The Little Bookshop On the Seine (17 page)

I swooned at the French words spilling from Ridge’s lips, a heady combination of want and need made me flush for him.

“It’s the wall of ‘
I love you’s
’,” he said.

I edged closer, once people moved away. Up close, it was spectacular. The sentiment written in so many different languages. Dark tiles, glittering like the night sky. Some cracked and spaced, others perfectly aligned. Splashes of color were dotted here and there.

“The artist used the smudges of red to symbolize a broken heart, but tiled together again, the wall can reunite even the most damaged. It’s about humanity, and generating peace in a busy world. A metaphor. But I prefer to think of it as all the ways I love you. In every language, Sarah.”

My emotions were heightened from his presence, his silky words, and the way he
showed
me how much he loved me, even if he was away a lot. It banished the doubt I felt, the worry that things would be different between us.

As the sun set behind moody skies we wandered hand in hand, shooting glances at each other as if we were making sure this was real, and laughing each time we were caught out.

“So,” I said. “When you’re away, what’s with the radio silence?”

He looked genuinely surprised, “I’m focused. That’s all. There’s so many things I want to do to set up our future and in order to make it happen, I have to work hard now, and hope it pays off. It’s hard to hear the sadness in your voice too. It makes me second guess my work, and all I want to do is be with you.”

“I don’t like it when we go so long without speaking. It feels like we’re drifting apart.”

He stopped, and pulled me close. “There’s no way in the world that will ever happen, Sarah. I’ve never felt like this before, and I plan on spending the rest of my life with you.” He smiled. “If that’s what you want too, of course. But first, I have to figure out how to make our two lives merge, so we both have the things we need.”

He bent to kiss me, a soft sweet lingering touch that made me almost dissolve into the ground. When we were together, nothing else mattered. Days like this would recharge our love and make the time apart easier to handle.

“Now,” he said. “I’ve booked a romantic dinner for two at Le Jules Verne, which is at the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

My stomach growled at that very moment, and I blushed. Oceane had been to Le Jules Verne and said it was a super swanky restaurant with striking views of Paris. Imagine being in the heart of the Eiffel Tower!

“Shall we?” he said, and wrapped an arm around my waist.

A kind of dizziness hit me. We’d have two weeks of this! Wandering around under the filmy moonlight. Kissing in the rain. Leaning against each other beneath an umbrella while we went sightseeing. My Paris dreams were coming true: Ridge, me and time in which to get lost in the most beautiful city in the world.

Chapter Eleven

We were tangled together in a deep sleep when the phone shrilled, not the usual trill of Sophie’s cordless. Ridge’s cell.

I pulled the quilt up and glanced at the alarm clock, two a.m. shrieked in neon green.

Ridge groaned, stumbling from the bed, taking the top sheet with him and retreating to the bathroom.

When he returned ten minutes later, I was waiting, unable to fall back asleep, knowing instinctively what was coming.

“Where to this time?” I asked, groggily.

“Russia,” he said, his eyes bright despite being woken in the early hours of the morning.

One lousy night. That’s all he’d stay for? “Do you have to go? I thought…”

“I’m sorry,” he cut me off. “I know I promised to stay longer. But I need to take the work when it’s offered. If I refuse, those stories will be handed to someone else on a platter. I want to stay, Sarah, really I do. But I can’t risk losing out.”

I frowned in the semi darkness. “So, how long will this go on for?” I understood his motivations, but where did it leave us?

“Not long. You know there are quiet times. Weeks in a row where nothing is going on. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’d prefer you stay now, though. Surely, you can tell whoever it is that you will miss this one puny story? And that you’ll be there for the very next call?”

“I can’t. I haven’t done it long enough to pay my dues yet. I’m still the rookie freelancer.” He ran a hand along my back, sending shivers down my spine.

“Ridge, don’t think that’s going to distract me. In the light of the morning when there’s an empty space next to me, I’ll remember you stayed even less this time. One day?” It was hard not to feel insubstantial when Ridge practically bounded from bed to leave, as eager as a puppy, without a backward glance at me.

He laughed at the scowl on my face. “I love it when you’re angry.”

I took a pillow and lobbed it at him.

