Hidden in Paris by Corine Gantz Page B

airplane was shown to have landed, there was still no sign of Lola. The colorful pageant of people and families from every country, race, nationality and social stratum had stopped being interesting a long time ago and she was back to being tormented by stomach upset and cold sweats. She scrutinized the crowd till her eyes hurt. What did they look like? Could she possibly have missed them? There must have been dozens of mothers traveling with children. Had she not seen her sign? Annie no longer had the gumption to hold up the cute little homemade sign she had coerced Paul and Laurent into constructing. Children’s letters and coloring. Cute as a button. The idea behind the sign was to give a warmer, more friendly reception than the one she felt capable of voicing.
    She turned to Lucas. “Could they have missed their connection?” Lucas, still busy feeling sorry for himself, only shrugged. “Shit, this is not normal. Maybe this is the wrong airport! Lucas, please, make sure we’re in the right place. This could be a disaster. And I’m begging you to stop giving me the cold shoulder! This is stressful enough.” Dragging his feet, Lucas went to ask. She wanted to wring his neck.
    She now had to push and shove to remain in the front row because the crowd had grown for the arrival of international travelers who were making their way slowly up the ramp. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic in the stench of sweat, perfume, and cigarette smoke that engulfed them all.
    Faces—hundreds of faces, strange faces—lit up when they recognized someone familiar. Saris, suits, turbans, shorts, and flip-flops. People pushing carts covered in mountains of mismatched parcels and luggage. Everyone looked so strange. One woman caught Annie’s attention. She was quite an incongruity, a stunning woman with high cheekbones, a pale face and dark glasses. She could have been six feet tall or appeared to be amid this rather low-rising crowd of French, Asian, and Arabic men and women. She wore her black hair closely cropped, her face was chiseled, her lips very full, and her skin like porcelain seemed to glow from the inside. Annie wasn’t the only one to gawk. The oversized sunglasses and the floor-length, mocha-colored cashmere coat, mocha cashmere turtleneck, and mocha cashmere boots made her look like she might have been a model in the midst of a photo shoot. Annie racked her brain for a clue and forgot all about what she was here for. Surely this was someone famous, maybe a French
actrice
. Not Chiara Mastroianni, not Carla Bruni...the woman continued walking up the ramp and pushing a cart piled high with Vuitton bags.
    It was only when she passed right by that Annie noticed that a toddler and a girl of about nine were at her side, both children beautiful and as blond as the woman was dark-haired. And suddenly it hit her. Lola? The shock of this realization hit her at the same instant as the enormity of the disaster struck her. Quick! Toss the sign into the crowd! Sprint out of the airport, and run, run, across fields and across towns all the way home? There was still time. “Down to earth” she had told Lucas to describe Lola. Not
from
this earth was more like it. But Lola had sounded so normal
over the phone
.
    She looked anything but normal. It was as if Wonder Woman had landed in the airport with her skin-tight American flag outfit and her golden lasso. This was impossible. Impossible! This woman, this creature would find a hotel, she’d find another home, she’d find another place in which to start over or whatever hellish reason she was here for. She needed to turn around and go right back into the pages of Vogue from which she came. She’d be absolutely fine. She’d be absolutely better off. This woman did not belong in her world, in her life and she sure as hell didn’t belong in her house.
    But instead, Annie found herself elbowing, pushing, and shoving to make her way toward Lola, and lifting her homemade rickety little