Seven Letters from Paris

by Samantha Vérant

  “At the cabarets. Like the Moulin Rouge.”

  “Exactement, but the Moulin Rouge is technically in an area called Pigalle. It’s just down those stairs. After we’re done here, we’ll take a tour, yes?”

  I nodded my head vigorously, the colorful poster of Toulouse Lautrec’s can-can girls coming to mind.

  Tracey tugged on the sleeve of my pink T-shirt. “Patrick wants to take me to visit the arrondissement he lives in, show me his family’s home, and then we’ll meet you back at Jean-Luc’s around six thirty.” She whispered excitedly, “I’m going to meet his mom.”

  His mom? Wait, what? And since when was going to Jean-Luc’s place part of the plan?

  Sneaky, sneaky. The guys were trying to get us alone—probably their plan all along. This, of course, led me to doubt Jean-Luc’s true intentions. It wasn’t the threat of going to his place that had my mind reeling; it was the threat of what could potentially happen there. I watched Tracey and Patrick as they left, hand in hand, until they disappeared from view, my heart racing.

  “Did you want to walk by the Moulin Rouge?” asked Jean-Luc. “After that, there’s a wonderful cemetery I’d like to show you. A lot of famous artists, writers, and poets are buried there.”

  I could only nod.

  We walked by what I thought was a pet store, due to the rabbits and geese displayed in cages. I stepped toward the cages to stroke a floppy-eared bunny. “Oh, they’re so cute.”

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to play with your food?”

  I whipped my body around to face Jean-Luc. “What?”

  “Lapin à la moutarde is a, um, une spécialité in Paris.”

  I’m sure you can imagine the horror on my face when I noticed the word “Boucherie” prominently displayed in red, painted in flourished letters on the shop’s window. Not a pet store. This was a butcher. “Rabbit with mustard sauce?”

  Jean-Luc grabbed my waist, pulled me in close. “It’s really quite good.”

  We kissed. A long, long French kiss. Rabbit? What rabbit?

  One very heated taxi ride filled with kisses later, hand in hand, we strolled by the Cimetière de Montmartre. Its ornate tombs, I would learn, were home to the souls of poets, musicians, artists, writers, scientists, dancers, and composers—a few of the names familiar to me. Offenbach, Foucault, Degas, Dumas. We didn’t walk into the cemetery but just took a quick peek into the entry, a glimpse at the towering stone mausoleums, and we were off, making our way back to Jean-Luc’s place. I stared up at his Haussmann-inspired apartment building, both dread and anticipation rocking my body.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, regarding the luxurious architecture and craftsmanship of days gone by.

  Jean-Luc laughed. “Well, the first five floors of apartments are very nice—very bourgeois. And it is a beautiful building, but…”

  “What floor do you live on?”

  “The sixth. I live in what’s called a chambre de bonne, or maid’s quarters.” He shrugged. “But unlike some of the other apartments on my floor, I do have my own toilet and shower.”

  So foreign was the concept, I could only parrot him. “Your own toilet and shower?”

  “After doing my tour in the military, this was the only place I found in Paris I could afford.”

  We stepped into the marble foyer.

  “Where’s the elevator?” I asked.

  “There isn’t one.”

  He took me by the hand, leading the way up the marble steps. After the taxi ride, I wanted to feel Jean-Luc’s lips on mine again. We barely made it up the steps to his place. Young, nubile bodies tugged at each other’s clothes, pushing each other against the wall. Frantic kisses. Sex was in the air. He opened up the door to his studio apartment, where the only piece of furniture was a mattress on the floor. Soon, we were sprawled out on the bed. Things were heating up, and quickly. The chemistry between us, between our bodies, was undeniably hot.

  “I can’t,” I said, pushing him away before things went too far—yet still wanting more.

  Jean-Luc rolled off me and onto his back, gasping out in frustration. “Mais, pourquoi?”

  “Why? Because I like you.”

  Seriously, only a woman would understand my reasoning. And I didn’t mean to sound so Mickey Mouse Club. Nobody, save for Tracey, would ever find out about this one-day stand. But I wasn’t stupid. If I had given myself to him then, I knew we’d never see each other again. A part of me wanted to believe that we would meet up somehow in the future.

