The Paris Key (20 page)

“You know the . . .
Comment dit-on
? The secret to bureaucracy here in France? Never give up. Do not listen when they say
non
; just keep appearing until they get tired and give you your papers.”

Genevieve laughed.

“I am not making joke,” said Sylviane. “So you really want to stay here in Paris? Forever?”

“Maybe.”

Sylviane studied her for a long moment; then her eyes flickered down to her ring finger.

“You are not married?”

Genevieve opened her mouth to say,
No, I'm not married,
but couldn't quite get the words out. She managed an awkward little squeak, an uttering between an “eh” and an “mmm,” but that was about it.

“
Désolée
. Sorry.” Sylviane waved a delicate hand in the air. Her nails were cut short, manicured, buffed. “Maybe you and me trade places, eh? You stay here—I go California. Tell me, you see the movie stars?”

“Not really. I saw Tom Hanks in passing once, but that's about it. I live in the northern part of the state, nowhere near LA.”

She looked disappointed. Explaining to Europeans that Hollywood was only a small section of LA—and a much smaller portion of the whole state—was invariably a letdown to them.

“It's a really big state,” Genevieve said. “I think almost as big as all of France.”

Now skepticism filled Sylviane's gray eyes. “I don't think this is so. You exaggerate.”

“Maybe. I'm not very good at geography. But I do know it takes about six hours to drive from my house to LA, and that's only about half the state.”

Sylviane's eyes widened slightly; she ducked her head and stuck her lower lip out in a way that conceded Genevieve might have been telling the truth. “That
is
a far way, then.”

Genevieve nodded and sipped her
pastis
. Now that the shock of the taste on her tongue had ceded to a luscious licorice glow, it was growing on her. She was starting to feel mellow, filled with a warm sense of well-being.

Sylviane was watching her carefully, smiling. “You like it, the
pastis
?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay, good! But be careful—it is very strong. More than it seems. Make you dance all night, on the boats on the Seine. So, did you see this movie called
Addicted to Love
? It has a Frenchman in it—oh, he makes me laugh! He says Frenchman in America is like Superman; he can do no wrong. Is this true?”

“Um . . . I don't know about Superman, but it's true that a lot of people like the French accent.”

“Like me? You think I would do well with my accent in America?”

Genevieve smiled. “I'm sure you would. They'd love you.”

“Or
French Kiss
—you see that one? They film it right here in Paris! Jacques Brel on the . . . what do you call this? The music.”

“The soundtrack. I love that movie.”

“
Moi aussi!
Me, too! Hey! We have a night to look at movies sometime?”

“I would like that very much.”

They exchanged numbers, and then Sylviane insisted on paying the bill.

“I have to go.” She rolled her eyes. “Dinner with my family. You stay here, finish. No hurry. You keep the table all night if you want; this is how we do in Paris. No hurry. But we will be together soon, Genevieve Martin,
serruriere extraordinaire
!”

They did the double-kiss good-bye, and Genevieve breathed in Sylviane's fresh-bread perfume.

Genevieve remained at the table, people watching, finally feeling at home and relaxed in a Parisian restaurant. So much so, in fact, that she decided to take Sylviane's advice and linger, and even ordered a dinner of
moules frites
, mussels with fries.

And wine to go with it.

O
nce again, Genevieve was awakened by the sound of the shop buzzer. She really needed to make up a sign, hang it on the door. She was
not
open for business.

In fact, yesterday's mail had included an official notice: It was bright pink and consisted of many pages. She had worked on decoding it for almost an hour with her dictionary at hand but still wasn't certain what it meant. All she knew for sure was that it didn't say,
Welcome to Paris! We need all the locksmiths we can get!

But license or no, Philippe was right: She couldn't leave her uncle's clients' projects half finished; no matter what happened, at the very least she needed to finish up with them. Uncle Dave would have wanted that.

Genevieve glanced at the calendar: This was the day Catharine was coming back to Paris. Could she be the one at the door? Wouldn't she come to the apartment door on the courtyard side? Or surely she kept a key to the place?

The buzzer rang again: loud and insistent. Genevieve finally surrendered, threw on yesterday's clothes, ran a comb through her hair, and went out to the shop. It was a woman named Anna, with a baby in a stroller. She spoke English well and explained that she was a neighbor, pointing to an apartment building down the street. She had known Dave; apparently he had spoken to everyone who would listen about his American niece.

“It's nice to meet you,” said Genevieve after the long introduction. “But I'm not actually a locksmith, and the shop's not open for business. . . .”

“Please, I must get new keys made. You won't believe my list of things to do today—if you could do this I would appreciate it! I must find a dress; tonight my husband and I have a babysitter. This is rare.”

The cutting machine sat on the counter, and there were plenty of blanks hanging on the twirling display. The machine was straightforward; Genevieve was pretty sure she remembered how to use it. The keys in the woman's hand looked like standard models, so if her uncle had the appropriate blanks, it would take her all of five minutes.

