The Little Bookshop On the Seine

by Rebecca Raisin

  “Sure. Let me grab the love letters, if you feel like chatting about them?”

  “I’d love nothing more. I haven’t stopped thinking about them to be truthful. Of course, it’s given me plenty of story ideas.”

  I smiled. “I’ll just freshen up.” I took my handbag from the counter, and went to the staff bathroom.

  In my old life it was unheard of for me to give two hoots to my appearance. Before work I’d apply a bit of eyeliner, a sweep of mascara and that was it. But here, I was taking pains to adapt, to be French – with those little touches that set them apart from the crowd. A slick of red lipstick, and a spritz of perfume, the technique of tying the scarf just the right way. Oceane had taken me aside and shown me the various ways in which it could be looped, and I felt a step closer to being Parisian, learning their ways. I gave my hair a cursory comb.

  The phone rang. I dashed over to it. “Two secs,” I said to Luiz. “Once Upon a Time.” I trilled, hoping it wasn’t TJ or Oceane calling in sick, they were due to relieve the casual staff and I’d have to cancel the drink with Luiz if they didn’t turn up.

  Luiz slid on his gloves, and I did the same while cradling the phone to one ear.

  “Sarah Smith, at long last, I catch you.”

  “Ridge,” I said, my surprise evident. “Where are you?”

  “Still in Russia. Might be a while yet. Not ideal, I know. But I was thinking of what you said…”

  Luiz glanced at his watch.

  “Can I call you back later?” I cut him off.

  “Sure, baby. But I might not be here. There’s a group of us…”

  There was always a group of them, usually with the background noise of a pub, or a party atmosphere. I’d spent too long cooped up in the shop, and I wasn’t about to let down the one person who offered to take me from the confines of it. “I get it. You’re busy. I have to go. Call me when you can.” A week ago I would have dropped everything if Ridge called, but now, things had changed. My life wouldn’t hover on pause any more.

  I clicked off. Ridge’s voice had the ability to turn me molten with want for him, but all that was cancelled out when I thought of the way he only deigned to call when it suited him and then went on to say he’d be busy so it was now or never. That was totally fine, and made it easier for me to say I was busy too.

  Outside, for Luiz’s sake, I shook off the angst, and kept my eyes straight ahead, taking in the Paris evening, the evocative filmy light. The Seine was silver under fingers of moonlight. Boats bobbed past, filled with tourists taking in a nighttime cruise, their champagne flutes held aloft as they cheered tipsily to pedestrians. The hulls of the boats were adorned with brightly colored tinsel, and flashing fairy lights, as Christmas edged closer. It was hard not to smile, and be caught up in the magic of the city, a place frenetic and alive.

  “Was that your lover on the phone?”

  Lover. It sounded so much more passionate than boyfriend and for a moment I understood the French attitude to love a little more. A lover was someone transient, someone you loved for a time before you moved on. A boyfriend…well let’s just say if Ridge was my boyfriend then those words were separated by a space that shouldn’t have been there. “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In Russia chasing bad guys, I guess.” I hoped my defensiveness wasn’t clear in my voice. It was true, Ridge had to work that much harder than the reporters who over time had networked their way into top spots. He wouldn’t settle for second best, it wasn’t in his nature. But where did I fit into that equation? Once the bookshop exchange was over, I’d be back home, with the same routine, watching life tick on by. Even though it was demanding here, it had woken me up from the way I sleepwalked through life, and I knew I’d miss the drama of it all. And when I returned home, I wouldn’t clock watch and wait any more. That part of me was gone for good.

  “It sounds like he’s got a very dynamic lifestyle,” Luiz said, his expression solemn. “It must be tough for him to leave you.”

  Ahead, the streetlights burned amber, their black nineteenth century casings gothic, and wondrous, as they spanned down the bank of the Seine. “It’s tough on both of us. I miss him.”

  “Tu me manques, do you know that term?” Luiz inclined his head, his hands deep in his pockets.

  The words were familiar but I couldn’t translate them quick enough.

