That Spring in Paris

by Ciji Ware

  Lost in thought, he felt, rather than heard, his cell phone vibrating in his back pants pocket. He pulled it out and saw a text had just arrived from Avery Evans.

  Juliet’s here, a day early, worried

  how the Brussels attacks were affecting

  us. Oh, and by the way, don’t bother

  coming over here. She never wants

  to see you again. Can you guess why?

  Finn felt his breath catch. He glanced out the windows where tourists, strolling along the quay, often peered into his lair. Above the embankment wall near the bridge, he spotted Kim waving frantically at a taxi that screeched to a stop, allowing her to jump inside. Ducking his head to look at his cell phone once more, he tapped on the miniature keyboard.

  Juliet stopped here first, but I had a visitor

  so she left before we could talk.

  He waited, his eyes glued to the cell phone’s small screen.

  Yep, and she sure didn’t like what she saw.

  Finn threw back his head and closed his eyes in frustration. Quickly he typed:

  Tell her it’s not at all

  what it probably looked like.

  A long pause followed and Finn could tell there must be a discussion going on between the two women on Rue de Lille. Then came Avery’s reply.

  Apparently those are the exact,

  same words Jed Jarvis used one time...

  He stared unhappily at the small screen. All he could think of was the mantra he’d learned at Air Force damage control school when an emergency was in progress: Contain... Control... Repair...

  Without answering Avery’s latest text, he grabbed his leather jacket and bolted out of the barge at a dead run.

  CHAPTER 22

  Juliet knew she should be angry when a buzzer in Avery’s attic apartment sounded not twenty minutes after Finn’s last text, but all she could do was dash into the tiny bathroom, run a comb through her hair, and refresh her lipstick.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Avery chuckled, looking at her watch. “He beat my prediction by ten minutes. I’ll vamoose over to Alain’s.”

  Before Juliet could answer, there was a pounding on the door. Finn must have taken the six flights, two steps at a time.

  “Com—ing,” Avery sang out sweetly. She shook her index finger at Juliet, whispering, “Now you be nice! Let him say whatever he’s going to say before you jump down his throat.”

  “Why are you cutting the guy so much slack?” Juliet demanded hoarsely.

  “Because, whether you believe me or not, I’m certain there’s going to be a reasonable explanation,” Avery answered, sotto voce. “He’s crazy about you, kiddo, and he’s old enough to know that a roll in the hay with another lady would screw everything up on the eve of your return to Paris.”

  “Guys do stupid stuff like that all the time!” Juliet hissed.

  Avery reached for the doorknob. “Don’t I know it?” she replied in a normal voice, “but not this guy. Hi, Finn.”

  “Talking about me behind the door?” he said, looking past Avery to directly meet Juliet’s glare.

  “Yep. And she’s all yours. I’m just on my way out.”

  “No, you don’t have to leave,” Finn replied, striding into the room. “I want to take Juliet directly to Angelina’s so I can tell her what she didn’t see.”

  “Oh, yum!” Avery exclaimed. “And great location for a peace conference, I might add.” She turned toward Juliet. “Forget tea. Angelina’s tearoom should be called ‘the chocolate room!’ The inside is gorgeously belle époque and more than a hundred years old. Coco Chanel and Proust and the cream of Parisian aristocracy dined there since the day it opened. You’ll love it!” She winked at Finn. “The secret recipe for their hot chocolate, alone, should win her over.”

  Finn took a hold of the handle of Juliet’s suitcase and said, “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Juliet pointed to her luggage. “Not so fast. I’m not going with you to the barge later, if that’s what you think. Leave that here!”

  Avery winked at Finn a second time, but said with a straight face, “Well, you’re not staying here tonight, Juliet. I’m expecting company later and it’s not you, pal.”

