We'll Always Have Paris (28 page)

Katie looked at her watch. “Let’s head downstairs. The laundry should be dry by now,” Katie said.

I looked at her wide-eyed. “I am not going back down there,” I said, sitting on the bed in our hotel room.

“Okay, I’ll go grab it,” she said with a shrug.

“Oh no, you will not! You are
not
going down to that place alone.”

Katie raised her eyebrow. “So you want to just leave our clothes in Amsterdam?”

Why
did
I
eat
so
much
of
that
damned
space
cake?! Why did I have to be such a greedy, impatient American? Did I really need to supersize a drug trip?

Focus. Focus. Katie just asked a question.

“No, let’s do this. We can handle this,” I said with intensity, rubbing my hands together.

Katie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

Ten minutes later, we were back upstairs folding clean laundry. I was on my fifth refill of water, but my thirst was unquenchable. “Are you okay?” Katie asked.

“I’m great!” I shot.

“You don’t seem great.”

There was no hiding it. “Look, Katie, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” she turned toward me, still folding clothes.

“I had a lapse in judgment,” I said. Katie looked blank. “I ate the space cake. And now I am just a tiny bit baked in Amsterdam.”

“Really?” She looked amused.

I nodded, then fled to the bathroom to refill my water bottle. “I want you to know that we are safe and everything is going to be okay. I am just going to be really stupid and thirsty tonight because I’m baked in Amsterdam.”

“All right.”

I sat on the bed with the full weight of my remorse. “This is not the kind of mother I want to be.”

“Look, it’s not a big deal,” Katie assured me.

“It
is
a big deal. I’m baked in Amsterdam.”

“You really don’t need to keep saying
in
Amsterdam
. I know where we are,” Katie said. “Hey, are you making an origami swan with my jeans?”

“Pretty, right?” I began pacing around the room frantically.

“What are you doing?” Katie asked.

“I’m going to walk it off. Sometimes you’ve just gotta get a foot on it.”

“You do?” she asked.

“I really regret this,” I told her.

Katie set the last of the clothing aside and lay on the bed. “Okay, so it was a one-time thing. If you think it was so terrible, then don’t do it again.”

“Don’t do it again? Are you kidding me?! I will never, ever,
ever
do this again. Can you get me some more water please? I feel like someone is shoveling hot sand into my mouth.”

“I’ve got to tell you,” she said, turning on the water. “This doesn’t seem like fun.” Katie filled a glass and turned back toward the bed, doing a double take as I began pretending to swim across the mattress. Underwater bubble noises soon followed.

“Sometimes you just gotta swim through it,” I explained.

“Look, I know you’re having a rough night, so I’m trying not to laugh at you, but the truth is, this is kind of hilarious.”

“Noooo!” I wailed. “That is not what I want you taking away from this. This is not funny. I am baked in Amsterdam!”

“Okay, let’s try to be positive,” Katie said. “If it makes you feel better, I now have absolutely no desire to ever try pot.”

“That’s good, that’s good.”

Katie smiled. “Ever heard the expression ‘Show, don’t tell’?”

“I am a walking ‘Just say no to drugs’ ad,” I said, taking momentary solace. “Now let’s order room service.”

“What do you want?” Katie asked.

“Chocolate cake and a gallon of water,” I told her. “Sometimes you just gotta eat your way through it.”

“You got it.”

I sat on the bed and told Katie that I was not leaving that spot until morning. “This is my life raft,” I told her. “Just tip the guy five euro and sign my name to the bill.” Then I grabbed a pillow and hugged it like a teddy bear. “Sometimes, you just gotta snuggle up to it.”

She picked up the phone to order our dinner. “Katie,” I whispered loudly. “I’m a little bit baked in Amsterdam.”

As Katie ordered room service, I mouthed,
Don’t get the cake
.

She shrugged to ask why I had changed my mind.

“They’ll know,” I whispered.

“Okay, just the burgers,” Katie said into the phone.

“Katie, where are those cookies from Melkweg?” I asked.

As we ate our dinner, I told Katie we needed to discuss our plans for the following day. “We are supposed to take a train to Paris tomorrow,” I said despite the fact that she was well aware of our itinerary. “Can we do that? Can we just get on a train and go to Paris?”

