The Last Time I Saw Paris (15 page)

She had known he was a straightforward guy who lived a simple life. He'd thought that was what she
had wanted too, that they were alike. But she had stepped into that grand restaurant as though she belonged there, and he had suddenly seen a different woman. Was that the real Lara Lewis? Or was it the other, softer woman with the anxious eyes and the too-small red bathing suit, walking the lonely beach with her dog?

Was this just a romance? Was it just sex? A seduction? Paris? Right now, did it even matter? It was what it was.

Caressing her, he was aware that her soft, sensual body was not like Britt's or any other twenty-something he had known. Yet wasn't that also what he loved about her?

Yes,
he told himself as he grasped her to him. An overwhelming
yes.
Her arms were wrapped around his neck and her legs gripped him as though she never wanted to let go. Their bodies were hot for each other. Oh,
yes,
he thought, thrusting deeper into her.
“Yes, I love you, Lara,”
he cried out, unable to help himself as they came together in one great trembling, earth-shattering moment.

T
hey were up early the next morning, feeling very French, sipping a breakfast café au lait and eating buttery croissants in the little interior garden, inspecting their fellow guests, who greeted them with a polite
“Bonjour, m'sier, 'dame.”

Out on the street again, Lara laughed at Dan sniffing the air like an eager young horse savoring a spring meadow.

His face alight with pleasure, he asked her, “Don't you smell it?” And she closed her eyes and breathed in the sugary vanilla aroma from the patisserie down the street; the heady fragrance from the perfume store; the smell of fresh cotton from the baby shop over the way; and the garlicky fumes from the restaurant on the corner. There was the bittersweetness of good chocolate from the chocolatier, the musty odor from the antique store. And, over all, she thought, surely there was the heady scent of sex.

“This
is Paris,” Dan said, snatching her up in his arms and whirling her around, and Lara threw back her head, laughing at his craziness.

A spatter of applause came from behind. Blushing, she gazed into the laughing eyes of the smartly dressed middle-aged man and woman waiting politely to pass by on the narrow sidewalk.

“Bravo, mes amis,”
the man called as they stood aside.

But the woman's eyes linked knowingly with Lara's in a complicit exchange of glances: admiring, envying, approving.

Lara smiled as she watched her walk away. She knows, Lara thought. She had been there too. She has felt like this. And she suddenly felt as though she had just joined an exclusive women's club.

They took the metro to Les Halles, heading for Pompidou. The modernistic museum faced an enormous square filled with tourists and vendors of cheap tat, with buskers and street artists of all kinds. Hating it, they wandered through the nearby streets and alleys until they decided they were starving again. Lara said it must be the Paris air; Dan said it was love. And just then, they stumbled across a tiny bistro on the rue de l'Arbre Sec. It was called Chez le Vieille. “The Old Woman's Place.”

Actually there were two women, one in charge of the kitchen, one in charge of the dining room, and neither one of them was old.

The tiny storefront building dated from the sixteenth century and still had the original black-and-white tiled floor and cracked stone walls, each crack embellished with a sticker saying it had been “inspected” and “passed,” which Dan said he hoped meant that the walls weren't about to collapse. The kitchen was to the right, and on the left was a tiny dining room with only seven tables. Aromas of roasting lamb and chicken, of herbs and garlic drifted from the kitchen. It was a different world from the chic Michelin-starred Lucas Carton and it was exactly what they had hoped to find in Paris.

The charming motherly owner in a flowered dress and neatly curled hair told them that the tiny bistro had been there since 1958, and that when Adrienne,
the original
vieille
of the name, had retired she had waited a long time before choosing a worthy successor. Now she, Madame, took care of her guests in the dining room while the young woman chef upheld La Vieille Adrienne's reputation.

She took them under her wing, bringing them
coupes
of champagne to drink along with slivers of ham and slabs of foie gras and hunks of baguette, still hot from the oven.

Lara wondered what it was going to do her susceptible waistline, but then she thought rebelliously that she'd been eating celery stalks and carrot sticks for years and much good it had done her. This was not a time to think of diets. She was in Paris with a man who loved good food as much as she did.

