The Power Couple Page 3

“The benefits of late capitalism,” Jacques said.

  “Oh yes, Americans never think about capitalism, do they? Early, late, or in the middle. It’s just the foul water they drown in.”

  “Don’t see you volunteering at the soup kitchen tonight, Lil.” Kira sipped her sangria, promising herself this cup would be her last.

  “It’s not about volunteering, it’s about a just society. So poor people don’t depend on charity to survive.” She spat the word like charity was the worst idea possible.

  Kira flashed to Ayla, the seven-year-old she’d been visiting all spring at Boston Children’s. A tiny girl with ringlets and big brown eyes. Barring a miracle, leukemia would kill her. She didn’t need a just society, she needed someone to hug her and paint her face like a tiger’s.

  Only someone who had never volunteered could dismiss the notion so airily. Kira was almost starting to enjoy Lilly in her awfulness.

  Jacques said something in French. Lilly snapped back, stood, walked off again.

  “I tell her I know what she’s doing, it won’t work—”

  “Are you sure she’s your sister?”

  He laughed like the question had surprised him. “Unfortunately yes. Listen, I have an idea. Let’s go to another place, called Helado—”

  “Doesn’t that mean ice cream?” She’d seen a sign on La Rambla.

  “Frozen, yes. It has a dance floor. You like to dance?”

  “Now and then.” She loved to dance.

  “Then yes, really great music, the best, I think.” He waved to Lilly, Come over—

  “Can’t we just ditch her?”

  “It’s not worth it, trust me.”

  * * *

  The lights outside hit Kira harder than she expected.

  Lilly pulled a silver cigarette case from her purse. “Brother?”

  Jacques shook his head. A small victory, anyway. Kira had only kissed a smoker twice. The sour acrid taste had made her vow never again.

  “I’d ask you, Kira, but I know Americans hate to smoke, they want to live forever.”

  “You’re gonna look great with a trach hole in your throat.”

  Jacques led them left and right, through the narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter, the old neighborhood east of La Rambla—the famous pedestrian boulevard—where the city’s bars and clubs were concentrated. Kira thought they were headed toward the harbor, though she wasn’t sure. No matter. She had her phone, as well as a city map. Rebecca always insisted Kira and Tony carry maps. In case you lose your phone. Though Kira couldn’t imagine losing her phone. It was never more than a couple feet from her even when she slept.

  Anyway, Jacques wasn’t exactly leading them into some deserted alley. The streets grew more crowded as they walked, men and women clustering around tiny bar fronts, leaning out windows, drinking beer in the heat.

  * * *

  After fifteen minutes or so they crossed a street that was two lanes wide, a superhighway by Gothic Quarter standards. Kira wasn’t sure but she thought maybe they’d left the Quarter behind; these streets were just as narrow but not quite as busy.

  “Five minutes,” Jacques said.

  Sure enough, after another five minutes, they came to a windowless three-story brick building. The thump of bass leaked through its walls. She couldn’t have found this place on her own. The club had no sign, only a single red bulb in front of a black-painted door. A trim man in a blue T-shirt stood in front, a discreet bouncer.

  The man said something to Jacques as they approached.

  “Forty euros, twenty for me and ten each for you two.” Jacques reached for his wallet. “Let me pay.”

  Normally Kira would have insisted on paying her own way, but she was still annoyed with Jacques for spoiling their date.

  Behind the black door, a cashier sat in a glassed-in booth. Jacques handed over a fifty-euro note and then they were inside. Strobes flashed in the darkness, and an old-school Studio 54–style disco ball spun overhead. A twentysomething woman sat at the DJ station at the back of the dance floor, her hands constantly moving among two iPhones and three turntables. She reminded Kira of those multiarmed Indian statues from her Introduction to World Religions class, the Whateversvada. But the woman was fantastic; really good DJs found connections in the music that weren’t obvious until they made them. They turned beats into waves, dancing into surfing. Endless summer. The Beastie Boys slid into some kind of African drumming into Cold War Kids into the briefest cut of Adele, a transition that should never have worked, but it did, yes it did. Plus, the place had a fantastic sound system… pure, clean, the music seemingly coming from everywhere without being overwhelming.

