Last to Know: A Novel(5)
She looked at the dashboard, checking where all the familiar things should be but in this French car were not. She pressed a button. The windscreen wipers swished noisily in front of her. Another button. Hot air swirled around her. Accidentally she touched the horn, jumping at its sudden loud bleep, waving apologetically at the man sitting in the car in front of her, who gave her a glare that she guessed said “dumb foreigner,” which, right at this moment, she was.
Her heart sank. Right at this moment she also missed Harry Jordan more than he or any man had a right to be missed. He had left her alone one too many times, not called until it was too late; not shown for dinner. His work came first, though she had been the one to voluntarily give up hers so they could be together without clashing schedules. Hers and his. Now, though, there was only his and his was all-consuming. Mal had thought they had a future; it had suddenly become clear they had not. Not, at least, the kind of future she wanted: the cozy couple spending their time together, vacations, a house, normal stuff like every woman wanted. At least she guessed they did, and every woman she knew but her had gotten it.
Mal wondered if it was her fault, after all she had a complicated past, a rough childhood with no money and a pot-smoking single mother constantly running from the law and unpaid rent, snatching Mary Mallory, as she was called then, out of schools where she had only just begun to try to fit in. “Fit in” was not meant to be in her and her mother’s future. Her mother was “complicated”: sweet and kind and loving one day, withdrawn and silent the next.
Mal was away at college. Her mom was living in a trailer in Oregon, on a big wide beach where the waves rolled, in mounting glassy green fury, spurred on by thousands of miles of wind all the way from Japan. She had come “home” for Thanksgiving, only to see her mom standing on the shore, arms raised as though daring those lethal, energy-filled waves to come and take her. Mal had cried out to warn her. She ran down the slope of the cliff to get to her, stood horrified as her mother was lifted into that wave. She saw her curled aloft on it as it peaked, and then it slammed back onto the shore. Her mother’s body was never found, and a new Mary Mallory Malone had been forced to emerge.
The experience strengthened her resolve to become somebody. She’d started at the bottom as a “minor” assistant at the local TV station, gradually moved on and slightly up, gaining an understanding of how it all worked sitting in the director’s booth, pressing all the right buttons, marveling at the poise and confidence of the people in front of the cameras.
She spent every penny she earned, after rent and ramen noodles, on improving herself, learning how to use makeup by watching the women applying it to others and asking the right questions. She’d trained herself to stand up to her tall height without slouching, forced herself to leave her past and inferiorities behind.
In classic fashion there had been an emergency at the studio; a presenter had not shown for an interview, and Mal was called in as the only one who looked camera ready. She’d done so well she was offered a tiny fifteen-minute segment of her own, talking about local matters. Things had gone on from there.
Ten years later, she ended up in New York with her own important show, a luxurious penthouse apartment, and a life, apart from work and the social events that she was invited to, of complete loneliness which she refused to acknowledge. Until, under strange circumstances, she had met Harry Jordan. Nothing had been the same since.
Harry had truly “saved” Mal. Of course she was already a success, but inside she was still that same scared Mary Mallory Malone waiting for the ax to fall and everything to go back to “normal,” meaning the way it was when she started out, alone at eighteen.
Harry Jordan was so straight, so sane, such a regular guy under his macho cop persona it was impossible for her not to fall for him. Harry made love to her like she was the only woman in the world, he made her feel beautiful in a way no camera angle ever could; Harry made Mal feel loved. When he showed up, that is. And there was their problem.
So, there it was. She had left him. Flown on impulse to Paris, found herself more alone than she had ever been on any of those long nights waiting for Homicide Detective Harry Jordan to show up and tell her how much he loved her, but he was sorry, something had come up and he had to leave immediately. A woman can take only so much of that sort of thing.
And then Paris let her down. She found that hard to believe. The City of Light had never let anyone down before. Was it only she who felt alone, rejected by its busy citizens, its sightseers in groups, its lovers kissing over tiny sidewalk café tables, its patronizing waiters at the smart restaurant where she had ventured. “A woman alone” their eyes had said when they asked if she was expecting “monsieur.” There was no monsieur, her glare had told them back.
Negotiating the surging traffic around the Arc de Triomphe almost undid her; she must have circulated half a dozen times before managing to exit onto something she hoped pointed south. Three hours later, she stopped at one of the immaculately clean roadway cafés, where, hands still shaking from the nerve-shattering drive, she downed two espressos and ate a bread roll without butter, because that was all they sold at that hour. The provincial French, Mal was soon to find out, ate between twelve and two and not one moment after. They reopened at six for “dinner” and closed early, like around eight. God help you if you found yourself starving, as she did, in the in-between times. A vending machine produced a snack of potato chips and a fizzy Fanta orange soda which she saved for later, “just in case.” She could, after all, end up somewhere for the night where nobody served dinner, let alone a drop of red wine to nourish a girl through the long lonely hours, in bed, alone. And very probably crying.