ACTION de GRÂCE

PROMPTS: a color - blue

a city - Paris

a holiday - Thanksgiving

a pet - cat

a woman's name - Maria

    It was a little disorienting at first, waking up on the plane. It took me a second just to figure out where the hell I was. Most of the other passengers were still sleeping; it was pretty dark and the only sounds were the constant hum of the engines and the soft murmur of the flight attendants in the galley, drinking coffee and talking about the passengers in hushed French. It had been dark outside when I’d fallen asleep, so it was a bit of a shock when the daylight started flooding in as I raised the window shade. The light was so out of place that it almost seemed to have a sound as it bullied and shouted its way into the darkened cabin. I quickly closed the window shade and looked around me to see if anyone had been woken by this cacophony of light, but no one had.

    The video monitor in the front of the cabin showed a map. There was a dotted line to show the miles we had already covered, the virtual vapor trail of an animated airplane icon, which was currently flying due east somewhere over the Atlantic. It was hard to tell exactly where in the Atlantic though, because the animated airplane icon was so out of scale with the rest of the map that it appeared to be about three times the size of Bermuda. The distance remaining for our journey was listed. It was in the thousands, but it was in kilometers so I had absolutely no idea, really, of how far we had to go. I gave up wondering about it. It looked like the nose of our gargantuan airship was closer to Paris than the tail was to New York, and that seemed good enough for me.

    I found myself thinking about the last time I had been to Paris. Pushing my seat back a little and staring up at the ceiling, I noticed other passengers stirring one by one, their window shades being raised, the light inside the airplane slowly getting lighter and lighter, our own little artificial dawn. I thought about the small two-star hotel I had stayed at in the Marais, L'hôtel du Chat Blanc. The room was suffocatingly small. There was practically no view, hardly any air, and the mattress was lumpy and uncomfortable. And I had been the happiest there that I had ever been in my life. The smell of croissants and fruit tarts being baked every morning from the pâtisserie on the ground floor, or of crêpes and Nutella from the kiosk on the corner. The look on the old man’s face who sat for hours every morning, regardless of the weather, smoking cigarettes and nursing a single café au lait at the restaurant across the street. The music of Paris. The traffic, the sirens, the almost sing-song way people greet one another Bonjour! And Maria.

    I was jolted from my reverie as the lights in the cabin were suddenly turned on, and I could smell the aroma of strong French coffee as the flight attendants began to make their way up the aisles. Apparently it was Air France’s opinion that it was time to wake up. The man in the seat next to mine raised his head with a snort, turned and looked at me with bleary, unfocused eyes and gave me a weak smile.

    I took this as permission to raise the window shade. Even though I knew that the sun had come up, it was still a little disorienting when I looked out, like walking out of a darkened movie theater in the middle of the day. The sky, which had been endless, inky black the last time I’d looked out, was now bright and unblemished, the healthy, prosperous, somewhat friendly blue of a Tiffany’s box. We were flying above the clouds, so the blue seemed limitless at first, without a ceiling, until I looked down and saw the clouds beneath us. For a while I imagined us as a ship, sailing across a frothy cumulus ocean, all alone and surrounded by nothing but Tiffany-blue skies.

    I still couldn’t quite believe I was doing this. I had just returned to America a few weeks earlier after a four-month trip through Europe which had culminated with those two blissful weeks in Paris. I figured I’d get back to school, get a job somewhere, maybe get a girlfriend. But none of that seemed to be happening. I just found myself laying around the house, thinking about how much I wanted to be just about anywhere else, and of course thinking about Maria. The smell of crêpes and Nutella had been replaced by the smell of the neighbor’s kids smoking cheap homegrown weed under my bedroom window at night, and to be honest, I wasn’t very happy about it. But, I told myself, a lot of life is dealing with things that we’re not very happy about, and I was pretty close to just accepting my fate, a fate which had very little to do with Paris or crêpes or anything much beyond car payments and, if I’m lucky, a house in the ‘burbs.

    Until Thanksgiving.

    The holidays usually aren’t too bad with my family. Over the years, everyone has accepted a role, a set of responsibilities and a sort of loose script as to how things are going to play out and what everyone is going to talk about. It was easy and we all seemed content to play along, either because it was simpler that way or because none of us was imaginative enough to do anything differently. The usual list of people was there, Mom and Dad and me, my older sister Teresa and her current boyfriend (or did she use the word fiancé?), and my younger brother Tod, who is gay. Tod’s boyfriend was supposed to be joining us but so far he was a no-show. I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on because Tod hadn’t looked up from his phone for the past twenty minutes.

