Searching for Tina Turner (35 page)

Their amusement mingles with the conversations around them and, to Lena, it feels precious. She takes Randall’s hand. “I’m
right here. That woman is, too, but not in the same way. I’ve slept with someone else who tells me he loves me, and I’m trying
hard to get you out of my head.”

Randall jerks at Lena’s pronouncement and squirms in his chair. Surprise shows in his eyes, his flared nostrils. He raises
his open palms no more than an inch from the table. She knows that move: touché, he has done the same. Can they be born-again
virgins a second time around?

“Now you sit here and tell me… what? You miss me? I have been through hell on a slow, fucking roller coaster.” Her words are
unhurried and deliberate, and she knows the answer no longer matters because having the strength to say them is enough. “Why
wasn’t our love good enough two months ago, eight months ago, to make it through the tough time?” She raps her fingers on
the table and waits for the answer to the question that has disturbed her dreams on countless nights when she sat in her apartment
trying to understand the loneliness, when she made love with Harmon.

Randall leans close to Lena and lets their proximity, their old attraction, take over. She releases into him, smells him.
Cinnamon and pepper. It floods. The longing, the heart-to-stomach-to-toes tingle. This is earnest Randall, sexy Randall. She
feels the familiar: fine hairs on the nape of his neck, his lips, the urgency of his tongue, his taste. Home.

“Other couples do it, Randall. They lose children, survive disease, infidelity, and they stay together. Their love was strong
enough and, at one time, I believed ours was, too.”

He releases Lena and hands her a box from his pocket. Cartier is written across the top. Inside a jeweled replica of the Eiffel
Tower studded with stones the color of the French flag—blue, white, red—hangs from a platinum link bracelet.

Lena and Randall first visited Paris before they became big spenders, before Kendrick was conceived. They ate ham-and-cheese
sandwiches from vendors on the streets, walked to avoid outrageous taxi fares, waited for the free days at museums so they
could visit as many as they wanted. Queasy about their mutual dislike of heights, but determined to conquer their fear, they
rode the elevator to the top of the world-famous landmark on their last night in Paris. Lena gave a box to Randall that night.
Inside perched on a sateen cushion was a miniature replica of the tower, with a diamond chip on its top. It was the kind of
gift young lovers shared on a first trip to Paris. He was to keep the inexpensive souvenir, a reminder of how their future
would flourish and her promise to buy him a real one from Cartier someday.

He smiles, and his eyes crinkle with the mischievous look that made her love him the first time she saw him. The look that
disappeared when he sat opposite her during mediation. “Some of our best loving happens after we argue.”

Lena wipes her red lipstick from Randall’s lips. “Are you ready for me to start my business? For me to devote as much time
to me, to my photography, as I do to you?”

“Walk with me. Come back to the hotel with me. Let’s see what happens.”

P
aris is a twenty-four-hour city. Troubadours, all night Rollerblade marathons, museum walks. Something goes on in the streets,
the parks, the bridges all of the time. This is what Lena thinks as she walks back to her hotel. She feels alive, like the
city. The Seine is quiet; the
Bateaux-Mouches
, docked in their slips, await the morning crowd of tourists. She squints at the Eiffel Tower on her wrist and the top of
the real one. A rainbow of colors shimmers before her.

At the hotel, the doorman greets Lena without question but holds the door open, expecting, she imagines, Harmon not far behind.
Lena smiles at Gaston. He is used to seeing her with Harmon at this late hour but is discreet enough not to inquire. This
is Paris. “Madame Harrison, I would have sent a cab for you, if you had called, et voila! You would have not had to walk.”

The bolt on the door clicks heavily when Lena turns the old-fashioned key in it. The room lights are on. Harmon sits in bed,
in his lap the copy of
Othello
they found at the English bookstore under the arcade on the rue de Rivoli.

“‘I do perceive here a divided duty,’” he reads.

The line is exquisitely matched to this moment, and Lena wonders if this is coincidence, fate, or plan. She wonders if Harmon
has been up all night long in search of the perfect retort for her long absence.

His eyes trace her body from head to toe. They search her eyes and her clothes for the answer to what she has done.

