by Ciji Ware
When the taxi at De Gaulle had been loaded with their luggage, Finn gave instructions to the driver before he entered the cab. Juliet leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, still fatigued from the trip and all that had gone before. She was half asleep when they drew up to the embankment on the opposite side of the Seine from where the L’Étoile de Paris was moored. She had gathered her tote bag and other possessions inside the cab before she noticed they were parked across the water from Finn’s barge.
“Wait a minute! What are we doing here?” she asked.
“I have a little surprise for you.” Finn announced, paying the driver who swiftly sped off to catch his next fare.
“What surprise? Aren’t we spending our honeymoon on the boat?”
“Follow me and I’ll show you. Look down there.” He pointed in the direction of the quay below.
Just like the Right Bank where the Grenelle’s barge was moored, this side of the river was also paved in cobblestones. Here on the Left Bank, too, a series of gaily-painted vessels dotted the water’s edge. The base of the Eiffel Tower was only a few hundred yards from where they stood next to their suitcases. Finn led the way down the ramp past two other barges and halted at a black-hulled boat with the name Adriana incised on its prow in large, gold letters. In contrast to the weathered barge where Finn lived across the water, the craft on this side of the Seine sported teak trim both around the windows up top as well as encircling a series of portholes embedded in the hull. Pots of flowers—mostly red, yellow, and purple—dotted the decks. Forward, near the prow, handsome teak chairs and a matching table with a jaunty red umbrella invited the boat’s passengers to while away the days on deck sipping cocktails and eating hors d’oeuvres before descending into the grand salon.
“C’mon,” Finn said, gesturing toward the open hatch. “Let’s go below.”
Juliet obediently followed her husband up the gangway. “What in the world...?”
A few more steps led them along the deck and then down five wooden stairs into the barge’s beautifully appointed main cabin—featuring even more teak accents. It was luxuriously furnished with an elegant, built-in sofa and a sea-going, antique Louis Vuitton trunk topped with a thick sheet of glass doubling as a coffee table.
“You like?” Finn asked.
Juliet could see he was anxiously awaiting her response as she turned in a circle to take in every detail of the decor.
“Like? I love it! Whose is it? And what are we doing here?”
“It’s a wedding present... to both of us.”
“For our honeymoon?” She clapped her hands, mentally comparing it with the comparatively bare-bones furnishings on board L’Étoile. “She’s stunning! And, oh my! Will you look at the gas stove!” she exclaimed, peering over the teak bar into the galley, an onboard kitchen at least three times bigger than the area where Finn had previously produced some amazing meals on only two burners.
“Come see the staterooms,” he urged, leading the way past a tapestry curtain and down a highly-varnished passageway that led to two cabins, both featuring built-in double beds and high-gloss, wood-paneled wainscoting below white bulkheads where the portholes offered views of the Seine.
“Oh, Finn,” she said, turning to throw her arms around him. “How did you arrange this for us?”
“Aunt Claudine, of course,” he said, nose to nose. “She saw the ad and—”
“One of those short-term rental websites?”
“No.” Finn was grinning now. “The advertisement said ‘For Sale.’ Congratulations, Juliet! You and I now own this bucket.”
“What? Oh, my God... we do? It’s gorgeous!” she squealed. Then, a worried frown creased her brow. “But how can we afford it?”
“Aunt Claudine bought half of it for us as a wedding present and I bought the other half with my savings and the hefty hardship pay I got from working those weeks in a pretty dangerous part of Africa. Claudine insisted she be part of the deal as soon as I said I was flying to San Francisco to ask you to marry me.”
“She did?” Juliet could only shake her head in amazement.
“When Claudine and I came to see it the first time, she told me I was already in her will and so why not have some of my inheritance now? It’s an eighty-five-foot former lumber craft that some hotshot American ex-pat bought and refitted to a fare-thee-well, as you can see. Recently, he was unexpectedly transferred back to New York and put it on the market.” Finn cast her a worried glance. “I want you to know that I will never buy anything major like this without your input, but I had no idea if you’d say yes to me, and I didn’t want to have missed out if you did agree to be my wife. People were swarming all over her the first day she went on sale.”
