A Bouquet of Rue Page 7

  “So, you believe you are the American Tocqueville come to France?” the writer said, patronizing in his tone.

  “Through a different medium and in a different time, we’ll see.” I turned to Jimmy. “Maybe next I’ll make a film about French talk shows. They look like talk shows around the globe, but oh-là, the content and tone are yours alone. Such passion for debate.”

  “I look forward to being stripped bare before your camera.” Jimmy looked into my eyes. “You have a charming accent.”

  I laughed. “Every time I hear that, I wonder if it’s code for, chérie, you’re not one of us, are you?”

  Behind me I heard a guffaw and a snort. Jimmy reached for my hand, kissed it, and still holding it turned to the cameras and said good night. The band played, the monitors faded, I reclaimed my hand, and we were finished. The audience began to file out, the soundman retrieved our mics, there were handshakes and les bises all around, and the writer suggested we all go out for drinks. I declined and said my good-byes. Diane was waiting for me when I walked off; she had been watching from the sidelines.

  “Okay?” I asked her.

  “Oui. Bon.” She leaned in for les bises. “You’ll survive here, I am confident. Guido told me to tell you that you will find him exactly where you left him. Bruno will show you the way back.”

  Along the way, Bruno was stiff with me, more formal than anyone had been all day. Was this his manner, or was he still embarrassed about the mailbox gaffe? Maybe he thought I would be angry and simply had his guard up. I made a mental note to bring him a cookie sometime.

  “I watched you,” Guido said when he noticed I had taken the seat beside him at the video switcher console.

  “How do you think it went?” I asked.

  “You looked like you were holding your own, but I have no idea what anyone was saying. Were they picking on you?”

  “No. No more than they picked on each other. It’s like a sport.”

  “The host—Jimmy?—was he coming on to you?”

  “In a token way. Some habits are hard to break.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  “You having fun with the toys?” I asked, watching him play with the video feed controls.

  “The system is interesting. Some of the tech here is way ahead of ours, but some of it we dumped during the Dark Ages of analog. The interface might be tricky to navigate, but I think I have things under control. Now, you want to tell me why you’re so interested in that missing girl?”

  “Just being nosy, that’s all,” I said. “Two things bother me, though. First, what the girl told her friend sounded like she intended to get home by midnight, her curfew. But she never got home. Next, I met the friend, Ahmad Nabi, who was the last person known to have seen Ophelia. Nabi seems like a good kid. He’s only fifteen, a refugee, went through hell getting here, now he’s being put through hell at school. I think the footage will help him.”

  “Only two things?” Guido turned away from the console to watch me closely.

  “Okay, three,” I said. “According to Nabi, the kids had come from a rehearsal at the high school. You can see that Nabi has his violin case on his back and he carried her cello. When he hands Ophelia the cello, she almost disappears behind it.”

  “Cellos are big,” he said. “She isn’t.”

  “Exactly. She couldn’t carry that instrument very far, so I’m wondering if she planned to meet someone somewhere very nearby. Or someone was picking her up. The question is, who?”

  “That third one is a poser.” After a pause, he said, “You know where to find me when the fourth thing occurs to you. The one that gets us up to our necks in something.”

  “You already know what it is, my friend. What did she need to talk over with this mystery third person?”

  “She’s fifteen?”

  “She’s fifteen.” I looked up at the row of clocks on the wall, time zones around the globe, found Paris, and said, “I’m going home now. What are your plans?”

  He told me he was going out with his downstairs neighbor, Barry Griffith, an affable Francophone Canadian who had enrolled Guido with a French language tutor and was himself tutoring Guido on local restaurants and nightlife. When I said good night, he was humming “Back in the Saddle Again.” I made my way up through the caracole of the studio’s underground hallways and back out into the daylight. It occurred to me as I rushed to catch the next train to Vaucresson that I hadn’t stopped to wash off the television face.

