Paris Is Always a Good Idea (24 page)

So now Max took a taxi every day to a physiotherapist's practice near the hospital where he could do the necessary exercises. A bit laborious, perhaps, but still far better than being stuck in a rehabilitation clinic getting depressed. Professeur Pasquale had also advised him to remove anything in the house that might cause him to trip and to have handholds and a bath seat fitted in the bathroom—as well as to avoid ladders for a while.

Max put his crutches to one side, dropped into his desk chair with a groan, and looked out into the garden which was bathed in the midday sun. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Rosalie Laurent's number.

She was in the store when he rang, and there were customers there, but there was no mistaking her delight at his call. It wasn't a long conversation, but long enough to deal with what was most important: to invite Rosalie to Le Vésinet for coffee on Saturday.

“How lovely that you're home again, Max. I'd love to come,” she had said. “Should I bring anything?”

“No need, Marie-Hélène will bake us a tarte tatin. Just bring yourself.”

Max put the phone down with a smile and sat at his desk for a while, lost in thought. At the end of the call Rosalie had said that there was something she wanted to discuss with him when she came to Le Vésinet. What could it be?

Max sat thinking for a while, and then noticed that he was gradually succumbing to a pleasant weariness. Since his time in hospital he'd gotten into the habit of taking a little afternoon nap. And fortunately no one would disturb him at it here in the peaceful silence of the old villa. He reached for his crutches and heaved himself laboriously out of his chair. Montsignac had probably won Rosalie over to the idea of the Christmas story, and she was now meant to persuade him to do it. The old fox!

Shaking his head, he went over to the door. As he passed the old cabinet, glancing with pleasure at his favorite picture, a southern French seaside landscape, he suddenly saw something that brought him to a stop.

In the old black Remington, that he hadn't used for decades and kept more out of nostalgia than anything else, there was a sheet of paper.

Startled, Max turned the little wheel at the side and pulled the paper out of the roller. What he saw made him feel strangely uneasy. The pale blue lines seemed to him like a message from the past. Could there be such a thing?

His heart beat faster and he felt like a time traveler hurtling through space at breakneck speed.

On the page in his hand were the first sentences of the story of the blue tiger. Written almost forty years before. On that old Remington.

 

Twenty-five

“Sometimes in life things happen that you just weren't expecting,” he had told her when they spoke together on Skype as they did every Friday. His voice had sounded a little guilty, but also very definite, like the time-delayed pictures of his face, which had taken on a golden-brown coloring under the California sun. “I thought it was better to tell you right away,” he added ingenuously, smiling at her from the screen in his boyish way. “I hope we can still be friends.” Rosalie had indeed expected many things. But definitely not that René would end their relationship on Skype. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before—still, she should have seen it coming, and if she hadn't been so bound up with the events and emotional upheavals of her own life she would certainly have noticed the signs earlier.

Almost three weeks had passed since she had taken her boyfriend to the airport in Paris. From the very beginning she'd gotten the impression that René was taking to his seminar in San Diego like a duck to water—whenever she spoke to him, this was the old-fashioned phrase that popped into her mind. In every telephone conversation his voice had brimmed over with enthusiasm. Zack Whiteman—a god. The participants in the seminar—outgoing, laid-back, all with the right spirit. The long, golden beaches—unbelievable. The climate—fantastic. Everything was perfect; she'd already understood that.

“The latest trend is roga,” René had told her. “The best thing you can do for your body.”

“Roga?” she repeated suspiciously, sitting in bed with her cup of coffee, hoping she'd never have to try a sport that was so demanding just to pronounce. “What on earth is that?”

“A combination of running and yoga,” he explained. “I'll show you when I get back.”

She'd laughed and thought,
No thank you!
When he'd then told her about the blond long-distance runner who accompanied him on his “fasted training” first thing in the morning before sharing a papaya with lime juice, she'd put it down to “sporting enthusiasm” and thought no further of it.

