A Summer in Paris

by Cynthia Baxter

  “Is your parents’ house around here?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Yes, it is not too far.”

  “I see.” After hesitating for a few moments, Kristy added, “I guess I was expecting a more modest neighborhood.”

  Alain glanced over at her nervously. “I hope this does not bother you?”

  “Oh, no, no, not at all,” she was quick to assure him. “It’s just ... a bit of a surprise.”

  But her initial reaction to the neighborhood in which Alain and his family lived was nothing compared to her astonishment when Alain finally stopped walking and announced, “Well, Kristy, this is it. This is my house.”

  For a few seconds, she thought he was joking. But the serious expression on his face told her right away that that was not the case. The house before her was more of a mansion than anything else. It was a large, gray, three-story brick town house, much larger than any of the others she had seen, even in this elegant neighborhood. There was a circular driveway in front, and in it there were parked two of the most expensive sports cars Kristy had ever seen. Everywhere there were manicured shrubs and flowering plants in large pots, and an ornate black wrought-iron fence outlined what looked like quite a large plot of land.

  “Whoa!” Kristy breathed.

  “You don’t like it?” Alain asked anxiously.

  “No, it’s wonderful. It’s just ... bigger than what I thought.”

  “Come inside. I’m sure my parents are waiting for us.”

  Sure enough; Alain’s parents were sitting in the living room. The two of them made a well-dressed, dignified couple, who looked very much at home in their lush surroundings. Alain’s father wore a well-cut suit; his mother, meanwhile, was a beautiful woman in a beige silk dress. Their elegant clothing perfectly complemented the fine furnishings of their home: thick oriental carpets, antique furniture, huge oil paintings, a grand piano.

  “You must be Kristy!” Alain’s mother cried, coming toward the young couple as they walked in the front door. Kristy only hoped she could remember to keep from staring as she took all this in. She was relieved that she did, at least, have the presence of mind to look Alain’s mother in the eye and smile.

  And then she found herself doing a double take. This woman was the actress that had starred in the movie she and Alain had seen together!

  “We are so pleased to meet you,” Charlotte LePage, the most popular movie actress in all of France, went on. “Alain has talked about you so much. And now that he is going to Massachusetts in the fall to study rocks....”

  “Geology, maman,” Alain corrected her gently.

  “Whatever.” Charlotte waved her arms in the air. “Anyway, it is so nice that he will already have a friend who is living near him.”

  Suddenly she noticed the box that Kristy was clutching. “What is this?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Oh. I almost forgot. I brought you these.” Kristy handed the box of Le Grand Magasin chocolates to her hostess. But instead of looking pleased, the expression on Charlotte LePage’s face was one of confusion.

  As if to explain, Alain said, “Maman, Kristy brought these as a little present for you. She thought it would be a nice gesture.”

  Still looking puzzled, Alain’s mother accepted the box of candy. “Thank you, Kristy,” she said, putting it aside on a small table. “Merci.”

  “Well, Alain, Kristy,” Alain’s father said, “I believe dinner will be served shortly. I hope you like duck à l’orange, truffles, and crème caramel.”

  Kristy just nodded. By this point she was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t have gotten out any words even if she had wanted to.

  “Yes, dinner should be ready,” Charlotte said. “Lucille and Anna have been working all day. In fact, I think I will go and check on things, if you will pardon me.” She hurried out of the room, obviously anxious that her dinner party go well.

  “And if you will excuse me for a moment,” Alain’s father said, “I must make a telephone call.” He sighed. “There was a problem with a shipment of diamonds,” he explained. “Some sort of delay.... My customers will not like this at all!”

  Once they were alone, Kristy sneaked a peek over at Alain. He was standing on the other side of the room, watching her, clearly anxious to see what her reaction to all this was going to be.

  “Alain,” she said evenly, “just out of curiosity, what’s the name of your parents’ store? The one your father owns?”

