Or Maybe Even The Present?

I am terrified, Lala thought. I am utterly and entirely and unreasonably and irrationally and completely understandably and just about constantly terrified.

She was sitting in her new production office with Zoe and Eliza. The night before had ended with Lala and David having utterly delightful sex.

“Wow,” Lala said. They were on the couch wrapped in a blanket. “Our first sex as an engaged-to-be-engaged couple. Very excellent sex, I might and just did add.”

They put their sweatpants back on, and Lala put her flannel shirt back on, and David got a sweatshirt to put on because his flannel shirt had been torn open, and they went downstairs and knocked on Geraldine and Monty’s door. They had clearly interrupted Geraldine and Monty while the older couple was not asleep in bed, and Geraldine and Monty invited them in. Lala told them she and David were “engaged-to-be engaged,” and Geraldine said, “What the hell does that mean? Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

And now Lala was in her production office and it was taking every bit of strength she could muster not to hyperventilate as she sat at a small table with Zoe and Eliza, and they all ate the sandwiches they had gotten at the best sandwich place ever, which Lala had been introduced to by Monty’s daughter Helene shortly after she moved to Southern California, and which was right next door to the office and was a major factor in Lala deciding on the office space she chose.

“Sometimes it’s just easier to not think about certain things,” Lala said. “Sometimes, and I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but sometimes it’s less lonely to have a boyfriend who lives thousands of miles away. Because you can’t really miss them and obsess about them dying, because they’re kind of not really there anyway.”

The subject of the lunchtime discussion, up until a moment before Lala’s pronouncement, had been selecting locations for the film.

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked.

“Seriously, is this the best tomato, brie—because I substituted brie for mozzarella—and olive tapenade on a baguette in the universe, or what? I’m great! Why?”

“Because that was like your twelfth non sequitur today,” Eliza said. “And, no offense, but you look kinda weird. Not unattractive at all. Just weird.”

“Oh, okay,” Lala said. “Hey, you know what happened to me yesterday? I was at the Beverly Center, and I wanted to check out a book at the Beverly Hills Library—which is ridiculously gorgeous, isn’t it—and so I walked there on Burton Way because I love the architecture on Burton Way, and it’s such a lovely, wide boulevard, it feels like you’re in Europe. And this guy driving a Bentley pulls up next to me as I’m walking and rolls down his window and says, ‘How much?’ And I look at him in utter and entirely understandable confusion and say, ‘Pardon?’ and he says, ‘How much? Nothing kinky, just straight missionary position.’ And I think I must be losing my mind and I say, with visible astonishment, ‘I’m not a hooker. I’m a pedestrian!’ The nerve of that guy, huh?”

Zoe and Eliza were staring at Lala with what she was happy to recognize as sympathy and understanding. Lala smiled at their reaction, because she always loved it when people shared her outrage.

“I don’t get it,” Eliza said. “Why were you walking?”

“Why . . .? What do you mean why was I walking?”

“You walked from the Beverly Center to the Beverly Hills Public Library?” Zoe said. “Why would you do that?”

“Why are you both asking me why I walked?” Lala demanded. “It was a beautiful day. It’s a beautiful boulevard. Why wouldn’t I walk?”

Zoe and Eliza looked at each other and shook their heads.

“I can see why the guy was confused,” Eliza said.

“Yeah,” Zoe agreed.

“Are you kidding me?” Lala asked. “Didn’t you two walk when you were in college? Like, a lot. Across campus and everywhere else ’n’ stuff?”

“Sure,” Zoe said.

“Sure,” Eliza echoed. “But that was in Connecticut.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said. “This is LA”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lala huffed. “Never mind. Forget I said anything. Let’s get back to work.”

Lala did her best to focus on the tasks at hand in the office for the rest of the day. She went to the gym after work, and when she got home Geraldine was tending to her lovely, drought-resistant garden that took up large swaths of the courtyard of the fourplex.

“Are you okay?” she asked when Lala opened the front gate and entered.

“I’m great!” Lala said. “Why?”

“You look weird. Should I be worried about you?”

“No, no, not at all.”

Yes, Lala thought. You should.

She gave her adopted auntie a big, reassuring hug and went upstairs to walk her dogs and then shower. David wasn’t home yet, and when he got home a few hours later, Lala was on the couch with the dogs working on a new idea she had for a novel that centered on a miserable old Siberian nun who is granted a dying wish by her Guardian Angel and ends up in Manhattan as a beautiful young model, but it’s not until the nun reforms the bitterness inside her so that her soul is as wonderful as her body that she finds love in the afterlife with the sexy angel.

Love after death, Lala thought, just before she heard David’s key in the lock. I’m guessing I’m not going to be able to write about much of anything else for the foreseeable future. Well, I can only hope that I’ll be able to make it funny and charming.

David walked into the living room, pushed their snoring beagle aside so he could sit next to Lala, and gave Lala a kiss. Then he took a second, more studied, look at her.

“Are you okay?” David asked.

“I’m great!” Lala said. “Why?”

