Bonita Faye Read online

  “I thought you didn’t ever want to have a job where you had to wear a gun again?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking it over. A sheriff runs things from the sheriff’s office. He doesn’t have to go out and corral criminals. He just has to see that it’s done.” He asked again, “What do you think?”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind, Harmon.”

  “Yeah, I reckon I have. Let’s go home, Bonita Faye. The campaign kick-off luncheon is this Tuesday.”

  I threw the geranium out the window and packed our bags.

  Since nobody in their right mind would run against a two-time genuine hero, Harmon won the election by a higher percentage than had ever been recorded in LeFlore County. He was back in a brown uniform and I was back in one of the only two places where I liked living: Poteau, Oklahoma.

  Robert Sinclair came to visit us in Poteau the first Thanksgiving Harmon was sheriff. He’d come back to the states to say his good-byes to his sick mother in Pennsylvania and after she died, he dropped down to Oklahoma. I don’t need to tell you how glad I was to see him.

  “I am so pleased that you’ve continued your studies, Bonita Faye.” I wondered if Robert knew that after so many years in France that he talked English with a French accent? “Tell me about your classes and your grades.”

  “Oh, I didn’t get any grades, Robert.”

  “Bonita Faye, how could you go to college and not get grades?”

  “I just picked out classes that interested me and audited them. You don’t get grades for auditing.”

  “You weren’t registered? I don’t understand.”

  “Robert, you don’t think I was going to tell those people in Stillwater that I had never graduated from high school, do you? I’d of died of shame. Besides I graded myself.”

  “And what did you make?”

  “An A in all the English courses. And in the literature classes. A B in psychology and biology. I didn’t pass math, but squeaked by science.”

  “And did you take, I mean audit, the French class like I told you to?”

  “Yeah, but they don’t speak French in Stillwater like they do in Paris. I gave the teacher an F.”

  “That’s my Bonita Faye,” He laughed and added, “But maybe the teacher didn’t have to learn perfect French or starve to death in a cafe on the sidewalks of Paris.”

  Robert and Harmon hit it right off. Harmon even seemed more relaxed and easy about my time in France when Robert was there.

  He said, “Robert Sinclair is a hell of a man. Wish I had known you had such good people looking out after you over there. I wouldn’t have worried so about you.”

  That was probably the maddest I ever got at Harmon Adams.

  Robert brought me up to date on all the goings on in Paris and Boulogne. “Denis and I still keep trying to force a decision out of Simone. We’ve told her time and again, choose one or the other, but just choose. She says she can’t do it…that she loves us both too much.

  “The funniest thing is that Denis has become a capitalist. As you know, after you left, Claude hired him to run the souvenir end of the business. As you would say, he took to it like a fish takes to water. Gave up his taxi and wears a suit and tie every day. He even moved into the Regina.”

  “But, Robert, doesn’t that give him an advantage with Simone?”

  He grinned. “No. I gave up my flat and moved in there, too.”

  Even in America we call that a menage a trois.

  I didn’t like what he had to say about Michel.

  “Simone hates to admit it, but the boy’s troubled. We think someone has told him that his real father was German. That’s still a big deal in France. Anyway, something has changed him. He’s not happy and he gets into trouble more than a boy his age should. We’re all worried about him.”

  We talked awhile about Michel and then I asked Robert the question I had been putting off. “And Claude?”

  Robert’s face lit up. “I guess it’s because I’m sitting here in Oklahoma that your phrases leap to my mind, but Claude is no ‘flash in the pan.’ His reputation for business acumen continues to grow. To be as young as he is, he is certainly a successful man. And you should see him with his daughter. Didi swears she’ll be spoiled beyond redemption by the time she’s grown.”

  “You mean little Franchesca? Claude and Didi sent me an announcement when she was born.”

  “Yes, but Claude started calling her ‘Belle’. Now we all do.” Always the teacher, Robert continued to explain. “That’s French for pretty like your name Bonita is Spanish for…” He stopped. “So that’s why Claude…” Robert was embarrassed.

