Chapter 14 the hurricane

ONE

Two days before the next show, I saw Yvonne popping a very small, unfamiliar pill into her mouth. We were on our way out to dinner with some friends of hers, Sally and Michael Wheaton, at their place. Yvonne said they were American. Sally was one of Yvonne’s oldest friends; they had been models together in New York; and Michael was Yvonne’s financial advisor. Now they lived in Paris. I was interested in that pill. And for another surprise, for the first time, Yvonne wore pants, black wool, with a camel-colored silk shirt, a fancy belt with a bronze elephant buckle, and flat black shoes.

“What was that pill you took? And why are you wearing pants?”

Yvonne continued down the stairs. “I gave up having people watching my every move when I was sixteen, legal and able to make my own decisions. I don’t need a mother or whatever else you are trying to be. Are you coming or not? Say now because I’m going, with or without you.” She stood very tall at the foot of the stairs, her bag over her shoulder. The taxi had just beeped. She was in a mood, not to be messed with. “I don’t keep people waiting. No one! Hurry up or I’m gone,” she said with some force.

“Fuck you!” I bellowed. “Answer me!” If anybody else had spoken to me like that, I wouldn’t still have been standing there. But I was. Because I loved her.

“In the taxi,” she said, opening the front door.

“Yvonne, I am making myself calm to do this right. Two simple questions, answer me!” I ventured down the stairs. She looked really angry.

“I’m gone,” she said when I hesitated halfway down the stairs. The front door slammed shut behind her.

TWO

I sat on the stairs for half an hour. I didn’t know it would be half an hour. I stupidly thought Yvonne would come back and apologize. But when half an hour had passed, I stood up and went into the kitchen, where I fixed myself a sandwich with roast beef, beetroot and potato salad, and took it back up. I ate alone, gazing out over Paris from the window seat. Paris, the city of lovers, where mine had just walked out on me. I put on some depressing music to keep me depressed. When I’m depressed, I don’t want to be cheered up. I want the depression to go away on its own or the reason for it to come back and apologize.

The phone rang. I expected it to be Louis. I let it ring. The only people I knew who rang here at this time of the night were Louis and Yvonne, and I didn’t feel like talking to either of them, Jane and my family. Angime, but not at this hour; they would be asleep. The phone kept ringing. Simone can answer it. But when it wouldn’t stop, I snatched it up angrily.

“Hello!” I yelled.

“If you are still interested ─”

“I am,” I said, sinking slowly down onto the bed at the sound of Yvonne’s voice.

“I have no idea why my taking pills is any of your business.”

I checked my watch. It was eight forty-five. It had taken her over an hour and forty-five minutes to call me. The bitch! “It is my business,” I said. “I am so angry with you. Where are you?” I was shaking with nerves.

“I’m at Sally and Michael’s. Where did you think I would be?”

“I don’t know, some bar,” I said, rubbing my forehead. My usual headache was teetering on the intense, painful edge of the abyss, ready to fall into the depths of oblivion that is migraine.

“Very dramatic, but not me. Okay, you ready to hear the whole, terrible story?”

“Yes, get on with it,” I snapped.

“I take the Pill. My periods are due and I don’t want them. The show is in two days so I am delaying my periods for three days. Is that all right with you? Don’t answer, I don’t care if it’s all right with you. Second question: I am wearing pants because I goddamn well felt like it! Anything else?”

“Yes. You only had your periods─”

“When I play around with the Pill, I get a very short cycle, but I can control when they are due; I’m lucky that way. If I wanted to, I could take a Pill every day and never get my periods; I know of some girls who do that. But I only take the Pill when I really have to. Anything else, again?”

“Where are you?”

“I told you!”

“No, which room?”

A slight hesitation before she answered me. “In the bedroom. Why?”

“I like to know where you are. I didn’t want to think of us having this conversation at the dinner table.”

“We’re onto dessert in the living room, dinner is over. Anything else?” she said impatiently.

“Yes. What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. And don’t tell Mama about the pills, she’d kill me. Don’t talk about them, it’s my business.”