“Yeah, we’ve taken trains dozens of times. We got this,” Katie said.

“What if it’s cloudy?” I asked.

She suppressed a laugh. “We go to the train station, buy a ticket, and get on the train.”

“Okay, okay, that’s good,” I nodded. She seemed like she knew what she was doing. “But what if it’s sunny?”

Katie tilted down her chin and looked at me, incredulous. “It’s pretty much the same plan regardless of the weather.”

“Okay, good, good, that makes sense.”

“Keep drinking water,” Katie suggested.

“Oh God, I’m awful. I can’t believe you have to take care of me because I’m baked in Amsterdam. This is so unfair to you.”

“The only thing that’s unfair was that I had to fold pretty much all of the laundry,” Katie said. “And you’re eating all of my cookies.”

“I hate myself for this.”

“Mommy, you know what your problem is?”

“I’m completely baked in—”

“In Amsterdam,” she finished. “Okay, you’re baked in Amsterdam, this has been established. But you know what your real problem is?”

I took another swig of water. “What?”

“You have no idea how to forgive yourself.”

When Katie and I arrived in Paris, the sun was shining and my head was clear, two welcome changes. Our taxi pulled into the Marais neighborhood, and there was Hôtel du Petit Moulin looking exactly as I had remembered it from eight years earlier.

The same could not be said of us. Katie was now a five-foot-six runner with hair down to her waist. Her face no longer had the chubby cheeks of a little girl. As for me, my hairdresser had done a good job of hiding the gray swiftly taking over. And like my daughter, I’d grown a few inches as well, except it was all around the waist. Over the years, there were very few sweets I had shunned.

I could easily envision the little hotel in its original life as a bakery because of its huge display windows. The more obvious clue may have been that the word
Boulangerie
was still clearly painted on the outside. Through the hotel windows, I saw vases bursting with purple and white orchids and billowy velvet drapes dipping beneath the frame.

When we stepped inside the hotel lobby, my eyes were immediately drawn to a small beaded Victorian lamp sitting on the reception desk. Animal-print throw pillows sat on plush velvet chairs and black leather sofas. A nook of the lobby was wallpapered in a pattern of books on the shelves; another wall was papered in a vintage print.

Katie and I took a tiny elevator to the third floor, then walked up an uneven spiral staircase with polka dot carpeting.

When we opened the door to our room, Katie’s mouth dropped. It looked like something from a dollhouse, complete with a sloped ceiling. Two windows were angled toward the sky. Another window was set behind a small wooden desk made from an old sewing machine. Lavender walls were accented by artistic blocks of wallpaper, some floral patterns, others of women from the turn of the last century. “This is like
Little
House
on
the
Prairie
,” I said.

“This is much nicer,” Katie quipped. “More like
Little
House
on
La
Paree
.”

“Do you remember stopping by here last time?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It was half a lifetime ago. I remember the big things like the Eiffel Tower, but not this.”

Katie’s mention of the tower made me long to see it. Something about laying eyes on the landmark solidified the reality that we were, in fact, in Paris. During this visit though, the image would not evoke panic like last time, I promised myself. Yes, we were still clueless tourists. And yes, we would still get lost. But this time I would try to accept that uncertainty was part of the adventure.

Katie and I planned to walk along the river toward the Eiffel Tower, but wound up heading in the opposite direction along the Seine. We passed a small amphitheater with just enough room for the dozen couples who were dancing. Within minutes, we passed another inlet with a group of dancers. When we reached a third group, we decided to stop and watch.

A Latin couple in their twenties danced seductively to Spanish music, their muscular bodies intertwined effortlessly, their eyes locked. The woman’s silky brown braid rested on her exposed back. Her arms were perfectly tanned and sinewy.
I
have
got
to
get
back
to
the
gym
, I thought. The guy was equally sexy despite the fact he wore a gauzy white blouse knotted at the bottom. With his shoulder length wavy hair and coal-black eyes, he belonged on the cover of a romance novel. “Those two are
really
into each other,” Katie commented. Her eyes soon darted to watch an older couple. An Asian woman with the legs of a professional dancer glided across the floor in the arms of her partner, a dead ringer for Martin Scorsese, with bushy eyebrows and a wide smile. “Her husband looks so happy,” Katie said.