In subsequent calls the name Anabel Miller had cropped up again a couple of times, and then the long-distance runner suddenly disappeared from their conversations. But not, as it turned out, from the life of her roga-practicing boyfriend.

For a couple of days she heard no more, and when they then spoke again and René materialized on her computer screen looking visibly sheepish, Rosalie could see that he had something on his mind. His permanent enthusiasm had given way to embarrassment, and the gaze of his brown eyes into the camera was rather anxious.

“Can we talk?” he had asked.

“Of course. We're talking already, aren't we?” she'd said, unaware of what was going on.

“
Alors
 … well … I don't really know how to tell you this … humph!” He scratched the back of his head. “It's not so simple. You're … such a wonderful woman, Rosalie … even if you definitely eat too many croissants.” He gave an embarrassed grin. “But what does that matter, you can afford it, you've got a good metabolism.…”

“Eh … so?” Disconcerted, Rosalie bent forward, trying to find some sense in her boyfriend's babbling.

“Well … I mean, it has nothing to do with you, there's no way I want to put you down, you're too important to me … and even if we sort of … well … how should I put it, aren't such a good match in terms of our interests,” he hemmed and hawed, “it was always very good with you.…”

And then finally the penny dropped.

“The long-distance runner,” she said and he nodded in relief because it was all out in the open at last.

And then he said those words about the things that sometimes happen in life even when you're not expecting them.

*   *   *

STRANGELY, IT HADN'T HURT
at all. Well, not much. Of course she'd felt a little strange as the years she'd spent with René rolled past her inner eye like a film. There were many things she would not have wanted to miss, not even that solitary early-morning run through the Jardin du Luxembourg and certainly not that first night on the roof of her little apartment.

Rosalie smiled as she thought of it. She hadn't been totally destroyed or outraged at René's confession that he'd fallen head over heels in love with a sporty blonde called Anabel Miller, who ate papayas for breakfast and with whom he could now practice roga—or anything else—to his heart's content.

René's honesty was disarming, as usual, and she couldn't be angry with him. Surprised at how quickly he'd fallen in love, yes of course. But when she got dressed after their conversation and stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom putting on a touch of lipstick, she realized to her surprise that she was even a little relieved. That could have been because some things that she hadn't been expecting had occurred in her own life.

The previous Tuesday Robert had, to her surprise, turned up at the store to find out “how things were.” It was the first time they'd seen each other after their dubious adventure in Le Vésinet and their unfortunate parting outside the hotel. When she saw the tall, lanky figure with his mop of blond hair appear at the door of the store at midday, something approaching a shock of joy ran through her limbs.

“Am I intruding?” Robert had asked, flashing her a hopeful smile that was difficult to resist.

“No … no, of course not. I just have to…,” she had stammered, self-consciously removing a lock of hair from her face, “deal with this lady's purchases.” Her cheeks red, she'd turned to her customer. “So … what do we have here? Three sheets of gift wrap, five cards, a rose stamp…”

“Oh, do you know what? I think I'll also take one of those pretty paperweights that you have in the window,” said the customer, a red-haired woman in an elegant yellow shirtwaist dress—obviously an Italian—clumping over to the window on her breathtakingly high heels. “That one there … with the writing.” She pointed into the window.

“Yes, of course, with pleasure.” Rosalie followed the customer, pushing past Robert who was leaning on the store doorpost. “Which paperweight would you like—
Paris
or
l'Amour
?”

“Hm…” The Italian woman thought for a moment. “
Molto bene
—they're both very pretty.…” She pursed her lips indecisively as Rosalie took both the oval glass paperweights out of the display and held them out to the customer.

“Why don't you take both?” they suddenly heard from the direction of the door, and both women turned round in surprise. Robert Sherman stood there smiling, his arms folded over his water-blue polo shirt. “Excuse me for intervening—but Paris and love—they suit each other perfectly, don't you think?”

