We'll Always Have Paris (4 page)

I wanted to parent (okay, micromanage) Bruno, though he was a few years my senior. When he lit his fifth cigarette of the night, I felt like telling him that smoking could kill him, but a combination of propriety and fear stopped me. Plus, my history with my father had proven that smokers never heed the admonitions of others.

The candle on the dinner table had burned to its final inch, and yellow wax had melted onto the rustic wood table. Janine shared how she and Bruno met while covering a war in Sarajevo. During their long careers, they had each dodged bullets and survived bombing raids that left others dead. Equally painful, they had been through multiple miscarriages. They had gone through several cycles of in vitro fertilization to produce Baby Luca, who now toddled about their beautiful home playing peek-a-boo with Katie. I knew if Janine and Bruno had survived all of this and still advised me to “enjoy life,” it would be utterly pathetic to lock myself in a sterile hotel room while visiting Paris.

First, though, we had to make it out of Janine’s apartment building. Ten minutes after we left Janine and a very restless Bruno, we were still struggling with the main door in the lobby. We pulled it, we pushed it. We twisted the knob and jiggled the gate and still couldn’t get out.

“We’re locked
in
?” Katie asked.

“I know, weird.” I called upstairs to Janine’s apartment, mortified to have to ask for her help. She and her husband had just shared horrific stories of escaping sniper’s fire, and I couldn’t manage to make it out the front door.

“See the button on the left?” Janine asked patiently.

I scanned the lobby, then saw a small red button. “I see a button with the word
porte
.”

“That means door. Press the button and the door will open,” Janine explained.

“I feel like a dolt,” I told her.

“Don’t,” Janine said. “Now you know.” I shuddered at the thought of Bruno’s reaction when he heard about the American idiot who couldn’t open a door. He would snort and say, “Enjoy life, but first leave the building!”

Now fully adjusted to Paris time, Katie and I started fresh the following day. Our first errand was to stop at the post office beneath the Louvre and mail a box of Nike sneakers that a soccer coach in San Diego had given us to send to his nephews in Bordeaux. I decided I would take my friend Maxime’s advice and begin every conversation with an earnest attempt to speak the language. I had my phrase book and was determined that now we would fully embrace the French experience.

“
Bonjour!
” I announced to the postal clerk. Despite Maxime’s confidence in my language skills, my ability to charade was really my stronger suit. I placed my hands at each side of the box, fluttered them like wings, and said, “
À
Bordeaux, s’il vous plaît
.”

The older postal clerk looked down so I wouldn’t see him suppress a laugh. I opened my phrase book and inquired about the cost. He wrote the number on a sheet of paper. After we exchanged money and my friend’s package sat safely among the other outgoing parcels, I felt a ridiculously giddy sense of accomplishment. I could send packages. I could open doors. I was practically French.

When we arrived at the Musée d’Orsay, security guards told us that there had been a bomb threat and the building was closed for the afternoon. A bomb threat?! I don’t know what frightened me more: the fact that there could be a terrorist attack on a tourist site or the nonchalance with which he reported it. Others casually accepted the news and began making other plans. The handful of Americans stood agape, unaccustomed to announcements like this despite our national tragedy just four years earlier.

“We weel be open in three hours,” the security guard announced, hoping to shoo off the last of the lingering Americans. I admired his optimism. We weren’t so sure.

Though 9/11 has been our generation’s greatest tragedy on American soil, it has been relatively infrequent that terror has threatened our shores. But those who don’t make their home in the United States live with the constant reality of bomb scares. The differences in our life experiences were pronounced in our reaction to the announcement at the Musée d’Orsay. The Americans were immobilized; the others moved on.

***

I remember watching the Twin Towers being built in the 1970s. The steel skeletons soon became glistening twins, the tallest buildings in the world at the time. On the day of my grade school talent show, my best friend Rachel told my father and me that the World Trade Center had just opened its observation deck to the public. We begged him to take us and reminded him that his favorite restaurant in Chinatown was not far. My father could not resist two fifth graders who had just belted out Fleetwood Mac and now wanted a view from the top of the world. When we arrived, though, a security guard told my father he was not dressed appropriately for the observation deck. “We expect gentlemen to wear ties, or at the very least a jacket,” he sniffed.