  I lay on the mattress, breathless, debating my decision. Regardless of what my body was telling me to do, for once my head had made the right decision.

  “It isn’t my intention to push you into something you don’t want to do,” he said. “We can take our time. London isn’t so far from Paris.” He sat down next me, pulling me in close. “We have to see each other again. I don’t want to lose you, Sam. I’ve never met anybody like you before.”

  Wrapped up in his arms so perfectly, I exhaled a deep breath. In the hallway, Tracey’s laughter could be heard, loud and clear. She banged on the apartment door and yelled, “Samantha, we’ve got a train to catch!”

  I glanced at my watch. It was eight o’clock in the evening. We had less than one hour to get back to the youth hostel, grab our bags, and make it to Gare de Lyon. The guys were still trying to convince us to stay, but how? There was no time to figure out a solution. All we could do was go.

  • • •

  Patrick pulled his car into a cramped space, one wheel up on the curb. The parking gods may have been on our side, but we only had five, maybe ten minutes to make our train. We were two blocks away from the station. Jean-Luc and Patrick grabbed our bags, carrying them instead of rolling them, and we ran.

  Breathless, we made it to the platform with sixty seconds to spare. Jean-Luc and I shared one final kiss. “Stay in Paris, Samantha,” he begged. “We need more time. There’s so much I want to show you, do with you.”

  The only words my lips could form were the same ones I’d used just one hour before. “I really like you, but I can’t.”

  “We have to do everything we can to save this passion between us.” He gripped my arms and pulled me close. “I was serious when I said now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to lose you.”

  The train whistle blew. I stepped into the passenger car. “This isn’t a good-bye,” I said.

  The train lurched forward. I watched Jean-Luc until he became a tiny speck blowing air kisses in the distance. Tracey and I looked at one another and said the same thing: “Maybe we should have stayed.”

  But we didn’t. We stuck to the plan.

  As the train rolled along, insecurities chugged into my head. Jean-Luc was too perfect, too smart. He was seven years older, ready for a relationship. I was too young. The timing was wrong. Like a skilled surgeon, Jean-Luc had meticulously opened up my heart. If I didn’t want to get hurt, it was up to me to close it again. We hadn’t even reached our next destination, and my good-bye had already turned into the more permanent adieu.

  Our European journey continued. Tracey and I made it to the South of France, visiting the beaches of Nice, Monaco, and Cannes. Then it was on to Geneva, Florence, and Greece, where I had too many shots of ouzo and too many plates broken on my head (literally). But no matter how hard I’d tried to convince myself Jean-Luc was wrong for me, it didn’t work. I returned to my studies at Syracuse University to find six of Jean-Luc’s letters awaiting me. I tried writing him back, but my words came out wrong, sounded stupid, could never match the passion found in his.

  By the time the seventh letter arrived, guilt had rendered me numb. Instead of listening to my heart and writing Jean-Luc back, I tucked his letters into a blue plastic folder and got back to college life.

  I wouldn’t think about Jean-Luc again for many years.

  Now,
after a two-decade hiatus, I was actually going to see him again.

  Letter Four

  Paris, August 6, 1989

  My Lady,

  I am enjoyed one more time to write to you, to create this invisible link between you and I. All these letters are the hours we didn’t have to get to know one another. So since I can’t talk to you, I put my words down on this paper like a crazy writer straight from the Bukowski world. But I am not drunk, well, maybe a bit buzzed with the pictures of you in my head.

  When I am with a girl, my blood boils, and when I love this girl, all my blood is vaporized and I can climb at the curtain (French saying). It’s perhaps the picture of the expression “love gives you wings”—do I try to fly? I can write you for hours, to catch the time we didn’t share. I hope through these letters you would be able to draw a certain picture of me. A positive one.

  Samantha, someone in Paris misses you as darkness can miss the sunshine. Every star you see in the sky shows the sparkling of my eyes, created by your meeting. If you were Juliet, I would like to be your Romeo, but don’t forget to send me the ladder.