  “In French, instead of saying I miss you, we say tu me manques, which means you are missing from me.”

  The luscious phrase swirled in my mind. How did the French always get it so right? ‘I miss you’ seemed like a lament, a sad wail, compared to ‘you are missing from me’, which embodied a deeper, more visceral feeling. That’s exactly how I felt when Ridge and I were apart. I could function, work, read, live, laugh, but it wasn’t as bright, as real, unless he was there too. And yet, I’d just ended a phone call with him in order to step out into the inky Parisian night. And all because it couldn’t be only him distancing himself – maybe if I took a step back we’d see if our relationship could handle the space that lay between.

  “Three simple words, yet they conjure up so much,” I said, as memories of Ridge flashed, the way he held me, the light in his eyes when he professed his love. Why had I fallen deeply in love with a reporter who travelled the globe? I knew we didn’t choose love, it found us – but still, I would have given anything for him to be with me all the time. Especially here, under the twinkling stars in Paris. Luiz was a great friend to me already, but the man I wanted was in Russia.

  Luiz took my elbow, and led me into the tiny wine bar, its ambient radiance like an invitation to relax. The tables were dressed in crisp white cloths, ruby red napkins triangled in wait. The walls were a deep ochre, and adorned with heaters which radiated warmth against the Seine wind that crept in.

  The maître d’ greeted Luiz, and we sat at a table by the window.

  “Shall we start with a pastis?” he asked.

  “Please,” I said, having no idea what aperitif a pastis was but not wanting to appear unsophisticated. Nothing could compare to eating steak tartare with Oceane. Things could only go up from there.

  Luiz ordered, and we sat in companionable silence. Outside, people strolled hand in hand, the rush of sight-seeing through the day calmed by nighttime, when people tended to meander, taking things slower, their legs weary and their faces sated after full days.

  “Aside from Ridge, what’s missing from you, Sarah?”

  The question took me by surprise and I coughed awkwardly, drawing stares from the elegant couple the next table over. “Sorry?” I said to buy time. Luiz had a way of reading me, despite my neutral expression. Maybe it was the writer in him that made him see beyond the obvious.

  He surveyed me. “I don’t peg you as the type to be waiting for a man to make you whole.”

  At least Luiz didn’t peg me for the type of girl who couldn’t cope on her own. “Being here, it’s opened my eyes to the world. I was happy at home, but bored I guess, and now I know there are adventures to be had, even if I have to do them alone. I’d lived a pretty sheltered life before arriving here. It feels good to explore, try new things.”

  “Would you stay on if Sophie asked?”

  I smiled. “A few weeks ago I would have said a big, fat ‘no’. But now, I’m not so sure. The more I think of leaving here, the less I want to go. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my friends and family badly. But here, caught up in a crowd of people as I saunter along soaking up the gothic beauty, and every single scent and sound, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. And I haven’t seen enough yet to go home. Because what if I never come back? These memories will have to last me my whole life.”

  Our drinks arrived, the aroma of anise strong in the air.

  He swilled the barely yellow liquid around his glass. “Paris is like no other place,” he said. “If you stay here six months, Sarah, you’ll find it hard to leave. It changes you. It gets under your skin, and no matter where you go, you’ll dre
am of it forever. It’s like a first love, one that breaks your heart but leaves an indelible mark.”

  I took a gulp of my pastis, feeling fuzzy from the heaters and the alcohol swirling through my body. “That sounds almost like a warning, Luiz.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe it is. I know people who’ve pined for Paris ever since they left. But life…it gets in the way, and no matter how determined a person is to get back here, sometimes it doesn’t happen. And they miss it for the rest of their lives.”

  “Surely it’s better to experience that, than nothing at all?” Paris did have a particular pull, a magnetic feeling, like it was drawing you in, and I knew too, that once I left, I would sit in my own shop and dream of the fun I had here. I blinked back a rush of tears that sprang without warning. I didn’t want to leave. My life in Ashford would always be there, and the more I discovered about this place, the more I wanted to stay.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “How can you appreciate love if you have never lost it?”

