by Ella Carey
She bought the makeup.
Once outside Galeries Lafayette, she stopped on Boulevard Haussmann. One of the store’s window displays caught her eye. A mannequin wearing a Chanel dress lounged on a designer sofa. A set of delicate porcelain teacups sat on a coffee table in front of the model, and behind her, there was a painting. One of Laurent’s prints—a rainy Paris street. Against a lamppost shrouded in mist, a woman leaned, staring out of the canvas as if she couldn’t care less. “So what?” the woman seemed to ask anyone who cared to look.
People had skirted around Sarah while she stared. No one seemed bothered whether she stood still, moved ahead, or went backward; all these Parisians were busy following their own paths.
So what, then?
Did it matter if she didn’t have a plan? Did it matter if she didn’t know where she was going from here in her life? Couldn’t she just live, taking things one day at a time, enjoying each moment as if it were precious, just as she had been doing today? What was stopping her from doing that, apart from herself?
With a sudden rush, she realized how tense she had always been when she was with Steven. His insistence on being on time, his insistence on impressing certain people, his insistence on Sarah’s perfection had all become a part of her.
But then her mother had died after a desperate, valiant fight with cancer, and her father had died of grief only months after. Sarah had not been able to give her husband the time he seemed to require; tragedy didn’t fit well with perfection. Steven had left her.
Sarah folded her arms and frowned. There were two ways of looking at this.
She could be devastated at Steven’s betrayal, at what she realized now was weakness. Or, instead of regarding herself as alone and abandoned, she could see herself as free. She could see that anything could happen. That possibilities were endless. Her life was not over, just because she had lost so much. The old life was, but somehow, a new life would begin.
She looked some more at the woman in Laurent’s painting. She could be at a crossroads too. Standing there, in the rain.
Back at the apartment, Sarah unlocked Loic’s safe and took out Marthe de Florian’s letters, handling the delicate, ribbon-wrapped bundles with care. These little remnants held memories that had long passed. They told of people’s secret feelings, of men and women who would never return to this world again. Finally, Sarah checked that Loic had not missed any papers in some hidden corner at the back of the safe.
He hadn’t.
So after one last look, one last run of her fingers over Marthe’s precious love letters, Sarah locked the safe again. The afternoon was drawing in. Shadows fell across the floorboards in Isabelle de Florian’s old bedroom.
Once Sarah was done, she walked over to the kitchen window, where she looked out at the street and dialed Loic’s number. He didn’t pick up. So she left a brief message, thanking him for allowing her to read Marthe’s letters, telling him that she had not found what she sought.
Sarah moved back through the dressing room to her bedroom. She was going to have a nap. She was tired, tired after this year, this long, long year, and she had to take care of herself. It had seemed as if the agony of it all would never end at times . . . but now it had.
And here she was in Paris. Amanda had said it was the most romantic city in the world. Amanda had said that it didn’t suit Sarah. But what if it did? What if she were, quite simply, prepared to embrace its beauty, prepared to embrace every possibility she could?
Later, she woke to the sound of the front door closing.
“Bonsoir, Sarah,” Laurent called through the apartment.
“Hi!” Sarah leapt out of bed.
What time was it? But then, she looked at her watch. She still had an hour or so before they were going out. An hour to get ready. Goodness, that was enough. She stepped toward the bathroom, throwing her clothes onto the floor and leaving them there. There was warm water to savor as it ran over her bare shoulders, luxurious suds to shampoo through her hair. Then she applied makeup just as she knew how to do, how she used to—before there had been Steven and his insistence on rushing and pressuring her. She used to love spending ages getting her dark eyes just right, using the new colors to highlight her cheekbones, blow-drying her hair and brushing it until it shone. She would treat herself; she would take her time.
She put on a gold dress that she had brought with her, just in case, its spaghetti straps showing off her slim, brown arms. One last look in the dressing room mirror.
She was ready.
