One Summer In Paris

“We don’t know where she’s going yet.” He tucked into his boeuf bourguignon. The scent of herbs and red wine drifted across the table. “She might not get in.”

“She will. She’s smart. And she works hard. Our baby is grown-up.”

From behind them there was a burst of applause. Grace turned her head. A man was on one knee behind them, holding out a ring to a weeping woman. Grace clapped, too, and then glanced back at David. She’d expected him to wink at her, or maybe roll his eyes at the clichéd public display, but David wasn’t smiling. He was staring at the couple with an expression Grace couldn’t quite interpret.

“It’s going to be just the two of us,” he said. He watched as the man slid a ring onto the woman’s finger. “Do you ever think about that?”

Grace shifted in her seat so that her back was to the couple. She’d ordered the duck confit, and it was delicious. “Of course. I’ve also been thinking of all the things we can do. I’m looking forward to it, aren’t you?”

She was so caught up in her own burst of positivity that it took a moment for her to realize he hadn’t answered her. He was still staring past her to the couple.

“David?”

He put his fork down. “I feel old, Grace. As if the best days of my life are behind me.”

“What? David, that’s insane. You’re in your prime! If it helps, Mimi thinks you’re sexier than you’ve ever been.”

She thought so, too. When you grew up alongside someone you didn’t always see them the way a stranger did, but lately she’d found herself looking at the width of David’s shoulders or the shadow on his jaw and thinking nice. Age had given him a gravitas that she found irresistible.

At the mention of Mimi, the tension left his features. His eyes crinkled at the corners—a precursor of the smile she loved so much. “You’ve been discussing my sex appeal with your grandmother?”

“You know what she’s like. I swear if I weren’t already married to you, she’d marry you. No, actually…” She frowned. “Marriage is too establishment for Mimi. She wouldn’t want to be tied down. She’d sleep with you, and then discard you and not even remember your name. Paris is paved with the fragments of all the hearts Mimi broke there.”

And soon they’d be going there. Maybe this was a good time to tell him.

He fiddled with his knife. “I still remember the day Sophie was born. I can’t believe she’s leaving home.”

“It’s natural to feel that way, but we should be proud. We’ve raised a smart, kind, independent adult. That was our job as parents. She thinks for herself, and now she’s going to live by herself. It’s the way things are supposed to be.”

The fact that it hadn’t been that way for her had made her all the more determined to make it happen for her daughter.

David put his knife down. “A milestone like this really makes you take a good look at your life. I’ve been thinking about us, Grace.”

She nodded, pleased. “I’ve been thinking about us, too. We should celebrate our fresh start. And our summer won’t be empty, because I have the perfect way to fill it. Happy anniversary, David.”

She handed over the parcel she’d kept hidden under her chair. The paper was covered in tiny pictures of Paris landmarks. The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre. It had taken two hours of searching to find it on the internet.

“What’s this?”

“It’s my anniversary surprise. We always take a trip and make a new memory. This is a special one. And maybe you’ll feel inspired to work on your novel.” He’d been working on a book for as long as she’d known him, but had never finished it.

“A trip?” He removed the paper slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was underneath.

The couple at the next table glanced at them, intrigued. She knew them vaguely—in the way everyone knew everyone in a small town like this one. Faces were always familiar. Someone’s cousin. Someone’s aunt. Someone’s husband.

David pulled out the street map of Paris she’d also ordered on the internet. “We’re going to Paris?”

“Yes!” She was ridiculously pleased with herself. “It’s all booked. We’re going for a month, right through July. You’re going to love it, David.”

“A month?”

“If you’re worried about taking the time off work, don’t be. I already spoke to Stephen, and he thinks it’s a great idea. You’ve been working hard, and July is a quiet month, and—”

“Wait. You spoke to my boss?” He rubbed his jaw, as if he’d suffered a physical blow. Streaks of color appeared on his cheekbones, and she couldn’t work out if it was anger or embarrassment.

“I needed to know you could take the time off.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have done that—although Stephen had been charming about it.

“Grace, you don’t have to handle every detail of my life.”

“I thought you’d be thrilled.” Wasn’t he going to look at the other items in the box? There was a ticket for the Métro, the Paris subway, a postcard of the Eiffel Tower and a glossy brochure for the hotel she’d booked. “This trip is for us. We’ll have a month together in the summer, exploring the city. We can eat dinner outside in pavement cafés, watch the world go by and decide what we want our future to look like. Just the two of us.”

She was determined to view this new phase of life as an adventure and a celebration, not as a time for regrets and nostalgia.

Would it feel weird being in Paris with David? No, of course it wouldn’t. Her last visit had been decades ago. It was part of a past she didn’t let herself think about.

“You should have talked to me about this, Grace.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

He looked sick. She started to feel sick, too. The evening wasn’t going the way she’d imagined it.

He closed the box. “You’ve booked everything already? Yes, of course you have. You’re you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Was she supposed to apologize for something that was one of her best qualities? Being organized was a good thing. She’d grown up with the opposite and she knew how bad that was.

“You do everything—even though I’m capable of doing things for myself. You don’t have to buy my boss’s gift, Grace. I can handle it.”

“I know you can handle it, but I’m happy to do it so that you don’t have to.”

“You organize every single small detail of our lives.”

“So nothing gets forgotten.”

“I understand why that is important to you. Really, I do.”

There was gentleness in his tone and the sympathy in his eyes made her squirm a little. It was like walking into a crowded room and discovering you’d forgotten to button your shirt.

“We don’t need to talk about bad stuff on a night like tonight.”

“Maybe we do. Maybe we should have talked about it a lot more than we have.”

“It’s our anniversary. This is a celebration. You’re worried I’m doing too much? It’s fine, David. I like to do it. It’s not a problem.”

She reached across the table but he moved his hand away.

“It’s a problem for me, Grace.”

“Why? You’re busy, and I love spoiling you.”