Chapter 10 May 1995 Lily Jacobsen—Program Manager
Lily Jacobsen—program manager
Dear Mademoiselle Jacobsen,
Thank you for your interest in having Pat O’Malley speak at the library. We are finalizing the touring schedule for him to promote the French translation of his new book in October and will get back to you when we know more.
Sincerely,
Colette Levy
Editor in Chief
At my desk, I held the letter to my heart.
This reply wasn’t exactly a yes, but it wasn’t another nameless no.
Things were looking up. It was Friday, and I couldn’t stop thinking about my date with Chris.
During my lunch “hour,” a mere fifteen minutes, I jotted down the banter from our meet-cute.
Putting the pen to my journal felt good.
For some reason, I’d hesitated to add the scene to my work in progress, French Kisses.
The roar of Jennifer de Narp’s vintage gold Mercedes broke my train of thought.
In the courtyard, she slammed the car door, and even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I hastily tucked my journal into my pocket.
Unfortunately, she spent the afternoon at the desk beside mine, working on the layout of the newsletter. She peered at me every so often, probably trying to figure out how she knew me. I squirmed in my chair and pulled my hair from my ponytail to shroud my face.
She beckoned me. I approached skittishly. She asked my opinion on the pages, which were laid out next to her Louis Vuitton purse.
“I like the font?” She made me jumpy, so my comment came out a question, though I knew Georgia to be safe territory.
“Is the paper too pink? I wanted cream.”
“I tried to tell you,” Mr. Hayes crowed as he approached.
Ms. de Narp glared at him.
I was relieved that he took the attention from me. I returned to my workspace and considered how I would describe a character like her—seething. That was the word that came to mind, even before beautiful or smart. And him? Hapless or overconfident. And the two of them together? Power struggle.
After work, I found Chris waiting for me in the foyer. He’d brushed his hair, which was too bad—I preferred the book-head look. For our date, I’d put my best foot forward, too, in high heels and a crushed velvet dress.
He regarded me like I was an intriguing work of art. “You’re gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” I replied as I breathed in his scent of sandalwood soap.
When he touched the small of my back to accompany me out the door, I felt the same anticipation I did at the beginning of a book, when I liked the first line but didn’t know what the rest of the story would hold.
He asked how Italian food sounded. When I said delicious, we strolled to a restaurant that I’d been longing to try.
There were only six tables, all pressed together.
We chose one near the window. The space was so small that our knees knocked.
I felt a spark, a longing. It had been months since my last date.
I felt too much. Anticipation. Desire. Hope.
Wild hope. I didn’t know him, but God, I liked him, and not just his adorable book head and gray eyes.
He seemed like a good person, unlike the city planner I’d dated for four months, who “forgot” to tell me he was married, or the Ph.D.
candidate who dumped me because I didn’t share his devotion to Ayn Rand.
Then there was the volunteer at S.O.S. Help who answered the hotline when I felt depressed about my writing “career,” and the Australian co-worker with whom the only thing I shared was a hatred of business English.
I’d begun writing my novel with optimism, but it only served to record my abysmal dating record: a liar, a snob with bad taste, a good listener but no chemistry, a terrible listener but great chemistry.
Maybe with Chris, I’d break my losing streak.
After we ordered our pizza, talk turned to books—one of the benefits of meeting your date in a library. I didn’t believe in soul mates, but I definitely believed in book mates. Would we have the same taste?
“I took your recommendation—The Liars’ Club is like nothing I’ve ever read,” Chris said. “The author painted East Texas, and even her family, with words.”
I was psyched that he’d read it. “I feel that way about My ántonia. Willa Cather makes me nostalgic for the plains.”
“Is it hard to be far from Montana?”
The truth is, it was complicated. In my hometown of Froid, I’d felt restrained, even bolted down.
After my mother’s death, my father remarried quickly and had two sons.
I’d felt like a third wheel, convinced that my stepmother, Ellie, would be glad to see me go.
But more than anyone, she called and wrote; she became a bridge between my dad and me. I missed my family and Montana.
The whole state was empty—a fact I didn’t appreciate until I lived in a city where every centimeter was filled with noise and people.
Even now, inside the restaurant, we could hear police sirens and the vrooms of scooters racing up the boulevard.