  Your Latin lover,

  Jean-Luc

  Le Coup de Foudre Strikes Again

  Despite the two glasses of red wine I’d drunk with the hopes of knocking myself out, sleep eluded me. Over the loudspeaker, the captain’s voice lilted with a French accent, reminding me I was on a plane, getting ready to spend ten days and nine nights with a man I had spent only twenty-four hours with, twenty long years ago. So many things could go wrong. Then again, so many things could go right.

  When I was twenty-four, a guy I was dating took me to Hawaii. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. He was kind of uptight, didn’t quite “get” my sense of humor, but I was like, why not? Maybe we’ll connect. Plus, it was cold in Chicago. So I went with him, expecting paradise and a little romance. What I got was my idea of hell—tropical rainstorms, a cat-sized rat lurking around on one of the rafters in our room, and a guy I couldn’t stand to spend more than two seconds with. Thanks to the hotel’s lending library, I must have read thirty or so crappy books over five torturous days. Finally, it was time for us to part ways. When he finally dropped me off at the airport, I bolted out of the rental car, never once looking back.

  I’d told Jean-Luc this story over the phone, and he’d laughed and urged me to pack books instead of clothes, just in case. I was beginning to wonder.

  I slouched down in my cramped window seat, flicking through the movies. My heart nearly stopped when I saw one of the choices: Je l’aimais, based on the novel by Anna Gavalda, which Jean-Luc had recommended I read. I laughed to myself, apparently out loud. The woman seated next to me shouldered closer to her husband. At that point, I didn’t really care if she thought I was crazy.

  Jean-Luc’s recommendation of Je l’aimais had been a small but mildly amusing disaster in our relationship. First, when I’d popped over to Amazon.com to read an excerpt, I’d read from the wrong book, that title being “Je voudrais que quelqu’un m’attende quelque part,” I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere, a collection of short stories. Even worse, I’d sent Jean-Luc some nonsensical email about how I loved Gavalda’s style, how I couldn’t wait to read what happened between the woman, a literary type, and the handsome stranger she randomly encountered on boulevard Saint-Germain, and how these types of encounters were called “meet-cutes” in the movie world. And then I screwed my head on straight.

  No, Je l’aimais wasn’t about a random encounter between two strangers. It was about how a man, Pierre, comforted his daughter-in-law, Chloe, shortly after his son left her and their two young daughters for another woman. On that night, Pierre shared something that had haunted him for over twenty years—his secret love for a woman named Mathilde. With much remorse, he confessed to Chloe how he had chosen the safer route, how he was a man who dared not. Now his life was filled with regret for casting aside the only woman he’d ever truly loved.

  As I watched the movie, tears dampened my eyes. I could have been Pierre. Je l’aimais could have been me. I was reminded of why I was on that plane. I was following my heart. I was a woman who dared.

  Adventuress or not, the moment the plane touched the ground, my nerves set on fire. I was there, in Paris. We were supposed to wait until we reached the gate to use portable electronic devices, but my French emergency phone found its way from my purse into my hand, and I turned it on. I was a rebel about to suffer a complete nervous breakdown, and I needed to speak with Jean-Luc to make sure he had made it to the airport okay.

  I could barely focus from the lack of sleep, the tiny buttons on the phone blurring. I dialed Jean-Luc’s number and it just rang and rang and rang, and then, for good measure, it rang one more time before going to voice mail. Clearly, I must have dialed wrong. But no, oh no, his sexy and sultry French accent teased me on the voice mail message.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s me. I’m here. I just landed. Um, call me back…okay?”

  Finally, the phone buzzed to life, vibrating in my hand. I stared at it with horror. Usually, I was quite tech savvy. Not today. The cramped coach seat closed in on me. What I wouldn’t have given for an oxygen mask. In a total freak-out moment, I couldn’t figure out which button to press, so I pushed them all, ultimately missing his call. Thankfully, Jean-Luc called again. That time I chose the right button.

  “Sam? Sam? Are you there?” Worry filled his tone.

