He smiled. “She was my favorite, ta mere. Light and laughter. You must tell her to come back and visit. Tell her she is missed.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Darling?” I could hear rustling in the background. Was she still in bed? “Good morning. Oh, no, what’s the time over there? Afternoon?”
I only ever heard my mother’s accent in the first seconds of a phone call. Never in person, and never for more than half a minute on the phone. But for those thirty seconds I could hear a faint, lilting mesh of European accents, based on Russian, smoothed over by French. Then she went back to sounding like Mom. “Yeah, it’s almost four.”
“So what are you doing?” More rustling, like she was getting comfortable. “You’re not working today, are you?”
“Uh, no.” I glanced out our hotel window at the courtyard. I couldn’t see Mike, who I knew was snacking down below to give me privacy, but instead saw the pale green roof and a black cat creeping along it. It stopped to stare at me with unblinking yellow eyes, and I thought of the Art Nouveau poster of Le Chat Noir. Remembered it was a cabernet house from the nineteenth century. Wondered if my mother had gone to any of the clubs up in Montmartre. “I’m actually in Paris.”
“What?” Her voice rose, and I heard a door open and close. I imagined her moving into the dining room, settling at the kitchen counter, kept impeccably clean by the twice-a-week cleaning staff. “What are you doing there?”
“Well, uh, I told you about Mike, right? The guy who owns Kilkarten? Well, we thought we’d travel for the weekend, so we’re here.” I swallowed. “Actually, we went to your old housing. I met this guy named Carl.”
She didn’t speak for a long time, and when she did, she sounded absolutely stunned. “Wow, Carl. That brings me back.”
In the dusk, the window slowly darkened. My reflection brightened, a ghost before the alley, my strange eyes limned in the glass. “Actually—it’s sort of funny—he did my makeup.” I laughed awkwardly.
Another pause. “Oh, Natalya. You must look beautiful.”
I swallowed. “Well, you know me. It’s not really my thing.”
“I know.”
My ear hurt, so I switched hands, and tried to keep myself from nervously pressing the phone flat against my head. “I look like you. I always thought I looked more like Dad, but I guess a lot of it’s just how you’re made up.”
Her voice softened. “Do you remember when you were little? And I used to take you to Sherri’s and she would do both of our faces?”
“That was weird, Mom. I was way too young.”
She didn’t respond.
I shifted uneasily. “You know what I mean. I didn’t want to do any of that stuff. The makeup or the dresses.”
“I know. I just thought... You were so beautiful.”
“You’re my mom. You weren’t supposed to think I needed makeup to be beautiful.”
“Oh, Natalie. Oh, I don’t.”
“I know. I just... And then it’s so weird here.”
“Are you crying?”
“No.” I pressed my fingers to the corners of my eyes and tried to soak up the water. “And ruin all of Carl’s work?”
“Will you send me pictures?”
“Pictures?” I laughed shakily. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to see you. I bet you look all grown up.”
“I am grown up.”
“I know.”
“Anyways.” I cleared my throat. “How are you?”
“Good. Good. Nothing new.”
“How’s Dad?”
“He’s working.”
Dad was always working. “Are you being social? Have you got lunch with Linda or Janice lately?”
“Linda and I are meeting tomorrow, yes.”
A silence fell, and I took a deep breath, trying to suck it away, tired of all the silences that always formed. “Mom, I’m really sorry if I didn’t appreciate it when you took me out. I know it was how you bonded. I just—I didn’t know that then. I wanted to play catch.”
“I know. You always wanted to be one of the boys. I never forgave your father for not including you more.”
“Carl was talking about how happy you were here, and I guess—I don’t know, I want you to be happy. Mike’s mom has some—weird issues with her late husband’s old girlfriend, and they’re all messed up, and I don’t want us to be messed up, and I’m sorry if I was judgmental and a bad daughter.”
“Natalie. Natalie, slow down. You’re not a bad daughter.”
“Are you happy? Were you really happy here?”
She was silent for a minute, and when she spoke she sounded far away. “I remember Paris with rose-tinted glasses, so what do I know? But what I remember was wonderful. And that’s enough for me.” She cleared her throat. “Sometimes I worry you like that feeling too. But so much that you move around quickly, so that you can always be looking back at something with fondness.”
I bit my lip. “I’ve been sort of thinking about that. And I was thinking that if this works out—I really like it in Kilkarten. Of course, it’s impossible to know anything until it happens, but I think I would be happy to have that and New York. I don’t think I would need anything else. Right now, I don’t even want it.” I saw the clock. Almost dinner. “I should go. But Carl said to tell you to come visit. He said you were missed.” I paused. “I miss you, Mom.”
“I miss you too, sweetheart. I’ll see you in two months.”
I clicked off and went downstairs. Mike sat in the miniscule courtyard, eating rolls dotted with large sugar crystals like popcorn. I dropped down in the wicker chair beside him.
“Thank you for taking me here.” I felt light. Whole. Like I’d shed some weight, the burden of misconception and worry and anger and guilt. “I’ve never understood my mother. I always thought it was so horrible, being wrenched away from your family at such a young age and living where she didn’t even speak the language. And I know Mom always talked like she liked it, but I thought that was some weird, messed up psychological thing, because how could you? But maybe she really did. I think I have a hard time admitting other people’s points of view are okay when they’re radically opposed to my own. Maybe I never even listened to her.”
“So you made a conclusion about your parents and might have been wrong.” He gave me that crooked smile I loved so much. “Must be crazy.”
I tilted my head back and saw that same black cat still perched on the turret. “I think my mom’s a lot smarter than I give her credit for.”
He started laughing. I straightened, startled.
“Join the club,” he said, and kissed me between bursts of laughter. “Join the fucking club.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We had dinner on rue Cler, a pedestrian street made of cobblestones and tourists. We ate outside, a candle on our table, a flower shop on one side, a chocolate shop across the street. I could have sat for hours watching all the people go by: the speeding locals, the chatting shop owners, the tourists who looked from their guidebooks to one restaurant and then another.
Instead, I watched Mike.
He ordered one of every appetizer, and then talked animatedly, hands waving, eyes sparking. He told me about his friends, his teammates, the last season and his hopes for the next. They’d drafted two players that were supposed to be amazing. They’d also traded for a new linebacker.
He made me so happy.
We laughed all through dinner, and then flagged the waiter down for dessert. He looked at us with exquisite boredom. “You will take the crème caramel?”