“So go farther down. Take cabin six,” the bath attendant said. “She’s talks to herself but she’s not dangerous, believe me.”
Why did people say that? Talk to herself? Not she.
“Paulette, stop that,” she said. “I told you. You’re fifteen now; act like it.”
Clear hot water ran over Hélène’s face. “Méchant! You are naughty, Paulette. Give me the towel. Bon. Eh? You’re safe. How do I know? Oh, I took care of him. I had to.”
Tuesday Afternoon
AIMÉE STARED AT the small bundle that was keeping her hostage in her own apartment. Her laptop had cleaned up well and apple vinegar had dispelled the odor. Wonder of wonders, it still functioned. But there were still deposits of baby spit-up dotting her father’s old flannel bathrobe, the sagging bunny ears of the cap, all over. Should she feed the baby again? Or maybe it had gas? Aimée needed a step-by-step manual.
The baby flexed her pearl pink toes and unfurled her small fists. Her hiccups reverberated against Aimée’s chest. Then a big burp and a sensation of warmth filling the diaper. Again.
“So that’s the problem. Warn me next time, eh?”
A gurgling stream of bubbles trailed from the side of the little mouth. “That’s your answer then?”
More bubbles.
Aimée changed her, becoming increasingly efficient with the help of the aloe-scented baby wipes and Michou’s detailed diaper diagram.
The group picture was burning a hole in her pocket. She needed to show this photo around, figure out the mother’s movements, and why she’d left the baby. And, of course, who she was.
But Aimée was loath to take the baby outside and possibly endanger her. This tiny thing with feathery lashes, whose chest rose and fell softly against her, who smiled in her sleep. “Gas,” Michou had informed her. ‘”It’s gas. They don’t smile until three months.” She disagreed.
She couldn’t keep calling her “it” or “the baby.” She thought of the stars patterning the night sky when she’d found her. Stella meant star; she’d learned that on a holiday in Italy.
“Stella,” she breathed. “I’ll call you Stella because you glow like a star.”
René was working in Fontainebleau, Michou had gone to Deauville. She needed to get to the dry cleaner’s and to give Miles Davis another walk. Most of all, she needed a nanny.
Errands would have to wait. Other things couldn’t. She’d change her style, cover up Stella, and hope to blend in with the stroller crowd. From the collection in her drawer she chose large dark sunglasses, Jackie O style; a cap with STADE DE MARSEILLES printed on it; a black corduroy miniskirt; and metallic red Puma trainers.
She left her cell phone number on her answering machine. That done, she found the newly purchased baby sling, a striped affair of blue ticking, nestled Stella into it, and grabbed the dog leash.
DOWNSTAIRS IN THE courtyard, she paused before the concierge’s loge. A warm breeze ruffled the potted geraniums on the steps leading to the concierge’s door with its lace curtain panel.
“Bonjour, Madame Cachou,” she said, peeking inside, where a woman with steel gray hair was punching in figures on an adding machine.
“May I ask a favor, Madame? I’ve got to take Miles Davis out. Would you mind watching the baby, just for an hour?”
Madame Cachou’s lips pursed. “Mademoiselle Leduc, did you get the notice? The second notice, to move the items from your space in the cave? I put it in with your mail.”
Aimée groaned internally. Clearing her storage area was a task Madame Cachou deemed of highest importance due to the plumber’s whining that he needed more space to refit pipes under their building. On her return from a several months’ absence helping her sister, ill in Strasbourg, Madame Cachou had resumed her responsibilites with vigor. Aimée hoped the broken front door digicode would make her priority list.
“This weekend, Madame. My cousin Sebastian will help me.”
Madame Cachou, a widow, pushed her glasses up on her nose, then folded her arms over her ample chest. In her light blue smock, flesh-toned support stockings, and clogs, she personified the traditional concierge captured by Brassaï in old photographs. She was a rumormonger who delivered the mail twice a day. But Madame Cachou was one of the handful of concierges still working on the island and one of the fewer still who weren’t Portuguese. The new immigrant Portuguese women not only managed multiple buildings, they also juggled cleaning jobs and raised families, but rarely spoke much French.
“Tiens! Today, s’il vous plaît. Tomorrow they’re off and then . . .”Madame Cachou shrugged, as if to ask who knew when they would return. “The plumbers union is strike prone; it could be next month, next year.”
Aimée had to stall the concierge and convince her to watch the baby. “As I said . . .”
Madame Cachou expelled air from her mouth. “Bon. Then you must sign the release to absolve the building of liability. No guarantee of responsiblity, you know, but at least then they’ll move things aside and finish the work. It’s covered in your agreement, Mademoiselle. The leaks affect the water pressure in the whole building. We’ve had complaints.”
Aimée hadn’t been down there in years and had forgotten what her grandfather had stored in his underground compartment. She’d sign. That would give her one less thing to deal with.
She stepped inside the neat and narrow concierge’s loge, one wall lined with calendars stretching back to 1954, the other with romance novels. A large-screen television took up the back wall. Madame Cachou pointed to a release form next to a state-of-the-art laptop.
It occurred to Aimée that Madame Cachou might have seen the baby’s mother.
“Monday night, Madame,” she said. “Were you here around 11:00 P.M.?”
“What’s this question and answer?” Madame Cachou shook her head. “Monday’s my night off. It’s in my contract, eh? I go to my writers’ group.”
Aimée had lived here for years and had no idea.
“I earn a little money, you know,” she confided. “On the side.”
More than a little, Aimée thought.
“I see.” But she didn’t, surprised that a concierge who minded the building and mopped the floors also attended a writers’ group.
Madame Cachou ignored Stella.
“Never interferes with my duties here, if that’s what you’re implying, Mademoiselle. At 8:00 A.M., I’m here on Tuesday morning. Mop the stairs, wax the foyer. Before that, I’m where I want to be on my own time.”
There was a stack of Xeras, a line of “liberated” women’s romance novels, by the side of the laptop. Those novels were really soft porn, Aimée thought.
“Sign, please.”
“Do you study these . . . kinds of books in your writers’ group?” Aimée asked.
Madame Cachou’s chin jutted forward. “I write these books, Mademoiselle.”
Aimée wondered if she was in the wrong line of work. No wonder Madame Cachou could afford the laptop and a high-end télé.
Before she could ask more, a plumber in blue overalls appeared. “If we’re not going to measure for the pipe fittings, I might as well go home.”
“I’m coming.”
Aimée’s idea of begging the concierge to babysit evaporated.
Madame Cachou turned toward Aimée. “You young women have babies and expect the world to take care of them. But it’s your responsibility.”
“Madame Cachou, it’s an imposition, of course, but just for—”
“Et alors, leave my friend Miles Davis,” Madame Cachou interrupted. Her expression softened as she petted him. “We’ll go to the park later.”