Reservations for Two

by Hillary Manton Lodge

  With Élodie’s promise to scavenge through records for me, I used the time I would have spent in line waiting to speak with low-level government employees, in line waiting to get into restaurants or to speak with the proprietor of a cheese shop.

  Neil and I ate dessert at Ladurée, bought crepes from street vendors, and spent a too-short afternoon at Musée Marmottan Monet.

  We had a wonderful time, but all the while I knew it would soon come to a close.

  The truth was, the longer I was gone, the more I was needed back home. The menus were back from the graphic designers and needed approval. The website development bids were in and needed to be examined. A pipe beneath the dishwasher had burst, requiring the immediate attentions of the family plumber, Gustavo. Frank Burrows, our primary investor, wanted to schedule a meeting after I returned.

  Even Gigi, the bichon frise, had expressed her displeasure in my absence—Clementine wrote to tell me that Gigi had happily chewed through one of my shoes, to a point where, to quote my roommate, “I wouldn’t have known it was a shoe if the other hadn’t been four feet away, and that same yellow.”

  So I was down a matched pair of shoes, and no matter how many times I distracted myself with lavender macarons, I could hear the restaurant calling me home.

  I began to pack my things that night, knowing we’d leave for Rome in the morning.

  It made sense, I told myself. I’d pack up ahead of time, and then we’d go out for a fashionably late dinner.

  It made sense, but I still felt sad. I didn’t like it. The trip, being with Neil—packing reminded me of the fact that another leg of our trip had come to a close. In my head I knew we could never have stayed in France forever, walking in the lavender fields in Montagnac or exploring the nooks and crannies of Paris. We were normal people, Neil and I. We had work, and budgets, and families. We were grownups, and we had responsibilities.

  And while I knew these things to be true, it didn’t make the truth sting any less. Despite my efforts to bolster my spirits with practical reminders, my eyes began to fill with tears.

  I was lost in my thoughts when Neil knocked on my door.

  “Hi,” I said, attempting a bright smile.

  “Hi yourself.” He took in my tear-stained face. After a moment, he nodded his head in the direction of the hall. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “I really should pack.”

  “Come on, Juliette. Let’s go walk by the Seine.”

  So we did.

  We started out at the Pont Neuf, Paris’s oldest bridge. At first we admired it from afar, taking in the architecture and the details, the grotesque mascarons that decorated the structure. As the sun lowered, the bridge glowed, lit from below.

  Neil held my hand in his. Neither of us spoke as we walked across the bridge.

  He tugged me to a stop halfway across. “Let’s look at the water.”

  “Sure,” I said, tucking myself under his arm. The day had been warm, but now a chill breeze blew over the water.

  “Stop worrying.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  He pressed his finger to the space between my eyebrows. “Your brow is furrowed,” he said. “I think that’s the correct term for it.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “You learn that in Anatomy 101?”

  “Something like that.” He gave an approving nod. “Better.”

  “Glad you approve.” I looked out over the water. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “Me either.”

  “I’m worried…I’m worried this won’t work once we get back to real life.”

  “Was it so bad earlier?”

  “Give up seeing you every day? I’d say so.”

  He shrugged. “Touché. But for now, we’ll make it work. We’ll take trips. We’ll talk. And later…”

  I felt myself straighten. “Later?”

  “What do you think about later?”

  “I want there to be one.”

  He chuckled. “That was vague.”

  “You were vague too!” My voice sounded shrill to my own ears.

  “Want to keep walking?”

  I took a last look at the water from where we stood. “Fine.”

  We walked farther down the bridge and turned toward the Conciergerie on Quai de l’Horloge. “That’s pretty, that building there,” Neil said, pointing.

  “It is pretty. It started life as a palace but got turned into a prison during the Revolution.”

  “Oh.” Neil absorbed that information. “Nice-looking prison.”

