The Little Bookshop On the Seine (30 page)

I laughed to cover my nerves. “I’m too whimsical. Too much of a day-dreamer, I see that now. Being here, I see that my lack of ambition is at odds with everyone else, and that’s what’s missing from my life. Some kind of goal, or direction.”

He shook his head, his hair catching under the street lights as we got to the front of Notre Dame. “Why do you have to compare yourself to anyone? If you’re content with your bookshop why should you change?”

“Because shouldn’t I want more?”

“Why? Wanting something you can’t have is a heartbreak of its own.”

Had Luiz lost someone he loved? His vice was thick with a type of ache, a loneliness. “I’ve always felt like the odd person out. Let’s face it, I’d choose a good book over a night out, nine times out of ten. Growing up, my friends were books for god’s sake. And I loved them all. Who chooses to live in a fictional world, even as an adult? Surely I can’t always hide between the covers, as life passes me by.” Even as I said it though I knew things had changed for me for the better.

“Sarah, what you describe, is paradise. How many people would swap lives with you in a heartbeat? To be able to snuggle in one of the coves of the bookshop, pull up a throw rug, and read as the light darkens when day turns to night. If you make enough to live on, why do you need more?’

Luiz wasn’t like most men. He was introspective and observant, he only spoke when he had something to say, not to fill a silence. “I suppose you’re right. Being here though, I wonder what else the world has to offer. I could easily jump on a plane to the next place…”

We came to the front of the Notre Dame, its facade spectacular under the somber sky. It had so much presence it was almost alive, its gothic style intricate and other worldly.

“You’ll know soon enough what you want, Sarah. If Ridge loves you, he’ll prove it. And you deserve a man who worships you.” Turning to me, Luiz caught my hands and stared into my eyes, “And
don’t
accept anything less.”

Ridge. Even just hearing his name was enough to set my heart racing. The thought of never being in his arms again almost made me dizzy with sadness. And I knew I would never love anyone the same as him.

The rain grew heavier, so we sought refuge in a café. In a quiet corner I sipped the black bitter coffees the French favored as rain lashed the windows, making them shudder.

“Ready?” Luiz asked, taking the last letter from his satchel.

“Ready,” I said bracing myself.

“
My love,

She’s pregnant. She told me last night, her face wild with a sort of joy I can’t recognize or feel myself. I never meant for this to happen. It was a way to warm the bed at night, to forget the ache in my heart. To ease my loneliness. Taking a lover, as we’ve both done, to find comfort where we can, until we’re together again. And now this. It’s as though my world has collapsed. I cannot be the man who walks away from his child, even though I would give anything to make you his mother instead. I must do the right thing, by her, by this child who’s due in the winter-time. I don’t know how I’ll live without your love. Your letters. Your laughter. But I must. My heart is broken. Be free, my love, and may you find someone who loves you even half as much as I do, which is almost too much to bear.

Pierre.

“What!” I yelled, drawing attention from café patrons. I gathered myself and said, “Well...wow.” The letter made me think of Ridge. He was faithful, wasn’t he? Or did he think finding comfort in the arms of a stranger was acceptable?

“Do you think it’s common for people with long distance relationships to fall into the arms of a willing partner?” I cringed at the betrayal of even asking in a roundabout sort of way again. Did people go about and do that kind of thing without any thought of the consequences?

“Some,” Luiz said. “Everyone’s different. For some it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a means to an end. From these letters we know they subsisted on only a couple of weeks a year together because his schedule was hectic. So I guess the other fifty weeks they were lonely, and accepted they’d both see other people, but it wouldn’t mar what they had. They were honest about it. It’s not like they hid it from each other.”

Was it because Luiz was French that he viewed love differently to me? How could you say you love someone, yet fall into bed with another person? That kind of reasoning made no sense to me. “I guess,” I said, trying to wrap my head around the notion. I didn’t begrudge them finding someone to ease the loneliness, but I could never do that. And surely what he’d done ruined their chance of true love that might have lasted a lifetime. “And that’s how the letters end. I never would have expected that. It’s too sad to even contemplate.” Despondency sat heavily in my heart. The mysterious couple didn’t find their happy ever after, and I wanted to sob for them.