  Kira wanted to put her arms up and move, open the gates to the rhythm flooding through her.

  Or maybe she was just drunk. No matter. Jacques and Lilly turned for the bar, but she grabbed them both and led them to the floor and they danced, hips swaying, nothing mattered but now, and Lilly felt it too. She smiled, and Kira grinned back, recognizing a fellow traveler.

  Finally, she didn’t know how long, Jacques led her off. “Beer?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Lilly stuck out her lower lip as they walked off, an exaggerated pout, You’re leaving me, but even before they reached the bar, a Spanish guy took her hand and pulled her deeper onto the dance floor.

  Kira wanted to pay for their beers, but Jacques insisted. “I owe you. I’m sorry, I know my sister wasn’t what you expected.”

  She couldn’t disagree. They found a couch in the corner. Jacques sat next to her and put an arm around her and they watched the dancers writhing in pleasure.

  “What would aliens think, if they came down and saw this?” Drunk question alert!

  “I think they would park their spaceship, yes?” Jacques said, “and join in.”

  “Intergalactic peace. Well, if me and your sister can get along”—she snuck a look at his watch. About one. Ugh. Kira hated to end this night now that they’d finally unlocked it. But she’d better text Becks, check in. She’d promise to be home by two. Two thirty, maybe. She knew she was pushing her luck, but how mad could they get?

  She reached into her purse. Gone. Her phone was gone. No way. It must have fallen out somehow, this wasn’t her usual purse. It was a little date-night black one, a snap instead of a zipper, and she’d overstuffed it. Stupid. She checked again: three twenty-euro notes, credit card, driver’s license—her passport was back at the apartment. Lipstick, mints, condoms. Three condoms. Might as well think positive. A rape whistle courtesy of the Tufts Women’s Center and pepper spray courtesy of her mom, If somebody grabs you, whistling won’t cut it.

  No phone. She wondered if she should retrace her steps, but forget it, it was an iPhone, not even a year old, no way was anybody giving it back.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” she asked Jacques.

  He unlocked it, handed it over. She couldn’t remember Rebecca’s number for a minute, embarrassing. She always depended on her phone for it. Then she did, sent off a quick text, Mom its K at helado dance club lost my fone home soon 2ish.

  Okay, not the greatest message but whatever. Now they knew where she was. She clicked Send, watched the text go through. She gave Jacques back his phone. “If she texts let me know.”

  Just then Lilly showed up, followed by her new dance partner. He was older and rougher than he’d looked from a distance. In his thirties, muscular going to fat. The strobe lights revealed his pitted skin.

  Jacques stood and Lilly sat next to Kira on the couch. “This is Rodrigo.”

  “Hi, Rodrigo.”

  “He’s got a present.”

  Rodrigo reached into his pocket, came out with a plastic bag. Inside, a glass vial, a tiny silver spoon, a bottle of nasal spray.

  He unscrewed the vial, tilted it at them so they could see the white powder inside. His nails were painted black, Kira noticed.

  Okayyy then. Kira shook her head, No thank you. She’d never even seen the stuff before.

  “It
’s just cocaine,” Lilly said.

  “Oh, just cocaine.” Kira figured coke was just as illegal in Spain as in the United States.

  “It’s fun.”

  “You first.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Lilly took the vial, spooned out a little bump of white powder. She leaned forward, snorted, and the powder disappeared. Poof.

  Lilly followed up with two quick hits of nasal spray, leaned back against the couch. “Oh, that’s nice. Your turn.”

  This is where you leave. Kira heard Rebecca’s voice in her head, clear and loud. Get out of there, joke’s over. “Not for me.” She waited for Lilly to say something snide.

  But Lilly only grinned. “One hit and we’ll dance, you’ll see, dancing on coke is the best—”

  “Like Adderall?” She’d taken Adderall a few times, mainly to help finish papers. She had to admit she liked the wide-awake sensation, feeling like she could see around corners. Though the day after, she felt gray and cold, a dementor camped out in her bedroom.

  Poor girl’s coke, one of her friends had said.

  “Try and see.”

  Suddenly a snippet from this old Killers song was playing:

  He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus / But he talks like a gentleman / Like you imagined…

  “When You Were Young,” it was called.

  Kira loved The Killers. First band she ever cared about. First concert she ever saw. Her drunken brain slid the pieces together: the song was a sign, she was in Barcelona, and young and nothing could touch her—

  Don’t, Rebecca warned, don’t—

  Kira took the spoon and vial from Lilly, dipped the spoon deep into the vial—

  “Not so much, first time,” Lilly said. She patted Kira’s arm, I’ll be your spirit guide.

  Kira tapped the spoon against the top of the vial until most of the coke was gone. “Good?”

  “Perfect.”

  Kira lifted the spoon to her nose, pushed her left nostril shut—

  You don’t even know these people—

  And inhaled.

  4

  Where’s Kira?

  Rebecca had been so busy banging at the piano that she’d forgotten her daughter. She grabbed her phone, expecting a text.

  Nope. She found herself looking at the usual lock-screen picture of her kids, Kira and Tony standing together, fireworks overhead, red, white, and blue strings across the night sky. Even during the bad years in D.C. Rebecca had insisted they spend Independence Day on the Mall, go in the early afternoon with a blanket and picnic basket. The tradition had taken hold. Rebecca could track their progress as a family by their faces. In this year’s photo, only a couple of weeks before, the two wore big mock-goofy smiles and looked relaxed. Happy.

  “Bri—”

  Her husband was already holding his phone. “Nothing.”

  She looked to Tony. He shook his head.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Brian said.

  “Oh, you’re sure?” Rebecca knew she should control her temper, but the alcohol was coursing through her and fifteen years at the bureau had taught her to hate meaningless reassurance.

  Especially since Brian didn’t know what she did.

  “It’s Barcelona. Not Beirut. And it’s not like it’s five a.m. Just getting started out there.”

  “She always texts.”

  Rebecca called Kira. The phone rang until it went to voice mail. “Tony, try her please?”

  “Voice mail,” Tony said.

  Rebecca texted Kira: K where are you? Call me now please.

  “Maybe she met a guy,” Brian said. “Or is that what we’re afraid of?”

  “What was the bar she said she was going to?”

  “The Mansion,” Tony said. “Supposed to be cool.”

  Rebecca hesitated. She imagined Kira sitting in the corner of the bar, making out with some hot Spanish guy. Was she really going to be a helicopter parent? Thwack-thwack-thwack, I’m not letting you out of my sight for more than an hour… Kira was nineteen. Soldiers went to war at nineteen. People got married at nineteen.

  “How about we give her until two and if she’s not home by then we go over there and drag her out by her hair,” Brian said. “Even in D.C. the bars don’t close until two.”

  “Okay, two.”

  Brian sipped his wine, crisis averted.

  “Umm…” Tony said.

  Rebecca looked over. Her son had the unmistakable look of a teenager about to confess, sheepish and defiant at once. She hated when her kids kept secrets. Unreasonable, she knew. Teenagers were entitled to their own worlds. Pushing too hard only caused a backlash. Yet she couldn’t help herself.

  “You know something, Tony? Now would be a good time to share.”

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “We’re not mad,” Brian said. “We’re listening.”

  Brian reassured. She too often slid into anger.

  “She had a date tonight,” Tony said. “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  “We were with her all day,” Rebecca said. “When did she make a date?”

  “His name’s Jacques. She met him last night in Paris.”

  Now she was genuinely confused.

  “He wanted to hang with her up there. She told him we were leaving this morning. He said he’d come down to see her.”

  Rebecca closed the windows against the street noise. The room was instantly hotter, airless. She felt the sangria washing through her and made herself focus. “This guy yesterday, he was by himself?”

