Nice's station resembles an open-air warehouse filled with trains and people moving in all directions at the same time. Men, women, and children hurry to disembark or board before the trains depart. Overhead signs flash arrivals and departures in military time: 19:00. There are no porters to a.s.sist pa.s.sengers with luggage or directions or translations. Heaving her suitcase onto its wheels, she winds her way through the crowd and down the stairway.

The domed buildings that face the station are older than those facing the sea. Waning daylight does nothing to daunt the crowds milling in and around the station so late in the day. Still no black faces; no yellow or brown faces, either. That was the fun of being in Paris. Of being with Harmon, Bruce, and Cheryl. They made their own community.

Lena waves her hand at a taxi when she reaches the short queue. There was a time when panic, fear of the unknown, would have stiffened her arms and legs, held her tongue in place. Nice is familiar and comfortable. This is the gift, she knows, both Harmon and Cheryl have given her: new perspective on her dream and understanding of the power of doing this alone. That she could leave them and continue on her own makes her understand how far she's come.

The cab driver asks where she is from. He digs America. New York is groovy and he has heard that all the women in California are beautiful. He points to a small U.S. flag pasted on the inside of his sun visor where a mirror should be. His heavily accented conversation is full of slang. "Radical." The driver makes it sound like three separate words. Rah. Dee. Call. "I must be slick with the flag, ya know. Many French people don't like zuh U.S. these days."

He adjusts the rearview mirror so that she can see his smiling eyes and tells her she is a beautiful, s.e.xy American black. "I could make pa.s.sionate love with you." He says, even as his wedding band gleams in the lights, that he would be more than happy to show her the wonderful clubs in Nice that play the wonderful American jazz.

"Not interested. Just take me straight to the Hotel de la Mer. Now."

"Be careful, madame, these steps are a bit awkward. You must take them one step at a time." The bellman lugs Lena's bag up a short flight of stairs. John Henry used to say that: take one step at a time.

Funny, she thinks, her father would come into her thoughts now as time beats its rhythm against her shoulder. Two days to Tina. Sat.u.r.day mornings she loved to watch John Henry lather menthol foam over his chin and cheeks. Like a trumpet-less Dizzy Gillespie, her father puffed his cheeks, dragged his metal razor across his smooth skin, and took his time answering Lena's questions. John Henry would smile. "One step at a time, baby girl. One step at a time."

The hotel room is as big as the first one she shared with Cheryl. Lena splurged on accommodations, and while the room is by no means the four- or five-star s.p.a.ce she would have if Randall-or Harmon, as he'd proved in Paris-had been around, it is just what she hoped for. Cozy.

Lena reaches for the phone while she calculates the six-hour time difference. Bobbie answers after four rings, her voice alert.

"Bobbie, somewhere outside my hotel the sun hasn't set, the Mediterranean is a color you can't imagine, and there are palm trees swaying over pebbled beaches." A sliding-gla.s.s door opens onto a small porch and the rocky side of a vine-covered hill. There isn't a view, but in the morning there will be light and possibly the distant crash of waves. She plops onto the middle of the queen-sized bed, tests the firm mattress with her hand, and settles against the four fluffy pillows at the head of the bed.

"I don't need poetry at this time of the morning. Why the h.e.l.l haven't I heard from you in two weeks? Don't tell me you got laid."

"Did that and more." Lena holds the phone away from her ear to keep Bobbie's scream from harming her eardrum and describes the last two weeks. She cannot believe them herself.

"Accept it as the gift it is. Fate."

"Harmon said that, too."

"And how about Randall? You still thinking of him? I know you are."

Lena recounts Randall's visit to Paris, the dinner, and his provocative invitation. Bobbie screams into Lena's ear again, when she tells him she kept the expensive bracelet he bought for her. Without bothering to control her glee, her satisfaction, Lena describes what his face must have looked like-or better yet, the shade of red it must have turned when he read her message.

"I'm learning not to let anyone divert me from my course."

"I could have told you that."

"I couldn't have done it without Tina. I couldn't have done it without you. I hope, one day, to do the same for you."

"Must be the guilt for all those years I beat up on you." Bobbie's laugh is loud on the other end of the phone. In the background, a woman's voice, Lulu's voice, asks Bobbie who is on the phone.

"Is that Lulu?"