***

Oceane held my arm as we walked rapidly. Snow dusted the bare trees on the Left Bank, and our breathing quickened as we picked up the pace to keep warm. “You’re never too old for Santa,” I admonished her.

My life was a hell of a lot brighter now that the whole issue with Beatrice was sorted out; the shop was a much happier place with a set roster, and sales targets that were achievable. Each dawn, I was up early, stealing time to languish in the quiet and read before my day started in earnest. There was space now to go Christmas crazy. I had been desperate to drag Oceane to see the man in red, pestering her for a week now. Finally, finally, she said yes!

She clucked her tongue. “Santa’s village is for
enfants
,” she said, though I could tell by her smile she wasn’t being truthful, and was just as excited as me to see the spectacle.

We arrived at Boulevard Saint-Germaine, sparkling fairy lights pulsing along each side of the street, brightening up the dark evening, and bringing the magic of Christmas to the fore.

Stalls were set up, selling everything from hot chocolate and crepes, to more robust French cuisine that made my mouth water. Roasted chestnuts enriched the air. There was a stage with a manger and we stopped to ogle it. French Christmas carols played from unseen speakers, and it was a moment of pure bliss. The French did do Christmas just as brazenly as Americans! On a small podium Santa sat proudly on an oversized red chair, listening to children as they delivered their wish-lists. I pushed Oceane into the queue, ignoring her cries of
non
,
non
,
non
.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport. I want a photo with Santa, and you’re going to tell him what you want for Christmas.”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “I’ll never live this down,” she groaned while I laughed.

Santa’s eyes lit up when Oceane perched on his lap. She sat stiffly, pretending to be mortified before speaking quickly to him, and it took me a full minute to untangle her words. Something about a man she loved, who didn’t know she existed… I couldn’t fathom any man not noticing Oceane. She was striking, and vivacious, and very hard to miss. When the photographer nodded to me, I sat on Santa’s other knee and grinned like a fool knowing this picture would be displayed on my mantelpiece back home, and I’d remember the scent of freshly baked crepes, the snow tickling my face, the laughter, and shiny faces of the people here.

Once our photo was printed we were each handed a candy cane, just like back home. I thanked them profusely before we moved on, coming to a stall selling gingerbread. I gasped when I saw some in the shape of an Eiffel Tower, and knew I had to buy one for each of the girls back home. It was too perfect a present to pass up. I just hoped they’d survive in the mail…

“You’re such a tourist,” Oceane said, but her tone was mellow, and she forgave me my foibles what with it being Christmas and all.

We giggled, fetching cups of warm vin rouge and sipping while we drank in the Christmas spectacle, all with the Eiffel Tower shining in the background. Could I really leave all of this? My beautiful new friends, my life on the Seine… It was becoming more than just a place I loved, it was almost becoming a home. There was just one thing I was missing…and my heart ached for him.

We wandered out of the market and into an avenue coming face to face with a Christmas carousel. Reindeers moved slowly up and down, making their way around in a never ending circle. “We have to go on there!” I said.

Oceane scoffed. “
Enfants
!”

It was true, there were only children clutching the wide-eyed reindeers, but still, that didn’t put me off.

I paid for two tickets and waved them at Oceane. “Don’t offend Rudolph,” I said, enjoying teasing her. She rolled her eyes, and tipped her vin rouge back. “Fine. Only for you,” she said with a shake of her head, laughter spilling out of her.

***

“Get the chairs from the attic,” Beatrice barked orders, her face shining with concentration. “Please,” she added with a sheepish grin.

TJ let out a theatrical sigh, but bounded upstairs as he was bid.

Oceane was busy serving customers. Charming them with her delightful French accent, and inviting them to the reading, which was only an hour away.

“I’m nervous for him,” I said to Beatrice, moving piles of books, so we could make room for more chairs.

“Don’t be. He’s going to be a crowd pleaser. That voice, and those mesmerizing eyes of his. We’re going to sell out of all his books.” Beatrice said. “It’ll have the whole of Paris talking. You watch tomorrow, it’ll be in the papers, and we’ll be overrun. Women will flock here if they know he writes upstairs, so we’d better keep that to ourselves.”

