I laced my hand through his. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
The walk through the narrow streets was beautiful. Even the tourist shops added flare. Bright scarves caught our attention from sidewalk stands. Every block seemed to have a boulangerie piping the scent of fresh, crusty baguettes into the air. Small, round pastries and fruit glazed with sugar filled their windows. We almost smacked into a man carrying a giant slab of half-alive meat into the boucherie, and almost keeled over from the yellow perfume of the fromageries.
I was in heaven.
Little nooks and crannies kept jumping out at us, demanding our attention: a hidden churchyard with a mossy fountain; a marble plaque on a building declaring this the site where two members of La Résistance died. A florist shop with such beautiful bouquets; a tour crawling by on Segways; a park with an old Metro sign done up in beautiful Art Deco style.
The model house was tucked away, down two quiet streets, through a gate and a private garden. The gate pushed open, though it looked like it was supposed to be latched, and we walked past potted plants and into the small lobby of the building.
On one wall, bright flyers waved in the summer breeze as the door fell shut behind us, while straight ahead a man in a suit glanced up from behind a counter. He didn’t quite frown as he took in everything from our sandals to my ponytail, but he spoke with no little disdain. “Puis-je vous aider?”
My French, which I’d had to learn for grad school, was decidedly rusty. I cleared my throat and tried anyway. “Ma mere avait l’habitude de vivre ici. Pouvons-nous jeter un coup d’œil?”
He heard my accent and didn’t even bother speaking in French. “The residences are private.”
“Oh. Desole. Merci.”
Mike leaned closer. “What’d you say?”
“Just that my mom used to live here and we wanted to look around.” I shrugged and turned. “Well, that was a fail.”
Mike grabbed my arm. “Hey, no.” He turned back to the man. “Her mom lived here for five years.”
I twisted so I could catch his wrist and tugged him toward the door. “It’s not a big deal. We tried.”
The man behind the counter didn’t deign to chime in.
Mike reached into his pocket, and I yanked harder on him, embarrassment rising. “Mike. There’s not even anything to see.”
Behind us, the entrance bell chimed, and another wave of summer air swept in. I tugged again, determined to catch the door and be on our way. Two tall girls in slimming black passed us, chattering rapid-fire in some language I didn’t understand. They looked at Mike and one giggled.
“Come on, Nat. Don’t you want to talk to them?” To the man he said, “There must be some way—”
“Non. This is a private house. You can not just barge in.” He let out a puff of air. “It is this entitled attitude—”
Mike squared his shoulders. “Come on, man—”
“Mike, let’s just go—”
From another door, a man emerged, this one short and broad. “Ce qui se passe?”
The first man responded in rapid fire French far beyond me, but his frantic gestures made it quite clear we were disturbing the peace. “See?” I hissed at Mike. “Now it’s a whole issue.”
“Jesus, Nat, I’ve never seen you so worked up.” He pulled up his most soothing smile. “Uh, bonjour. Ma copine et moi would like to look around. Is that okay?”
Okay, he looked up how to say girlfriend in French. If I wasn’t so tense, I might find that cute.
But seriously, he couldn’t just smile and ask the same question over and over and hope the answer would change.
The second man opened his mouth, his gaze flicking over to include me as he spoke. “It is against policy—”
He stopped, and his jaw dropped almost comically. “Oh, putain.”
The other man glanced at him quickly, and then stared me down. I stood frozen.
Mike leaned over to murmur in my ear. “I’m going to assume that was something like sacre-bleu, which is the only French curse I know.”
Something like. “Hi.” I self-consciously pushed my hair back. He obviously recognized me—recognized my mother in me. “I’m Natalie Sullivan. My mother used to live here.”
“You have her eyes.” He dropped the Hs so the sentence was almost entirely a river of vowels.
I smiled uncomfortably.
“Such a great model, your mother.” He ran his eyes up and down my body. “You also?”
“Me? Model? No. No. I’m an archaeologist.”
Apparently that wasn’t as cool as modeling, because his nose crinkled slightly. He craned his head to see me from different sides, and then nodded. “You are tall enough.”
Well, excellent.
The man nodded, then turned to Mike. His gaze lingered on the red hair. “This is your boyfriend.”
“Yes. This is Mike O’Connor. He plays football—American football—in New York.”
“Ahh...” The man’s expression made his thoughts on American football very clear.
“We didn’t mean to bother you—we just thought we’d stop by—we were in the area—”
“Come. I will do your eyes.”
“No.” I would have backed away if I didn’t have a two-hundred pound weight holding my arm. “That’s okay. I just wanted to see where she lived.”
“Yes, I know. I will show you and tell you about her as I do your eyes.” He walked away, not waiting to see if we’d follow. “I met her when she first arrived. She was underfed, and underdressed, and she cried every night because she was lonely and didn’t speak French. She used to sing in Russian before she fell asleep.” His voice trailed off as he rounded a corner.
I couldn’t help it. I ran after him. “When did she learn French?”
“Mmm. I taught her. That’s why I came here, you know? Not because of my art. Ah, no, that is why I came here, but not why the agency took me. They took me because I speak Hungarian and Russian and they needed someone to help the new girls. And I wasn’t much older than them.”
“So what was she like? When she first came?”
“Like everyone. Here.” He led us up a cement staircase and into a hall. He narrowed his eyes at Mike. “Men are not allowed here.”
I grabbed Mike’s arm, not intending to let him go. Mike slid me a smile. “And yet here we are.”
The man let out a puff of air, his cheeks inflating and deflating in exasperation. “Only because you are with Mademoiselle Bocharov.”
“It’s Sullivan,” I corrected.
His nose crinkled again, and I half expected him to say something along the lines of “how plebian.” How bougie? Instead, he walked us to the end of the hall. “This is the kitchen. Each girl has a small fridge.” He gestured at a wall filled with what looked like cubbies, and opened one to reveal a one by one foot space packed with milk and fruit.
The rest of the room was pretty spartan, with just one small table by the windows. Two hot plates. One microwave. No toaster, no oven. “And they eat here?”
“Mostly they eat downstairs. But they can keep snacks here.”
He led us across the hall, and opened the door to a common room. Two couches sat on beige colored carpeting, and a bookcase filled with worn paperbacks stood against the far wall. Closer to us, a flat screen TV played a British show to the three girls in the room. They looked up briefly when we entered.