  Already, the late May days were long. At five-thirty, when I got off the train, the sky was still bright. The air was clear and crisp after a day of rain and it felt wonderful to be out after an afternoon largely spent underground. I texted Jean-Paul and told him that I would walk home. He asked if I minded picking up some balsamic vinegar when I passed the shops. He was home already and had put the chicken in the oven for dinner, but he was out of the balsamic he needed for the sauce.

  As we texted, I studied the camera placements along the platform. When I reached the parking lot, I located the two cameras there, and stopped to figure out the path that Nabi and the girl had followed when they turned in off the street. They said good-bye near the low iron fence that separated the car park from the platform, and went separate ways, Nabi back the way he came, and the girl, who I assumed was Ophelia, off to the left and out of camera range. There was a break in the hedge along the parking lot at about the place where Ophelia became a ghost. I texted good-bye to Jean-Paul and walked through the hedge and out into a narrow alley that passed between a large old house and an optician’s shop. I continued down the alley until it ended at a main thoroughfare, a chocolatier on the left and a bakery on the right. Had Ophelia simply stopped in for a treat after concert practice? I checked at both shops and was told that they closed at seven on Friday, so no. At least, she hadn’t stopped there.

  My phone buzzed with a text. It was Jean-Paul: and some asparagus. I sent a heart emoji as response and went on to do my shopping.

  At the greengrocer, where I gathered the asparagus, carrots, shallots, and some arugula because it looked good, I overheard that the Fouchet girl’s boyfriend had been picked up by the police that morning. At the bakery, waiting in line to get a fresh baguette for dinner and brioche for breakfast, the woman in front of me told the woman behind me that the little Arab boy who had gone away with Ophelia was in school today. He was late, but he was there. The woman in front wondered if they should get parents together to speak with la directeur, the new high school principal—the previous directeur had suddenly gone on leave just last Friday—about the wisdom of letting the boy attend until someone got to the bottom of things. At that remark, I couldn’t help myself. I butted in.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I happen to know that the boy, Ahmad Nabi, did not go away with Ophelia on Friday. And he wasn’t missing. He was in Arras all weekend selling sausages at the farmers’ market. It’s natural that everyone in town is upset about Ophelia, but I caution that you would make a terrible mistake if you used that boy as a scapegoat. The child has been traumatized enough already. And another thing: While he is a Muslim, he is not an Arab.”

  By then I was shaking. The woman in front seemed to cower away from me, but the woman behind glared.

  “I don’t know who you are,” she said.

  “Let me introduce myself. I am Margot Eugénie Louise-Marie Duchamps Flint.” I reached out a hand to her. As a reflex, she took it, but I think I scared her. I said, “I don’t know who you are.”

  “Fabienne Simon. Charmed to meet you, Madame—” She shrugged; too many names in that string.

  “Maggie,” I said after taking a deep breath. I managed to smile. “Just call me Maggie. Sorry if I sounded fierce, but I’ve met the boy, Ahmad Nabi. He’s been through so much tragedy in his short life that I feel protective. I’m a parent, I understand your concern. But Nabi is no threat.”

  The woman in front spoke over her shoulder. “He plays the violin, you know.” />
  “So I hear.”

  “Ophelia plays the cello,” Fabienne said behind me. “She gave up riding, over her father’s objections, because it ruined her hands. She’s an interesting girl.” A euphemism for wild thing?

  And so the conversation went until it was my turn at the counter. I ran into Fabienne Simon again at the grocery, where we had a conversation about balsamic vinegars. She pointed out the one she used for cooking, and I, knowing nothing about balsamic vinegars, or much at all about cooking, put that one into my basket. During the conversation I learned that she and her husband lived down the street from us and had two children, a boy in middle school—the collège—and a girl in high school—the lycée. Monsieur Simon worked in a bank and Fabienne was a notaire, a family attorney, with a local practice so she could be on call for her children. I told her my daughter was in her third year at UCLA and gave her the short version of what I do—I work in television. She knew Jean-Paul, and of course had been on several parent committees with Marian.