  “What’s the matter, Robert? Do you think you and Denis and Simone have cornered the market on love triangles?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Bonita Faye. That wasn’t fair.”

  “No? Well, I’ve learned that the only fair in this world is the one where they give out blue ribbons to prize hogs.” I quit it. I wasn’t being fair. “I’m sorry, Robert. It’s just that Claude and I parted so suddenly. And with such drama.” I threw up my hands and laughed. “I know that’s the French way, but we left so much unresolved.”

  “It’s been three years, Bonita Faye. Don’t you think it’s about time you left Claude?”

  “But I did.”

  “I meant emotionally.”

  I was some surprised when I heard Harmon tell Robert that we’d be over to France to visit him. “It would mean a lot to Bonita Faye to see her friends again. We’ll make the trip just as soon as I can wrangle the time away from the office.”

  After Robert left, I took my troubles over to Patsy. I sat at her kitchen table holding Omega while she ladled butter onto thick homemade bread slices that she then sprinkled with sugar. The slabs of bread and a pitcher of strawberry Kool-aid were passed out the back door to Cherry to distribute for an afternoon snack for the kids.

  “Patsy, I count more than six kids out there. Did you have another one while I wasn’t looking?”

  She handed Omega a slice of the sweetened bread and stuffed some in her own mouth. “Nope, them’s the neighbors’ kids. Always seem to know when there’s food floatin’ around. I always make extra.” She reached over and patted Omega on his round head and said again, “Nope, like I told you Omega is the last of the bunch. And, is he spoiled.”

  “That reminds me what Robert said about Claude’s daughter.”

  “Is that what’s eatin’ you, Bonita Faye? Claude? You want to talk about it?”

  “Patsy, what does it say in your Bible about somebody loving two people at the same time?” I knew Patsy would rather have her tongue cut out than ever gossip about our conversations.

  “Well, let me think. You know in the ten commandments, it says that about not coveting your neighbor’s wife?”

  I nodded.

  “But, that commandment is for a man. I’m not that sure about women. Then there’s that part about whither thou goest, but that’s really a woman to her mother-in-law. And an ex-mother-in-law at that. Can you imagine anyone being that crazy about a mother-in-law? And, I know you have to marry your dead brother’s wife, but, Claude and Harmon aren’t brothers. ‘Cept maybe in the Biblical sense. But that don’t even count ‘cause one of them ain’t dead.”

  She paused and ate some more sugared bread. “I’m stumped, Bonita Faye. Seems like all them rules are made for men. Let me get my Bible.” I waited while she got up and found the big white family Bible that I had given her when I found out she’d learned to read. Cherry had taught Patsy when the first grader had started school. They’d learned together. I knew she was using getting the Bible as an excuse to think ‘cause there weren’t words written in that Book that Patsy didn’t know by heart.

  She brought it back and sat it on the table, but didn’t open it. With one hand on the Bible, she said, “No
w Paul had a lot to say about women and most of it not worth spit. That man didn’t like women, Bonita Faye. I swear, I can’t think of a single case of a love triangle in the Bible. Oh, no that’s not the truth. There was David and Bathsheba. But David was the one who settled that one, too.

  “Bonita Faye, is this here triangle between you and Claude and Didi? Or Harmon and Claude and you? A triangle has three pointy corners, don’t it? Sounds to me like we’re got us a square here. Maybe that’s why nothin’ comes to my mind. I don’t know nothin’ about no squares in the Bible.”

  “Sometimes, Patsy, I think it’s just all in my imagination.”

  Two more years passed before Harmon and I made the trip to France. You can do a lot of thinking in two years.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I have always enjoyed flying and I can’t abide those women who squench up their eyes and shake their hands and say, “Ooh, ooh, I don’t think I could ever get on a plane, ooh, ooh.” Makes me sick to hear them.

