A French Girl In New York Read online

  She placed her hands and pondered on what to play. An opera aria wouldn’t do in a Parisian café. No, a French classic would be better, she decided.

  “The great musician we just heard started the evening with Edith Piaf, so I will follow in his footsteps. You will easily recognize this song and I hope you will enjoy it.”

  Slowly she started humming while her left hand started playing do, mi, sol. Suddenly her voice rang out, loud and clear, as she started the first verse.

  Hold me close and hold me fast

  The magic spell you cast

  This is la vie en rose

  When you kiss me heaven sighs

  And though I close my eyes

  I see la vie en rose.

  As her lips sang this song of love, her heart was singing an ode to Paris. She had spent the most wonderful day in this city, she had finally felt what was “la vie en rose”. Her mind envisioned her enchanted discovery of the Louvre Museum, her walk in its wide colorful halls, her eyes turning in awe of every painting, tragic or romantic. As her fingers slid across the piano, the Mona Lisa beamed at her while she played.

  I’m in a world apart

  A world where roses bloom

  Her happiness had been more than abundant as she had stood at the very top of the Eiffel Tower, a rush of life had fueled in her lungs as she contemplated the entire city, like a Queen on her coronation day taking in the width of her new kingdom.

  Every bone in her body awoke to true happiness, which she had never felt in her short, battered life with the Ruchets.

  Her voice trembled with emotion that only added breathtaking beauty to her performance. She ended her song, the song that now possessed her whole being, and slowly turned around. Not one word was spoken amongst the astounded audience, which had gradually grown as she had played. Then, suddenly, a great round of applause broke out. The owner had abandoned his tray and was clapping wholeheartedly.

  Maude smiled, her heart pounding in her ears, as her eyes circled the cheering crowd and paused as she saw that the black man who had encouraged her was the only one silent.

  Her smile abruptly faded, as her gaze fell on the clock right behind the stranger.

  It was five minutes after nine.

  She had to leave right away!

  That was easier said than done. The crowd had gathered around her, and the owner was offering her free drinks.

  “I’ve never had so many customers!” he exclaimed in amazement. “You have to stay longer. You can’t leave without getting a free drink. Don’t make me beg you to stay,” he urged as he saw her about to protest.

  “No, really I must go,” Maude insisted, trying to make her way towards the exit. “You must understand, I am not from here. I must go now!”

  People were gathering around her on all sides, congratulating her. With all her heart she wanted to stay, but the clock had struck nine, and she had to go back to her dreadful existence with the Ruchets. She smiled hastily to the customers, all the while firmly elbowing her way towards the exit. Finally managing to make it to the street and away from the crowd, Maude stopped. She had no idea where she was going.

  Just as she was about to ask for directions she heard her name.

  She turned and saw the tall man from Le Cavalier Bleu coming towards her.

  “Parlez-vous anglais?” he asked in a hesitant French.

  “I do speak English,” responded Maude. “I can’t talk though, I have to head towards Notre-Dame, and I have no idea where to go and—”

  “Let me help you. I know where it is. Don’t worry, it isn’t far. And on the way, we can talk,” he interrupted.

  “Okay,” Maude agreed, relieved to be headed in the right direction. “We have to hurry. I was supposed to be there at nine sharp, and now Ms. Clement won’t be happy, and she’ll probably tell Mrs. Ruchet and—” Maude paused, a shiver going down her spine when she thought of what Mrs. Ruchet might do to punish her.

  “Who is Mrs. Ruchet?” asked her newfound companion.

  The woman who makes my life miserable, thought Maude bitterly.

  “My foster parent,” simply replied Maude.

  The man looked at her and noticed her quickened breath and the gloomy veil that had fallen over her eyes and felt she was withholding something painful and didn’t want to pursue the subject.

  “I hope Mrs. Ruchet realizes what a talented young lady she has living under her roof,” he replied.

  Maude glanced at him curiously.

  “Listen, Maude,” he continued, “you are very talented. Don’t let anyone, Mrs. Ruchet or anyone else, tell you otherwise. We are almost at Notre-Dame. Listen to me very carefully.”

