She needed Lisette.
Mason’s childhood had been isolated and lonely, and she’d never had a close friend before Lisette. They’d met shortly after Mason had arrived in Paris. She’d outfitted herself with art supplies and had set out to La Grande Jatte, an island in the Seine where the bourgeoisie went to enjoy their leisure time. She’d set up her easel, plopped her straw hat on her head, and picked up her brush. Everything at the ready, she’d looked about, wondering what to paint. Women dressed in their Sunday best strolled unhurriedly along the paths or picnicked beneath the trees. Men, in top hats or derbies, lounged in the shade, watching the sailboats glide along the river. Children frolicked on the grass or waded along the banks, their squeals piercing the air. Typical Impressionistic motifs. She was looking for something different, but she didn’t know quite what.
Then she saw Lisette. She was a child-woman with a tumbled tangle of luxurious gold hair that seemed to glow in the fulsome sunshine of summer. Half a dozen dogs of all sizes and breeds surrounded her, panting in anticipation as she raised a small ball she held in her hand. She was barefoot and was laughing as the two poodles leapt into the lake. Hiking up her skirts, she’d run playfully in after them, picking them up in both arms and smothering them with heartfelt kisses, completely mindless to the fact that they were soaking her pretty yellow dress. She was effortlessly elegant and earthy all at once, delighting in the movements of her own body, completely unconscious of the effect she was creating.
At this point, Mason hadn’t found the artistic vision that would later so possess her. But one look at the carefree young woman made her realize that she’d found something special. A Greek goddess for the modern age, a new kind of woman full of light and color and sensual grace.
She found, when she introduced herself in halting French, that Lisette was a trapeze artist and acrobat. When Mason asked if she would model for her, the young woman wrinkled her nose in distaste, then reconsidered and said with a shrug, “Et bien. Why not?” Mason was so satisfied with the results of the sitting that, several weeks later and after many frustrating afternoons of painting plaster casts and bowls of oranges, she decided to seek out her reluctant model at the Folies-Bergères, where she’d said she was currently appearing. This time Lisette refused. But several days later, she appeared at Mason’s Montmartre flat and said, rather haughtily, “I have nothing to do this afternoon, so you may paint me.”
As Mason worked in a lightning flash of inspiration, she realized she’d found the subject she’d been looking for—one who somehow fit into the vision she was struggling to formulate. She still couldn’t explain to herself exactly what place Lisette would occupy in this grand scheme, but she’d never felt more at one with the creative force than when painting her.
For her part, however, Lisette seemed cautious of the young American artist and kept her distance as the French were wont to do, occasionally agreeing to pose, but demanding a fee and offering nothing of herself but her physical presence. Then one day, Mason was shopping for vegetables in the market at Les Halles and was in the process of paying the vendor when she heard a familiar voice behind her. “What are you doing? Do you not know this man is charging you three times what he would charge a French customer for that pathetic head of lettuce?”
Before Mason had time to answer, Lisette had attacked the vendor in a hand-waving tirade of French, snatched some coins from Mason’s hand, and exchanged them for the lettuce. “You need someone to take care of you,” she’d pronounced contemptuously.
Over the following weeks, their acquaintance entered a new stage. Not quite a friendship, but something more than the indifference Lisette had previously extended. Several times she dropped by with no warning and took Mason out shopping for food and clothes, and once she led her by the arm to the building’s concierge and told her in no uncertain terms that the American would no longer be paying such an inflated rent for her “miserable hovel.” Another time she gave Mason a ticket to the Cirque Fernando where she was performing. Mason had marveled at the ease, agility, and breathtaking charisma with which she’d flown through the air on her trapeze. But Lisette still didn’t give herself in real friendship. Mason assumed she never would. She kept most people at an emotional distance and reserved most of her affection for her dogs.
Several months later, however, Mason stopped by Lisette’s apartment on the Boulevard de Clichy, intending to borrow a cloisonné vase she’d given Lisette and wanted to use for a still life she was painting. Lisette was out of town, on a long tour with the traveling circus that was taking her all over France and into Italy for most of the summer, and couldn’t be reached. When she went to the concierge to ask admittance to Lisette’s rooms, she discovered that the old woman, a friend of Lisette’s, had passed away a week before. The building had been inherited by her son, a worthless brute whose unwanted advances Lisette had rebuffed time and again in no uncertain terms. In revenge, the new landlord was in the process of transporting her beloved ménage of dogs, which the late concierge had been caring for, to the Paris dog pound, where they would soon meet their demise.
“You can’t do that!” Mason insisted.
“I certainly can. She didn’t pay her rent in advance.”
“I’ll pay her rent,” Mason told him.
“It’s too late. I’ve rented her rooms to someone a little more appreciative, and those mongrels are on their way to the meat grinder.”
Mason raced to the pound and managed to rescue the seven animals just in time.
A month later, at the end of her summer tour, Lisette appeared at Mason’s door utterly distraught with tears streaming down her face. She’d been to her apartment where she’d been gleefully informed by the new landlord that her darling brood were long gone. After flying into the man in an attempt to scratch his eyes out, she’d gone to see Mason. “That beast sent my babies to their execution.”
Mason was about to reassure her when, behind them, there was a bark of recognition. A light came to Lisette’s eyes. She rushed past Mason into the room, dropped to her knees, and the seven dogs attacked her joyfully, jumping up on her, licking her face, as she screamed in delight. She kissed their faces, crying uncontrollably, and as she did, she noticed that they’d been freshly bathed and each had a bright red ribbon tied about its neck.
Slowly, Lisette disengaged herself and rose to look at Mason in bafflement. “You…You saved them!”
“Just in time. That bastard really had it in for you.”
“But you don’t even like dogs.”
Mason smiled. “I didn’t think so. I’ve never had one. But I’ve sure grown fond of these guys.”
“But…you kept them for a whole month. Walked them, fed them, bathed them…all that time and trouble…What made you do it?”
“I couldn’t very well let them die,” Mason told her. “They’re part of you.”
Lisette looked at her for several moments. Then she stooped and picked up a small Pekinese puppy and offered him to Mason. “Pour toi,” she said, for the first time using the familiar form of French, the “toi” reserved for family and friends.
Deeply touched, Mason realized there was no more precious gift Lisette could bestow. But she shook her head. “I couldn’t take Monsieur Fu. He’s your baby. Just let me visit him from time to time.”
Lisette hugged the puppy to her chest. She never said another word about what had happened. But from that moment on, she became that devoted best friend Mason had never had as a child. She knew, without having to question it, that come what may, Lisette Ladoux would always be there, loving her with the fierce devotion of a true sister.
So it was natural, in this extraordinary situation, that Mason would race to Lisette, knowing how she must have suffered on hearing the news of her “death.”
She used the last of her borrowed money to take an omnibus to the Cirque Fernando at the base of the Montmartre butte. Lisette would just be finishing her performance about now