Between Here and Gone Page 11

  “You’re pretty, you’re smart, you laugh at my jokes, and you try all my cooking experiments. I told you—my mama didn’t raise no fool.” The smile faded. “I recognize demons when I see them, Natalie. And I won’t take advantage of yours.”

  How transparent had I been? All this time I’d been so certain— Had everyone seen that I wasn’t what I tried so hard to be? And if they had … if that surprisingly fragile exterior had been so completely torn away … where to go? What to do?

  “Remy, may I tell you something?”

  “Of course.”

  One small thing. It’s not as if it wasn’t already out there, this piece of my previous life intersecting with the life I’d so painstakingly built. Instinctively I knew I could either take the effort to mend the breach, pretend it had never happened—or find a way for the two worlds to coexist.

  The choice, I knew, would be simple if I truly loved the life I currently inhabited.

  So then—one small step, to see how it felt, wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  “Natalie’s not my name. I mean, it is, but not really.”

  Though his eyes widened slightly, he remained silent, his thumb stroking across the back of my hand. The slow, rhythmic drag of skin against skin served to keep me in this life as I drew my former existence out a bit further from the shadows.

  “My name—my real name—it’s actually … Natalia.” It tripped off my tongue, the normally mellifluous cadence of the syllables stilted and broken from lack of use.

  “Natalia.” Remy quietly repeated before leaning down and touching his mouth to mine. “I do believe it suits you, chère. Suits you just right.”

  HOLIDAYS OVER—BACK TO REALITY

  Gay Talese

  The New York Times

  January 4, 1965

  * * *

  Nine

  Entering Mercier’s kitchen was akin to entering another world. One where the aromas of chicory-spiked coffee and the house gumbo and butter melting over crusty, fresh-baked bread combined into a mélange so rich and heady, it created an ambience where time and season had little meaning. In this one small corner of New York, it wasn’t a blustery, frigid January afternoon. It was coffee and sugar-dusted beignets on a Garden District balcony shaded by ancient oaks draped in lacy Spanish moss. It was a leisurely evening stroll along the Mississippi and the joyful noise of the jazz clubs on Bourbon Street and the frenetic intensity of Mardi Gras. In here, it was always spring in New Orleans.

  It was no wonder, really, that I spent more time here than I did in my own apartment.

  Comfortably perched on a stool, I studied the movement of Remy’s elegant long-fingered hands as he deftly chopped celery, bell pepper, and onion for “trinity,” the Creole version of mirepoix. Generally a job for one of the sous chefs, but one he enjoyed doing himself, pace of the day permitting. It was a joy, really, watching him do these little tasks, the ones where he didn’t even have to focus and could just retreat into himself. He was most open then, his face revealing a myriad of thoughts. What they were, exactly, remained a mystery to everyone but him, although some gestures provided small clues, like the subtle pursing of his lips when he was deep in thought, or the slightly unfocused, faraway expression in his eyes when he was standing at the stove and breathing deep.

  “Helen got married.”

  “Who?”

  “My roommate.”

  He spared me a sidelong glance, though his blade never ceased its hypnotic tattoo against the maple cutting board. “The one who’s always out on a date?”

  “One and the same.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought she bumped uglies with any one fool enough to get a proposal.”

  “Bumped uglies?”

  Half-moons of onion, sliced so thin as to almost be transparent, fell away from his blade—subtle mocking smiles that said far more than words could.

  “All right, so perhaps you have a point,” I said, finally giving in to a laugh. “But in a shocking twist, he’s not one of the local offerings. Rather, it’s her hometown sweetheart. From South Dakota. Came all the way out here to propose on New Year’s Eve.” Selecting a celery stalk that had yet to meet its fate, I drizzled it with a thin stream of rich green olive oil. “You know, we’ve lived together nearly four years and I had no idea she was even from South Dakota?” I crunched into the celery, savoring the bitter greenness mingling with the mellow oil.

