As I ride my bike along the Left Bank, the sun rises above the horizon of the city I’ve lately come to call my home. I near one of the bouquinistes I see most mornings. His name is Julien, and he looks the part of a seller of antiquarian books and postcards from his stand alongside the river. He sports a mustache and a beret, and he often wears a striped shirt. I asked him once if he even liked the beret. “No,” he’d said, curling his lip in disdain. “It is horrible. But I sell more postcards when I wear it.” Then he gave a typical French shrug.
“Bet you sell even more when you’re in stripes.”
A wicked grin had appeared on his face. “I do.”
“Bonjour, Julien,” I call out when I’m a few feet away.
“Why do you wear that stupid helmet?” he asks gruffly. “You look ridiculous. You’re the only one who wears a helmet.”
“I like what’s inside it,” I say with a smile as I pass him.
He huffs but waves a quick good-bye.
I slow at the light at the bridge and pedal off when it turns green. I raise my face to the blue sky and smile.
It’s one of those days when I feel a little lighter, a little springier, with a mood to match the weather. Paris in the springtime is capricious, but today the sun is shining, and as I ride past groups of tourists streaming toward Notre Dame, a burst of wistfulness courses through me. It’s a shame, in a way, that I’ll soon be saying good-bye, since this city has been good to me. We’ve had a steady run—the cafés and the bookshops, the hunts up cobbled streets, and the escapades in the evenings with pretty women.
I cut across the next intersection and turn onto the sidewalk of Rue LaGrange. I veer to the right, avoiding a mother holding her toddler’s hand. The mother shoots me a coarse look. She probably thinks I’m a tourist. That if I were a true Frenchman, I’d ride in the street, sans helmet, and a scarf looped around my neck no matter the weather. I simply smile in return, because nothing is going to get me down today.
When I reach the florist shop, I slow to a stop, lock up my bike, then unscrew the seat. You can’t be too safe, especially in a city rife with not only pickpockets, but thieves who will do nearly anything to nick a bike. Except ride away with their crotch perched on a metal pole.
I say hello to the florist then head inside the Capstone Language Institute next door, taking the stairs to the fifth floor, whistling a happy tune as I go, bike seat in hand. Today isn’t just payday. It’s cha-ching day. It’s rain-euros-on-me-for-a-job-well-done day.
This is the day I’ve been waiting for.
When I push open the door to our offices, I cross paths with my friend Christian, who shakes his blond head, bemused at something. Christian is a top translator at the same company I work for. He knows French and all the Scandinavian languages, even though he was raised in England from a young age.
I take a wild guess at the source of his amusement. “Jean-Paul is on a roll this morning?”
“My ears will never recover from the tale he just told.”
I cringe. The fellow who runs the place and doles out the assignments is prone to TMI. Jean-Paul has never met a tawdry tale he wouldn’t tell. “Just smile and nod, right?”
“I did my best, I swear,” Christian says. “But I might need to find a way to erase the last five minutes from my memory. Something about a house of ill repute, three women, a bustier, and red heels. I’m not sure if the heels were worn or drunk from—”
I hold up my hands. “Stop right there, mate. That’s all I need to know, thank you very much.”
“You should be thanking me. I had to take that bullet today.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “I’ll always be grateful for your sacrifice. Did you snag a new assignment?”
He smiles impishly. “I’m booked for the week. A crew of brokers in from Copenhagen. It’s a pretty penny since they’re paying for my specialty.”
“Nice one,” I say, since Christian’s a former finance whiz. “See you in the . . .”
I stop myself, since if all goes as planned, I might not be here next week to see him at all.
He laughs and raises his chin. “See you on the flip side,” he says, since that’s his favorite American expression. He claps me on the back. “It’s been good. Let’s get a beer before you go?”
“Count on it.”
Turning down the hall, I square my shoulders and knock on the open door to Jean-Paul’s office. Even his randy stories won’t derail my mood today. I can barely contain my grin. Today is bonus day, and the bonus I’ve been promised for my last job is big enough for me to tackle a most important item from a most important list.
“Come in.”
I push on the door. “Good morning, Jean-Paul. How are you this fine Monday?”
“Fantastic.” He rises, taking off his glasses and gesturing to his chair. “I had the most amazing weekend.”
And he’s already off and running.
“Amazing weekends are the best kind,” I say, since I suppose I can endure a randy story given the bonus that’s coming my way.
I take the chair as Jean-Paul drags a hand through his thick mess of gray hair. His eyes twinkle with the naughtiness of a teenager.
I brace myself as he launches into the details of a weekend that revolve around a rope, a corset, and his fourth wife, which means I’m getting a whole new tale from the one he told Christian. “But enough about me,” Jean-Paul says, once he concludes by informing me that the rope burns on his wife’s wrists were completely visible when she served their neighbors Sunday night dinner. “How did you feel the job with the Wentsworth Group went?”
Thank hell for the segue. “Great. The client seemed happy. The marketing executives were quite satisfied. All went well, I’d say.” My recent gig was the most plum of plum assignments—one company for a few months, working with a key executive, handling all marketing material translations from French to English. Now, let’s show me the money, in the form of that absolutely delicious bonus for a job well done.
