The Last Dress from Paris(39)
But I am better.
Soon the intervals between his moves are stretching longer and longer, his face getting more and more pained as his recorded time creeps higher, way beyond mine, and he realizes he is beaten and knocks his king over. He slumps back in his cold metal chair and nods a respectful approval. Then he’s up and the next guy takes his place. This is fun! Once I’ve beaten him, another one is there in front of me, and I’m looking around for Leon.
I see him, leaning casually against one of the gazebo posts, his camera held high as he clicks away, although I can see he’s having trouble holding it steady because he’s laughing so hard. What’s tickled him? He’s mouthing something to me and gesturing over the crowd that has gathered around what I would have to consider my table now. And then I get it. Hommes. They are all men. There is not a single woman aside from me involved in any of this, not playing or watching. I hadn’t even stopped to think I was infiltrating some closed social group. I just plowed in and, well, they all seem pretty pleased that I did. Next time I glance up, Leon is holding aloft two steaming cups of coffee, and I have to reluctantly bow out, causing a flurry of disappointed cries from the men, old and young, who have yet to take me on. Leon approaches, hands me a cup, and says, “They are all asking if you will come back tomorrow.” He laughs.
“What? And risk losing my unbeaten crown, I don’t think so. Sorry, gentlemen, but that is it. I have to leave you now.” I ham it up with a little bow.
Leon translates and they all erupt into a spontaneous round of applause. It is the single most joyous moment, and I want to capture this feeling and haul it back to London with me.
“You are brilliant, Lucille. Full of surprises!” says Leon as we edge away from the group. “Where did you learn to play like that?”
“Hours with my granny Sylvie and some of her friends who fancy their chances. She likes me to read to her mainly, or play chess, so she is to thank for that little performance. Come on, let’s see where A and A had their lovely walk, shall we?”
We continue on our path, past the orangerie, its windows stuffed with enormous palm leaves and ferns, and beyond a café, where women sit at a table covered in pastel-colored chalks, casually sketching unsuspecting passersby. I notice a group of people spread out in a clearing among the trees, all bending and lunging in unison, practicing some sort of martial arts. Everything about their slow, methodical movements radiates calm. We pause at the lake that sits in front of the impressive Senate building, and I take a big sweeping look around me. There is something familiar about this place that I am a million miles from putting my finger on, but it’s here, trying to make itself seen, gently pulsing at the back of my mind. But the more I try to free it, the fainter it becomes.
“Don’t kill yourself trying to work it out, Lucille.” Leon is studying my face as perhaps only a photographer can. “It will come, if it’s meant to. Something will click into place.”
It’s such a sensitive thing to say. He’s so perceptive to how I’m feeling that I ask the question before I even realize I’m going to.
“Do you really not have a girlfriend, Leon?” I expect him to laugh, but he looks shocked at my nosiness, then sad and depleted, like this is the last thing on earth he wants to talk to me about. “Sorry, that’s really personal, isn’t it? You don’t have to answer.” But I’m too late, the awkwardness is already there between us.
“I don’t think I will, if that’s okay with you.”
And I hate myself in this moment. I need to remember Leon is here for his grandfather’s sake—not mine—and that I need his help. He’s hardly going to volunteer his time to someone who clumsily crashes into his private life. To make matters worse, I start blathering on about Billy, just to fill the silence I’ve caused.
“Billy wasn’t the most inspiring, romantic, or even the most thoughtful boyfriend on earth, but at least he never hurt me, so . . .” So, what? I have no idea where I am going with this, the point I’m trying to make.
Leon looks at me closely as we continue to walk.
“Anyone you share your life with should make you feel happy. Every single day. You should feel important to them and loved. Anything less just isn’t enough.”
I wasn’t expecting an appraisal of my failed relationship with Billy, but then I started it, taking us down a route I really wish I hadn’t now. And neither do I want to confront Leon’s view, because I’m not sure Billy or I ever lived up to his expectations, and perhaps my silence, my inability to respond, tells Leon all he needs to know.
“I think there are many ways to have your heart broken, Lucille. A slow, steady decline into not caring or valuing someone is just as wasteful and sad as something more dramatic.”
I can’t disagree, so I shut up after that.
* * *
? ? ?
We continue to walk through the park, past an arch of smooth gray statues that border the lake. One in particular catches my eye. A woman, perfect plaits running down either side of her face, her eyes closed to the beauty of everything surrounding her. I reach out a hand and she is icy cold to my touch. The plaque tells me it’s sainte Genevieve, patron of Paris. It reminds me, I must call Mum.
We turn away from the Senate building now, curving right past an avenue of tall trees, on a loop back toward the entrance where we came in. Leon seems happy, snapping away, taking pictures of everything and occasionally of me, which I am surprisingly okay with. I don’t pose, and he doesn’t ask me to, he just seems to want to capture our visit to the park today. Then I see it. Ahead of us is the vintage carousel Veronique mentioned. It’s nothing like the Disney versions you see, all artificial lights and neon colors. It’s not double height or pumping out loud music, but it is so pretty, and I know instantly that I have seen it before. It’s the first time I have been to this park, the first time I have visited this city, but I know for sure I have seen this carousel before. The way the trees frame and partially obscure it, its green triangular fabric top, and the metal benches that run in a perfect circle around it for all those excited children to wait their turn.