“You look a little weird. Not bad weird. Just not like yourself.”

In the weeks that followed her demi-engagement, Lala did her best to distract herself and move forward in her future and not dwell in the past that she still missed so much. And, other than being asked by many people who knew her well or casually if she was okay and other than the adjective “weird” being applied to the way she looked a lot more than she would have liked, Lala was successful in staying focused and staying very busy. She put in extra hours and devoted extra energy to working on the film and to working on her new novel. The new novel involved lots of discarded drafts and lots of heavy-handed editing to remove “bathos, miles and miles of bathos,” but she kept at it, and she also put in her usual time at the gym, and she stuck to her willing determination to spend fun time with David, all of which had the happy side effect that when she got into bed every night she, after having wonderful sex with David which was just getting more and more delightful, fell sound asleep because she was too exhausted to be terrified.

Lala could tell that Zoe and Eliza were continuing to be sensitive to her weirdness, and that her two lovely young colleagues were treating her with extra tenderness. And that touched her heart profoundly. She brought treats to the office every day, and got them little gifts, and bought them lunch every day and dinner too if they worked late, which they often did. And so as each week passed, Lala got used to her new state of generalized anxiety that had been the result of the prospect of being married again, to a wonderful man she loved.

I should be on Say Yes to the Dress, Lala thought one morning at the office. Not just to pick out my dress, which would be way too much fun, but because they get widows on that show. They understand how difficult it is to move on. The ambivalence. The fear. They get it. Granted, I haven’t seen any widows quite as whacked out as I am on the show. But I feel sure they can deal with me. I’ll have to look into getting on that show. I’ll probably have an epic meltdown while they’re filming my episode. Which will make for great television.

“Lala?” Zoe said.

“Mmm?”

Before Zoe could respond, the phone rang. Lala watched Eliza grab the receiver.

“Were you doing another inner monologue just now?” Zoe asked.

“Lala!” Eliza whispered fiercely. She had her hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver and a look of aroused terror in her eyes. “Clive Ellis is on the phone! For you!”

“Why are we whispering?” Lala whispered.

“He’s so cute!”

“That’s why we’re whispering?” Lala said. “Because cute boys have super hearing?”

She took the phone and patted Eliza’s hand with maternal affection.

“Hi, Clive. ’Sup?”

I sound like an idiot, Lala thought. ’Sup. Who says that anymore? I guess maybe I’m being a doofus because Eliza is right, because he really is quite cute.

“Hey, Lala. I’ve been wanting to film the Paris scenes in Paris, right? Well, the director and I really want you to be there while we’re filming, right?”

 

“Why am I getting the feeling that this is not a good idea?” Geraldine fretted.

Lala had gotten home from the production office to find Geraldine sitting in the courtyard of the fourplex. Geraldine told Lala when she walked through the gate that Monty and David had gone to their favorite Chinese restaurant to get take-out so they could all enjoy dinner al fresco. Before Lala got home, Geraldine had brought Petunia and Eunice and Chester out to lounge in the sunshine with her. And now the two women and the three dogs were sitting together waiting for dinner, and Lala had just told Geraldine her incredibly exciting news.

“I can’t imagine why,” Lala responded, sincerely and obliviously perplexed. She studied the goblet of sangria Geraldine had poured for her from a large pitcher Geraldine had whipped up following “a treasured family recipe, because my Bubbe Rachel lived in Mexico at the end of the Nineteenth Century and she knew how to make sangria.” Lala tried very hard to think of a reason why being on the set of her film in the City of Lights would be anything but delightful. “I love Paris. Terrence and I went to Paris on our honeymoon.”

“Right! And you’re thinking of going there now and your new fiancé-to-be-your-fiancé—which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and it makes you sound like a sorority girl during the era of the Cold War—can’t go with you because he’s scheduled to teach a class at UC Davis! There’s something off about that.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lala said uncertainly. Her aunt’s frenzy was starting to have an effect on her enthusiasm, and she was not happy about that. “Damn, this sangria is insane. Your Bubbe Rachel must have been fierce. I wish I could have met her.”

“Half your darn book takes place in Paris,” Geraldine grumbled.

“More like two-thirds.”

“Right!” Geraldine spat, aggressively grabbing the pitcher and refilling her niece’s glass. “You’ll be there forever! When will you and David start planning your wedding? My GOD, when are you getting officially engaged? What exactly is going ON here? Should I be worried about you?”

Yes, Lala thought. Absolutely.

“Of course not,” Lala said. “I’m great!”

“Then when are you getting married?!” Geraldine wailed.

“What’s the rush?” Lala said. She took a big gulp of sangria and giggled. “It’s not like we have to hurry to have kids before my biological clock tolls a death knell that would make Big Ben’s chiming sound like a whisper. He’s got grown kids and I don’t want to have kids. I want to follow in your gorgeous footsteps of being the best childless aunt in the world. We’ve got all the time in the world. Look who’s here! Two of the handsomest, kindest, smartest, sexiest men in the world! And they come bearing Chinese food! La vie est trop belle!”

