Paris Is Always a Good Idea (10 page)

“So it's all about money,” he interrupted. Perhaps it wasn't particularly fair, but she snapped at the bait like a starving fish.

“Yes, it's about money,
too
. Money's important in life, you idiot! Not everyone had as carefree an upbringing as you!”

Rachel, who had had to pay her own way through university, ran excitedly back and forth in the apartment and began to sob, while he sat on the sofa and buried his head in his hands with a sigh.

Finally she came to a halt in front of the sofa.

“Now listen,” she said. “If you go to Paris it's all over between us.” Her green eyes shone with determination.

He raised his head and looked at her in consternation. “Okay, Rachel,” he said. “I need to think about this calmly. Four weeks. Give me four weeks.”

A few days later he was sitting in the plane to Paris. In his carry-on he had a Paris guide and his old Zippo. Their parting had been frosty, but Rachel had at least accepted that he needed some time out. Then they'd see.

As the taxi stopped outside the little hotel in the rue Jacob it was raining just like the time he arrived in Paris with his mother. Except that this time it was the beginning of September and early in the morning.

A sudden torrential downpour caused the water in the gutters to rise in seconds. As Robert got out of the taxi, he stepped right in the middle of a puddle. Cursing, and with wet shoes (this time they were suede moccasins and not sneakers), he dragged his case across the uneven cobbles and went into the little hotel that he'd found on the Internet under the heading “small is beautiful.” It was called the Hôtel des Marronniers, which as far as he knew meant “Chestnut Trees,” which was a strange name for a hotel, but he had immediately fallen for the pictures and the description:

In the heart of Saint-Germain, a charming oasis of calm with a rose garden in the inner courtyard and very pleasant rooms. Antique furniture.

Tip: A room overlooking the courtyard is an absolute must!

 

Seven

Paris is always a good idea, his mother had said. It doesn't matter if you're in love or not. If you're unhappy or not in love, Paris can even be a
very
good idea, his mother had said. That's what sprang to Robert Sherman's mind as, with a sigh, he wiped the remains of a pile of dog poop from his shoe with a rolled-up newspaper. He was standing in the rue de Dragon, a few steps away from a little postcard shop, and he cursed the sentimental impulse that had brought him to Paris.

The room overlooking the courtyard had turned out to be a disappointment. When he eagerly opened the shutters in the claustrophobically tiny room on the fourth floor, his gaze was met by a gray stone wall. If you twisted your head to the left and leaned so far out of the window that you were risking your life, there was a slight chance of glimpsing a small section of the enchanting inner courtyard, where among the statues and roses a few old-fashioned white cast-iron chairs and tables with curved legs invited you to breakfast.

As he rattled down in the tiny elevator to complain, it made an alarming racket. The young brunette at reception looked at him in amazement when he gave his key back and demanded another room.

“But monsieur, I do not understand: that room
does
overlook the courtyard,” she said in a friendly tone.

“That may well be, but I can't
see
it,” Robert responded in a rather less friendly way.

The girl leafed through a large ledger for a couple of seconds, probably to placate him.

“Je suis desolée,”
she said regretfully. “We're fully booked.”

After a discussion that was as short as it was pointless, Robert grabbed his case, which he had at first left at reception, expecting some kind person to bring it to his room (which, of course, had not happened). He pressed the button impatiently, but the tiny elevator had obviously decided in the meantime to give up the ghost completely. The girl from reception shrugged her shoulders regretfully once more and hung a sign on the door of the elevator.

HORS SERVICE
, it said. “Out of order.”

So Robert had carried his own case up the narrow stairs to the fourth floor—they were obviously not designed to allow the passage of larger items of baggage. Then he sat for a while on the bed with its old-fashioned coverlet, staring out of the window at the stone wall, and finally decided to take a bath.

The bathroom was a dream in marble—the old-fashioned water-blue tiles on the walls were utterly charming—but its dimensions had obviously been conceived for dwarves. Robert sat in the bathtub with his knees around his neck, allowing the water to splash over his head, and began to wonder if it had really been such a good idea to come to Paris.

Perhaps his ideas had been a bit too romantic. And his memories of that first trip suffused with the golden glow of nostalgia.

He was a stranger in a foreign city, an American in Paris; but so far it wasn't turning out to be as wonderful and funny as in those old films with Gene Kelly and Audrey Hepburn that his mother had so loved watching.

The rain had stopped when he set out on a short walk to reconnoiter Saint-Germain. A bad-tempered waiter in a café near the hotel resolutely failed to notice him until he finally condescended to bring him a coffee and a ham baguette. Robert Sherman thought sadly of the friendly service in New York coffee shops. He missed the automatic, “Hi, how are you today?” or, “I like your sweater, looks cool!”

As he afterward walked lost in thought along the rue Bonaparte, a cyclist had almost run him over and not even apologized. Then he'd bought himself a newspaper on the boulevard Saint-Germain and a short time later on the rue du Dragon, a few steps away from a little postcard store, he'd trodden in a pile of dog poop. He couldn't believe that this day would bring anything good.

But in that respect Robert Sherman was completely wrong. Only a few steps stood between him and the greatest adventure of his life. And since the greatest adventures in life are those of the heart, you might also say that this American professor of literature was only a few steps away from love.

But Robert Sherman was totally unaware of this when he glanced appreciatively at the attractive display in the stationer's window as he walked past. And then suddenly came to a halt in bewilderment.

 

Eight

For two weeks Rosalie had been living on cloud nine.

As she filled the postcard stand with fresh cards that morning, humming as she did so, she couldn't help admiring the big poster that was hanging on the wall behind the till.

It showed a big, blue tiger—the illustration from the title page of
The Blue Tiger,
the book that had appeared two weeks previously—and at the bottom of the poster you could see two faces, and, written beneath them, two names:
MAX MARCHAIS
and
ROSALIE LAURENT
.