Remembering last night's disaster, she thought, relieved, that all that was in the past.
Now
she knew what Dan liked. She smiled, reaching for his hand. Dan was not Bill. He was his own man. She had learned one of the rules of the new game.

Madame suggested they try a merlot rosé, Père Puig, Cuvée de la Nymphe. Perfect, she told them, for the warm day. And,
naturellement,
a bottle of Badoit.

An enormous earthenware terrine of homemade
pâté campagne
was placed on the table for them to help themselves, along with a huge platter of
tomates farcies,
oozing oil and herbs. Then fried
calamares
light as little feathers, and ratatouille bursting with juices, and herring filets in wine . . . and much, much more. It was good, earthy food, and exactly right, Lara and Dan agreed, for hungry lovers.

Next came the
ravioli d'hommard en bisque,
light and aromatic and stuffed with fresh lobster, in a winy tomato sauce. Then lamb so succulent it melted in their mouths, leaving a lingering flavor of rosemary,
and with it came
pommes roast.
More wine; a salad; a selection of cheeses; then a glossy caramelized
tarte tatin
plus a chocolate mousse as well as a deep bowl filled with fresh purple plums stewed in sweet wine, again all placed on their table for them to help themselves.

Blue cigar smoke curled to the ancient rafters amid a murmur of conversation, and Madame hurried back with tiny glasses of an aromatic
digestif,
the specialty of the house.

Lara gave a satisfied sigh. “It was worth it,” Dan said, laughing at her over cups of strong dark coffee. And Lara laughed too. Didn't they always say the way to a man's heart was through his stomach? Now she was beginning to believe it.

 

Paris seemed to wrap itself around them, it embraced them, kissed them on both cheeks. There might have been a sign,
Lovers Welcome in Paris,
in blazing lights, matching the star sparkle in their eyes.
Nothing,
they said to each other, could beat Paris for lovers. Today it was theirs.

They walked the tree-lined Champs Elyseés; window-shopped the elegant faubourg St. Honoré; visited the Galerie du Jeau de Paume to see the collection of Impressionists. Happy to behave like tourists, they lounged in cafes and wine bars and held hands and laughed a lot. It was, Lara thought, like being young again. Only the first time around, when she really was young, she didn't recall having this much fun.

She almost lost Dan to the Louvre, though.

They walked into the wonderful cobbled courtyard, through I. M. Pei's glass pyramid, and into the soaring
sculpture gallery. Dan was like a man who had found paradise. His hands itched to touch the marble pieces, to feel the subtle folds and curves, and he wondered how the artists had managed to carve so much emotion out of an inert piece of stone.

“A man can lose his dreams in here,” he said to Lara, who was looking at him looking at
Psyche réarmée par la baiser de l'amour,
a marble sculpture of a beautiful young girl, reclining exhausted, recovering “from Love's kiss”—presumably from Cupid, who, legend had it, visited her at night.

“ ‘Antonio Canova, Venice 1757—1822.'” Dan read the inscription plaque with a sigh. “No way could I ever have been as good as this.”

“But how do you know? You never tried.”

“Believe me, I know. Maybe it wasn't a bad thing I had to look after my brother and sister, after all. It let me off the hook from being a failed artist. Don't worry,” he added, reading the concern in her eyes. “I haven't lost my dreams. I've just found greatness, that's all.”

They went into the museum store and bought a postcard of the sculpture, and Dan said he would frame it so he would always remember this day.

Oh, but
will
you remember?
that unsure, treacherous little voice inside Lara asked.
Or will you forget, the way Bill did, too soon, too soon.
…

T
hat evening, content with each other, they strolled arm in arm along the banks of the Seine, leaning over the Pont Neuf to watch the Bateaux Mouches go by. The brightly lit boats looked festive, crowded with tourists eating dinner and staring at the passing sights.

A while later, they found themselves in the great church of Notre Dame, where they gazed, dazzled, at the vibrant rose window glowing in the sunset. The serenity, the soaring vaulted arches and echoing ancient stones, took them into another world of peace and contemplation. Tourists wandered about and people knelt, heads bowed. Lara lit candles as an offering, then knelt next to Dan.