"Surprise! I'm in California. Been here over a week. Don't ask. Don't lecture. She had a doctor's appointment." Bobbie mumbles into the phone, but Lena is unable to understand what her sister is saying. Bobbie's voice resumes its normal tone. "Pa.s.s me that sponge."

"What are you doing? What time is it there?"

"Perfect timing. We're cleaning the bathroom."

"What!" Lena shouts.

"I'm standing in the tub, washing it down. I'm practically naked, and I don't have time to talk because Lulu has a list of things for me to do."

"That's not true, Bobbie," Lulu shouts. "I don't have a list. Besides, your sister doesn't clean as well as you, Lena!"

"I'll call you later," Bobbie says. Lena loves her sister and is glad that for once she is around to take on some of the more tedious tasks in their mother's life.

"You okay?"

"I can think of better things to do."

"Does Lulu need anything? And why are are you practically naked?" Lena asks. The idea of her sister standing in her underwear in their mother's tub has just hit her. Bobbie hated undressing in front of anyone when she was young. you practically naked?" Lena asks. The idea of her sister standing in her underwear in their mother's tub has just hit her. Bobbie hated undressing in front of anyone when she was young.

"Because the tub is dirty dirty, Lena. The shower stall is dirty dirty, the tile is dirty dirty," Bobbie snaps.

"It's not that bad," Lulu shouts again.

"Because," Bobbie continues, "I don't want to get my clothes wet. Because Lulu has a hard time bending over to clean the tub."

"I just wanted to say a quick hi before I grab a bite to eat."

"Hi," Bobbie snaps. "Just call me when you find Tina."

"Definitely. But I have something else I've got to do first."

Chez Gerard, a restaurant the clerk at the front desk recommended, is not far from the hotel. The weather report predicted the rain typical for this early in October. Yet, this evening the air is dry, the wind brisk, and the streets bustle with motorcycles, cars, and people.

Lena heads for the bar and waits for one of the two men behind it to take her order. The bartender is friendly, fluent in English, and, she thinks, barely twenty-one.

"A kir royale, s'il vous plait. With a lime twist." She asks his name, and he tells her: Armand. The restaurant is crowded. Three couples sit snuggled close at the bar. A woman reading a magazine sits alone two stools over from Lena. The overhead fixtures cast glowing cones of light over every stool.

"I am studying to be a teacher of the English language," he says, pa.s.sing Lena a bowl of green olives. Armand leans onto the counter and flashes a smile. His biceps are taut, and she can see through his long-sleeved shirt that they are bigger than her neck. Lena laughs. This man is barely older than Kendrick.

"I'm so thankful to hear English," says the woman two stools over. Her accent is distinctly British. "Armand is the only reason I come here." The woman points to Armand and t.i.tters delicately into her cupped palm. "He keeps an eye on me, makes sure I don't get ha.s.sled. I secretly l.u.s.t for him."

"Looking is all I can handle right now," Lena says. The two fall into easy conversation, first about the magazine the woman, Margery, reads, then about her life. She is fluent in French and is writing a torrid novel in that language about her ex-husband, his lousy att.i.tude, and his new home in the English countryside. She came to Nice to escape him and the gossip that surrounded their divorce and the homely woman he chose to replace her. Lena m.u.f.fles a laugh with her hand-as sweet as she is, some might call Margery homely, too.

"And what, may I ask, brings you to this part of France?" Margery grins. "Or to this bar. You're really quite lovely. All alone are you?"

"Alone. By choice." She holds her hand up. The American gesture is foreign to Margery. Lena explains its meaning and shows Margery all the different ways to slap high five: high to low, low to high, and more. "I'm not a good writer," Lena explains. Pictures would be her way of telling her ex-husband's story. Pictures that showed the shock on his face when he understood that she would not be returning the expensive bracelet he bought for her. Pictures of him cursing as he read her last text message.

"Join us," Lena says to a tall, imposing man eyeing the stool between her and Margery. His suit is crumpled, his receding hairline uneven. He orders in French with a German accent. Once Armand places his food in front of him, he slices his plate-sized pizza into bite-sized chunks. "Allow me to buy the both of you another drink."

"Either you haven't eaten all day or that pizza is tastier than it looks," she says.

"Both," he says through his full mouth.