  “Such a shame,” she said. She lived two doors beyond Holly and Kevin Porter, so we walked home together. “To die so suddenly—a brain aneurysm—and so young. A shock for everyone.” Then she turned to me and smiled. “How lovely it is that Jean-Paul has found you. A man like Jean-Paul should not go through life alone. Good luck to you.”

  I thanked her, and then I brought up Ophelia. “Does your daughter know Ophelia well?”

  “Of course, at least in the sense that they’ve been in school together all the way through. They were never best friends, but they are friendly. As kids get older they form into cliques.” She chuckled. “Like their parents, yes? My daughter is an athlete—tennis—and there she finds her closest friends. Ophelia was with the music crowd, though I have the sense that she has always been a bit of a loner. A quiet girl, very bright. Yet fierce in her way.”

  “Fierce?”

  She gave me the side eye with a wry smile. “You called us out for gossiping earlier.”

  “I was simply correcting the story,” I said.

  “And now you’re curious.”

  “I confess,” I said. “Very curious. Everyone is talking about Ophelia, but I know nothing about her. The police think she’s run away. I’m curious about what she might run away from.”

  “Have you met Yvan and Claire?”

  “The parents?”

  She nodded.

  “I haven’t.”

  “Next time you hear thunder and lightning, look down the street before you look to the sky.”

  We had reached the end of my driveway. Because it was true, I said, “Thunder and lightning terrify me.”

  “So, you understand.”

  We parted at the end of my driveway. Both of us had our hands full, so we leaned in to touch cheeks and kiss the air, a casual exchange of les bises.

  “À bientôt,” I said.

  “Ciao,” she answered, raising a shopping bag in a sort of wave. “Regards to Jean-Paul. And welcome to you.”

  When I opened the front door I heard people talking. I walked into the salon and found Jean-Paul and an older woman, a beautiful older woman, deep in conversation as they looked into my office. Not wanting to interrupt, I continued toward the kitchen to put the shopping away. But Jean-Paul spotted me.

  “Maggie,” he said, holding out an arm to me. “Here you are. Good. I want you to meet someone.”

  The woman eyed me critically as I crossed the salon.

  “Caroline, this is Maggie,” he said, slipping his arm around my waist. “Maggie, Caroline is Marian’s mother.”

  I set the shopping bags on the floor and offered her my hand. “Lovely to meet you.”

  “And you,” she said with a very polite little smile, giving my hand the gentlest of squeezes. Even for a French woman she was perfectly turned out, but without appearing to have fussed at all. A silk skirt, a knit top that draped just so, an artfully knotted scarf at her neck, shiny light brown hair that fell loosely two inches below her ears. On my very best day, and this was not one of them, I could never pull off that effortless chic. Suddenly, I was aware that I still wore full television war paint.

  “Maggie, I called Caroline to ask if she wanted any of this furniture.”

  She looked again at the chaotic state of the office with an expression that was equal parts distaste and sadness. “I was just saying to Jean-Paul that these things meant so much to Marian and her father.” She dipped her chin to look up at me. “Everything is the finest quality and perfectly functional. If you’re to work at home, Maggie, I don’t see the issue over keeping the room as it was.”

  I turned to Jean-Paul. “If you’ll excuse me, I think this is a family matter. I’ll put away the groceries.”

  “Please stay,” he said, looking into my eyes and smiling gently. “You’re right that this is a family matter. But, Maggie, you are family.” Then, still holding me close, he turned to address his former mother-in-law. “Caroline—Maman—I loved Marian very much. She will always have a place in my heart. I understand that you wish to preserve her memory in any way possible. However, this is a house, just a house, and not a mausoleum. There is no logical reason to preserve this room as a shrine when, as you said, Maggie will be doing some of her work at home and will need the room arranged in a way that is practical for her.”

  Caroline squared her shoulders. “But what will Roland say?”

  “I’m sure my father-in-law will have a great deal to say. He always does. That’s why I am offering to return his things. He can do anything he wants with them.”

