Paris for Two Read online

  Contents

  Half Title

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  In seventh grade, it was Windel Watson. I was beside myself over him. I was swept away. He seemed to be everywhere. He was in the halls at school. He was in the air I breathed. He was even in the clouds in the sky when I looked up.

  “Doesn’t that cloud look like Windel Watson at the piano!” I would say to my only friend, Ginger.

  “No way. That cloud looks like someone playing the drums,” she would assure me.

  But unfortunately during that year, I bumbled the whole crush thing with Windel. It all turned into disaster and embarrassment and humiliation. I was only twelve years old and I was already hoping to spend the rest of my life on a desert island!

  Then near the end of seventh grade I found out my family was leaving town. Moving away for a year, which was a very good thing. Best cure for a terrible crush is a lengthy trip across the ocean. I was hopeful until I found out where we were going.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” I said. “Not Paris! Not France! Please not Paris! I mean, going anywhere would be better, to the North Pole, to South America, even to the moon!” Because I knew Windel Watson was also going to Paris.

  I was at school when I heard. I rushed to find Ginger. She’s a kid fortune-teller. Her mom is teaching her. We went into the cafeteria and sat at a table. Ginger got out her crystal ball and peered into it. “Oh! Petunia Beanly,” she said, “something wonderful is going to happen to you in Paris! I see three bouquets.”

  I looked up at the ceiling. My heart lifted.

  Then Ginger paused. “I think. I mean, maybe.” She blinked and smiled at me in a pale, quivering way. “Sorry, I guess I’m not sure. The crystal just went cloudy on me.”

  But it turned out Ginger seemed to have a quirky way with magic. Because there were three bouquets in Paris. And each one opened a door and brought with it a sparkle and a spell. And who was at the heart of it in the end? Well, that was the biggest surprise of all.

  I am standing in the hallway in our French building trying to figure out how to get the little cage elevator to come down from its perch and take me to the second floor, which is called the first floor in Paris. If you ask why, everything here will drive you crazy.

  I look up and watch the tiny elevator sitting in the shaft above me even as I push the button repeatedly. Nothing seems to coax it down. There is a Frenchwoman behind me talking to Monsieur Le Bon Bon, whom we met yesterday. He has a green-and-orange parrot perched on his arm. The woman is cooing and talking to the parrot. Then she gestures toward me, frowning, and says, “Les Américains.” Which I think means “the Americans.”

  “Hello, I mean, bonjour,” I say to them. It’s the only French word I know so I try to put a lot of feeling into it.

  “Bonjour,” says the woman and then she switches to English. “You are leaving soon, I hope? There has been a change of plans, perhaps?”

  “No,” I say. “My dad got a sabbatical and we’re here for a whole year.”

  “Ah,” she says, “a sabbatical. Let me guess. Is that a suitcase?”

  “No. No. Well, it does sound like a suitcase. Like, Here comes the bus, don’t forget your sabbatical! But actually, it’s a free year to go wherever you want. And Dad chose here,” I say and my shoulders slump. I can feel them drooping down.

  “I see,” says the woman. “Well, I am the concierge in this building. I keep track of what everyone does here. I mean, who comes and goes. And everything else.” She looks at me with her fiery lavender eyes.

  “Oh,” I say, backing up. I suddenly decide to skip the tiny elevator and I leap up the stairs, two or three at a time. All the while below me, I hear Albert the parrot chirping and the concierge cooing at him in French and Monsieur Le Bon Bon sighing with delight.

  I get to the large double doors to our apartment, throw them open, and march in with a French bread called a baguette over my shoulder, humming “America! America! God shed his grace on thee!” Because one good way to really appreciate your country is to leave it and go to an awful place called France.

  I march down the hall to the dining room, where Mom is brushing my older sister Ava’s long blond hair. Ava leans her head back and Mom says, “Oh, Ava, your hair has grown so much! It’s almost below your waist. It’s amazing.”

  “Mom, mine is getting pretty long too,” I say, standing in the shadow of the doorway. The windows to the balcony are open and I can hear the French traffic on the rue Michel-Ange whooshing by. Michel-Ange means “Michael the angel.” “Look, Mom! My braids go almost that far too.” I swish my head and my two dark braids fly out around me.

  Mom keeps brushing and brushing Ava’s hair without looking up. “Ava, you are surely Rapunzel with this heavy, lovely weight. So like me when I was young. Speaking of which, you-know-who called again this morning. I wish he would leave us alone, don’t you, Ava? The past is the past and I don’t want to be reminded. Don’t you agree?”

  Ava’s beautiful face twists up and she closes her eyes and clutches her hands, one into the other.

  “Mom,” I say again. “I think my hair has grown too.”

  Mom glances up at me. “That’s nice,” she says. Then she gives Ava a long hug. “Oh, Ava, don’t you agree? It’s so easy for him to just show up in Paris. He lives in London with his new family for goodness’ sake.”

  Ava bites her lower lip.