"Do you come here a lot?" Lena flushes at what sounds like flirting. "I'm not trying to pick you up; I'm practicing good conversation... I mean, do you eat here often?"

The man looks Lena up and down, hinting that picking him up might not be a bad idea. "The bar is comfortable for a good quick meal. Very few Americans come here."

"But"-another British woman one stool over offers her opinion-"the pizza is good. The tarte citron is better."

The man stuffs more pizza into his mouth, which Lena takes as his endors.e.m.e.nt. He pushes away his plate and nurses his beer. "I enjoy this place. I come here at least once or twice a week." He points to his waistline. "I'd come more often, but since all I ever eat is the pizza my waistline would be bigger than it already is if I ate here more often."

Armand stops in front of Lena, leaning against the bar. His lips are thick and moist. "I might do that," she says to his grinning face. "Come here more often, that is."

"I am here from Wednesday to Sunday." He smiles again, exposing even, white teeth.

"Bonsoir," she says to Armand, Margery, and the German man whose name she forgot to ask.

It would be nice to have someone to tell that she stepped out on her own. "h.e.l.lo, stars. h.e.l.lo, moon. I did it!" Lena sticks the earplugs of her MP3 player in her ears, zips her jacket, and heads back to her hotel. Tina's "Open Arms" comes in right on cue: Whatever life throws at you Whatever life throws at youYour friend is here Lena smiles at the thought of Cheryl and the image of the old guy, the eavesdropper, from the Magical Cafe. Although she's sure that this evening is not the context of his comment, he was right: timing is everything.

Chapter 35.

This time around, Villefranche-sur-Mer looks as if someone took a giant ice cream scoop out of the hillside and allowed buildings to replace what nature used to cover. Hotels and homes with terraces offer their owners views of the Mediterranean and the yachts docked in the harbor.

The main street is full of boutiques. Lena tries to put herself in Tina's head. Does she need new clothes or s.e.xy underwear or porcelain platters to place on her tables or counters? If she were a famous and easily recognizable person, Lena would send bodyguards or personal shoppers to scan the boutiques before entering to browse. Or perhaps Tina might enjoy the adoration of her fans. Or perhaps she may roam unnoticed, like Lena. She studies faces for a hint of brown to see if Tina is hidden beneath a scarf or visor and follows a pet.i.te woman with a full head of hair and shapely legs. The woman, green eyed and tanned face, turns around when Lena calls out "Miss Turner?" and glares.

In the window of a small boutique someone has dressed a mannequin in a s.e.xy and expensive-looking flared skirt and peasant blouse. The style is cla.s.sic; Tina likes cla.s.sic. Lena read it on her official website. The fan club president described the interior of Tina's villa and wrote that Tina designed it in a cla.s.sic style.

"Bonjour," Lena says. In Paris she learned that the French often think Americans' ear-to-ear grins and "have a nice day" salutations are idiotic. She avoids toothy smiles and sticks to French.

The store clerk returns a two-note bonjour and begins, in French, to ask if there's anything in particular Lena is looking for, and since southern French is slower than Parisian, Lena captures a few words and offers a toothy smile anyway. In English, this time, the woman asks again what Lena needs.

"Does Tina Turner ever come in this store?"

"Mais, non. How would I know, madame? Sometimes they say she walk around and-how you say? -uh, shops zuh windows?"

"Window-shops." Lena gently corrects and returns the woman's friendly smile.

The blocks are short. Lena does a little window-shopping of her own, asking the same question at four more trendy boutiques.

"Do you know where she lives?" she asks another clerk. "Is there a street number or special marking?"

The clerk shrugs and holds her palms up. No one knows-on ne sait pas-all the glitterati have villas here. Madame Turner comes to Villefranche-sur-Mer whenever she pleases, possibly she is here now.

"Perhaps if you try the road that leads up the colline colline, zuh hill, you will find her. You have her address, no?" The woman explains that most of the villas and mansions are gated and plain from the front. "Les Francais," she says proudly, "keep the beautiful inside for ourselves."

The hotel's reception area has three Louis XIV writing tables with marble tops angled in a way to greet its guests as soon as they walk through the door. The concierge, Jeanne, has taught Lena one or two simple French phrases. Jeanne rushes up to Lena and hands her an envelope. The triangular flap is embossed with the hotel's crest; the paper is thick and heavy. Inside, Bobbie's name and cell phone number are carefully written in small block letters on a cream-colored card. 9:30 p.m. is written below the phone number, and Lena is thankful that she doesn't have to decipher military time. Nine thirty in Nice means early afternoon in California. The call came in an hour ago.

