Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! (21 page)

“Is this a fashion question?” I said, trying to take the attention off not knowing what Amy was getting at.

“No, it’s not a fashion question. Adam and Eve said
they were afraid so they hid.”

“Afraid of what?”

Amy’s dark eyes glowed with a warmth that showed up whenever she was very happy and about to get something she had wanted for a long time. “When you know the answer to that, Lisa-girl, you’ll have the missing piece you’ve been looking for. That’s when the truth will set you free.”

I looked at her over the top of my glasses, trying to make sure I read her expression correctly. “What’s with the riddles? What missing piece?”

“No riddle. You asked a good question. You asked why you hid from the truth for so long. If I tell you what I think the answer is, you may not remember it. If you seek the answer, it will come and stay with you.”

“That’s another riddle.”

“No, it’s not. You’re so close, Lisa. It will all come together for you. Just trust me.”

“Oh, I see,” I said with a tease in my voice. “This is your chance to finally get back at me for something.”

Amy laughed. “No, this is just God doing something new in you, and me trying not to get in the way.” Leaning over and sounding confidential she said, “So how am I doing?”

“You’re ticking me off,” I said with a grin.

“Good.” Amy’s grin was pure satisfaction. “I wouldn’t want today to be any different from any other day.”

T
he morning sky
was still a little weepy as we paid for our breakfast and headed for the Metro station and the underground train that would take us to the low hills north of Paris.

Amy and I knew from our abandoned attempt a few days earlier that Montmartre was the hot spot for the Bohemian movement in the 1800s. Starving artists such as Picasso, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec gathered there because rent was low. Vincent van Gogh lived here with his brother for two years. Jill had told us that, when van Gogh came here, he was transformed from a Dutch painter stuck with a pallet of blues and grays to an artist who felt free to go wild with colors and textures.

We also knew about how all manner of debauchery could still be found in the district where the Moulin Rouge
dance hall still stood. This was the birthplace of the cancan and the graveyard of a thousand shattered dreams.

I didn’t know what to expect when we exited the Metro. What we encountered were more steps than either of us had climbed so far on the trip. We climbed up and up out of the earth and yet once we were out of the Metro station, we still had dozens of steps to climb to reach Sacré Coeur, the “Sacred Heart” white stone church that stood like a beacon at the top of the hill.

“Beautiful,” Amy said, panting along with me as we gazed up at the Roman-Byzantine basilica. “Look how beautiful this is!”

“The tour book says that for five euros we can experience a claustrophobic climb up spiral stairs 260 feet to the top.” I paused to catch my breath and keep the page from flapping in the tour book. “It says we will be rewarded with a commanding panoramic view of Paris from the dome.”

Amy turned around. “I’m looking at a pretty commanding view of Paris from right here.”

“Me, too. How are you doing with all the stairs?”

“Much better than I’d be doing if we had to climb ladders to get here. And much, much better than I would have been if we had taken this trip a year ago before the aerobics classes.”

We stood in the fine drizzle coming from fast-moving clouds overhead and looked out over Paris. The view changed as the clouds broke open and made room
for the sun to spotlight certain districts.

“Let’s go find the artists,” Amy said.

We followed the map in our tour book and walked several blocks around the large church’s back side. Coming into an area that was swarming with tourists, we knew we were in the right place. A restaurant- and shop-lined square was alive with dozens of artists.

Despite the drippy weather, they stood easel to easel under canopies of plastic tarp or wide café umbrellas. Some were young with pleasant expressions and straight postures. Others were closer to the end of their life journeys, heads tilted one direction, clothing and hair expressing their individuality, a look of hazy disconnect in their eyes.

Available artists asked Amy and me in French and then German and then English if we would like our portraits painted. Politely declining each master who stood ready, we strolled around the court, making one big box with our steps. Each artist had a different look or technique. Most had finished works for sale that depicted familiar Parisian sites. Those works were propped up waiting for buyers.

Taking our time and listening to several conversations, we decided this was the place where feisty tourists came to haggle over the price of a painting. Eiffel Towers abounded. Every size, viewpoint, color, and texture of the familiar icon could be purchased at prices that were equally varied.

A small rectangular painting of the Eiffel Tower, no larger than a postcard, caught my eye. It was on a pegboard
under a blue tarp along with a dozen other small paintings. I loved the clouds the artist had captured and the definitive surety of the proud Eiffel Tower.

“How much for this one?” I asked the artist.

“Five euros,” he said.

Even though it seemed customary to barter, I thought it would be easier to pay the asking price. The truth was, I would have paid twice that. I handed him a five-euro bill and told him the picture was beautiful.

“Merci,” he said, his head dipped down.

I wondered if this middle-aged man had dreamed of greatness when he first followed in the footsteps of the artists whose work now hung a few kilometers away in the many Parisian museums. Did he feel he never had accomplished his life goals and now was relegated to this tourist spot, destined to express himself in simple yet masterful bits of art that sold for Metro fare?

My heart went out to him as we continued to admire his other works.

“That one is very nice.” Amy nodded at a larger painting of the Eiffel Tower with a background of pink blossoming trees and thin clouds in the deep sky.

I understood what she was feeling. Her love-hate affair with the Eiffel Tower had begun. She was sinking into a quiet place inside herself. I knew all the signs in her as well as I knew them in myself. What was it she had told me that morning? Once I knew why Eve covered herself with
fig leaves and hid, I would be free. It seemed Amy needed to solve some tandem riddle to be free as well. Maybe God was pursuing both of us.

Amy went all out and bought four of his eight Eiffel Tower pictures.

