Seven Letters from Paris (8 page)

Jean-Luc couldn't utter his response, he was laughing so hard. And it was infectious. Through my gasps and wheezes, I assured him, oh yes, just give me some time, because this will be the first of many faux pas I will surely make. Bodhi greeted me with one of his big kisses, his tongue sticking to my chin and slurping upward to my eye. “No, no, no,” I squealed. “If you heard the heavy breathing, that wasn't me. It was Bodhi, my parents' golden retriever. I dropped the phone off my bed.”

“You sleep with dogs?” He sounded shocked, maybe even disgusted.

The moment he said dogs, Bodhi jumped back onto the bed, taking his place with the others—Ike, Jack, and Gunnar. Yes, my bed was one giant fur ball of varying sizes and colors.

“No,” I explained. “I only sleep with Ike. The others all come up to my bed in the morning.” Or in the middle of the night. Or whenever they felt like it.

“Oh,” he answered with a sigh.

“Please don't tell me you don't like dogs.”

“Oh, I like dogs,” he began. “But…”

“But what?”

“Animals don't belong in your bed.”

Admittedly, my entire family spoiled their animals beyond explanation. Did I dare tell Jean-Luc I took the dogs out for hot dogs and beach days? No, I'd have to break Jean-Luc in one fur ball at a time. And that time wasn't now.

“How tall are you?” I asked.

“Changing the subject?”

Yes. “No, it's just that I don't remember. Tracey has all the pictures.”

“At least you had pictures.” It was his turn to laugh now. “I had nothing. No letters, no pictures. Nothing. You just left me standing on the train tracks, never to be heard from—”

“Hahaha. Should I break out the violins? Because that's the saddest story I've ever heard. And besides, I apologized.”

“Twenty years later.”

“Oh, you didn't even remember who I was.” We'd found a natural groove with teasing banter, but my question had been left unanswered. “I'd really like to know. How tall are you?”

“Around one point seventy-six meters.”

He'd given an American girl his height in meters? Meters? I didn't have time to Google the conversion. So I did what any woman who doesn't want to make a fool out of herself does; I went quiet.

“How tall are you?” he finally asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“I'm five foot five.”

He sucked in his breath. “
Oaouh, oaouh, oaouh
, I didn't remember you being so tall, almost the same height as me. You're like a model.”

“Not really,” I answered, wondering how short French models are. And wait a second. He was the same height as me? I thought I could get over this—intelligence and a sense of humor were more important—but it was really going to limit my shoe selection. “I suppose, when we meet, I shouldn't pack my three-inch heels—”

“Honey, of course you can. You'll walk in the street, and I'll walk on the curb.” He laughed, heartily this time. “Are there any other measurements you want to know?”

A blush prickled my cheeks. My face went hot. “No. There aren't any other measurements I want to know.” I rolled off the bed onto the floor, wheezing in hysterics. “Oh my god! I can't believe you just asked me that.”

• • •

Because of the way Jean-Luc and I had connected in the most serious of times and also the most humorous, my gut instinct told me to make the most of the time I had with my parents, especially my mom. Since she lost out on her youth taking care of little me, my mom was reliving her twenties again, earning her the well-deserved nickname of Party Anne-imal. Much to my dad's chagrin, she now had me to go out with, and Wednesday evening was karaoke night at one of Malibu's hot spots. So my mom invited some of her friends to meet up with us, and I invited Stacy. We got to Malibu's Wine Barrel early to grab a table and a bite to eat. I'd never been there before, and I had to admit, the place was nice. With dark wood walls, a nice bar, it was the kind of place you'd find in downtown Chicago, save for the fact it was located next to a Bank of America in a strip mall.

Over a tray of cheese and a sinfully delicious Pinot Noir, I'd soon find out my reputation had preceded me. Thanks to my mom, everybody in town knew about my story with my Frenchman, which also meant I was the center of attention, especially with all the newly single ladies. One of my mom's friends introduced me to a girl from New York named Rainbow, who was also going through a divorce. We bonded immediately.

