Paris Is Always a Good Idea

by Nicolas Barreau

  “You’ll regret this, you moron,” she hissed. “That girl will bore you more quickly than you can recite Hamlet’s monologue and then you’ll come crawling back.”

  “You’ll wait a long time for that,” he said between clenched teeth. “Not to say forever and a day. And now beat it!”

  She leaned on the door frame of his room. “And where do you imagine I’m going to sleep tonight?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can sleep under the bridges. But don’t scare the clochards too much!”

  Then he’d pulled the door shut tight and run to the rue du Dragon.

  “Rosalie! Rosalie! I know you’re up there. Open up Rosalie,” he shouted many times.

  Eventually the main door of the building opened and an elderly little man with crafty eyes had come out on the street. “What do you think you’re doing, monsieur? This is not a fairground. If you don’t stop this hullaballoo, I’ll call the police.” He looked at Robert, who was staggering about. “What’s wrong with you, are you drunk?”

  “I’ve got to see Rosalie Laurent!” was all he could say.

  “Are you an American?” The old man stared at him suspiciously.

  “Please!” begged Robert. “Can you let me in? I know she’s in her apartment.”

  “But, monsieur!” He shrugged his shoulders. “Calm down! Mademoiselle Laurent is not at home, otherwise she’d come to the door.”

  The old man was hopelessly dull-witted.

  “But she’s there—just look! The light!” He pointed upward excitedly.

  “Really? What makes you think that? I can’t see anything.” Robert looked up at the first floor. Behind the window above Luna Luna it was dark.

  * * *

  AFTER HE REALIZED THAT he wasn’t going to get anywhere that night he’d returned to his hotel. After all, Rosalie would have to open the store the next day.

  But when he arrived outside the store again punctually at eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning, the CLOSED sign was still on the door. He’d tried to leave her a message, but her phone wasn’t even switched on. He tore a page out of his notebook, wrote a desperate little message, and shoved the paper between the bars of the shutters.

  From then on he patrolled past Luna Luna every hour and finally—it was two o’clock—he got lucky.

  The shutters were up, the store was open, but as he pressed down the latch, ready to fall down on his knees and beg Rosalie’s forgiveness for his—really tiny little—lie, and then explain everything to her, he found, instead of his beautiful quarreler, a totally unfamiliar woman who looked at him with unconcerned friendliness.

  “Isn’t Mademoiselle Laurent here?” he asked breathlessly. The woman shook her head, and he remembered that she was Rosalie’s assistant, whom he’d already briefly seen. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember her name.

  “When will Mademoiselle Laurent be back?” he probed.

  “No idea,” she replied indifferently. “She probably won’t be back at all today.”

  “Do you know if she got my message?” He pointed to the door.

  “What message?” She looked at him blankly with her good-natured round eyes.

  It was enough to drive you to despair. Robert spun round with a groan, and then thrust his telephone number at the sales assistant.

  “Listen, it’s important,” he implored. “I have to talk to Mademoiselle Laurent, you understand? Call me immediately if she comes back to the store again. And I mean immediately!”

  She nodded and casually wished him a good day.

  Two and a half hours and four petits noirs later he was still sitting in the little café in the rue du Dragon watching the entrance to Luna Luna a couple of yards away on the opposite side of the street. By now it was half past four. The waiter came out and asked him if he wanted anything else.

  He certainly did, but the way things looked he was unlikely to get it. He decided to move immediately from one drug to the next and ordered a glass of red wine. And then another. And then he had the idea of calling Max Marchais. Happily, the telephone was picked up immediately, and Robert almost laughed with relief.

  “It’s me, Robert. Do you have any idea where Rosalie could be? I need to speak to her urgently.” He took a deep breath. “There’s been a dreadful misunderstanding, an intrigue of truly Shakespearean proportions, and now Rosalie seems to have vanished from the face of the earth.”

  Max said nothing for a moment, and Robert could sense his hesitancy.

  “Is she in Le Vésinet by any chance?” he asked importunately. “Is she at your place?” It was quite possible that in her grief or her anger—by now he was betting on the latter—Rosalie had fled to her old friend the writer.

  He heard Max sigh. “My boy, what sort of escapades have you been up to?” his father then said cautiously. “Rosalie isn’t here, but she called me yesterday. She was really beside herself. You should really have told her about your fiancée.”

  “But she is not my fiancée!” Robert yelled down the phone in desperation, knocking his glass over with a wild gesture as he did so. His light-colored pants gratefully sucked in the red liquid. “Shit! Dammit!” he cursed. “Rachel wasn’t even my real girlfriend when I came to Paris.” He rubbed his pants with his napkin.

  “What is she then?”

  “A witch, dammit! I was intending to call her and tell her everything and then she was suddenly there in my room smiling at me like Kaa the python.”

  He tried to paint Max the picture in as few words as possible.

  “Of course it was wrong to say she was just someone I knew,” he ended. “I admit that now. But at the time I didn’t know … I mean … it all went so fast … I just never caught up with things…”

  “Merde,” said Max. “That really was a stupid train of events.”

