Lost in Paris, Elizabeth Thompson [good book club books TXT] 📗

the eggplant-and-merlot-colored contusion makes me feel bad for her. How someone could leave a mark on another person is beyond me. She may have been an absentee mother, but she never laid a hand on me… despite the way her boyfriends manhandled her.

“Okay, it says here that someone set up an annuity to cover the cost of taxes, and the French attorney confirmed that it’s all up-to-date. All we owe is inheritance taxes. He says it’s unclear whether inheritance taxes are based on current market value or the last sale price. The French law office can assist us with that, but we still need to get the property appraised. Oh, and I forgot there was this, too.”

She reaches inside the neckline of her blouse and pulls out a gold chain. When she holds out the charm, I see it’s a delicate gold ring with a small red stone.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“It’s a ruby ring.”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was with the papers and key. The chain is mine, but the ring is too small to put on my finger. I put it here so I wouldn’t lose it. I’d like to keep it if you don’t mind. I mean, you did say I could keep any of the crap that was left in Mom’s attic since I was the one left to clean it out.”

She says it in such an offhanded manner it makes me choke out a little bubble of humorless laughter.

She looks offended. “What’s so funny?”

I shake my head. I can see from here the ring isn’t crap. But we did agree she could keep what she found. I hope she doesn’t try to pull that with the apartment. “We can’t afford to pay inheritance taxes.”

“Yes we can,” she says with a smile. “When we sell Gram’s house in Florida, we’ll use the money from the sale to cover it.”

Perhaps it will be enough, but I suspect it won’t be quite so easy. “Did you ever hear Granny Ivy mention an apartment in Paris?” I repeat.

Marla shakes her head. “Then again, I wasn’t around a lot when Granny Ivy moved in with Gram after Grandpa Tom died. I was hoping maybe you’d heard her mention something about it.”

I shake my head. “No, I was pretty young when she died. All I know about her past is that she was living in the UK in Bristol when the war broke out. She met Great-Grandpa Tom, who was in the US Air Force. They got married and he sent her back to the States to keep her out of harm’s way.”

Marla is fishing in the envelope. I have a feeling she’s not listening.

“Here,” Marla says. “This. It was in the trunk, too.”

She hands me a yellowed newspaper clipping. The text is in French, but I recognize the name Andres Armand, the famous French writer who was part of the Gertrude Stein interwar expat scene.

“So, I googled him,” Marla says. “The guy in the article. What’s his name?” Marla nods to the brittle newspaper clipping in my hand.

“Andres Armand,” I say.

She nods. “Apparently, he was sort of a hotshot French writer of the time. Have you heard of him?”

“Of course I have.” I start to say, Haven’t you? But obviously she hasn’t. There’s no reason to embarrass her. Then again, not much fazes Marla, so I’d probably come off looking like an asshat.

I have a limited grasp of the French language, but it seems like the article might be about Andres Armand’s death.

I get my phone and pull up a French-to-English translation page and begin typing in the first few lines.

“I was right,” I say aloud.

“About what?”

“This article is a death announcement. Armand was killed toward the beginning of World War II. This is a story about them finding his body. Apparently he died working for the resistance.”

I study the picture at the top of the article. I’d seen his photo many times, but I’d never really looked at him. Armand was a handsome man.

“This was with the deed?” I ask.

Marla nods. “I brought everything that was with it.”

On a whim, I close out of the translator program and search Andres Armand and Gertrude Stein. Dozens of pages appear. The teaser for the top article reads, “The Winds of Change—Novel by Stein Protégé Andres Armand Paints Vivid Portrait of Prewar Paris Life.”

I know about Andres Armand, but I have to admit I’m not an expert on his work. He’s not as well-known as Hemingway or Fitzgerald or one of the American expats that are required reading for every American high schooler.

“I wonder why Granny Ivy saved the clipping with the apartment documents. Was there anything else besides what you’ve shown me?”

Marla shakes her head.

“Maybe she put it with the deed because she wanted to keep all the French stuff together?”

“Maybe,” I say. “But why? What did it mean to her?”

It’s just an article clipped from a French newspaper. In fact, it may not have meant anything to my great-grandmother.

Ivy had been a reader. Maybe she read Armand. Maybe she was going through an Armand phase at the time of his death, much the same way that I collected Jane Austen memorabilia when I first moved to England. It didn’t mean anything except that I enjoyed Austen’s work.

“Do you have anything to eat?” Marla asks. “I’m starving.”

She gets up and starts opening cabinet doors, setting her sights on an unopened package of Biscoff cookies.

“Put those back,” I say. “They’re not mine.”

She makes a face and begins to tear open the wrapper. “I’ll replace them.”

She won’t. The casual promise—tossed out so nonchalantly it’s in the wind the moment it leaves her lips—is one of Marla’s greatest hits.

She knows she can get away with it. That’s why she does it.

I add Biscoff cookies to my mental grocery list as she stands with one hip cocked against the counter, chomping biscuits with abandon.

I hear the front door open and shut. Cressida and T are back, and they’re uncharacteristically silent.

“It’s safe to come in,” I call,