  You’d think I wouldn’t like flying ‘cause the person in the passenger end doesn’t have any control and you know how I like to be in control of situations at all times. However, maybe that’s just why I do like flying. It’s one of the few times in my life that I don’t have to be the driver.

  A funny image always comes to my mind when I fly or when I’m working in my garden at home and look up and see a jet stream overhead. There’d go the plane, and I’d be sitting there planting petunias, thinking of the “Wonder Woman” comic book pictures of ‘Wonder Woman’ sitting at the controls of her invisible flying machine. Always thought if I could see through to the insides of an overhead plane, I’d see people sitting and walking on air. Or reading, eating and visiting the john up there in the clouds and all the while they’d be hurtling hundreds of miles across the earth.

  When I was flying, I wondered if anyone was looking up at me.

  In March of 1957, I received a telegram from Simone.

  Please come at once. Michel and I need you again.

  “You can go with me or not, but I’m going.”

  “Don’t get your dander up, Bonita Faye. I’m going.”

  Harmon and I landed at the Paris airport shortly before noon on a Tuesday early in April. Simone, Denis and Robert were there to meet us when we finally filed through customs.

  “Where’s Michel?” was the first thing I asked. Where’s Claude was what I was also thinking.º

  “Claude and Didi are waiting at the Regina with Michel and their children. Michel doesn’t have the cast off yet and, well, we didn’t want to frighten Harmon by acting too much like a gypsy reunion at the airport,” said Simone.

  Just like with Patsy, there were no barriers to recross with Simone. I don’t know if it is just my style or what, but once I call a person friend, they are always my friend, right or wrong. Simone hugged me and held me at arms length to admire my dress, travel-worn as it was. I had already told Harmon I’d hit him up the side of the head if he told anybody that I had spent two days in Dallas at Neiman Marcus, buying a wardrobe to wear to Paris. I wasn’t in competition with Didi, but I wasn’t going to let her put me in the shade either.

  When I exclaimed that I didn’t know Michel was in a cast and how bad was he hurt, and how was he hurt, Simone hushed me and said, “Later, cherie.”

  Denis drove us to Boulogne in the big black car he’d traded the taxi in for. I kept sneaking peeks at him from over the back seat to make sure that this distinguished, dark-suited man was really my Denis Denfert. Denis spoke English to Harmon and we all had a laugh, at my expense, I might add, about the first time Denis had picked me up outside an airport.

  Robert and Harmon picked up on their friendship where it had left off just like me and Simone, but I knew my Harmon well enough to know that he was nervous about meeting Claude. One of the ways I could tell was how he kept brushing back his short brown hair with his hand until finally it was all just one big cow-lick. He seemed more comfortable when we finally arrived at the Hotel Regina and could see that it wasn’t a fancy place where he would feel awkward and self-conscious. I had told him so, but you know Harmon, he always had to see for himself.

  There wasn’t anyone in the lobby to greet us either, so it was after Denis and Harmon had taken our bags up to a second floor suite where we’d freshened up a bit and after we’d descended into the basement dining room before we saw the rest of the family.

  It was Michel, sitting in a wheelchair with a plastered leg raised on a lift, who first captured my attention. He was a sturdy boy of eleven with blond, cow-licked hair like Harmon’s, but his invalid state made him look small, helpless and afraid. His blue eyes had dark circles under them and his normally ruddy complexion was pale. My heart went out to him and I sank to my knees by his chair.

  “Michel. Oh, Michel. I’ve missed you so much. Do you remember me? Do you remember your Bonita Faye?” I spoke in French.

  His answer was to put two young arms around my neck and hold me in a tight embrace. Our tears mingled and once again I tasted the salty skin of the little boy I used to know so well.

  I looked up and, with my carefully applied mascara running down my face, I saw the other boy I had left behind. A handsome, dark-faced, slender man with moist eyes who held out his hands and helped me to my feet and kissed me on both cheeks in the French way. “Welcome home, Bonita Faye,” Claude said.