  A sly smile crept across her face as she took another look at the jumble of furniture in the middle of the room. “Perhaps a bonfire.”

  Jean-Paul laughed, and so did she.

  “Roland has terrible taste,” she said.

  “Do you want me to speak with him?” Jean-Paul asked.

  “No, chéri, but thank you for offering. A bully shouldn’t always get his way.”

  She declined our offer of dinner, saying she and Roland had plans with friends. “On Tuesdays we always meet at his golf club. The food is ordinary, but it has become a tradition, so Roland insists we go. And now, I’m off. Maggie, I am happy to meet you at last. I confess I have been curious. Dom has assured me that he approves, and if you make our Jean-Paul happy, then I say welcome, ma chérie.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said, touched by her words because the situation, a new woman taking her daughter’s place, had to be difficult for her. She leaned in to give me les bises, offered her cheeks to Jean-Paul, and led us to the door.

  “I’ll arrange for Roland’s things to be picked up tomorrow,” she said, turning as she stepped over the threshold. “Shall I call Ari about the time?”

  “That would be best,” Jean-Paul said. “What will you do with it?”

  “Put it into storage with the other junk Roland can’t part with. I doubt he even remembers what’s there.” With a last wave, she turned and walked to her car.

  After Jean-Paul shut the door behind her, I said, “Hi, honey, I’m home.” And received a proper greeting before he retrieved the shopping and carried it to the kitchen.

  “The chicken smells wonderful,” I said, following him. “How long until we eat?”

  “Are you starving?” he said, giving the balsamic vinegar an appreciative nod.

  “I didn’t know I was until I walked in and smelled that chicken. But no hurry, really. Right now I’m going to go up and wash this TV goo off my face and then I have something I would like you to take a look at.”

  “Sounds mysterious.”

  “It is, actually.” I left him to him to work on his balsamic reduction—he is a far better cook than I—and went upstairs to wash and change. When I came back down with my laptop under my arm, the chicken was out of the oven, resting atop the stove while Jean-Paul blanched the fresh asparagus I bought on the way home that afternoon. He wisely declined my offer to help, handed me a glass of wine and suggested that I relax at the ta
ble and tell him about my day. I filled him in on the bits we hadn’t already spoken about and asked about his day. Meetings, he said. Nothing interesting, just more squabbling about trade policy. Though with Jean-Paul, it was entirely possible that the policy they squabbled about had something to do with swapping spies or nuclear submarines rather than cheese or cars. He, of course, would never say.

  While we talked, I booted my laptop and found the file Zed had put into cloud storage for me. When I had the close-up still of Nabi and the girl, I turned the computer screen to face Jean-Paul.

  “Is this Ophelia?” I asked.

  Wiping his hands on a kitchen towel, he came over for a look. With a shrug, he said, “Could be. There is a general resemblance, but the last time I saw Ophelia she was just twelve, still a girl. A blonde. This is a dark-haired young woman. Dom should be home anytime now. He’ll know.”

  I downloaded the video clip and ran it in real time.

  “CCTV?” he said. “How did you get this?”

  “Goofing around with the studio’s live feeds. I asked one of the engineers to pull up Friday night’s CCTV at the train station. Why? Is that a problem?”

  “No. It isn’t classified. People in England watch live CCTV feeds at home all the time; neighborhood vigilance is the idea. But over here, there is no general access. Little interest in it, for that matter.” He shrugged again, just one shoulder, and went back to his asparagus. “Ari would probably like to see that clip. It does appear to support what Nabi told us. After dinner, I’ll give him a call.”

  To be useful, I set the table. Dom came in through the garage, a force of energy something like a sudden stiff breeze wafting through the room.

  “Papa, Maggie, ça va?”

  “Dom, have a look at what Maggie found,” Jean-Paul said, pausing before he dropped the asparagus into a sauté pan along with garlic and shallots. I put the still back up and turned the computer toward Dom. “Is that Ophelia Fouchet with Nabi?”