  Ridge’s beautiful face flashed in my mind. Was I losing him to his ambition? Were our two lives just too different? My heart tugged. Sometimes it felt like it, and how would I feel? Glad to have experienced it, or regretful because I knew what I was missing if our love ended? I pushed the morose thoughts away. Searching Luiz’s face, again, I had that sensation that he’d had some great loss in his life. The way he wrote about love, and the haunted air about him. Again, I didn’t ask, worrying it was too personal, or he’d shut down.

  “I’d always choose to experience love,” I said, playing with the stem of my glass. How could I not? My life had been lived inside the pages of romance novels, and it was only now – at almost thirty – that I’d experienced heart-stopping, real-life love with Ridge, no matter how rocky it’d been with the distance between us. Was what he was prepared to give me – a few days here and there – enough for me? I knew life wasn’t like a romance novel, but I still held out hope it could be. Why shouldn’t I strive for more?

  We sat there in silence for a moment before Luiz broke the spell, his voice forcefully bright, helping to pull me back from my doubts. “Shall I read the next letter?”

  I nodded, taking a sip of the aperitif, its sharp taste and alcohol strength warmed me all the way down.

  The tour is interminable. One country after the next flashes by, so that at times I have no idea where I am. My manager says I should be grateful because the world understands the music my peers said would fail. And I’m booking out shows in places I’ve never heard of. Bringing pianists back into the spotlight. Shaking off the dusty stereotype of what type of sound can come from those black and white keys. But it’s hard to be anything other than melancholy. The only reason I wrote the compositions were because of you. What irony, that they catapult me into a type of fame I never imagined, taking me further away from the warmth of your embrace.

  My eyes went wide. “That’s the worst kind of irony, he’s right.”

  Luiz nodded. “His fame took him from her.”

  “Who do you think he’s writing to? Sophie? Surely if they were her letters she would have stashed them in her own apartment?”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “I agree. They could be anyone’s. The bag left by mistake, and packed away high on a shelf, forgotten after years of collecting dust.”

  “Do you think they got together in the end? Maybe his career quietened down, and he came back, they had a million babies, and settled down in the South of France to grow olives and make their own wine.”

  He laughed. “You and your rose colored vision of love. No, I’m sad to say, Sarah. I think like so many others, it ended badly. To keep a stack of letters in a bag like this, like she was trying to hide them, or hide them from herself maybe, to save heartache. I think whatever happened, they went two different ways. Otherwise, if they were together, surely his letters would be in the bag too.”

  “No,” I said. “Why can’t it work out in the end? You’re thinking of your own novels.”

  Maybe it was my own love life I was comparing the letters to. But I wanted the happy ever after for these strangers, as much as I wanted it for myself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was time to take the reins of my own life, and do the things I yearned to do. And that included being the boss in every sense of the word. No more was I missing out because things weren’t panning out how I imagined they should. While the rain lashed down outside – the sunlight gone for good, hidden by thick gray clouds carrying the promise of winter – I made a choice. I would find the heart of Paris, I would do all those things lovers did, and to hell with it if I was alone. There was a certain beauty in my solitude, and I vowed to make the most of it. After all, it was something I actively used to do, be alone, but here in this bustling town, I’d just be one of the thousands wandering around awestruck by what they’d seen, and that suited me just fine.

  Rummaging through the stacks of well-thumbed novels in the lending library, I found one that thrummed in my hand, and snatched it up, knowing it was the right book for me. “I’m going to lunch,” I called to Beatrice, who nodded. The casual staff had appeared in their usual gaggle and I gave them a wave as I passed, determined to be friendly even if I didn’t feel part of their world.

  Once Upon a Time was so different to my bookshop; when I stumbled out for lunch, Oceane’s warning about being sucked into the place for all hours rang true.