  He stopped walking and Maude stopped too, although her thoughts roamed towards the bus and the severe reprimand she was headed for.

  “I’m a music producer from a big record label set in New York. I would like to sign you for a deal.”

  He shuffled in the pocket of his dark suit and took two cards out giving her one with a pen.

  “Write your name, address, telephone number on this one. And keep the other one with my name and number on it.”

  Maude looked at him dubiously.

  “Look, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I don’t know you at all. You could be one of these murderers I hear about all the time on the eight o’clock news. I give you my address now, and in a week, a British tourist in a bateau-mouches will see my body floating in the Seine.”

  The stranger couldn’t help but smile at her blunt honesty.

  “Besides,” she continued, peeping behind his shoulder where she could see the bus, “I really have to go. The bus is waiting. And even if you were some big shot producer from New York, you’d still have to deal with my foster parents holed up in Carvin who think going to Paris is like going to Asia.”

  “You do trust me! You’ve just told me your hometown. And I know your name, Maude Laurent. Believe me, I have no intention of killing anyone, especially not someone with a voice like yours.”

  Maude looked at him in earnest, scrutinized him, trying to figure out if he was making fun of her. His face was calm, serene, and kind as he looked back at her, waiting for her to make a decision.

  She took his cards, scribbled behind one of them, and handed it back.

  Then she turned the other card around and started walking backwards towards the bus.

  “Well, Mr. James Baldwin, I guess you got what you wanted,” she said. Then, before he could answer anything, she turned and ran towards the bus.

  James Baldwin, waved his hand, turned his card, and read aloud “Maude Laurent. 29, rue Général de Gaulle, Carvin. 03 20 22 03 00. I sleep with a knife under my pillow. Warn your kidnapper friends.”

  Mr. Baldwin roared with laughter and would probably have laughed harder if he’d known the only object under Maude’s pillow was an old flickering flashlight that could barely scare away rats let alone kidnappers.

  As Maude approached the bus, she saw Ms. Clement talking on her cell, her brow furrowed in worry, her face gradually becoming red with anger as she saw Maude arriving.

  “Where were you?” she squealed in a high-pitched voice while she hung up her phone. “I was racked with worry! Everyone has been waiting for you. It’s almost ten. I was thinking of calling the police. You could’ve been kidnapped or robbed or killed for all I know, and you don’t even have a cell phone!” she added, her anger shaking her from head to toe.

  She sat at the only empty seat left, in the front of the bus, shut her ears to Ms. Clement’s indignant squeals, and looked out the window as the bus started its journey back, as if wanting to engrave every single detail of the city in her mind.

  Chapter 4

  Four weeks.

  It had been four weeks since Maude had been to Paris. Four weeks since her life had fallen back into its quiet routine. Four weeks since she had met James Baldwin, who had never contacted her since.

  The first few days, Maude had allowed herself to hope. Her eyes wou
ld light up when she heard the phone ring, and sadness would fill her big brown eyes again when she recognized one of Mr. Ruchet’s friends’ voices at the other end. When the doorbell rang, she’d rush to the door, hoping to see James Baldwin. Instead, she’d face one of the twins’ freckled, lisping friends asking if Jean and Jacques could come play outside. It was when she had mistaken Mrs. Bonnin for James Baldwin walking across the Grand Place for the third time that Maude firmly admonished herself: she would stop hoping.

  In four weeks, fall had gradually become winter, and Carvin had discarded its autumn coat and put on its winter garments. Snow had fallen a few days before Christmas and since then had been driven over by hundreds of cars. The beautiful white blanket had become a mushy brown mess that children delighted jumping in, that adults abhorred, and that women in heels rarely waddled in for fear of slipping and becoming a laughingstock.

  For Maude, the holidays were bleaker than usual. Marie-Antoinette Ruchet had learned the truth about what she called the “falsified document.” She’d had her suspicions from the start, and when she’d met Ms. Clement to talk about “Maude’s utterly appalling conduct in Paris,” Mrs. Ruchet also used this meeting to discuss Maude’s grades that year. In no time, Mrs. Ruchet found out that “Maude is still a good student apart from her catastrophic grades in math” and that her previous test had been granted a 5 instead of a 15.