Listen, Lord, she said directly to Him, I don't feel like a sinner, but if I am, then forgive me. I'm just snatching at happiness, and I'll take whatever I can get … please, help me find the truth about myself, about Bill. About Dan . . .

When they emerged it was dusk. Across the river, Lara caught a glimpse of the lights in the Tour d'Argent. She had forgotten the restaurant was there until she saw it again. An image of the young Bill sprang into her mind, gamely ordering the expensive champagne and the duck, and all at once her heart ached for the two young innocents they used to be. She felt sure now he had only wanted to impress her.
Oh, Bill, she thought sadly, whatever happened to us?

They wandered across the Pont de la Tournelle to the Isle St. Louis, the tiny island in the middle of the Seine, peeking into the courtyards of ancient stone mansions along the quai d'Anjou, speculating on the celebrities and millionaires who must live in them; then they strolled the rue St. Louis-en-1'Isle, admiring the puppet shop and the cat store and the patisserie with its jewel-like pastries and rich pâtés. They waited in the long line at Berthillon for ice cream, then sauntered down the street licking their cones; Lara had fig and Dan a chocolate nougat and glazed-chestnut mix that he said was the best he had ever tasted.

Later, they sat at an outdoor table at Le Flore en ITsle, sipping white wine and watching the boats and the world go by. And finally, when darkness fell, they caught a cab back to the hotel to sleep the sleep of the truly exhausted. Lovers, wrapped in each other's arms.

It had been, Lara thought as she closed her eyes, the very best day of her life.

Not counting the days when your children were born,
that unsure little inner voice reminded her.

And so why, she asked herself guiltily, must there always be a qualifying clause to happiness? Why couldn't she just accept what she'd got and make the most of it?

 

The next day was to be their last in Paris and they were up early, wandering the streets like a pair of excited kids, still thrilled by how French everything looked, from the exquisite little cobblestoned Place du Furstemberg, with its charming, shuttered buildings
and graceful, slender paulownia trees, and its shop windows filled with glowing silks and velvets and brocades; to the street market on the rue de Buci, where they paused at a blue-awninged stall to sample fresh Charentais melon and tiny sugary apricots. They sniffed tangy cheeses and admired luscious hams and gasped at the fantastic iced displays of oysters, more varieties than they had ever known existed, as well as the sweetly pungent gray shrimp and a dozen kinds of fish, some huge and ferocious-looking with teeth and stiff whiskers, and other, tiny ones in sunset pinks and golds, but all glittering and clear-eyed with freshness.

A sweet aroma of baking pastry lured them across the street and they admired the window display of
tartes aux fruits,
so perfect they looked like photographs from Martha Stewart's magazine. They tried to choose between a wicked
chocolat daquoise
and a raspberry
mille feuille
oozing cream. Unable to resist they bought both, devouring them happily at a corner cafe, washed down with tiny cups of strong espresso.

Dan insisted on taking a photograph of Lara, stuffed and smiling and with no lipstick on. A waiter kindly offered to take a picture of both of them and Lara lay back in the curve of Dan's arm, “like a cat who's got the cream,” she said when she saw the picture later.

They walked in the Jardins du Luxembourg and lingered over the little boutiques, and Lara found pretty earrings, small gold hoops studded with tiny pearls, for the Girlfriends from a little shop, Biche de Berre on the rue de Rennes. Tired at last, they took a cab back to the hotel, where, good news, their luggage awaited them. It had indeed been left in Cincinnati, they were told.

It was five o'clock and Lara's feet ached. Tugging off her skirt, she lay down on the bed, yawning. Dan covered her with a blanket, kissed her, and said, “I'll be back soon.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out for a walk.”

She snuggled deeper under the blanket, her eyes already closed. “But we've walked all day long.”

He was laughing as he said, “Yeah, but this is Paris, there's no time to sleep.” And then the door closed.

Dimly, in the recesses of her mind, Lara heard Bill saying to her again,
Are you crazy, Lara? We're in France. There's no time to take it easy. . . .