A crazed Belgian, trying to show some Malibu flash, bought fifty bottles of champagne, sending them to every table in the place. He ran around the bar telling everybody he was the heir to a famed children's books author's fortune, that he owned all the licensing rights. Funny, I'd always thought this particular author was from England. After he tried flirting with all the women at our table, to no avail, he finally left our corner, and the conversation went immediately back to Jean-Luc.

“When you go to France, can you bring me one back?”

“What does he look like?”

“Does he have a brother?”

“Do you have any of his letters with you?”

Here I stood, in the midst of change with an exciting and very hopeful adventure in front of me. And I realized how lucky I was to be falling in love.

Perhaps it was because we are inundated with sexy girls with pouty lips in sexy poses—ads for pole-stripping classes, the Victoria's Secret catalogue, not to mention all those racy Facebook profiles. Perhaps it was because I wanted to turn up the heat in my already boiling relationship with Jean-Luc. Perhaps it was because I wanted to feel sexy too. Perhaps it was because, little by little, fear was leaving my system. In any case, no matter what had inspired me, I decided to send Jean-Luc some provocative pictures of myself, something I'd never had the courage to do before.

My MacBook had a built-in camera. So I sat on my bed in varying poses and in varying states of not quite being undressed, my blouse hanging off my shoulder, a little lace of my bra showing, taking one picture after the other. When I was finished, out of hundreds of photos, I deleted all but three. And there was no way in hell I was sending them to Jean-Luc. At least not the way they were. I opened up Photoshop and reduced each photo to the size of my index fingernail and put them in one file, a triptych of sorts. Happy with my creative endeavor, I attached the photo and sent it off. The phone rang a couple of minutes later.

“Sam, the photo you sent was so little, now the screen of my computer is like a contact lens. Someone from my work walked in—”

“Oh my god. They didn't see anything?” My voice shook with panic. I finally garnered up the courage to do something like this, and now the entire world, or at least Jean-Luc's office, was probably laughing at me, the American girl who can't even get sending a provocative picture right.

“How could anybody see anything? The more I enlarged it, the worse the quality got, all pixilated into a bunch of fuzzy squares.”

“This whole seduction thing is foreign to me.”

“You can only imagine how badly I want to see you. You're beautiful, Sam.”

Commanded by his confident voice, my nerves settled down immediately. Maybe it was the French accent? Maybe it was the smooth, sexy inflections in his tone? Whatever it was about him, it worked, and he always knew the right things to say. He tipped my Libra scales right to the middle, in perfect balance.

“I've got some bad news.”

My heart raced. He'd been buttering me up. “What is it?”

“My car blew up.”

What? It blew up? Maybe his soon-to-be ex was behind it? Maybe she was after him? From what he'd told me, she was a little off kilter. “Someone bombed your car? Natasha?”

“Don't be ridiculous. It was an old car—a BM
DoubleV
. It just died. There was nothing that could be done.” I waited for him to yell, to complain. He didn't do anything but sigh. “Don't worry. This won't mess up our trip. I've already checked into booking a rental car.”

“Oh.”

Being pragmatic, or maybe paranoid, I wasn't about to fly over five thousand miles without some kind of a back-up emergency plan. So many things could happen. First of all, Jean-Luc would be driving over seven hours from Toulouse to pick me up at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. His car could “blow up.” Again. Plus, my worries didn't stop with mechanical issues or fatal accidents. What if we didn't recognize one another? Or, as the perfect revenge for my twenty-year silence, at the last minute he might change his mind, not even bother picking me up, leaving me in Paris all alone.

What if the pictures he sent me weren't even of him? What if I hadn't been corresponding with the real Jean-Luc? I had seen Liam Neeson's movie,
Taken
, where the Albanian Mafia kidnaps and drugs women, ultimately selling them off as sex slaves. The traffickers targeted their prey in Paris, at Charles de Gaulle, the airport I'd be flying into.