  Robert nodded. “But where can she be?” he wondered nervously. “I hope she won’t do anything silly.”

  Max laughed softly. “I can put your fears to rest there, my boy. Rosalie is up in her apartment. She has just called me to say that that deceitful asshole had just been downstairs in the store again.”

  “She’s at home?!” That cow-eyed assistant had cold-bloodedly pulled the wool over his eyes with her innocent smile. He would have liked to storm back into the store, but he forced himself to remain calm.

  “Good. What did she say?” he wanted to know.

  “Calm down, Robert. All is not yet lost. She said she hates you.”

  “She hates me? Oh, my God!” He rubbed at the stain on his pants like a madman. “But she can’t hate me. I mean, I haven’t done anything!” It was worse than he thought. Of course he knew how sensitive she was. How unforgiving. That she weighed every word with the accuracy of an assayer.

  “Believe me, my boy, it’s a good sign.” He heard Max laughing softly. “She hates you because she loves you.”

  “Aha. An interesting theory. Let’s hope it’s correct. But I love Rosalie because I love her.” He sighed in comic despair. “And what should I do now, Max? What can I do so that she loves me again without hating me?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll think of something,” responded Max. “In fact, I already have an idea.…”

  Thirty-three

  Rosalie was lying in bed railing at the world. After that unpleasant, intimidating red-haired woman had left the store she had slid stunned to the stone floor and sat there for a while as if she’d been knocked out. Then she had stood up, locked the door, and closed the store. She’d tumbled upstairs and thrown herself sobbing on the bed in her blue silk dress. The fall had been too great, the pain was boring into her innards. “Keep your hands off my future husband!” The humiliation had struck home like a well-aimed dagger thrust.

  She remembered Rachel’s triumphant smile and thumped her pillow with a scream. Robert Sherman would soon be flying back to New York with his lovely bride-to-be. And the damned swine had not said a single word.

  He would presumably have turned up on the last day with some kind of
threadbare excuse, and then she would never have heard from him again. He’d lied to her, lied about everything, and she was outraged at how well he’d playacted. But of course, she thought bitterly, playacting was second nature to him. Rachel had clearly hinted that the oh-so-well-read literature professor was always game for a little adventure. Shakespeare, pah! More like Shakespeare in Love, she thought angrily. That’s probably why all his lies tripped so easily past his lips.

  She thought back to the sweet words that Robert had whispered to her that Saturday night, and held her hands to her ears sobbing loudly. “Oh, hold your tongue, Robert Sherman. Get out of my head! I never want to see you again!” she screamed. Then she stumbled over to her desk and, in a despairing flood of emotion, knocked over all the jars that held the paintbrushes. She felt a little better after that.

  She drank three glasses of red wine, smoked eight cigarettes, found she couldn’t help thinking about Robert, cried again, hurled out abuse that would have made her mother blanch, and finally got William Morris from his basket.

  She carefully laid him beside her on the bedspread. He lifted his head with a faint whimper and looked at her with his brown eyes, showing that steadfast loyalty of which probably only a dog is capable. “Oh, William Morris!” she had said before she finally fell asleep. “It looks like you’re the only man in my life who will never leave me.”

  When Robert Sherman came to the store for the second time the next day, Rosalie was still in bed.

  She heard raised voices in the store and crept barefoot to the door. She quietly put one foot on the spiral staircase and leaned forward to risk a careful look.

  Robert was standing in the middle of the store with an angry face and was involved in a heated battle of words with Madame Morel, who was blocking his way with folded arms.

  “Non, monsieur, she’s gone away,” she was saying. Rosalie cowered on the top step, nodded appreciatively, and bent her head a little farther forward so as not to miss anything.

  “What do you mean, she’s gone away? What bullshit!” she heard Robert saying loudly. “I know she’s there. So stop playing around with me and let me past.”

  Madame Morel remained standing in front of Robert like a fortress and shook her head regretfully. She was really good at this.

  “I’m extremely sorry, Monsieur Sherman, but Mademoiselle Laurent is really not at home.…”

  Robert looked angrily at the spiral staircase, and Rosalie flinched back.

  “There!” he shouted. “I’ve just seen a foot!”

  He pushed Madame Morel aside and stormed up the spiral staircase.

  In two bounds Rosalie was back in bed. She had just enough time to pull up the covers and smooth her hopelessly disheveled hair a little before he entered the room. With a certain degree of satisfaction she noticed that he didn’t actually look in peak condition either, with his unshaven face and the massive dark stain on his pants. It looked as if his domineering Rachel had given him the tongue-lashing he deserved.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted angrily. “Get out!”

  She reached for a cushion and hurled it at his head.

  “Rosalie!” he cried as he ducked out of the way. “Please! Hear me out!”

  She shook her head. “No way!” Then she narrowed her eyes and stared at him crossly. “Well? Haven’t you boarded the plane with your fiancée yet?”

  “The flight isn’t until tomorrow,” he replied. “And then there will only be my fiancée on it … I mean…” He spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Rachel is not my fiancée at all.” He risked a smile. “Not my fiancée … not my girlfriend—”

  “But just ‘someone you know,’” Rosalie interrupted his stammering words.

