The Paris Secret (9 page)

“So, tell me about this idiot who sent you running off to Paris all alone.”

Before I could answer, he bent down and stuck his tongue in my belly button. I laughed. It felt so good. And for the first time in two months, I forgot why I’d been so unhappy.

I stood in the corner of a small, darkened room that resembled a cell. A figure slept in a narrow bed in the corner. I couldn’t make out who it was. Then a thin shaft of weak sunlight streamed in from a small arched window set high up in the stone wall. The figure sat up and swung its legs over the side of the bed. It was a woman. But I still couldn’t make out her face. She held her hand out to me. I didn’t want to take it but did. And suddenly, I was no longer in the corner. I was the woman in the bed.

A sense of purpose drove me to the chair next to the bed where a pair of thick black woolen stockings was draped. I put them on then retrieved a long black habit hanging from a hook on the back of the wooden door. I pulled it over the white cotton chemise I’d slept in. Next came the white hood-like coif, which I adjusted until it covered the top, sides and back of my head as well as my shoulders, leaving only my face free. Lastly, I draped the long white veil over the coif. Black veils were for the professed sisters.

There was no mirror in the room for me to see my reflection. But I knew what I would see if there were—a long, narrow face with large brown eyes, a broad nose and full lips, the face of Louise-Marie, the Black Nun of Moret. As I slipped into the one pair of shoes I owned, happiness filled my heart and lightened my mood. I would be leaving this place soon.

Dawn was giving way to morning and the hall outside my cell was filled with sunlight as I hurried past the empty cells of the other sisters. I avoided the back stairwell that led directly into the chapel where mass had been going on since 4:00 a.m. I didn’t have much time. Soon mass would be over and it would be time for the morning meal. I’d run away before and they would be suspicious if I was late. And even though it had been years ago, they still watched me constantly. Instead, I headed the opposite direction down the main stairwell and nearly collided with Sister Jeanette. Why wasn’t she in mass? Was she lying in wait for me? Did she know what I was up to? Thankfully, the long sleeves of my habit hid the ring on my finger.

“Excusez moi, Soeur.”
Excuse me, Sister.

I stepped aside so the portly woman could pass. The burnt sugar smell clinging to her habit assaulted my senses but failed to completely mask her strong personal scent. Sister Jeanette didn’t respond or even look my way. She hated me. She found my brown skin odd and offensive. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she coveted my job in the convent library looking after the books and illuminated manuscripts. Sister Jeanette used to weave tapestries. But the palsy that caused her hands and limbs to shake had grown worse over the past year, making weaving impossible.

She’d been sent to the kitchen to train as a confectioner with the sisters who made the candy. She’d argued bitterly with Mother Elizabeth that I should be the one sent to the kitchen so she could have my job. But Sister Jeanette didn’t have a wealthy patron paying for her keep as I did. She had to work to earn her stay as did all the other sisters. Most of the nuns were widows without family to care for them or daughters who by misfortune of birth order had to become nuns because their families could only afford a dowry for the eldest daughter to wed. I was an odd case. I lived in a sort of limbo. Not a nun, and with no family who would claim me, I’d been sent to the convent when I was eight. Not bound to the same rules as the professed sisters, I didn’t have to work. I wanted to. But I wasn’t free to live my own life, at least not yet.

The convent’s candy was what brought in the most money. Sister Jeanette was the culprit behind the three batches of burnt sugar this week alone, not to mention the ruined pots and the acrid stench that hung in the halls for days. She was doing it on purpose, hoping to get moved to another job. So far it had not worked. I dug deep into the pocket of my habit and pulled out a bright yellow piece of the sugar candy. I had pilfered the day before and popped it in my mouth. As it melted, it released its mellow caramel flavor to bathe my tongue.

The library was empty when I arrived. I closed the heavy wooden door behind me and hurried across the polished wooden floor, past the long wooden tables. I inhaled the sweet scent of beeswax from the previous night’s melted candles. Numerous books and large manuscripts lined the shelves that occupied three levels. Colorful light shone down though eight large stained-glass windows, four on either side of the room. They depicted saints and angels, the stained glass making them appear as if they were trapped inside a colorful kaleidoscope.

The library was my refuge. The only place in the convent I belonged. Books didn’t judge me…or abandon me. I would miss this room dearly. With little time to spare, I headed to a small table at the very back of the room that served as my desk. I was in charge of book donations from the clergy, scholars and the nobility and my desk was usually piled high with parcels. But there was only one I was interested in. I located it almost immediately. It was thin and square and wrapped in the purple paper and gold twine of the French royal court. I unwrapped it, careful not to tear the precious paper. It was a novella,
Le Voyage de Fontainebleau
by Jean de Prechac.
The Voyage to Fontainebleau.