  “Uh, uh, uh…”

  “Sorry, honey. I see I missed your call.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was parking the car.”

  “Mmph.”

  “Are you okay?”

  No, but I finally managed to get a coherent thought out. “You’re here at the airport.” It wasn’t a question but a breathless, almost accusatory statement.

  “Of course. Where else would I be?” He paused. “When you come out of customs, go left, not right.”

  “Me-a-ow.” Wait. Did I just meow? I meant to say okay. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “I’ll thee you apter cuthoms. To da laft.”

  “Are you, um, okay, Sam?”

  Although his voice was filled with genuine concern, I couldn’t help but think he probably wanted to bolt right out of there, probably worried he was about to meet up with the Elephant Man’s speech-impaired twin sister. Before I screamed, “I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a woman,” a thought relaxed me. His voice may have oozed with a quiet confidence, but he was probably a wreck too. He had to be just as nervous as I was.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just a little tired.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I’m waiting for you. To the left,” he said before the line went dead.

  The plane pulled into the gate. Ding. The seatbelt sign was turned off. Passengers stood up, but I didn’t move. Quickly, I ran through the contingency plan in my head. If I wasn’t attracted to Jean-Luc on a physical level, I was supposed to kiss him on both cheeks, to “faire la bise,” the typical European greeting. Of course, we had never discussed what I was supposed to do if I liked what I saw. Shake his hand? Kiss him on the mouth? Or was Jean-Luc supposed to lift me into his arms and twirl me around? Then again, what if he didn’t like the way I looked? Would he just leave me standing there? Would he turn and run?

  The August heat seeped into the cabin. My pants stuck to my thighs, my hair to the nape of my neck. I had to get to the bathroom stat—to change my clothes, brush my hair, my teeth. The couple next to me finally pushed forward. I was barely able to get out of my seat to stand—or rather, wobble—in the aisle. I attempted to grab my bag from the overhead bin. Before it fell onto my head, a man caught it. I mumbled out a thank-you. Impatient passengers pushed this blond zombie down the tight aisle.

  My ten-minute makeover would have to wait though; there was the matter of having to pass through airport security first—the pol
ice, not to be confused with customs. Even when they smiled, there was something ominous about their demeanor, something that said no matter who you were, no matter where you were, if you hadn’t committed a crime and been busted for it yet, there was still time. I stood rigid in line. The stale scent of body odor—not mine, I hoped—permeated my nostrils, making me feel just a tad bit queasy. A uniformed officer sitting behind a plexiglass kiosk called me forward.

  “Bonjour,” I said with what I thought was a smile.

  “Passport, please.” The guy lifted a brow. I handed over my passport and nervously watched him scrutinize every page. His dark eyes locked onto mine, forcing me to meet his gaze. I wanted to tell him the only thing dangerous about me was my breath, but I didn’t. Humor and la police just don’t mix.

  A woman wearing a magnificent headscarf with swirls of dark purples and browns was being grilled one kiosk over. An infant clung to her chest. The moment the guard stamped her passport, her head lifted higher. Everyone has a story. I wondered what hers was.

  I wondered where mine was going.

  “Madame?” My interrogator interrupted my thoughts. “And your business in Paris, Madame?”

  “I’m not here on business. I’m here for pleasure.” Pleasure.

  Satisfied with my response, the guard scanned my passport, stamped it, and handed it back with a frown. “Bienvenue en France. Bon séjour.”

  I raced to the ladies’ room. In a smart move, I’d brought a poly/lycra blend dress, not one wrinkle on it. It was a white midsleeve number with a navy baroque pattern and a couple of sparkles, cute and curve fitting. Sexy but not over the top, the hem rested about three inches above the top of my knee. Just enough leg. I scrambled out of my T-shirt and yoga pants, wiped my body off with a baby wipe, put on deodorant, and threw the clean frock on. I pulled my white wedge cork heels out of the bag and slipped them onto my feet. Sunglasses to hide my sleep-deprived eyes. There, I almost felt human again. For a moment, I debated if it would be possible to wash my hair in the sink.