Lena asks Jeanne to arrange for a cab to take her to the top of Vinaigrier mountain. Jeanne speaks in deliberate English.

"It is more of a big and steep hill than a mountain, madame."

"Can you find a driver who knows the home of the American celebrity Tina Turner?"

"Of course, I will try to make the accommodations for you, madame." The grimace on Jeanne's face does not match her words. "But, Madame Turner is not simply an American celebrity; she belongs to the world."

Lena continues through the lobby to the elevator while Jeanne explains that she will try her best to find a knowledgeable driver but that the French are very private people, and when the famous Madame Turner is in town, she is French, and therefore her privacy is respected. Lena finds this amusing and completely contradictory to Hollywood, where tours of the homes of the stars are profit makers, and the paparazzi couldn't care less about celebrity seclusion unless it offers a financially worthy photo opportunity.

"I'd like to start early in the morning. I'll need the driver to be available for the whole day." With any luck, she thinks. "Oh, and I'll be going to the concert at Cimiez the day after, so I might as well use the driver for that, too."

From the elevator a phone chimes, and, as she nears her room, Lena realizes that it is her phone ringing two doors down the hall. She runs to the door, unlocks it, and grins at how quickly Jeanne has responded to her request. "I love this place," she sings aloud.

"Lena, is that you?" Bobbie's is the voice Lena hears when she picks up the phone.

"Who else would it be, Bobbie?" Lena's gold earring taps against the phone in the way that Bobbie and Lulu usually make noise on their end of a call.

"Lena, honey... Lulu... it's Lulu..." Bobbie rushes through the facts: she left the house early to run errands and have brunch with a few of her old friends. Lulu was supposed to go with Aunt Inez to a church barbecue. Aunt Inez rang the doorbell and pounded on all the doors for twenty minutes. When Lulu didn't answer, she called the police. By the time they found Bobbie's number, there was nothing they could do.

Lena slides to the floor in front of the bed, her head falls back against the hard mattress. Breathe. Breathe. The breaths do not come; her chest caves inward like a hundred men are standing on it, the air leaks in small puffs from her lungs to her throat and out her mouth. She tugs the sheet from under the top covering and blows her nose on its edge. "What happened?"

"They found her in bed. She looked like she was sleeping." From six thousand miles away the magic of long distance does nothing to m.u.f.fle Bobbie's sobs on the other end of the line. "I'm glad I came home. I remembered what you said about her being dis...o...b..bulated. I called a couple of times after you left and started paying attention. That's why I came out here. When I went with her to the doctor, he said her behavior indicated Alzheimer's. Maybe a heart attack or a stroke? I don't want an autopsy. The cause isn't important, is it?"

"Our mother is dead? I was going to call her today. I came back to the hotel to call her." The phone slips from her neck and tumbles to the floor, leaving the sound of Bobbie's voice far away and tinny.

"Lena, Lena," Bobbie shouts. "Are you okay?"

Images flicker in Lena's head like the 8mm movies John Henry loved to take: mother kissing her dead husband's cheek goodbye; mother tying a Kotex on a sanitary belt at the sign of Lena's first blood; mother laughing at Randall's corny jokes, hugging him as if he were her own; mother running fingers through Camille's hair to twist and braid, and rocking bushy-headed baby Kendrick, tickling his feet, cuddling him close; mother dead on her side of her double bed, alone and stiff.

When Lena picks up the phone, Bobbie talks as if Lena had never dropped it. "Lena, I want you to do something for me. For Lulu."

Lena nods yes as if she were standing in front of Bobbie, better yet hugging her.

"Stay in France. Go to the concert. Meet Tina, talk to her, tell her what she has meant to you for all of these months. Will you do that?"

"I can't. It's selfish. Who will make all the arrangements?"

"Me! I'm not helpless. We'll postpone the funeral. One or two days, a week, isn't going to make a difference..."

"How can I have fun when my mother has just died? How can you-"

"Look. Lulu knew how important seeing Tina was to you. She and I had some good conversations over the last few days. I even got her to drink a little of that scotch I brought them twenty years ago."