“One year of this, Sarah, and then I’m all yours.”

“And whose are you now?” I said, annoyed despite his sexy smile that as easily as that he was leaving.

“I’m yours, Sarah. You’ll see. I’m doing this for us.”

I sighed. “Get back into bed. We can argue over the phone once you’ve gone.” The fight left me; no matter what, I loved the godforsaken man, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him before he was gone again. It had to last me however many weeks he’d be absent for.

There’d be no visits to the Louvre, no wandering around Pere Lachaise to see the graves of the famous long since buried. Wintry picnics on the Champs de Mars would be spent alone, wrapped in a blanket, with my book – my most loyal and trusted friend. We’d had
the
most romantic of days together. The way Ridge expressed his love for me was the stuff of fairy tales, but was one day enough? The thought of four or five weeks alone, again, made me curl into a ball. Was I enough for him? Or more seriously, was he enough for me?

***

The day after Ridge left it was bucketing down. Rain drummed on the roof, and the scent of mildew was heavy in the air at the bookshop. I’d woken to find a pile of novels soaked when water seeped from above. Buckets were swiftly set down to catch the drips, while I pondered how water managed to wend its way through three levels. I hoped there wasn’t a flood upstairs. Frowning, I raced up to assess any damage and curiously found the rooms dry.

Back downstairs, I reached for the phone and called the plumber, thinking it could only be another burst water pipe. The amount of money the building sucked up was horrendous. But I was also upset about the books being damaged. There they sat, patiently waiting for the next day, for the person who’d smile at the sight of their rosy red covers and pick them up to read them on the train to Palace of Versailles, or in some dim corner of a bistro over a nip of whiskey. And now they’d be tossed into the bin, water logged, and dead.

Well, not on my watch.

Sophie didn’t keep books whose spines were broken, or whose covers were missing. But I did. If the words were still legible they had value. I scooped up the soggy books, to find a warm place to dry them out. Perhaps I could have a table out front, of damaged novels who could be adopted. And all they had to do was promise to love them, raggedy pages and all.

“Has anyone seen the James Joyce
Exiles
first edition?” Beatrice asked, as she came rushing down the stairs.

James Joyce. My legs wobbled. “I sold one today,” I said, my voice just above a whisper. “But I didn’t know it was a first edition.” Goddammit.

Her mouth fell open. “You didn’t know?” she said, incredulous.

I blushed to the roots of my hair. I specialized in seeking out rare first editions for my online customers back home. How could I have made such a terrible mistake? I’d sold the book for a few Euros! “I was rushing to serve. I guess it didn’t occur to me to check. It wasn’t wrapped or anything…” my feeble explanation sounded empty, even to me.

The first editions were locked away in a room with adequate ventilation so they wouldn’t get warped by heat, or moldy from cold air. They were wrapped in a special type of plastic to preserve them. Customers had to make an appointment if they wanted to peruse those books. Gloves were worn, it was taken very seriously because of their worth. Thank god it wasn’t a
Ulysses
I’d sold by mistake. That book was worth more than I could ever repay. Still,
Exiles
was worth a few thousand Euro too.

But wait. “No one has been in the first edition room today. There’s no way I could have sold it.” There was only one key to that room, and it was looped on a chain around my neck.

Beatrice crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, it was like she was weighing up her words before talking. It stuck me again, how tightly she held in her emotions around me.

“A selection of books arrived a few days ago,” she said. “From an estate sale. You were supposed to go through them, and wrap the first editions. I did tell you,
twice
, that it was urgent.”

I wondered, not for the first time, what I was doing here and if I’d be able to keep up without going insane or ruining Sophie’s trust in me with her beloved shop. “Did you?” I asked, having no recollection of that conversation. “I can’t believe I sold it without checking.” Had I unpacked a box of estate sale books? I was more scatterbrained than usual, after the shock of Ridge leaving as well as trying to fit everything in each day at the shop I couldn’t be sure…

I bit down on my lip. What a foolish thing to do. I should know better than that. I’d sold hundreds of first editions. Their scent was different to other books, earthier, ripe with the past. The cinnamon colored pages curled slightly, fattening them. I’d have to tell Sophie I’d cost her more money, and hoped she’d forgive me. Still, something niggled. I didn’t remember Beatrice talking to me at all about an estate sale order. She’d just stared at me out the corner of her eye like I was an exotic animal that she didn’t know how to behave around.

