I sit down on the bed and unhook the sleeping bag from the top of my backpack, and as I slump into the springy mattress, I wonder if Willem has stayed here. Has slept in this very bed. It’s not likely, but it’s not impossible either. This is the neighborhood he introduced me to. And everything seems possible right now, this feeling of rightness, throbbing right alongside my heartbeat, soothing me to sleep.
I wake up a few hours later with drool on my pillow and static in my head. I take a lukewarm shower, shampooing the jet lag out of my hair. Then I towel it try and put in the gel like Tanya showed me—wash and wear, she said. It’s very different, all chunks and layers, and I like it.
Downstairs, the clock on the lobby wall behind the giant spray-painted peace sign reads seven o’clock; I haven’t eaten anything since the hard roll and yogurt they gave me on the plane over from London, and I’m woozy with hunger. The little café in the lobby only serves drinks. I know that part of traveling alone means eating alone and ordering in French, and I practiced that a lot with Madame Lambert. And it’s not like I haven’t eaten alone plenty of times in the dining hall this past year. But I decide I’ve conquered enough things for one day. Tonight, I can get a sandwich and eat in my room.
In front of the hostel, a bunch of people are hanging out in the drizzle. They’re speaking English in what I think are Australian accents. I take a breath and walk over and ask them if they know of a place to get a good sandwich nearby.
One muscular girl with streaky brown hair and a ruddy face turns to me and smiles brightly. “Oh, there’s a place over the canal that makes gorgeous smoked salmon sandwiches,” she says. She points out the way and then she resumes talking to her friend about a bistro that supposedly sells a prix fixe for twelve euro, fifteen with a glass of wine.
My mouth waters at the mere thought of it, the food, the company. It seems incredibly presumptuous to invite myself, the kind of thing I would never do.
But then again, I’m alone in Paris, so this is all virgin territory. I tap the Australian girl on her sunburnt shoulder and ask if I can tag along with them for dinner. “It’s my first day traveling, and I’m not sure where to go,” I explain.
“Good on you,” she replies. “We’ve all been at it for ages. We’re on our OAs.”
“OAs?”
“Overseas Adventures. It’s so bloody expensive to get out of Australia that once you go, you stay gone. I’m Kelly, by the way. This is Mick, that’s Nick, that’s Nico, short for Nicola, and that’s Shazzer. She’s from England, but we love her anyway.”
Shazzer sticks her tongue out at Kelly, smiles at me.
“I’m Allyson.”
“That’s my mum’s name!” Kelly says. “And I was just saying I was missing my mum! Wasn’t I? It’s karma!”
“Kismet,” Nico corrects.
“That too.”
Kelly looks at me, and for half a second, I stand there, because she hasn’t said yes and I’m going to feel like an idiot if she says no. Still, maybe it’s all that prep in French class, but I’m kind of okay with feeling like an idiot. The group starts to walk off, and I start to turn toward the sandwich place. Then Kelly turns around.
“Come on, then,” she says to me. “Don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.”
“You might do. They eat those here,” Shazzer says.
“No they don’t,” one of the guys says. Mick or Nick. I’m not quite sure who’s who.
“That’s Japan,” Nico says. “It’s a delicacy there.”
We start walking, and I listen as the rest of them argue over whether or not the French eat horse meat, and as I amble along, it hits me that I’m doing it. Going to dinner. In Paris. With people I met five minutes ago. Somehow, more than anything else that’s happened in the last year, this blows my mind.
On the way to the restaurant, we stop so I can get a SIM card for my phone. Then, after getting slightly lost, we find the place and wait for a table big enough to seat us all. The menu’s in French, but I can understand it. I order a delicious salad with beets that’s so beautiful I take a picture of it to text my mom. She immediately texts me back the less artful looking loco moco that Dad is having for breakfast. For my entrée, it’s some kind of mystery fish in a peppery sauce. I’m having such a nice time, mostly listening to their outrageous travel tales, that it’s only when it’s time for dessert that I remember my promise to Babs. I check out the menu, but there are no macarons on it. It’s already ten o’clock, and the shops are closed. Day one, and I’ve already blown my promise.
“Shit,” I say. “Or make that merde!”
“What’s wrong?” Mick/Nick asks.’’
I explain about the macarons, and everyone listens, rapt.
“You should ask the waiter,” Nico says. “I used to work at a place in Sydney, and we had a whole menu that wasn’t on the menu. For VIPs.” We all give her a look. “It never hurts to ask.”
So I do. I explain, in French that would make Madame Lambert proud, about ma promesse du manger des macarons tous les jours. The waiter listens intently, as though this is serious business and goes into the kitchen. He returns with everyone else’s dessert—crèmes brûlée and chocolate mousse—and, miraculously, one perfect creamy macaron just for me. The inside is filled with brown, sweet, gritty paste, figs I think. It’s dusted with powdered sugar so artfully it’s like a painting. I take another picture. Then I eat it.
By eleven o’clock, I’m falling asleep into my plate. The rest of the group drops me off back at the hostel before going out to hear some French all-girl band play. I fall into a dead sleep and wake up in the morning to discover that Kelly, Nico, and Shazzer are my dorm mates.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Late! Ten o’clock,” says Kelly. “You slept ages. And through such a racket. There’s a Russian girl who blow-dries her hair for an hour every day. I waited for you to see if you wanted to come with us. We’re all going to Père Lachaise Cemetery today. We’re going to have a picnic. Which sounds bloody morbid to me, but apparently French people do it all the time.”
