by Hoang, Jamie
“Wow,” I said, looking at a page more akin to Craigslist (with a huge list of countries) than the cool location-based apps I had on my iPhone. “That sounds really awesome,” I added with forced enthusiasm.
“You don’t think it’s cool?” He knew me too well.
“I think the concept is amazing, but the layout and graphics need a little work?”
He laughed, “Yeah. They need a lot of work.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I asked, “How long before you release it?”
“A while. Ideally, what I’d like to have it do is use the GPS on your phone to track you as you move, but that’s tricky because right now not everyone who travels gets an international data plan.” He clicked on Beijing, and another smaller list of locations popped up in alphabetical order. They were all places we’d been and he had added videos. “But don’t you see how this could revolutionize traveling for people? You’d land anywhere in the world and instantly be able to spot the ten coolest things within 100 yards.”
“No, yeah. I mean, it’s a super-cool idea, and I don’t know anything about this so I will completely not be offended if you think my ideas are dumb, but can you afford a graphic artist? Actually, you’d need like ten of them, right? Google offers the most comprehensive map in the world and even they don’t cover everywhere right?”
“Yea, all of that stuff is expensive and not exactly in my ex-teacher budget,” he said, with faded enthusiasm.
“But don’t these other apps operate like companies?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to discourage him. “Couldn’t you apply for financial backing? I just think if you’re going to do this, you should go full throttle, get some graphic artists on board, and make it as intuitive as the other apps that are out there,” I said. Jeff nodded, looking down at the computer screen again and internalizing my suggestion. “Go big or go home, right?” I added.
“Right.” He moved back to his aisle seat as I stretched my legs out again and wedged my toes into their usual position under his legs. He didn’t say anything at first but then after a few moments, he looked down at my feet and said, “You know, you could just wrap a sweater around your feet.”
“Not the same,” I replied.
He opened his mouth to say something, but the intercom beeped and the pilot made an announcement.
“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome aboard United Airlines. I wanted to take this moment to welcome you all aboard flight 773 to Rome. Your flight attendants should be coming down the aisles with your complementary beverages, and in just a few minutes here we’re going to fly over the Pyramids of Egypt, so be on the lookout for that. On behalf of everyone here at United, we hope you enjoy your flight.”
Passengers around us started opening their window shades and craning their necks to see. I kept hearing “Can you see them?”, “Is that them?”, and “Have we passed it?” until the captain, like a magician perfectly timing his reveal, dipped us below the clouds and right over the Pyramids.
“Jeff, come see it,” I said, my eyes glued to the window.
He carefully lifted his tray so his computer wouldn’t slide off and scooted next to me again. My face was pressed so close that I could see my breath on the window, and at first the three pyramids didn’t seem all that impressive. But as we got closer, their massive sizes came into perspective. Just as the California coastline was prominently divided between land and sea, here it was desert and industry (and agriculture). The three enormous tombs were islands in a sea of sand that washed up against the city like waves on a beach. Beyond the ‘shore’, geometrically laid out blocks of housing and infrastructure displayed a gentrified culture. From above, the towns appeared static, like a photograph, until I noticed a tiny black speck moving along a paved road: a car. It was about as big as the period at the end of a sentence—the pyramids were enormous.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it? What man can do?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jeff replied as he leaned over behind me and looked out. I could feel his steady breath along the back of my neck.
Once they were out of our vantage point, we both leaned back. “Do you remember that Egyptian-themed party Mrs. Dawson threw for us in the sixth grade?” I asked.
“As a fifth grader, I was called upon to serve the sixth graders, so yeah I remember that party especially well. I thought her reveal of the camels on the menu at the end was the best,” he laughed.
“That’s right!” I remembered. “They were chocolate cookies in the shape of camels.”
“For that alone, she was my favorite elementary school teacher,” Jeff said.
“That’s interesting because that toga party was the first time I remember considering a career in art. I wore all this plastic jewelry, had my eyes painted dark black, and had on a white tank top with a tablecloth wrapped around my waist. And I remember looking at everyone and thinking, the only reason they even know what I’m supposed to look like is because of some ancient paintings someone found on a wall hundreds of years later. All of this is because of those paintings. It really kind of affected me,” I said.
“I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool, Aubs.”
“As far as we know, they were one of the first to use pictures to tell a story. And that story became part of a legacy they left, which provided us with historical context.”
“But your paintings look nothing like the hieroglyphics.”
“The influence is there, it’s just subtle.”
“That’s art lingo for ‘You’re too stupid to recognize my genius,’ isn’t it?”
“Something like that,” I grinned.
I grabbed my 7x9-inch piece of cotton that airlines liked to call a pillow and stuck it on Jeff’s shoulder to take a nap. I kept my eyes closed for ten minutes, hoping that sleep would carry me away, but it didn’t. Frustrated, I sat up.
Jeff, who had been looking at his passport, snapped it shut. “Have you traveled a lot?” I asked, realizing I didn’t know.
“Some.”
“Can I see it?”
