Glitter Baby

  Chapter 16

  Fleur cashed a check at American Express using her Gold Card as ID. When she arrived at the Gare de Lyon, she pushed through the crowd to the schedule board and studied the blur of numbers and cities. The next train was leaving for Nîmes, which was four hundred miles from Paris. Four hundred miles from Alexi Savagar’s retribution.

  She’d destroyed the Royale, systematically smashing the hood and the windshield, grille and lights, beating in the fenders and the sides. Then she’d attacked the heart of the car, Ettore Bugatti’s peerless engine. The thick stone walls of the museum had held in the noise, and no one tried to stop her as she put an end to Alexi’s dream.

  The old couple already occupying the compartment regarded her suspiciously. She should have cleaned herself up first so she wasn’t so conspicuous. She turned to stare out the window. There was blood on her face, and the cut on her cheek from the flying glass stung. It was only a small cut, but she should clean it so it didn’t get infected and leave a scar.

  She envisioned her face with a little scar on her cheek. And then she imagined the scar beginning at her hairline, cutting a diagonal across her forehead, and thickening to bisect one eyebrow. It would pucker her eyelid and cut down over her cheek to her jaw. That would just about do it, she thought. A scar like that would keep her safe for the rest of her life.

  Just before the train pulled out of the station, two young women came into the compartment carrying a supply of American magazines. Fleur watched their reflections in the window as they settled into their seats and began studying the other occupants in typical tourist fashion. It seemed as if weeks had passed since she’d slept, and she was so tired she felt light-headed. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the rhythm of the train. As she drifted into an uneasy sleep, she heard the echo of smashing metal and the crunch of broken glass.

  The American girls were talking about her when she woke up. “It has to be her,” one of them whispered. “Ignore her hair. Look at those eyebrows.”

  Where was the scar? Where was that pretty white scar cutting her eyebrow in half?

  “Don’t be silly.” the other girl whispered. “What would Fleur Savagar be doing traveling by herself? Besides, I read that she’s in California making a movie.”

  Panic beat inside her like the pounding of a crowbar. She’d been recognized a hundred times before and this was no different, but being connected with the Glitter Baby made her feel sick. Slowly she opened her eyes.

  The girls were looking at a magazine. Fleur could just make out the page in the window’s reflection, a sportswear ad she’d done for Armani. Her hair flew in every direction from beneath the brim of a big, floppy hat.

  The girl directly across from her finally picked up the magazine and leaned forward. “Excuse me,” she said. “Has anybody ever said that you look exactly like Fleur Savagar, the model?”

  She stared back at them.

  “She doesn’t speak English,” the girl finally said.

  Her companion flipped the magazine closed. “I told you it wasn’t her.”

  They reached Nîmes, and Fleur found a room in an inexpensive hotel near the railroad station. As she lay in bed that night, the numbness inside her finally broke apart. She began to cry, racking sobs of loneliness and betrayal and awful, boundless despair. She had nothing left. Belinda’s love had been a lie, and Alexi had soiled her forever. Then there was Jake…The three of them together had raped her soul.

  People survive by their ability to make judgments, yet every judgment she’d made was wrong. You are nothing, Alexi had said. As the night settled around her, she understood the meaning of hell. Hell was being lost in the world, even from yourself.

  “I am sorry, mademoiselle, but this account has been closed.” Fleur’s Gold Card disappeared, tucked like a magician’s trick into the palm of the clerk’s hand.

  Panic gripped her. She needed money. With money, she could hide someplace where she’d be safe from Alexi and where no one would recognize her, someplace where Fleur Savagar could cease to exist. But that wasn’t possible now. As she hurried through the streets of Nîmes, she tried to shake off the feeling that Alexi was watching her. She saw him in the doorways, in the reflections of store windows, in the faces passing her in the street. She fled back to the train station. Run. She had to run.

  When Alexi saw the wreckage of the Royale, he felt his own mortality for the first time. It took the form of a slight paralysis in his right side that lasted nearly two days. He closed himself in his room and saw no one.

