Hidden in Paris by Corine Gantz Page A

Her face looked a bit strained from lack of sleep, but beautiful. “Didn’t mean to make you jump,” she said as she took the pan from the drying rack and began to wipe it dry. Annie cringed in horror.
Now, during her teatime? Her solitude, invaded? “You don’t have to do that!”
she said rather bossily. “You must be exhausted. Go to bed!”
    Lola seemed nonplussed by her tone. “I want to,” she said nonchalantly. “I could use a cup of herbal tea too.” She took a wet plate from Annie’s clenched fingers and began drying it. “I guess I’m the one who gets to sleep in the duck room tonight. Lia and Simon are sound asleep in my pink bed. So,” she added, “Lucas doesn’t live here, then?” Annie was appalled. Did she want to make conversation now? “Heck no!” She said.
    “Have you ever been married?” Lola asked.
    “Once,” was Annie curt response.
    “You’re divorced?”
    Annie’s answer came out sounding rehearsed. “My husband, the love of my life, was killed in a car accident two and a half years ago. D.O.A.” Lola looked at her and stopped wiping. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “So am I, believe me,” Annie said, removing her plastic gloves. She resigned to the fact that her solitude was ruined for now. Would any place in the house be safe from now on? She offered Lola a cup of tea, and the two of them stood at the sink. Annie did not invite Lola to sit down in the hope to hurry things up. Maybe she should have. Lola was tall enough to make her—along with the entire kitchen—seem smaller. And shouldn’t she have looked worn out from all those hours of traveling? Instead, in her jeans and white shirt, she had a calm, groomed air about her, a quiet loveliness and effortlessness that was mesmerizing. Annie’s inadequacy flared up in a big way. Lola pulled up a chair and sat at the kitchen table without being invited to. Of course. This was her house now. Annie sat down too, feeling defeated. “If you want to call your husband, or ex, or someone this is the perfect time,” she told Lola. “It will be morning for him.”
    Lola took a sip of her tea. “Truthfully, I’d like to postpone that a while.”
    Annie had a vague premonition. “What do you mean by a while?”
    Lola seemed to be stalling. “What do
you
mean?”
    Annie looked at her significantly.
    “Mark should be coming back home from Atlanta in two days,” Lola finally said. “I wrote a postcard and mailed it to him from New York where we changed planes on our way here. So...”
    “So?”
    “So, with a little luck, he’ll be fooled for a while.”
    “You. Did. What?” Annie gasped.
    “I sent a postcard from--”
    “You did
not
take your children and fly to another country without his okay, did you?”
    Lola stared at her cup. “Well, it’s very complex.” she said with a bit of a rattle in her voice.
    Annie’s heart began pounding.
Was she harboring fugitives
? “You’re not doing anything illegal are you?” She had sounded terribly accusatory and belligerent and regretted her forcefulness immediately. Lola open her mouth to answer but Annie spoke instead, trying to soften her stance. “You
did
say on the phone that he was abusive.”
    “It’s a question I keep asking myself,” Lola said. “What’s the definition of abusive?”
    “Is he physically violent?” Annie asked. At that point, she needed Lola to say yes.
    Lola hesitated, looked away. “He, yes, he is violent...can be quite violent, yes,” she said. “But he is very remorseful each time. That’s the thing about him, he always comes back and apologizes. I have to give him that. But then, he does it again. The situation at home was getting unbearable. He is so unpredictable. And it’s gotten so much worse with the stress of having children.” She lifted her face. “You know what I mean. Men get so jealous of the attention.”
    “I know precisely what you mean,” Annie lied. The boys had been nothing but a strong, wonderful