She walked toward her bedroom door.
And was hit with shyness. Was her dress too much? Would Laurent get the wrong idea? Would he think she had gone too far? Then full-scale panic. Loic had said Laurent hated certain things—garish clothes, was it? Horrid aesthetics? Would he hate this dress too?
But then she caught herself. She had to stop thinking that way.
She could hear Laurent moving about in his room. Heard the sound of him opening and closing wardrobes. He was probably still getting dressed.
Sarah wandered over to her bedroom window. It was dusk. People walked by, and the signs of the theater across the road flashed neon in the stillness.
Laurent’s room was quiet now. She would give him a few more minutes. A long bookshelf lined the space underneath the window in her bedroom. Sarah leaned down to have a look. It was filled with old books—Hemingway, Fitzgerald. She picked out a copy of Tender Is the Night and leafed through it. She hadn’t read it for years. She wondered whom it had belonged to—the granddaughter, Isabelle, or perhaps Marthe, in her later years?
Sarah wandered back to her bed, her fingers gently opening the book’s cover, turning back the first page with the reverence that she always reserved for old things.
And something slipped out of the book.
An envelope.
On the back, in neat italics, was the name of the sender. Lord Henry Duval, Ashworth, England, 1895.
“Sarah?” Laurent’s voice was whisper-soft through the door.
“Coming,” she said, her own voice barely sounding at all. She looked at the envelope in her hand, her insides darting about like a kite in the wind. “I’m on my way.” She put the envelope back between the thin pages of the novel, back into its spot in the bookshelf.
She went through Laurent’s room to the sitting room.
“You look gorgeous,” Laurent said. A smile played on his lips. He was dressed in a dark jacket and trousers. His shirt was open at the collar.
Sarah didn’t tell him he looked like heaven, but she thought as much.
“I’ve chosen one of my favorite places in Paris. Some of my oldest friends are coming. Loic and Cat, along with two artist friends. I thought you’d like to meet them.”
Sarah couldn’t help but smile. Any tension about the evening that she may have felt slipped right away.
Laurent stood aside for her to leave the apartment first, then waited for her to choose the elevator or the stairs. She chose the stairs. Somehow, the idea of being confined in the tiny elevator with him seemed a little awkward right now.
The warm summer night lent an almost festive atmosphere to the street. Lights shone up and down Rue Blanche, reminders of the Belle Époque. The old theater sat, still resplendent, surrounded by restaurants advertising post-theater suppers. People milled about and chatted.
Laurent stopped at a black Alfa Romeo that was parked a little way down the street. “Hop in.”
Sarah ran her eyes over the sleek little car. She felt her lips curve into a thought-so smile, but she didn’t say anything to Laurent while he held the passenger door open for her. The interior was all soft cream leather. The car still smelled new.
“What an enigma you are,” Sarah muttered, almost to herself. She bit her lip once the words had come out.
“What on earth do you mean by that?” Laurent asked.
“Nothing.” Sarah shook her head. She looked out at the streets as he drove. They were heading toward the Seine. L
aurent was quiet as they pulled onto the tree-lined Avenue Montaigne. Sarah let her eyes feast on the gorgeous boutiques on either side of the wide boulevard—Prada, Valentino, Ralph Lauren.
Laurent found a spot and pulled over.
And turned to face her.
“No, tell me what you mean,” he said. He almost sounded tender.
But Sarah put her hand on her door. She hadn’t meant to say anything. Suddenly, she was hit with a basket of nerves. “Sorry,” she said, feeling her cheeks redden. She didn’t want to cross a line here.
She climbed out onto the street.
Laurent was right beside her. “You’re going to have to tell me.”
But Sarah shook her head.
He led her down the street, stopping at a wide glass door. Sarah cast about for somewhere to look. She shouldn’t have said that. He was being kind. What he did in his spare time was no concern of hers. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I seem to have developed the ability to come out with things I don’t mean lately. It must be Paris.”
