54. July 20, 1960 Paris, France
Beatrix leans against the iron balcony rail and gazes out at the Paris skyline, the morning sun already warm on her bare arms. She clutches a wide bowl of coffee with both hands and inhales the rich aroma.
Oliver sits behind her at the table, bent over his journal, the collar of his plaid button-down askew.
The gentle breeze ruffles his dark hair as he writes.
“If I lived in Paris, I’d never get sick of this view,” she says.
Oliver looks up from his notebook. His gaze lingers over her. “Me neither.”
She rolls her eyes and hides her smile behind a sip of milky coffee.
Oliver wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her down into his lap. She puts her bowl on the table before he manages to spill its contents on her yellow floral sundress.
“What do you want to do today?” He turns the page of his journal. “Eiffel Tower? River cruise on the Seine? Versailles?”
She frowns. “Did you make a list?”
The word Louvre is written in his neat handwriting near the top of the page. A check mark fills the box drawn next to it.
He shrugs. “I don’t want to miss anything.”
“Everyone misses something,” Beatrix says.
Oliver sighs. “I know. I just want to make the most of whatever I’m doing, wherever I’m visiting. It’s my only chance.”
She adjusts his collar, straightening and smoothing it into place. “I think there’s a fine line between making the most of a moment and living in it.”
He gives her a weary smile. “I guess I’m still trying to find it.”
She can hear the undercurrent of regret in his words, his unspoken fear: that he’ll die before he figures out how to live. “I think I know where to start.” She reaches for his journal and closes the cover. “Why did you choose Paris?”
“I wanted to take you somewhere new for your birthday. Somewhere neither of us had ever been, that could be ours, together. You mentioned Paris at Carnevale, and my parents had honeymooned here, so I guess… I thought it would be romantic.” His cheeks flush pink, and she wonders if he is remembering what happened yesterday morning.
Neither of them has mentioned the Night Ferry since. “It’s a total cliché, isn’t it?”
“What’s clichéd about a man traveling through time to celebrate someone’s four hundred and seventy-ninth birthday?” She smiles, and he does, too. She slides off his lap and offers him her hand. “Let’s pack a lunch and my Polaroid, and go make Paris ours, shall we?”
Beatrix doesn’t believe in perfect, but if she did, this would be a perfect day.
They walk, hand in hand, along the Seine, Oliver’s fingers knotted through hers.
They climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower and wander through the manicured gardens below it.
They walk the narrow cobblestone streets of the city, with no destination in mind, until they find a quiet spot in the shade of an old tree in a park.
Oliver spreads a picnic blanket on the grass beneath it, and they sit together, her leg brushing against his, his arm around her back.
They eat their supper of bread and cheese and wine while the setting sun bathes the city in a golden glow.
Beautiful, precious time, slipping through Beatrix’s fingers like sand.
She studies Oliver’s face in the warm sunlight, commits every detail to memory. The way his loose curls drift lazily in the breeze, and the faint crease lines in his brow. The shade of his eyes, perfectly matched to the cloudless sky over Paris.
Oliver catches her. “You’re staring.”
“I’m making sure I don’t forget.” She takes her Polaroid from the picnic blanket and hands it to him. “Here, take our picture.”
She leans into Oliver. Their shoulders brush. He holds the camera at arm’s length, counts down from three, and snaps their photo. With a click and a flash and a grinding whir, the moment is captured, frozen in time on a few inches of film. As if that could possibly do it justice.
Beatrix pulls the photo from the camera and lays it between them on the blanket. They watch the image emerge together, a heavy fog burning away to reveal the waiting world hidden beneath it.
Oliver tenses. He hovers his thumb over the edge of the photo, blocking her image. He shudders.
“What is it?” Beatrix asks.
“Déjà vu.” He hands her the photo. “It’s the one from my obituary.”
She stares at him, wide-eyed. “I didn’t mean to,” she says, as if she could have changed his fate by leaving her camera behind in London. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Oliver says. “I know why Theo picks it. I look—I am—happy in it.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance, as if Oliver has manifested his own dark clouds. “We should probably go.”
Beatrix nods, though she doesn’t want her perfect day to end. They pack up the remains of their picnic and she slips her hand into his. They set off toward the hotel, racing against the gathering storm.
The skies open up without warning. A cool summer rain pours over Beatrix in sheets, soaking her through in an instant. She swipes her hair away from her face and braces herself for her own déjà vu, the crushing weight of living in the here and now and the past and gone, all at once. It never comes.
“Are you all right?” Oliver asks. His curls are plastered to his head by the downpour and his shirt clings to his skin.
Beatrix beams at him. “Wonderful.” She takes his face in her hands and kisses him. His arm slips around her waist, draws her close, and it is only Oliver, only Paris, only here and now, with this rainstorm and this man.