  He held his head in his hands and groaned. “Okay, okay! I know I shouldn’t have said that. I know that everything speaks against me, but believe me, it’s all a misunderstanding.”

  She burst out laughing. “I don’t believe it! You didn’t seriously come out with that bullshit, did you?” She sat up and pointed a finger at him. “Your it-was-all-a-misunderstanding was in my store yesterday and told me all about the way you know each other. Did she show me a ring?” She clasped her forehead in mock confusion. “Yes, she did. Did she say I should keep my hands off her future husband? Yes, she did that, too. Was your it-was-all-a-misunderstanding with you in the hotel yesterday evening?” She thought for a moment, then nodded. “So she was!”

  “You came to the Hôtel des Marronniers?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I telephoned you there. Gosh, how dumb can you be? Just by chance Carole Dubois, a good friend of mine, was at reception and when I asked for Monsieur Sherman and she tried to put me through and no one answered, she explained to me with a giggle that you were probably very busy because your fiancée from America was in your room.”

  She saw Robert turn pale and nodded knowingly. “So, what do you have to say now, you liar?”

  Robert put his hands over his mouth and nose in a gesture of despair and closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Rosalie,” he said insistently. “Rachel is beautiful and clever and she knows how to create confusion. When I came to Paris, our relationship was already in the balance—because of … various things. Then she suddenly popped up here and lay in wait for me at the hotel—”

  “And spent the night with you?”

  “No she did not! I threw her out. You’re welcome to ask your friend Carole about that.” He looked at her pleadingly. “I love you.”

  Rosalie picked hesitantly at the bedcovers.

  “Ha! Fine words,” she said eventually. “How can I be sure that you really mean it?”

  He smiled. “Come on,” he said, reaching out his hand. “I’d like to show you something.”

  * * *

  ROBERT HAD INSISTED THAT they set out at once. She’d smoothed her crumpled blue silk dress as best she could and had slipped on her ballet slippers. Then they’d walked out of Luna Luna past an astounded Madame Morel.

  “Where are we going?” Rosalie asked curiously.

  “Wait and see,” he said, holding her hand firmly in his as he strode boldly across the boulevard Saint-Germain and hurried down the quiet rue Pré-aux-Clercs, pulling Rosalie after him through the rue de l’Université, the rue Jacob, and the rue de Seine.

  “Robert, what is this all about?” Rosalie laughed in bewilderment, wondering where this silent walk was going to end up.

  A moment later they had reached the Pont des Arts. They walked out on the wooden planks of the old bridge with its black iron railings. When they’d reached a point about halfway across, Robert came to a sudden halt.

  “Which side?” he asked, rummaging in his shoulder bag.

  “Which … side?” She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Well, would you prefer the side with the view of the Eiffel Tower, or the one with Notre-Dame?” he said impatiently.

  Rosalie shrugged her shoulders. “Well … hmm … the Eiffel Tower?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  He nodded curtly and they walked over to the railing together.

  “Here,” he said, pulling a small package out of his bag. “This is for you.” He smiled. “Or rather—for us.”

  In some confusion she took his gift, which was unskillfully wrapped in some tissue paper and a couple of bits of Scotch tape.

  She opened it, and a mixture of joy and expectation caught her throat.

  In her hand lay a little golden padlock on which someone had written in thick black felt pen:

  Rosalie & Robert. Pour toujours.

  “Forever?” She looked at him, her heart missing a beat. “Do you believe in forever?”

  Robert nodded. “That’s all I believe in.” He tenderly stroked a strand of hair from her face. “What a desolate place this world would be if not even a man who’s in love believed in it? Doesn’t even the greatest realist in his heart of hearts wish for a miracle?”

  “Oh yes,” whispered Rosalie, th
e mistress of wishes. She looked over at the Eiffel Tower looming erect and reliable against the evening sky, and smiled, both happy and bemused.

  “But how did you know? I mean…”

  Robert raised his eyebrows. “Soul mates?” he replied.

  Rosalie was deeply impressed. Fortunately she would never find out that her American literature professor, who was still carrying an edition of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew around with him, was not telling the whole truth at that moment. He was lying, but only a teeny-weeny bit. And for love.

  After the golden lock had taken its place among the others, Rosalie took a big swing and threw the little key out over the glittering water.

  Forever, she thought, and before the key had sunk to the bottom of the Seine where it would lie for all eternity with all the other lovers’ vows, Robert had already taken her in his arms.

  Rosalie shut her eyes blissfully and the last thing she saw was the incredible sky over Paris, which, with its patches of pink, white, and lavender, assumed the color of a kiss.

  ALSO BY NICOLAS BARREAU

  One Evening in Paris

  The Ingredients of Love

  About the Author

  Nicolas Barreau was born in Paris, the son of a French father and a German mother. He studied Romance languages and literature at the Sorbonne and worked in a bookshop on the Rive Gauche in Paris but is far from an inexperienced bookworm. With his other successful novels, The Ingredients of Love and One Evening in Paris, he has gained an enthusiastic audience. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.