“She’s right, Rudee,” Sashay interjected calmly, “and I know how to get her in to the club. Come to my place, ma cherie, an hour before Rudee picks me up tomorrow night.”
When she smiled at me, I knew that there was a special understanding between us. The danger seemed far away.
Nine
I was glad to be back on my curved wooden bed in my room in the Église Russe after all that had happened on my first day in Paris. I wondered if my class had seen the church before it was vandalized and hoped that Penelope was being inventive with her explanations for my absence, knowing I wasn’t going to be rejoining them any time soon. I opened the hunk of a book I’d been looking at the night before, but it wasn’t long before my eyes were swimming over pictures of beautiful old buildings, ancient churches with gleaming spires, golden domes, and crosses melting in the sun.
I thought someone with very bony fingers was rapping on my door the next morning, but as the cobwebs lifted from my brain, I realized it was rain on the dome above my room. It sounded like handful after handful of pebbles being tossed down on the roof as the wind wrapped around the windows with a comforting hush. Soon all comfort departed as my nose was attacked by the pungent odour of beets boiling below, beets with leeks or onions. Yech! My hunger was more powerful than my revulsion as I climbed down the stairs to Rudee’s room. It occurred to me that he was trying to find a new way to drive me back to my classmates. Humming along to some intense organ music, he was contentedly stirring the awful concoction. I sniffed around for a morsel of bread or even some stinky cheese.
“Bonjour, Miss Mac,” Rudee grinned, “hungry?” He read my expression and laughed. “Oh, don’t fret. I know girls, and some women, don’t like beets, especially for breakfast, but where I come from, it’s the vegetable of kings.”
Before I could ask where exactly that was, he closed his eyes and raised his head in happy concentration. “Listen, Mac, listen and savour genius. Vladimir Ughoman, the famous composer. Ahhh.”
Then abruptly, he said, “Okay, let’s go,” as he snapped off his record player, grabbed his coat, and tossed me my duck’s head umbrella. We raced through the downpour across the churchyard. “What do you say to a croissant and some fruit juice at CAFTA?”
The café was as busy as it had been the night before. Groups of cabbies were drinking out of steaming cups, checking their lottery tickets, and talking. I saw Blag arm-wrestling some helpless victim at a table near the kitchen.
“Hey Rudee, Mac,” a voice called across the room, and Dizzy waved us over to a table he was sharing with another driver. After a round of backslapping and secret handshakes, Dizzy said, “Mac, I want you to meet Mink Maynard.”
A small, dark-haired man with a furry beatnik beard greeted me with a sleepy smile and a low, rumbling voice. “Mon plaisir, m’dear, what brings you here?”
I glanced at Rudee. “My dad’s a friend of Rudee’s. I’m visiting from Upper Mandeville in California.”
“Très cool, but I’m no fool,” purred Mink, “you must be King Daddy’s girl from halfway round the world.”
Rudee and Dizzy laughed, and Dizzy explained, “Mink’s the drummer in the Hacks. King Daddy’s an old nickname for your dad. Mink also writes the lyrics for our songs.” Turning to Mink, he added, “You don’t have to prove it. We know you can rhyme.”
“And keep time,” Mink said to groans from his friends.
Breakfast arrived and filled the table, but it was soon just dishes and crumbs. Pushing back their chairs, Rudee and the boys did their secret handshake again, which by now was no secret to me.
“Practice Saturday? The usual?” said Rudee to nods from the others.
Dizzy nodded. “Ten-four.”.
“And out the door,” rhymed Mink as he headed for the exit.
Rudee said it was time for me to see a bit of Paris, even if it was raining. I persuaded him to drop me off at the student residence so I could check in and suggested we meet at the Pont Neuf taxi stand. This time the sidewalk was empty, so I waited until my group emerged with Penelope in the lead. She was wearing a Coco Chanel–inspired blue-and-white striped top and white capris, along with a severely pouty expression.
“Ah, ma chère Mac, we meet again.”
“Penelope, I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on. I’ll have to tell you later.”
“I assume this means you’d like to be excused from our visit to La Tour Eiffel, which will be followed by tea and macaroons at Ladurée,” she responded petulantly.
I shrugged sheepishly.
“Okay,” she said, assuming a take-charge tone, “take your shoe off and rub your ankle. Quickly, s’il vous plait.”
Mademoiselle Lesage swept into the street behind my classmates, who eyed me suspiciously. “Mac, Penelope told me about your parachuting accident in California.”
“Oh, it’s just a little flare-up, Mademoiselle Lesage. I’m sure with rest, it’ll be fine.”
“But today we are to climb the one thousand six hundred and sixty-five steps of the Eiffel Tower, just as Gustav Eiffel, its creator, did as he ascended to his office with its view of the exquisite Champs des Mars and the neoclassical Trocadero across the Seine....”
I got to my feet unsteadily. “I suppose I’ll unfortunately have to miss today’s activities.”
Penelope mimed playing a violin behind Mademoiselle Lesage, and the others stifled giggles. I hobbled into the lobby and checked out the front page of Le Devoir, which featured a shot of the domed church surrounded by police cars.
In my spotless room with the bed still made, I quickly changed clothes, then headed for the Pont Neuf, grabbing baguettes and brie for Rudee and myself on the way.
We drove up the hill to Montmartre and sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur church, looking over the magnificent city while an organ grinder pumped furiously on an ancient wooden box and a monkey dressed as a gendarme dashed through the crowd striking poses and collecting contributions in his little policeman’s hat. Rudee dropped in a handful of change, then we headed down into the city.
“The financial section,” said Rudee. “The wheelers and stealers,” he added as we passed men and women in suits walking faster than anyone I’d seen yet in Paris. Caressing their portable phones like hand warmers, lugging shiny briefcases, eating hunks of gooey pastry as they walked, they seemed careful not to look at each other.
It was then that we noticed a big commotion at the Place St. Augustin. A jovial crowd was forming around a truck labelled “Fruits Fantastique” that had driven right into a sign painter’s ladder. The driver and the painter were nose to nose. The driver was claiming that he hadn’t seen the traffic light at all, never mind the colour. There were oranges, kiwis, and lichees covered in red paint rolling all over the square being squished by the cars trying to avoid the scene. The flics, as Rudee called the police, seemed to agree with the truck driver that the light was too hard to see and were preparing to let him go. This upset the sign painter so much that he climbed up the traffic pole and painted all three lights red as the crowd cheered him from below. When he climbed down, they carried him off on their shoulders to a bar down the street while the cars in the Place St. Augustin got more and more tangled. We sat on the hood of Rudee’s cab and watched it all unfold.
“Rudee,