Lala ran over and kissed David and grabbed the take-out bags Monty was carrying. Lala and David brought the bags over to the table, and Monty sat on Geraldine’s lap and kissed her.

“Oof,” Geraldine grunted when Monty landed on her.

“We got two jewels here, David,” Monty said. “Our lovely ladies are our beautiful pearls.”

“They sure are,” David agreed.

“Monty,” Geraldine grunted. “My legs are falling asleep.”

The dogs woke up while Geraldine was distributing the chopped tofu and mushroom and ginger mixture into four lettuce boats on four plates. The greyhound put his head on Lala’s thigh and looked at her with pleading eyes. The borzoi/Shar Pei mix walked around the table, stopped momentarily at each occupied chair, and sighed loudly and constantly as he traveled.

Petunia watched all of this activity by her canine siblings unfold for a couple of minutes. And then she let out a resounding beagle bay, which conveyed outrage a dowager empress would have labeled excessively self-righteous.

“Sweet Mother of GOD!” Lala yelled. Her sangria goblet jumped in her hand and she scrambled to hold onto it. “Monty, are you okay? Has the shock affected you adversely? Do we need to do CPR?”

“I’m fine,” Monty said, looking quite composed. “Dogs make noise. That’s life.”

“Don’t be so flappable, Lala,” Geraldine said. “Be unflappable, like Monty.”

Okay, Lala thought. She has a point. I have been way too skittish lately. I need to get my balance back on track.

“You are right, my dear auntie,” Lala said. “Look at us. Lovely food. Lovely sangria. The best men in the world. And precious dogs who think I don’t know that their great-auntie fed them dinner half an hour ago. Nothing to worry about. Everything to savor.”

The dogs seemed to sense, in unison, that their scam, which they attempted to perpetuate on an at-least-daily basis (“Did she tell you she fed us? Because she didn’t. She must have misunderstood your question, because we haven’t had dinner yet. Nope. We sure haven’t.”), had once again been busted, and they reluctantly returned to their outdoor beds and went back to sleep.

A leisurely and convivial dinner hour among the humans began. When everyone was done eating, there were no leftovers, even though David and Monty had ordered more food than four people with very hearty appetites could normally be expected to eat, because Lala went kind of nuts over how exceptionally delicious the dry sautéed string beans were that night. When half the carton was remaining and David and Geraldine and Monty were leaning back in their chairs, clearly beyond any level of sated that would register below glutinous, Lala kept pointing to the carton and kept asking “Anyone want more? Because if you don’t, I’m gonna finish it, okay? Anyone want more string beans? Because if not, I’m—” and Geraldine told her to eat the rest of the darn string beans already, for goodness’ sake.

They had grapes and sliced watermelon for dessert, and then Lala told Geraldine and Monty to go back to their apartment and relax while she and David and the pups cleaned up outside.

“And when I say that the pups will be helping with the clean up, I am, of course, kidding, because they don’t do much of anything except sleep and eat and be wonderful and precious and loving and very loud on occasion and, like Yootza and so many before him, leave an eternal memory in your heart. Which is more than we have any right to expect or indeed deserve.”

After they finished cleaning, David and Lala went back to their apartment and Lala made some chamomile tea. As the evening went on, she had been feeling more and more nervous about telling David that she would be going to Paris for at least a month or two, especially because she knew he wouldn’t be able to join her.

I don’t want him to think I’m being glib about this, Lala thought. I don’t want him to think I’m skipping town and that marrying him isn’t a priority for me. I have to be really calm and reassuring about this.

“DAVID!” Lala suddenly yelled. David’s mug clattered to the floor and chamomile splattered around the kitchen. “I NEED TO GO TO PARIS FOR THE MOVIE AND I KNOW YOU CAN’T COME BECAUSE OF YOUR CLASS AND I AM REALLY GOING TO MISS YOU!”

Lala was euphorically amazed when things didn’t go deep south after her outburst. Though David’s pants were caught in the flying tea and were quite wet, he seemed to be wonderfully enthusiastic about Lala’s travel plans.

“That’s great! Ow! Delayed OW! I think that tea was hotter than I realized.”

Lala grabbed David’s arm and led him to the bathroom. She sat him on the edge of the bathtub, undid his belt, and slid his pants off. She got a washcloth out of the linen closet and ran it under the faucet to soak it with cold water, then she wrung it out and handed it to David.

“Hold that on your thigh,” she said. She got another washcloth, ran it under the cold water, and handed it to David. “And this one on your other thigh.”

Lala ran to the kitchen and got a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She brought it to David. She opened the medicine cabinet and got out a bottle of Tylenol. She handed two pills to him.

“Take these,” she said. “I’ll hold the washcloths.”

Lala knelt on the floor and held the compresses while David swallowed the pills and finished the bottle of water. They were silent for several moments.

“Better?” Lala asked.

“Better,” David said.

“Good?” Lala asked.

“Good,” David said.

