The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [96]
“Quiet, Anna,” Marta said, her own voice tight with anxiety.
Claire leaned back in an attempt to get comfortable. She thought of an afternoon long ago, dim lights flickering against a giant screen, the soft cushions of red velvet seats.
“Once upon a time,” she said, reaching for each girl’s hand in the darkness, “there was a handsome paleontologist, Docteur Grant, who was obsessed with a dinosaur bone. A beautiful socialite named Mademoiselle Hepburn met the paleontologist and fell in love with him, but he was engaged to marry another woman. A very boring, unkind woman. But, you see, the socialite had a pet leopard named Bébé.”
“A pet leopard?” Anna snuggled into Claire’s side. “Vraiment mystérieux!”
They slipped off the barge at dawn and made their way into Paris and to rue du Colisée. The blue awning of the flower shop was a beacon in the bright morning sunlight. The girls stowed in the alley behind the shop, Claire strolled past the windows of La Vie en Fleurs. A glance inside. The florist stood at the counter, helping a soldier, his back to the window. Madame’s eyes tracked Claire.
Claire and the girls circled the block, then slipped down the alley. The florist waited at the back door. Claire enveloped her in a tight embrace, feeling the emotion and strength in her taut frame.
A soft whispering caught Madame’s attention. She looked over Claire’s shoulder. “What do we have here?”
A deep curtsy from each girl and a quiet introduction.
The florist examined Claire, a question in her eyes. After a moment, she smiled and extended her arms. “I am Madame Palain. Please come in.”
“I’m sorry,” Claire said.
Madame met Claire’s gaze, her eyes serious. “Don’t worry, my dear. We are women. We will make do.”
Madame pulled out the china. They ate a breakfast of apples and thin-sliced bread, speaking of weather and flowers, sitting on stools amongst greenery in the back room. No questions were asked.
Afterward, the florist led them upstairs into Claire’s room. It was the same as Claire left it; a fresh rose in the crystal vase. Madame saw Claire’s glance, a small nod.
“We will have Georges bring up a mattress. It will be perfect,” the florist said.
“It will be fine, Madame, thank you. But we can’t tell Georges,” Claire said. “No one can know. No one can talk.”
The woman turned to Claire, her eyes sparking anger. “Just because Georges is not fast doesn’t mean he isn’t a good boy. He never said anything about you, did he?”
Claire glimpsed a trace of the pain her deception caused. “No. He didn’t.”
“Bon.” Madame turned toward the girls. “We will get started on your new room before Georges comes over.”
Claire watched as the girls arranged the room with the florist’s oversight. Madame told them elegance is in the details. Marta and Anna listened with rapt eyes. Claire knew they would settle in nicely. A look of gratitude to her friend and she reached for her paper and pen.
That afternoon, Claire slipped a note into the slot of the dentist’s office as she walked by, her quick eyes on the street around her. A young couple strolling, a white-haired man bent over a cane, a boy with worn oversized clothes belted around his thin frame. No one watched her, none trailed too close behind. She got as far as the corner before she turned back. She couldn’t make herself hide at Madame’s and wait.
There was an empty sidewalk table at Café Raphael. Claire claimed a chair and sat down facing the dentist’s office. She ordered a coffee to give her hands something to do. Even with the girls tucked away in the shop, it felt as though a vise were tightening around her, and her body fidgeted for action.
She shifted on her seat, her eyes searching. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, but the street looked shabby in the golden light. The structures seemed to hunch together and the pedestrians stooped from the oppression blanketing the city.
A man emerged from the office. He had the nonchalance of a patient leaving his dentist,