Capturing Paris (29 page)

Her friends accused her of working too hard. “Come on, Annie,” Lucy had said. She was a lively, redheaded senior who lived down the hall. “It's just a party. You need to get out more. You can't spend another weekend holed up in the library.”

“But over at the law school?” Annie was dubious. The undergraduate artsy crowd was a long way from those serious law students, several years older.

“Look, just come for an hour,” Lucy had said. “If you're miserable, you can leave. It's no big deal.”

It was a beautiful evening, a rare night in an otherwise rainy spring. The trees had the just green freshness of new leaves, the setting sun still warmed the air, and the streets were filled with students eager to have a good time. Annie walked to the party with a group from her dorm. As they got closer, she began to have second thoughts. What would she have in common with a bunch of young aspiring lawyers on the fast track to success?

The sounds of Bob Dylan poured from the open windows and grew louder, mixing with the roar of voices as Annie and her friends climbed the steps to the suite of rooms on the third floor where the party was. The first room was crowded and colored with the blue haze of smoke.

“Beer and May wine in the other room!” a voice called out.

Annie, caught in the throng of her group, was propelled forward and handed a plastic cup of pink liquid that smelled of sweet fruit juice and grain alcohol.

“This isn't May wine at all.”

Annie turned to see a tall young man in a pink shirt looking down at her. He lifted his glass and smiled.

“May wine is flavored with sweet woodruff, a shade-loving herb that blooms in the spring,” he said. “It's a German tradition to drink it on the first of May.”

He had to be well over six feet tall, with longish blond hair that fell across his face, regular features, and dimples that gave him a boyish handsomeness. “Another jackass prep” is how Luke would have described him. Maybe the prep-school types were what had sent Luke running to New York City in search of what he called “authenticity.” This fellow wore glasses, light tortoiseshell frames, that gave him an intelligent appearance. And, from the very beginning, he was kind.

“You'll have to forgive me. That's the kind of trivial bit of information I picked up while an undergraduate here.” He smiled at her. “I was a history major,” he said apologetically. He must have sensed her uneasiness. She was used to hanging out with poets and artists and wary of anyone aspiring to something as sensible and ordinary as law.

She wore a long flowing red skirt made in India, with tiny mirrored disks embroidered into the hem, and a sleeveless black T-shirt. That night she had pulled her hair into a braid that hung down her back, accentuating her large gold hoop earrings. She had them still, in a box in the back of her top dresser drawer.

He stood next to her drinking the “May wine,” and they proceeded with the typical preliminary topics: where she was from, what she was studying, what she thought of her professors. It was hard to hear over the alcohol-infused voices and the music that would grow louder as the evening progressed. After a few minutes of yelling back and forth, he asked her if she would like to take a walk.

In many ways he was exactly as she expected, a product of a tame, prosperous Connecticut family: private schools, hiking in the East, skiing in the West, tennis his favorite sport. But there was something
in the way he held his head and looked down at her with interest, the kinds of questions he asked, the knowing look in his blue eyes, and a genuine optimism that captivated her that first evening. Unlike cynical Luke, he looked at the world and his future with hope. He talked about places he wanted to travel, books he wanted to read, things he planned to accomplish. He was the sort of man whose hopes would come true. And his name was Wesley, Wesley Reed. She liked his name.

Much to Annie's surprise, he asked her out often that spring. He was interested in her work, and he told her she wrote beautifully about art. He talked more about history than his law studies. He was fascinated by the founders of the country and the first Americans who shaped the nation. He would rather sit for hours in the tiny ethnic restaurants in Cambridge than go to the big weekend parties at the law school.

That summer he came to see Annie in Paris when she had the grant for her thesis research. She was never sure who she fell in love with first: Paris or Wesley. It all happened at the same time. When she wasn't working on her thesis, she wrote poems, the first poems she was proud of, poems she shared with Wesley.