    “How was Paris?” Brandon 5 was looking at me, one eyebrow raised, his fork frozen midway between his plate and his mouth. He was actually called Butler or Cooper or some other occupationally-inspired millennial name, but my sister’s first two boyfriends had both been named Brandon, and it was easier in my mind to just think of them all as a series after that. They were practically indistinguishable anyway, from their black European sedans to their Brooks Brothers suits and their ambitious and ultimately meaningless careers. Brandon 5 was an “actuarial consultant”, whatever the hell that was, and annoyingly referred to his job as “the Firm.”

    I stared at him blankly. “Paris?”

    “Paris, France? Europe? Weren’t you just there?”

    “Oh! Paris France!” I stalled for a moment by pretending to impale a pea on my fork. How do I tell Brandon 5 that Paris was amazing, magical, transcendent, the last place I had felt alive…?

    “It was good.”

    I was spared having to find any more words as Mom wafted into the dining room at that very moment, bearing a Corningware baking dish piled high with mashed potatoes, despite the fact that nobody had touched the mashed potatoes that were already on their plates. Mom had never been that fond of cooking, and it showed. The bulk of her efforts on Thanksgiving were put into the fine art of camouflage, making a variety of store-bought, frozen, canned or powdered ingredients appear to actually be homemade. The mashed potatoes she now placed with great ceremony in the center of the table had undoubtedly just come out of the microwave; and I suspected that the real reason she had gone in to the kitchen in the first place was to have some of the cream sherry which I knew she kept hidden in the cupboard behind the Karo Syrup.

    “You’ve outdone yourself, Margaret,” said Dad, without looking up. He said this every year. “The butternut squash is delicious.”
    “I didn’t make butternut squash, Earl.”
    Dad finally looked up from his plate. “You what? Well then, what the hell is that?” He pointed his fork towards one of the serving dishes. A glob of gravy landed onto the tablecloth with a thud.

    “It’s sweet potatoes, Earl.”
   “Well, whatever it is, Margaret, it’s delicious.” He was already looking down at his plate again.  “Helluva meal.”

    “He’s not coming!” Tod chimed in out of nowhere. For the first time all morning, he put his phone face down on the table.

    “Who’s not coming?” said Teresa.

    “Alejandro.”  We all looked at the empty place setting next to Tod and acted surprised and dismayed, as if we were just noticing that there was nobody there. “He just texted me and said he can’t get away from his family,” he whined, pronouncing the word ‘family’ as if it tasted like spoiled milk. He was just about to take a bite of Mom’s Stove Top stuffing and turkey from the ovens at Price Chopper when something buzzed or beeped on his phone, and Tod was gone again.

    “That’s too bad,” my sister chirped, shooting a look at Brandon 5 which clearly said oh thank God. “We were so looking forward to meeting him!” Brandon 5 snorted as he slathered a dinner roll with Country Crock.

    I looked over at my mother. She was spinning an ice cube around in the bottom of her empty glass. She gave me a weak smile. “I’ll be right back! I have to get… something. In the kitchen.” She grabbed her glass and stood up.

    My father looked up at my mother. His plate was empty, except for one piece of turkey bone and an uneaten pile of sweet potatoes pushed to one side. I watched my father as he watched his wife, impassive, his expression impossible to decipher. How did he see her on that day? At what point did life with my mother go from perfume and the feeling of silk stockings wrapping around his back to a future of falling asleep with the TV on? He watched her as she turned away and disappeared into the kitchen. I saw his eyes. They searched the empty space for a lingering shadow of her, the way an eager lover might sniff the air, searching for a trace of her scent. He reached for the Corningware dish of mashed potatoes and proceeded to fill his plate up once again.

    “Did you see the Taj Mahal?” Brandon 5 blurted out.

    “What?” I regarded him with my head tilted slightly, like a confused puppy.

    “While you were in Paris? Did you see the Taj Mahal?”

    So I had heard him correctly. I’m not sure if I actually rolled my eyes in real life or if I only thought about it. “Well, no…”

    “That’s in India,” Tod interjected without looking up from his phone.

    “India – Paris… What’s the difference? All those little European countries are the same anyway.”

    I looked over at Tod. He still hadn’t looked up from his phone, but I could see that he had his eyes closed and he appeared to be counting to ten, very slowly. I looked at Brandon 5. He had a tiny glob of Country Crock stuck in the corner of his mouth and at that moment all I wanted to do was smash him in the face with something, anything. I stood up fast, and the chair made a scraping noise against the floor as I pushed it back. It was the same noise the chair made in school when you were called on to solve a problem on the blackboard, or the sound your defense lawyer makes as he stands to deliver his closing argument and a plea for clemency. It was the sound of drawing unwanted attention.

    “I need some air,” I said, and I made my way toward the back door. Everyone at the table, even my father and Tod, froze and watched me as I walked out, in flagrant violation of the accepted Script. I heard my mother as she drifted back in from the kitchen, her voice thick with holiday benevolence and Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

    “Well now,” she was saying, “who wants more carrots?”

