Glitter Baby

Fleur handed her the carton. “Was he?”

“Alexi owns property in Monaco. Of course he was there.”

“Not him.” Fleur’s sandwich had lost its taste, and she pulled off a piece to toss to the ducks across the path. “I didn’t mean Alexi. I meant Michel.” She used the French pronunciation of her thirteen-year-old brother’s name, which was a girl’s name in America.

“Michel was there. He had a school recess.”

“I hate him. I really do.”

Belinda set aside the olive carton without opening it and took a drag on her cigarette.

“I don’t care if it’s a sin,” Fleur said. “I hate him even more than Alexi. Michel has everything. It’s not fair.”

“He doesn’t have me, honey. Just remember that.”

“And I don’t have a father. But it’s still not even. At least Michel gets to go home when he’s not in school. He gets to be with you.”

“We’re here to have a good time, baby. Let’s not get so serious.”

Fleur wouldn’t be sidetracked. “I can’t understand Alexi. How could anybody hate a baby so much? Maybe now that I’m grown up…But not when I was one week old.”

Belinda sighed. “We’ve been through this so many times. It’s not you. It’s just the way he is. God, I wish I had a drink.”

Even though Belinda had explained it dozens of times, Fleur still didn’t understand. How could a father want to have sons so much that he would send his only daughter away and never see her again? Belinda said Fleur was a reminder of his failure and Alexi couldn’t stand failure. But even when Michel was born a year after Fleur, he hadn’t changed. Belinda said it was because she couldn’t have any more children.

Fleur had cut pictures of her father out of the newspapers, and she kept them in a manila envelope in the back of her closet. She used to pretend Mother Superior called her to the office and that Alexi was there waiting to tell her he’d made a terrible mistake and he’d come to take her home. Then he’d hug her and call her “baby” the way her mother did.

She tossed another piece of bread at the ducks. “I hate him. I hate them both.” And then, for good measure, “I hate my braces, too. Josie and Celine Sicard hate me because I’m ugly.”

“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. Remember what I’ve been telling you. In a few years, every girl at the couvent will want to look just like you. You need to grow up a little more, that’s all.”

Fleur’s bad mood slipped away. She loved her mother.

The palace of the Grimaldi family was a sprawling stone and stucco edifice with ugly square turrets and candy cane guard boxes. As Belinda watched her daughter dart through the crowd of tourists to climb on top of a cannon that overlooked the Monaco yacht basin, she felt a lump form in her throat. Fleur had Flynn’s wildness, his restless zest for living.

Belinda had wanted to blurt out the truth so many times. She wanted to tell Fleur that a man like Alexi Savagar could never have been her father. That Fleur was Errol Flynn’s daughter. But fear kept her silent. She’d learned long ago not to cross Alexi. Only once had she beaten him. Only once had he been the helpless one. When Michel was born.

After dinner that night, Belinda and Fleur went to see an American Western with French subtitles. The film was half over when Belinda saw him for the first time. She must have made some sort of sound because Fleur looked over at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Belinda managed. “It’s…That man…”

Belinda studied the cowboy who’d just sauntered into the saloon where Paul Newman was playing poker. The cowboy was very young and far from movie star handsome. The camera moved in for a close-up and Belinda forgot to breathe. It didn’t seem possible. And yet…

The lost years dropped away. James Dean had come back.

The man was tall and lean with legs that didn’t stop. His long, narrow face looked as if it had been chipped from flint by a rebellious hand, and his irregular features projected a confidence that went beyond arrogance. He had straight brown hair; a long, narrow nose with a bump at the bridge; and a sulky mouth. His slightly crooked front tooth had the tiniest chip at one corner. And his eyes…Restless and bitter blue.

He didn’t look at all like Jimmie-she saw that now. He was taller, not as handsome. But he was another rebel- she felt it in her bones-another man who lived life on his own terms.

The film ended, but she stayed in her seat, clutching Fleur’s impatient hand and watching the credits roll. His name flashed on the screen. Excitement welled inside her.

Jake Koranda.

After all these years, Jimmie had sent her a sign. He was telling her she mustn’t lose hope. A man is his own man. A woman her own woman. Jake Koranda, the man behind that off-kilter face, had given her hope. Somehow she could still make her dreams come true.

The boys of Chatillon-sur-Seine discovered Fleur the summer before her sixteenth birthday. “Salut, poupee!” they called out as she emerged from the boulangerie.

She looked up, a smear of chocolate dotting her chin, and saw three boys lounging in the doorway of the pharmacie next door. They were smoking cigarettes and listening to “Crocodile Rock” on a portable radio. One boy stubbed out his cigarette. “He poupee, irons voir par ici.” He made a beckoning gesture with his head.

Fleur glanced around to see which of her classmates he was talking to.

The boys laughed. One nudged his friend and pointed at her legs. “Regardez- moi ces jambes!”

Fleur looked down to see what was wrong, and another dab of chocolate from her eclair dripped onto the blue leather strap of her Dr. Scholl’s sandals. The taller of the boys winked, and she realized they were admiring her legs. Hers!

“Qu’est-ce que tu dirais d’un rendezvous?”

A date. He was asking her for a date! She dropped the eclair and ran up the street to the bridge where the girls were meeting. Her streaky blond hair flew behind her like a horse’s mane. The boys laughed and whistled.

When she got back to the couvent, she dashed to her room and stared at herself in the mirror. Those same boys used to call her l’epouvantail, the scarecrow. What had happened? Her face looked the same: thick, marking-pen eyebrows, green eyes set too far apart, mouth spread all over. She’d finally stopped growing, but not until she’d reached five feet, eleven and a half inches. The braces were gone now. Maybe that was it.

By the time August arrived, Fleur was nearly sick with excitement. A whole month to be with her mother. And on Mykonos, her favorite of all the Greek islands. The first morning as they walked along the beach in the dazzling white sunlight, she couldn’t stop talking about everything she’d been saving up.

“It’s creepy the way those boys keep calling out at me. Why would they do something like that? I think it’s because I got rid of my braces.” Fleur tugged on the oversized T-shirt she’d pulled on top of the apple-green bikini Belinda had bought to surprise her. She loved the color, but its skimpy cut embarrassed her. Belinda wore an oatmeal striped tunic and a chrome Galanos slave bracelet. Both of them had bare feet, but Belinda’s toenails were painted burnt umber.

Her mother sipped from the Bloody Mary she’d brought along. Belinda drank a lot more than she should, but Fleur didn’t know how to get her to stop.

“Poor baby,” Belinda said, “it’s hard not being the ugly duckling anymore. Especially when you’ve been so dedicated to the idea.” She slipped her free arm around Fleur’s waist, and her hipbone brushed the top of her daughter’s thigh. “I’ve been telling you for years the only problem with your face is that you hadn’t grown into it, but you’re stubborn.”

The way Belinda said it made Fleur feel as though that was something to be proud of. She hugged her mother, then flopped down on the sand. “I couldn’t ever have sex. I mean it, Belinda. I am never getting married. I don’t even like men.”

“You don’t know any men, darling,” Belinda said dryly. “Once you’ve gotten away