“Sarah,” TJ’s said, interrupting my train of thought. “There’s been an accident in the conservatory, you might want to go check.”

I sighed. “OK.” I was glad for the distraction, giving me a moment of pause to ponder my mistakes. And how on earth I was going to break the next lot of bad news to Sophie.

Upstairs books lay sprawled, covers open wide like arms flayed out, as if they’d had a party with too many cocktails and fallen asleep as the sun lit the sky. A shelf had collapsed, leaving books piled atop each other in a disagreeable jumble. It was just after nine a.m. and Paris was quiet. Torrential rain kept people indoors later, and the bookshop didn’t get busy until after lunch. The calm was like a gift. I surveyed the back wall of the conservatory wondering if I could fix the shelf myself, or if I’d have to call yet another handyman in.

Dust motes swirled around as I stacked the fallen books into neat piles. Some pages were crinkled, and ripped, so I made another pile for novels that would need repair.

While I scrambled on the floor picking up as much as I could, Luiz walked in, his face pinched. “All that bashing at the keyboard has brought the shelf down,” he said.

I laughed. The desk he usually sat at to write was covered in brick dust and rubble. Luckily the shelf hadn’t come down when he was sitting under it. “Looks like it.”

“Let me help,” he offered as he knelt beside me and reached for some fallen novels.

The books in the conservatory were older tomes about gardening and horticulture, it wasn’t a busy room. Customers didn’t really venture this high, as the spiral staircase thinned, and darkened, it looked as though there was nothing above – which is what I supposed made this the perfect room for a writer to hide away in. Those who did brave it were rewarded with the brightest, most vivid room because of the picture windows, glass ceiling and the view.

“What’s this?” Luiz said, holding a small case, almost like an old fashioned beauty bag, with soft pink leather and a gold clasp.

“A travel bag?”

“By the layer of dust over it, I’d say it’s been hidden for a while,” he said.

“Or lost.” I pictured someone wandering into this room and being spellbound by the sight of Paris from the window, high from this vantage point, where you could see Notre Dame’s gargoyles, and all the way to the Eiffel Tower and the sprawl of the city.

I flicked open the clasp on the bag, and a stack of neatly folded letters spilled out.

The air around us hummed. “Whispers from the past…” Luiz said, sitting back on his haunches.

“We should reunite these with their rightful owner,” I said, a grin splitting my face. I loved a good mystery and something about the letters called to me. They were soft with age, faded, scented almost citrusy somehow.

“I suppose we should,” Luiz said. “Then we’d have to read them, it’s the only way.” His eyes twinkled with mirth. Luiz was rumored to be reclusive and after our first chat, I wondered if he’d warm to me, or retreat but here we were sharing in a discovery, both eager to know more. I had to catch myself from getting star-struck again. He was just a person, after all, I had to stop thinking of him as a celebrity. Oceane had worried I’d fuss over Julia Roberts if we saw her, but give me an author any day, and I was more likely to act like a loony. If I ever met JoJo Moyes I would most likely scare the woman witless by babbling away wanting to know everything about her. She was my idol. And Luiz was a close second. So far I’d managed to keep my cool. Just. There were moments I wanted to say, go and write, I’ll just stand behind you and watch the words flow from your extraordinary mind, to the keyboard, don’t mind me. Luckily work was too busy for me to show my true writers-fascinate-me colors.

Without any preamble we moved the desk by the window that was free from debris, and laid them out. They were written in French! Goddammit! It would take me far too long to decipher the language, especially with the loops and swirls of the cursive and I was impatient to know what they said. Luiz searched for dates, and found the oldest one. We’d have to start at the beginning to make any sense out of them.

Luiz took the first letter. “Get comfortable,” he said, motioning to a high back chair. “I’ll translate.”

I couldn’t hide my glee and did a silly jump clap thing. This old building, this beautiful city, I was certain we’d just uncovered something priceless, an epistolary story from long ago. Settling into the chair I curled my legs under me and pulled my cardigan together, ready to hear the story unfold.