  * * *

  Juliet remained stonily silent while Finn piloted the MG across the Pont Royal to the Right Bank, heading eventually for the Rue de Rivoli, beyond the Louvre, and parking within view of the green expanse of the Tuilleries gardens. After he had locked the car, she reluctantly allowed him to take her arm and guide her into the tearoom’s grand entrance past shelves chock-full of all manner of luxury food items, including tins of Angelina’s famous African chocolate. They were soon escorted to a remote corner of a large, cream-colored room resplendent with floor-to-ceiling framed mirrors, soaring arches between dining areas, dark leather chairs studded with brass tacks, and round, intimate, marble-topped tables filled with well-dressed patrons willing to pay a king’s ransom for a cup of cocoa.

  “Merci, Madame,” Finn said with a nod to the chic hostess clad in the perfect little black dress that Juliet reckoned all French women had in their closets.

  Finn stood behind her to help push in her seat before he took his own. He waved away the menu when a waiter, looking smart in his black tuxedo and brilliant white starched shirt, appeared to take their order. “Do you have the Mont-Blanc pastry today?” he asked in French.

  “But of course,” the waiter answered in perfect English.

  Finn cocked an eyebrow and smiled across the table. “It combines meringue, light whipped cream, and the tiniest threads of chocolate-chestnut paste forming a half sphere—a fantastic confection they’ve been making here since nineteen-oh-three.”

  “Fine,” she said shortly. Her stomach was in such a knot that she doubted she would eat a bite when this paragon of pastries was delivered to their tiny table.

  “And a pot of your African cocoa, please, and two cups,” Finn directed. When the waiter retreated he said to her, “Please give me your hand.”

  “No,” she refused, aware she probably sounded like a petulant teen. “Just give it to me straight, Finn. Why was your wife sitting on your sofa this morning, and why didn’t you warn me when I said ‘yes’ to your invitation to come over for Easter?”

  “Because my soon-to-be-ex-wife didn’t warn me she had flown to Paris to personally deliver divorce documents for me to sign.”

  “So it was Kim Deschanel!” She threw her napkin on the table. “And did you bid each other a fond farewell the night before you actually signed to end your marriage? Was that why she was sitting in the pilothouse in her—whatever she was wearing—so early in the morning?”

  Finn reared back with a startled expression. “You thought that the sports outfit she was wearing were pajamas?” he declared with a note of amazement in his voice. “You’re jealous?”

  “Given what it looked like, why wouldn’t I be? And believe me, it doesn’t feel good!”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Finn agreed hastily. He slowly shook his head. “You have no idea what an insane day this has been so far.”

  “I’m sure,” she replied curtly. “It has for me, too. I jumped on the first flight I could get out of San Francisco because I figured the Brussels attacks might have thrown both you and Avery for a loop, and here we are, about to have a ten dollar cup of cocoa. Looks to me as if you’re both doing just fine.”

  “No, we’re not, or at least, we weren’t,” Finn countered, his expression sobering. “I called Avery the minute I heard what had happened in Brussels. She’d already fled to Alain’s.”

  “What about you?” Juliet asked warily. “And what about the Grenelles?”

  “Madame Grenelle, as you can imagine, was also totally undone by the latest attack. While you were in the air, I was on her side of the boat with her son, Pierre, while we three relived J-P’s death all over again. In fact, I spent the first eight hours after the news broke trying to calm everybody down, including myself.”

  Juliet
murmured. “It had to bring everything back...”

  Finn nodded. “As a matter of fact, I got the first appointment I could with Doctor A, late yesterday afternoon. We talked through it and we both agreed that we’re probably going to see a lot more of these horrible events as time goes on. She gave me some ideas how to cope better when—” He paused and inhaled deeply. “It’s just—”

  A wave of emotion spread across his face.

  “What?” she asked softly.

  Finn took another deep breath. “Stuff like the Brussels attacks and what happened in San Bernardino make me feel I’m... well... alone in the foxhole again. That first night, I started to shake so bad, I got in the shower and just stood under the hot water for twenty minutes until I could get my body under control.”

  “Oh, Finn...” She nodded sadly. “I got the shakes, too, when we landed at DeGaulle and I stepped off the plane. Not as bad as you described, but my entire body felt on full alert the whole time I waited in the passport control line.”