Juliet gave an embarrassed laugh. “Well, after you’d heard my anguished voice messages saying how much I loved and missed you, I guess you thought it was a pretty good bet I’d say yes, right?”
Finn leaned forward and gave her a kiss. “I sure hoped so.”
Juliet sank down on the corner of the double bunk in the second stateroom, suddenly completely speechless. She could only stare in wonder at the soft-as-snow cashmere throw she recognized from Claudine’s apartment that was now folded across the arm of a small chair in the corner. Then, she was filled with confusion. “But, if we now own this in Paris, what about living in—”
Before she could finish her question, Finn assured her they would still be based in San Francisco, as they’d agreed. “But since we don’t own or rent in California, thanks to living in the Bay View, I figured this can be our condo-on-the-water whenever we’re in Paris. And when we’re not, we can loan it to friends. Avery has already said she wants first dibs.”
“Oh, Finn,” Juliet said, still staggered by the notion they were the boat’s proud owners. “She’s so beautiful! Our perfect Paris pied-à-terre when we come here.”
Finn sat down beside her and gathered her in his arms. “So what do you say, sailor? Shall we launch this honeymoon?” Finn gently pushed her down onto the stateroom’s built-in bed. Sunlight poured through the half-opened porthole and they could hear the rhythmic slap of the Seine’s ever-flowing current against the hull. “I vote that the honeymoon officially begins... right now.”
* * *
For the next ten days, Juliet and Finn left the barge only to secure supplies and take long walks along the embankment that led to the base of the Eiffel Tower. Seeing the mammoth structure from a different angle among the spring foliage had taken some getting used to, now that they were moored on the Left Bank side of Bir Hakeim bridge.
On a Wednesday around noon, they heard someone trilling outside the grand salon, “Yoo-hoo! Permission to come aboard!”
“Aunt Claudine!” they said in unison.
Fortunately, they were both dressed and so the couple scrambled on deck to greet their visitors, who were standing below them on the quay. Behind the slender, erect figure of Finn’s aunt, clad in chic, camel-colored gabardine slacks and a matching sweater set, stood Avery and Alain. Their arms laden with flowers and champagne, Finn motioned for the trio to mount the gangway while he and Juliet hastened to relieve them of their burdens.
“So how was your time in San Francisco after we left?” asked Juliet as the party descended below deck. “I hope the flight home wasn’t too awful, Aunt Claudine.”
“First of all, hello, my darlings!” she exclaimed, kissing them both effusively. “I told Avery that I had to give myself two days to recover from jet lag before we came over. We had a glorious time in your hometown, Juliet, so to celebrate, I’ve brought Veuve Clicquot for us all—except Finn, of course!” She held up a bottle of Perrier that she presented to him in a grand gesture.
Finn began to open the champagne as Juliet threw her arms around his aunt a second time to thank her for the role she’d played in purchasing the barge and offered quick hugs to Avery and Alain as well.
Avery announced, “We also came to help you christen the boat. What shall we name her?”
“And anyway,” Juliet chimed in, “Finn and I love the name!”
Her groom began to pour the bubbling wine into tall flutes that had apparently come with the furnishings. Taking her proffered glass, Juliet thought dreamily to herself that the broad deck on the stern was going to make a perfect place to paint.
Paris would always be Paris. True, they would never forget the suffering of the Grenelle family, nor Avery’s struggle to recover from her wounds. The city would mourn its losses and its valiant citizens would carry on as America had after 9/11 and a host of terrorist events that followed. There were sure to be more attacks and tragedies, she thought, and for a moment she felt the familiar clutch of fear for the future hovering over their happy group. She inhaled deeply and then made a deliberate and conscious choice not to think about that now. She would be happy in the moment. She and Finn would face whatever was to come... together.