Anna took her whimpering baby out of the stroller and jostled him, bouncing foot to foot, side to side.

“Bien sûr,”
Genevieve said finally, holding her hand out, palm up, for the keys.
“Pourquoi pas?”

Of course, why not? She was already beginning to sound like Dave, Genevieve thought. He had always believed he was a popular installation in the neighborhood because Americans were well liked after the war, but Genevieve knew it was much more than that. After all, Americans had fallen out of favor many times over in the intervening decades. He was popular because he was a smiling, happy soul, glad (eager, even) to do favors for friends and neighbors and passersby. He had the kind of relationship with his neighbors (and his neighborhood) that Genevieve had never known; even when she was a child, on the farm, there was a palpable distance between the Martin family and their neighbors, most of whom were urban financiers who liked to think of the semirural locale as bucolic but who disliked the reality of animal smells and sounds and had urged the city council, more than once, to rezone the area to a livestock-free zone.

Genevieve offered the still-fretting child a set of keys to jangle. The young mother cast her a grateful smile. Anna's harried state made Genevieve wonder what it would be like to raise a baby in a city like Paris.

“You said you have a babysitter coming?” Genevieve said, making conversation as she picked out the appropriate blanks. These were new keys, with a common thickness and size.

“
Oui
, but it costs a fortune. My mother and father live in the countryside, near Bergerac. So I have no family here. This is why I must buy a dress, you see? I want the evening to be perfect. What do you call it, a date?”

“Yes. You're looking forward to an evening away from the baby, it sounds like.”

“Mostly I am looking forward to a good dinner. And you know the Parisians: If you want to bring a dog to a nice restaurant, it is no problem, but a child? This is impossible.”

“Is that true?”

“The
French
,” Anna, the Frenchwoman, said with a roll of her eyes. “Impossible.”

“I thought ‘
impossible' n'est pas français
,” Genevieve said with a smile as she moved toward the cutting machine. “You might want to cover your ears; this will be loud.”

But the baby seemed entranced by the loud whine of the saw. A few minutes later, Genevieve handed the new keys to Anna and explained that she couldn't take money for the job. The young mother offered some now-familiar advice as to how to deal with French bureaucracy.

The phone started ringing just as Genevieve was holding the door open for Anna and her baby, who was strapped back into the stroller. Genevieve locked the door of Under Lock and Key behind her, waved, then hurried into the rear apartment to catch the call on the sixth ring.

“'ello?” She
still
didn't know how to answer the phone in France.
Put that on the list.

“Genie.”

Jason.
Genevieve glanced up at the cuckoo clock, but of course its ornate hands were not showing the right time. Still, she knew there was a nine-hour time difference; he must be calling in the middle of the night.

“Hi,” she managed.

“So, how's Paris?” His voice had a chatty, genial quality, with that barely there looseness she knew came after a few drinks. Jason was one of those guys who never appeared particularly drunk, just jovial. She had learned early to take the car keys before he started in on a third drink, even if he seemed perfectly sober.

“It's . . . good. Great. Beautiful, of course.”

“Rainy?”

Like strangers on a train.
Worse, actually. With a stranger, at least, a person wouldn't feel awkward exchanging small talk about the weather. With a stranger Genevieve wouldn't feel ice crusting over her heart. With a stranger she wouldn't feel this nausea in the pit of her stomach at the very sound of his voice.

“Yes,” she answered. “But I found an umbrella in the closet.”

There was a long pause.

Yes, but I found an umbrella in the closet.
Genevieve cringed at the inanity of her own words. On the other side of the telephone line, probably stretched out in their bedroom, was the man she had held (how many nights?) in that big brass bed with the goose-down comforter. The man with whom she had exchanged vows at an informal ceremony at the farm: the barn strewn with garlands of flowers and a huge banquet table set up on the lawn; Nick had dressed up the goats with flower-and-laurel leis that they immediately ate off of one another, to everyone's amusement. On the other end of the telephone line was the man who had mourned with her when her father died . . .
but
, she reminded herself, feeling the ice hardening her heart, he was already with Quiana by then.

One of the cruelest cuts of infidelity was the shadow of doubt it cast backward, onto everything that came before. Was it all a lie? The time she and Jason had stubbornly packed a picnic and gone to the beach despite the chilly forecast, then huddled over a fire because neither would admit how cold they were, then wound up laughing and making love on the deserted stretch of sand? When they were painting the bedroom a butter yellow and Jason dabbed Genevieve's nose with paint and said he hoped it brought a sunny glow into each and every one of her days? When she leaned on his shoulder and cried for her father, told Jason about the silent, stoic man Jim was, how his lack of demonstrativeness sometimes drove her crazy and yet that he was a good father, one who never left her in doubt of his love . . . when she was telling Jason all of that, spilling her heart, opening her soul . . . was he thinking of another woman's lips? Of her smell, the sounds she made when he was inside her, the feeling of her moving beneath him?