  Alain paled. “Uh, Le Grand Magasin.”

  “Le Grand Magasin.” Kristy swallowed hard. “I see. That’s the little neighborhood shop your family runs.”

  “We only have six branches,” he offered apologetically.

  “And your mother? She is the actress who was in that movie we saw, the one you did everything in your power to keep me from seeing, right?”

  He nodded guiltily. “Perhaps you understand now why I asked you earlier if you liked surprises.”

  Suddenly Kristy burst out into loud, uncontrollable laughter. But the tears in her eyes weren’t from laughing so hard.

  “Kristy! Are you all right? I can’t tell if you’re laughing or crying!”

  “Neither can I,” she gasped. “Actually, I’m probably doing a little bit of both.”

  “Then you are very angry with me.” Alain was frowning. “You are very—what is the word?—disappointed.”

  “No, Alain. I’m not disappointed. And I’m not angry, either.”

  “You’re not? Oh, Kristy. I am so relieved.” He still looked puzzled. “But you are not even a little bit angry? After all, I was not completely honest with you.”

  “No, I guess you weren’t, were you?” Kristy was pretending she was annoyed, but there was a definite twinkle in her eyes.

  “I am so sorry. It is just that... well, to be honest, I was afraid that if you knew the truth about who I was—who my family was—you wouldn’t like me for myself. So many tunes, there had been girls who pretended to like me, when really what they liked was the fact that my parents were well known, or that we had money, or that....”

  “Or that you were someone so important that you have journalists coming up to you at sidewalk cafés, begging you for an exclusive interview?”

  Alain’s mouth dropped open. “That was the very first time you and I had lunch together. You mean you knew that that man was a journalist? You knew he was from a magazine, and that he was looking for a story?”

  “I didn’t know it at the time.” Kristy was chuckling. “But now it all snaps into place.”

  “It snaps ... into what?”

  “I understand now. What was going on at the time, I mean.”

  Alain just nodded. “I am so very happy that you are not mad at me, Kristy. I know that all along, I have been lying to you. But I meant no harm. I just wanted to try being someone else for a change. To try being someone from a normal family, just once. I wanted to see how that felt ... and I wanted to see if someone could like me for who I am. Someone nice, someone ... someone like you.

  “And I am also happy that all of this—” he gestured with both hands at the grand surroundings that he called home”—does not make you feel uncomfortable.”

  Suddenly he remembered something. “But, wait a moment! Here I am forgetting who you are. Of course you are not impressed by all this. You, after all, come from a very similar background—”

  “Uh, Alain,” Kristy interrupted. “I think you’d better sit down. There’s something I have to explain.”

  With a nod of his head, Alain sat down on the edge of an elegant, hand-carved wooden chair upholstered with gold brocade fabric. He was looking at her expectantly, curious about what she had to tell him, now that it was her turn.

  “Once upon a time, there was a very ordinary

  girl who led what she considered a very ordinary

  life,” she began. “At least that was what she

  thought until she found out there were some

  things, like taking pictures, that she co
uld do very

  well .”

  Oddly enough, Kristy discovered that she didn’t feel nervous at all as she started telling Alain her “secret”—the one she had been keeping from him all summer. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so good.

  * * * *

  The first few days of the Shaws’ visit were even more difficult than Nina had expected. Her parents played the role of tourist with great reluctance. They resisted her attempts at showing them Paris, at helping them have fun, at making them appreciate the city she loved so much.

  Even as she led them around the famous sights, they were unwilling to act as if they were having a good time. The Eiffel Tower, they reported, was smaller than they had expected it to be. Notre-Dame was too crowded; the Seine was polluted; and everything in the entire city was much too expensive.

  All the while her parents kept asking about Pierre, hinting that they wanted to meet him. But Nina wasn’t ready for that. Instead, she made excuses, insisting that he was tied up or out of town.