That night began an epic sex-a-thon that put a veil of joy on the two weeks leading up to Lala’s flight to Paris that was almost too much for Lala to endure. Sex with David had always been great, and this elevated phase left Lala unbearably happy, because beneath all of it was the scar left by Terrence’s death, the scar that put the fear that it might all disappear never far from her thoughts.

 

The drive to LAX on the afternoon of Lala’s overnight flight to Charles De Gaulle Airport was much more cheerful than Lala expected. Maybe it was because of the just-about-always reliable California sunshine. Maybe it was because David had not deviated from being calm and encouraging from the moment he heard about Lala’s travel plans. Maybe it was because Lala was consciously refusing to do anything other than pretend everything was going to be just dandy.

Petunia and Chester and Eunice were cozily dozing in the backseat of David’s car, and Lala was chatting at them.

“Okay, so, Papa will be going to teach in Davis, and I’ll be going to work in Paris, but we’ll be back soon and you’ll be staying with Great-Auntie Geraldine and Great-Uncle Monty, and you know how much they love you. You will have so much fun together! And of course Papa and I will miss you very much, and before you know it, we’ll all be together again.”

Before I know it, Lala thought. It’s all going to be okay. Nothing to be worried about.

“It’s all going to be okay,” Lala told her dogs. “Nothing to be worried about.”

Petunia snorted, turned over on her back with her legs in the air, and in short order began snoring again. Chester suddenly yipped, presumably because of a very exciting dream. Eunice passed gas, quite loudly. The sound did not wake her up.

“Do you think they’re listening?” Lala asked David. “I mean, as a veterinarian, what is your expert opinion?”

“I do think they hear you, sweetheart,” David assured her. “In their subconscious.”

“You’re humoring me, aren’t you?” Lala asked, rhetorically and with great affection.

“Maybe to some extent,” David admitted. “I do think you should feel assured that they did in fact hear you when you told them all that this morning at breakfast, when they were actually awake. And on their walk, when they were actually awake. And at the beginning of this ride, before they fell asleep.”

David took the car off the freeway and guided it through the always massively congested traffic at LAX to the curb outside the Air France gates of the Tom Bradley International Terminal. The dogs slept through Lala’s anguished exit from the vehicle.

“Mama! Loves! You!” she gasped in loud staccato outbursts that might have been better suited to grand opera than to an adult going on a fairly brief journey. “Mama and Papa love you and we will all be together again we promise so please . . . Are you seriously going to not wake up to say good-bye to Mama?”

Yootza would have woken up to say good-bye to Mama, Lala thought sadly. That’s actually not true at all. The grumpy little bastard would have been on my lap and he would have growled in his sleep when I moved to get out of the car. I miss him so much.

David had taken Lala’s suitcases out of the trunk and was showing Lala’s boarding pass and driver’s license to a curbside employee of Air France. When her bags were on the way and she was set to enter the terminal, she started to find it hard to breathe.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Lala said. She put her arms around much-taller David’s chest and crushed her face against it, like a toddler not wanting to go in for her first day of school.

“We’ll Skype tomorrow,” David said. He had to stoop forward to kiss the top of Lala’s head. “We’ll write long and passionate e-mails all the time. We’ll be back together before you know it.”

Lala looked back at David and waved with each step toward the doors of the terminal. A series of people walking behind her smacked right into her because she was disrupting the smooth flow of traffic on a second-by-second basis.

“I love . . . oops, sorry . . . you . . . sorry, my mistake . . . so much . . . Did I crush your toe, I’m so sorry . . . David.”

Once inside, Lala searched for the nearest empty bench and collapsed onto it. She cradled her carry-on bag that contained her laptop, her Kindle, and a large bottle of Ambien. There was a thought weighing on her, and it was an echo of a thought that had haunted her ever since Terrence died. The frequency and the intensity of the thought diminished with time, but it never fully disappeared.

There’s nowhere I can walk to or drive to or fly to, there’s no number I can call. I can’t ever find Terrence again. He’s gone forever. I can’t ever see or speak to him again. If I hear or see or read something that would make him laugh, I can’t share it with him. Not ever again.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

Lala looked up to see the worried, kindly face of an Air France representative looking at her.

“I’m great!” Lala said.

The woman handed Lala a tissue. Lala studied it, then looked back at the woman with a confused expression. The woman hesitated for a moment, then dabbed at her cheeks with her fingertips. Lala couldn’t think of anything else to do in response to the woman’s gesture except imitate it. So she did, and found that her cheeks were completely wet.

“Omigoodness,” Lala said. “Allergies. Sudden allergy attack. Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “Can I do anything to help?”

“Yes, please, can you point me in the direction of the nearest lounge I can get into with my Amex Platinum Business Card, registered trademark—I don’t know why I always have to add that—and my first class ticket?”

“That would be the Korean Air Lounge, ma’am. Please, let me escort you. I’d feel better knowing you got there okay.”

The woman, whose name, Lala discovered on their walk to the lounge—after Lala assured her that she didn’t need to find a cart to transport them because Lala could probably walk and wasn’t, god willing and the creek don’t rise, going to have a full-on mental and physical collapse anytime soon—was Peggy, brought Lala to the lounge and insisted on finding one of her colleagues, a lovely young man named Sean, so she could ask him to please take extra special care of Ms. Lala.