     I heard the screen door slam behind me as I stepped out into the crisp November air. I took a few steps away from the house and reached into my pocket to retrieve the lighter and the joint that I had stashed away earlier. I stood there for a while, but after about the twelfth futile attempt to light the joint in the Long Island breeze, I gave up and decided to go into the garage through the side door.

    Once inside, I finally got it lit and took a long, grateful drag. I leaned up against an old piece of furniture. It was the chest of drawers that had been in my room when I was growing up. It had been so big when I was a kid, big enough to hold all my clothes plus some toys and pieces of the world around me, like the skull of an opossum, some rocks and a piece of charred wood from the house around the corner that I had watched burn down to the ground. But now it just looked small and flimsy. I took another hit off the joint and felt myself start to relax as I looked around the garage, the sweet smell of cannabis slowly overtaking the lingering scents of motor oil, cigarette smoke and Old Spice, the pervasive aroma of my father. Most of the space in the garage was taken up by my old man’s 1968 Mustang. He had bought it new, a two-door beauty in Royal Maroon. He loved that car and the way he looked when he was inside it. He loved the way it made him feel, young and cool and ready to hit almost any road. But it wasn’t long before Tod was born and by then Teresa and I were already too big for the back seat. Dad decided it was time to trade in the Mustang for a station wagon, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually get rid of the Mustang, so he moved it into the garage, figuring that he’d take it back out again after the kids had all grown, when he no longer needed a station wagon and two doors would once again be enough. I took another hit from the joint, breathing in deep and struggling to keep myself from coughing. It occurred to me that the Mustang was kind of like my dad’s life: shelved, put aside while he attended to other things, to other people, always meaning to get back to it but somehow never quite getting there, until it wound up forgotten, blanketed in dust, corroded, mildewed and going nowhere.

    I breathed deep, the harsh marijuana smoke filling my lungs as my mind began to race. Is my own life going to play out any differently? Am I going to find myself on the other side, after the Career and the Wife and Kids, the pediatricians and the graduations, the skinned knees and “Dad can I borrow the car?”, wondering what the hell ever happened to my life, to my dreams, to my Royal Maroon two-door dream machine?

    No, I answered myself. That is not how things are going to play out for me.

    I finished the rest of the joint quickly, inhaling deep and holding each drag in as long as I could. My mind was spinning, now that I knew what I had to do. I had to finish this joint. Then I had to go back inside and kiss my mom, and possibly have a slice of pumpkin pie. I had to say goodbye to my family and I had to go back to Paris. And I had to find Maria.

    When I walked back into the dining room, everyone suddenly stopped talking, trying to act natural, the awkward silence broken only by the sound of silverware clanging against the good china. Mom finally broke in with one of her famous the-weight-of-the-world-is-upon-me sighs.

    “Where did you go?” Tod asked me.

    “For a walk.”
    “You smell like a bong,” said Brandon 5.

    “Fuck you, Cooper,” I said. Mom let out a little shriek like she had just stepped on a sharp piece of glass, but when I looked over at her I could see she was attempting to hide a little grin behind her napkin. “Great supper, Mom,” I said. “Is there any pie?”

    It wasn’t much later that I was getting ready to head out the door. “I just don’t understand why you have to leave so early,” Mom was saying as she handed me my jacket.

    “Things to do, Mom. I just realized that I have a lot to do.” I looked at her square in the eye and said, “I’ve got to go.” She just smiled weakly and picked an invisible piece of lint off of my jacket. I turned one more time to face my family, who were now gathered in the den, warmed by the numbing glow of the television set. “I’ve got to go,” I said one more time. “Goodbye.”

    “Bye,” said Tod. He had apparently gotten over Alejandro because he was now texting someone named Kevin and was arranging an Über to one of the clubs downtown. Brandon 5 flipped me the bird without looking away from the TV set. My sister looked at me and rolled her eyes conspiratorially. “Knock it off,” she said to Brandon 5 and she called him as asshole under her breath, but at the same time she was draping her arm around him and pulling him in closer.  Mom had already gone back into the kitchen and her bottle in the cupboard. I turned and made my way out of my family’s house, into the brisk and windy world outside.

    As the door closed behind me, I heard my father. “Goodbye, Tod.”

    He never realized his mistake.

    As I drove home that evening, I allowed my mind to fill with thoughts of Maria. I had been fighting that since I had gotten home. Up until then, the merest image of her flashing through my mind, the random memory of her smell, the icy blueness of her eyes, was always accompanied by the feeling of a dull ache in my stomach, or was it my heart. But now, now that I had decided to return to Paris, to find her again, I could run through the memories of her with feelings of anticipation instead of despair.

    I allowed myself to remember long afternoons, spent sleeping on the lumpy mattress in my stifling hotel room, Maria wrapped up in my arms, her breathing soft and comforting. I let my skin remember her softness. I remembered how I loved to watch her eat, how she seemed to relish and enjoy every meal with abandon, like everyone in Paris, I guess. And that night, on the drive to my apartment, those thoughts made me happy instead of inexpressibly sad.