“You don’t have to apologize. Anything can happen in Paris.”
Laurent held open the door to the entry foyer. A pale sofa and a couple of blue Louis XV chairs were grouped in front of an elegant bar, its deep wood polished to a sheen. Table lamps sat along its top. Black-and-white photographs of famous artists lined the walls.
“This is beautiful,” Sarah breathed.
“It’s the sort of place I like to come to with my close friends,” Laurent said. “My real friends,” he added.
He moved inside, where Loic, another two men, and a beautiful blond woman—Cat, Sarah thought—sat. They all stopped chatting when Laurent and Sarah arrived. The men stood up and shook Laurent’s hand.
“Sarah, you know Loic, and this is Jacques and Marc,” Laurent said. “And here is Cat.”
Sarah shook the men’s hands and leaned down to take Cat’s outstretched hand. The other woman smiled up at her with such genuine warmth that Sarah found herself smiling right back into Cat’s eyes.
Five minutes later, Sarah felt at home with everyone, from the tall and lean Jacques, with his shock of black hair and round, tortoiseshell glasses, to Marc, even though at first, she had noticed him almost appraising her with gray eyes that sat below his gingery hair. But then, she reasoned, Laurent had said that the other two men were artists. Marc was probably just studying her. After a few moments, he smiled at her. Sarah relaxed.
“Have you settled into the apartment, Sarah?” Cat asked.
The men had started a riotous conversation about a football match.
“I love the apartment,” Sarah said. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, finding it untouched.”
“Loic and I literally walked into a time warp together,” Cat said. “Although it took us a while to get the door open, you know. No one had entered the place since 1940, and the dust was something else. Everything inside it was so precious—Marthe de Florian clearly hadn’t thrown out a thing since about 1890.”
Sarah chewed on her lip. She really should tell Loic that she had found the letter from Henry. But raising Louisa’s death and then answering personal questions about her family in front of these people she had just met was not appealing. The last thing Sarah wanted to do was let all her skeletons loose here.
And a part of her wanted the chance to read Henry’s letter to Marthe alone, before she told anyone else. After all, she usually read documents, or examined pieces of jewelry, forming her own opinions before getting back to the owners.
Cat seemed happy to chat about her baby and her life in Provence, which sounded bucolic, along with her burgeoning photography studio in Aix. After half an hour or so, a waiter came to tell them that their table was ready. As Sarah stood up, her thoughts reverted back to Henry’s letter.
What if there was more correspondence from him hidden in those books? And why had Marthe kept Henry’s letter separate from everyone else’s? After all, every letter that Sarah had found was from a man. What was so special about Henry’s mail?
Once Sarah was at the table, she found herself seated between Laurent and Cat. The other tables were full but the restaurant wasn’t noisy. The soft lighting, smooth carpets, and rich, warm wooden tables lent an atmosphere of quiet.
When their first course arrived—Sarah had ordered a warm goat’s cheese salad—silence lingered between her and Laurent for a few moments while they ate. Cat had joined in a conversation about wine making with Loic and the others.
Sarah put down her fork, and so did Laurent at the same time.
“Laurent—”
“Sarah—”
They both laughed.
“You go ahead,” Laurent said. He had put on a pair of glasses to read the menu and hadn’t taken them off yet. They made him even more attractive, Sarah thought, framing his classic features to perfection.
“I didn’t mean to make a funny comment earlier,” she started. “Don’t mind me.”
He put his wineglass down and waited.
She rapped her fingers on the table. Everyone else was laughing and having fun, just as they ought to be doing, and here she was, feeling awkward, like a teenager on her first date. Which this wasn’t. Not at all.
She needed to pull this together.
“Okay,” she said. “It was just that, well . . .”
He still waited. Clearly, he wasn’t going to make this any easier for her.
Sarah grabbed at her wineglass. This was ridiculous. Moronic. Couldn’t she just think of another topic? Anything?