  “I didn’t know anyone was actually from South Dakota—or at least, who’d admit to it.”

  “Be nice.”

  “Come now, you know that’s not a condition I ever lay claim to, chère.” The hiss and pop of the chopped vegetables meeting hot oil seeming to corroborate his offhand statement. “So,” he added with a grin and raised-eyebrow glance as he added a heaping pile of minced garlic to the sauté pan, “does this mean you’ll be needin’ a new roommate?”

  “Honestly, Remy.” Incorrigible to the end. But despite any claims to the contrary, a very nice man. So much better than he’d ever admit to being.

  He’d refused to let me go home, that night I’d landed on his doorstep. Simply bundled me into his bed in his take charge, bossy manner, while he kept vigil on the couch—an arrangement that lasted close to a week with the unsurprising onset of a miserable cold leaving me unable to protest even if I’d wanted to. For once, I simply gave into my body’s demands, drifting in and out of sleep with no thought to schedules or whether it was night or day—lost in dreams of Nico and tropical paradises with snow falling among the palm fronds. Running after him, desperately trying to catch him before he disappeared into a mist that I’d fight through, only to find myself back on the windswept deck of the Empire State Building … waiting, sometimes falling, sometimes floating—sometimes coming face to face with Jack Roemer and Greg Barnes morphed into angels of the stern warrior variety the nuns had used to instill fear in us as children. Because it would have been far too easy to have Botticelli’s cherubic angels fluttering harmlessly about in my subconscious.

  Regardless of the nature of the dreams, however, I’d always wake to find Remy beside me, holding a glass of water to my lips, murmuring comforting words until I was soothed back to a calmer sleep.

  But past that week, he surprised—and shamed me a bit—by never once referring to what had happened. Not even in a teasing manner. Which wasn’t to say his behavior toward me wasn’t altered, but only in the subtlest, most delicate of ways. A lingering touch or his dark, all-too-seeing gaze studying me an extra moment longer as he presented me with one of his never ending cooking experiments. While the after-hours visits to my apartment remained the occasional occurrence they’d always been, they were now supplemented with coffees and walks around Gramercy Park and an almost nightly phone call, never lengthy but enough to bring a sense of comfort and peace that had long been lacking.

  “Truthfully, I don’t want a new roommate. I saw Helen so infrequently, it was almost like living alone. I don’t want to potentially wind up with some eighteen-year-old, fresh off the bus, expecting to become best friends and do each other’s hair and gossip about boys.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Can you really see me that way?” Even when I had been of an age to enjoy that sort of thing, it hadn’t been my preferred mode of entertainment. Books and dreaming and Nico. That had more than filled my world.

  “No,” he admitted as he lowered the flame beneath the pan. “Never really have struck me as that kind of flighty. So you gonna stay in your place by yourself, then?”

  I shook my head. “I need to look for something new. I hardly need a two bedroom apartment for myself.”

  Even if both bedrooms together amounted to the size of my girlhood closet. But beyond not needing the rooms, I wouldn’t be able to continue to afford it—not with my expenses. Luckily, there was a constant overturn of studios and small one bedrooms within the Village as people arrived, trying to find their version of the New York dream and just as quic
kly departed, the reality all too often failing to meet the expectations. Much better to arrive with no expectations. Far less opportunity for disillusionment. But for my purposes, fortunate, since it meant finding a new apartment wouldn’t prove to be too difficult—a gift for which I was grateful. I had a genuine fondness for my eccentric dowager of a neighborhood with its chess players in the Square and old Italian men arguing on stoops. Where denim-clad long-haired boys and girls walked hand-in-hand past earnest college students handing out flyers for one protest or another and mothers watched their children play while they gossiped on park benches. As alive at night as during the day, with laughter and folk music and impassioned poetry and fragrant smoke drifting in equal measures from the open doors of the clubs on humid summer nights. The changes going on in the rest of the world reflected in those few blocks.