Thunder cracks overhead and Oliver pulls away. He grabs her hand. “Come on.”
They run through the streets until they are gasping and laughing, in the hotel lobby, the concierge muttering under his breath about the mad foreign guests dripping rainwater all over his floors.
Beatrix is glad the elevator is empty. Her dress clings to her skin, leaves little to the imagination. She leans into Oliver, tries to steal some warmth from him. He wraps his arms around her back, but they are no better than two drowned rats. She can’t stop shivering.
He kisses the top of her head. “Hot bath?” he asks.
She tilts her chin so she can see his face. “Is that an invitation?”
His mouth lifts at the corner. “Do you want it to be?”
Her heart skips. “I’ll bring the champagne.” She stands on her toes to kiss him, and his mouth parts for hers. He reaches for her face, slides his thumb along her jaw. She melts into him, presses her wet skin against his.
The elevator dings its arrival, drawing them apart. Oliver’s head tips back against the wall with a soft thud. The doors slide slowly open. Beatrix reluctantly moves away from him.
Outside their room, Oliver fumbles with the key. He pushes the door open, and Beatrix steps inside, her heart pounding as the storm beyond the balcony darkens the afternoon. The door clicks shut, and then Oliver is behind her, his hands on her hips, kissing her neck.
“I have never wanted to get stuck in an elevator so badly in all my life.”
She turns to face him, and he pulls her close. Heat pulses through her. She drapes her arms over his shoulders, pressing tighter against him. “Where were we?”
He searches her gaze, his eyes shining with desire. “Are you sure about this?”
Beatrix still doesn’t want this to end. Still knows that it will. But not here. Not now.
She kisses Oliver like she has wanted to kiss him a thousand times—a kiss forged from every agonizing moment she has wanted him but couldn’t have him. An ache blooms inside her. “Yes.”
Oliver kisses her, hard, and she gasps. She presses into him, needs to feel his body against hers.
They make it to the bedroom. She fumbles with the buttons on his shirt, peels the wet fabric from his skin.
He steps behind her, and she leans into the warmth of him.
He places a soft kiss behind her ear, trails another dozen down her neck, each one featherlight.
Her pulse races. “What are you thinking?” she murmurs.
He slips the strap of her sundress off her shoulder. Kisses there, too. “I think I’m glad you don’t wear a corset anymore.”
She laughs. “So am I.”
He tugs at her zipper, and it releases, slowly opening as his hand moves down her back.
Her dress slides over her hips and pools at her feet.
She shivers in her slip—no, she is trembling now.
She turns to him, and her lips are on his again.
She can’t get close enough, can’t get enough of his touch, his taste, of him.
His fingers brush the edge of her slip, caressing the line where bare skin meets lace. Past it. Just.
Slowly, his touch drifts up her thigh. Higher.
“You are such a tease,” she breathes against his mouth.
“We have time,” he whispers in her ear.
She’s not sure who pulls who into the bed.
Time doesn’t so much stop as cease to exist entirely.
There is only her. Only him. His breath warm against her neck.
His touch, electric on her skin. His mouth on her.
She moves against him, moves with him, until they are nothing but a tangle of limbs and longing, aching for release, until Beatrix is sure she has never wanted anything so desperately in her entire life.
Until everything else ceases to exist, too.
The storm passes quickly, like summer storms do, the wild evening giving way to a clear, calm night.
Their last night in Paris.
Beatrix gazes out at the city lights twinkling below her, all the way to the horizon.
She sips her champagne. Tiny bubbles pop sharply against her tongue as the first notes of “The Theme from A Summer Place” carry onto the balcony, tinny flutes and violin drifting to her ears from the radio inside.
Oliver turns up the volume and joins her at the rail.
He offers Beatrix his hand. “Would the lady care to dance?”
She puts her champagne on the table next to Oliver’s half-empty glass and places her hand in his. He draws her close and places his other hand on that familiar spot on her back.
“Still not a lady,” she says.
“Just a thief.” He kisses her gently.
She leans her head on his shoulder as they sway together to the music.
Beatrix doesn’t know how long she’ll live, can’t fathom an eternity, even now. But she knows she will remember this day, this night, with this view and this man dancing with her on this balcony, forever. However long that is.
Tears prick at her eyes. A melancholy wave crashes over her, as if her heart knows she was not meant to have this much happiness. Because she can’t will the sun to never rise again, can’t live inside this moment forever.
Because one day, Oliver will leave her, and he won’t come back.
A tear spills down her cheek, then another, and she can’t stop them from falling. Oliver wraps his arms around her. He doesn’t say a word, just holds her close.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. She was trying to savor the here and now. But old habits die hard, and hers are very, very old. She wipes her tears away. “I’m ruining it, aren’t I?”
Oliver kisses her on the forehead. “Never.”