The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence (29 page)

Grasping at straws, she said, “There’s no name anywhere in the diary?”

“Oh, yes, there’s a name. Toes.”

“Toes.”

“My daughter had her first sexual experience with a man named Toes.” She twisted the tissue till it tore, and at this moment, her anguish seemed real to Talba. She didn’t care much for the name Toes herself.

Eddie said, “We need to talk to the girl.”

Scott nodded. “Might as well. She doesn’t talk to me, that’s for sure. But I don’t think it’s— I don’t want to be rude, but I really think she’d respond better to Ms. Wallis.”

Take that, Talba thought. Take that, Eddie Valentino. I’m the right demographic— young, female, and as dumb as the kid when it comes to guys. Scratch that. Formerly as dumb as the kid.

She was feeling magnanimous. Instead of letting Eddie do the dirty work, she jumped in ahead of him. “I’ll be happy to talk to her, but we do work as a team. Okay if Eddie comes along?”

“I guess it can’t hurt.” Scott didn’t seem happy about it.

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Magic Mirror

A Whim

I went to live in Paris on a whim. I’ve always had strong whims.

Danger and murder didn’t enter into my calculation, because there was no calculation. It was, pure and simple, a whim.

It isn’t that my life in Florida was unsatisfactory. I had my condo at Channel Point, and my rotund tortoiseshell cat Twinkie, and my column in the Bay City
Sun
three times a week. Naturally, being society editor, I had more invitations than I could handle— everything from the Rotary dinner dance at the country club to the grand opening of a convenience store on Route 98. A lot of people envied me.

I was close enough to Luna Beach to drive over and see Daddy and Mama pretty frequently. Of course, the talk around there was that I was fired from my job or disappointed in love, or both— preferably both. When the ladies at Mama’s women’s club tried to get her to tell them why I was moving to France Mama said, “I have no more notion than you do. I never could do a thing with Georgia Lee once she got an idea in her head.” And it’s true. She never could.

The real story is this: the top brass at the
Sun
were practically on their knees begging me to stay, once they realized I really was quitting. And as for disappointment in love, I had three ardent admirers at the time I chose to leave Bay City. I admit that two of them were married and one— a weasel named Ray— wasn’t worth a damn, but if I wanted male companionship, it was available.

Actually, I left Bay City because of Cecilia Driscoll’s daughter’s wedding. Since Cecilia’s husband owned an Oldsmobile dealership whose full-page advertisements ran regularly in the
Sun
, Cecilia’s doings were deemed extremely noteworthy by the powers that be. (“A whirlwind of a weekend
chez
Driscoll,” I would write. “Cecilia and darling daughter Debbie transformed the house on Rhododendron Road into a French Provincial bower for a brunch in honor of…” and so on.)

Cecilia started prepping me for the wedding months in advance: the church (Episcopal, naturally, although all Cecilia’s people had been hard-shell Baptists); the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses (pale lilac); the groom’s future employment (high school football coach). Is it any wonder I got a teeny bit bored with it all?

At Cecilia’s Christmas eggnog party she took me aside and said, in a conspiratorial tone, “Debbie has chosen Alençon lace for her veil.”

I was into my second eggnog, which was definitely more “nog” than egg. Straight-faced, I said, “Can I use your phone? I’d better call and stop the presses.”

I thought her smile was tight, but attributed it to her latest face-lift.

The wedding took place in April and I attended personally, my notebook tucked into my beige silk clutch. The occasion was typical, with stephanotis, princess necklines, and a toddling ring-bearer. Maybe it was newsworthy that the mother of the groom had a run in her hose. I had my photographer take some shots at the reception, and that was that.

I did, I admit it, get a giggle out of the picture of Cecilia. With her eyes half-closed she looked like Mama Toad instead of the mother of the bride. But truly, the others were worse. “Deliberate sabotage” is an ugly phrase, isn’t it?

The rest was in no way my fault. I turned in a perfectly respectable write-up, but in the next day’s paper three paragraphs concerning a marijuana raid were inserted, through an editing snafu, at the end of the wedding story. It read something like, “The Driscoll family’s out-of-town guests included… Joe Jones, who police said is wanted in Georgia for trafficking in a controlled substance; Jack Smith, recently released on bail on a similar charge,” and on like that.

