were wont to do, occasionally agreeing to pose, but demanding a fee and offering nothing of herself but her physical presence. Then one day, Mason was shopping for vegetables in the market at Les Halles and was in the process of paying the vendor when she heard a familiar voice behind her. “What are you doing? Do you not know this man is charging you three times what he would charge a French customer for that pathetic head of lettuce?”
Before Mason had time to answer, Lisette had attacked the vendor in a hand-waving tirade of French, snatched some coins from Mason’s hand, and exchanged them for the lettuce. “You need someone to take care of you,” she’d pronounced contemptuously.
Over the following weeks, their acquaintance entered a new stage. Not quite a friendship, but something more than the indifference Lisette had previously extended. Several times she dropped by with no warning and took Mason out shopping for food and clothes, and once she led her by the arm to the building’s concierge and told her in no uncertain terms that the American would no longer be paying such an inflated rent for her “miserable hovel.” Another time she gave Mason a ticket to the Cirque Fernando where she was performing. Mason had marveled at the ease, agility, and breathtaking charisma with which she’d flown through the air on her trapeze. But Lisette still didn’t give herself in real friendship. Mason assumed she never would. She kept most people at an emotional distance and reserved most of her affection for her dogs.
Several months later, however, Mason stopped by Lisette’s apartment on the Boulevard de Clichy, intending to borrow a cloisonné vase she’d given Lisette and wanted to use for a still life she was painting. Lisette was out of town, on a long tour with the traveling circus that was taking her all over France and into Italy for most of the summer, and couldn’t be reached. When she went to the concierge to ask admittance to Lisette’s rooms, she discovered that the old woman, a friend of Lisette’s, had passed away a week before. The building had been inherited by her son, a worthless brute whose unwanted advances Lisette had rebuffed time and again in no uncertain terms. In revenge, the new landlord was in the process of transporting her beloved ménage of dogs, which the late concierge had been caring for, to the Paris dog pound, where they would soon meet their demise.
“You can’t do that!” Mason insisted.
“I certainly can. She didn’t pay her rent in advance.”
“I’ll pay her rent,” Mason told him.
“It’s too late. I’ve rented her rooms to someone a little more appreciative, and those mongrels are on their way to the meat grinder.”
Mason raced to the pound and managed to rescue the seven animals just in time.
A month later, at the end of her summer tour, Lisette appeared at Mason’s door utterly distraught with tears streaming down her face. She’d been to her apartment where she’d been gleefully informed by the new landlord that her darling brood were long gone. After flying into the man in an attempt to scratch his eyes out, she’d gone to see Mason. “That beast sent my babies to their execution.”
Mason was about to reassure her when, behind them, there was a bark of recognition. A light came to Lisette’s eyes. She rushed past Mason into the room, dropped to her knees, and the seven dogs attacked her joyfully, jumping up on her, licking her face, as she screamed in delight. She kissed their faces, crying uncontrollably, and as she did, she noticed that they’d been freshly bathed and each had a bright red ribbon tied about its neck.
Slowly, Lisette disengaged herself and rose to look at Mason in bafflement. “You…You saved them!”
“Just in time. That bastard really had it in for you.”
“But you don’t even like dogs.”
Mason smiled. “I didn’t think so. I’ve never had one. But I’ve sure grown fond of these guys.”
“But…you kept them for a whole month. Walked them, fed them, bathed them…all that time and trouble…What made you do it?”
“I couldn’t very well let them die,” Mason told her. “They’re part of you.”
Lisette looked at her for several moments. Then she stooped and picked up a small Pekinese puppy and offered him to Mason. “Pour toi,” she said, for the first time using the familiar form of French, the “toi” reserved for family and friends.
Deeply touched, Mason realized there was no more precious gift Lisette could bestow. But she shook her head. “I couldn’t take Monsieur Fu. He’s your baby. Just let me visit him from time to time.”
Lisette hugged the puppy to her chest. She never said another word about what had happened. But from that moment on, she became that devoted best friend Mason had never had as a child. She knew, without having to question it, that come what may, Lisette Ladoux would always be there, loving her with the fierce devotion of a true sister.
So it was natural, in this extraordinary situation, that Mason would race to Lisette, knowing how she must have suffered on hearing the news of her “death.”
She used the last of her borrowed money to take an omnibus to the Cirque Fernando at the base of the Montmartre butte. Lisette would just be finishing her performance about now and would soon be walking her dogs home. Wishing to avoid a scene in the circus auditorium, Mason waited outside for her. Momentarily, she saw her friend leave the building behind her pack of leashed canines. Knowing her route, Mason stood in place, waiting for her to pass. But it was the dogs that recognized her first, barking greetings and pulling Lisette toward her. Lisette was about to scold them when she saw the object of their excitement. Her doelike brown eyes registered first shock, then recognition, then teary relief, all in an instant. Trying to keep herself from exploding with happiness, she whispered, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“Not unless I’m dreaming, too,” Mason smiled.
“But I saw you!” Lisette cried. “They made me look at what was left of your poor swollen body!”
“That wasn’t me. That was a woman I jumped in trying to save.”
Lisette grabbed her and began covering her face with kisses, giving her the welcome she’d so needed. “I should have known you could never do such a thing. But I thought it was you. It looked so much like you, the same coloring, the same height…. It broke my heart. How…Why…?”
Mason pulled away. “I’ll tell you all about it, I promise. But for now, tell me what’s been going on here. I read in the paper that—”
“Zut!” Lisette remembered. “Les journales! That was my fault. I was so desolate at the thought of you dying like that, so miserable, so unappreciated. I only wanted to make it up to you somehow. So I went to the papers, where they know of me from the circus, and I told them your sad story. I wanted you to have a little bit of the fame you deserved.”
“Fame.” The word sounded so strange in connection to her that it was jarring.
“Yes,” Lisette cried, “they love your paintings now! And can you believe it? I sold three of them!”
“You sold my paintings?”
“You can’t believe how eager people were to buy them. I sold them for five hundred francs each!”
Mason had to pinch herself. Five hundred francs!
“The galleries are fighting to represent you. I
