A Summer in Paris

by Cynthia Baxter

  He was a full-time student at the Sorbonne during the year, she learned, and this summer he was taking an extra class just for fun. His main interest was geology—an interest, he said, that most people simply could not understand. And that included his parents.

  As Kristy listened to Alain fill her in on his background, she was having some interesting thoughts of her own.

  This boy doesn’t know me, she was thinking. He doesn’t know anything at all about who I am. And so I could tell him anything ... and he would just believe me. After all, he would have absolutely no reason not to.

  It was then that Kristy decided that she was ready to try out a plan that had been smouldering in the back of her mind for a long time now—ever since she had first learned about the school trip to Paris, in fact. So what if she had never felt as if she were the person she really wanted to be? So what if her younger sister acted in television commercials and Broadway plays and her older sister was picked to be queen of just about everything?

  She was in Paris now, where no one knew her. And that meant she could be anyone she wanted— as long as she was willing to stretch the truth a bit.

  Alain sat back in his chair and looked at Kristy intently. “So here I have been talking about a minute a mile—”

  “You mean a mile a minute.”

  “Oh, yes. A mile a minute. And I have not given you the chance to say a single word. Tell me all about yourself, Kristy.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Kristy took a deep breath. Could she really do it? Even before she insisted to herself that she could, however, she heard a flood of words come out. It was almost as if someone else were saying them.

  “I come from one of the wealthiest families in New York,” she said loftily. “I don’t mean to brag, but my father is the president of a huge corporation. He’s very well known in America. He even had his picture on the cover of Time magazine.”

  “Time magazine!” Alain seemed impressed. “I have heard of that. There is even a European edition, you know. Perhaps I saw his picture ...?”

  “Uh, no. I mean, probably not. I, uh, think his picture was only on the cover of the American edition. Anyway, he’s very important. And very, very rich.”

  “I see. And your mother?”

  “My mother ... my mother used to be a famous movie star.”

  “Really? And what is her name? I love movies.”

  “Uh, her name is Carolyn Connor.”

  Alain frowned. “I do not think I know this name.”

  “She’s very famous,” Kristy insisted.

  “Well, perhaps that name is a little bit familiar.”

  Kristy held back the urge to giggle. It was working. Alain was actually buying her story. And now it was time to really let loose.... “But my mother isn’t the only actress in the family.” Kristy paused, her heart pounding wildly. “I’ve, uh, been in quite a few movies myself.”

  “You! Really?”

  She swallowed hard as she nodded.

  There. She had done it. In an instant, Kristy had been elevated from a very ordinary high school girl with a head full of dreams to a star. A star that was capable of outshining both her sisters, a star who could live up to every expectation her mother had ever had for her daughters ... a star who was someone who really, really mattered. And as reluctant as she was to admit it, she was loving every second.

  As she continued to construct her little story in her own mind, she noticed that a man had sat down at the next table. And from what she could tell, he seemed extremely interested in them. He looked like he was trying to listen in on their conversation. She decided she’d better talk a little bit more softly, just in case this man heard her talking about how important she was and started to bother her.

  “So you must have a wonderful life back in the United States,” Alain was saying, sounding envious. “It sounds as if you and your family have everything. Money, status, fame ...”

  “Yes, I guess we do. And I don’t want to show off or anything, but my life is pretty great. I mean, I’m always going to parties—parties full of celebrities and socialites, the kind of thing that gets written up in magazines and newspapers all the time.”

  “Really?” Alain asked breathlessly. He was obviously impressed.

  “Uh, yes. That’s right. Anyway, I don’t care all that much about my, uh, fans. My family is much more important to me. My parents just adore me, of course, and we spend so much time together. Traveling, going to the theater ... I have two sisters, you know. One is younger and one is older. But do you know what?”

  “No, what?”

  Kristy leaned forward and spoke quietly, as if she were confiding in Alain one of her deepest, darkest secrets. “I really think I’m my parents’ favorite. I’d never want my sisters to hear that, of course.”

  “They are here? Here in Paris?” Alain blinked.

  “Well, no, but ...” Kristy shrugged. “Anyway, I was glad to come to Europe for the summer to get out of the public eye. It gets annoying after a while, always having photographers and reporters following me wherever I go. Magazines are always calling me to ask me to model, movie producers constantly come by the house—uh, one of our houses, I mean, since we own two ... I mean, three—to ask me to star in their pictures.”

  She glanced over at the man, who was still staring. She wished he would just go away. But she decided he was just somebody nosy—perhaps someone who was mystified by the strange conversation that was half in French, half in English— and she tried to ignore him.

  “I’m really just a simple girl, when you come right down to it,” she told Alain, waving her hands in the air. “You know, I don’t care about all the fuss that everyone always makes over me. It’s just not important to me.”

  “Hmmmm. Yes, I can see that that might get to be a real ... what is the word? ‘Pull?’ “

  “What? Oh, I think you mean ‘drag.’ Yes, Alain, it can get to be a real drag.”