You can imagine. As soon as the edition hit the stands Cecilia was in the publisher’s office. Did he back me up, apologize, smooth it over? After she stomped out he called me in, white as a sheet, and said Cecilia’s husband would pull his advertising if I wasn’t fired from the
Sun
immediately. I told him I hadn’t done anything wrong. He said maybe if I apologized she’d relent. I wanted to ask if Cecilia Driscoll was the boss around here, but the answer was obvious. I caved in and agreed to apologize. Then I left and went to the ladies’ room.

I stayed there a long time, gazing in the mirror. The greenish cast on my face, a reflection from the tile wall, made me look as sick as I felt. I remembered, suddenly and forcibly, that I was looking at my thirty-fifth birthday. From there, it was a mere hop down the road to the big four-oh. And where was I, and what had I accomplished? I was in Bay City, Florida, and I had accomplished getting myself into a position where I had to grovel to Cecilia Driscoll.

That’s when my whim started. I leaned over and stuck my face close to the mirror. “Georgia Lee,” I whispered. “Georgia Lee Maxwell.” Georgia Lee Maxwell, I realized, was not going to apologize to anybody. Furthermore, Georgia Lee Maxwell was sick of small-time aggravation. If I were going to have aggravation, I would have big-time aggravation.

I was leaving the
Sun.
I was leaving Bay City. The month was April. April in Paris. I was going to Paris.

Good-bye to Luna Beach

It wasn’t as farfetched as it may seem. Thanks to Mama’s ideas of refinement, I’d had years of French lessons from Mrs. Desirée Davis, a Parisienne who, by way of marriage to a GI, had ended up in Luna Beach. Because of her, I could read French pretty well. My speech I judged to be passable. Writing was different. I could struggle along, but I certainly couldn’t write the language well enough to go over there and join the staff of a French newspaper.

This was where Loretta came in.

We had been colleagues at the
Sun
some years before, Loretta covering fashion while I covered society. Then, through one of life’s ironies, Loretta went off on a trip that should have been mine and found a new existence.

The trip was to Atlanta. A Bay City majorette was entered in a prestigious baton-twirling competition there, and I was scheduled to go with her and write up her experiences. However, two days before I was supposed to leave I came down with a horrible strep throat and Loretta got to go instead. While she was there Loretta went to a Coke party for the twirlers and met a wealthy businessman named Wendell Walker, who was there representing one of the competition’s sponsors.

You guessed it. Six months later Loretta married Wendell and went off to live in luxury in Atlanta.

Of course I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t come down with strep. Would
I
have met and married Wendell Walker? I tell myself I couldn’t have, since I was married to Lonnie Boyette at the time. (My high school sweetheart. He spent all his spare time in the river swamp, blasting away at innocent wildlife with a shotgun, and loved his bird dog better than he loved me.) Still, I
might
have met Wendell, and we
might
have gotten married after I got divorced. It’s such an example of the Road Not Taken, isn’t it?

Eventually, Wendell was named CEO of his company and transferred to New York City. Loretta did all right for herself in New York. Despite being well-off she had continued to work, and after a while she ended up as executive editor of a glossy women’s magazine called
Good Look.
She never forgot her old girlfriend, either. When she wanted a story for
Good Look
that she thought was right for me, she’d call and offer me the assignment. I made a fair amount of freelance money that way, writing pieces about how to tone your calves and thighs by walking through beach sand, or making table settings using fishnet with conch shells and driftwood. At the time of my defection from the
Sun
, I was a fairly regular contributor to
Good Look
, which was why I felt I could call Loretta with my proposition.

Once I got her on the phone, though, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. She commiserated with me heartily about my troubles, but when I put forth my idea there was a good thirty seconds of dead air— at my expense— before she responded.

At last she said, “Well, Georgia Lee, I don’t… Have you ever
been
to Paris?”

I was miffed. “I certainly have. I went with Daddy and Mama when I was sixteen, and I spent a whole week there on my European tour.” (To tell the truth, it was five days, but I thought I had to make as strong a case as I could.)

