“No, never, not in a million years. You can stay with us for as long as you want. Forever even. We owe the world to you—”
“We do,” said Robert. “Tonight, we’re having cocktails at the Boom Boom Room and a celebratory dinner at Le Coucou.” He paused, giving me the once-over. “Go get yourself cleaned up and come along.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling more cuckoo than “hey you” or “peekaboo,” the French translation of coucou, and pronounced the same way. “But I’m not in the shape, form, or mood to go anywhere. I’m going to make myself something to eat, watch a movie, and go to bed. Go have fun. I’ll be fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. I just wanted to forget everything.
4
flat champagne bubbles and broken dreams
After the door shut behind Walter and Robert, I polished off the bottle of champagne and shuffled over to the freezer to retrieve a half pack of old cigarettes. I’d given up the social habit two years ago, considering I was never social, but I figured my life was already in the crapper. One or two, maybe three, cigarettes wouldn’t hurt me.
The cigarettes were the long English brand—Sobranie Cocktails—with colorful pastel encasings and a gold band around the filter, the same kind my mother, Céleste, had smoked. I lit one up, thinking of her. Sometimes she’d used a long black holder, a vision conjuring up glamorous movie stars from the golden age of film. Her lips would purse and she’d inhale, finally blowing out the smoke from her raspberry-red lips in a whoosh, her posture always straight. When she smoked, she was graceful, even elegant, whereas I was not. With each inhale, I coughed and hacked. I snuffed out the butt in an ashtray.
I kept the only photo I had of her tucked away in my top drawer underneath my socks. I fumbled my way to my room, pulled it out, and made my way back to the couch. A few people had said I look like her. Similar in appearance to me, she had large green almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, a defined jawline, full lips, and long black hair, but people had also said that I was rougher around the edges. Perhaps it’s because I rarely wore makeup, my hair was usually in a messy braid, and, for the most part, I was always dressed in chef’s threads. Not exactly the epitome of glamour. I stared at the picture, gripping the corner between my thumb and forefinger.
We were holding hands and skipping down a path in Central Park. In the background, there were a couple of ducks in a pond. She was twenty-four at the time, wearing a black flowered sundress that tied at the neck; I was around five, wearing a pinafore dress, a white shirt, and black Mary Janes with lacy white socks. She looked down at me with a grin; I looked up at her with awe. Even in this picture, Céleste carried herself with the kind of grace only Frenchwomen know how to pull off.
We’d moved from France to New York when I was six months old. I didn’t recall much of those early years, too young to remember, obviously. But I do remember the days when I was older, like in this picture. My mother had just gotten a bit part in a movie, playing the role of the clichéd sexy French maid. A method actress, she was scrubbing down the kitchen when she sat me down and asked, “Do you know what dreams are, ma petite?”
“A big ice cream sundae,” was my answer.
She shook her long black hair and giggled. “My darling girl, dreams are much bigger than that. I’m going to be a star.”
I was entranced, wondering if I could swing from the stars or carry moonbeams home in a jar, the tune my mother hummed. My eyes widened like saucers. “A star? Like one in the sky?”
“No, not like a star in the sky, something bigger and brighter. I’m going to be famous one day. Mark my words.” She winked. “Ma petite, we come from noble blood. Your great-great-grand-père was a comte and now your grand-mère has the world at her feet. It’s my turn to shine.”
“Ma grand-mère?” I’d asked. “Where is she?”
“Oh, don’t you worry your little mind over her. You wouldn’t like her. She abandoned us. Just as if we were stray cats prowling on the streets.” She held up her manicured fingernails and made a clawing motion. “She’s like that witch, the mean one, in the movie you love so much, the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“The Wizard of Oz?”
“Yes, that’s the one.” She looked out the window, humming.
At five years old, I didn’t think much about this grandmother I’d never met. Thanks to my mother comparing her to the Wicked Witch of the West, I’d envisioned her as old and decrepit with a green face and skeleton-like hands. I didn’t want to come face-to-face with her. My dreams were comprised of sweet treats and swinging on the swings. I was seven years old when I finally met her. To my delight, she didn’t have a green face or long decrepit fingers with curled nails.
I tried to remember my mother’s smile, the days when she was happy, the memories hard to come by. I slammed the photo onto the coffee table facedown.
This photo was a lie. Her dreams never came to fruition and my life was filled with broken promises. When my mother was up, she lit up the room. But when she was down, spiraling into depression, the days and nights were hard. I always thought it was my fault, something I did. But I knew now that wasn’t the case. My mother was never happy. She was good at being a faker, at pretending, especially when she smiled her closed-lip smile. I could see her eyes were dead.
I wanted to shake off the memories of her that were invading my mind. I got up, made my way to my room, stuffed the photo into its drawer, and jumped into the shower, needing to be proactive, not reactive. I ran the water cold to offset the fire searing my chest.
Clean, but not exactly refreshed, I threw on a pair of flannel pajamas, turned the gas fireplace in the living room to a blaze, and picked up the phone to call Monica, my closest friend from the CIA. A dynamo in the kitchen, she was elevating Mexican cuisine to new gastronomic levels. She had opened her restaurant, El Colibrí, two short years ago. At first people thought she was nuts—then they tasted her dishes. Billing her cuisine as “not your mother’s tacos,” she’d introduced gourmet Mexican food to Los Angeles, and you didn’t eat her creations—like the lobster tail served with the pomegranate mango salsa, served on a blue corn tortillas—with your hands, especially with her secret version of a chimichurri sauce. A hint: truffle oil along with olive oil. The girl genius was an alchemist in the kitchen, creating elixirs and blending ingredients like a mad culinary scientist.
“Hola, babe,” she said. “It’s a bit nuts here. I only have a few minutes.”
“Are you looking for a sous chef?” I asked.
She went silent for a moment. “Jesus Christ. I’m so sorry, Sophie. I just heard the news.”
My throat constricted. “Already?”