It’s tempting: to go with Kelly and her friends and spend my two weeks in Paris being a tourist, having fun. I wouldn’t have to go to dank nightclubs. I wouldn’t have to face Céline. I wouldn’t have to risk getting my heart broken all over again.
“Maybe I’ll meet up with you later,” I tell her. “I’ve got something to do today.”
“Right. You’re on an epic quest for macarons.”
“Right,” I say. “That.”
At breakfast, I spend a little time with my map, figuring out the route between the hostel and Gare du Nord. It’s walking distance, so I set out. The route seems familiar, the big wide boulevard with the bike paths and sidewalks in the middle. But as I get closer to the station, I start to feel sick to my stomach, the tea I had a while ago coming back to my mouth, all acidic with fear.
At Gare du Nord, I stall for time. I go in the station. I wander over to the Eurostar tracks. There’s one there, like a horse waiting to leave the gate. I think of when I was here a year ago, broken, scared, running back to Ms. Foley.
I force myself to leave the station, letting my memory guide me again. I turn. I turn again. I turn once more. Over the train tracks and into the industrial neighborhood. And then, there it is. It’s kind of shocking, after all that searching online, how easy it is to find. I wonder if this one wasn’t listed on Google, or if it was and maybe my French was so mangled that no one understood me.
Or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe I was perfectly understood and Céline and the Giant simply don’t work here anymore. A year is a long time. A lot can change!
When I open the door and see a younger-looking man with hair in a ponytail behind the bar, I almost cry out in disappointment. Where is the Giant? What if he’s not here? What if she’s not here?
“Excusez moi, je cherche Céline ou un barman qui vient du Sénégal.”
He says nothing. Doesn’t even respond. He just continues washing glasses in soapy water.
Did I speak? Was it in French? I try again: I add a s’il vous plaît this time. He gives me a quick look, pulls out his phone, texts something, and then goes back to dishes.
Con, I mutter in French, another of Nathaniel’s teachings. I shove open the door, adrenaline pushing through me. I’m so angry at that jerk behind the counter who wouldn’t even answer me, at myself, for coming all this way for nothing.
“You came back!”
And I look up. And it’s him.
“I knew you would come back.” The Giant takes my hand and kisses me on each cheek, just like the last time. “For the suitcase, non?”
I’m speechless. So I just nod. Then I throw my arms around him. Because I’m so happy to see him again. I tell him so.
“As am I. And so happy I save your suitcase. Céline insist to take it away, but I say no, she will come back to Paris and want her things.”
I find my voice. “Wait, how’d you know I was here? I mean, today?”
“Marco just text me an American girl was looking for me. I knew it had to be you. Come.”
I follow him back inside the club, where this Marco is now mopping the floor and refusing to look at me. I have a hard time looking at him after calling him an ass**le in French.
“Je suis très désolée,” I apologize as I shuffle past him.
“He’s Latvian. His French is new, so he’s timid to speak,” Yves says. “He is the cleaner. Come downstairs, that is where your suitcase is.” I glance at Marco and think of Dee, and Shakespeare, and remind myself that things are rarely what they appear. I hope he didn’t understand my French curses, either. I apologize again. The Giant beckons downstairs to the storeroom. In a corner, behind a stack of boxes, is my suitcase.
Everything is as I left it. The Ziploc with the list. The souvenirs. My travel diary with the bag of blank postcards inside. I half expect it all be covered in a layer of dust. I finger the diary. The souvenirs from last year’s trip. They’re not the memories that matter, the ones that lasted.
“It is very nice suitcase,” the Giant says.
“You want it?” I ask. I don’t want to lug it around with me. I can ship the souvenirs home. The suitcase is just extra baggage.
“Oh, no, no, no. It is for you.”
“I can’t take it. I’ll take the important things, but I can’t carry all this with me.”
He looks at me seriously. “But I save it for you.”
“The saving is the best part, but I really don’t need it anymore.”
He smiles, the whites of his teeth gleaming. “I am going to Roché Estair in the spring, to celebrate my brother’s graduation.”
I fish out the important things—my diary, my favorite T-shirt, earrings I’ve missed—and put them in my bag. I put all the souvenirs, the unwritten postcards in a cardboard box to ship home. “You take this to Roché Estair for the graduation,” I tell him. “It would make me happy.”
He nods solemnly. “You did not come back for your suitcase.”
I shake my head. “Have you seen him?” I ask.
He looks at me for a long moment. He nods again. “One time. The day after I meet you.”
“Do you know where I might find him?”
He strokes the goatee on his chin and looks at me with a sympathy I could really do without. After a long moment, he says, “Maybe you should better speak with Céline.”
And the way he says it, it implies all the things I already know. That Willem and Céline have a history. That I might’ve been right to doubt him all along. But if the Giant knows any of that, he’s not saying. “She is off today, but sometimes she comes to the shows at night. Androgynie is playing, and she is very good friends with them. I will see if she is coming and let you know. Then you can find out what you need. You can call me later, and I will let you know if she will be here.”