“All did go well. Funny, that’s how I felt about my first marriage, too,” Jean-Paul says, a faraway look filling his eyes. “She was the prettiest.” He sighs dreamily.
“Okay.”
“Absolutely the best of the bunch.”
“Right. Someone always comes out on top, eh?”
“Which brings me to the bonus,” he says, his voice turning heavy, leaden.
It doesn’t take a translator to know what that sound signifies. Hell, Google Translate could get that right.
“Yes, the bonus,” I say, rubbing my palms together, my pitch rising like I can rearrange fate with a chipper demeanor. But then, this wouldn’t be the first time I tried to wish away circumstances with a bloody fucking grin.
Didn’t have much luck then, either.
“The good news is we have so many more jobs.”
I can practically feel the bonus slipping through my fingers right this second.
“And the bad news is they’ll be a week late with the bonus?” I offer, always playing the optimist. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.
Jean-Paul rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “Griffin, it’s like I say about my first wife and me. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out between a couple, but they still love each other.”
“I don’t think that’s a saying about first wives.”
“What I’m saying is the client loved you, but it turns out, no fault of yours, that the marketing campaign was total crap. And the company doesn’t have the money to pay the bonus since the campaign was canceled.”
My shoulders sag. “They can’t pay the bonus?”
Screw optimism. Just screw it, like a bike frame without a seat screws the sitter.
“It seems it is not on the map.”
I fall into English. “I really wish you were taking the piss right now.”
He blinks. “I’m not urinating.”
“Sorry. I meant I wish you were pulling my leg,” I say, using the phrase he’d be more fa
miliar with since he learned English in American schools.
“Ah, I only wish I were pulling your leg. Yanking your chains. Taking your pisses.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s just taking the piss. Not mine. I assure you.”
He flashes a smile, and it’s probably the grin he used on his first, second, and third wives, because it almost tricks me into thinking everything’s going to be fine. “Language is a funny thing, isn’t it?” he says, chuckling as if this is the most delightful conversation in all the land. “In any case, Wentsworth said you were stellar. Most marvelous translator they’ve had. But you know how it goes. C’est la vie.”
“Win some, lose some,” I add.
He snaps his fingers. “Your idioms are spot on, Griffin. That’s why you’ll always be in demand. As I’ve said, you and Annalise are some of the best when it comes to nuance.”
“Yes,” I agree, since my pregnant colleague is quite sharp, too. But a lot of good that grasp on idioms is now that the money is sailing away in the spring breeze.
Along with the dream it was earmarked for. I planned to use that bonus to line the pockets of an airline, pay a registration fee, and run twenty-six miles, then spend some time exploring Indonesia, the first place I ever marked on a map with a thumbtack.
It was meant to serve a certain someone’s wishes.
“But don’t fret,” says the man who was supposed to become my former boss today but is now still my current boss. “We have new assignments coming in all the time. You’re one of my top translators for all those crazy Americans who realize French is just a teeny bit harder than they thought.”
I should laugh. Really, I should. Because that’s the truest thing he’s ever uttered.
And yet, I can’t hear him over the sound of my dream trip circling the toilet.
3
Joy
* * *
In Texas, everything is big. For the last three years, I lived in a sprawling-ass house. I believe that is actually the official definition. When I spotted it on Zillow, the listing said something like that—big-ass home for sale.
Fine, I kid.
But it was three bedrooms and a truckload of square feet. The yard played hostess to many a barbecue—yes, my yard was female—and the two-car garage could have held a pair of fat trucks. Most of the time, it housed my Prius.
The square footage tipped close to two thousand, and the cost for all that space was way more than manageable. Such is real estate life in the outskirts of Austin.
The human resources director at L’Artisan Cosmetique, the newly acquired French division of the cosmetics giant I work for, warned me of the size disparity between Texas homes and Parisian ones.
“I must make you aware that the flats we are sending over for your consideration are not terribly large,” Marisol, the human resources director, wrote tactfully in her email to me a few weeks ago. “I hope we do not disappoint you.”
I promptly assured her there was no way I would ever be disappointed, even with a cupboard-size flat in Paris. She could house me in a windowless studio, in a room missing a kitchen, in a closet even. Whatever size she found, it would possess the most important feature an abode could claim—just me.
After living in too close quarters for far too long, I didn’t need space so much as I needed not another person.
All that square footage hardly mattered when I shared it with someone who Svengali’d everyone around him. I learned what’s truly valuable in real estate is how many people you let have a key.
I button my blouse while gazing out the window of my hotel room overlooking Notre Dame, enjoying the view.
Enjoying, too, that I’m the only person who has a key to this room.
As I slide the last button in, my phone buzzes from my back pocket. There’s a note from Stephen, the apartment manager at Paris Perfect Places, confirming that tomorrow morning he’ll give me the key to my furnished rental flat, 2B in a cute little building in the 5th arrondissement.
By “little” I mean less than four hundred square feet, which in French real estate is evidently considered a “luminous” thirty-eight square meters. That’s precisely how the flat was advertised.