  If Mercier’s reflected balmy decadence, then the Village was a slice of bohemian Europe. A psychology degree was hardly required to understand how each fed a distinct piece of my soul. Or to recognize both locations as intrinsically New York, yet out of step with the image the rest of the world had of this too-large, too-hard city.

  Remy glanced up from giving the sautéing vegetables another stir.

  “Seriously, bebe, if you need somewhere to stay until you find a new place, you’re more than welcome. No ulterior motives.”

  “No? You’re losing your touch, Remy.”

  “I’m not sayin’ one or two might not cross my mind,” he shot back. “I’m only human. And I don’t know why you’re forever spoilin’ for a fight.” Amidst a grumbling stream of patois, he clapped the lid back on the pot and removed the sharpening steel from the woodblock. Over the whine of steel against steel he repeated, “Seriously—my door’s always open.”

  I waited until he replaced the knife in the block before touching my hand to his back. “I know that.” Hoping he understood how it would be such a monumentally bad idea. Too many memories and emotions. One desperate moment still hovering entirely too close to the surface.

  “Lord, but you’re a stubborn thing,” he grumbled, moving on to the next knife, the blade dissolving into a silver blur.

  He understood. Didn’t mean he agreed. But he understood—at least, as well as he was able.

  In the foyer, I made certain all was in order at the curved French West Indies table—another elegant leftover from Mercier’s early days—that served as the reception desk as a busboy gave the brass handles on the massive wood and leaded glass doors a final polish. Mrs. Mercier, regal in a suit of deep rose brocade, made one final, assessing circuit around the dining room before inclining her head at the busboy who, having waited for her signal, turned the locks, and with that, our day was officially underway. Busy, as always. Far too busy to allow one to think much—the blessing of this job.

  “Hello Natalie.”

  Surprised, I glanced up at the clock—one-thirty, right on time. My shock came more from how quickly two hours had elapsed than from the man who stood before me. An eventuality I’d been prepared for.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes, how are you today?” Each word came out easy and measured, just as it had the dozens of times practiced before my bathroom mirror. No nerves, no anger. Just calm, cool Natalie. The one thing weighing on my mind. What would he say? What would he do? And how would I react, practice notwithstanding? First thing every day, I would check the register, breathing a momentary sigh of relief each time I didn’t see his name neatly inscribed in the big leather book, only to have that relief chased off by tension. His name would be there at some point. Or worse still, he would just drop in, as he’d so often done before. The only question was when. At least the fates had seen fit to grant me this one small favor in the form of a reservation. So I’d had time to prepare.

  “Quite well, thank you. And you?” And since, as usual, he was accompanied by business associates, that was the most he would say—something we both understood and which allowed me to muster a polite smile as I checked his name off on the register and collected leather-bound menus.

  “Very well, sir. Thank you.” Everything so very normal and routine. Even my polite smile had a natural feel as I waited for them to check their coats and hats before leading them to their table, placing the menus atop the plates, allowing them to seat themselves before taking drink orders. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. Unless, of course, you took into account the fact that beyond that brief welcoming smile—a gesture where I stared as much past him as at him—I hadn’t been able to bring myself to fully meet Gregory Barnes’ gaze. And I wouldn’t. To face the knowledge and pity that I knew had to live in that concerned blue gaze would require more than I was capable of.

  Luckily, the table was where my duties ended and luckier still, Mr. Barnes didn’t seek me out, as I’d feared he might. Even his departure, when he might have been able to beg an extra moment for conversation, passed uneventfully enough, punctuated only by an almost imperceptible pause in the open doorway—just long enough for him to glance over his shoulder and tip his hat before disappearing into the snow swirling beyond the threshold.

  And finally, I was able to breathe. To just … sit, eyes closed and fingers pressed against throbbing temples. Inhaling deeply of the unique combination of sharp cold outside air meeting the humid, fragrant air inside. One clearing the senses, the other providing a sense of comfort.