  Just then, the man came over to their table. But instead of speaking to her, as she had expected, he addressed Alain. He spoke in a low voice, so quickly that Kristy couldn’t make out what he was saying. She caught a few words and phrases, but nothing that would let her make any sense out of his animated conversation.

  Alain, meanwhile, simply shook his head.

  “No, no,” he said, turning away. “Not today.”

  The man finally went away, looking crestfallen.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing. That man just wanted some money. He was ... what is the word? Ah. A beggar.” ‘

  “Goodness! He was so well dressed!”

  Alain smiled. “This is Paris, remember?” He took a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slipped them on. Kristy glanced up at the sky in confusion. She hadn’t noticed that it was getting any brighter.

  Alain, noticing her puzzlement, commented, “I get these terrible headaches sometimes. My eyes are very sensitive.”

  “If you’re not feeling well, Alain, perhaps you should get some rest. I could accompany you home on the métro, if you like.”

  “Oh, no, no. That is all right. Thank you, but I ... I have some errands I must do.”

  Kristy smiled. “This was fun,” she said sincerely. “I really enjoyed having lunch with you today.”

  “Well, then, we must do it again soon. How about tomorrow?”

  With a laugh, she said, “I’d love that, Alain.” Shyly, she added, “I’ve really enjoyed talking with you.”

  Alain frowned. “Kristy, before we go any further, there is something I feel I must tell you.”

  “What, Alain?”

  “I...I am not like you. I am not from a wealthy family. My father, he runs a small store on the outskirts of Paris. My mother, she is happiest when she is just sitting by herself, daydreaming, lost in her own little world. We are just ordinary people, not like you at all.”

  “Oh, Alain!” Kristy cried. “I don’t care about that. I ... I like you just the way you are.” She
smiled at him flirtatiously. “So, lunch tomorrow, right?”

  “Lunch tomorrow.” Alain returned with a grin, looking relieved. “Kristy Connor, you are a date!”

  * * * *

  When Kristy returned to the LeBlancs’ house later that afternoon, she was overcome with a mixture of emotions. What a day it had been. First, her exciting courses, opening up a whole new world to her. Then, meeting Alain. She liked him very much, and she was already looking forward to seeing him again.

  But superimposed over her joy over all the good things that had happened to her that day, there was her uncertainty about what she had told Alain. All those stories about how famous she was. Then there were the things she had said about how important her parents were, how much they adored her, how she was so much in demand socially ... why, she had made it sound as if she were the hottest thing around.

  Part of her wanted to toss her head and say, For goodness sake, what Alain doesn’t know won’t hurt him. This is my chance to fly ... to be somebody important.

  But another part of her felt bad for having fibbed—especially to someone as nice, someone as trusting, as Alain. Now she would never really know if he liked her ... or if he liked who he thought she was.

  Her worrying about all that was put aside, however, as she was greeted by Madame LeBlanc, her host “mother.”

  “Ah, Kristy, there you are,” the woman greeted her in French, wearing a big, friendly smile. “Your classes were good?”

  “Very good. I’m already learning so much. Today I learned how to yell at a taxi driver who tried to cheat me on the change.”

  Madame LeBlanc laughed. “That will be very helpful during your stay here, I am sure! Kristy, a package came for you today. It is from the United States.”

  “A package? Oh, boy! It’s probably from my parents.”

  “I left it on your bed. Don’t be long, though. Dinner will be ready in less than half an hour.”

  “Merci, Madame LeBlanc.” Already Kristy was hurrying to her bedroom, anxious to see what her parents had sent her.

  Sure enough, there was a cube-shaped box sitting on her bed, wrapped in brown paper and string. And it was, indeed, from her parents. Kristy ripped open the box, trying to guess what it could possibly be.

  It turned out to be the last thing she would have expected.

  “A camera?” she cried, disappointed. “And it’s not even one of those automatic ones, the kind that’s so easy to use.”

  With a frown, she took it out of the box and examined it. It was, from the looks of it, an expensive camera, one that came with all kinds of attachments and lenses and a whole book of instructions. There was also a note inside the box.

  “Hope the pictures you take will help you remember your summer,” it said.

  “Boy, I’m surprised they even noticed I’m gone,” she mumbled. “But then again, maybe this is their way of saying they’re glad that I’m out of their hair.”

  Then she sighed. “What on earth am I going to do with such a fancy camera?” she wondered out loud.

  But having nothing else to do in the half hour before dinner, she sat down on the bed, the camera’s manual in her hands, determined to make some sense out of all the lenses and buttons and settings.

  * * * *

  No one would ever have guessed that the pretty, dark-haired girl hurrying down the street was secretly pretending she was someone else. As she made her way down one of the narrow back streets of Paris, she was, in her imagination, another young woman, one who was about the same age, one who was experiencing the same excitement over being in Paris.

  This is the day I’ve been waiting for for years, thought Nina. These are the same streets that my grandmother walked. This is exactly how she felt.

  For the moment, at least, she felt as if she knew her grandmother better than she ever had before.

  Nina reached into her pocket for the hundredth time that day. Yes, it was still there. The bundle she had brought with her across the ocean, the one that, up until just a few days ago, she had kept stashed away at the bottom of Anna Wentworth’s trunk. She wanted to make sure that the packet of letters, tied together in tattered pink ribbon, was safe.