Flattered, the Italian woman smiled back, and it was not difficult to see that she found the “intervention” of this good-looking foreigner pleasing. Her gaze lost itself for a moment in his eyes and then slid down over the suntanned arms with the little blond hairs that emerged from the polo shirt, the bright, slightly too loose-fitting duck pants, and the brown suede moccasins.

She seemed to really like what she saw.

“
Sì, signor
, that's a good idea,” she purred. “After all, Paris is the city of love, isn't it?” She laughed, tilted her head back a little, and fluttered her thick black eyelashes. She obviously interpreted Robert's remark as an invitation to flirt. She nodded curtly to Rosalie. “Wrap them both for me, please!” Then she directed her undivided attention back to Robert. “You're not from here, are you? No, let me guess!” Another throaty laugh. “You're … an
American
!”

Robert raised his eyebrows and nodded with amusement, while Rosalie stood beside the till in silence, wrapping the paperweights in tissue paper and following the banter with furrowed brow. What was all this idiotic billing and cooing about? Luna Luna wasn't a dating café.

“An American in Paris—how romantic,” cried the Italian woman with delight. Then she lowered her voice.

“So we're both foreigners in this beautiful city.” She held her slim hand out to him, and it wouldn't have surprised Rosalie if he'd kissed it. “Gabriella Spinelli. From Milano.”

Robert took her hand with a grin. “Robert Sherman, New York.”

Gabriella Spinelli took a step backward. “No!” she breathed, opening her already outsize eyes even wider. “You aren't by any chance from the law firm Sherman and Sons? My uncle, Angelo Salvatore, who lives in New York, was represented in a very complicated case years ago by a Paul Sherman. A lot of money depended on it. The best lawyer he ever had—Uncle Angelo still says so. He was more than satisfied.” She straightened the sunglasses in her hair.

Robert nodded in surprise. “That was my father.”

“Well what do you know!
Madre mia!
My goodness, is it possible!” Gabriella laughed ecstatically and all at once Rosalie felt a violent urge to wring the scrawny neck of this red-haired lady from Milan, whose uncle—Angelo Soprano? no … Salvatore—was obviously the godfather of the New York Mafia.

“It's-a small-a world-a,” she said with her appalling Italian accent. “Do you believe in coincidence, Mr. Sherman?” She tilted her head coquettishly, and Robert couldn't help shaking his head with a smile.

Rosalie felt that the moment had come to intervene. “
Et voilà
—that makes seventy-three euros and eighty cents,” she said, thrusting a pretty sky-blue bag with a white ribbon under the nose of a rather shocked Gabriella.

The Italian woman rummaged quickly and without thinking in her canary-yellow Prada bag and took out a massive wallet, while still keeping an eye on the American, who had not moved from his place near the door.

When she had paid and stopped right in front of Robert to continue their conversation, Rosalie came up behind her. “
Au revoir,
madame, I'm very sorry, but we close for lunch,” she said, opened the door, and shoved the red-haired Italian gently but firmly out onto the street.

“Oh, just one moment!” Gabriella swooped elegantly round and was back beside Robert.

“How lucky we met, Mr. Sherman,” she twittered. “Do you have time for a coffee? I'd really like that.”

“I'm afraid Mr. Sherman has an appointment,” said Rosalie with a grim smile. She folded her arms and blocked the lovely Gabriella's path back into the store.
“Bonne journée, madame!”

“Oh, what a pity! Such a pity!” The Italian woman retreated regretfully with her shopping, but not before giving Robert a visiting card and a longing look. “Call me, Signor Sherman, I'm sure we have a lot to talk about.”

“So I have an appointment?” asked Robert with some amusement after Rosalie had slammed the door behind Gabriella Spinelli.

“Yes,” she said with a challenging look. “With me.”

“Oh!” He raised his eyebrows with an amused smile. “That is of course …
much
better.”

“Very witty. If you've only dropped in to flirt with foreign women, then you might as well go at once,” she blurted.
Too dumb!
She chewed her lip.