  From that day on, she’d made it her personal mission to make Maude’s life even more miserable than it already was. The house was to be cleaned from top to bottom everyday, which left Maude barely any time to sleep or do any of her homework. The worst part of it was that Mrs. Ruchet, who had completely abandoned her diet, refused to go back to the gym on Saturdays, never admitting she hadn’t ever actually exercised but just spent hours chatting in the sauna with her friends. She invited her friends, Michelle and Tiffany, over on Saturday afternoons. They shared her taste for Lipton Iced Tea, although not as addicted. Maude was to tend to their every need on these afternoons, and Mrs. Ruchet watched her constantly like a hawk, her senses heightened by her daily dosage of sugar and her energy renewed, now that she wasn’t weakened by vitamins, red vegetables, and tomato juice. With Mrs. Ruchet quitting her diet and watching her every move, Maude could no longer spend her afternoons playing the piano at the library.

  But one cold December afternoon, the 28th, to be exact, Mrs. Bonnin was looking out the window of her bakery when she saw a tall black man in a warm brown coat walking through the Grand Place, pulling a suitcase through the snow. He stopped, as if not knowing exactly where he was headed. Spotting the open bakery, he headed towards it, a very puzzled baker earnestly taking in every detail of this stranger.

  As he entered, Mrs. Bonnin smiled broadly at him.

  “Bonjour,” he greeted in a hesitant French, “I’m looking for 29, rue du Général de Gaulle. And Maude Laurent.”

  Mrs. Bonnin, who had barely understood his “bonjour,” looked at his lips moving and guessed he was saying “rue du Général de Gaulle.” However, she distinctly understood he was looking for Maude Laurent.

  Her curiosity was piqued: who could this man be?

  Even if Mrs. Bonnin couldn’t speak a word of English and certainly couldn’t give this stranger directions had her life depended on it, she definitely needed to get to the bottom of this affair. She held up both her hands, signaled him to wait, went to the back of the bakery for what seemed like three seconds, and when she came back, had discarded apron and hat and was in her warm winter coat, mittens, and was tucking her hair in her hood before taking her keys to close the small bakery behind her. Not that her bakery could ever be robbed, because nothing ever happened in Carvin, and the police was rarely ever busy.

  Mrs. Bonnin walked so fast that James Baldwin had trouble keeping up with her, especially as he was surprised to hear her muttering animatedly to herself, all the while glancing at him from time to time. They quickly arrived to 29, rue du Général de Gaulle, and James Baldwin turned to her.

  “Thank you,” he said, “thank you so much. You are very kind.” He turned towards the doorbell, expecting her to leave. The dear baker just smiled at him, waiting for him to ring the doorbell.

  He shrugged and turned back towards the door, thinking that his wife was right to say the French were strange folk, and rang.

  Maude appeared, breathless at the door, her left hand mixing cookie dough in a big bowl held by her right arm, her brown cheeks streaked with traces of flour. She was in the middle of her Sunday baking session, but no one else had wanted to open the door, so she’d rushed, her apron flying behind her, almost tripping on one of the twins’ toys.

  When she opened the door and saw who was on the doorstep, she gasped.

  And of course, what was inevitable, happened.

  The bowl went crashing to the floor, the loud crash ringing in the house, glass and cookie dough splattered all over the floor that Maude had washed that same morning, onto Maude’s feet and James Baldwin’s black polished shoes. Only his suitcase was spared, as well as Mrs. Bonnin, who always stayed at a safe distance from people during the winter to avoid catching their germs.

  Before Maude could utter a word, an irate voice echoed through the halls of the house.

  “What’s going on?” yelled Mrs. Ruchet from the couch she hadn’t moved from all day. “Who’s at the door?”

  Mr. Ruchet, who was somewhat more prone to movement than his wife was, appeared at the doorway.