  “Mom, I bought a baguette for dinner,” I say, jumping up and down a little bit like I used to do when I was younger. “I noticed a lot of people on the street nibbling on the tops of their baguettes. Nobody can wait till they get home. Every French person I passed had a baguette with a chewed top.”

  Mom keeps on hugging Ava. And I lean toward the sideboard. I look up into the mirror there and see myself reflected in the shadows. I look like a small, stupid elf with my long brown braids.

  “Mom,” I say again. “Shall I put the baguette in the kitchen?”

  “Hot diggety dog!” Dad says, coming into the dining room wearing a little beret. It makes him look like a chubby American baby who is trying to look French. “We’re going out to eat at the best café in Paris this evening! Get your shoes on, girls!” Dad
is very excited to be in France. You should have seen him in the Tuileries Gardens yesterday. He was practically skipping.

  “Hot diggety dog?” Ava says, beaming at Dad with her sleepy green eyes. She is drowsy from being brushed and brushed, like a golden horse. “You have read that ancient book too many times, Dad.”

  “You mean my favorite book, Madame Bovary?” says Dad. “The very one I am here to study? They didn’t use phrases like ‘hot dog!’ in those days, Pumpkin.”

  “They might talk about French sausages, but not hot dogs, right, Dad?” I say.

  “That’s true, honey,” says Dad.

  “Oh, I mean, yeah, I knew that,” says Ava, looking down at her hands.

  “Angus,” says Mom. “You’re being critical of Ava.” She draws Ava closer to her, their heads leaning together.

  “No, no, sweetheart, not intended. Not at all,” says Dad, putting his cuddly arms around Mom and Ava both. Now they are just a pile of draping arms all entwined, Ava at the center. When I look at Ava, all wrapped in a Mom and Dad sandwich, she sticks her tongue out at me.

  For some unknown reason, I kind of feel like, I don’t know, like something in my throat hurts and wants out at the same time. Like I could write a whole book about being a younger sister. Page one: If an older sister sticks her tongue out at you, do not do the same. This gets you nowhere. Instead throw yourself down on the floor and pretend to be dead. Don’t move or answer anyone until the ambulance arrives.

  Hmm, I tried that when I was younger but it didn’t work.

  At the café Dad wants to sit at the outdoor tables. He walks around and chooses one that has the best view of the Eiffel Tower. Finally a waiter appears, putting his cell phone in his pocket. Dad looks disappointed for a moment. He wants everything to be old-fashioned. Then he nods at the waiter with great cheer and gives our orders to him in French, but the waiter quickly translates everything to English.

  “Just like Rick Steves says in his book. It’s part of the French experience! The waiters in this café are full of themselves,” says Dad, whispering to me and smiling with appreciation. Then he pats Rick Steves’ Paris, which is sitting on the table with us.

  Ava glares at me. Green fire.

  When the waiter brings our food, Ava cringes at the glass of pink grenadine and milk that Dad wanted us both to try.

  “Girls,” says Dad, “from now on we’re saying good-bye to the American hamburger.”

  “But there’s a McDonald’s next door and I can see a hamburger right now waving hello to me,” Ava says.

  “Come on, Ava, take a sip of the grenadine. Pet’ll try it. She’ll love it,” says Dad. “And I bet she’ll pick up the language here pretty fast too.”

  Ava looks down.

  “Angus, you didn’t even ask Ava about her plans to get a sewing machine,” says Mom, patting Ava on the arm and nodding at her. “It’s so resourceful, Angus, isn’t it?”

  “Wonderful, Pumpkin!” says Dad, kissing the top of Ava’s head.

  “Yes, right away I am going to be looking for a sewing machine, Dad,” says Ava. She gives me a quick snooty look and then she opens her little purse and puts on pink sparkly lipstick. I am only allowed lip balm.

  “Me too,” I say. “I made the dress I’m wearing a couple of days ago. All by hand. The fabric is watered silk. Do you like it, Dad?”

  “It’s adorable,” says Dad. “And the little collar! It just slays me.”

  “Watered silk? Please. Don’t encourage her, Dad. She wears these things to school and then she doesn’t have any friends and she wonders why,” says Ava.

  “I do too have friends. I have Ginger,” I say.

  And Ava starts laughing. It’s a trill, Ava’s laugh, melodic and charming. And it cuts through me like broken glass.

  Page twenty-three: In cafés don’t just sit there. Strike back! Use younger-sister annoying footwork. That is, go for the chair!

  I begin knocking my foot against Ava’s chair, all the while pretending to be nibbling on my croque monsieur (a French grilled cheese sandwich).

  “Quit it,” says Ava.

  “What?” I say.

  Dad’s getting smoochy with Mom. They’ve both had a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine and Ava tosses the waiter a semi-smile. He starts moving in a circle around the table, like something caught on a fishing line.

  But Ava looks away, studying my new watered silk dress with her terrible, beautiful frown. Her eyebrows are so blond you can’t actually tell if she’s frowning. And that makes me even more unsure. About everything.

  “It’s silk,” I say. “Silk is hard to sew. It’s slippery.”

  “Obviously it slipped away from you this time. That dress is ridiculous. Mom, don’t you think so?” says Ava. Green fire leaping, stirred by the wind. Moving fire.