Annie pulled herself up off the sofa and went back to the table. She was living another life now. She thought back to the girl in the Indian skirt and dangling earrings talking to the young man in the pink shirt. Was there anything left of that girl? Had she changed so completely? She looked at the photograph once more and picked up her pen.

She met Paul at his office at five that afternoon. He seemed businesslike again and eager to begin work. She watched while he placed three different scenes of parks in a row, followed by two churches and the picture of the cemetery in Passy. He spread the rest of the photographs out across his desk and onto the floor. The poems, printed out on heavy white paper, were clipped to the back of each photograph. Only a few were missing.

Annie watched him work. He was a man comfortable in his body. She detected only a trace of the limp caused by the car accident. His spirit seemed to be healing as well. Annie knew that it had been almost
a year since Marie Laure's death. Time does make a difference, she thought, and now there was the promise of spring.

“What do you think?” he asked, stepping away and gesturing toward the pictures.

“It looks good,” she said. But, I was thinking …”

“Please, you must feel free to tell me.” He turned in her direction. “You wrote the poems. You must advise me.”

She thought a moment. “What if we arranged them by gradations of light? We could start with the early-morning shots and finish with evening scenes.”

He didn't answer immediately but bent down and moved the first outdoor scenes so that the one done earliest in the morning came first. He stood up and looked at her inquiringly.

Annie shook her head. “No, I mean the entire series. You see, this one of the children on the merry-go-round is a park scene, but the light is brighter, more the middle of the afternoon. The lady on the bench would stay first, but after her I would put the Maubert market picture.” She felt herself gaining confidence. “More like this.” She rearranged the images. “We don't know for sure what time of day each one was shot, but I think we can get a sense of it from the light and from the action in the picture.”

“Mais oui
. Yes, yes, I see.” He reached down and moved the picture of Notre-Dame toward the middle. “Like that?”

“Exactly. By arranging the photographs in order, spanning a day, it will make readers think they are living in Paris throughout the course of an entire day.” She moved Saint-Eustache toward the end of the row. The architectural elements appeared bathed in fog. “Though, it's not always easy to determine.” She frowned. “Some of the cloudlike ones could be any time of day.”

“But it is right. It is the right way to start.”

They both bent down and began to move the images around. The pictures covered almost the entire floor. Annie almost stepped on one, so she took off her shoes. He reminded her that they were only copies, but he took off his shoes as well. His feet, in dark socks, were much smaller than Wesley's.

It was a slow process. He would move a picture, then reconsider. Sometimes he asked her to read a poem aloud, followed by another. He wanted the words and the mood of each poem to flow into the next. They agreed often on the chronology, and when she raised an objection, he listened and considered her point of view.

When he picked up the photograph of the Eiffel Tower from the end of the sequence, he backed into Annie, sending her sprawling onto the rug. They both laughed and he pulled her to her feet. His hands felt warm and comfortable.

He pointed to the photograph. “You see, this is first light. It is morning, do you not think?” He was excited and found it hard to stop laughing. “So you see, your plan does work. If we begin here, we start with the symbol …”

“The icon of Paris.” She touched his arm. His sleeve felt smooth and crisp. “Yes, of course. It's the anchor of the book, the right place to begin.” She withdrew her hand. Placing the photographs into sequence made the book come alive.

“The last poem should be the place de Furstenberg. It is the finale, how do you say it, the climax?” He gave her his now-familiar Gallic shrug.

Annie looked again at the picture of the couple in their passionate embrace and murmured her appreciation. “It's the light, of course— moonlight. How did François ever achieve that? I mean, capturing the couple in that way, in that place.” She smiled at Paul. “It's pure magic.”

“And your poem will be magic as well.”

“Oh no.” She leaned back against the desk. “I hate to tell you, but I've had an awful time with that poem.” She shook her head, feeling inadequate again. “It's my very favorite photograph, and all my attempts so far have been terrible.”