“Did you sleep with him?” The contentious tone is still strong.

“I was tempted, but I didn’t.”

“Was that because of me, or didn’t he try hard enough?”

“No, Harmon. It was because of me.” She climbs onto the bed beside him, resists nestling into his side until he has said all
that he has to say.

“Then where have you been?”

“I needed to think, and the bartender at the Crillon was quite accommodating. I guess it was that expensive champagne I kept
ordering.”

The look on Harmon’s face is harsh. His clothes are messy, the room smells of brandy, but Lena sees no trace of intoxication.
He seems, she thinks, considering his threats before she left, quite sober. Harmon sniffs at Lena’s clothes and hair. Lena
lets him, snuggles close to him, disappointed that he doesn’t believe her.

“I never thought much about fate before our conversations. Now, you’ve got me thinking about it all of the time. I sat in
that hotel bar and did nothing but think about it. But not for the reasons you believe. I believe that you and Randall are
my tests. Brick walls fate has presented to see if I’m truly ready for the life I’ve been talking about.”

“Either I’m a saint or I have an incredibly high tolerance for bullshit—I guess that’s why I’m a litigator.” The tension in
the room, on the bed, breaks when Harmon grins and settles back into his pillow. “What are you trying to say?”

“What I couldn’t say to him.” Lena fluffs her pillow and sits up straight in the bed, using the time to collect her thoughts,
like Randall did earlier this evening. Some habits are hard to break. Now her clothes are rumpled in the way Harmon thought
they might be when she walked through the door. “I love you. And, I love Randall. It might’ve been different if I had waited
to leave him when I didn’t love him anymore, but I wasn’t sure then, and I’m not even sure now that that will ever happen.
When I was married, more toward the end than the beginning”—her right hand drifts to her ring finger, and she lets it rest
there—“I fell into the habit of doing whatever my husband wanted.”

“I’m not him.”

“I have a point to make. I loved unconditionally with little or no regard for my own needs.” Lena slumps into the bed. Like
Lulu did John Henry, she thinks, without the same result. “That was my choice. You understand?”

“That’s not who you are now. Not who you used to be way back then, as a matter of fact. You were anything but that.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you acknowledge
that
, way back when?”

“You made your mistakes. I made mine. The difference between the two of us is that I can forgive mine—even learn from them—and
you can’t seem to.”

She curses him in her head for knowing her truth. If these days have meant nothing more than her gaining her own understanding,
she is thankful. Through the window, and between buildings beyond, the hint of the soon-to-rise sun shines through and highlights
the last of the double-decker boats on the Seine. She’s always wanted to ride one of those and still has not. How many bridges
cross that wide river, she wonders.

“There was a point when I wasn’t sure I ever would find me. I sat on my bed and counted out the pills…”

Harmon scoots to Lena’s side of the bed. Her body softens in his arms. When Harmon tightens his grip, she struggles to push
him away, and he lets her beat her anger into his shoulders and chest.

“I’m going back to Nice.”

Lena is not surprised at his reaction, but the speed at which Harmon jumps out of the bed is unexpected. “Hold on, baby. Bruce
pulled strings to make reservations for dinner tonight. We can go tomorrow. I’ll make the changes for us.”

“It’s done. I’m taking the train.” Lena figures it comes naturally to men—pursuing their agendas and expecting women, this
woman, to follow. Walking from the bed to the dresser, she collects her clothes. Urgency presses Lena, and she wants to march
with the rhythm, boogie to its tune. Do whatever it takes to keep moving forward. The drawers rattle when they roll shut.
Clothes spill out of her hands and onto the floor.

“I have to finish what I started.” She takes her suitcase out of the closet, empties the drawers of the antique armoire. She
stuffs pants, dresses, underwear, and three days’ worth of the toiletries Lulu is expecting into the pockets and main compartment.

“And what about us?” If Randall had asked that same question, not tonight, but that rainy night they both seemed on the verge
of tears, it might have been him in front of her; now not even his ghost stands off to the side. “Is he going with you?”

