Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (9781455517763) Read online

  “But why aren’t these folks at the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre?” Judy said. “The l’Arc de Triomphe, the Picasso museum, the Musee D’Orsay—”

  “The catacombs would be Gina’s first stop.” Becky tucked her charcoals in her backpack. “It’d be the first stop for all her neck spike–wearing friends too.”

  Becky joined them in the line as she flipped the pages of her sketch pad, noticing how few bare pages were left. She should slip into one of the stationary shops near their hotel in the Marais and purchase some overpriced acid-free paper before tomorrow. As she flipped her gaze caught a series of quick line drawings of the Château de Vincennes, which she and the ladies had visited that morning. Then she admired a detail of a mansard roof and a hasty draft she’d made of the famous pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre. She flipped past a drawing of the rose window of Notre Dame and then paused on a sketch of a hunchbacked gargoyle.

  The gargoyle was bug-eyed and snarling, bird-bone thin, the composition of its arm crooked like a dog’s leg. The thought passed through her mind that Gina would have loved that gallery of gargoyles. At Gina’s age Becky’s sketchbooks had been full of pencil drawings of flower fairies and elves. Gina’s were filled with gnomes. Where Becky imagined castles in clouds and woodland cottages, Gina portrayed haunted houses and ruined towers. Not for the first time Becky wondered why she hadn’t recognized the broken nature of that girl’s dreams when she’d first arrived at her home, a gawky and stone-faced twelve-year-old. By the time Becky recognized Gina as a dark kindred spirit, Gina had already dismissed her as the wicked stepmother.

  Judy suddenly thrust a hand between the pages so she could flip the gargoyle out of sight and reveal a sketch of the Eiffel Tower.

  Judy tapped the page. “This would look really nice, matted and framed, on my wall near the front door. Christmas is coming, you know.”

  “I hear you, Captain Obvious.”

  Becky flipped the pages closed. Through the amber filter of her sunglasses, she noticed the lines of hangover weariness around Judy’s eyes. Last night the three of them had put on their wrinkle-free party dresses, high-heeled it to the street, and hailed a taxi. They’d arrived at the Champ de Mars and paraded to the elevator of the Eiffel Tower where, on the second tier, they emerged at Le Jules Verne.

  While Monique and Judy oohed and ahhed over the panorama of nighttime Paris, she’d taken a seat with her back to what the girls’ determined was the best view. Instead of the blur of city lights, Becky had focused on Judy, drinking too many glasses of a really good burgundy as she regaled them with salacious stories about her French lover. Monique, looking lovely and wistful, idly twirled the stem of her glass as the widow did her usual disappearing act, mentally drifting off someplace where she and Judy couldn’t follow.

  “It looks like we’re going to make the next group.” Monique fixed her clear gaze on Becky. “You sure you’re up for this? The book says the tunnels are dimly lit.”

  Becky bent over to hide a spurt of irritation. She unzipped the backpack she’d tucked between her feet, slipped her sketch pad inside. She took her time fitting it in tight.

  Monique’s voice rose above her. “I’m not mothering, Beck. I’m just making sure you have full information.”

  She straightened to her full height, a good inch taller than Monique when they were both wearing sneakers. “I did tell you that the ophthalmologist said there wouldn’t be any sudden or abrupt changes in my vision, right?”

  “Actually no.”

  “And that most likely I’d lose only about five percent of my visual field over the course of an entire year, right?”

  “Daytime vision, I assume.”

  “And how many weeks has it been since I got the diagnosis?”

  Monique made an exaggerated sigh as she pulled out a pile of euros. “All right, all right, maybe I was mothering a little.”

  “I appreciate the impulse, Monie, but no worries.” She hiked her pack over her shoulder as they stepped up to the ticket counter. “I’ll just stay close to you guys and try not to knock down any bone pyramids.”