  She did, however, arrange for them to have dinner with Jennifer and Kristy. Nina knew her parents would feel comfortable with them. After all, the girls were so familiar to her mother and father that they were like a breath of fresh air, a little bit of home here on distant shores.

  Even their little dinner party, however, wasn’t completely free of tension.

  “I know exactly how you feel, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw,” Jennifer said heartily, helping herself to another breadstick as the five of them sat crowded together at a tiny Italian restaurant. Just that afternoon, Nina’s mother had announced that if she was forced to eat another morsel of French food, something she was guaranteed not to be able to identify, she was going to scream. “When I first got to France, I wasn’t exactly thrilled, either. And the truth of the matter is, I can’t wait to get back home. But even I got to the point where I realized there’s something to gain from every experience, even one that makes you feel a little uncomfortable at first.”

  “I’m sure Nina never felt uncomfortable here in the least,” Kristy said, trying to be helpful. “She had no problem getting used to being on French soil at all. And by the time she’s been living here for a few months—”

  “Uh, that still hasn’t been completely decided,” Mr. Shaw interrupted. “The three of us are still talking about it.”

  Kristy took a deep breath. “Well, I think you may change your minds when you hear the little tidbit of news I’ve got.” Turning to Nina, Kristy went on, “Remember how you had everything all set—except a job?”

  “Yes....” Nina could feel her heart beginning to pound as she waited to hear what Kristy had to say.

  “Well, Nina, I got you a job!”

  “You what?”

  “That’s right. That is, if you want it. How would you like to be the personal assistant to France’s most famous—and best-loved—movie actress? Charlotte LePage, her name is. And she was complaining to me over dinner just the other night that she’s so busy trying to juggle her schedule, starring in movies and writing a book about her life and doing lots of public appearances for charities, that she just has to find somebody reliable, smart, organized....” Kristy shrugged. “I told her all about you, Nina, and she’s dying to meet you.”

  * * * *

  After that night, Nina’s parents were even more tight-lipped. She could tell they were feeling as if they were being backed into a corner, as if too much was happening too fast—for them as well as for their daughter. But Nina continued to stand her ground. While at one time she had been afraid that her parents might be able to talk her out of her plan to stay on in Paris, seeing that their caution was based more on fear of the unknown than anything real made her more determined than ever. While the three of them weren’t discussing their conflict every minute they were together—in fact, they were barely talking about it at all—it was no secret to any of them that whether Nina would stay on was first and foremost on everyone’s mind.

  Finally, on their fifth day in Paris, after Nina had already taken them to every museum, cathedral, and monument she could find in the guidebooks, she could stand the tension no more.

  “Look, Mom and Dad,” she said as they sat together on a bench in the Bois de Boulogne, resting.

  It was, in fact, the same bench that she and Pierre always used as their meeting place—”their bench,” as they thought of it. She had brought her parents here to the Bois only as a last resort, preferring to keep this place special in her own mind but having run out of other choices of how to keep them busy for an entire afternoon.

  “It’s really been fun, showing you two around,” she went on. “But I know that the whole time, you’ve been agonizing over my decision to stay on in Paris after the summer is over.”

  “Are you still thinking about that?” her father returned. “Since you hadn’t said anything, I figured you’d forgotten all about that ridiculous idea.”

  “No, Dad, I haven’t.” Nina’s voice was low and controlled. “And I don’t think it’s a ridiculous idea at all.”

  “Nina, you simply cannot do this,” her father returned, his anger escalating. “It’s ... it’s crazy. I want you to stop talking about this right now. You’ve always been a sensible girl, and I’m not going to let you start getting silly now, not when college and your future and everything else are all set.”

  Nina, feeling her eyes well up with tears, turned to her mother. “Oh, Mom!” she cried. “Can’t you help me? Can’t you help me make Daddy understand?”

  “No, Nina, I can’t,” her mother returned coldly. “Because I happen to agree with him one hundred percent.”