  All day, he lay in bed, holding a handkerchief in his left hand. Sometimes he stared at his reflection in the mirror.

  The right side of his face sagged.

  It was almost imperceptible, except for the mouth. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t control the trickle of saliva that seeped from the corner. Each time he lifted his handkerchief to wipe it away, he knew that the mouth was what he would never forgive.

  The paralysis gradually faded, and when he could control his mouth, he called in the doctors. They said it was a small stroke. A warning. They ordered him to cut back on his schedule, stop smoking, watch his diet. They mentioned hypertension. Alexi listened patiently and then dismissed them.

  He put his collection of automobiles up for sale at the beginning of December. The auction attracted buyers from all over the world. He was advised to stay away, but he wanted to watch. As each car went on the block, he studied the faces of the buyers, printed their expressions in his mind so he would always remember.

  After the auction was over, he had the museum dismantled, stone by stone.

  Fleur sat at a battered table in the back of a student café in Grenoble and stuffed every cloying bite of her second pastry into her mouth until nothing was left. For nearly a year and a half, food had provided her only sense of security. As her jeans had grown tighter and she’d been able to pinch that first definitive fold of fat at the base of her ribs, the thick fog of numbness had lifted long enough for her to feel a brief sense of accomplishment. The Glitter Baby had disappeared.

  She imagined Belinda’s expression if she could see her precious daughter now. Twenty-one years old, overweight, with cropped hair, and cheap, ugly clothes. And Alexi…She could hear his contempt tucked away inside some honeyed endearment like a piece of candy with a tainted center.

  She counted out her money carefully and left the café, pulling the collar of her man’s parka tighter around her neck. It was February, and the dark, icy sidewalk still held remnants of that morning’s snow. She tugged her wool hat further down over her head, more to protect herself from the cold than from fear that anyone would recognize her. That hadn’t happened in nearly a year.

  A line had already begun to form at the cinema, and as she took her place at the end, a group of American exchange students fell in behind her. The flat sounds of their accents grated on her ears. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken English. She didn’t care if she ever spoke it again.

  Despite the cold, the palms of her hands were sweating, and she shoved them more deeply into the pockets of her parka. At first she’d told herself she wouldn’t even read the reviews of Sunday Morning Eclipse, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. The critics had been kinder to her than she’d expected. One called her performance “a surprisingly promising debut.” Another commented on the “sizzling chemistry between Koranda and Savagar.” Only she knew how one-sided that chemistry had been.

  Now she simply existed, taking whatever job she could find and sneaking into university lecture halls when she wasn’t working. Two months ago, she’d gone to bed with a sweet-natured German student who’d sat next to her in an economics lecture at the Université d’Avignon. She hadn’t wanted Jake to be the only man she’d made love with. Not long afterward, she’d imagined Alexi’s presence breathing down her neck, and she’d left Avignon for Grenoble.

  A French girl standing in line ahead of her began to tease her date. “Aren’t you afra
id I won’t be interested in you tonight after I’ve spent two hours watching Jake Koranda?”

  He glanced over at the movie poster. “You’re the one who should be worried. I’ll be watching Fleur Savagar. Jean-Paul saw the film last week, and he’s still talking about her body.”

  Fleur huddled more deeply into the collar of her parka. She had to see for herself.

  She found a seat in the last row of the theater. The opening credits rolled, and the camera panned a long stretch of flat Iowa farmland. Dusty boots walked down a gravel road. Suddenly Jake’s face flooded the screen. She’d once loved him, but the white-hot fire of betrayal had burned up that love, leaving only cold ash behind.

  The first few scenes flicked by, and then Jake stood in front of the Iowa farmhouse. A young girl jumped up from a porch swing. The pastries Fleur had stuffed down clumped in her stomach as she watched herself run into his arms. She remembered the solidness of his chest, the touch of his lips. She remembered his laughter, his jokes, the way he’d held her so tight she’d thought he’d never let her go.