  Mom has her head on Dad’s shoulder. It’s dark and warm out, with lantern lights hanging along the outdoor café. A bunch of French thugs on motorcycles just roared up and are leaving their bikes rumbling and they are clustering around, speaking French in a raucous, noisy way. They didn’t describe anything like this in Rick Steves’ guide, which is now in Dad’s pocket next to his heart.

  Dad leans back and takes in a deep, long breath. “Ah, Paris, such art, such history,” he says, almost singing.

  The motorcyclists at the curb are shouting “Imbécile! Crétin!” at one of their friends across the street. And a man gets out of his car and leaves it sitting in the middle of the road while he talks to someone at the café. The line of cars behind him waits patiently until finally they get fed up and a whole string of beeping French horns fill the air.

  Just before the waiter clears away the last of our dishes, Ava looks at my dress again and then she sweeps her arm up and points to the moon that is hanging above us, huge and yellow, as if someone propped it up there in a tree just to give everything this soft, foreign glow. But as Ava turns, her arm knocks over the glass of pink milk. It goes splashing across the table and rolls into my lap, all over my new blue dress. Ava looks back at me, and the lantern light shimmers across her storybook face.

  “Mom!” I scream. “Mom, it’s cold. Ava knocked over the grenadine. It’s cold, Mom.”

  “I did not,” says Ava. “I did not do anything. You did it!”

  “No, Ava, it was you!” I say, starting to cry.

  “Let’s not get tearful over this, girls. Accidents happen. It doesn’t matter who did it,” says Dad, squeezing my hand. Then he looks over at the Eiffel Tower, which is lit up against the dark sky and hovering above us, stunning us with its overwhelming presence. “Ah, look, girls,” he says, stretching his arms out, as if to swim off into the night. “How can you quibble over a spilled glass? This is Paris. Here we are. This is it!”

  “Mom,” I say, looking over at her. “Mom!”

  “Honey,” Mom says, dabbing at my skirt with a napkin, “I told you silk is not the best thing to use when you sew. Especially if you’re going to wear it every day. It’s just so impractical. You don’t listen to me about that.”

  The waiter hands me a wet towel and I scrub at my dress. He sloshes away the dishes and the spilled pink milk on the table, all the while beaming at Ava.

  Dad decides to splurge and we take a taxi home, back to the rue Michel-Ange. Michael the angel. I can just see him, wings outstretched, hair blowing, floating over the grand buildings in the sixteenth district. And the whole way home, being tossed about in the zigzagging cab, Dad and the driver are babbling on in French. Dad is clearly in heaven, saying “Mais bien sûr!” as we ride across bridges lit up with nighttime joy, as we bump over cobblestone streets and under arches, passing glowing boats on the river Seine.

  All the while, I am feeling that pushing, hurting feeling in my throat. I’ll soak the spots on the skirt when I get home. Accidents happen. But my blue watered silk dress might be ruined. I thought I loved it. Now I’m not sure. Maybe I should have chosen something other than silk. Mom doesn’t like silk. I watch Paris spin by in
lights, changing like those patterns in a kaleidoscope, green fire, watery silk blue, sparkly pink. And there among the sparkles, Windel Watson seems to flicker in and out, reminding me of my other mistakes. I press my head against the window, feeling like nobody’s ever going to love me or my dresses.

  Before I had a crush on Windel Watson, I was a normal younger sister, used to shadows, comfortable in the darkness. Alone. Like everybody else in my seventh grade, I just thought Windel was this moody boy child who seemed to live in some other world. We had all seen him show up for history class, too many papers and too many books in his arms. Unpopular, unorganized, unnoticed.

  And then one day Ginger’s mom was doing this New Age conference in the nearby shopping mall, reading palms and stuff. Ginger went along to hand out flyers in the booth. So I met up with her there and she took me into this large building across the plaza.

  It turned out to be a piano practice building with all these little rooms down a long hallway. Each room had a piano. You could peer through the little window and see someone practicing. You could hear piano music drifting in the air.

  In the last room we looked in and saw Windel Watson sitting at a piano. He was playing this beautiful piece of classical music. It sounded like rain blowing across a rolling green field. Seeing him there with the horn-rim glasses and the sad dark eyes, playing Chopin’s rainy, romantic nocturnes with so much feeling made my head spin.

  Dad says thousands of writers have used literally billions of words trying to describe “love” without success. But I could tell him it is easy to describe. That moment a little bird that had been sleeping for so long inside me turned over. It turned over and its cold, still feathers began to warm.

  Until then I had known so little about Windel, only the way he wandered into history class, often late. Now everything was different. Maybe his name was part of it. It wasn’t Wendel, the normal name; it was off by just a letter. It was Windel. It was his secret life. His never-before-seen confidence. His smoky, hidden moodiness. His obvious passion. And it was the music.

  When we get home from the café, the concierge is on the prowl. Her curly, short henna hair shines under the hall lamplight. “You have a nice evening? Très agréable? No wild French savage attack you on the street or bite you on the leg?”