Our waiter held the phone receiver to his ear and yelled, “We do not deliver. We will never deliver!” The owner complained to no one in particular that Chianti was becoming as expensive as champagne.
A busboy tossed handfuls of silverware into the drawer with careless clangs.
At the table two inches from ours, a couple argued over whose turn it was to pay.
It was like a scene in a movie whose soundtrack is so loud you could barely hear the dialogue.
In Paris, much of my energy went to blocking out the clamor so I could concentrate on the essential.
I felt a pang of wistfulness and longed to take Chris to the Linden Marsh so we could watch the birds call to each other, listen to their quiet symphony. I’d bring the binoculars, he a thermos of hot chocolate. We’d hold hands. We’d be alone.
“I wasn’t homesick at first,” I explained. “My best friend used to be my roommate here in Paris. She and I came from the same place; having her nearby was like holding a piece of home. The best piece.”
“And now?”
I thought of the studio, where I felt Mary Louise’s absence with every breath. No whiff of coffee to wake me up. No oily pastels to color the day. No scent of lavender lotion as I drifted off to sleep.
I shrugged. “She moved out, and I have the place to myself. More room for books.”
“Books are the best roommates. They’re quiet, they don’t hog the bathroom, and they rarely pass judgment.”
I laughed. He was fluent in English, and just as I was about to ask him if he’d studied abroad, he said, “Speaking of books, what do you do at the library? I rarely see you up front.”
“You seek me out?”
“Of course,” he replied, holding my gaze.
“I look for you, too.”
He grinned. So did I. A happy silence ensued. We’d been talking about something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what.
“You were going to tell me about your job,” he prompted.
Sitting up a little straighter, I couldn’t help but preen. “I’m in charge of programs.”
“That must be fun.”
“It can be, when good opportunities come up,” I explained. “Wendy Peterson is my favorite author, and now I get to share her writing with Parisian book lovers. I hope that you’ll attend.”
“I’ll try—it depends on my work schedule.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a cop.”
“Wow.” Nothing could have surprised me more—I’d assumed he was a scholar. “I thought you were studying—maybe architecture or law.”
He explained that he was at the ALP to prepare for the culture générale section of the detective exam.
I had questions—Had he always wanted to be a policeman?
Was it a family tradition? Why did detectives need to take a test on general knowledge?
Chris replied that he’d wanted to be a cop for as long as he could remember.
It was a family tradition that had skipped a generation—his grandpa was a policeman, but his dad, a businessman, was horrified by Chris’s decision.
Suddenly, I felt lucky that though my dad and stepmom didn’t understand my choices, they accepted them.
“It must be tough not to have his support.”
“Making money has always been his goal. After my mother died, I barely saw him—my grandfather raised me. In fact, I barely see my father now. He’s a member of Air France’s million miles club.”
My heart went out to him. “My mother died when I was young, too.”
He squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry.”
As Chris and I ate, I asked again why he had to take a general knowledge exam. He thought it might be because the French considered it important to have a well-rounded education.
“There’ll be questions like ‘What is the highest peak in France?’ or ‘How many nuclear power plants are there in France?’ ” he explained. “The French love giving exams.”
“They love to test people, all right,” I muttered, and he laughed.
Chris changed the subject to movies. His favorite was Pulp Fiction; mine was To Kill a Mockingbird. He said he loved the book, which endeared him to me.
When we finished pizza we ordered a slice of tiramisu to share. As he ate, flecks of cocoa dotted his lower lip. I couldn’t stop staring. It took all my willpower to not kiss his cocoa-y mouth.
After we finished our dessert, he paid the bill and walked me home.
On the Alexander III Bridge, we paused to watch the silver waves of the Seine.
We continued along winding streets, and as we made our way closer to my studio, I wondered if Chris would kiss me.
At the front door of my building, I opened my mouth, maybe to invite him up, maybe to say goodbye.
He tugged gently on my scarf to bring me closer and leaned down to brush his lips against mine.
He tasted like coffee and cream. When the kiss ended, I stood with my eyes closed and felt his hand caress my cheek.
“See you Monday?” he said.
“Monday?” I was dazed from our kiss.
“I’ll be studying in the reading room. Unless I get called in to work.”