  “It’s a tourist attraction now. And it got a significant face-lift too during the nineteenth century. You wouldn’t know it to look around, but the French love to remodel. Marie Antoinette’s cell was refinished as a chapel in her honor.”

  “My sister made me watch the Sofia Coppola movie about her,” Neil admitted.

  “Oh?” I laughed. “What did you think?”

  “Poufy.”

  I patted his arm. “Not your kind of movie?”

  “No, but I got my sister to watch a Madame de Pompadour–themed episode of Doctor Who out of it.”

  “Well, there you go. The pastries in the movie were provided by Ladurée, you know.”

  “Where we went for macarons?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Have you read any of your grandmother’s letters yet?” Neil asked, slinging his arm around my shoulders.

  “Not yet. I fall into bed exhausted every night—I want to give them my full attention.” I snorted. “Not that I won’t have distractions at home,” I said. “But at least things will be a little quieter.”

  We continued walking down Quai de l’Horloge and turned on Boulevard du Palais toward the Sainte-Chapelle. “As for later—after this trip—I know that I want us to continue to get to know each other,” he said.

  “I’d like that.”

  “My job…” He paused, and I saw his thoughts pass over his face before he formed them into words. “I love it. Sometimes I think people criticize men for loving their jobs, but I don’t care. I like what I do. I like who I work with, for the most part. I think God calls people to do different things, and he made me to be a researcher.”

  “I feel like you’ve had this conversation before.”

  He gave a sheepish grin. “I have. It’s a favorite conversation topic of my sister’s. I just wanted to be honest. We talked awhile ago about how I’m learning to be more comfortable with my feelings and not bury myself in work, but that doesn’t make me love my job any less. That said, immunologists like me don’t stay at the same facility through their whole career. Chicago has a large immunology scene, San Diego—there are research institutes across the country.”

  “Caterina’s in Chicago.”

  “My friend Callan is originally from Chicago. All that to say, I might move somewhere else, but I don’t know where that would be.” He tilted his head up to take in the Sainte-Chapelle in all of its gothic, stained-glass glory, examined it, and then looked back at me.

  I gave a sad smile. “With the restaurant, my family—my mom, and her health concerns right now—I don’t see myself leaving Portland anytime soon.”

  “I didn’t think so. It’s challenging,” Neil said. “But we found each other, didn’t we?”

  “We did.”

  We kept walking, neither of us speaking, and circled back up Quai des Orfèvres, back toward the bridge.

  Once we got back onto the bridge, Neil led me to a clear spot where we could once again look out onto the river.

  He squeezed my hand. “I know things are…not ideal. So we’ll just hang on for now and see what happens.”

  “Yes,” I said, dryly. “Specifically, to our cell phones.”

  “Hey.” He spun me around until we were facing each other, his hands on my arms. Pedestrians parted around us, like a stream around a stone. “I’m all in, Jules,” he said, his voice intense, his eyes locked on mine. “I’m all in, and I don’t know how this is all going to work
, but I want to find out. We are going to find out.” Neil’s mouth crooked upward in a half smile. “I don’t know where we’re going to be when we do, but right now, I don’t need to.”

  I hugged him tight, resting my face against his chest. Despite the Parisian busyness surrounding us, I could hear his heartbeat through his button-down. “Okay,” I said against the crisp cotton. “I believe you.”

  “And stop worrying. We’re going to Italy,” he reminded me. “You can’t be sad in Italy.”

  Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.

  —ALICE MAY BROCK

  We returned my rental car in Paris, and took the Eurorail train to Rome early the next morning. “We’ll stop in Turin,” I explained as we selected seats. “And then change trains to get to Rome.”

  He eyed the seats nervously. “These aren’t reserved or anything?”

  “Nope, just by section.”

  “That’s…odd.”

  “Think of it as being like the subway, only with a first-class section. Or compartments—we might have one of those train cars later.”

  “Is there any way to tell?”

  “Nope.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “Don’t be such an American,” I told him with a wink before choosing a pair of seats. I gave Neil the window seat so that he’d potentially have a place to put his legs.

  The other passengers settled into their seats; tourism being in high season, the seats opposite us filled quickly. But both passengers turned to their books, leaving Neil and I to our conversation.

  “We’ll stay with my cousin Letizia in Rome for a couple days before going to Montalcino,” I explained. We’d been so focused on Sandrine and Cécile, on Grand-mère, on Paris, on each other, that we’d hardly discussed what would happen when we left France.

  “Letizia offered me one of her cars,” I continued. “And she’ll pick us up from the station.”

  “One of her cars?” Neil questioned. “How many does she have?”

  “Riccardo—her husband—is a car guy. You guys will probably get along like gangbusters, come to think of it. He likes to tinker, like my brother Alex.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Riccardo is a notario, the Italian version of a corporate attorney. Letizia is a private chef. She’s a lot like Cat, really, just more Italian.”

  “The sister I haven’t met?”

  “Right. So I guess that comparison wasn’t particularly helpful. They’re both chefs, both outgoing with a fearless streak.”

  “She’ll probably remind me of you.”

  “Oh no,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m boring and I second-guess myself. Letizia is the sort of person you invite to a dinner party full of accountants—she’s smart and engaging, and she’ll get everyone around the table singing the theme song from Rocky, in Italian.”

  Neil leaned close, eyebrow lifted. “You’re not boring, and if you second-guess yourself, it just means you’re prone to self-examination, which is a good thing. And I think you’re smart and engaging, even if you don’t encourage singing around the table like a hobbit.”

  I giggled. “A hobbit?”

  “That’s what hobbits do: they eat, they sing, they eat and sing at the same time.”

  “I don’t remember that from the movies.”

  Neil tilted his head. “Tell me you’ve read the books. Of course you’ve read the books.”

  I gave a regretful shake of my head. “Sorry.”

  “Why not? The hobbits feel the same way about food as you do. You’ll feel a kinship.”

  “There was a guy I dated,” I said, “in high school. He was really into the books, kind of ruined it for me.”

  Neil shook his head. “You’re what, twenty-eight now? Don’t let one bozo ruin classic literature for you.”

  “Bozo?”

  “We can read them together, once we’re back in the States,” he said. “Talk about them.”

  “Because we won’t have anything else to talk about?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just an idea.”

  I looked at him. The light from the window caught the red-gold tint to his hair, highlighted the smile crinkles at his eyes. He had high cheekbones and a bold nose. It wasn’t a warrior’s face, but a scribe’s face.

  A good face. I sighed a little on the inside.

  “My Italian relatives are going to love your red hair.”

  Neil raised a ginger eyebrow. “That’s…good.”

  “We can read the books,” I said. “I trust you. And it’ll be nice to have something that’s not the restaurant to think about. Heaven knows it’s going to take over my life once I’m back.”

  Neil squeezed my hand. “You’ll enjoy it.”

  I couldn’t stop my smile. “I will. Now, let’s see—what else should we talk about? I want to get the whole Before Sunrise experience in before we arrive.”

  “We could. I was also thinking of getting some work done.”

  “Fair enough. I’m…a little tired.”

  “Just a little?”

  “Maybe a lot,” I answered, with a crooked smile that probably made me look punch-drunk.

  “You can rest on my shoulder,” Neil said. “Close your eyes for a little bit.”

  He didn’t have to say it twice.

  The train journey took eleven hours. We chatted, read books, sent e-mails—to others, for once. Our knees touched, our arms touched.

  Being in his presence, I felt like a leaf absorbing the sunlight.

  We arrived in Roma Termini at once exhausted and restless. We navigated through the sea of strangers to collect our luggage and work our way to the street. I hailed a cab, speaking to the driver in firm Italian while keeping an eye on the meter. I tossed our luggage in and climbed inside. Neil ducked inside behind me.

  “Buckle up,” I told him. “We’re in Italy now.”

  My zia Matilde—my father’s younger sister—and zio Alessio waited at Letizia’s modern apartment, along with Letizia’s husband, Riccardo, Riccardo’s sister Noemi, and Noemi’s sprawling family.

  Neil and I were pulled inside with grasping, insistent, loving hands. Our cheeks were kissed, arms patted, faces admired. Neil’s in particular—his reddish beard was considered a grand success.

  Matilde left to start the pasta water, and shortly after, the hugging and the greeting and the tugging pulled us in the direction of the dining room.

  The Fronzoni dining room table waited for us, set for twelve.

  “I guess we’re eating now,” Neil observed.

  “Anything worth doing should be done over food,” I told him with a cheeky grin.

  We took our seats and spent the next few hours enjoying bruschetta, fried squid, heaping plates of penne puttanesca, and saltimbocca di pollo. Being full wasn’t an option—the meal only ended once we’d proved consumption of a slice of olive oil cake.

  I fielded questions about the new restaurant, my mother’s health, the weather in Portland, and if I thought I would marry Neil.

  The last question was, at least, posed in Italian.

  Not that he’d have noticed, though, because he was just as busy answering questions about his work in Tennessee, his life in Memphis, if he’d ever seen Elvis (my uncle turned out to be a fan), and whether he came from a large family.

  The latter, it turned out, quickly became the most popular conversation topic.

  After an hour, Zio Alessio noticed I was about to tip over. “You must sleep!” he said, grasping my shoulders. “And you, Neil,” Alessio added, his tongue audibly itching to add a vowel or two to Neil’s name. I suspected Neil might wake in the morning to find he’d been christened with a new, more Italianate name. “You must sleep as well, Neil. Letizia will show you to your rooms. And tomorrow, you explore Rome, si? Get some sun. Drink some real coffee.”

  “Go shopping,” Le
tizia chimed in. “We must. Come this way, the rooms are here. Rest well, Giulietta,” she said, using the Italian version of my name. “Ciao and sleep well.”

  I awoke the next morning to find Letizia sitting on my bed. “You are awake? Good. I unpacked your clothes for you,” she said, flicking a hand in the direction of the closet.

  “Oh,” I said. I almost marveled over how heavily I’d slept—but it was beside the point.

  “Yes, I unpacked your clothes, and I am very glad we decided to go shopping today. So get up, get dressed, and we’ll stop for cornetti and espresso on the way.” Letizia punctuated our plans with a smile and the clap of her hands.

  “I just picked up new pieces,” I said, sitting up.

  “Yes, some of them are fine. But you need a short dress. And I am very concerned for your shoes…”

  “I’m happy to go out shopping, Leti, but I have a very small budget, and the restaurant is eating away at it. And I shouldn’t leave Neil—”

  Letizia flicked her hand again, treating my fiscal concerns like a stray fruit fly. The gesture was so effective that I resolved to learn how to execute it myself. “It will be taken care of,” Letizia stated. “You are so beautiful, and you have such a nice figure, and you are in Italy—we leave in thirty minutes. As for your Neil, he will be thankful.”

  Forty minutes later I had showered, dressed, and thrown on enough makeup to look fresh and almost rested. I had just enough time to kiss a sleep-tousled Neil good-bye before Letizia hurried me out the door. Before I knew it, we were strolling down the streets while Vespas zoomed around us.

  We started at Letizia’s favorite boutiques, ducking into some for no more than a minute if Letizia wasn’t impressed with the stock, or much longer if she loved everything. Her gaze could assess a shop in thirty seconds flat—and when I remained quiet during the trip, she turned that gaze on me.

  “You are in love,” she said. “I can see it in your face, by the turn of your mouth. This Neil makes you happy? Do you think he’ll be a good husband?”

  “Not sure, but I know you’ll tell me,” I sassed.

  “Ha! That man was made to be a husband. He’ll never look at another woman.” She handed me a short, cross-back black dress. “It is good to work for the attention, though—you need a little dress. This is good. You have good legs.”