for medical insurance, and his
Would Aimee let him take care of her now that she was blind? Or would she push him away? Should he team up with Rajeev? Join him and form a software business, as Rajeev was urging him to?
He repressed his feelings. As always. But the thought that though she was his best friend, sometimes that wasn’t enough, kept rising up. He wanted more. More of her. He pushed that away.
He drank the
“That bad?”
She nodded.
“Another?”
He caught the waiter’s eye, pointed to their glasses.
“Does your client cook the Bataclan’s books?”
“He’s the comptroller,” she said. “And since his sun crossed Virgo . . . very auspicious . . . he’s decided to ask for the hand of his plumber’s sister who lives three houses down in the same Batignolle
“At least he’ll be able to fall back on his brother-in-law if the theatre business gets tight,” Rene said. He handed the waiter several hundred-franc notes.
“
“The comptroller’s?” Rene interrupted.
She nodded. The tulle ribbon bobbed in her curls. “Look,” she said, setting down a chart. The spheres of planets were crossed by red, aqua, and orange lines. “I hadn’t finished the alignment of the houses and the dominant planets . . . but Josiane called, wanting to meet. She said I could finish later, but she had an important question to ask first.”
All this astral plane talk unnerved him. “And you said . . . ?”
“Clients call my hotline or hit my website with questions all the time,” she said, noting disbelief in his eyes. “I’m very good.”
Rene grew aware of the sounds of conversation and the clink of glasses around them. Tables filling with the cafe clien- tele, the waiter rushing to fill orders and barking new ones to the younger look-alike barman.
“Sometimes I’m so good, it’s scary,” Miou-Miou confessed.
Rene avoided her eyes. He shifted on the rattan chair and wished his dangling legs could touch the floor. Just once.
“If I finish the orbit of her ruling planet . . . see how the sun line intersects . . . that shows warning. ‘Tread lightly on the rungs of life’s ladder.’ But here,” she slapped the chart, rustling the paper. “The lifeline was cut.”
“When?” If she was so good she’d know.
“11:40 p.m. last Monday night,” she said, glancing at her watch. She stood up, hefted her bag across her chest and snapped her green denim jacket closed.
“How do you know that?”
“She was going to call me. She didn’t,” said Miou-Miou. “I have to go. I’ve got another appointment.”
Josiane’s body was found Tuesday midday, Rene thought. But the morgue would have an estimate of the actual time of death.
AIMEE SAT back on her bed in the residence, frustrated.
“Searching database for requested information. Five minutes remaining,” said the computer’s robotic voice. Rene had tried for Yves Montand’s silky tone. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him, Not even close.
Aimee lifted her fingers from the keyboard, felt her way across the cotton duvet, and found the rumpled Nicorette gum package. She rifled inside. Each tin foil pocket punctured and empty. All gone.
Her fingers scrabbled over the duvet, found the bedside table and the plastic bottle of lemon-scented nail polish remover she’d requested that Rene bring her. She uncrossed her black silk Chinese pajama pant-clad legs and felt around.
Where were the cotton pads? She felt something small, square, rough on one side. A box. A matchbox. Who’d been smoking . . . Morbier,
A few matchsticks rattled. She slid one out and chewed the matchhead, enjoying the gritty tang of sulphur on her tongue. Like pepper, without the kick. If only she had a cigarette to go with it.
And then she’d win the Lotto, fill every hungry stomach with food, and discover a cure for blindness.
Dream on.
There were knocks on the door. “Delivery for Mademoiselle Leduc.”
She reached for the security chain and unhooked it, then for the door knob.
“Sign please,” the voice said.
But she couldn’t. “Guide my hand to make an X.”
He did.
“Please, what does it say?”
“Package from Samaritaine from Martine Sitbon, and four orchid plants,” he said. “The card says ‘When in trouble, do the frivolous.’ ”
How sweet!
After she opened the box she found it filled with what felt like sunglasses, in assorted shapes: round, 70s rectangular, and cat-eye shaped with bumps . . . rhinestones?
She left the orchids for Sylvaine to help her with, then tried on each pair of sunglasses. Wondered what they looked like, kept on the ones she imagined were like Audrey Hepburn’s in
Then her palm touched something on the bedside table . . . a crumpled cellophane packet. Too thick for Nicorette . . . dare she hope? She put it to her nose, smelled the paper . . . an acrid blond tobacco . . . Gauloise Blond? Her favorite brand?
Her fingers found them . . . two filtered cigarettes. She wanted to shout
Would he want them back?
Never mind. And this wasn’t a hospital, surely people could smoke in their rooms. She hadn’t
Logistics . . . she had to plan her actions. How to smoke and not set the place on fire.
Stupid . . . such a simple thing. How could lighting and smoking a cigarette be such a big deal? But of course it was.
The matchbox fell from her hand. She heard it strike somewhere on the linoleum below her feet. Fighting a desire to burst into tears of frustration, she took a deep breath. Forced herself to look on the good side.
First she needed something for an ashtray. By the time she found the espresso cup and saucer and knocked it over, spilling the dregs over her sleeve, she’d located the matchbox with her toes. With a nimbleness she didn’t know she had, she clamped her toes around the matchbox, then hoisted it onto the mound of the piled duvet.
Had she closed the door to her room? If it weren’t so irritating, she’d find her predicament silly. But she imagined she would appear ridiculous to a sighted person looking in her room.
Sighted . . . when had she begun referring to