  “Look, I’ve had about enough of this,” Mr. Shaw said, standing up. “I ... I need a walk. I’m going back to the hotel.”

  With that, he stormed off, heading toward the exit of the park.

  Nina and her mother remained silent for a long time, sitting together on the bench. And then, suddenly, Nina knew what she had to do.

  “Mom,” she said, “I know you don’t agree with me on this, and I know you don’t understand. But will you please do me one favor?”

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Shaw asked uneasily.

  “Come back to the Rousseaus’ house with me.” She took a deep breath. “There’s ... there’s something there that I want to show you.

  Nina’s heart was pounding like a jackhammer by then. Part of her felt reckless, as if she were about to betray a confidence that she had been trusted with. But at the same time, another part of her knew that, given the circumstances, her grandmother would never have disapproved of what she was about to do.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Shaw sat perched on the edge of her daughter’s bed at the Rousseaus’ house. Her body was tense as she read the letters that, once upon a time, a young man named Marcel du Lac had written to a beautiful young American woman named Anna Went worth.

  Nina, meanwhile, leaned against the window-sill, her eyes glued to her mother’s face. And she saw there what she had been hoping to see: that her mother’s expression changed from one of skepticism and confusion to one of understanding and sympathy.

  The two of them were silent for a long time, sitting together in the same room, the mother reading, the daughter waiting. When Mrs. Shaw finally looked up after having read the last letter in the pile, her eyes were wet. Slowly she folded the letter up and placed it back in its envelope. She was treating the piece of paper with a kind of reverence, as if it were something fragile, something worthy of respect.

  Her expression was sheepish as she glanced at her daughter. “I never knew about any of this,” she said in a voice that was hoarse with emotion. “It explains so much. That sadness that always seemed to be with her, no matter what else she was doing. The way her eyes would light up on those few occasions when she talked about the time she had spent in Paris. The way she would sit in the garden, surrounded by all those yellow roses, with that dreamy, faraway look in her eyes....”

  Her voice trai
led off. Never before had Nina heard that tone in her mother’s voice, and she had never seen such a soft, romantic look on her face. It was as if she had uncovered a whole different side of her, one that Nina had never before been allowed to see. She wondered if perhaps her mother herself had even forgotten that that side of her existed.

  “Thank you for letting me see these,” Mrs. Shaw went on. “I can see that they mean a lot to you.”

  Nina sat down on the opposite edge of the bed. “I am hoping that they will help you understand what staying on in Paris means to me.”

  Gently she took the letters from her mother and placed them on the bed, between the two of them. “My grandmother—your mother—wasn’t able to stay in Paris, to see if her love with Marcel was real, to explore what her life could have been like if she had felt free to follow her dreams. She was too tied to convention, too afraid to break free of her family’s expectations of her. But things are different now—”

  “Some things haven’t changed,” her mother interrupted.

  Nina looked at her, confused.

  “What hasn’t changed is that mothers still want the best for their daughters. They want to protect them, to keep them safe....” She reached over and took Nina’s hand. “And maybe to hold on to them just a little bit longer than they should.”

  Mrs. Shaw’s face softened into a smile. “You’re right, Nina. You do have to do what you feel in your heart. What your father and I want for you can’t always be the same as what you want for yourself. You’re a young woman now, not a child. And it is time for you to start making decisions for yourself.”

  “Then you agree that it’s okay if I stay?” Nina gasped, not quite able to believe she was hearing her mother correctly.

  Mrs. Shaw nodded. “Yes, Nina. I can see now that I was wrong. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  “I know one thing you can do,” Nina said with a frown. “You can talk to Daddy. Try to make him understand.”

  “Yes, I’ll even do that.” Mrs. Shaw laughed. “I don’t think your father is the romantic type, but I do know one thing. Every time you and I stand firm in our beliefs, we manage to win him over.” She chuckled again, then added, “Well, sooner or later, anyway.”