Yes, I knew my imagination was in overdrive, racing down the speedway of paranoia at three hundred miles per hour. I knew what Jean-Luc would say: don't be nervous. But saying and doing were two different things. I played out every scenario in my head, no matter how outlandish. Since my knight in shining armor wouldn't ride into the baggage claim on a horse, I needed to be cautious. Maybe a little more so than usual.

“Jean-Luc, I have a small favor to ask of you.”

“Anything, princess.”

“Do they have those cheap pay-as-you-go cell phones in France?”

“Yes, my daughter has one for emergencies.”

“Could you please buy me one and send it to me with a prepaid card?” I wondered if this was a rude request. “Of course, I'll pay you back. I'd just like a means to get in touch with you. You know, in case something happens.”

“What could possibly happen?”

With great patience, he listened to me explain all the reasons I felt the need for the phone. As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I realized how ridiculous I sounded. To cover up my tracks, I told him how my sister teased me about how he could be a human trafficker for the Albanian Mafia. The more I babbled, the deeper the hole I dug.

“Honey, honey, honey, I think it's a superb idea.” I was now convinced Jean-Luc knew the golden rule: a man always agrees with a woman, especially when he wants to stop a ludicrous rant. “I'll send you our spare phone tomorrow.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Honey, before I leave you, I do need your advice on one topic. Tell me your preference, where do you want to spend the last night? In Versailles or in Paris?”

Seeing as I'd never seen it in person, Versailles, the wealthy suburb of Paris famous for its decadent castle, was tempting. However, I thought it would be utterly romantic if Jean-Luc and I stayed in Paris, the place where we first met. Together, we could retrace our steps—eat at Dame Tartine, grab a glass of port at an outdoor café on the Champs-Élysées, and walk by his old apartment. Then again, we could create a new memory, an even better one.

“Surprise me,” I finally said. “It's completely up to you. I'm in your hands.”

“I can't wait,” he said.

Neither could I.

• • •

The next two weeks were a blur of dog tails and a haze of hot Malibu summer days. Two days before I was to leave for Paris, I invited Stacy over to take a dip in my parents' pool—an added bonus of living at home and a welcome relief from ninety-degree weather and the unrelenting canyon sun. So my new friend (and boss) was with me when Jean-Luc's package arrived. In addition to a green cell phone, dried lavender and roses tumbled out of the box, presumably from Jean-Luc's garden.

Her jaw dropped open. “Who does that? I mean, it's just so romantic.”

Must be the French touch.

“It is romantic, but this isn't.” I handed a second envelope over to Stacy.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Yep.”

She threw her arms around me. “Congratulations! You're a free woman!”

I gulped. Free or not, seeing my divorce decree in its finality was a bit disconcerting. This wasn't just some kind of weird fantasy; it was real. I was excited for the future, but I was petrified for it too. I was still a dog walker, Jean-Luc and I hadn't even reconnected face-to-face, and I was still living at home with my parents. The sweat from walking dogs was nothing compared to the sweat of fear of the unknown. It was time to jump in the pool, to try to calm down my nerves.

After a quick dip, Stacy took off and I walked back to the house, wondering if I knew what the hell I was doing. As if to answer me, another package wrapped up in brown paper rested on the front stoop. It too was addressed to me, from Tracey. Inside it was the photo album from our European adventure. Additionally, Tracey had sent her travel journal filled with schoolgirl ramblings and ooh-la-las, plus the letters and postcards Patrick had sent to her. For the moment, I set those aside. I needed to see the pictures, one in particular. And there it was: the photo of Jean-Luc and me standing on the steps of Sacré-Coeur, me with a wide crazy grin, wearing a hot pink T-shirt and jean shorts, him holding on to my arm, looking ever so handsome, wearing a white button-down shirt and black slacks, his beautiful bow-shaped lips pulled into a half smile. A new rush of memories slammed my brain upon seeing the photos, feelings long forgotten but stored somewhere inside.

I ran into the house, packages in hand. Instead of telling my mom about the divorce decree or my emergency phone sent along with dried lavender, I screamed, “Tracey finally sent the photo album! Jean-Luc is taller than me!”