“I’m doing this on my own.” She chuckles softly. “You’ve jinxed us both with your theories. It’s not over between us, Harmon
Francis. But I can’t let you entice me back into the same cocoon I just wiggled my way out of.”

Harmon steps between Lena and her suitcase. She has forgotten how his thick eyebrows almost meet in the center of his forehead
when he frowns. In five steps she is on the opposite side of the room, gazing past the terrace to the rooftops and the Paris
skyline she has come to love. Arms folded across her chest, her body language the only signal she feels can convince Harmon;
a period to further conversation. Harmon has spent a fortune on this decadent suite. She doesn’t want to feel obligated by
his generosity or his attention. Paris has distracted her: this affair, the food, the melodious language, the endless waves
on the Seine, the quaint streets, and even the Eiffel Tower peaking now in the distance above the tiled roofs. She doesn’t
want to feel obligated by anyone’s love.

“Let me love you, Lena.” He whispers his words, softly, seductively, and joins her on the other side of the room. Harmon doles
his kisses lightly over her eyes, her forehead, her lips.

“
That
, you can do. But I’m still going. Alone.”

She lets him press against her. Lets him carry her to the bed, lets him take off her clothes, wrap himself around her, move
with her, pull her with him, suck her lick her love her, until they are one motion of loving, until she can do nothing else
but bury her head in his shoulder to muffle her cry.

T
he white man sitting across from Lena reminds her of Randall. Not his height or skin color or tone of voice, but his mannerisms.
The way his hands slice the air and punctuate his words, how his eyes dart from the window to the train’s passengers to her
face—seeing, constantly processing. The way he speaks to his teenage son beside him— lecture mixed with love.

Pulling her cell phone from her purse, Lena notices that it is still on. Another text message from Randall tells her that
he is delaying his return to the States while she changes hotels. A year ago, eight months ago, she would have been in awe
of his confidence, his presumption.
Thanks for the bracelet,
she texts back. It would have been better to tell him in person, she thinks. Thinks again of all of those months he would
not take her calls, communicated with her by email and through his lawyer. And now he is as eager, as impatient for her response
as he had been when he first proposed. She types awkwardly on the phone’s mini-keyboard—thinks if she had them she would send
the lyrics from “Silent Wings” so that he would understand:
Good luck, Randall. I always knew you had it in you.

f   f   f

The train sways from side to side and creates rolling waves of nausea in Lena’s stomach. She opted for the long, leisurely
ride back to Nice to clear her head and refocus, maybe even the possibility of jumping off along the way for photographs before
the train zips off to its next stop. She expected a constant and soothing clickety-clacking motion, a steadiness that would
allow her to read. Instead, she catnaps while a different kind of France speeds past her window. Gone are the rows and rows
of buildings, museums, and monuments to ancient heroes. Oleander. Laurier-rose is everywhere. It looks like Napa Valley wine
country. Brown hills, green fields, grapevines, and rose bushes hide their secrets. Modern skyline turns rustic. Châteaus
sprinkled here and there, mysterious steeples, flagstone walls, and empty pastures.

Lena raises her camera to the window and snaps pictures of the passing countryside.

“Are you a photographer?” It is the son who speaks, not the father. This young man’s perfect English grounds her to the States,
to Oakland, and reminds her of her own son. It makes her feel like Kendrick is near. It makes her know how much she misses
him, misses Camille.

“I’m thinking that’s what I want to be when I grow up.” She pushes at her hair, her gray roots more prominent than they had
been when she started her trip. “Sounds funny, coming from a mature woman, doesn’t it?” She wants her words to make her seem
soft. Young.

“The only thing funny is that you don’t think you’re grown up.”

“What are you? Nineteen?” She doesn’t feel any wiser than the youngster in front of her. “At nineteen you think you’re grown.
At my age you don’t want to be grown up anymore.”

Eyes still on the passing scenery, the father leans forward in a slight bow of unspoken agreement. The smile the teenager
gives to Lena seems to say he understands and that all adults say the same thing. The seats are arranged in groupings of four,
two seats facing each other, so Lena can’t avoid his eyes.

“Where are you going?”