She smiled proudly and thought back to the reading that had taken place in Luna Luna three days before. Every seat in the little store had been occupied as Max Marchais presented his new book.

And since the author didn't like reading in public and Rosalie really did, he had gladly left that part to her and simply signed books and answered questions afterward.

The audience had been enthusiastic. Even her mother had sat there, completely satisfied, and had come up to her daughter after the reading and hugged her with a happy sigh.

“I'm so proud of you, my child,” she had said. “If only your father could have been here to see it.”

The reading in the store had been set up by Montsignac, the jolly fat publisher. Montsignac thought it would be a nice idea if the book, after the extremely glamorous launch in the publishing house itself and some other events in major bookstores, could also be presented in the place where the illustrations had been produced.

In his humorous introductory speech he had naturally not failed to mention that it had been he—Jean-Paul Montsignac, with his infallible nose for people and talent (“A good publisher immediately recognizes talent”)—who had brought these two lovable freelances together (those were his exact words, and Rosalie and Max had looked at one another in astonishment and then grinned conspiratorially).

The publisher from Opale Jeunesse had every reason to be in a good mood. Since
The Blue Tiger
had appeared at the end of August on the very day of Max Marchais's seventieth birthday, the book with its imaginative illustrations had already sold forty thousand copies, and anyone who believed that Max Marchais, the children's author who had been living in seclusion for many years, had been forgotten by his readers had been proved wrong. Praised by reviewers, loved by readers great and small, the book had even been shortlisted for the
Prix littérature de jeunesse
.

“Well, what a birthday present that is,
mon vieil ami,”
the beaming Montsignac had said, clapping his old companion on the shoulder. “There are some people who have to be forced to be lucky, eh?” And then he had burst into laughter.

The
vieil ami
had not caught the reference, and so had smiled back, but the person who had beamed the most was Rosalie, who still couldn't believe her luck. Since the launch of the book other publishers had also shown an interest in the young illustrator, and there was already a contract for a postcard book with ten different motifs. The demand for wishing cards had also mushroomed: many people came to Luna Luna because they'd read about it in the papers. If things carried on this way there would be no need to worry about rent raises, thought Rosalie with satisfaction. The only worry was how to cope with all the extra work.

“You should consider hiring someone to help you in the store,” René had said to her a few days before as she was sitting at her drawing table until late in the night. “You're working round the clock these days. But everyone knows that the sleep you get before midnight is the most healthy.” And then, with a reproachful and concerned expression, he'd given her one of his lectures on the human body and what was good and bad for it.

Good old René! In the last few weeks and months he really hadn't seen much of her. She'd thrown herself into creating the pictures for the tiger book with fiery enthusiasm. The sketches and trial drawings that she made initially had—with the exception of one picture—found favor both with the publisher and the author. She'd traveled to Le Vésinet three times to visit Max Marchais and discuss the selection of the illustrations with him. She appreciated his directness and humor, even if they had not always agreed about the choice of scenes that she wanted to illustrate. Finally they had sat in the delightful garden with its blue hydrangea bushes and eaten a delicious
charlotte aux framboises
that Madame Bonnier, the housekeeper, had baked. Without noticing it, they had begun to tell each other things that had nothing to do with the illustrations and the book. Like a loving couple they couldn't stop recalling the circumstances surrounding their first meeting, and Rosalie had finally confessed to Max that she had at first taken the unfriendly customer who had stumbled into her store on her day off for a crazy old man who talked nonsense and had gotten lost.

Max had then revealed to her that he had at first not been at all enthusiastic about trying out a “dilettante” and that he'd really only visited the rue du Dragon to be able to tell Montsignac with a clear conscience that he found the scribblings of this postcard store owner execrable.

They had both had a good laugh and eventually Rosalie had revealed to Max that blue had always been her favorite color, that—to use her mother's words—she had a real thing about blue, and then she'd looked directly in to his bright eyes and asked: “Do you believe in coincidences, Monsieur Max?” (Although they were becoming increasingly close they had still remained on formal terms.)

Max Marchais had leaned back in his wicker chair with a smile and fished a raspberry from his plate with his fork.

“There's no such thing as coincidence,” he had said, adding with a grin, “it's not something I said.” He shoved the raspberry into his mouth and swallowed it. “That was said by a far more important man than I am. But anyway it was the first time in my life that I had to knock a postcard stand over to get to know a pretty woman.”

“Monsieur Max!” Rosalie had exclaimed in amusement. “Are you flirting with me?”

“Could be,” he'd replied. “But I'm afraid I'm years too late. Tragic!” He shook his head with a deep sigh. “And anyway, you already have a boyfriend. That … René Joubert. Hmm. A nice young man…”

The way he said that confused her.

“But?” she had asked.

“Well, yes, my dear Rosalie. A nice young man, but he's not the one for you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“My experience of human nature?” he suggested with a laugh. “Perhaps I'm just envious. I'm an old man with a walking stick, Mademoiselle Rosalie, and that sometimes gets on my nerves. But I wasn't always like this, you know. If I were younger I'd risk anything to steal René's pretty girlfriend from him. And I'd bet a bottle of Bollinger that I'd succeed.”

“What a shame you can't lose the bet,” Rosalie replied cheekily. “I'd like to drink Bollinger someday.”

“It's a very fine wine, Mademoiselle Rosalie, you don't just drink it any old how. They say that anyone who hasn't had a sip of that champagne hasn't lived.”

“You're making me curious.”

“Well, perhaps the occasion will arise,” Marchais replied.

And then—it was weeks later, on a hot August day and Rosalie had completely forgotten about the Bollinger question—Max Marchais had called her one morning and asked if she was free that evening, because the occasion had arrived.