  He reached for her hand that had been toying with a silver spoon on the table in front of her. This time she didn’t pull away.

  “I’m just so damned glad to see you,” he told her, lowering his voice, “and I’m really sorry your arrival in Paris was the exact opposite of what I wanted it to be. You’ve got to believe me that I wasn’t happy when Kim turned up at my door just after seven o’clock in the morning, but as it turned out, we finally got to sort through the last couple of years about why the wheels came off our relationship.”

  Finn then related the events that had taken place on the barge that Juliet had only briefly witnessed through the pilothouse window. She hardly noticed when their order arrived, nor could she savor the smooth, subtle taste of the chestnut paste or the glorious sweetness of the meringue. With emotions roiling, she mindlessly sipped her hot chocolate while Finn filled her in on the painful disclosures that DNA tests revealed that a baby Kim had given birth to two years earlier was the result of an affair with a fellow flyer. He also described the relief he felt when he and Kim both signed the documents, now in his possession, that would officially end their marriage once his lawyer filed the papers with the American court.

  “So Kim had tried to pass off this Pete person’s baby as yours?” she asked, unable to disguise her shock. “No wonder you left Nevada as soon as you could.”

  “Well, to be fair, I was a pretty volatile guy at that point. Kim was scared to admit the truth—that she’d fallen into bed with Pete whenever she felt lonely or angry at me, and therefore, she wasn’t certain whose baby it was. Obviously, she was full of guilt for having had an affair that had continued even after I got back from the Middle East.” Finn hesitated. “And now, it turns out, she really doesn’t want to marry the guy.”

  “Oh, great! When can we expect her next visit?”

  “She won’t be coming to Paris any time soon because it’s finished between us.”

  “For you, maybe, but probably not Kim...”

  Juliet felt a familiar lump expand in her throat. How could she believe him? How could she believe any guy? In the brief year she’d been with Jed, she was certain he’d stepped out on her a few times and cooked up some convincing lies to cover his tracks.

  Finn reached out and gently skimmed the back of two fingers along Juliet’s jawline. She could feel her heartbeat slow down and an unexpected sensation of comfort washed over her.

  “After today, Kim knows, for sure, that chapter is closed,” he said. “I don’t want to upset you when I say this, but in a strange way, I’m actually glad she came. How often do you get to put a genuine period at the end of a sentence like I did this morning?”

  “But are you sure it’s the end?” The tightness in Juliet’s throat made her words sound choked. “You two shared so much family history and military tradition, to say nothing of personal heartache and pain. And you admit you were a bear to live with back then. Now that she knows what misery you were going through, it must make a huge difference for her. I’d forgive you for leaving, if I were in her place.”

  “You are such a sweetheart...”

  “No, I’m not.” For some reason, she felt strangely compelled to mount Kim’s defense. “She’s told you she doesn’t want to marry the other guy, so perhaps you could forgive her, too, and learn to love that poor, innocent baby.” Juliet felt tears prick her eyes. “People can knit back their relationship if the link between them is strong enough.”

  Finn seized her hand and wouldn’t allow her to look away. A voice at the back of Juliet’s head told her she’d spoken in Kim’s behalf, just then, as a way of protecting herself from the possibility that Finn might one day have second thoughts.

  “That’s just it, Juliet,” he insisted. “I don’t think Kim and I ever had a strong, emotional connection, other than we were both military brats and had a common family history. In the words of that Parisian ex-pat, Gertrude Stein, ‘there was no there there’ between us—ever. Not the way I feel right now when I know you’re still mad at me and I’d do whatever it takes to make it right between us!”

  As they stared at each other across the tiny table, Juliet wanted desperately to believe him. Yet, the vision of Kim sitting on the sofa Juliet had all but claimed as her own was impossible to push from her memory. A wave of exhaustion invaded her entire body brought about by the stress of the Brussels attacks, along with flying six thousand miles across the globe, the thunderous shock of seeing Finn and Kim inside the barge, then hauling her suitcase up six flights of stairs and crying her eyes out in Avery’s flat.