“Please. I will not hear this.” He took one of her hands and then the other. His touch was gentle but firm.

Annie imagined some kind of energy flowing from him directly into her. She didn't want him to let go. His eyes met hers.

“Annie, I want to see your smile again,
ton beau sourire
.” He touched the corner of her mouth. “I know you can write this poem.”

Annie released his hands and stepped away, overwhelmed by his touch. It didn't feel like a familiar friendly gesture, like one of Georges's hugs. He wanted to see her smile, she thought. She needed to get hold of herself. This was her editor. They had work to do. She was responsible for finishing the final poem.

“Perhaps dinner,” he said. “Are you free? We mustn't work all of the time.”

“I wish I could,” she said. She looked at her watch. “I'm meeting some old friends tonight. I'm afraid I must go.” She smiled and looked around for her briefcase. She was having dinner at the Verniers'. She had accepted Céleste's invitation that morning and now regretted having to say no to Paul.

“Ah—too bad. Another time then?”

Annie nodded and he helped her with her coat.

“
Alors
, you two friends, I will leave you here to have your
tisane
. There's a great film, a detective one, on the
télé
, that I don't want to miss.” Georges bowed at Céleste and Annie in a mock solemn gesture. “I will let you have your girl talk, now.” He retreated to the tiny study off the kitchen where the Verniers kept the television.

They had finished dinner, a lovely chicken dish with mushrooms and cream, and Céleste carried the tray with the herbal tea into the
salon
. Annie followed her, carrying a small plate of cookies.

“These look delicious,” Annie said, “but I don't know if I can eat another thing.”

“You are looking too thin,” Céleste remarked. “Perhaps you are not eating enough with Wesley away.” She poured the pale tea into fine white china cups. The tea was chamomile, made from loose leaves that she bought in the open-air market. Céleste preferred fresh herbs and never bought simple tea bags from the grocery.

“I'm eating well enough, but you're right. I'm not as inspired cooking just for myself.” Annie reached for a cookie, hoping to placate Céleste.

“How much longer before you go to join Wesley?”

“I'm going to go visit Sophie in New York in a few weeks.”

“And Wesley? When are you going to go and find a new home?”

Annie knew Céleste would ask her this. She sipped her tea, wondering how to answer. She could feel her friend watching her, lines of concern across her face.

“Annie. I can see something is wrong. You can speak to me freely. Georges has his program. We won't see him for a while.”

“I'm not planning on seeing Wesley this trip.” She set her cup down and clasped her hands, bringing them to her lap. “Wesley and I are not very happy right now. I'm not making plans to join him in the States.”

“But, Annie,
non, non. Ce n'est pas possible
.”

“Sadly, it is possible. In fact, it's possible that our marriage may be over.”

Céleste put her cup down and joined Annie on the satin love seat, the same place where Daphne had sat next to Wesley during that long-ago November lunch when they met for the first time. “You love Wesley,” she said. “You and Wesley are like me and Georges. You are made to be together.”

“Not now, I'm afraid.”

“How has this happened?”

“Oh, goodness.” She sighed. How to explain the months and months of unhappiness? “I think it started when Wesley wanted to move to Washington. I wasn't sure if it was the best thing for us, for me anyway. I've been so happy here. I was afraid of leaving, but he was insistent. I just wanted more time here, until—” She might as well tell Céleste. Why should she protect Daphne? “Wesley and I had a terrible argument. Shortly after that, he had an affair with Daphne. I found them one night—”

“Oh,
mon amie
, I am so sorry.”

“Wesley was supposed to have been on the plane. You remember the big storm at the end of January? He went to God House because he was angry with me. They were together there.”

“Just that once?”

“I think only once, but why does that matter?” Annie brought her hands to her temples. Her head ached. Telling Céleste that her marriage was over made it horribly real. There was no going back.

“Annie, you must come to your senses.” Céleste almost scolded. “Look at me.”