Except . . . something seems off as I reread the message. The address for the flat looks odd. I was pretty sure I rented something on the third floor, not the second.
I tap out a reply. You mean 3B?
Stephen’s response is swift. Yes, 2B!
Okay, something is clearly lost in translation, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sort it out right now. I fire off a typical I can’t wait response, translating it into French, but then I stop myself. What if “I can’t wait” in French turns out to mean “I want to rub my lady parts against you?”
Instead, I cycle back to what my seatmate on the plane taught me, and I use one of her replies then hit send.
My stomach growls. It’s nearly nine, but my jet lag woke me up at five, so my stomach is basically saying I hate you, bitch, feed me now. My appointment with Marisol and the translator isn’t for another hour, but since I’m wide awake, I decide to take off for a stroll toward Notre Dame. Because I can, and because no one’s here to stop me.
Stepping away from the window, I toss a light green scarf around my neck, wrapping it jauntily and pressing it to my nose. The smell of silk and cedar drifts into my nostrils. As I let the fabric fall, I catch the faint whiff of honeysuckle, too. That’s my favorite scent in my favorite perfume that I can finally wear again. It transports me instantly to a hammock under the sun and to long summer days as a teenager when I started to daydream of boys. I spritzed some on this morning when I dressed, since I brought my budding collection of little perfumes with me on the plane in my carry-on. All less than three ounces, of course.
I grab my shades and leave the hotel room, saying bonjour to a maid on my floor, the concierge in the lobby, and the doorman by the exit. I’m like Belle in the opening sequence of Beauty and the Beast. Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour.
This city will be everything I imagined. It will be more than wonderful. Paris is my great escape, and it begins today.
The doorman holds open the door, and I step outside. Cue the music video. Paris, here I come. Just try to wipe the grin from my face. It’s impossible because everything around me is so very French.
Like the looming sky-blue wooden door of the building next to the hotel. A knocker that looks like a cherub holds center court. What a funny little decoration for what appears to be an office building, and the very architecture suggests that the structure is a few centuries older than my home state.
I chuckle as I rub the bronze cherub’s hair, then I snap a cell phone shot. I send the picture to my sister, Allison.
On the other side of the hotel is a café. My heart skips a little faster because it’s everything the photos promised me. Small chairs with round wicker seats and tall, black backs spill onto the sidewalk. There’s barely an inch of room between each little circular red table, but no one cares. Parisians sip their coffees from teeny cups while reading the newspaper, or brooding, or talking to a companion. Men wear scarves around their necks and trim pants with fine leather shoes. The women dress in heels and . . . black. So much black. Skirts, jeans, sweaters, pants. The melody of voices that falls on my ears aren’t speaking big, bold, brash English. The foreign words are music; they’re the soundtrack to my new life.
I walk to the end of the block, staring at everything with hungry eyes. I devour the sights, the delicate iron latticework on the balconies, the green and blue street signs displaying words like rue and boulevard, the curling calligraphy on shop fronts, from the boulangerie to the boutique to the patisserie. Even a pharmacy across the streets looks fancy, with a sign in emerald-green glass. The streets curve and angle, and I try to inhale Paris all at once, as if I can capture the magic of it in one big blink of the eye. Just to be safe, though, so I don’t forget it, I take a few more pics, sending those to my sister as well.
I stop in the middl
e of the sidewalk, mouth agape, when the River Seine comes into view.
I gasp.
I’m here. I’m really and truly here. And that winding ribbon of water is proof that I’m not in Texas anymore. I’m so far away from where I used to be, and I want to drink it all in, eat it all up, savor it.
“Oomph.” I stumble, my feet wobbly on the pavement.
A French woman mutters something at me under her breath since, oh yeah, I just whacked her arm due to my complete lack of attention.
“Sorry,” I say.
She lifts her chin and huffs.
“Well, excusez-moi.” Two can play at that game. But she’s clear across the street by now, so I smooth my hands over my blouse and keep on keeping on.
If that’s my only faux pas today, I’ll take it.
I stride to the corner and wait at the light, marveling at the familiar silhouette the famous church cuts against the sky. The sight tugs my mind back to the plans I made for a trip here more than a year ago. The flights were booked, the hotel secured. I’d mapped out a fun itinerary, with time to play ultimate tourist and time to explore the city’s nooks and secrets. That was what I most wanted to do. Uncover the city. Peel back its familiar layers and find the unexpected underneath.
Notre Dame was part of the trip, naturally. I like the sight of stained-glass windows and the smell of stone and old books.
But the trip was canceled.
Like so many other things.
The memory of the arguments that ensued, the drama, the debates, and then, finally, the unraveling chores—calling airlines, unbooking hotels—smacks me like a slap in the face, and I wish I could erase them from my mind. Erase my ex.
That’s one of the reasons this new job was so easy to say yes to. I wasn’t running away from a love that went sour, but I won’t deny that the prospect of all those miles—glorious miles, an ocean, and a continent between us—lubed up the path to “yes” quite easily. I can still recall the Friday afternoon at the lab when the email from L’Artisan landed in my inbox. I’d just finished working on some new formulations for a hair spray fragrance, and I’d tugged off my goggles and peeked at my phone.
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