  Outside, I could breathe again. Putting some distance between me and the shop, and the overwhelming pandemonium of it, was my favorite part of each day. I footed it down an avenue, holding aloft my striped umbrella – which I’d picked up at a vintage stall along the river the week before – and headed deep into the 6th arrondissement. Even the pouring rain wasn’t enough to pinch the sudden euphoric feeling that seized me. Wandering around the streets of Paris, alone, the wind in my hair, was a type of freedom I’d never experienced at home. I was one of millions who’d trekked down these very same paths, and I hoped I was following the footsteps of someone great. A writer who’d found inspiration here, or a reader who had fallen under Paris’s spell.

  On the corner was a patisserie, the cakes like works of art, so carefully constructed, that taking a bite out of the exotic creations would make me feel almost guilty.

  Almost. But not quite.

  I stepped closer to the window, the maroon awning concertinaing above, protecting me from the elements as I gazed at the perfection inside. Fruity tarts with sugary glazes were colorful under the lights. Chocolate opera cakes cut into rectangles proudly showed off their thin ganache and sponge layers. Mille Feuille slices with crisp puff pastry and creamy custard centers practically begged to be tasted. There were chocolate éclairs, and crème brûlées with caramel tops that I knew would make the most delicious sound as I cracked into the toffee shard. Shell shaped Madeleines and flaky pain au chocolat spoke to me in such a way, I had to go into the warmth of the patisserie and somehow select just one of the treats on offer. I loved rolling their luscious names on my tongue.

  Inside, in a display fridge, there were quiches with buttery brown crusts and baguettes as long as my arm, stuffed with a variety of fillings. How did French people stay so slim? It was like being transported to foodie paradise, and any reservations about saving money went out the window, as my mouth watered in anticipation. So what if I went home the size of a blimp? I laughed, picturing myself ballooning out, and returning home with chubby cheeks, thick legs, and a hankering for crusty baguettes and rich cheeses that I couldn’t break. From the boulangeries, to patisseries, and fromageries, my waist line was getting the most epic of work outs, emphasis on the out.

  With the book clutched to my chest, I found a table at the back where I could read in the quiet. I unwound my scarf and snatched up the menu, though I knew exactly what I wanted.

  “Bonjour,” A young waitress appeared wearing a tight fitted black skirt, and form-fitting shirt, from which a pink lacy bra peeked through. Her make-up was flawless, her eyes accentuat
ed by smoky eyeshadow, and her lips painted nude. There must have been some kind of class in high school that taught French girls the art of style because I’d yet to see a Parisian in sweats, or dowdy in any way. Even the make-up free girls had an aura of sophistication about them. Perhaps it was their accents, and their reserved nature, as though they held themselves together, poised and refined in such a way it was obvious to me who was French and who wasn’t.

  “Bonjour,” I replied, smiling at the thought that it was mere minutes until those delicacies sitting in the display were transported to my belly.

  With pad in hand, she asked in French, “What can I get you today?”

  “I’ll start with a slice of the roasted heirloom tomato quiche, and then I’ll have a tartelette au citron, and a slice of Charlotte a la Framboise.” The plump red berries were too tempting to resist. She scratched hastily on the order pad. I managed once again to speak fluently, and I wanted to fist pump. God it felt good to pretend I was one of them.

  “Oh, and a café au lait, please.” I gazed longingly once more at the cabinet, and caught the waitress giving me a squinty stare.

  “Is someone joining you?” she asked, indicating the empty chair opposite me.

  “Umm, no…it’s just me today.”

  “Just you?” her voice was incredulous.

  “Yes, just me.” I said with false bravado. “I’m eating my feelings,” I said with a shrug.

  “Ah,” she nodded. “Boy trouble?”

  “Boy trouble,” I agreed.

  She gave me a sad smile. “Men, merde!”

  I twisted my face into a grimace to match hers. “Oui! Men, who needs them!”

  “Won’t be long,” she spun on her heel, and left me to ponder my relationships with the people I spent my days with at the shop, and Ridge’s absence in my Parisian adventure.

  At a table by the window, a couple kissed and canoodled. I looked away, but their happiness and downright togetherness made my heart ache. They were wrapped around each other in that new love kind of way, and I was envious of it.