“To the Adriana,” Avery murmured, holding up her glass in a toast with the arm now healed, despite the scars. Juliet’s best friend glanced around at the Adriana’s interior. “Yep!” she declared in vigorous agreement. “The name’s perfect!”
Juliet turned to her right to absorb the sight of the husband she adored raising his glass of sparkling water, a man who had fought his demons and remained steadfast in all he believed. Her mind flew to the memory of them clinging to each other in their room in Talloires beside beautiful Lake Annecy in the wake of the Bastille Day terrorist attack.
Love instead of hate or despair, she reminded herself fiercely. It was their best weapon in any battles that lay ahead in this unpredictable world they were part of...
And then another thought washed over her.
Adriana is a lovely name for a little girl... after we have one named Julia Morgan Thayer Deschanel, of course...
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Ripped from the headlines” was never my original intent for this novel. As a former medical and health reporter for a number of years for the American Broadcasting System in Los Angeles, I was one of the first in the media to begin doing stories on the men and women returning from Viet Nam with what previously was referred to (usually in whispers) as “shellshock.” I chronicled the years of struggle it took for service men and women to have the condition formally recognized by America’s medical and military communities. And then, after nearly two decades of America’s involvement in foreign wars in the Middle East and the horrifying statistics of returning veterans committing suicide, a story began to form in the far reaches of this writer’s brain where these things can percolate virtually for years.
Another impetus for this novel is my love of France, and the fact that my husband of forty years and I have reason to travel there nearly every June, and have encountered many ex-pat Americans who have found life there to have that Je ne sais pas quoi element that they can’t find anywhere else. Paris, despite the tumult of recent years, is—like my own San Francisco—one of those cities where the beauty and culture of the place can soothe the soul.
Central to the setting of That Spring in Paris was the sheer luck of finding the Orion on an AirBnB listing for stationary barges to rent on the Seine. Of course, the fact that we came aboard on the very week when a “Fifty Years; Flood” occurred, with the river’s waters rising some twenty-three feet above flood stage, merely added to the drama. In the novel, recounting that experience in fiction provided an exciting sequence for the main characters to learn what good partners they made under extreme duress, and despite the hero’s battles with PTSD. My deepest thanks go Brigitte and Eric Sautot for their incredible hospitality—and for finding us a swell hotel—Hôtel Eiffel Trocadero on Rue Benjamin Franklin—when it was finally decided it was no longer safe for even former boat owners like my husband and me to remain on board!
Other Parisians that provided guidance include Philippe Pellerin, owner of La Caléche, the restaurant across the street from #7 Rue de Lille, where Juliet and Finn enjoy several lovely meals and find themselves under an outdoor table when a car backfires soon after the terrorist attacks of November 13th. As for the other restaurants and bistros mentioned in the novel, I can highly recommend them all and thank their proprietors for their culinary skills and warm welcome.
And speaking of delicious meals, we had occasion to meet up with another barge owner, American Charlie Downer at a wonderful restaurant in the Passy, along with my high school pal, Lacy Williams Buck. When we couldn’t board the Orion due to the extreme flooding that week in Paris, Charlie later sent me gorgeous pictures of her interior that are lovingly described in the last chapter. Leslie de Galbert, an American originally from New Orleans, and now long-time resident of France, treated us to superb dinner in their apartment with a head-on view of the Eiffel Tower and was a great source of help along the way.
And if you love feasting your eyes on images of delicious food, Paris Breakfast blogger, Carol Gillott, who takes incredible pictures of Paris and environs and offers her delightful watercolors for sale online, was the inspiration for the way in which the heroine initially could support her “artist habit” when she first moved to Paris. The minute I spied Carol’s photo of the wisteria-draped café, I knew I had to have it for the book’s cover. (Just Google “Paris Breakfast,” sign up for free, and enjoy weekly doses of the City of Light—and color!).