  “I’m breaking a promise to my wife doing this.”

  My eyes snapped open as a lungful of the cold air that had followed Greg Barnes back inside knifed through my chest.

  “I swore to her I’d leave this alone, that if you came to us, it was one thing, but that it was better to leave it—and you—alone.” He propped his hands on the desk and leaning down, said very quietly, “The offer is still open and I’d like you to consider it. I honestly think you’re the right person for this and that it would be good for you—and perhaps even Ava.”

  Panicked, I turned my head from side to side, praying no one lurked within hearing distance. “How dare you.” My jaw clenched, tiny muscles cramping. “After what you people did—”

  “I know.” He straightened and took a deep breath. “I know that right now, it seems unpardonable and you know, I can’t say I disagree.”

  “You know nothing. Now please—leave me alone.” The words feeling like ground glass lodged deep in my throat.

  Greg nodded slowly, the brim of his hat casting shadows across his face. “I’m so sorry.”

  He was. Only a fool could have missed the true regret. But I didn’t care. What they’d done— Night after night of waking up, surrounded by paper thin walls and memories so horrific, I couldn’t even scream my way out, just relive them, over and over, until there was nothing left except a tangle of sheets and cold sweat. And now—after steeling myself for this encounter, imagining it successfully navigated, only to have it revealed as nothing more than a flimsy charade.

  No. Greg Barnes could be sorry until the gates of hell iced over for all I cared.

  “Gregory—I thought you’d left.”

  “And I thought you’d gone upstairs to cook the books.”

  “Really, Greg.” Mrs. Mercier sniffed as she descended the last few steps of the gently curving staircase leading to the second floor. “You know I have a firm of lovely high-priced accountants to ‘cook the books’ as you so inelegantly put it.”

  “And I know you don’t trust them worth a damn, so you feel compelled to go over their work with a fine-toothed comb and your own formidable skills.”

  “Well, have to keep them honest, otherwise, they’re liable to rob the widow woman blind.”

  “They’d be fools to even think to attempt it.”

  “True.”

  She hadn’t heard. That was all I could think, as she turned her gaze on me. She hadn’t heard me being impossibly rude to one of our best customers—to an old family friend. Even if the rudeness was warranted and I had no doubt that Greg would defend it as a fully justifiable reaction on my part, bu
t without context, how could Mrs. Mercier possibly understand? And how could I even begin to explain? But I wouldn’t have to because she hadn’t heard. Gracias a Dios, because I couldn’t lose this. Not Mercier’s. Not on top of everything else.

  “Natalie, darlin’—you’re looking absolutely peaked.”

  I groped for something to say, but my tongue felt thick and unresponsive.

  “She was just saying she’d skipped breakfast and was wondering what Remy might have in store for her today,” Greg inserted smoothly, his expression as placid and guileless as an altar boy’s.

  “Skipping meals? You tryin’ to catch your death again? Go on, now, take your break.”

  “But—”

  “Right now, child. I know you like to wait until the end of your shift, but what good is that going to do if you’re going to fall over in a dead faint before then? Go on now—” She made a shooing motion with one hand as the other tugged on the carved back of my chair. “Get Remy to dish you up some of the jambalaya. And the rice pudding—you need something to stick to you.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Hush.”

  Part of me wanted to argue—to hold fast, refuse to give into weakness.

  The sane part was unspeakably grateful at being granted permission to escape. I pushed myself away from the table and walked slowly toward the kitchen, slow enough that I was able to hear Mrs. Mercier’s biting, “Good thing I’ve known you practically since the cradle, Gregory, and know Constance as well as I do. Otherwise, I’d be damned suspicious. I know you don’t think me stupid enough to have failed to notice what’s been going on.”

  By the time I reached the kitchen, I could barely breathe. Weaving my way through the bodies going about their work, I came up behind Remy, clutching his arm, unmindful of the sizzling sauté pan he was shaking over the flame.