My father was genuinely baffled as he looked down at his chocolate suede jacket with sheepskin trim. “A
suit
jacket,” the security guard clarified, glancing at Rachel and me.

“Like yours?” my father asked. My father was a larger-than-life character who had grown accustomed to being able to charm anyone into nearly anything. It never crossed his mind that he would have to disappoint Rachel and me.

“Yes, like—” the guard stopped himself. “Sir, you may not have my jacket.”

My father gave him his trademark look, an impish grin that made people immediately feel it was the two of them against the world. “It would be a loan. We’re about the same size,” my father said, removing his newsboy cap and John Lennon specs.

“Sir, I cannot loan you my security jacket.”

“Fifteen minutes, man?” he asked. “You’ve got your tie on. Tell your boss you got hot with the jacket.”

The security guard’s silence encouraged my father. “My daughter and her friend really want to see the observation deck. Do you have kids?”

“Two,” he said.

“You know how it is, man. Come on, help a brother out.”

“Fifteen minutes,” the guard implored, removing his jacket.

“We’ll check out the view and come right down,” my father promised.

After two elevator trips that were as exciting as any ride at Coney Island, we reached the top. Rachel and I buzzed to each corner of the outside deck and looked down at Manhattan. “Look at Central Park, Daddy!” I shouted as we spotted the sprawling green rectangle. We ran to another spot.

“Check out the Statue of Liberty!” Rachel said. Noticing my father was not following us, we looked around for him. He was stationed by the entryway with his arms crossed, looking official and informing people where the restrooms were.

***

I looked to the right and saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We couldn’t get lost if I simply followed the Tower. How far could it be?

As it turned out, it was quite a hike, albeit a lovely one filled with cobblestone streets dotted with cafés and bakeries. Katie said she was hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant to grab a bite. “Look at all the dogs!” she piped with delight. Four dogs rested at their owners’ feet like old slippers. I checked to see if these men were wearing dark shades and holding red-tipped white canes, but not a one was blind. Nor did the dogs wear service bibs. No one seemed at all bothered that pets were joining us for lunch, yet when a young couple walked in with their baby, the restaurant patrons let out a collective groan. I did not hear the exchange between the parents and the waiter, but it ended with the young mother and father deciding to eat elsewhere. One of the dog owners smiled victoriously and offered a piece of his meat to his shaggy friend.

When I saw the waiter approaching our table with Katie’s hamburger, I knew this would be a defining moment in our travels. The burger did not look like anything we had ever seen from our grill at home or In-N-Out Burger. Atop the meat patty rested a sunny-side-up egg peeking at her, as if to say,
Didn’t expect me to look like this, did you, mademoiselle?
Katie raised her eyebrows. As I opened my mouth to tell her she could order something else, Katie shrugged and said, “I guess in Paris you get breakfast with your lunch.”

With this, I knew Katie would be fine on our trip. She was blessed with an easygoing nature and I, as her mother, was the incredulous, grateful beneficiary. As an eight-year-old, I might have scowled at it for a few minutes before disdainfully removing the egg. And then I would have refused to eat any of it. When I tell my mother I don’t deserve a child like Katie, she always agrees. “I was looking forward to watching your daughter put you through hell,” my mother teases. Once my Aunt Bernice told me that if God only gives us what we can handle, he must not have much confidence in my parenting skills.

By the time Katie and I made it to the Eiffel Tower, its pinnacle was partially obscured in fog, and rain was falling lightly. We decided to return on a clear day and hopped across the bridge to the Museum of Modern Art.

I was amazed by the contrast of the exterior and interior of the modern art museum. The outside was vandalized with uninspired graffiti and smelled like urine. Sullen, pimple-faced boys in hoodies rode their skateboards down the steps.

Inside was an explosion of colorful, dynamic political art, some of it criticism of the war in Afghanistan. One did not need an art history degree to see that Bush was regarded as the spawn of Satan here. His horned image appeared beside American flags that strangled cats. Other pieces captured different slices of political history. A life-sized statue of Angela Davis with a rifle and platform shoes was constructed from sparkling beads. A spaceship built from distressed crates hung from the ceiling with Soviet flags shooting from where flames would normally be.

Later, Katie picked up a pink beret in a shop and joined the ranks of aspiring artists in Paris. She brought a sketch pad to the Rodin Garden and drew
The
Thinker
with a toilet beneath his bottom. The following day, she joined a group of art students who lined the floor at the Picasso Museum. A French woman eyed Katie’s sketch of Pablo’s cubist goat and raised her eyebrow at me.