Lala hugged Peggy and realized she might start crying again, so she distracted herself with positive action. She grabbed her phone and started to pound on the screen.

“Peggy, would you please give me your e-mail address, and would you please pick a charity I can donate to in your honor, and would you please give me your boss’s contact information so I can tell her or him how sanity-savingly kind you are?”

“Dachshund Rescue of Southern California,” Peggy said without hesitation. Lala gasped.

“You have got to be kidding. Were you concerned that I didn’t adore you enough already? Done. I’m staying in touch with you, my new friend. And, yes, that is way more of a threat than a promise.”

Sean escorted Lala inside the lounge. He pointed toward the bar area.

“Yes?”

“Oh, yes, dear Sean,” Lala said. “And you go right ahead and start thinking about your charity-of-choice.”

Sean settled Lala into a very comfortable chair in a corner of the area surrounding the bar. He helped her adjust her seat so that her feet were elevated, and he very quickly got her in possession of a very large glass of premium white wine from Sonoma and a lovely cheese plate.

“Sean, your place in heaven is assured, and I’m adopting you as one of my slew of nephews. That means you’ll be taking care of me when I’m old and, I hope, agreeably dotty.”

“Great!” Sean said. He gave Lala a sweet little nod and left her to relax.

Poor dear boy, Lala thought as she watched Sean walk away. He has no idea how demanding I intend to be in my dotage.

Lala surveyed the spacious lounge. The colors were soothing. There weren’t many people there. It was a calming, cozy atmosphere, and Lala was very grateful for that. She propped a pillow under her head and leaned back with her Kindle screen on the most recent page of The Count of Monte Cristo. After maybe a few more readings, Lala felt happily sure, she would probably have all 1,500 pages memorized.

Maybe this wasn’t such a scary plan after all, Lala thought. She looked around the lounge again. When I went to Paris the last time, with Terrence, we left from JFK. And we certainly didn’t fly first class. And we stayed in a cheap, wonderfully small hotel, and now I’ll be in a charming apartment. So the memories might not be able to flatten me.

Lala took a big sip of wine and visited with the Count as he formulated his escape from the Chateau D’If. After a half hour of wonderful transport to a completely different place and time, Lala shut her Kindle cover for a moment.

I’m okay, she thought. I think I may even have bested the Dread Memory Demons for now. Yup. Going to Paris is actually a very good plan, and I don’t feel a bit frightened. God, this bleu cheese is fabulous. What a harbinger of bonnes choses to come!

 

This was a very terrible plan, and I should not have done this!

That upsetting thought had actually been kept at bay for far longer than Lala had any right to expect. She had done very well during the long overnight flight, other than a momentary blip while she was getting comfortable in her big first-class slumber pod. The Air France jet had not yet left the gate to head to the runway when Lala suddenly blurted.

“Sweet Mother of God, what am I thinking going to Paris alone?”

Lala just as suddenly clapped her hand over her mouth and tentatively half-stood to see if her outburst had been loud enough to be heard by anyone. First class was fairly empty, and the air hosts were gathered at the galley in front of the plane, so it seemed possible that she had not branded herself a whack job from the beginning of the flight.

Lala had settled back in her seat. Champagne service began almost immediately, and Lala didn’t have an empty glass through the delicious vegetarian dinner and the viewing of movies that was interrupted only by trips to the bathroom and reading breaks to visit with her forever-loved Edmond Dantès, until she fell asleep without even needing to pop an Ambien.

She woke just before landing. A smiling young man holding up a sign with her name on it was waiting for her when she exited customs.

“Bonjour, Madame Pettibone,” he said.

He pronounced her last name “Puh-teee-boh,” and Lala had to try not to swoon.

My god, he is adorable, Lala thought. Frenchmen. My god.

The car the production had hired to take her to her apartment was very comfortable, and, after chatting with the driver, Fabrice, in French and English, Lala fell into a bit of a nap in the backseat. When she lifted her head, the Eiffel Tower loomed in the distance against a clear blue sky. And that’s when the Memory Demons recaptured their hegemony.

This was a very terrible plan, and I should not have done this! Lala thought.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Could you please pull over?”

“Of course, Madame,” Fabrice said. He found a spot around the corner from the main road they were on and parked. He turned toward the backseat. “What can I do for you?”

Lala couldn’t answer right away. She tried not to hyperventilate.

It has been a long time since I felt so alone, Lala thought. Maybe not since the months right after Terrence died. Oh, and that summer during college when I worked on that midnight-to-seven shift at that phone sex line in Tarzana because the pay was so good.

“Madame,” Fabrice said. “Are you ill?”

“I’m great!” Lala forced herself to say. “Sudden and thankfully momentary attack of jet lag, I guess. Merci mille fois pour votre gentillesse.”