Laurent coughed.
“You alright, Laurent?” Cat turned around, her pretty eyes crinkling with a smile.
“Yes, fine, thanks.” And turned back to Sarah.
“I want to know what you meant, though,” he said, his voice laced with something else. He sounded close.
“I don’t know what I meant,” Sarah said. She tried to laugh. Took another gulp of her wine.
Just then, Laurent reached out, placed his hand over hers on the wineglass, and put it back down on the table.
“I want you to tell me,” he said, sounding as if they were in complete privacy now.
She frowned again and sat back in her seat. “I didn’t mean anything,” she said.
But he rested his elbow on the table, facing her, and waited.
“Shouldn’t you talk to the other guests?” She was flailing around like a duck trapped in a storm.
Laurent caught her eye and shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “I’m more intrigued by you.”
Sarah felt her cheeks heat up. She stared at the white tablecloth. “You mean you are intrigued by what I said.”
“No. I’m intrigued by you.”
Suddenly, the other conversation stopped. Sarah was still staring down at the table. She was aware of the curve of Laurent’s arm where it rested nearby, almost creating a circle around them. She was aware of his closeness.
This was mad.
She lifted her head and addressed everyone else in a loud voice. “I’m going to have to go somewhere cool tomorrow,” she announced. “I saw it’s going to be horribly hot.”
“It is.” Loic grinned.
But Sarah felt her face flushing again. Had they all noticed that she and Laurent were . . . what, exactly?
“Go to the Orangerie,” Cat said. She, at least, didn’t sound as if she were making fun of her. “It’s my favorite place in Paris.”
Thank goodness for Cat.
“Sit among Monet’s water lilies and you’ll soon forget about the heat,” Cat went on.
Loic threw his arm across the back of her chair. “Your favorite place, Cat?” he asked.
She leaned in toward him. “Second favorite,” she laughed. “Some other places have a bit more of a personal connection.”
“I should hope so,” Loic said.
“Laurent could take you to the top floor of the Pompidou Center.” Marc’s serious expression was back.
Everyone went quiet.
> “He has a whole section of that floor devoted to his work.”
Laurent twirled his wineglass in circles. “Thank you, Marc. I’m sure Sarah wanted to know that.”
“Really?” Sarah asked. “How intriguing.”
A smile played around Laurent’s lips.
The main course arrived. Jacques started chatting about a film he had seen.
Sarah started her mushroom risotto.
Laurent stayed quiet next to her for a moment.
Sarah put her fork down.
“Okay,” she said.
“Yes.”
“If you want to know—”
“Yes.”
“And this is none of my business, by the way, but I’m—”
“Going back to Boston, so it doesn’t matter if you mess things up with me, because you might never see me again after the summer . . .” he prompted.
“Exactly.” Sarah nodded. Utterly emphatic. But then she thought about going back to Boston and had to push aside the downward feeling in her stomach.
“Just tell me,” Laurent said.
“Okay. Here’s the thing. Well, after the other day, and something I read . . . like I said, it’s none of my business what you do . . . but I hope everything’s okay with you.” Sarah folded her arms. “It’s none of my business.”
“Why would you think something was wrong?” he asked, but his voice was you-have-hit-on-a-nerve dead serious.
Sarah reached for the pepper grinder and twisted pepper all over her meal.
“Sarah, you’re going to choke,” he said.
Sarah started taking small mouthfuls of her food, but it was becoming difficult to get it down. Laurent would think she was an idiot.
She ate with the concentration of a surgeon who was saving a life.
“It’s not nosy,” Laurent said suddenly, out of the blue. “It’s no huge secret. I’ll tell you, if you like.”
Sarah placed her fork down on the table. She could not eat at all now. This was crazy.
“Laurent,” Loic said. Everyone else appeared to have finished their main course. “We’re going to have a drink in the bar. And you can’t monopolize Sarah anymore. We want to get to know her too.”