  Becky regretted her snarkiness the moment they passed through the entranceway and realized they’d be descending into the catacombs by way of a dimly lit spiral staircase. She flattened her fingers against the opposite wall and then gripped the railing as she toed her way down. The risers were uneven. She stumbled on the fourth step. It wasn’t so dim that she couldn’t see the way Monique paused, her shoulders tightening, clearly resisting the urge to turn around and look up at her. But Becky only gripped the railing with more determination. She wasn’t about to grasp Monique’s shoulders now, with the taste of snark still lingering on her tongue.

  Monique suddenly sucked in a sharp breath. “Don’t touch the walls. They’re slimy.”

  Becky pressed her hand harder against the mossy stone. Her palms were soaked but the sliminess didn’t bother her. Should she miss a step she would need to grind her fingers into the mortar to keep upright. And the deeper they descended, the less light filtered in from above. The air billowing up from below smelled of mildew and decay.

  She cast through her memory for what she’d read about these catacombs. These old stone quarry tunnels had run through Paris since before the revolution. Sometime in the eighteenth century the city grappled with the problem of too little space, too many dead bodies, and too many ill-placed graves infecting the groundwater that people drew from nearby wells. So the powers that be decided to disinter the bones from the cemeteries and transfer them to these unused quarry tunnels. They piled the bones, one on top of another, in ways both bizarre and artful. The bones of six million people lay here.

  The bottom of the stairs came abruptly. Becky stumbled against Monique, and then just as quickly righted herself, but not before she noticed that Monique was trembling.

  “Ooh,” Monique murmured as she moved deeper into the tunnel, “this place is creepy.”

  Becky didn’t feel the same quivering excitement. To her all strange, dark places were full of dangers. These tunnels were dimmer than she expected. This tour was going to take focus and labor, like walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood after emerging from a new restaurant, gripping Marco’s arm and using the red haze of a distant stoplight as a marker for where they’d parked the car.

  Judy fell in pace beside her as they followed the crowd down the tunnel. “Monie, tell me there’s no steep spiral staircase back up to the street level at the end of all this. My knees are screaming.”

  Monique folded the map closed. “Let’s not worry about the route out yet. We’ve got a bit of a hike to the main area.”

  Judy said, “Hike?!”

  “The actual entrance to the catacombs is a kilometer or two through this tunnel. But it’s flat and easy.”

  Judy groaned. Becky tried to focus on a faint blob of light ahead, but it kept winking in and out of sight behind the heads of the people bobbing in front of them. The deeper through the tunnels they walked, the more the walls seemed to close in, the denser the air seemed to get. It smelled like the air of a wet dryer, except chilly and tinged with the tang of iron. Over the shuffling of footsteps, Becky heard the sound of water gurgling, like the running of an underground stream.

  Monique’s voice dropped low with delight. “Isn’t this something straight out of a Stephen King novel? Kiera would have loved this.”

  “I’m so glad,” Judy sang, “that I’m not claustrophobic.”

  Monique fumbled with something in her pack. “I’m going to pull out my video camera.”

  “Nope, I’m not claustrophobic at all.”

  Becky flinched as something splashed on her shoulder. Beside her Judy flinched too.

  “Either it’s raining in here,” Judy said tightly, “or a bat just vacated his bowels on my head.”

  Monique clicked the video camera on to the sound of a beep. “It’s just water. I got hit too. Can you believe this place? Even the walls are weeping.”

  “There
’s enough air down here, right?” Judy’s voice rose in pitch. “Because they only allow two hundred people at a time in the catacombs, right? Any more than that and we’d use up all the air.”

  Monique said, “Don’t hyperventilate.”

  “You can only hyperventilate if there’s air.”

  “Take deep breaths. Just stay calm and keep walking.”

  “Are you really videotaping me having an anxiety attack?”

  “You’re not having an anxiety attack. You’re perfectly fine, walking right under the streets of Paris—”

  “To see skeletons. Why in God’s name would Lenny put this on the list?”

  Monique made a sound deep in her throat—a soft little hint of a laugh—a light bit of music Becky hadn’t heard in a while. “It’s just like a horror movie, isn’t it? It’s something straight out of the mind of Wes Craven. And to think Lenny wouldn’t even sit through The Sixth Sense.”

  Becky murmured, “Wait—he didn’t like that movie?”