More silence. I said, “I do speak the language. When I was there, I spoke to all kinds of people.” I remembered the conversation I’d had with the tacky-looking man who approached me in the Louvre. I’d understood his suggestions only too well, and after he’d followed me through a few rooms I’d been able to say, “Leave me alone or I’ll call the police” in perfect French.

“You know”— Loretta’s voice had a high, pinched quality— “we have fashion people on our staff who go to Paris twice a year for the
couture
shows, and the
prêt-á-porter
—”

“Naturally,” I said. I was being nice as pie, despite my growing annoyance. “I’m not asking to cover the fashion shows. What I’m offering is to do a monthly column about— um—
other
aspects of Paris.”

“What other aspects?”

I was up against it, now. I hadn’t expected Loretta to be such a tough nut. I tried to summon up articles from travel magazines I’d glanced through lately. I remembered a brightly colored photo of a street filled with stands and stalls. Had it been Paris or Rome? I plunged. “Street markets. Those darling street markets they have, with the fabulous meat and produce. Or facials.” I was rolling now. “Where do you get a great facial in Paris? I could test out several places and describe them. Or, say everybody in Paris is wearing high-buttoned shoes—”

“They are?”

“I don’t know what they’re wearing till I get there. But say it’s high-buttoned shoes. I write about that, and I find out where they buy them, and so on—”

“According to the proofs of our next issue, everybody in Paris is wearing metallic-colored pumps.”

“Or maybe there’s some adorable new restaurant everybody loves, or a book that’s making a stir. It could be anything, don’t you see?”

“Yes, but Georgia Lee, how are you going to find out about these things?”

“I’m a newspaperwoman, Loretta.
I’ll find out.”

The silence this time had a different quality. I got a few more ideas, but sensed it was time to shut up. I heard Loretta take a deep breath. “This would have to be completely on spec, you know. I couldn’t put you on the staff.”

No health insurance, no retirement package. “How much would you pay per piece?”

She named an obscenely low figure.

“Loretta!”

“Georgia Lee, it’s an unknown quantity. If it works out, we’ll do better.”

“You’ll have to do better now! I’ve got Twinkie to support!”

She came up a fraction and said, “That’s the best I can do. My financial people make me toe the line. It isn’t all up to me, you know.”

My financial people
. I’d have to sell the condo, unless I could find somebody to gouge for an unheard-of rent. Between that and depleting my savings, I might just get by. I thanked Loretta with some asperity and got off the phone.

After that, I moved ahead. I did find a tenant, a recently divorced colonel from the air force base, and he took it furnished. I packed a couple of trunks and bought a sturdy carrier for Twinkie. For a healthy fee, an international home-finders organization found me a studio apartment in Montparnasse. One ruinously expensive room, with bath and kitchenette. It seemed a pathetic comedown. I began to wonder, now that it was too late, whether I had made a terrible mistake.

A bunch of my friends gave me a bon voyage bash in a private room at the Sea Shack. My going-away gift was a caricature of me wearing a beret and waving a tricolor, drawn by the political cartoonist at the
Sun.
During the festivities a fellow named Dobie, who worked in the art department, dragged me aside. He had lived in Paris once, trying to be a painter. Fervently, he pressed into my hand a piece of paper, saying he wanted me to promise to call his friend Kitty. Equally fervently, I pledged that I would.

One afternoon, I went to Luna Beach for a good-bye dinner with Daddy and Mama. The drive had never been more beautiful. In the lowering sun the white sand was luminous, the water pale green. Sea grasses waved on rolling dunes. Shrimp boats were silhouetted on the hazy pink horizon. Only a fool would leave this.

Mama and Daddy seemed to agree. “I don’t know
what
you’ll eat over there,” Mama said as she served me celery stuffed with pimento cheese to nibble with my cocktail.

“They won’t be serving hush puppies,” Daddy yelled from the kitchen, where he was deep-frying a batch of them to go with the deep-fried catfish. The whole house smelled like hot oil.

Daddy is the editor, publisher, ad salesman, janitor, star reporter, and photographer— that is to say, the sole owner and proprietor— of the weekly Luna Beach
Current.
It’s because of him, of course, that I became a journalist. The latest issue of the
Current
was lying on the coffee table. In Daddy’s column, “Malcolm’s Corner,” I found: