13 Little Blue Envelopes

by Maureen Johnson

  “He says the café is called The Little Dogs,” the chef said. “I think he’s getting annoyed. I may not get my eggplant now.”

  “Does he know where it is?”

  He did, but the question made him visibly angrier. He pointed a stubby finger at an alleyway to the left of the market.

  “That way,” he said. “But please…I do need my eggplant.”

  “Thanks,” Ginny said, backing away quickly. “I’m sorry.”

  The alley was not promising. It was narrow, and the buildings along it were all the same off-white, with small unmarked doorways. Nothing looked like a restaurant. Also, motorcycles kept coming up behind her—actually riding on the sidewalk—to get around the parked cars. So it also seemed like this route might get her killed. Maybe that was what Michel Pienette intended.

  But the road widened a bit, and there were a few boutiques and very tiny pastry shops. And then she saw it, a building so tiny that it could hardly have housed four tables. A huge tree sat in front of it, nearly blocking it from view. But it was the window curtains made out of little kitchen aprons that told her this was the place. The front windows were filled with framed clips from magazines, some with pictures. The inside looked to be completely empty, and no lights were on. But when she tried the door, it was open.

  It was immediately clear when she got inside why the place was called The Little Dogs. The walls were devoted to the tiny dogs of Paris. Aunt Peg had made a crazy collage of hundreds of magazine pictures of them, then painted around the pictures with big glops of black and hot pink paint. Then, in white, she’d sketched in a few crazy cartoons of poodles. Every table and every chair was painted up in a different set of colors. It seemed like she must have just been working her way through a set of a hundred different tints of paint. Purple with sunny yellow. Lime with candy pink. Fire truck red with navy blue. She spotted the funny Roman orange paired with a deep burgundy.

  A man’s head popped out from behind the bar, startling Ginny. The French he barked at her sounded vaguely familiar, but it was spoken too quickly and thickly to be understood. She shook her head helplessly.

  “We are not serving yet,” he said, in English. It was strange how people here knew to do that. It was amazing how they all could.

  “Oh…that’s okay.”

  “Not until dinner. And you need a reservation. Tonight is impossible. Next week, perhaps.”

  “It’s not that,” Ginny said. “I’m here to see the decorations.”

  “You are writing a paper?”

  “My aunt did them.”

  A little bit more of the man was revealed. She could see his shoulders now. “Your aunt?” he asked.

  Ginny nodded.

  Head, shoulders, most of the chest, and the arms up to the elbows. He was wearing a worn purple T-shirt with a blue-and-white apron thrown loosely over it.

  “Your aunt is Margaret?”

  “Yes.”

  Everything changed very quickly. Suddenly, the whole man appeared, and Ginny found herself being forced into a seat.

  “I am Paul!” the man said, stepping back behind the bar and producing a small tumbler and a bottle of yellowish liquor. “Wonderful! Let me get you a drink.”

  After the other night, Ginny had no desire for another drink.

  “I don’t really…” she began.

  “No, no. Lillet. Very nice. Light. Lovely taste. And a little piece of orange.”

  He pronounced it aw-runge. Plunk. A piece of orange rind went into the glass. He pushed it over and watched intently as Ginny took a cautious sip. It did taste good. Kind of like flowers.

  “Now, I will be honest with you,” he said, pouring himself some of the Lillet and then sitting opposite her. “I was not so sure about your aunt. She showed me these things that she draws. Little dogs. But wait! Something to eat. Come with me.”

  He waved Ginny into the kitchen, which was a space the size of a walk-in closet just beyond the bar. And there, as he filled a plate with various items pulled from the refrigerator—cold chicken, lettuces, cheeses—he explained that Aunt Peg’s weird paint job had turned a failing four-table restaurant into a highly desirable boutique four-table restaurant with a long reservation list.

  “It was a strange thing,” he said. “This woman I did not know, offering to stay in my restaurant. To sleep in my restaurant. To make it new, to cover it with pictures of dogs. I should have thrown her out!”

  “Why didn’t you?” Ginny asked.

  “Why?” he repeated. He gazed up and around at the gaily decorated walls. “I do not know why. I suppose she just seemed so sure. She had a way. She had a female charm…. You do not take offense at this, you understand. She had a vision, and when she spoke, you believed it. And she was right. Very strange, but right.”

  Very strange, but right. This was possibly the best description of her aunt that Ginny had ever heard.

  After being stuffed with lunch and some apple tart with cream, Ginny was politely booted out so that Paul could get ready for the evening.

  “Say hello to your aunt for me!” he said cheerfully. “And come back! Come back often!”

  “I will,” Ginny said, her smile falling a bit. There was no point in correcting him about Aunt Peg. In his mind, she was still very much alive, and she saw no reason why it shouldn’t stay that way for somebody.

  She walked back to the hostel in a funk, feeling very annoyed by the late-afternoon crowds and the weight of her bag. For some reason, Paris was not enchanting her right now. It was big and loud and crowded and it had too much stuff in it. The streets were too small. The people talking on their phones too inattentive.

  Something about Paul’s reaction sank her completely. She wanted to go back to her lonely, creaky bunk, in the room where the other girls ignored her. She wanted to go back there and cry. Just lie there all night and do nothing. There was nothing she could do anyway. She didn’t live here. She didn’t know anyone.

  She pushed open the wrought-iron door roughly and barely noticed when the woman at the desk gave her a slight smile. In fact, she almost didn’t recognize the voice that called out to her from the direction of the computers.

  “Oi!” it said. “Mad one!”

  A Night on the Town

  “Where have you been?” Keith greeted her. “I was sitting outside for two hours. Do you know how many dogs tried to…never mind.”

  Ginny was too amazed to speak. It was definitely him. Tall, thin, the reddish brown hair that managed to be both scruffy and perfect, the biking gloves. He smelled just a bit mustier than usual.

  “Hello, Keith,” he prompted. “How are you? Oh, can’t complain.”

  “Why are you here? I mean…”

  “One of the tickets you bought for the show,” he said. “I took them up to the international office, remember? A French drama student took one. Their school runs a festival and one of their shows fell through, so they asked us to come at the last minute. Packed up the set. Drove over. Fate clearly wants us to be together.”

  “Oh.”

  She shifted from foot to foot. Blinked. He was still there.

  “I can see you’re impressed,” he said. “What has your mad aunt got you doing here, anyway?”

  “I had to go to a café,” she said.

  “Café? Now we’re talking. I’m starving. We’re not performing tonight. We could grab a bite. Unless, of course, you’re busy buying out all the seats in the Paris opera house.”

  Even though she’d just spent the better part of the afternoon eating, Ginny didn’t say no. She and Keith spent the next several hours walking. Keith stopped at almost every crepe stand he saw along the way (and there were plenty) and ordered a big, messy pocket filled with everything. He ate as he walked, telling her all about the show. His main news, however, was about David and Fiona, who had gotten back together, much to his disappointment.

  It turned dark, and they were still walking. They walked along the river, passing the many bridges. They crossed and walked
through a little neighborhood and watched the people at the cafés, who watched them right back. Then they passed by a high fence and what looked like a park.

  “Cemetery!” Keith said. “Cemetery!”

  Ginny turned to see Keith jumping up, grabbing hold of the top, and shinnying his way over the fence with ease, even with Ginny’s pack on his back. He grinned at her from behind the bars.

  “Here we go,” he said, indicating the dark expanse of monuments and trees on his side.

  “Here we go what?”

  “It’s a Parisian cemetery! They’re the best. Five stars.”

  “What about it?”

  “Just come have a look at least.”

  “We’re not supposed to be in there!”

  “We’re tourists! We don’t know better. Come on. Over you go.”

  “We can’t!”

  “I’ve got your bag,” he said, turning around to show her. There seemed to be no choice.

  “If I come over, promise me we’ll just look around and then we’ll leave.”

  “I promise.”

  It wasn’t as easy for Ginny to get over the fence. There was nothing to put her foot against. She had to keep jumping up and trying to grab at the top. At last she got on top of it but had no idea how to get down. Keith finally persuaded her to swing her leg over or she was definitely going to get caught. He almost managed to catch her as she hurled herself down and was very good about helping her off the ground.

  “Now,” he said, “isn’t that better? Come on!”

  He ran off into the shadows of the dark trees and statuary. Ginny followed hesitantly and found him perched on a monument shaped like a giant book.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  She gingerly sat down on the opposite page. Keith tucked his feet up and looked around contentedly.

  “Me and my friend Iggy went to this graveyard once…” he began, and then stopped.

  “About that thing in Scotland, the toy,” he said. “Are you still mad about that?”

  She wished he hadn’t mentioned it.

  “Just forget it,” she said.

  “No. I want to know. I know I shouldn’t have taken it. Some old habits die hard.”

  “That’s not a habit. Biting your nails is a habit. Stealing things is a crime.”

  “You already gave me this speech. And I already know. I just thought you’d like it.”

  He shook his head, then pushed himself off the monument.

  “Wait,” Ginny said. “I know, I just…it’s stealing. And it was Mari. And Mari was like my aunt’s guru or something. And I don’t steal. I’m not saying you’re a bad person, or…”

  Keith stepped over onto the next grave, which was a flat stone on the ground. He started to jump around and flail his arms.

  “What are you doing?” Ginny asked.

  “I’m dancing on this guy’s grave. You always hear about people dancing on your grave, but no one ever does it.”

  Once he got that out of his system, he came back and stood in front of her.

  “You know what you haven’t told me?” he asked. “You haven’t told me what your aunt died of. I realize this may be a bad place to ask, but…”

  “A brain tumor,” Ginny said quickly, burying her chin in her hands.

  “Ah. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Was she sick for a long time?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t think so?”

  “We didn’t know,” Ginny said. “We only found out afterward.”

  He sat down next to her again on the other page of the book, then swiveled around to have a better look at it.

  “What do you think this is?” he asked. “Hang on.”

  He leaned in close to the carved letters.

  “Come have a look at this,” he said. “Turn around.”

  Ginny turned herself around halfheartedly and looked down.

  “What?” she said.

  “It’s Shakespeare, in French. It’s bloody Romeo and Juliet. And if I’m not mistaken…” He glanced over the writing for a moment. “I think this is part of the crypt scene, where they both die. I’m not sure if this is romantic or creepy.”

  He picked at the carved letters with his finger.

  “Why did you ask me how she died?” Ginny said.

  “Don’t know,” he said, looking up. “It just seemed like a relevant question. And I figured it had to be something…well…long term. It seems like there was a lot of planning involved with the letters, the money….”

  “Did you only want to be around me because of the money?”

  He sat up, crossed his legs, and turned to face her directly.

  “What exactly does that mean?” he asked. “Is that all you think I was interested in?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I just asked you.”

  “The money was nice,” he said. “I liked you because you were mad. And you’re pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”

  On hearing the word pretty (twice, in fact), she drilled her eyes into the carvings. Keith reached over and lifted her chin. He gave her a long look, then slowly slipped his hand behind her neck. Ginny felt her eyes closing, a kind of melting all over her body, and then the sensation of being guided down into the fold of the book next to him. But this time, unlike with Beppe, it wasn’t unwelcome or weird. It was just warm.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she noticed the light trying to seep in under her closed eyelids. A strong, tightly directed light.

  “That can’t be good,” Keith said again, his mouth still pressed against Ginny’s.

  A surge of panic ran through Ginny. She sat upright and straightened out her T-shirt. There was a figure of a man standing at the base of the monument. Because he had a flashlight trained on them, it was impossible to see who he was or what he looked like. He spoke to them quickly in French.

  “No parlez.” Keith scratched at his head.

  The man turned the flashlight toward the ground. Once her eyes recovered from the glare, she saw that he was uniformed. He beckoned them down. Keith threw Ginny a grin and slid down, seemingly delighted by the turn of events.

  Ginny couldn’t move. She tried to dig her fingers into the stone, to clutch onto the shallow letters carved there. Her knees were frozen in a half bend. Maybe the policeman wouldn’t see her…maybe he was dumb or near blind, and he would think she was part of the sculpture.

  “Come on!” Keith said, much too cheerfully for her comfort. He guided her down by the elbow and hoisted up her backpack.

  The man walked them down a path, lighting the way with his flashlight. He made no attempts to speak. He led them to a small round guardhouse, where he picked up a walkie-talkie.

  “Oh my God,” she said, burying her face in Keith’s chest to block out the view. “Oh my God. We’re getting arrested in France.”

  “We can only hope,” Keith said.

  Rapid French. She heard the walkie-talkie land on the desk and pages being flipped in a book. Jangle of keys. Electronic bleeping noise from some kind of sensor. Then they were moving again. She didn’t know where, because she decided just to keep her eyes shut and her body tucked in close to Keith’s.

  There would be phone calls to New Jersey—maybe they would put her on a plane home right now. Or maybe she was going straight to a Parisian jail filled with French hookers with their cigarettes and fishnets and accordions.

  Creaking noise. Movement. She clung tighter to Keith, digging her fingers into his arm.

  They stopped.

  “You can open your eyes now,” he said, carefully pulling her fingers back from his arm. “And I’d really like to keep this, if you don’t mind.”

  The Best Hotel in Paris

  They were on the sidewalk, and she was still gripping his arm, just not as tightly.

  “We’re not arrested?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “It’s Paris. You think they arrest people for kissing? Were you
worried?”

  “A little!”

  “Why?”

  He seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Because we just got stopped by the French police for public indecency or desecrating graves or something!” she said. “We could have been deported.”

  “Or asked to stop trespassing by the watchman.”

  They walked along the quiet street of closed-up shops. A neon clock on the outside of a store told them it was just after eleven.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “I missed curfew. I’m locked out.”

  “Oh, dear…” He pulled a metro ticket from his pocket. “Well, have a good night!”

  “You’re leaving me?”

  “Come on now,” he said, jauntily throwing his arm over her shoulders. “Would I do that to you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Come back with me if you want. There’s some room on the floor.”

  The train to where Keith was staying was a suburban commuter train, and that train wasn’t running until the morning. He dug his hands into his pockets and smiled.

  “So,” she said, “what now?”

  “We walk around until we find somewhere to sit. And if we like the sitting place, we lie down.”

  “On the street?”

  “Preferably not on the street. Preferably on a bench. Maybe some grass. Although, this is Paris. No telling what the millions of little dogs have been doing in the grass. Bench, then. Railway stations are good. I know you said you aren’t rich, but now would be a good time to use your secret supply of cash and get us a room at the Ritz.”

  “My aunt was broke here,” she said, almost defensively. “She lived on the floor of a café, behind the bar.”

  “I was joking,” he said. “Relax.”

  They walked along in silence until they stumbled on one of the more major parks—a real one this time.

  “You know where I think we are?” Keith said. “The Tuileries.”

  Normally, she would have been terrified to come into a park at night, but after having just been caught by the police in a dark graveyard, the wide avenues and moonlit white fountains didn’t seem very alarming. It was hard to see where they were going, but they could follow the crunching noise their footsteps made in a long gravel path they were walking along.