“So, the flight was all right?” Jason continued.

“Yes, it was fine, thanks. Everything's fine. What's up?”

“I was just checking in. You said you would e-mail me when you got settled.”

“I don't have Internet set up yet. And no cell phone, either, so I'm a little cut off.”

Another pause. Genevieve knew he was thinking,
“She
wants
to be cut off.”
And he was right, she realized with something akin to surprise. She certainly hadn't been rushing to get connected. Obviously this couldn't go on forever; she had bills to pay online and people to contact. This was the modern world; as tempting as it was, she couldn't hide in her medieval-era Parisian village forever.

She cleared her throat. “As a matter of fact, one of the neighbors has offered to help me get Internet set up, so I should be online soon.”

“Oh good. That's great. I've tried calling this number before, but it just rang and rang; there was no voice mail.”

“Things are a little different here—it's kind of like the 1950s. Only better dressed and beset by ennui.”

He chuckled. Genevieve always could make him laugh.

“In the meantime,” she continued, “this is the best way to reach me. And you have the street address, right?”

“Are you suggesting I write you a letter on paper?”

“I know, shocking, right? But you know me, I'm an old-fashioned sort.”

“All right, I . . . I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Genevieve took a moment, trying to force down the lump in her throat. She didn't want him to hear it in her voice.
Remember the humiliation,
she thought, blowing a breath out of taut lips, trying to maintain her resolve. She wasn't herself with Jason; didn't know who she was, really, but she knew they hadn't been good together, even before Quiana sauntered onto the scene. Skinny, blond Quiana.

“I'm fine, Jason, thanks. How are you doing?”

“I'm . . . well, it's been rough. I don't want you to think this is easy for me. I know I screwed up, big-time.” She could just see him, ducking his head in an adorably vulnerable,
aw shucks, ma'am, didn't mean to trample your rosebush
kind of way. She heard the tinkle of ice in a glass: probably a scotch kind of night, single malt of course, aged eighteen years, “old enough to vote.”

“Okay, well, I really have to go. Thanks for calling. Sleep well,” Genevieve said in a rush, needing to get off the phone.

“G'night, Genie.”

•   •   •

G
enevieve needed a watch.

The last one she remembered owning had Tinker Bell on it, from a family trip to Disneyland when she was eight. Despite the fact that Genevieve enjoyed the
idea
of old-fashioned watches, the reality was that she had become accustomed to checking her cell phone for the time. But though she had brought the phone with her in case of emergency, the international rates were exorbitant, so she had simply left it turned off.

Part of her—out of touch, on vacation, no schedule—appreciated the novel sensation of rarely knowing exactly what the hour was, and it was good for her to practice her French by asking strangers for the time. But still.

Catharine kept telling her to take whatever she wanted, to use whatever she needed. So Genevieve went into Dave and Pasquale's bedroom and pulled open the top drawer of her uncle's highboy. In the jumble of loose change, miscellaneous receipts, yellowing letters, old combs, military medals, jewelry-sized boxes: There it was, the watch she remembered him wearing: big face and hands, aged brown leather strap.

An old man's watch. Far too large for her arm. Nonetheless she strapped it on. Even after she'd pulled the strap as tight as she could, it still spun around on her wrist. She loved it. It reminded her of Uncle Dave.

Genevieve was about to shut the drawer when she noticed the handwriting and return address on one of the letters:
Angela Mackenzie Martin,
2510 Apple Tree Lane, Petaluma, CA. USA.

It was written on the crinkly, tissue-thin blue paper that people used to use for airmail. Genevieve took it out, turned it over in her hands. The postal stamp was smudged, making the date illegible.

Now she
really
felt like she was snooping. Reading someone's mail was a step too far, wasn't it? On the other hand, both parties were deceased. It wasn't as if either of them would care.

Slowly, carefully—as though it might bite—she opened it.

Inside the envelope was a single piece of stationery. It made a crackling sound as she unfolded it. Three olive leaves fell onto the top of the bureau; probably from the small orchard of trees they had out behind the turkey shed. Angela always liked to send dried flowers or leaves in her letters.

Blue ink, her mother's handwriting. Only two words:

I'm sorry.

•   •   •

A
s Genevieve was making herself a cup of bad coffee (she would have to try the place Killian had showed her yesterday), she flung open the window. The air was cold but fresh. The rain-washed stones of the courtyard glimmered in the morning sun; geraniums bloomed pink and red, trailing from tiny balconies and window boxes. There were a few small tables and chairs where neighbors liked to take their morning coffee, and an old white bike—complete with flower-filled basket—leaned against a stone wall. Big painted Italian pots held fragrant herbs and small topiary manicured in the shapes of spirals and balls.