  “Oh, he’d never admit that. He was okay through the first part of it. Until the boy ended up in the little closet at the top of the stairs.”

  Becky shivered, remembering the scene when a young boy is locked in the darkness and savagely beaten by something only he could see.

  “When that part came,” Monique continued, “Lenny shot up out of his chair and insisted that we keep watching as he left the room.”

  Becky muttered, “I’d be right on his heels.”

  “Oh, he came back after a while. He kept coming and going. First to go to the bathroom. Then to get a glass of water. Always at the point in the movie when things got really creepy. But he would never admit it scared the hell out of him. Not while his eleven-year-old daughter was wide-eyed and squealing in delight.”

  Monique fiddled with something on the camera—at least that’s what Becky thought, from all the clicking. “Monie, are you saying that Lenny didn’t like horror movies?”

  “He hated them.”

  “Then why put this on the list?”

  Monique didn’t say anything right away, and Becky sensed in her pause a brief uncertainty. “Well,” Monie said, “I guess it’s because he loved the cuddling I insisted on after.”

  Judy murmured, “Ooh-la-la.”

  “Come on, Monie.” Becky thought that she may be going blind, but there were some things even a blind friend could see. “This is really creepy. If Lenny chose to put this on the list, then it was just for you alone.”

  “No, no. Everything on that list was for the two of us.”

  “Becky’s right,” Judy said. “Lenny picked these catacombs because he was throwing you a bone.”

  Monique groaned. “You didn’t just say that.”

  “I did,” Judy said. “A little humor to keep me sane, Monie, because I see the vestibule up ahead, and you know what comes after that.”

  The shadowy silhouettes of the tourists abruptly expanded, and Becky got the sense that they’d just entered a larger space, though the only way she had to gauge that was the slight distance—like an exhale—that both Monique and Judy put between them.

  “O-kay.” Judy’s swift intake of breath was followed by a shaky, uneven exhale. “I guess this is what we’re here to see.”

  “I’m channeling Kiera.” Monique’s excitement was a shiver that rippled through her whole body. “This is so keeeeeeewl.”

  The video camera whirred on again. Becky strained to see something in the yellow light. It was like looking at a stucco wall, the details entirely lost. Becky knew what was collected down here. She supposed what was spread in front of her, drenched in the sepulchral light, were the artistically stacked bones of people who’d been buried three centuries ago. It might be better if she could move closer, so that she might actually be able to see some detail. But in this relentless dimness she’d probably find herself six inches from something curious before her brain resolved the image into the empty eye sockets of a skull.

  “Hey, Monique,” Judy said, “it’s getting a little close in here, don’t you think? Let’s go ahead a little farther, get away from the crowds.”

  “I’m game.”

  Becky followed on their heels as her friends maneuvered through the crowd. The back of her neck tingled, the hairs standing up, and not just from the cold and the proximity of the dead but also from the heart-stopping half collisions she was avoiding only by a breath. During the walk from the staircase to these tunnels everyone pretty much had been moving forward in the same direction, but here in the caverns themselves, people milled, veering to the left and to the right, noting to one another the names of the galleries, the little niches built into the walls with the urns within, altars made of bones.

  “Look, there’s another placard.” Judy slid away. “I’ll translate.”

  “I want to get a photo of this sepulchral lamp.” Monique fiddled with her camera. “But without a flash the only way it’s going to work is if I change the exposure time. You know, I should have just taken my digital camera instead of fussing with this.”

  Monique pressed various buttons, a little tiny bluish glow indicating the brightness of the camera screen. Becky stood halfway between her two friends, feeling slightly unmoored. Judy was only a few steps away, mumbling French under her breath. Monique was still standing on the opposite side, an arm’s length away, if Becky was assessing the distance of that blinking little blue blob of light correctly.

  Don’t be a freakin’ wimp.

  They were in tunnels, for goodness sake. Yeah, she was standing alone like a cork bobbing in the middle of a dark sea, but her friends could certainly see her. She would just stand here and face a vague yellow smear of light, and pretend as if she could actually see what it was illuminating, while waiting patiently.