She
yours?
her chin-nod asked.

My smile confirmed.

Not
bad
, she grinned before moving on, clacking her high heels against the floor.

Like all French women, the chin-nodder was beautiful, and not just because she had taken a moment to acknowledge my child. It wasn’t that French women were more genetically gifted than their American counterparts, but they were always perfectly turned out and knew how to take one fabulous item and work it. It could be pistol high heels, a belt made of handcuffs, or a lavender crocodile purse, but most often it was a scarf. I studied the scarves wrapped around necks and heads, hoping I could recreate the effect. When a woman at a shop showed me how to tie the scarf, I looked positively chic. When I tried to follow the same instructions on my own, I looked like a cheap fortune-teller.

On our walk from the Picasso Museum, Katie and I passed what looked like a traditional French bakery, with enormous windows rimmed by black wood with gold letters that read
Boulangerie
. Two windows revealed not bread and pastries, however, but a bold and artistic hotel lobby. I grabbed Katie’s hand and wandered into the Hôtel du Petit Moulin. Turns out the boutique hotel used to be a bakery but was now appointed with elegantly beaded lamps, brightly colored misshapen tables, billowing drapery, and a couch with various animal print pillows. All of this was set against the backdrop of a funky mural that rivaled anything we had seen in a museum.

The concierge told us that the hotel had recently been redesigned by Christian Lacroix, which explained why the two women in the lobby looked as though they were straight off the pages of
Vogue
. Typically I’d feel intimidated by a setting like this, nervous that I might break something, or worse, that people would sense I was out of my element, but desire trumped fear and I wanted to see more. This place was for people who knew how to enjoy life, and I wanted nothing more than to check in that day and treat it as my very own finishing school. I asked for a brochure, which seemed like a more genteel way of asking for the room rates.

“That table looks like a chess rook,” Katie said of a piece in citrus green.

The concierge smiled and handed me a high gloss, four-color booklet with a delicate slice of onion paper that listed the room prices in fancy script. I had already braced myself not to flinch and planned to nod confidently as though the prices all seemed quite reasonable.

Much to my surprise, they
were
reasonable. Not reasonable for this trip, because the room at our hotels.com supersaver lodge was non-refundable. But the price was only around double what we were paying at Le Chain du Paris, not six times our current rate, which is what I had expected.

“Would you care to see the rooms?” the concierge asked. Moments later we were touring the eclectic mix, decorated like modern art museums, planetariums, and sloped-ceiling Parisian flats.

“
Merci
beaucoup
.”

I now boldly spoke sloppy French wherever we went, borrowing simple phrases from people who answered my simple questions. On a Metro platform, two young women asked me for directions in French.
Oh
my
God!
I shrieked internally.
I
understand
enough
of
the
words
to
figure
out
what
they
want. And I know the four words that will answer their question.
I answered, using exaggerated gestures just in case my remedial French didn’t do the job.

“Shit, did you understand her?” the young woman asked her friend in English. “She was talking too fast for me.”

“Are you Americans?!” I asked.

“Omigod!” She laughed. “Let’s do this in English then, shall we?”

We laughed much harder than the situation warranted, a release of tension built up from not knowing what the hell is going on, then realizing that there are others who were in the same boat. The girls had just arrived in Paris that morning and asked if we wouldn’t mind giving them some advice. We told them not to turn up their noses at the one-hour cruise up the Seine River as I had done for our first few days. Yes, it was touristy as hell, but Katie and I fell in love with it and treated ourselves to at least one ride every evening.

The Seine River cruises quickly became one of our two evening rituals in Paris. The motor of the boat purred like a kitten and lulled us into the night. The Paris skyline scrolled beside us on each side, enveloping us in its magic. “We still need to climb the Eiffel Tower,” Katie announced as we rode past it. The second ritual was calling William so he could tell Katie a goodnight story. I imagined him in his white shirt and tie, closing his office door and taking off his suit jacket. “Then what happened?” Katie asked. “No way!” They laughed for nearly a half hour until Katie’s questions became less frequent and her voice stopped completely. Thankfully, William had purchased an overseas calling plan to keep these marathon sessions at just a few dollars.