The book itself was of no consequence. It was the message I’d been waiting for. Impulsively, I began spinning the silver ring around on my finger, the ring that would soon be replaced with a gold band once we were wed. Tonight my love, Philippe, the Duke of Chartres, would come and whisk me away to nearby Fontainebleau Castle. And by his side, I would finally live the life I’d been born to live, a life that had thus far been denied me. The bell calling us to the morning meal began to ring and I quickly left.

The sound of church bells jolted me out of sleep. It took me a minute to realize it was close to noon and I was with Simon in Max’s apartment. But that dream had felt so real…It must have been all the stress I was under.

I could smell coffee brewing and by the time I wrapped myself in the red robe and dragged myself from the bed, Simon was sitting on the couch, nursing a cup of coffee with only his laptop covering his nakedness.

“We’re in luck,” he said excitedly. “Francoise has broken the encryption and saved the files to another flash drive. We’ll have to go pick it up.”

“We can’t do that. Our names and faces are probably all over the news by now. Everyone in Paris is looking for us. And how do you know this isn’t a trap to lure us out into the open?”

Simon chuckled. It annoyed me that he was taking this so lightly. “The charge on my laptop is almost dead. The police have Luc’s laptop. We need a way to look at the files on Juliet’s flash drive so Francoise is loaning me a laptop. And you worry too much. When you meet Francoise, you’ll understand why we have nothing to fear.”

“Whatever,” I replied, rolling my eyes and wondering how a man who fucked with such intensity could be so nonchalant about everything else.

“Hey, I don’t want to go to jail, either.”

“You sure don’t act like it,” I said, sitting next to him and feeling grumpy.

“
Ah, mon petit pessimiste.
” He leaned over to kiss my forehead. “What do I have to do to wipe that frown from your pretty face?” His green eyes were soft and seductive and he leaned in and kissed my neck, sending a delicious shiver down my spine. The scruff on his face was a day away from being a full-grown beard and I had the beard burn all over my body to prove it.

“That’s an easy one.” I pushed him away. “Feed me.”

After a meal of coffee and leftover éclairs, I got into the shower. Minutes later Simon joined me, insisting it would save time to shower together. As we slowly kissed and lathered each other, our wet, soap-slicked bodies practically welded together. I stood still under the spray of hot water as Simon’s soapy hands roamed all over my body, lingering on my breasts and belly. I soaped his chest and rinsed him off with the hand held showerhead, mesmerized by the water running down in rivulets on his rock hard pecs. I sucked one of his nipples as I gently messaged his testicles. Simon moaned then turned me to face the shower wall and ran his tongue down my spine. I arched like a cat and leaned against the wet wall as he entered me from behind. He balanced himself with one hand on my hip. The other hand slowly stroked me between my legs, expertly hitting all the right spots. He rocked me to a climax so intense my knees buckled and I would have fallen if Simon hadn’t caught me.

We stepped out of the shower and Simon busied himself by toweling my body with the softest towel I had ever felt. He had just turned his attention to my hair and was blotting it dry when we heard a door slam in the other room. We froze. Someone was in the apartment. Simon pressed a finger to his lips, signaling me to be quiet.

He grabbed a broom from behind the door, and wearing nothing but a towel, he crept out of the bathroom. Was this it? Had the police, or worse yet, Garland found us? I was searching the bathroom for a weapon of my own when there were loud shouts followed by laughter. What the hell? I flew out of the bathroom, nearly tripping over a large steamer trunk, to see Simon hugging a six-foot-tall black figure wearing pink pumps, a pageboy haircut, a vintage pink-and-black suit and pillbox hat à la Jackie Kennedy.

“Maya, this is Max,” said Simon, grinning with his arm around the stranger.

“That’s the Amazing Max,
mon chere,
” said Max in an American accent and held out a gloved hand for me to shake.

Though Max’s makeup was flawless, it wasn’t good enough to hide an Adam’s apple. I’d been right in my first assumption. Max
was
a man, or a transvestite to be exact. When I’d noticed the woman’s shoes and undies all over the place I’d obviously neglected to notice the sizes.

“Nice meeting you.” I held out one hand while holding the towel together with the other one.