They got back on the road and arrived at the gate leading to the courtyard of Lala’s new home without any additional mishaps. Fabrice had phoned ahead to alert the concierge that they would be arriving. A stooped old man was standing at the entrance when the car pulled up. He slowly opened each side of the wide iron gate, and the car pulled in to the cobblestone courtyard. Lala looked up at the charming old three-story building that wrapped around the center.

Oy vey, she thought. SO gorgeous. I’m kvelling. Alone. Oy.

The concierge leaned into the open window on the driver’s side and spoke to Fabrice in rapid-fire French. Lala couldn’t catch many of the words. She did manage to make out “la femme” and “bien sûr que non” before she saw the concierge hand Fabrice a huge, elaborate key. The old man then shuffled away from the car and disappeared into a nearby door. Fabrice leapt out of the car and ran over to Lala’s door to open it.

“Madame, let me show you up to the apartment so you can relax while I bring the bags upstairs.”

“God, no,” Lala said. “Pop the trunk and let’s schlepp them to my place together so you can be on your way, you sweet young man. And your big tip is assured, mon ami.”

Fabrice protested that he didn’t want her to have to carry anything, and Lala wouldn’t hear of it, so they hauled Lala’s suitcases up one flight of stairs together. Fabrice used the fancy key to open the door to a small, utterly charming one-bedroom, all the windows of which faced the courtyard. The sun made every corner of the apartment bright. The furnishings were clean and crisp and cozy. Lala wanted to cry.

“Wow,” she said. “Listen, Fabrice, you are wonderful. Thank you so much. I think I’m going to have a shower and a nap. Don’t be a stranger. Come visit the set sometime, yes?”

Fabrice promised Lala he would, and he gave her a cheerful wave on the way out the door. Lala had a long, hot shower. She wrapped one of many big, fluffy towels around herself like a sarong and unpacked. There was a gorgeous armoire in the bedroom, and it was just the right size for all her clothes and then some. The bed was big and had an ornate headboard carved in a wood Lala couldn’t identify because she had no idea about anything having to do with interior design other than what was comfortable and comforting for her. And this apartment was profoundly that. It felt like a sanctuary. It felt like just what Lala needed at that point.

My fear of losing David to his untimely death that would occur anytime before I kick it, and my resulting urge to run and hide from our relationship aside, I may need to fly him over here so we can bonk on that bed, Lala thought.

She set up her laptop on the small desk in the bedroom. One of the first e-mails she saw was from Clive, inviting her to dinner that night. She wrote a quick response to ask for a rain check. Having to maintain a sustained conversation with anyone at any point during at least the next twelve hours didn’t really seem that appealing to her. Clive responded immediately that they would definitely reschedule and that, if it was okay with Lala, he would pick her up to take her to the set the next afternoon.

Lala sent a quick e-mail to David to tell him that she had landed safely, and that she loved him and couldn’t wait to Skype with him, and could they please do that tomorrow as she was exhausted from jet lag and desperate to get to bed.

Part of the e-mail was a lie; Lala felt wired and not a bit tired, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon.

David wrote back immediately to say that he loved her and missed her, and they would definitely Skype tomorrow. Lala sent another e-mail that consisted of rows and rows of ‘X’s and ‘O’s.

Her next e-mail was to Geraldine, to tell her that the trip was wonderful and she was safely in her adorable apartment, and she would write more tomorrow because right now she was exhausted from jet lag and desperate to get to bed.

Geraldine wrote back immediately to say that she suspected that was a load of crap and that Lala would be too agitated to sleep, but she loved her anyway, even though she was a bald-faced liar.

Lala chose to completely ignore Geraldine’s P.S., which stated that Geraldine “better not find out you are trying to peddle the same bullshit to dear David, tonight or any other night, or there will be hell to pay.”

Lala decided a long constitutional was an absolute must. She put on a comfortable pair of jeans, a cozy cotton sweater, and her walking sneakers. They were certainly not her workout sneakers, which had been left behind in Los Angeles, as they were fairly pungent and she hadn’t planned to visit a gym while she was in France. Lala wanted to get her exercise like a real Parisian, by traveling on foot everywhere. She stuck her credit cards and her international driver’s license in her back pocket so she could travel light. She grabbed her sunglasses and her key and was out the door, skipping down the stairs.

Act like you’re feeling safe and confident, she thought. And you’ll end up feeling safe and confident. God, I hope that’s true.

Lala’s apartment was in the Fifth Arrondissement, on a charming little side street not a hundred steps from the Seine and in a direct line to one of the many bridges across the river, this one leading to the Île Saint-Louis. The end of the street also boasted a stunning view of the back of Notre Dame. Lala marched toward the water and smiled.

Ice cream, she thought.

Her first stop was at Berthillon, a wonderful ice cream shop she had visited with Terrence on their honeymoon. The line leading to the store stretched around the block. Lala cheerfully took her place behind the last person in line, a cute and tiny woman who looked like a sweet grandma-for-hire. The older woman smiled at Lala and nodded.

“Bonjour,” she said.

“Bonjour, Madame,” Lala said, nodding and smiling a bit to excess. “Comme il fait beau aujourd’hui!”

The woman’s smile instantly became broader.

“Oh, you are American,” she said.

Yikes, Lala thought. It’s that obvious? Well, I never was a good actress.

“Yup,” Lala said.

“Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles by way of New York,” Lala said.

“J’adore New York,” the woman trilled. “I live there for many years right after the war, with my parents. In the Greenwich Village!”

“J’adore Greenwich Village!” Lala crowed.

By the time they got to the front of the line, Lala had to tell the woman, whose name was Mimi, that she would love to meet her grandson if she were single, but she was in fact engaged-to-be-engaged to a lovely man, and Mimi responded that that sounded “adorable, but is my English perhaps not of high enough quality for me to understand why that is not entirely fucking ridiculous en même temps,” and Lala couldn’t stop laughing. She bought them both a double scoop of lavender and vanilla, and they made a date to have dinner together over the weekend. Lala told Mimi she had to promise to come visit the set of the film.

After hugging Mimi good-bye, Lala walked along the bank of the Seine and made her way over to Notre Dame. She walked around the cathedral and remembered dancing with Terrence to a violinist who had been playing in the long square in front of the cathedral years ago.

Lala sat on a bench and listened to a guitarist play and sing to Et Maintenant. It was one of the songs she memorized to help her learn French, and so she sang along in French, while also astonishing herself by simultaneously translating in her mind.

Now that you’re gone . . .

A young man had been standing next to the bench on the other side to listen to the song, and when he heard Lala singing in French, he turned and spoke to her.

“You’re American?” he asked.

Sheesh. My accent sucks when I sing, too? she thought. Well, I never was much of a singer. Like, not much of one at all.

“Yup,” she told the young man, smiling. “How are ya?”

They chatted for a few minutes and Lala complimented him on his excellent English. Then Lala walked back to the Left Bank and continued walking for several miles, past bookstalls and all kinds of other vendors. She made it all the way to the Musée d’Orsay, also a much-loved memory from her honeymoon. It was closed at that point during the early evening, and she resolved that she would visit the museum as soon as possible.

By the time she got back to her street, Lala was ravenous. She noticed a small Italian restaurant right across from the entrance to the courtyard of her building, and she felt a welcome and familiar craving for carbs.

The little bistro was full, and Lala was surprised to see that the concierge of her building was also the host of the restaurant. He shuffled over to her and made what might have been an attempt at a smile, or possibly just a facial indication of a sudden and quite dreadful attack of gout.

“Bonsoir, Madame,” he said in an utterly uninflected tone.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur. Avez-vous des plats végétariens?”

The concierge/host responded with an extensive, muttered monologue, none of which Lala could understand, but he was speaking as he was shuffling toward the only empty table in a far corner, so Lala decided to assume that somewhere in all those rushed words there was a “Oui.” She followed him and beamed when he handed her the menu.

“Merci mille fois!” she said with extra gratitude.

Lala instinctively—really, since she was a toddler—had never been able to abide it when people were grumpy around her. She either removed herself from cranky people, or she mounted a sustained attack.

I swear, I will win over this crotchety old chap, she silently declared.

She cheerfully regarded the menu and decided almost immediately on a small green salad and penne with pink sauce.

Lala scanned the room. It looked like a nice group of people; a few families with children, couples on a date, one other single person . . . a young man in hiking shorts and a turtleneck. What looked to be the only waiter in the restaurant, also a young man, was having a spirited debate in French with the solo diner. Lala listened attentively to the discussion and was quite pleased with herself when she managed to understand a complete sentence.

“Tu es complètement fou ou quoi?”

Okay, unless I’m way off on this, he just said the other guy is totally nuts. Delish! Lala thought. She watched the two men high-five each other and watched as the waiter walked over to her table. He was maybe in his late 20s and he had the muscular grace of a ballet star. His head was shaved and there was a small red heart tattooed on each earlobe.

“Bonsoir, Madame,” the waiter said. “Vous désirez?”

“Bonsoir, Monsieur,” Lala said. “S’il vous plaît, je souhaiterais—”

“Oh, hi. You’re an American. Cool. Welcome,” the young man said in a native Brooklyn accent so thick, Lala imagined it could function quite nicely as a doorstopper to one of the massive portals leading into Notre Dame itself.

“Wow,” Lala said. “You’re not French. You’re from New York?”

“Sure am,” the young man said. He held out his hand and shook hers. “Kenny.”

“Lala.”

“Ahh, you’re our new guest in the building! Pleasure to meet you.

“Ditto. How . . . your French accent. Is it me, or is it superb?”

Kenny nodded toward the concierge, who was sitting behind the small bar and was reading Le Monde.

“That’s my grandpa. We visited him every year. I learned French when I was two years old.”

“Sheesh. Do you ever have an ear for accents. Wow. And I think you got my share of that talent because rumor has it that I was born totally without any.”

“That’s not true,” Kenny said. “Your French accent is—”

“You are so sweet,” Lala chuckled. “My French accent is appalling. Who knew? Okay, no more lying, however kindly intended. Which red wine do you recommend, truthfully?”