  Her chest constricted. She couldn’t stay in Grenoble any longer. She had to leave. Tomorrow. Tonight. Now.

  The last thing she heard as she rushed from the theater was Jake’s voice. “When did you get so pretty, Lizzie?”

  Run. She had to run until she disappeared, even from herself.

  Alexi sat in the leather chair behind the desk in his study and lit a cigarette, the last of the five he permitted himself to smoke each day. The reports were delivered to him at exactly three o’clock every Friday afternoon, but he always waited until nighttime when he was alone to study them. The photographs before him looked much like the others that had been sent to him over the past few years. Ugly barbershop hair, threadbare jeans, scuffed leather boots. All that fat. For someone who should be at the apex of her beauty, she looked obscene.

  He’d been so certain she would go back to New York and resume her career, but she’d surprised him by staying in France. Lyon, Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Montpelier—all towns with universities. She foolishly believed she could hide from him in anonymous throngs of students. As if such a thing were possible.

  After six months she’d begun to take classes at some of the universities. At first he’d been mystified by her choice of courses: lectures in calculus, contract law, anatomy, sociology. Eventually he’d discerned the pattern and realized she chose only classes held in large lecture halls where there was little chance of anyone discovering she wasn’t a registered student. Officially enrolling was out of the question, since she had no money. He’d seen to that.

  His eyes slid down the list of ridiculously menial jobs she’d held to support herself for the past two years: washing dishes, cleaning stables, waiting tables. Sometimes she worked for photographers, not as a model—such an idea was ludicrous now—but setting up lights and handling equipment. She’d unwittingly discovered the only possible defense she could use against him. What could he take from a person who had nothing?

  He heard footsteps and quickly slipped the photographs back into the leather folder. When they were tucked away, he walked over to the door and unlocked it.

  Belinda’s hair was sleep-tousled and her mascara smudged. “I dreamed about Fleur again,” she whispered. “Why do I keep dreaming about her? Why doesn’t it get better?”

  “Because you keep holding on,” he said. “You will not let her go.”

  Belinda closed her hand over his arm, imploring him. “You know where she is. Tell me, please.”

  “I am protecting you, chérie.” His cold fingers trailed down her cheek. “I do not wish to expose you to your daughter’s hatred.”

  Belinda finally left him alone. He returned to his desk, where he studied the report again, then locked it in his wall safe. For now, Fleur had nothing of value that he could destroy, but the time would come when she did. He was a patient man, and he would wait, even if it took years.

  The bell over the front door of the Strasbourg photo shop jangled just as Fleur set the last box of film on the shelf. Unexpected noises still startled her, even though two and half years had passed since she’d fled from Paris. She told herself that if Alexi wanted her, he would have found her by now. She glanced at the wall clock. Her employer had been running a special on baby photographs that had kept them busy all week, but she’d hoped the rush was over for the afternoon so she could get to her economics lecture. Dusting her hands on her jeans, she pushed aside the curtain that separated the small reception area from the studio.

  Gretchen Casimir stood on the other side. “Good God!” she exclaimed.

  Fleur felt as if someone had clamped a vise around her chest.

  “Good God!” she repeated.

  Fleur told herself it was inevitable that someone would find her—she should be grateful it had taken this long—but she didn’t feel grateful. She felt trapped and panicky. She shouldn’t have stayed in Strasbourg so long. Four months was too long.

  Gretchen pulled off her sunglasses. Her gaze swept over Fleur’s figure. “You look like a blimp. I can’t possibly use you like this.”

  Her hair was longer than Fleur remembered, and the auburn color was brighter. Her pumps looked like Mario of Florence, the beige linen suit was definitely Perry Ellis, and the scarf de rigueur Hermès. Fleur had nearly forgotten what such clothes looked like. She could live for six months on what Gretchen was wearing.

  “You must have gained forty pounds. And that hair! I couldn’t sell you to Field and Stream.”

  Fleur tried to pull the old screw-you grin out of mothballs, but it wouldn’t fit on her face. “Nobody’s asking you to,” she said tightly.