There’d been an E. coli outbreak on the cruise ship Max worked on as a headliner in their
La Cage
show where he—or was it she?—portrayed Diana Ross. They’d been forced to turn around and come home early. Max talked nonstop about knowing there’d been something wrong with the boeuf bourguignon but no one would listen even though he was one of the few people who hadn’t gotten sick.

“I’ve got a sixth sense about such things,” he said as he unpacked the steamer, not at all fazed by the fact that he’d come home to find two half-naked people in his apartment.

“That bad, huh?” asked an amused Simon.

“I’m telling you it was enough to turn this stone cold carnivore into a vegetarian on the spot, but enough about me. What kinda trouble have you gotten yourself and this poor girl into?”

“So you’ve heard then?”

“Have I heard? You mean about the gun-toting French maniac and his murderous American girlfriend going around shooting folks fulla holes and stealing trucks? You mean have I heard about that?”

“I’m not a murderer!” I said indignantly. “Or his girlfriend,” I mumbled under my breath.

Max took off his hat, kicked off his size twelve pumps, sat on the couch and crossed his shapely legs. “Alright let’s hear it. I know this ought to be good. Should I make some popcorn first?”

We took turns filling him in on everything that had happened and when we were done, Max just sat there with one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised.

“You two are in some deep shit, alright. And just how are you planning to get yourselves outta this? You know I’ll do whatever I can to help you out but I can’t harbor fugitives. Max wouldn’t do well in prison. Stripes make me look fat. And Marlena would shit a brick. You know ever since that nasty little run-in she had with immigration she’s allergic to cops.”

“Marlena?” I asked, looking from one to the other.

“Max’s girlfriend,” replied Simon. A smile tugged at his lips when he saw my shocked expression.

Max took off his wig and scratched his shiny bald head. “It ain’t that kinda party, sweetheart. Just ’cause I dress my inner girl don’t make me gay,” he said matter-of-factly, putting me in my place.

Once his wig was off, Max’s voice had deepened to its original baritone as if his female persona solely resided in the wig and clothes.

I quickly changed the subject. “We just have to make the connection between Vincent Garland and Juliet Rice. Garland’s a lawyer and an ambassador’s son. We can’t turn ourselves in until we have all the proof we need.”

Simon added. “We’ll be out of here as soon as we can get dressed. Don’t worry. No one will ever know we were here.”

“You going out looking like that? ’Cause you’ll get arrested before you even hit the corner.”

“What choice do we have?” I said.

“Oh, you always have a choice,” he said, looking us over. “Simon, all you need is some different clothes, and maybe a hat. And don’t shave. That beard you got going will do the rest. But you,” he said, shaking his head, “need a lot of help. Come on over here and let Max hook you up.” He took my hand and led me over to his closet.

While Simon dressed in the bathroom, Max pulled out an array of wigs, clothing and makeup and got busy transforming me.

“How long have you known Simon?” I asked as Max made up my face.

“’Bout ten years. We met one night outside a club in Nice when I got jumped by punks who didn’t appreciate seeing a big black dude in a sequined minidress. Simon jumped in. Between the two of us, we wiped up the sidewalk with those fools and I was wearing four-inch heels! Been friends ever since. I’m the one who introduced him to his wife, Justine, after she photographed me for the cruise line’s promotional brochures. We really hit it off and I knew they’d be perfect together. I sang at their wedding. Sang at her funeral, too,” he said shaking his head.

“What was she like?”

“A ball of energy. I got tired just being around her. Nothing ever got that girl down. She was always smiling. She saw the bright side of everything but she was no pushover. She also had a temper. Really lived up to that red hair. She kept Simon on his toes, too.”

We were silent for a moment before Max asked. “So, are you two…?” He let the question hang in the air and it took me a few seconds to realize what he was getting at.

“No,” I said quickly. “We’re not a couple. Just two people in trouble trying to help each other out.”

“Oh, really.” He looked pointedly at the rumpled bed. “’Cause from the noises I heard coming outta that bathroom when I walked in here, it sounded like the only thing you were helping each other do was get off.” He tossed his head back and laughed. My face burned.

“Oh, don’t get all embarrassed. No one can blame you. You’re in Paris and when you add big trouble and an okay-looking dude like Simon to the mix, things are bound to get hot. And I’ll tell you something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Even with all the trouble he’s in, I haven’t seen him this alive since before Justine died. And that’s saying a lot. He was a mess after she died. You’re good for him.”

“It’s not like that,” I insisted.