“He was a widow,” I said, beginning to draft the man’s life story. “He lost his first wife seven years ago. He never thought he’d find love again.”

Katie jumped in. “But then he met Lynn at a dance class, and she brought him back to life.”

A middle-aged couple made their way past us. The woman’s fuzzy white hair made us think she had recently completed chemotherapy. “He held her hand every week at the hospital,” Katie said as a lump filled my throat.

I continued. “And he promised her that as soon as her treatment was done, he would take her to Paris and they would dance the tango on the River Seine.”

Katie and I both became teary-eyed, but quickly burst into laughter at our sappiness. “We are ridiculous,” Katie said, wiping her nose. “She’s probably in a punk rock band. Next week her buzz cut will be green.”

The music changed and the sexy young Latina switched dance partners. The two stood inches apart and gazed adoringly into each other’s eyes. “Wow, she’s really into him too,” Katie said.

That evening, we made it to the Eiffel Tower, though not on foot as planned. We sat on a boat with hundreds of other tourists, quietly watching the sights of Paris pass by us. I was more at peace than ever before and thought Katie was about to tell me she was having the same reaction when she tapped my shoulder.

“I don’t feel so great,” she said instead.

“Are you seasick?” I asked, though this would be a first.

“I just feel
really
tired.”

By sunset, Katie was tucked in bed and fast asleep, a first since her preschool days.

Early the next morning, she lay in bed whimpering in her sleep. Her face was tight like a fist, her skin burning. Sensing my gaze, Katie’s eyes opened. “My head hurts,” she said weakly.

“You have a fever,” I told her as I started to fill the bathtub with tepid water. “Let’s get you cooled off and hydrated,” I suggested, removing a bottle of cold water from the minibar.

Once Katie had been in the bath for a while, I went downstairs and found that although the hotel had a first aid kit, it didn’t include anything to bring down a fever. When I returned to the room, I asked if she would be okay on her own for a few minutes while I went out to buy Tylenol.

Why
didn’t I bring Tylenol?
I scolded myself.
Always
bring
Tylenol!

“I’ll be fine,” she replied.

“The concierge is a nice young woman, so call the front desk if you need anything. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” I placed a cold washcloth on her forehead and ventured out.

I walked onto the desolate streets of early morning Paris to find that the supermarket was closed. Nearby was a fruit stand whose owner sold me juice and snacks, then mentioned that the only place to buy medicine on a Sunday would be the Republic.

“The Republic?” I asked. “Is that a neighborhood? A store? A government office?”

“It is the Republic,” he said, pointing toward the door. I couldn’t tell whether he was giving me directions or just kicking me out.

I decided to check on Katie back at the hotel, where I could ask the concierge how to get to this place called the Republic. Katie’s eyes were closed, though her facial muscles contracted and expanded with discomfort. I cooled the washcloth and placed it back on her forehead. Her face smoothed and she managed a weak smile.

“Katie,” I whispered. “I need to go to the Republic to get medicine.”

She nodded.

“I brought back orange juice,” I told her, pouring some into a glass. “Are you going to be okay for a bit longer?”

Katie opened her eyes. “What’s the Republic?” she asked softly. She was lethargic and miserable but lucid enough to be curious, an encouraging sign.

As it turned out, the Republic was the name of a small plaza nearby which had a pharmacy that was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Despite the early hour, the line snaked from the front counter to the back door, about twenty people deep. When it was finally my turn, I was able to fumble through enough French to let the clerk know I needed medicine, but had to charade the word fever by placing a hand on my forehead and making a sad face.

“
Fièvre?
” the clerk offered with an eye roll.

Katie’s fever broke later that morning, but she didn’t have the energy to leave our hotel room. I sat beside her in bed, watching the white cotton sheet rise and fall with each breath. I read an entire novel, then in the afternoon, sat at our little desk and wrote postcards to family and friends back home.

At night, I listened to people chatting and clanking their silverware at the restaurant below. I heard a woman’s high heels clopping against the street as she yelled at her boyfriend. I took a ridiculously long bath and then experimented with hairstyles pictured in a French fashion magazine.