  They were love letters, written to her grandmother fifty years earlier by a man named Marcel du Lac. But they were even more than that. They were also clues, clues to a mystery that for more than five decades had gone unsolved, at least for a young man who at one time had been very much in love with a beautiful woman shrouded in secrets.... And written on the front of each one of those letters in a careful, controlled handwriting was the same address: Number 7, rue des Fleurs.

  When she finally spotted the blue sign printed in white letters with the same street name—rue des Fleurs, street of flowers—Nina’s heart leaped. She had found it. She was finally here. She began walking more quickly, scanning the numbers on the buildings she passed.

  She was growing uneasy, however. Instead of the quaint houses she had expected to find, the small tumbledown cottages with flowers planted in front, the way she had been picturing all along, there were office buildings here. Modern office buildings.

  Nina frowned. Perhaps there was some mistake.

  But she remained optimistic as she eagerly sought out the number on each of the buildings she passed. Twenty-eight, twenty-one, fourteen ... and then she found herself standing in front of Number 7.

  “Oh, no!” she cried aloud. Her heart, instead of pounding wildly with excitement, suddenly felt as if it had dropped into her stomach.

  Number 7 rue des Fleurs, the address that should have been the charming home of an old man named Marcel du Lac, was a brand-new medical center.

  Nina just stood in front of it for what seemed a very long time. Could this be the end already? she was thinking. Was this really the conclusion to a mission she had planned for ages, something she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about ever since she had first heard of the possibility of coming to Paris this summer? An overwhelming wave of disappointment floated over her as she thought, Have I dreamed about this moment for so long, only to have my little exploration end before it has even begun?

  At the same time she realized that she had been more than a little foolish. Did you really expect that Marcel du Lac, the man in Grandmother’s letters, would still be sitting in the same house he was living in more than fifty years ago? she asked herself crossly. Did you think he would be standing in the doorway, waiting for Anna Wentworth’s granddaughter to come strolling around the bend?

  Nina thought about turning around and going back home. After all, that would have been the sensible thing to do. To forget all about this silly plan, to admit that she had been thinking like some romantic dreamer ... But somehow, the idea of admitting total defeat was simply too much to bear. Suddenly, acting entirely on impulse, Nina found herself heading into the building.

  Inside, the lobby of this spanking new clinic was clean and efficient. It was decorated entirely in black and white, giving the impression that this was a no-nonsense place.

  Nina went up to the stylishly dressed receptionist sitting just inside the clinic’s front door. “Pardonnez-moi,” she said in her almost perfect French. “Excuse me. I am looking for someone who lived at Number seven rue des Fleurs. A man. An older man.”

  “Is he a patient here?” The receptionist did not seem very interested.

  “No, no. Let me explain.” Nina took a deep breath. It was harder communicating in French than she had ever expected—at least when she was trying to talk about something that was so important to her. “A long time ago, a man named Marcel du Lac lived at this address, right here where this building is....”

  The receptionist stared at her blankly.

  “Here. See for yourself.” Nina reached into her skirt pocket and drew out a letter. “See? Monsieur Marcel du Lac, Nombre sept rue des Fleurs.”

  “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” the woman asked, shaking her head in confusion. “What is this?”

  “Many years ago, a m
an lived here. He ... oh, never mind.”

  Suddenly, Nina’s mission seemed impossible. Her treasure hunt for the past—for her grandmother’s past—had met up with a dead end.

  “Thank you. Merci,” she said lamely.

  As she turned away and started toward the door, she was overcome with disappointment. Her dream of finding Marcel du Lac, a dream she had held on to for so long, was suddenly gone.

  She had just pushed open the glass door to leave when she heard someone cry, “Mademoiselle, attendez! Miss, wait!”

  Even though she was certain that she had simply been hearing things, Nina glanced over her shoulder. Hurrying toward her was a tall, slender woman wearing a white lab coat over an attractive deep blue dress. There was a stethoscope around her neck. The woman’s dark eyes were bright, and her cheeks were flushed.

  “Oui?” Nina said. “Yes?”

  “Mademoiselle, I heard you asking about a man who used to live at this address.”

  “Yes ...” Nina’s heart was pounding.

  “Maybe I can help you. You see, I am a doctor on staff here. I was a member of the board of directors of this clinic when we bought the rights to this land.”

  Nina’s eyes widened. “Do you remember the houses that were here before ... and the people who lived in them?”

  “Yes. At least I think I do. It was seven years ago. I was on the committee that talked to the people who owned the houses here. We helped them find new places to live before their homes were replaced by this new building.” The woman’s expression softened as she added, “I know that seven years probably sounds like a very long time to you, but to me it is not such a long time.”

  Nina pulled out the letters. “Monsieur du Lac? Do you remember him?”

  The doctor frowned as she thought for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, her face lit up. “An older man? In his seventies? With very blue eyes, eyes as blue as the sea?”

  Nina laughed. “Yes, that sounds like it could be him. At least, according to these letters. Tell me, do you remember where he went?”