“Whatever you say, girlfriend,” Max said, chuckling. “Whatever you say.”

Half an hour later, Simon and I were on our way. Simon was dressed in a charcoal-gray Brooks Brothers suit. It was a Christmas gift to Max from his ever-hopeful Mama back home in Baltimore. According to Max, his mother was still hoping he’d become a suit-wearing success instead of the son she could share clothes with. Simon also sported a black beret and sunglasses to cover his distinctive green eyes. Max had dressed me in a short, curly gray wig and big, red horn-rimmed glasses. He also gave me a large fake mole on my chin and another on the side of my nose. Except for a navy blue poncho, Max’s clothes didn’t fit me. I was stuck wearing what I’d had on the day before. We cinched the poncho with a black leather belt looped double around my waist.

Simon and I sat apart from each other on the metro and did our best to act like we didn’t know each other. Thankfully, no one paid us the least little bit of attention because they were all too busy reading about us in the paper. We’d made the front page again, only this time our names had been given, along with my passport photo, which already looked like a mug shot, and Simon’s Agence France-Presse photo showing him smiling and clean shaven. Simon was sitting a few rows ahead of me. He was discreetly reading the paper over the shoulder of the woman sitting in front of him. He slumped down into his seat. Whatever he’d just read wasn’t good and I had a feeling it had something to do with us. When we reached the Tuileries metro stop, Simon stood and signaled me to follow him. Once we emerged from the station and rounded the tall hedges separating the Tuileries Gardens from busy rue de Rivoli, I got my first close-up view of the Louvre Museum. That’s where we were meeting Simon’s hacker friend, Francoise. The large glass pyramid sat in the center of the museum’s massive courtyard. Visitors sat along the edges of triangle-shaped fountains surrounding it. The sheer size of the museum was breathtaking; it was far larger than I had imagined. I found myself gaping in amazement, and then shock. The museum’s guards carried large assault rifles and were dressed in fatigues. I was so fixated on the big guns, I wasn’t watching where I was going and ran right smack into Simon’s back, causing him to stumble.

“
Observez-le, vieille dame!
” he growled at me, purely for show in case anyone was watching. I didn’t know what he’d said but could tell from his tone it wasn’t nice.

“
Baisez vous!
” I replied, pushing past him. I may not know much French but I could say “fuck you” in four languages.

It was Francoise who’d insisted that we meet inside the Louvre. Simon had to buy a ticket. In order to avoid the long line at the pyramid entrance, he headed toward the entrance down the stairs in the Jardins du Carrousel next to the arch, while I headed toward the Passage Richelieu. I could use my museum pass there. I flashed my pass and smiled at the guard manning the entrance. He gave it a cursory glance and ushered me through the metal detector. I rode the escalator down to the main lobby of the museum. The three separate wings of the museum, Denon, Sully and Richelieu, were accessible from this large, crowded hall. After waiting ten minutes for Simon to show, I began to worry that he’d been arrested, but just as soon as I started to tell myself I needed another plan, someone brushed up against me.

“
Pardon, madame,
” Simon said and winked. I followed him to the escalator leading to the Denon Wing of the museum.

Once we made it into the museum proper, and figuring no one was paying us much mind, I caught up with Simon.

“Where are we supposed to meet your friend?”

“In one of the galleries up on the second floor. It’s not much further. Just stay close and don’t get lost. It’s easy to do in here.”

I had to walk fast in order to keep up with Simon’s long strides. All of the paintings, sculptures and antiquities I passed became a blur as I wove in and out of people and found myself inadvertently walking into a couple of photos being taken just as the camera flashed.

“
Pardon,
” I mumbled without stopping. This was no way to see the Louvre for the first time.

We entered a long, wide corridor with vaulted ceilings. Ancient Greek statues lined both sides of the hallway. At the end of the corridor one of the Louvre’s most famous statues,
Winged Victory,
sat at the top of a staircase. I had to admit it was an impressive sight and clearly I was only one of the statue’s many admirers. Dozens of people surrounded it, snapping picture after picture. Simon walked past without so much as a glance and turned right to head up yet another flight of stairs. I stopped for just a few seconds to get a good look then realized Simon was more than ten feet away.

“Pardonay mwaa,
madame.
Could you take my picture, see view play?” asked an older woman with big hair and a Texas twang. She thrust a digital camera into my hands without even waiting for my response and struck a pose in front of the statue with her hands firmly placed on her wide hips. I snapped a quick picture and shoved the camera back into her hands.