  “What is this mess?” he said. “Clean this up, Maude, this is such a waste. Now, what will we have with our tea, I wonder?” Then turning and seeing his uninvited guests, he asked, “Who is this, Maude? And Mrs. Bonnin, what are you doing here?”

  While saying this, he had a sudden realization. If Mrs. Bonnin was here, it could only mean one thing: a fresh scandal was brewing and this stranger was probably at its source.

  Maude hurried back into the house to fetch a mop. Mr. Baldwin was back! Just when she’d given up hope he had come back for her.

  “Mr. Ruchet,” whispered Mrs. Bonnin, bending towards the door. “This man speaks English. He doesn’t speak French. And he wants to see Maude.”

  Mr. Ruchet looked at the stranger, looked back at Mrs. Bonnin, and told her in a firm tone “Thank you, Mrs. Bonnin for bringing him. I will take things from here.”

  He looked at her coldly and even Mrs. Bonnin knew that she had outdone her welcome, if she ever had been welcome.

  She turned towards James Baldwin and smiling at him she said loudly as if he were deaf “Au revoir, Monsieur. Good morning!” she said proudly, thinking how wrong foreigners were to say the French didn’t know a word of English. She’d just spoken two!

  And quite content with herself, Mrs. Bonnin waddled away.

  Mr. Ruchet turned towards James Baldwin and invited him inside. They went to the living room where Mrs. Ruchet was gloomily wondering what all the commotion was about.

  Mr. Ruchet, as a former international human rights lawyer spoke English very well, though with a strong French accent that used to make American girls swoon every time he pronounced “the,” “ze,” almost spitting on them as he did, though they never seemed to notice.

  The men sat down, and Mr. Ruchet spoke in English “You have come to see Maude?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Baldwin said slowly. “My name is James Baldwin, and I’m a music producer from Soulville Records in New York.” He handed Mr. Ruchet his card.

  “And what can you possibly want from Maude?” asked Mr. Ruchet, spitting out Maude’s name as if he were talking of skunks and cabbages. He glanced at the card, trying to decide whether it wasn’t part of a con.

  James Baldwin pretended not to notice his disdain and pursued calmly.

  “Maude is a very talented musician.”

  “Maude?” snorted Mrs. Ruchet almost choking on her Lipton Iced Tea. She coughed loudly. She didn’t know as much English as her husband, but she understood it a little.

  “What my wife means,�
� started Mr. Ruchet, “is zat you are probably, most certainly mistaken. Ze young girl has no talent at all. She is no musician and lacks talent in every artistic domain.”

  James Baldwin looked at Mr. Ruchet fixedly and said, “I can assure you she has and like I have rarely seen. While in Paris I heard her play the piano and sing Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose.” She knows how to play, and her singing is remarkably good.”

  Mrs. Ruchet almost dropped her basin but retained her precious drink in a nick of time.

  “Look,” James Baldwin said firmly, while opening his briefcase. “I came all the way here for a reason. My company would like to sign Maude. I have a contract right here. You can talk this over with your lawyer—”

  “I am a lawyer,” Mr. Ruchet interrupted angrily as if his guest should have instantly guessed he was dealing with a man of the Law.

  “Good,” replied Mr. Baldwin levelly, not the least bit intimidated by Mr. Ruchet’s behavior. “Then perhaps we could discuss—”

  “Zer is nothing to discuss. I don’t know what Maude did or told you in Paris, but zis is completely out of ze question. You want Maude to leave her home in Carvin to follow you to I don’t know where—”

  “New York,” interrupted Mr. Baldwin, calmly.

  “It might as well be Asia!” shrieked Mrs. Ruchet, spilling over half her drink while doing so.

  “As you can see, you are completely rattling my poor wife. How do you think my wife could get along without ze girl who has become like a daughter to her if ever she were to leave for another part of the universe. She was already so sad to see her go for an entire day to Paris, she couldn’t possibly stand this. Zis is out of the question.”

  “I am sure Mrs. Ruchet can accompany Maude if she likes. A lot of ze, ur, I mean the young musicians we sign have one of their parents who stay with them. It is greatly encouraged as it gives the teenager structure and guidance,” explained James Baldwin.