“You can’t go to Paris!”
Genna turned to him, honestly surprised. “Why not?”
“How will you live?”
“I have money.”
“From where?”
She stared across the room at Drew. His hair was streaked with gray and his body, though chubbier than when they’d married, was well toned. As usual, a slight pall of sawdust hung around him, an occupational hazard of his work as a custom furniture maker.
“I’ll be fine.” She didn’t know how she’d be fine, but she knew without an ounce of doubt that going to Paris was exactly what she needed to do. And as for money, well, she’d just have to get creative until Drew finally sold the house. The publisher was asking for a new cookbook. She’d whip up a proposal that had something to do with Paris. How hard could that be? Paris and food went together like eggs and soufflés, or Roquefort cheese and walnuts, or macarons and café crèmes.
She almost laughed out loud, feeling more alive than she had for months.
“What about me?” Drew’s voice took on the plaintive tone that irritated Genna to the point of wanting to murder someone, preferably him. “You can’t just up and leave.”
“I already did.”
“Yes, but this is just temporary.” He smiled and walked towards her, his arms outstretched.
“It’s not temporary.”
“Of course, it is. I guess I can understand why you needed to get away for a while, but it’s been, what, ten months now? You can’t still be mad at me. Don’t you think it’s time you came home?”
“No, Drew, I’m not planning to come home. This isn’t my home anymore.”
“You can’t keep this up forever.”
“Keep what up?”
“This tough-girl act. It’s not you.”
Tough-girl act? Genna felt about as tough as a mashed banana.
Or at least she used to. Now, it was a sunny day in Paris and she was on her way to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, the final resting place of many of the world’s greatest musicians and writers, from Chopin to Oscar Wilde to Jim Morrison. Maybe a visit to a graveyard was appropriate. The death of a marriage shared a lot of similarities with the death of a person.
If only a dead marriage could go away and find a nice quiet tomb in which to rot. But things weren’t so easy. For a start, there were the kids. Becky had been particularly upset by the breakup, although she didn’t know the real reason, and Genna wasn’t about to tell her. Some things were best kept secret from one’s strident and opinionated daughter.
Michael had been a little more sanguine. He was busy living the ski-bum life up at Whistler and was much more interested in his own sex life than that of his parents. So long as they occasionally helped him with loans that he didn’t need to repay, Michael was happy.
Genna had not expected to miss Becky and Michael so much. It wasn’t like she spent much time with either of her children when she was at home, but at least she could see them if she wanted to. Now that eight thousand kilometers separated them, Genna felt bereft, as if a limb had been severed. She saw their faces in the faces of passing young people. When she spied a Canadian flag sewn on a backpack, she wondered for a moment if one of her children had arrived in Paris to visit her.
Genna put thoughts of home out of her mind and instead focused on where to stop for her morning coffee and croissant before catching the Métro up to Père Lachaise across the river in the twentieth arrondissement.
At Odéon, she passed a Starbucks. As always, Genna marveled at the inroads that so many American chains had made into the sophisticated Parisian cityscape. She could not understand why Parisians preferred prefab coffee and corporate decor to the warmth and soul of a traditional café. In her opinion, no chain could compete with white-aproned, somber-faced waiters, tiny round tables, and red upholstery. Yet plenty of the chains did, and very successfully, judging by the lineup snaking to the door of the Starbucks. Across the street, the Parisian café with its row of tables facing the sidewalk was almost empty.
The contrast between the bustling chain and the sleepy café annoyed Genna. She sped up, intending to cross the narrow side street to the traditional café. Damned if she was going to support the multinational corporate giant. She stepped off the curb, plunged one foot into a steaming mound of dog merde, shot forward, and fell flat on her face, inches from yet another speeding Citroën. The driver honked and gesticulated and then revved his engine for a two-tire turn into the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Genna lay still, her entire body vibrating with shock and shame. She didn’t feel any pain, so she was sure she hadn’t broken anything. Her left hip, shoulder, and cheek had absorbed most of the fall. She tasted grit and smelled the exhaust of passing cars, heard French voices surrounding her, the volume rising with true Gallic drama as they discussed the problem of what to do with her.
“C’est qu’elle est morte?” Is she dead?
“Je ne pense pas.” I don’t think so.
The pavement under her cheek was already warming in the spring sun. All she needed was a few more moments to recover. She extracted a few words from the babble of voices.
“Secours! Dommage! Oh là là . . . !”
This last comment made her smile even as she stifled a groan. One of the most surprising things she’d discovered in Paris was that people really did say Oh là là. In times of extreme provocation, she’d even heard the occasional Oh là là là là, which seemed excessive, but perfectly captured excess outrage or surprise.
She sensed a presence near her head and then heard the rhythmic beeping of a phone grow louder as whoever was dialing it knelt beside her. A rush of French, a pause, a decisive “Oui, merci.”
“Madame?”
The male voice was full of concern. Genna’s face reddened as she imagined the effect her prone body was having on her rescuer, not to mention the other people gathered above her. She hoped her navy cotton skirt still covered her backside.
“Is she okay?”
The English startled Genna so much that she rolled onto her bruised side, gasped, and then rolled back to her other side.
“Je ne sais pas,” said the male voice belonging to the phone. I don’t know.
“She looks like a tourist.” The new voice belonged to another male, but this one much younger and with an accent Genna wasn’t able to place.
The humiliation was too much. With a determined grunt, she struggled to her hands and knees and from there to her feet. She began to sway. The man with the phone and the young man with the accent positioned themselves on either side of her.
“Careful, ma’am,” said the younger one. “That was a nasty fall.”
“Je suis okay,” Genna said with as much dignity as her bruised face and burning elbow would allow. She looked around at the gathering crowd. “Je suis okay,” she called. “Merci. Désolée. Sorry.”
Désolée was fast becoming Genna’s most used word behind merci and bonjour. It seemed that she was forever sorry about something, from stepping on someone’s toy poodle to saying la when she meant le.
“You sit down,” said the phone man in careful English. “Vous avez eu un accident.”