Huge thanks are also due Rich and Caroline Nuckolls who operate the wonderful Art Colony Giverny where both experienced and fledgling artists can live near and paint in Monet’s Gardens each summer. What an experience it was to be admitted with Caroline’s gaggle of painters “after hours” into the Impressionist’s magnificent garden and trod across the green bridge spanning the lily pads beside weeping willows in the soft, golden light of oncoming dusk. Anyone interested in her classes can contact her at [email protected].
With regard to the military aspects of the story, I am great indebted to a number of U.S. Air Force members—some retired and others still on active duty—who set me straight on everything from the age at which a pilot who attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and had served in Iraq and Afghanistan would reach the rank of Major, to the responses that drone pilots experienced in those unmarked white trailers in the desert of Nevada. Gentlemen, you know who you are, and you have my undying gratitude. Any mistakes or misstatements, however, are my own.
And then there are the “Ciji’s Betas.” These are friends and colleagues willing (and brave enough) to read my early drafts of some 400 pages of manuscript that often reach eight or nine versions before I’m through. Liz Trupin-Pulli—pal, editor, and an ace of an agent—helped me immeasurably on this one, as did the critique of bookstore partner, dog-walking pal, and writer herself, Cheryl Popp. Additional writer-betas include Kim Cates, Janet Chapman, Diana Dempsey, Kate Moore and Cynthia Wright. The other sets of sharp eyes belonged to Diane Barr, Linda Hammond, Dean Stolber.
Like most writers who have once been working reporters, I often seek out “sources” to interview in the course of writing fiction that can show me the intricacies of their unique worlds. I am grateful to my childhood friend and distinguished graphics designer and artist, Marcia McGinnis Shortt, who helped me to sketch in the background for the heroine, Juliet Thayer—a woman that transitions from a designer of video war games packaging to a fully-fledged landscape painter.
As usual, my thanks to formatter Pam Headrick of A Thirsty Mind Book Design for the mechanics of getting the book ready for publication.
In the dedication, I mentioned the members of my own family that have served in the nation’s military during times of war—and peace. I could not have written this novel without the encouragement and support of former naval Lt. Anthony Cook,
who floated around Viet Nam as “officer of the deck” in his youth, and has been a steady hand on my shoulder during the wild ride that became the publishing business. After four decades of marriage, we’ve figured out a way to have fun researching my projects and bringing them to the page with an “out-fox-‘em” attitude that has served us well. Thank you, darling, for everything you are—and do.
I hope my beloved son, Jamie Ware Billett, his amazing, lovely, and talented brain scientist wife, Dr. Teal Eich, and their precious boys will inherit a world far more peaceful than the one described in this novel. Our family association with beautiful Talloires in the Alps all these years has been one of life’s great blessings. Vive La France!
Meanwhile, may we all hold on to each other tightly—with abiding love.
Ciji Ware
San Francisco, California
The Four Seasons series – Book 1
That Summer in Cornwall
Meredith Champlin, the newly appointed guardian of an unruly “Beverly Hills brat,” decamps from her settled existence in Wyoming with her charge and her Welsh Corgi to spend the summer with her English relatives at Barton Hall, a shabby-chic castle perched on the remote cliffs of UK’s West Country.
Meredith’s summer escape gets even more complicated when former British Army Lieutenant Sebastian Pryce, veteran of a bomb- sniffing K9 squad in Afghanistan, proposes they join forces to found the Barton Hall Canine Obedience Academy, along with signing her up for his volunteer rough-and-ready Cornwall Search and Rescue Team.
Even with an assist from a novice search dog named T-Rex, the odds seem long that a mere three months in the land of Meredith’s Cornish ancestors can transform her troubled ward into a happier child, heal the wounds suffered by her soldier-turned-significant-other, and save the Barton-Teague estate from pending disaster.