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Rudee said it was time for me to see a bit of Paris, even if it was raining. I persuaded him to drop me off at the student residence so I could check in and suggested we meet at the Pont Neuf taxi stand. This time the sidewalk was empty, so I waited until my group emerged with Penelope in the lead. She was wearing a Coco Chanel–inspired blue-and-white striped top and white capris, along with a severely pouty expression.
“Ah, ma chère Mac, we meet again.”
“Penelope, I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on. I’ll have to tell you later.”
“I assume this means you’d like to be excused from our visit to La Tour Eiffel, which will be followed by tea and macaroons at Ladurée,” she responded petulantly.
I shrugged sheepishly.
“Okay,” she said, assuming a take-charge tone, “take your shoe off and rub your ankle. Quickly, s’il vous plait.”
Mademoiselle Lesage swept into the street behind my classmates, who eyed me suspiciously. “Mac, Penelope told me about your parachuting accident in California.”
“Oh, it’s just a little flare-up, Mademoiselle Lesage. I’m sure with rest, it’ll be fine.”
“But today we are to climb the one thousand six hundred and sixty-five steps of the Eiffel Tower, just as Gustav Eiffel, its creator, did as he ascended to his office with its view of the exquisite Champs des Mars and the neoclassical Trocadero across the Seine....”
I got to my feet unsteadily. “I suppose I’ll unfortunately have to miss today’s activities.”
Penelope mimed playing a violin behind Mademoiselle Lesage, and the others stifled giggles. I hobbled into the lobby and checked out the front page of Le Devoir, which featured a shot of the domed church surrounded by police cars.
In my spotless room with the bed still made, I quickly changed clothes, then headed for the Pont Neuf, grabbing baguettes and brie for Rudee and myself on the way.
We drove up the hill to Montmartre and sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur church, looking over the magnificent city while an organ grinder pumped furiously on an ancient wooden box and a monkey dressed as a gendarme dashed through the crowd striking poses and collecting contributions in his little policeman’s hat. Rudee dropped in a handful of change, then we headed down into the city.
“The financial section,” said Rudee. “The wheelers and stealers,” he added as we passed men and women in suits walking faster than anyone I’d seen yet in Paris. Caressing their portable phones like hand warmers, lugging shiny briefcases, eating hunks of gooey pastry as they walked, they seemed careful not to look at each other.
It was then that we noticed a big commotion at the Place St. Augustin. A jovial crowd was forming around a truck labelled “Fruits Fantastique” that had driven right into a sign painter’s ladder. The driver and the painter were nose to nose. The driver was claiming that he hadn’t seen the traffic light at all, never mind the colour. There were oranges, kiwis, and lichees covered in red paint rolling all over the square being squished by the cars trying to avoid the scene. The flics, as Rudee called the police, seemed to agree with the truck driver that the light was too hard to see and were preparing to let him go. This upset the sign painter so much that he climbed up the traffic pole and painted all three lights red as the crowd cheered him from below. When he climbed down, they carried him off on their shoulders to a bar down the street while the cars in the Place St. Augustin got more and more tangled. We sat on the hood of Rudee’s cab and watched it all unfold.
“Rudee, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said, laughing at the cars slipping and sliding, splashing fruit juice and red paint on the business people in their perfect suits.
Rudee nodded. “Oui, ridiculous, Mac, but to me it also is one more sign of something strange with the light in Paris. It’s getting darker all the time.” I saw what he meant. “I hope this traffic clears up soon. We’ve got to get you to Sashay’s.”
On the way we passed a tractor-trailer full of sand for a fake beach at the Tuileries Gardens pond, another “Lighten Up” project. A picture of a grinning Luc Fiat in his white suit filled the side of the truck.
“Hey, Rudee, look, a cup of California.”
“Excusez-moi, Miss Mac?”
“Looks like Luc Fiat’s been busy again,” I said, pointing at the moving beach.
“We can use all the warm thoughts we can get right now, little one. It only shines on the sunny side of the street, you know,” Rudee replied.
His odd expressions sometimes made it hard to respond, although I was starting to understand him better and kind of liked the Rudeeisms. Fiat’s work, however, held a dark side for me. “Unless his bodyguards are keeping it from shining.” I explained by telling him what I’d seen the day of the rally on the Champs Élysées.
“You’re too suspicious,” he laughed and handed me a tiny box wrapped in silver. “Give this to Sashay for me, will you? I’ll be back in an hour, and I hope I will still recognize your little Yankee self.”
He deposited me on the sidewalk outside Sashay’s place and drove off.
Ten
I rang the bell at the side door and heard it echo from above. The door clicked open, so I started upstairs. The same foggy music that I’d heard in Rudee’s cab oozed down the hallway on a fragrant cinnamon and lavender breeze. Sashay welcomed me to her “chambers,” as she called her apartment, into a room that to me resembled a Christmas tree, without the tree. The room was lit by red candles. The light flickered off of a series of crystal ornaments hung at different lengths from a ceiling that was covered in waves of lacy white material that resembled frosting.
“Please be at home, little one,” she said, indicating a velvet chair as she sat in its identical twin. It was my first real look at Sashay D’Or. She wore a serene expression with quietly intense eyes. Her face, with its beautiful and timeless porcelain features, was topped with a golden hairdo that had that whipped, baked, and glazed look of pure confection. A permanent pout suggested a “pooh pooh” to all in sight. She sighed as she spoke, and her narrow hands fanned and fussed through the lavender cloud around her.
“Rudee asked me to give this to you.” I handed her the gift.
She took the tiny box with an even tinier smile and sighed. “Rudee, forever the same,” as she opened it, revealing a pin in the shape of a silver peacock with its feathers about to unfold, hinting at the rainbow of colours to follow. “Ah, so elegant. He knew one of mine broke.”
She paused and arched a painted lid at me. “You know about Rudee and me, I suppose.” I nodded but wasn’t sure I knew anything, really.
“It was ... l’amour at first, as it always is; and then it just was, oh ... je ne sais quoi.” At this point I felt like I knew even less than before. “Rudee was, and still is, the most loyal man I know. He fought for me. He protected me and he made me crazy. Maybe I’m not meant for love.”
Her voice trailed off, a mixture of regret and resignation, then