He handed me his passport and I flipped through the pages. Mexico, Greece, Germany, and France came before the stamps we now shared from China, India, and Jordan. The stamps for Greece, Germany, and France were all made within a three-week span of each other.
“Did you backpack through Europe after college?”
“I did.”
“With Veronica?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your story with her?”
“What do you mean? Like how we met?”
“Yeah.”
“We met in college,” he replied.
“Could you be any more vague?”
He laughed. “She was friends with my next door neighbor my junior year and she’d always come over to use our apartment laundry because she said hers sucked.”
“You fell in love while folding your underwear together?” I smiled.
“It was a little more nuanced than that, but yes.”
“Why did you think she was the one?”
He shrugged, “We had been together for a long time and things were good. At least, I thought they were.”
“So why did you guys break it off?”
“From the moment we started planning the wedding things went downhill. We couldn’t decide on a date, we started fighting, stopped having sex, and then eventually she moved out.”
“What if she changes her mind?”
“She’s not going to change her mind,” he said, definitively.
“Her loss,” I smiled. “Do you remember telling me that after Freddy Ehrmann broke up with me in the tenth grade?” I asked.
Jeff smiled, “How could I forget Freddy the Magnificent?”
I let out a deep laugh. I had forgotten Freddy went on to become a magician. No joke—he was inaugurated into the society of magicians at the Magic Castle in Hollywood when I was a junior in college.
“You told me that if Freddy didn’t see how amazing I was, he didn’t deserve me. Not bad adv
ice for a sixteen-year-old,” I nudged.
“So what about you?” Jeff asked. “Any near misses?”
“No. I never got to that stage. Apparently, I am too independent,” I smiled.
The overhead speakers turned on and static noise filled the cabin before the pilot announced our descent into Rome.
Whispers turned into regular chatter and the other passengers began packing up their things in preparation for landing. Stretching, I pulled my feet out from under Jeff and slid them back into my strappy sandals.
“Is it bad that I just want to go straight to our hotel and take a super-long nap?” I asked.
“No, but there’s this gift shop on the other side of the airport that’s supposed to be world-renowned, and I really wanted to check it out first.”
“What’s this place called?” I asked.
“Trust me, you are not going to be disappointed.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you being so secretive?”
“I’m not. I know you’re tired—let’s just stop by. It’ll be quick.”
Once in the terminal, I followed Jeff back and forth between the airport stores and kiosks looking for this “amazing gift shop.” Forty minutes later, he stopped in front of Gate 63.
“You know what? You’re going to kill me, but I just realized it’s not in this airport.” He paused for a moment, looking distressed. “It’s in the one in Paris.” Just then, an announcement for the last boarding call to Paris came over the intercom. I looked at him confused.
“What?”
Still playing it cool, he said, “Yeah, stupid me, it’s this cute little boutique in Paris. You heard the lady, last call for boarding, wanna go?”
Maybe it was lack of sleep, but it took me a minute to realize that this mystery store was all part of a scheme to surprise me. I started jumping up and down.
“Yes! Yes! Absolutely yes!” I shrieked.
As we took our seats on the flight, my knees began bobbing excitedly. I had always wanted to visit Paris and I couldn’t believe that in two hours I would be in the most romantic city in the world.
“Listen,” Jeff started in an uncharacteristically serious tone, “I know I can’t take back missing your parents’ funeral, but I know how much Paris meant to them and to you. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry.”
“Is that why you booked this little detour? Because you were feeling guilty?” I felt genuinely touched that he had gone to such lengths to apologize.
“Sort of,” he said. “Back in China, I was thinking about your gallery opening and I remembered seeing that painting—”
“Midnight in Paris,” I cut in.
“Right, and I guess I thought coming here might help you get closure if you still needed it.”
“Thanks, Jeff,” I said, pulling him into an awkward sideways hug as he smiled sheepishly. When I realized how difficult it must have been for him to book a trip for me that would be a constant reminder of what he no longer had, I was even more humbled. And I think it was right then that I understood how much Veronica meant to him and why he would’ve done anything to try and salvage their relationship; including missing my parents’ funeral.
With only three weeks’ notice, the only hotel with a reasonable price was in Montmartre, just north of the city center near the red-light district of Paris. Jeff thought it might feel too seedy, but I reminded him that Venice was no Beverly Hills.
The location was nice and the concierge friendly, but good lord the place was small. When the elevator opened, Jeff and I stepped inside and it was at capacity. Forced to squeeze into one corner with our two carry-on-sized suitcases pressed up against the elevator door, Jeff’s face was pale and stoic for the entire thirty-second ride. The stairs, we later discovered, were no better. Designed to maximize space, the narrow stairwell was an enclosed spiral, which meant that only half the step was functional. In an attempt to ease his nerves, I pointed at a sign above his head that read, “Maximum occupancy 4” and told him I badly wanted to add the word “children” at the end. If he thought it was funny, he didn’t laugh—not that I blamed him.
When Jeff opened the door to our room, I gave him a sideways glance as we both stood in front of the single queen size bed in the middle of a petite room.
“Again? I know it’s been a while since you’ve gotten any, but seriously?” I quipped.
