Part 15 (2/2)
Lena rolls her eyes, wondering if this channeling of Camille will never stop. Cheryl is a blabbermouth; her quirks are starting to come back to Lena.
”Are you're going to change your hairstyle to match Tina's? Maybe there's a wig shop around here.” Bruce howls at this thought. ”Or maybe we can find a Thunderdome outfit. The possibilities are endless.”
”I don't know you, Bruce. And you don't know me well enough to mock me.” Before Tina, before Vence and Philip, before Harmon, Lena knows her first inclination would have been to cut her eyes at Cheryl and stomp off to the barrier that separates the cafe from the street. Now she hits Bruce's arm with a half-playful, half serious punch.
”Hey, it was funny. No biggie. I'm sorry.” Bruce turns from Cheryl to Harmon then Lena with a quizzical look on his face. Lena wonders how it is that such a big man can be so whiny.
”Bruce is only kidding. It takes a while to get used to his sense of humor. You'll get to understand him, once you've been around him longer. But I've got to admit, I'm as curious as he doesn't know how to say he is. Why Tina?”
Traffic horns blare. If she closed her eyes, Lena thinks, they could be anywhere. She prays Harmon's intentions are as sincere as his words. Had he always been this caring? Last night they stayed awake until the drapes lightened with the morning sun. Before she told him he had to go back to his room, he asked more about her than anyone has in a long time. What she wants out of life, what her next steps are. Why she is no longer married. If she is still in love with her soon-to-be ex.
”She conquered fear.” Lena takes in the view and releases a long sigh. This is not just anywhere. Everything from the calm sea to the stone-faced mountains is old, historic. The houses, the wrought iron balconies, the ma.s.sive buildings, sidewalks, the streets. ”I don't know why I'm being so defensive. It feels good to say it out loud: Tina conquered fear. She makes me feel like I can do anything, makes me know change is possible, and age isn't a barrier.”
If the acknowledgment that spreads over Cheryl's face, even Bruce's chubby face and Harmon's, has not made this trip, this search, worth the pain it cost, then Lena is not clear what will.
”Tina Turner hasn't got a thing on you.” Harmon reaches over to hug Lena and, to her surprise, so does Bruce.
”Are you ready to get going?” Maybe, Lena thinks, this is Bruce's apology. ”What's the plan?”
”It's not quite eleven.” Cheryl bats her eyes at Bruce, who has learned to bat back and seems, to Lena, smitten.
There is a tranquil nature to the aimlessness their vacation has taken that, Lena thinks, she might apply to her life. The lack of purpose evokes a sense of the unknown and freedom and a taste of the unpredictable. In Nice, the Mediterranean anchor is always to the east. Lena cannot get lost here; she has to figure out what her anchor in this new life will be.
”We're off to Eze so Lena can take pictures.”
Lena can't recall if they discussed a plan when Harmon phoned earlier that morning, although the high and winding Corniche is a sight she wants to see.
”Do whatever you would do if I wasn't taking your picture. Talk.” Lena points the camera lens to Harmon's face and adjusts it to the left and right until his profile is clear through the viewfinder. She waits for him to expose the tips of his teeth, then presses the shutter b.u.t.ton twice. ”Be serious.”
”I'm on vacation.” Harmon poses, makes a face like a naughty ten-year-old, and tugs at the sides of his mouth with both hands. He sticks out his tongue. She snaps again. Harmon points to the st.u.r.dy metal railing and guides Lena to the potted olive tree in front of it. He entwines Lena's waist with both arms and presses his cheek to hers. They smile while the server figures out how to take their picture and include the dreary sky and smoke-colored clouds at their backs.
When the server places the check and his credit card on the table, Harmon signs the slip, draws a heart, and scribbles the initials HF + LH inside it. ”Maybe that's not a manly reaction, but it's me. My sons would whoop up a storm if they could see me. Bruce is having a field day. Bl.u.s.tery lawyer, supposedly adamant and logical. I feel like a kid who found a special something he thought he'd lost, that's been lost for a long time.”
”How can you care so quickly?” She asks, praying that he won't ask her to answer the same question.
”I know what I want when I see it, and frivolous youth doesn't count.”
”You were thirty-six. I was almost thirty. Since when are the thirties frivolous?”
Litigation, he explains, requires well-timed a.s.sessments of facts and circ.u.mstances, and strong arguments. ”So your unasked question is: if I hadn't run into you would I be paying as much attention to someone else I picked up between my bike trip and my return home?”
Eze is too beautiful, the day too divine to question Harmon's flirtation, but Lena wants answers nevertheless. Once again their deep conversations are surrounded by food and water.
”As a matter of fact, there was a woman on the biking trip. We were checking each other out, on the verge of... you know. My point is, you'll notice she isn't with me.”
