Chapter Twenty-four

It was going to be my first trip back to Paris since I had left for New York, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. The city, as magical as it was, represented everything significant that had ever happened in my life. It was my first escape from my family and also my final alienation from them. It was the place where I was discovered and also the one where I discovered that I wasn’t the girl I had always believed myself to be. It was the city where, even if I had never acquired the poise and sophistication I had gone there to seek, I had come closer to it than at any point in my personal history. In an odd sense, it would always feel like home to me.

Shazia was waiting for me in the lobby of the Bristol Hotel, her eyes wide and a big smile stretched across her face as she saw me enter, Kai at my side, two valets with our luggage behind us.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Just look at you! What the hell?!” she exclaimed, her hands on her hips. “You look fabulous! Like a movie star!”

I shrugged my shoulders, embraced her, and asked how her mother was doing.

“Fit as a fiddle, would you believe?” she said, her eyes fixed on Kai’s exhausted face. “OK, maybe not quite, but she’s in a lot better shape than when you last saw her. I guess the fact that I keep coming back helps.”

She stuck out her hand in Kai’s direction, waiting for him to grab it.

“I’m Shazia, Tanaya’s cousin, almost like sisters really,” she said, glancing over at me again. “It’s so great to meet you, I’m such a fan!”

“Any chum of Tanaya’s is a chum of mine,” Kai said, not very convincingly, shaking Shazia’s hand. “Glad to meet you; hopefully we’ll see you around. Boys, up this way,” he said, beckoning the luggage-bearers to follow him up.

“He’s tired,” I said to Shazia. “We’d better get upstairs. What are you doing later? I have a show at five; you’re welcome to come and hang around backstage, and maybe we can have dinner afterward?”

Valentino had asked me and some of the other girls to join him for a post-couture show supper, to celebrate what appeared to be the unanimous thumbs-up given to his collection of frothy beaded gowns and smart city suits. I kissed him on the cheek and told him I had other plans.

Shazia rode along in the limousine with Kai and me to the restaurant, chatting about Birmingham, her eager face watching his. We arrived at Le Martel, in a part of town I had never been to, not even in my earliest days when I was poor and adventurous. The surroundings were shabby and dark, but a friend of Kai’s told him that it was absolutely the place to be seen in town, and if there was one thing that was evident about Kai, it was that he loved to be seen.

The place was packed-expected during the couture shows-but we had been given a prime table. The girls were already waiting for us-Juliette and Teresa and Karla-their faces expectant, Mathias cool as ever in their midst. I had never before in my life been so thrilled to see a group of people. I rushed over to them, hugging them all, even Mathias, with whom I had always been reserved. They oohed and aahed over my dress and shoes and metallic clutch bag, and I waved off their gushes of admiration, and introduced Kai. The restaurant, previously clattering with post-show buzz, suddenly turned quiet, its patrons looking our way. Shazia, standing next to me, whispered, “Wow, this must be what it feels like to be J.Lo.” In the dim lighting from the globe lamps overhead, my friends looked radiant. With all the recent chaos of my life, I realized that now, tonight, I could take a deep breath and just relax. We ordered artichoke hearts and pasta and grilled vegetables, and Mathias insisted on getting champagne for the table, saying he was in a celebratory mood. When a frosted bottle of Cristal arrived, he raised his glass and tipped it in my direction.

“To our dear Tanaya, who has returned triumphant, as we knew she would,” he said, his eyes shining in the soft light. “We all miss you, but, chèrie, you have done us proud.” Karla filled a glass for me and pushed it my way. “You have to drink a little now,” she said. “Even just a sip. We are toasting you. We are celebrating all you have accomplished, against all the odds. It is no time for rituals. You are a grown woman now, a woman of the world. Come, join us. Drink.”

I stared at the pale golden liquid, fizzing in its slender vessel, and glanced at the eager, nodding faces around me. There were plenty of Muslims who drank alcohol, I reasoned with myself. And after everything I’d done, was I even considered a Muslim anymore? Did Allah even care about me now? My hand reached across the table; I picked up the glass by its skinny stem and held it up to the light. Then I turned toward Kai, handed him the glass, and told him to enjoy it.

By the end of the meal I was the only one sober, for which I was very grateful, as I had scheduled a breakfast meeting with Dimitri, the man who started all this, the next morning. I had noticed, as the evening wore on, that Kai had become increasingly sullen. For once, everyone in our presence was more interested in me than in him, and Kai didn’t seem very happy about that. While Shazia still wanted to talk to him about recording deals and performing gigs and his adventures on the road, he quickly grew weary of her relentless attention and looked to the others for the same kind of adulation. He didn’t find it. They all wanted to know about me, and me about them, and I could tell that Kai felt left out and disengaged, and the more I tried to draw him into the conversation, the more removed he became. By the end of the night, he was checking e-mails on his cell phone. Mathias looked over repeatedly at Kai, then at me, evidently puzzled. I avoided his questioning stare and, as we were getting back into our waiting car, I deflected Mathias’s questions about whether or not I was happy.

“He seems to be, how you say in America, a chuckle-head,” Mathias said quietly as we said our good-byes. Kai sat next to the window, waiting for me to walk to the other side. Mathias held my hand and kissed me gently on the cheek.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he whispered.

The phone next to my bed woke me up early the next morning, Dimitri’s voice deep and resonant on the other end.

“Just to let you know, I’m on my way,” he said cheerily, commuter noise in the background. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Hope I didn’t wake up Kai.” I looked across the living room at a closed door, behind which Kai was no doubt still fast asleep, and was grateful for two-bedroomed suites.

Dimitri looked smaller and stouter than how I remembered him, but was beaming.

“Such a joy to see you,” he said, kissing my hand as I sat next to him on the couch in the lobby. “You are more beautiful than before. Success becomes you. And I hear you are in quite the love affair,” he said, eyebrows raised, leaving me to wonder if he knew the truth or not.

“My cousin Stavros has, of course, kept me abreast of your many activities and assignments,” he said, his trademark formality rising to the fore. “I am delighted at how well you are doing. Yes, of course, Stavros and I benefit financially from your success, but beyond that, I have always felt that you, more than anyone else I have encountered, deserved to have it. And I can see now that becoming a famous international fashion model has not changed you one little bit. Your family would be proud, if they cared to know,” he said, shaking his head, the smile momentarily disappearing from his face.

“Anyhow, apart from wanting to simply see you and tell you how proud I am of you, an interesting business opportunity has arisen. Stavros called me about it the other day. I think it’s perfect for you. And, if I do say so myself, my instincts as far as you are concerned have not yet been proven wrong.”