  “Où est-elle la Mort?” Judy, to her right, spoke aloud. “Where is Death? Toujours future ou passée.”

  To her left Monique mumbled, “I have no idea if this is going to work.”

  “I think that means ‘always in the future or in the past,’” Judy mused. “A peine est-elle presente…”

  Becky closed her eyes. The smear of yellow light winked out and everything was in blackness. It calmed her somehow. It gave her the illusion that if she opened her eyes she’d actually see something more.

  “…que deja elle n’est plus. Well that’s complicated. I think it means ‘as soon as death is here, she’s gone.’ Huh.” Judy shifted her weight in the darkness. “Why is death feminine, anyway? I never did understand that.”

  With her eyes still closed Becky conjured in her mind the castles and cathedrals and beautiful buildings she’d seen since they’d arrived in Paris. She focused for a while on the castle of Vincennes. Brian’s birthday was in June. She would make him that castle. She’d leave space between the outer walls and the tall inner keep so he could slip his knights into formation, along with some of Brianna’s plastic cows and sheep and goats for the courtyard. Even the knights have to eat. She pondered how she could re-create the ochre color of the stones.

  Becky became aware of more tourists flooding into this section of the tunnels. Brisk little eddies of air brushed past her. She smelled the sudden scent of perfume. A backpack bumped against her shoulder. Startled she stumbled forward a little and then froze, balancing on the balls of her feet.

  Vertigo, swift and sudden, a mental plunge into an abyss.

  Becky blinked her eyes open and forced herself down to the flat of her soles. She told herself to calm down. During the day, if she got knocked by somebody, she’d try to adjust her motion or her stance to avoid any more collisions. But in the darkness her first reaction was paralysis. She knew this place was riddled with underground caverns, hidden aquifers, and a maze of quarry tunnels not officially opened to the public. Tourists milled around her like bees in a small part of the hive. Becky listened for Judy, but there were a lot of folks reading French. She turned her head toward where Monique had been—or, at least, where she thought Monique had been—
but saw no glowing blue blob. A bunch of kids suddenly swarmed near her, dissolving into giggling little gasps.

  She said, “Monique?”

  No response. A German couple slipped up beside her, chatting comfortably. She slid her foot across the floor and sidled away from them. Another group came up behind her. She wondered if she were standing in front of something worthy of notice. She blinked and blinked and blinked, but whatever it was, it was not lit well, not even by the little spotlights that ran along the walls.

  She spoke more loudly. “Judy?”

  She told herself they couldn’t be far. There was a haze of yellow light toward her right. A spotlight like many of the others, so it was likely attached to a wall. If she headed toward it maybe the light would help her orient herself in this room. Maybe she could catch the sight of a unique, long-necked silhouette amid the shadows. Maybe Judy could better see her if she were standing underneath the bulb.

  She shuffled, keeping the soles of her sneakers flat on the ground. Shadows flickered past, startling her. Someone tried to get by her, bobbing one way and then another in impatience before sighing and elbowing past. As discretely as she could she stretched her arms out, hoping to find the edges of something—a wall, hopefully—rather than the sleeves of other tourists or the soft hair of a child or the strap of a pocketbook, swiftly jerked back. Her heart started to trip over itself. She widened her stance, dizzy in the dark.

  “Monique?” She hated the edge of panic in her own voice. “Judy?”

  That light was just ahead. She splayed her hands and jarred the butt of her palm against something smooth and icy, something that tilted back. She flexed her fingers over it to make sure it was balanced and wouldn’t fall and shatter into a thousand pieces. Her thumb slipped through a hole to the ridges inside it.

  A hush in a child’s voice, somewhere behind her. “Mum, is she allowed to touch that?”

  She jerked her hand back. She knocked her knuckles on something stony, the edge of a niche in the wall or a pillar, something sharp enough to graze a layer of skin. She stumbled in the opposite direction and slammed into someone who grunted and dropped something that clattered on the ground, a spinning circle of light. She tried to apologize but her words came out garbled as she fought to breathe.