There’d been plenty of speculation about Luiz and why someone as visually appealing, who wrote so succinctly about love, was without it. I’d read countless articles online and even some fan sites – gossip was rife and sometimes laughable. But even though I knew him as a friend, I still didn’t know much about his deeper feelings. What was his past? From that one moment where I had asked him about whether his life had inspired his writing, we had avoided the subject, talking about love and life but never about his.

“Do you ever wonder if he was in love himself?” I asked, a little dreamily because of the happiness of a full bookshop of real buyers.

She nodded, untangling a microphone cord. “I heard he lost his wife in an accident.”

“What? Who’d you hear that from?” I said, shocked. It was too heartbreaking to imagine.

She shrugged. “One of the regulars here, an artist named Sally. She paints upstairs in the study sometimes.” Beatrice stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Says it was ten years ago, and they were newly married. And that’s why he can never write a happy ever after.”

My skin broke out in goosebumps. “Wow, that’s so sad, but it makes sense.”

“Gets worse,” Beatrice said, leaning in closer, not wanting to be caught talking about Luiz. “His wife was seeing another man behind his back…and that’s the reason she was driving so fast in bad weather, to get home, before he knew she was gone. But the snow had come early that year, and her car skidded off the road.”

No wonder Luiz couldn’t write about love ending well. That kind of tragedy would cast a pall of grief over anyone. “How did he know where she’d been?”

“There was a letter in her handbag. She was breaking up with him.” Beatrice looked as heartbroken as I felt.

“You got all of this information from Sally who paints upstairs?” I couldn’t imagine Luiz confiding all of this to someone.

Beatrice’s eyes were solemn, “Sally was his wife’s sister.”

“Oh my god.”

“I know. So he stopped writing for a few years, but really he’d just stopped getting them published. And each novel became that little bit grittier, darker, tangled love that can’t ever work.”

We both stood stock still for a while, the enormity of what she had just said breaking over us in waves. I was so surprised, but then, when I thought about it, it all made sense. Luiz had suffered a real devastating heartbreak. With a situation out of his control that had skewed the course of true love and left his vision of it cloudy with hurt.

I walked around in a sort of daze, sorting out books, organizing a few nibbles and pouring glasses of wine for those who wanted something to sip on during the reading. My mind was on Luiz. Before I knew it the time for the reading was upon us and the staff were running this way and that causing total commotion in their excitement for the first author reading at Once Upon a Time.

“Turn the carols off!”

“Lock the till!”

“We need more wine glasses!”

“Move!”

Nerves made us panic, before we eventually bumped into one another in our haste, and burst out laughing.

“OK,” I said. “Let’s just take a deep breath. If we look like jittery wrecks, it’ll make Luiz nervous. Paste on a smile, hand out glasses of wine – TJ, in ten minutes once everyone is settled you introduce him.”

“Go team,” Beatrice said, her eyes blazing like we were about to play sport rather than listen to a book reading.

I walked towards the front of the shop, stopping to help direct people to their seats, and then found Luiz.

“Ready?” I asked. He was relaxed, and smiling, sipping a glass of white wine. I studied him under my lashes. Had he really lost his wife like that? Luiz seemed so grounded, and honest, a good friend to me, and fair when I confided in him about Ridge. Had the love letters we’d found brought the memory of the one in her purse back for him?

“Ready,” he exclaimed holding his drink aloft. “Excited by it, actually.”

TJ walked over, pulling at the lapels of his crinkled suit. “Everyone’s seated, and they’ve spilled out into the other rooms, so I think we should start.”

Luiz nodded, and I gave him a quick hug. “Good luck! I better find somewhere to stand.”

TJ picked up the microphone, his eyes darted around the room, and he licked his lips nervously. “Welcome to Once Upon a Time,” his voice wobbled slightly. “We’re thrilled to have Luiz Delacroix here with us to kick off the first of the new author readings we’ll be hosting here. Today he is here to read the first chapter of a book he’s currently working on. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome Luiz.”