”And she's probably p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l, too.”
Harmon shrugs.
”You dog. I better watch myself.” Lena shrugs, too, unsure if her sarcastic admonition is for herself or Harmon.
Harmon and Lena wander from the limestone terrace of Chateau Eza's restaurant high above Nice, closer to Monte Carlo and Menton, and through its arched entryway back to the village. The uneven and narrow streets of Eze are filled, but not crowded, with other tourists wandering about, their single intention to browse. In this medieval town, history has settled in brick walls washed with the acid of time.
Lena focuses her camera. Snap. Snap. For the most part, the ancient buildings of every street are filled with boutiques and galleries. An iron gate-Porte des Maures-blocks the curious from a craggy path leading down the mountain. For the most part, the ancient buildings of every street are filled with boutiques and galleries. An iron gate-Porte des Maures-blocks the curious from a craggy path leading down the mountain. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. A sign, in French and English, tells all that in the year 900, Moors pa.s.sed through the gateway to invade the village and occupied Eze for more than seventy years. Lena points out to Harmon that this was probably the last time a mult.i.tude of dark-skinned people were ever in Eze or any city around the Mediterranean. A sign, in French and English, tells all that in the year 900, Moors pa.s.sed through the gateway to invade the village and occupied Eze for more than seventy years. Lena points out to Harmon that this was probably the last time a mult.i.tude of dark-skinned people were ever in Eze or any city around the Mediterranean.
Does it bother Tina that she stands out? Stardom would do that anyway. Perhaps this is a difference between Lena and her celebrity heroine. Oakland and the Bay Area is a melting pot that Lena loves. The lack of diversity, this different kind of diversity, at least in Nice, is what makes Lena know she couldn't live here.
Harmon changes direction and leads them to a small plaza off the main street. The church, Notre Dame de Asuncion, connects to a cemetery where French veterans from the two World Wars lie in rest. From where they stand, even though the sky is overcast, they can see the topography of the land. The dark promontories of the southern coast are stubby like papier-mache hills against the dull gray water. The view is far better than what can be seen from a plane; almost touchable, closer without queasiness.
”It's like having one foot in the plaza and the other in heaven.” Lena plays with the exposure meter on her camera and snaps more pictures with and without Harmon in them.
”I have an idea.”
”Just look at the view and act like you're enjoying yourself.”
”Let me help you look for Tina's house.”
”Even though you're a wonderful diversion, Harmon Francis, meeting Tina is a promise I'll fulfill on my own.”
”So, subst.i.tute me for Cheryl, or add me to the equation. Take your pick. I'll be your guide.”
”I'll think about it.”
Inside the church a box of votive candles and wooden matches rest on a creaky table in front of a statue of Our Lady of the Ascension. Wind teases the flames beneath the statue. Lena strikes a match and lights four candles before depositing euros in a metal coin box.
”It looks like a traveler's prayer written underneath the statue.” Harmon sticks his face close to the verse and translates. ”'Let this light that I offer be my hope before my Lord and the Virgin and guide me to contentment wherever I go.'”
”Now, that,” Lena says, teasing and truthful at the same time, ”strikes me as divine.”
Chapter 28.
Lena!” Cheryl yells from the terrace. Reading on the sunny balcony has become her ritual. Each morning she pores over pictures of European celebrities and decodes the French words that look like English ones. She buys several papers every day from metal-framed kiosks and periodical stores jammed with gossip, crossword, and cooking magazines in layers six inches thick. The covers are brilliant: handsome politicians, gorgeous film stars, lush red tomatoes, bouquets of deep green basil, country chateaus, skinny models clad in outrageous haute couture. ”There's a picture in this paper of Tina Turner shopping in Villefranche-sur-Mer.”
The only evidence of Lena's presence in the room is the long, crumpled lump in her bed. Apprehension has taken hold of her body; nervous antic.i.p.ation. The covers hide the top of her head. Can she sink any deeper into the soft mattress? Should she try to find Tina now, before the concert? Does she want Harmon, Cheryl, and Bruce to go with her? What will she say if she's allowed through the gates that surely must protect Tina from outsiders and autograph seekers?
If this were a trip planned for Lena's family, every detail of it would have been written, memorized, and ready to execute. She should have thought through the possibilities: written a letter to Tina and asked for fifteen minutes like she used to grant to community groups seeking an audience with the mayor. Just fifteen minutes, Tina, fifteen minutes to get an autograph, to take a picture and say thanks.
Underneath this six hundred thread-count tent, she checks her cell phone for messages in case Lulu, or one of the kids, has called. Randall's picture appears on the screen-the one she took when she got her new phone over a year ago; he sits on the couch, arms reaching to the camera, thumbs up. He looks like Kendrick or vice versa.
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