  “Yeah. A grad student at the Sorbonne.”

  French grad students weren’t Kira’s type. Not as far as Rebecca knew. “What was he studying?” Like it mattered.

  Tony shrugged.

  “When exactly was this?” Brian said.

  “Last night, this café on the Place de la République, the Toucan, I think it’s called. We were sitting, he came in, like a minute later he was with us. I left, but they talked for an hour at least. She was totally into it.” Tony spoke with the dull envy of a virgin who expected he’d be that way forever.

  “And this guy, Jacques, he came down here to see her?”

  “That’s what she told me, that was the plan. He texted her this morning.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me? Us?” Though Rebecca could already guess the answer.

  “She said you’d freak. He’s older, like twenty-six.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?” Rebecca said.

  “Short hair, almost like a military cut.”

  “Was it black?”

  “I think brown. He was good-looking. Tall. Ripped. White. He didn’t really look like a student. Kira said he was a personal trainer on the side.”

  At least Rebecca understood Kira’s interest better. Tall and ripped was more her type.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “Just that they were going to meet at that place at eleven.”

  Timing that meant Kira hadn’t planned to come back here before one at the earliest.

  “Do you know if she told him anything about us, about me? Like where I worked?”

  “I told you, I left them alone, but I don’t think you were a big part of the conversation, Mom.”

  “Can you give me and Dad a second?”

  “Really?” Tony looked dismayed, no surprise.

  “Really.”

  “Yeah whatever.” He walked out.

  * * *

  “Did you notice anything weird in Paris?”

  “The baguettes were stale that one place.”

  Brian had a habit of joking at the worst possible times. She told herself he deflected tension with humor. Though she wondered whether at his core he had some unmeltable male immaturity. Even after they were married and had kids, so many men worried more about fantasy football than becoming fully formed adults.

  But she was only distracting herself from the conversation they had to have.

  “I’m serious, Bri. Did you notice anything weird wh
en we were there?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by ‘weird.’ ”

  Sometimes she feared marriage was nothing more than endless simultaneous gaslighting. You’re immature! No, you’re crazy!

  “Because a month ago the agency”—the CIA—“passed us a tip that the Islamic State was looking to kidnap the family of an American diplomat or any USG personnel in Europe.” The FBI loved acronyms; USG was standard shorthand for “United States government.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “It wasn’t actionable. Didn’t mention a specific country. Plus, the story was they were looking for a kid, snatch-and-grab, maybe on the way to school. I didn’t want to bother you with it.”

  Plus, she knew what he would have said: Come on, Becks. The Islamic State barely exists anymore. If you changed your mind about the trip you don’t need a fake terrorist plot.

  “Okay, you got this tip.”

  “But that was the end of it, pretty much. No follow-up. I basically forgot. But the reason I mention it, yesterday in Paris, I swear I felt like somebody picked us up outside the hotel—”

  “As in we had a tail?”

  “Two. Male and female. I saw them on the Métro near the Arc de Triomphe and then at Sacré-Coeur. Then I thought maybe I saw the woman later.”

  “You didn’t say anything.”

  “What was I supposed to say? Anyway, the guy I saw wasn’t tall and had black hair. It can’t have been the guy Kira met.”

  Now that she’d told him, the story sounded ridiculous to her own ears, the product of too much sangria. In the unlikely chance that this kidnapping plot was real, the original version made more sense. Grab a kid. She figured Brian would tell her to relax, finish her wine.

  Instead he stood. “Come on. Let’s check the bar.”

  She realized she’d hoped he would tell her to relax. “You sure?”

  “Better safe than sorry. Hey, Tony…”

  Tony popped into the room like he’d been listening in the hall. Maybe he had. Not that it mattered.

  “We’re gonna go find your sister,” Brian said. “If she texts you, tell her to stay where she is and text us right away.”

  “And promise you won’t go anywhere,” Rebecca said. “Promise.”