  “Oh, Finn, I don’t know...” She looked down at their hands still clasped together, aware she sounded as tired as she felt. “Maybe you should just let everything settle down before you and I... well... before we even consider—” Her sentence dangled because she had no idea how to finish it. She withdrew her hand into her lap. Finally, she said, “You both have been through so much. I think you need to take time to assess everything.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “She and I have been through a lot, but we’re coming out the other side—or at least I am. And I’m tired of ‘assessing.’ It’s been two years since I slept with her, or anyone else for that matter—poor, pathetic bastard that I was! You’ll never know how completely relieved I felt when Kim signed those legal documents this morning. And by the way,” he added, “I’m more than a little pissed that you’d think I was such a rat that I’d sleep with some other woman two days before you were due to arrive here.”

  “Not just any woman... sleep with your wife!”

  “May I repeat? She hasn’t been that in any real sense for close to two years.”

  “Still...”

  “Still, nothing! I did not sleep with her...” Juliet knew he was trying desperately to convince her. “I’m not Jed Jarvis—or any other rotten man you may have had in your life previous to me.” A faint grin creased his lips. “You’re sitting across from an officer and a gentleman, remember?”

  Juliet felt the first smile of the day begin to crease the corners of her mouth.

  “Well, thank heavens for that.”

  Finn’s look of tender vulnerability at this partial reprieve unraveled her previous resolve to book the next plane out of Charles De Gaulle.

  “Finish your chocolate,” he urged her gently, “and let’s get going. I want to show you something, and then I’m going to make you a wonderful dinner.”

  Juliet shook her head. “I’m totally stuffed with cocoa and meringue and about to keel over from jet lag.”

  “Okay, then,” he countered. “How about we make a couple of quick stops for supplies while you snooze in the MG? When we get back to the barge, you can take a long nap while I do my thing on two burners. We can eat at midnight, if you want.”

  Juliet could only offer a groggy nod while Finn paid their bill, the cost of which she didn’t even want to venture a guess.

  * * *

  By the time the MG pulled up to La Pâtisserie des Rêve
s at Number 93, Rue du Bac, not far from Claudine Deschanel’s elegant apartment on Rue Jacob, Juliet was sound asleep in the passenger seat of the car. The bear rug she remembered from her first ride in Finn’s car had been replaced by a lighter-weight green and navy tartan throw that covered her from neck to toe. Finn had scrunched up his jacket to cushion her head against the car window. She’d been barely conscious of the several stops they’d made at a butcher that specialized in duck brought to Paris directly from the countryside; at the cheese monger favored by his aunt where white cheddar with black truffles could be had; and at a wine store where Finn purchased a bottle of her favorite brand of champagne.

  Eventually, the lack of the car’s forward motion for a longer length of time roused Juliet from her stupor. She raised her head and gazed through heavily lidded eyes at a gleaming store window filled with large glass bell jars protecting colorful cakes of every description and oversized chocolate Easter bunnies sporting jaunty satin bows tied around their necks. Figuring that this was the destination Finn had wanted her to see in all its Easter finery, she rolled down the window, instantly spotting his broad back at the far end of the shop where he was paying for purchases that were being packed in white and pink boxes so elegantly fashioned that they could have served as gifts themselves.

  Watching from afar, she absorbed the sight of the tall, former pilot balancing several rosy colored packages in his arms as he exited the shop and strode toward his car that took up only half a parking space on the street. Juliet reached to open the door so he could store his booty on the bench seat behind her and on top of her small suitcase.

  “Bonjour from the Easter Bunny,” Finn said with a grin. “I hope you like fruit tarts and more chocolate.”

  “I love both, but I thought you were going to cook.”

  “I am, but I haven’t finished my pastry course at Le Cordon Bleu, so I thought I’d expose you to the masters of the art—Monsieurs Thierry and Conticini—who own a series of these shops, but I like this one the best.”