  Then I watched as the hand that had gripped my shoulder during the brief embrace extended to grasp that of my husband.

  “Claude Vermeillon. Welcome to France.”

  “Harmon Adams. Pleased to be here.”

  They stood staring at one another and I was taken by the similarity of the color of their eyes. Both sets of eyes were a rich brown, but I knew if I ever found myself in a room with just one each of their eyeballs, I’d know which was Claude’s and which was Harmon’s.

  Then Claude turned and introduced his wife. “Bonita Faye and Harmon Adams, I would like you to meet my wife, Didi.”

  We shook hands and smiled, and when we did, it seemed like everyone in the room started to breathe and talk at the same time—like their held-up breath just had to make words when it was expelled.

  Didi Vermeillon was everything I thought she would be and everything I was not. She was tall, maybe even taller than Claude, with a clear, rich complexion and green eyes. Her long blonde hair was swept up in a smooth French roll with one perfectly placed, perfectly splendid curl left loose at the end of the roll so that it could hug her long white neck. She was dressed in a simple cream-colored silk dress that emphasized her flawless figure and she smiled at me with even white teeth through naturally red lips.

  I liked her. Didi was exactly the woman I would have chosen for Claude myself if he had asked me to go wife shopping for him. And Didi liked me.

  Why, we were just one big happy family.

  We played with Claude’s perfect little children, four-year-old Franchesca, oops, Belle, and tiny year-old Francois. We made much ado over them and Michel. And we ate a lot and we drank gallons of wine. Both red and white. If it hadn’t been for the inconvenience of jet lag, I think we’d be there still, but suddenly I found myself in our bedroom, throwing up in the commode. I was glad we were in one of the few rooms in the Regina that boasted an attached bathroom.

  There were no flowers on my pillow, but a big bouquet of multi-colored roses stood on my dressing table. I bet Didi arranged every one of them her own self.

  We slept late the next morning and, in fact, I slipped out of bed, dressed and went downstairs, leaving Harmon snoring away. Simone was in the lobby and after giving a few instructions to the desk clerk, she followed me on down to the dining room.

  “Sit down, Bonita Faye. I’ll serve you your coffee. Do not worry, I remember exactly how you like it.”

  After my second cup, I leaned forward and said, “Okay, Simone. What is it? What’s going o
n here? Who hurt Michel? Do we have to kill someone?” I was only half joking.

  Simone’s story confirmed to me what Robert had suspected two years ago. Someone from the old Resistance group had gossiped about Michel’s real father and as that sort of thing usually goes, it became common knowledge in several households where some children had overheard their parents’ conversations. The children, being children, eventually repeated the harmful rumors on the playground and began to taunt Michel.

  “Michel never told me. Never asked me any questions. He just wore down under the insults and finally fought back. Several boys ganged up on him and pushed him off a wall in the park. It was a bad break, but it has healed. The cast comes off next week, but after the first shock of the injury, he cried continuously for days. Then, and this was worse, he just sat in bed or the wheelchair expressing no emotion at all. And he refuses to talk to me about…Max.” I noticed furrowed lines in Simone’s forehead, the kind you get when you frown too much.

  “What about Denis or Robert?” I asked.

  “They have both tried to explain to him. You know…what it was like during the war. How everything was a matter of life or death. Denis even volunteered to say he was Michel’s father, but it’s too late for that.” Simone reached a hand out to cover mine. “Cherie, it was probably too much to ask, but I remembered how you helped us before. You’re so good with ideas, I thought maybe…”

  “Does Claude suspect what this is all about?”

  “That is another strange tale, Bonita Faye. Claude has known all along. He never let on because he knew I didn’t want him to know…out of respect for my feelings. He has tried to talk to Michel also, but the child will not listen to anyone. Oh, what are we going to do?”

  Five years before I had sat at that very table planning how to take a life. Now I was being asked to help save one.