chicago. I hurriedly got up out of my seat and grabbed my purse so I could make my way to the bathroom one more time. It amazed me how Bradley and Henry both ignored me every time I passed each of them. I couldn’t help but look at them, if only to be sure they were still alive. Henry’s face was blank and Bradley’s had a pained expression, but aside from that, they were both breathing. I wondered if Bradley was scared or excited. I couldn’t figure out which I was. But I couldn’t wait to get back to my world and away from this whole mess.

When the plane landed, I was deaf. My ears had not popped yet, but I kind of liked the way everything sounded muffled. It was easier to turn my thoughts inward, back onto what should be playing over in my mind: the musings of Cleary the art collector, critic, and historian, not Cleary the drug-smuggling fool about to ruin her life.

I was surprised when I disembarked the plane. We were all actually being loaded onto a shuttle, a shuttle that could lift up and down and had its doors at the front and back. It was like a big creature that latched onto the plane and opened its big mouth to suck out all the passengers. I opted to stand and hold on to the pole in front of a young man dressed as sharply as I was. He offered me his seat, but I declined. “I can’t sit down for another minute.” He smiled but kept staring at me like he was interested. That would only happen to Cleary the art collector, not Cleary the frumpy
dyke. I could see myself reflected back in the window behind him, and a ball of fear and excitement down in the pit of my stomach tightened again.

The shuttle was full, and it closed its door and then lowered itself down to street level. We zoomed across the tarmac, past a row of huge planes, their butts sticking out from the building. It looked like a bunch of giant birds at a feeding trough. The bus came to a stop in front of one of the buildings and rose up again, pulled forward, and jerked a little before the door opened. My knees were shaky and my heart was racing, but my reflection looked as calm and bored as everyone around me. My garment bag’s strap was digging into my shoulder; the pad intended to keep that from happening was twisted and made it more uncomfortable than if it had not been there at all. But it gave me something to focus on.

I had been one of the last few to get on the bus, so I was near the front and one of the first to get off. I walked alongside the handsome young guy who had offered me his seat. He didn’t offer to take my bag and carry it for me. That would be funny, I thought. I walked along the same route and kept pace with the crowd. Henry and Bradley were on another bus or busses; they had been seated much farther back in the plane, and there had been three busses waiting to devour passengers disembarking. I felt my hip pocket. My passport and the Customs card I had filled out were there; everyone else had theirs in their hands. I pulled them out and gripped my keys to the kingdom tightly.

We finally came out into a big area full of other passengers, maybe a couple of planeloads, where everyone was splitting up and heading for different lines. Instead of cashiers, like in a grocery store, these lines terminated at a series of booths, each one fitted with a Customs agent. I picked the line where a bunch of twentysomethings would be right in front of me. If they’d had skateboards flung over their shoulders, it would have matched their outfits and messy grunge hair. The guy directly in front of me had an Amsterdam T-shirt.

Our line crept forward each time I heard the
whomp
of the passports
being stamped. The crowd of grungy youngsters in front of me was quiet until one of the guys turned around and said something to one of the girls. He spoke Dutch. I looked at the passports everyone in my line held. They were burgundy.
Holy shit!
I was in the wrong fucking line.

I should have been in line with Americans. I scanned the ten other lines and saw passengers carrying blue passports and light blue Customs cards at the opposite end of the big lobby. I was not able to just hop out of my line and scoot right over. First, I had to negotiate my way back through the waiting people and their bags behind me. Each line was delineated by a barrier, like at a movie theater. I could go under it, were it not for the Customs agents floating around the lobby. Henry had told me that these ones watch for any irregularities, and they randomly pick folks out for a more thorough questioning.

If I left the line where I was, I would pop right into the line of sight of one lady who was standing with her arms crossed, legs parted, blankly staring down all the foreign passengers. I was not supposed to attract attention to myself in any way.
What would Cleary the art snob do in a situation like this?
I asked myself. She would hop the fucking line, the hell with the barrier. I slid under it and stood back up. I had caught the Customs agent’s attention. I held up my blue passport, smiled at her, and shook my head, like
Look at me, the big dummy in the wrong line
. Her blank expression cracked, and she smiled and started walking. I turned and walked toward the correct lines, hoping like hell that when I turned around, it was not toward me she had started to move. I picked the shortest line and turned around.
Fuck
.

She was standing up by the booth, waving for me to come to her. I smiled, pointed at myself, like
What? Me?
She nodded, still smiling, and I walked forward. In movies, this is when the hallway stretches out and the star can’t seem to reach the end of it. In reality, I was standing in her face in a flash. She motioned for me to head to the booth, turned to the agent in the booth, and said, “She’s been over in international.” She made a funny face at me, like an exaggerated
Oops
. The agent waved me on up to the spot everyone was waiting for, and she walked away.