Kenny brought her a lovely glass of Bordeaux, and when she finished that, he brought over a bottle and another glass. Between serving the other customers, Kenny sat with Lala and they shared the bottle while Lala ate. At the end of the evening, when the restaurant was empty, Kenny’s grandfather, Maurice, still scowling, came over with three apple tarts.

Now’s my chance, Lala thought. Get ready to smile, mon cher Monsieur. Of course, there is that language barrier. I’ll just have to flirt with my eyes and enchant him that way.

“Are you okay?” Kenny asked.

“I’m great!” Lala said, winking spastically at his grandfather and then at him.

Maurice rather quickly proved to be surprisingly chatty. He started telling a story that involved different voices and many elaborate gestures and facial expressions.

Lala was able to follow the first sentence of the speech. “Chère Madame, écoutez, je vous prie.”

Ohhh, boy, Lala thought. I . . . Wait . . . What did that teacher tell me? Just nod and say, “You find?”

Lala smiled and nodded at Maurice.

“Vous trouvez?” she asked.

Maurice stopped his narration and stared at Lala. He abruptly stood and went into the kitchen.

Uh oh, Lala thought.

“Did I just misremember and say something unforgivably rude?” Lala asked Kenny. “Like, ‘Shut your pie-hole, Napoleon’? I think I’m really drunk.”

“Did you have a French teacher who told you how to get through a conversation and not sound like an idiot, even if you had no idea what was going on?” Kenny asked.

“Yes,” Lala said. “Yes, I did.”

“Vous trouvez. You find? You got it right.”

“Thank goodness,” Lala said.

Maurice marched back carrying a bottle of champagne and three flutes. He popped the cork and giggled. And then he started on a fresh monologue. Lala looked at Kenny helplessly. Kenny gave her a thumbs-up and whispered, “He says the young lady speaks excellent French. And that deserves a special toast.”

Lala scrunched her shoulders up in delight. The old man handed her a glass of champagne.

“Vous êtes très jolie,” Maurice said.

Okay, that I understand, Lala thought.

She patted Maurice’s hand and smiled.

“Vous trouvez?”

 

Kenny escorted Lala upstairs to her apartment.

“My grandpa is actually quite a fluff ball when you get to know him,” Kenny said at the door to the apartment.

“Fluff ball,” Lala repeated. “That’s a comforting image. I think maybe next time someone is making me nervous, I’ll imagine that they’re a large ball of fluff with a nose and eyes and a big smile and little spindly legs. Thank you, Kenny.”

“Glad to be of help,” Kenny said. He kissed Lala on both cheeks and told her he looked forward to seeing her at the restaurant again soon.

Lala had another long shower and wrapped herself in her thick robe. She was surprised that she wasn’t a bit tired. She turned on the small television in the bedroom and was ecstatic to find, after flipping through only a few channels, that there was a dubbed version of The Young and the Restless playing. In French, the title was Les Feux de l’Amour.

The Fires of Love, Lala thought. She propped herself up against the headboard of the bed with all the available pillows against her back, and balanced her computer on her lap.

Lala watched the episode and realized it was one she had seen many months earlier. She was very happy to also realize that the script sounded even more overwrought in the language of the Gauls.

Mon Dieu. C’est superbe, ça. God, my accent really is for shit, even in my internal voice.

Lala opened her laptop and checked her e-mails. There were a bunch from David. He had arrived in Davis and was happy with his studio apartment just off campus. He missed her already and he wanted to Skype with her as soon as possible.

Lala tried to subtract nine from the time on the digital clock on the nightstand next to the bed.

2 a.m.. Okay, so, it’s . . . 5 p.m. in California. Merde. He’ll be awake.

Lala slammed her laptop shut, as though it were somehow communicating to David that Lala was awake and could Skype with him at that moment, but she was choosing not to.

I just can’t. Maybe I’m realizing that I have to get used to being without him? Because life is so fragile, and there are absolutely no guarantees, and we’re all going to die, and it’s just a question of how and when? Maybe that’s what I’m doing? Maybe I’m protecting myself? Or maybe I’m just out of my fucking mind?

Lala tried to distract herself by watching the impassioned shenanigans on Les Feux de l’Amour.

Catherine would agree with me, she thought. Jeez, she’s buried how many husbands already? Not to mention all those divorces, which I’m sure are in the double-digits by now.

Lala fell asleep with the television on and the computer still on her lap. She woke up the next morning because someone was knocking on her front door.

Is that the Grim Reaper, she thought. God, I have got to get off this death thing. Having been a young widow can only excuse so much obsession.

Lala shuffled over to the door, assuming it was Kenny or Maurice. She opened it to find Clive standing there.

“Merde. What time is it?”

“It’s not too late. I made allowances for jet lag,” Clive said. He handed her a coffee and a small paper bag. Lala opened the bag and inhaled the incredible scent of a fresh croissant. A fresh, warm croissant. A fresh, warm croissant in Paris.

“Ohhh,” Lala sighed.

“You’ve got time to shower,” Clive assured her. “I drive really fast.”