“Oh shut up, I’ll sleep on the floor if you want, but it was all they had.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s much room on the floor either,” I said. There was a two-foot perimeter around the bed for access and that was it.
Jeff also took note of this, smirked, and said, “Agreed. I guess we’re sharing.” He dropped our bags and plopped down on the bed. I followed suit, surprised at how aware I had become of his close proximity to me. Feeling oddly uncomfortable, I slid off the bed and went over to the window, which was low to the ground, and pushed it open to find a small platform. Taking a huge step up onto the ledge and then another small step out onto an iron balcony not much larger than a park bench, I leaned over the railing to look out.
Across from us were the backsides of brick industrial office buildings broken up by an occasional mom-and-pop shop or convenience store. Dim street lamps and neon signs lit the sidewalks.
I turned and faced Jeff, who was still on the bed. “I love the architecture of Paris. Where else would a large window open up to a balcony. It’s so... cozy.” Jeff nodded. “Everything is connected. Your window is your balcony...”
Peeling himself off the bed, Jeff joined me. “You call it efficient, I call it a death trap.”
I smiled at his joke and wondered if he felt it too—that special something in the air.
CHAPTER TEN
Midnight in Paris
OF all the bedtime stories my dad told me as a kid, Paris was the only one he retold with consistency. Repeated like the pages of a book permanently imprinted in his mind, the story always made my dad the most animated. I think he believed their love story to be greater than Romeo and Juliet’s.
Blasting the air conditioning to a cool sixty-five degrees, my dad would light up the gas fireplace and toss in a couple of cinnamon logs. The spicy aroma quickly filled the room as I nestled myself into his lap with a blanket and waited for him to hand me my hot chocolate. “For the young…” he’d say, handing me my cup, “and for the old,” he’d finish, taking the other for himself. “On a bright summer day in Houston, your mom and I cozied up on an airplane headed for Paris.” He held the album out in front of us as he read from nonexistent text. “This was our two-year anniversary and your mom had been talking about this trip since the day we graduated from college. Now, being the romantic that I was, I had lots of surprises in store for my pretty lady, and the first one was a single red rose for the airplane, which was carefully hidden in the inside pocket of my jacket. But as I reached for the flower, I was extremely disappointed to discover that most of the petals had fallen off! What happened? I wondered to myself, before remembering the scuffle I’d had with our paunchy suitcases and the overhead bin. Looking down the aisle behind us, sure enough, there was a scattering of red rose petals on the floor. I turned to Marie, my head hung low in shame with the sad-looking stem in my hand, and to my surprise she burst into joyous laughter. ‘Oh sweetie, that was so thoughtful.’” My dad mimicked my mom’s voice terribly, but he loved to do it anyway.
“And you know what she did?” he asked, rhetorically. “She hopped out of her seat, collected the petals, and suggested that we leave one everywhere we go as a memento of us being there.”
Pictures of my mom or dad holding a rose petal in various places accompanied the story. In one, my mom posed in front of the window on the flight from Houston to Paris. Another captured both of my parents in their small hotel room, a pile of petals left on the nightstand. My favorite was the photo of my mom sitting on the metro train with a map of Paris behind her head—a petal taped to the center. The silly ones like my dad bitin
g into a croissant outside of Le Croissant with the petal in the foreground always made me laugh.
“Your mom and I walked all around the city, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, then hopped on a train to see the Notre Dame Cathedral, and when day became night we made our way to the Eiffel Tower. We stood in a long line of tourists all wanting to get to the top, and when we finally reached the window, I went to pay and found that my wallet was not there! Quickly retracing my steps, the only plausible explanation was that I’d been pickpocketed on the metro. I turned my pockets inside out and some petals fell to the ground. Gosh darn it! I yelled to myself, embarrassed to have to ask Marie for money. ‘I didn’t bring a wallet, remember?’ she replied, reminding me that I had told her not to bring anything with her for the exact reason that I was wallet-less at the moment—thieves.”
“This is the good part,” I squealed.
He smiled before clearing his throat and getting serious again. “So there I was, standing at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, with the most beautiful woman in the world, and I couldn’t take her up. Your mom could read the disappointment on my face and said, ‘It’s okay honey, the view from down here is just as good. Plus, we can come back tomorrow!’ And when I still didn’t say anything—my anger festering and boiling inside—she pulled me out of the line and said, ‘Come, let’s dance.’ Reluctantly, I followed her over to where a street violinist was playing and even though I hated to dance, especially in public, I obliged.” My dad’s uncanny ability to make a romantic gesture seem incredibly macho was one of his many charming qualities.
After giving me a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, causing me to laugh, he continued. “So there we are dancing, with me stiff as ever and raging mad at a thief I know I’ll never find, when your mom looks up at me and says, ‘Ray, I’ve had the most wonderful time in Paris. Thank you, honey.’ Still stewing in my own thoughts, I only really heard the words ‘thank you’ and was flabbergasted. The whole time I’d been feeling like I ruined Paris for her and was kicking myself for it. The music stopped, I leaned down to kiss her, and the two of us went on to live happily ever after.”