The following day, Katie assured me she was fully recovered but soon changed her mind. After a half hour of looking at modern art at the Pompidou Center, she asked if we could sit at the snack bar and take a rest. Sipping fruit juice, Katie leaned her head into her hands and yawned. “I think I’ve spent the last twenty out of twenty-four hours sleeping. I’m like a koala bear.” She lay down on the cushioned bench and yawned again. “I think I’d like to be a koala. Then I could sleep most of the day and just be like, ‘Hey, this is what I do. I’m a koala, don’t judge.’”

“Katie, sweetheart, I think you’re still sick,” I said.

She said nothing.

“Katie?”

The only sound I heard was her light snoring.

***

Another day of resting, reading, and eating croissants in bed returned Katie to her usual self, though she felt bad that we missed some time sightseeing in Paris. “We lost two days,” she said apologetically.

“We didn’t lose anything,” I assured her. “We still had the days. They just weren’t what we had planned.”

I smiled realizing that I actually meant it and wasn’t just telling her what I thought she needed to hear. The truth was that some things on our to-do list would not get done. But while I sat in our hotel room caring for Katie, something else had been accomplished, something for which there was no box to check. I had enjoyed life at its most ordinary.

“Didn’t you want to go to Moulin Rouge last night?” Katie asked.

“Nah,” I said, swatting away the idea with my hand. “After you fell asleep, I looked out these crazy windows and stared at the stars for an hour.
French
stars, Katie,” I said. “How often do I get to do that?”

“You do know we’re seeing the same stars we would at home, right? We’re in the same hemisphere.”

“But how often do I look at them?” I asked. “Like I said, we didn’t lose anything.”

***

My cousin Richard—my aunt Rita and uncle Arnold’s son—and his family were visiting Paris at the same time as we were so we connected for two days. Richard and his wife Lora have two children: Tom, who is six months younger than Katie, and Taite, who is eleven years old. Joining the family was Ivan, a new aide who helps care for Tom, who was born with cerebral palsy. Despite his physical limitations, Tom has always been buoyed by a penchant for mischief rivaled only by his sister’s. When Tom’s wheelchair isn’t burning rubber down sidewalks, Taite is often balancing on the handles as if they were gymnastic beams.

Richard and Lora are like an upscale, gender-swapped version of William and me, Lora being the measured spouse, Richard the scattered one. It is easy to imagine her wearing a white coat in the hospital laboratory where she is the head of gynecological pathology. He is an inventor who is like a younger Larry David with thick salt-and-pepper hair.

On our first day together, we ventured outside Paris to the Palace of Versailles. The façade and entry gates of the Baroque chateau were so laden in gold I had to squint from the glare. Inside, the opulence was overwhelming: seven hundred rooms filled with fine furniture, paintings, and sculptures. The ceilings were painted as elaborately as the Sistine Chapel. Looking around, I wondered if the royal decorator ever dared tell the residing king and queen that it was all a little too much.

As we entered the Hall of Mirrors, a long corridor with multiple chandeliers and looking-glass panels, Richard gestured to the throng of people. “What do you think Louis XIV would think of all this?” Not waiting for a response, he shrugged dramatically. “Who are all of these commoners in my home? This place was supposed to be for my grandkids.”

We spent the afternoon shuffling through the crowded palace, one room looking similar to the next. The sea of guests was so dense we nearly lost one another several times. Even more frequently, shoulders were bumped and feet stepped on. In the heat, this was more irritating. As Richard looked around yet another gilded room, he scrunched his face. “This is like the Trump Towers of the 1700s,” he said.

After a few hours at Versailles, as we were sitting in the garden eating soggy sandwiches from the snack bar, Taite said what we were all thinking: “This place Ver-sucks.”

Back in Paris that evening, we found a cozy Provençal restaurant where natural light poured into the dining room, which was filled with distressed wood hutches and crisp white tablecloths. As the owner began placing grilled chicken and potatoes on the table, Taite suggested we play a game in which we go around the table and ask questions about each other. Taite coined the term “quames” for this game of questions. Three hours later, we learned we could all envision Richard as John Lennon’s best friend (and florist). We thought Tom would be best cast on
Glee
, and that in a few years, Katie could be mistaken for a botanist. I also learned that eating two desserts on top of a gourmet meal is not impossible if I focused really hard on the incredible taste instead of my tightening waistband.