  “This escapade has cost you a fortune,” Gretchen said. “The broken contracts. The lawsuits.”

  Fleur tried to slip a hand into her jeans pocket, but the fabric was stretched so tight she could only manage a thumb. She didn’t care. If she weighed her former one hundred and thirty pounds, she’d lose even her fleeting feelings of safety. “Send the bill to Alexi,” she said. “He has two million dollars of mine that should cover it. But I imagine you’ve already found that out.” Alexi knew where she was. He was the one who’d sent Gretchen here. The room closed in on her.

  “I’m taking you back to New York,” Gretchen said, “and getting you into a fat farm. It’ll be months before you’ll be in shape to work. That awful hair is going to hurt you, so don’t think I can get your old price, and don’t think that Parker can get you another film right away.”

  “I’m not going back,” Fleur said. It felt odd to speak English.

  “Of course you are. Look at this place. I can’t believe you actually work here. My God, after Sunday Morning Eclipse came out, some of the top directors in Hollywood wanted you.” She stabbed the stem of her sunglasses into the pocket of her suit jacket so the lenses hung out. “This silly quarrel between you and Belinda has gone on long enough. Mothers and daughters have problems all the time. There’s no reason to make such a thing out of it.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Grow up, Fleur. This is the twentieth century, and no man is worth splitting up two women who care about each other.”

  So that was what everyone believed, that she and Belinda had quarreled over Jake. She barely thought about him anymore. Occasionally she saw a picture of him in a magazine, usually scowling at the photographer who’d invaded his privacy. Sometimes he was with a beautiful woman, and her stomach always did an unpleasant flip. It was like stumbling unexpectedly across a dead cat or bird. The corpse was harmless, but it still made you jump.

  Jake’s acting career was stronger than ever, but even though Sunday Morning Eclipse had earned him a screenwriting Oscar, he’d stopped writing. No one seemed to know why, and Fleur didn’t care.

  Gretchen made no effort to conceal her scorn. “Look at yourself. You’re twenty-two years old, hiding away in the middle of nowhere, living like a pauper. Your face is all you have, and you??
?re doing your best to ruin that. If you don’t listen to me you’re going to wake up one morning, old and alone, satisfied with whatever crumbs you can pick up. Is that what you want? Are you that self-destructive?”

  Was she? The worst of the pain was gone. She could even look at a newspaper picture of Belinda and Alexi with a certain detachment. Of course her mother had gone back to him. Alexi was one of the most important men in France, and Belinda needed the limelight the way other people needed oxygen. Sometimes Fleur thought about returning to New York, but she could never model again, and what would she do there? The fat kept her safe, and it was easier to drift through the present than to rush into an uncertain future. Easier to forget about the girl who’d been so determined to make everybody love her. She didn’t need other people’s love anymore. She didn’t need anyone but herself.

  “Leave me alone,” she said to Gretchen. “I’m not going back.”

  “I have no intention of leaving until—”

  “Go away.”

  “You can’t keep on like—”

  “Get out!”

  Gretchen let her eyes slide over the ugly man’s shirt, over the bulging jeans. She assessed her, judged her, and Fleur felt the exact moment when Gretchen Casimir decided she was no longer worth the effort.

  “You’re a loser,” she said. “You’re sad and pitiful, living a dead-end life. Without Belinda, you’re nothing.”

  The venom behind Gretchen’s words didn’t make them any less true. Fleur had no ambition, no plans, no pride of accomplishment—nothing but a mute kind of survival reflex. Without Belinda, she was nothing.

  An hour later, she fled the photo shop and boarded the next train out of Strasbourg.

  Fleur’s twenty-third birthday came and went. A week before Christmas, she threw some things into a duffel bag, picked up her Eurail pass, and left Lille to board a train to Vienna. France was the only place in Europe where she could work legally, but she had to get away for a few days or she’d suffocate. She could no longer remember how it felt to be slim and strong, or what it was like not to worry about paying the rent on a shabby room with a rust-stained sink and damp patches on the ceiling.