“These are really wonderful,” I told him. “Very beautiful. You paint clouds that are so peaceful.”

“Merci.” He nodded his head without smiling.

Amy said something to him in French, and he granted her the smile I’d been trying so hard to extract but had failed to acquire.

“What did you tell him?” I asked as we walked on and took our time viewing a collection of countryside paintings.

“I told him his work showed the depth of his pain.”

“And he liked that?”

“Apparently. I was thinking that if I stood outside under constant public scrutiny just for the opportunity to express on canvas what I felt inside, I would want someone to recognize that what I was doing cost me something. I sort of got the idea from something you said.”

“Something I said?”

“You said you thought of God as the artist, and we are His maverick subjects. I’ve been thinking about that. Considering His willingness to not stop expressing Himself out in the open, in front of a world full of critics, I think God’s work in us is beautiful. More than that, His work in us expresses the depth of His pain.”

“Where do you keep coming up with this stuff?”

She shrugged. “You’re the one with all the deep insights, like God being a master artist. I’m just taking what you’re saying and adding a few little thoughts.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with Amy’s insights. I knew we were in a corner of Paris that was just made for philosophizing.

Shops full of fun souvenirs also surrounded us. At the moment, the thought of shopping was more appealing than solving my problems, so I urged Amy into the first shop. From there, her shopping instincts took over.

The Rodin Museum was next on our “to see” list. We braved the trek back to the Metro station and found that downhill wasn’t nearly as grueling as the uphill had been.

Amy had the Metro stops figured out and led the way to the Rodin Museum. We agreed that the gardens were beautiful, but we were more interested in looking inside. The museum was in the house and studio where this nineteenth-century Michelangelo lived and worked. His statues all expressed a sense of motion. We gazed appreciatively at many of his emotive pieces but quickened our steps to find the statue of
The Thinker.

“Did you read this?” Amy said. “Twenty-nine authorized copies of this statue make it the most famous statue in the world.”

“I think I liked some of the statues at the Louvre more than this one.” Glancing at my watch I added, “It’s still
early. Would you mind if we went back to the Louvre? There’s so much we didn’t see yesterday.”

Amy was all for another round at the Louvre. This time we lasted only a few hours before she said, “What do you think about catching a taxi and going to the Fleur de Lis for afternoon tea?”

“Lovely idea.”

“I’m glad you think so because I’m on masterpiece overload. I’ve seen too much. I’m not appreciating any of it the way I want to.”

“A cup of tea would do us good. Have we had anything to eat today?”

“Just the coffee and pastry early this morning at the Champs-Elysées café.”

“Then I’m more than ready for afternoon tea.”

Off we went to the Fleur de Lis Hotel, where Grandmere had once gone and had to sit up straight and wear gloves.

We didn’t have gloves, of course. And we soon realized we were underdressed. But Amy was an expert at sterling posture, so I followed her lead. I adjusted my beret, smoothed back my hair, straightened my shoulders, and walked behind elegant Amy with my chin up.

The hostess showed us to a duo of plush royal blue chairs in a corner near the harp. A small marble-top table between us became the resting place for the china cups of imported tea and the plate of sweets. I left the ordering up
to Amy again, with complete confidence that she would have no problem knowing what both of us would enjoy.

My only request was that she order plenty because I was hungry. The server delivered two plates loaded with sweets. We had several kinds of cookies and half a dozen chocolate bonbons as well as a generous slice of some sort of decadent-looking cake. Small cubes of cheese dotted the plates of delicacies along with a large chocolate-dipped strawberry.

“That’s odd,” Amy said, her shoulders still where they were supposed to be for all women of refinement. “I thought I ordered something different. Something with little sandwiches. This is a whole lot of sugar!”

“Oh, well!” I popped a chocolate into my mouth.
“Bon appétit!”

“Don’t you mean bonbon appétit?” Amy asked.

I could tell we both were feeling pretty uppity.

“Wow!” I said softly as the inside of the bonbon burst open in my mouth. “This is really rich. The filling has a sharp fruity twang to it.”

Amy made a little face. “You can have mine then. I don’t care for chocolate-covered cherries, if that’s what they are.”

“I don’t know what they are, but the taste is fantastic.”

I took small, dainty bites of the scrumptious cake and followed with another bonbon. The harpist plucked an airy tune with her thin fingers. She seemed to know how to gather notes into a melody the way a florist gathers single flowers and turns them into a bouquet.

Amy nibbled on the cookies and sipped her tea. She abstained from her bonbons, so I helped her clear her plate. I had no trouble finding room in my empty stomach for her share and mine of the fruity, creamy chocolates. They were dark chocolate on the outside and inside each had a different flavored center that was syrupy thick yet with a density and tang I’d never tasted before in a chocolate candy.

I poured a second cup of tea and sat up straight, keeping my knees together. I felt as if we were still in third grade and playing a game of grown-up tea party. Glancing around the lounge, none of the other well-dressed diplomats and persons of influence seemed to be playing tea party. They were having tea for real. Two men across from us leaned in toward each other intent on serious discussions that, for all we knew, could have been of strategic importance to world peace.

An African woman entered in a breathtaking native outfit of bright yellow and green cotton fabric. She wore the matching material on her head in a beautiful headdress and walked as if she were a queen. The men in their tailored suits rose when she entered the tea lounge area and greeted her with a kiss on the back of her hand.

“I wonder if this is the sort of afternoon tea Grandmere had here,” I whispered to Amy while reaching for yet another bonbon. “Do you suppose people of influence were meeting here seventy years ago when Grandmere came?”