I didn't get an answer. Apparently Mom was off teaching a yoga class at the VA. Which gave me plenty of time to scan all the photos into the computer, email Jean-Luc, call Tracey, and finish packing. Heaven forbid I forget anything. I must have been packing and unpacking, checking and rechecking, for at least three weeks. The night before I left for Charles de Gaulle, I stood out on the balcony off my bedroom, searching for one last push, one final sign that I was doing the right thing by flying to Paris. I didn't find anything inspiring, so I emailed Jean-Luc.

From: Samantha

To: Jean-Luc

Subject: A message…

It was a beautiful night so I decided to drive down to the beach and take a walk. I tried looking for the infamous space station, the one with the message written on it, but for the life of me I couldn't find it. As chance would have it, I had a glass bottle, a piece of paper, and a pen in my purse. So all alone under the stars, I wrote you a message. You'll just have to wait to see what I wrote, because yes, I put my letter in the bottle and I threw it into the Pacific. Maybe the next time you're at the beach, you'll find it.

Samantha

From: Jean-Luc

To: Samantha

Subject: re: A message…

Honey, I don't think your message will reach me. I could get scientific on you and tell you about trajectory patterns and the like, but I'm sure it would bore you. I'm sorry, but the bottle will not make it here. Or is my funny girl trying to get me back for the space station?

Big kisses—more today than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.

From: Samantha

To: Jean-Luc

Subject: re: A message…

I forgot to tell you—it's a magic bottle. To find it, all you have to do is follow your heart.

Jean-Luc had understood my odd brand of humor. I got my sign!

Before I knew it, my mother was driving me to the airport. “Are you excited?” she asked.

I stared straight ahead, hands clasped in my lap. “Stop asking me that. You're making me nervous.”

“Call me the second you land. I want to make sure you get in okay.”

“You just want to know what happens when we see each other.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No,” I said. She'd been living this love adventure vicariously through me since it had begun a few months ago. Of course she wanted to know what happened.

“So are you excited?”

“Please, you're really making me nervous.”

A pause.

“You must be excited.”

Two hours later, I was crammed into a window seat, right above the wing, my heart racing. What was going to happen when the plane landed? Sure, Jean-Luc and I had connected twenty years ago. And we'd connected over the phone and in hundreds of emails. But what if the man behind the screen and the phone wasn't the man I'd thought him to be? What if the physical attraction between us wasn't as strong as the emotional bond we'd established?

Over the loudspeaker, the safety instructions came, first in French, then in English—both languages incomprehensible, muffled murmurs pulsating in my ears like one of the adults in a Charlie Brown special. Dizziness set in. A drop of sweat trickled down my neck, pooling in the small of my back. The woman seated next to me whispered something to her husband, shifting her weight away from me. I averted my gaze and stared out the window, begging for a torrential downpour, lightning, anything. But it was just another beautiful day in sunny Southern California, not a cloud in sight. The plane lurched backward. Seriously, what was I thinking? Leaving the country with a heart filled with hope and a few measly dollars?

I had to get off this plane.

But how? I was bright enough to know that if I screamed “Bomb!” at the top of my lungs, some undercover air marshal would drag me to prison, kicking and screaming with a stun gun pointed at my neck.

Maybe I could feign a heart attack?

A stewardess dressed in a fitted blue suit caught my attention, graceful fingers pointing out the emergency exits, the bathrooms. She was perfectly coiffed, wearing the newest shade of red Chanel lipstick. Pretty. Taking the comfort route in yoga pants and a T-shirt, I wasn't exactly the epitome of style. And I was headed for the fashion capital of the world.

The woman seated next to me shot me a concerned look. “Afraid to fly, huh?”

Her voice was smooth, calm.

Mine, when it squeaked out, was not.

“No, I fly all the time.” I immediately read the confusion on her face and decided to share my dilemma. “You see, I'm about to meet up with this guy I haven't seen in a while—a long, long while. He's, uh, err, French. I met him in Paris.” Her mouth twisted. I thought it was my cue to carry on. “I met him twenty years ago. We're both divorced now. Well, not exactly. Mine just went through a few days ago. He's still working on his…”