    I once asked the proprietors of the hotel why she was named Maria, instead of the more common Marie in Paris. My French is pretty weak, so the best that I could get from their response was that she was de Perse, from Persia. So, she was Persian. No matter. Even though she didn’t speak English and I certainly don’t speak her language, we said more to one another with our eyes and with our soft breath than volumes of lyrical Persian poetry.

    The plane landed in Paris and I made my way to French immigration, my heart beating a little fast and ready to find my way to the Marais. The official behind the counter was straight out of central casting: the archetypal Snooty French Waiter. His obsidian-colored hair was slicked down with a severe part just to the left of center. His face was long and narrow, with a pointed chin and an Errol Flynn mustache. His long, aquiline nose looked as if it could only be happy sniffing an impertinent Bordeaux. He eyed me suspiciously, one eyebrow arched almost comically. “What brings you to Paris, monsieur?” he said.

    “I am here to find happiness,” I grinned back.

    The official stood there, motionless for a few seconds, regarding me. He opened his mouth just a little, as if he were about to ask me something, but then he seemed to think better of it before he grabbed his stamp and imprinted my passport without even looking at it. He waved me through. “Welcome to Paris, monsieur,” he said.

    I wonder if anyone can ever really get used to the taxi ride from the deGaulle airport into Paris, particularly during the morning rush hour. For me it’s a hair-raising, white-knuckled 30-minute dance with Death, full of too-tight turns, too-tight spaces and angry drivers shaking their fists and shouting unheard behind rolled-up windows. I found myself staring at the back of the driver’s head. He seemed nearly unperturbed by the chaos and peril all around him, occasionally muttering under his breath as his unlit cigarette nodded in agreement from between his thin lips. I thought about my future here in Paris. Would I one day reach the point where a drive like this becomes unremarkable, everyday, just another morning stuck in traffic? At what point does Paris itself stop being the City of Light, the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Versailles, and just become Paris, that city that you have to get through every night on your way home from work?

    Eventually and despite all the odds, we made it into the city, and to the Fourth Arrondissement. I began to recognize the narrow streets, the modest yet gracious buildings. Now that it was December, the acrid smell of roasting chestnuts filled the air. Then I recognized him, the old man at the café across the street, with his café au lait and his pained Parisian expression.  “Chat Blanc,” said the driver, turning to face me, one hand extended towards me as I fumbled with the fare, his other hand already lighting the cigarette on his lips.  

    The next thing I knew I was standing in front of the hotel, everything I had in the world stuffed into two suitcases and a knapsack at my feet. I pressed the button on the outer door for entry, and within a few moments I was being buzzed in. I stepped inside the old hotel. Like many buildings in the Marais, its austere façade pushed right up to the sidewalk, and as I stepped inside at first it seemed cool and dark compared to the morning glare of the street. The air inside smelled of tarragon and Gauloises, and the sound of water dripping somewhere at first made me think of a vast, underground cave. A single shaft of nearly-tangible light shone down from the skylight above to the central courtyard below, tiny flecks of dust tumbling and glinting in its light as they resisted gravity’s inexorable pull downward.

    Out of the shadows emerged the diminutive frame of Madame Michaud, the proprietress, easily as wide as she was tall. She was wiping her hands on her apron, and her eyes lit up with recognition when she saw me. “Oh, notre ami!” she said, opening her arms for a hug. “Bonjour! Welcome back to Paris.”

    I returned her embrace, kissing her on both cheeks in the French fashion. I instantly remembered her smell, a curious blend of perfume, fresh baked bread and disinfectant. I breathed it in deep. “Bonjour, Madame Michaud,” I said.

    She stood back and regarded me at arm’s length. “Maria?” she said.

    My breathing stopped for a moment. I was smiling but my eyes still felt as if they were about to cry. “Maria…” was the only response I could muster.

    Madame Michaud turned, and her gaze indicated a small table, off in the far corner of the courtyard. On it sat a folded newspaper and a coffee cup, empty, smudged with lipstick the color of a Cardinal’s robes. Next to it a small chair had been pushed back, and on it I saw a beautiful white Persian cat, fast asleep, the tip of one paw still basking in the shifting beam of sun from the skylight above.

    Maria.

    I ran over to her and scooped her up into my arms, throwing her over my shoulder and holding her as tightly as I dared. My sweet Maria, my beloved, beautiful cat. She purred and dug her claws into my shoulder as she recognized me; and I breathed her in and reveled in her softness. Her long white fur tickled my nose and I began to laugh.

    I was laughing because I was here. I was laughing because I was home. And I was laughing because against all the odds I had found my way to a place where I might, finally, be happy.