“You are my business. What excuse did you give?”

“The truth. I told them you were too busy talking to get your arse into the taxi, so I went without you. And since you don’t have their address, you couldn’t follow.”

“I hate you, you know that?”

“Probably. I’m tired, I’m coming home. I want this finished now. I don’t want to come home and fight.” Her voice did sound tired.

“What happened to the angry, ignore-me-when-I-yell person?”

“Stop breaking me up into different people. Will you be angry when I get home?”

“Yes! I bloody well will be!” I wasn’t shaking anymore. I had my answers and they were mostly logical. Now we were just two angry people stuck at being angry with each other.

“Well, I won’t come home, then,” she said.

“Yvonne, come here, now! Give in to me. I am so close to giving in to you. We are angry, we had a fight. I have to know that I am not the one who will be constantly giving in all the time. It’s easy to do. You love me, you want to come home. I want you to come home, so just do it. We’ll kiss, make up and make love, keep our perfect record. Yvonne, I love you so much. I really do. I…”

“Don’t go on. I’ll be home soon. I do love you, I’m just… I’m not good at some things. You have no idea how hard this is for me.”

“I know exactly how hard it is. But I also know how easy it is when it’s worth it, and, Christ, are we worth it. Just think of that. I miss you. Say it again.”

“I love you. Shut up. Why do you always make me cry? Louis never made me cry.” Now her voice trembled.

“Come home, forget dessert. Be rude and leave early. If they’re good friends, they’ll understand.”

“Oh, they understand, all right. I haven’t stopped talking about you. Sally made me call you. They’ll probably be pleased I’m leaving.”

“You couldn’t call me on your own? What were you planning to do?”

“I’m changing. How the hell would I know? I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. You have single-handedly destroyed my life.”

“Pretty good destruction.”

I heard a small laugh. “Yes, a very good destruction. I’ll be home soon. I want to talk to Sally some more. I don’t see them as much as I should. Will you be all right?”

“Sure, friends are important. I’m sorry I didn’t meet them,” I said, feeling sad for Yvonne having to be told to make the call.

“I am hanging up now.”

“Fine, do it. Hang up on me.”

“Lyn, help me. Don’t go mean on me.”

“I’m sorry. I just hate it that the phone call wasn’t your idea,” I said.

“It was! I wanted to call you straight away, but Sally told me to leave it … let you stew in your own… whatever she said.”

“Why did she do that? I thought you said she made you call.” I was confused as hell now.

“If I had called you straight away, I would have bitten your head off, and you would have done the same. Sally said... look, I don’t do this. I don’t let people tell me what to do.”

“Except your Mama, Sally and me. Go on.”

“Sort of. Well, she said… oh, fuck what she said. I should have called before. She doesn’t know you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I arrived here angry as hell and told them what a rotten bitch you were. Do you think, when someone is angry, that they tell the good stories about the person they don’t like? No, I told them all the bad stories about you.”

“I haven’t got any bad stories.”

“I elaborated.”

“You must have. I can’t think of anything bad enough I’ve done.”

“No, Lyn, you are perfect, okay? You happy now?”

“Quit now, Yvonne, you’re going backwards. I’m hanging up. They’re your friends and it’s your anger. I’m going to watch a sad movie and cry my eyes out, so you do whatever you fucking well want to. You do anyway!” I slammed the phone down. I don’t think I had ever hung up on anyone like that before.

THREE

I was asleep when Yvonne arrived home. We broke our perfect record. She got into bed and went to sleep. Not a word, not a sound. Undressed in the dark, took her make-up off in the bathroom and slipped into bed. I pretended to be asleep. Maybe she pretended to be asleep, as well.

I’d always thought that when I fell in love, I would love that person so much I would be able to make the first step, seeing it from their point of view, knowing how hard it is to give in when you’re angry. But not that night. I wanted Yvonne to hold me, to kiss me. I would be damned if I would “come here” again to her. It would have been easy to roll over and kiss her. You’d think it would be easy. It was fucking impossible!