Seven Letters from Paris (4 page)

“I'm booking my ticket.”

Click.

“Tracey, tell me I'm not a bitch.”

“You are
not
a bitch.”

“I'm doing the right thing, right?”

“You don't want my answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't like the way he—” She cut herself off midsentence. “I'm keeping my opinions to myself until you leave and the divorce is final.”

Point taken.

Click.

While I waited for my sister to arrive, the correspondence between Jean-Luc and I intensified—three to five emails a day, mostly him giving me words of support. Since Tracey still hadn't unearthed the photo album from our European adventure, the only picture I had of him was a hazy imprint in my memory—a photo of us standing on the white steps of Sacré-Coeur. In any case, I was dying to see what my rocket scientist looked like now, how he'd fared throughout the years. I sent him a few goofy pictures of me, taken with the camera on my computer, and asked him to send me one in return. He complied.

I opened up the attachment, which he'd sent as a Word doc, and…and…and…it must have been his idea of a joke. The first picture was of Jean-Luc, but he'd cropped his head completely out of the shot, so all I could see was a body (which looked rather good, slim and fit) wearing a nice tailored suit. The caption under the photo read: “A beheaded guy twenty years later, head in the sky. Just your average, run-of-the-mill rocket scientist.”

I scrolled to the next photo, which was of his daughter and son smiling on a tram in the Pyrénées Mountains. Elvire had beautiful auburn hair and blue eyes, and she would be an absolute knock-out when she was older. His son, Maxence, was not only adorable, but with a confident attitude to boot, he would definitely be a real heartbreaker. So Jean-Luc had made some nice-looking kids, but I wondered: What did
he
look like?

There was one more photo.

It was a flower in his garden?

He was killing me.

Either he was a pro at torturing people without inflicting actual pain, or there was something dreadfully wrong with him. Maybe some horrible accident, an aerospace experiment gone bad, had left him horrifically disfigured. I grabbed the phone and dialed the number to the one person I'd been sharing every last juicy detail with, every word, every sentence, every letter since his first response.

“Jean-Luc sent me a photo, but he cropped his head out of it.”

Tracey spit out a laugh. “He's probably bald.”

“Maybe,” I said.

You could drive a four-mile-long train through the pause that followed. I wondered: Did I really care if he was losing his hair? We were only exchanging emails. My computer dinged. There was a new message from Jean-Luc.

“There's something else,” I said, my voice drifting off.

“What? What is it?”

“He just sent a message. He wants to call me.”

“Well, don't let me stand in your way. Ciao.”

Click.

I stared at the computer screen for a minute. This phone call could change everything. Was I ready to open up my life to Jean-Luc in real time? Moreover, could I do it? It was time to find out.

It took several minutes to type three simple words: “Call me now.” Thirty seconds after I sent the email, the phone vibrated on the dining room table. Before the phone shimmied onto the floor, with my nerves sparking like live wires, I made my move and answered.

“Hello?” I questioned, even though I knew exactly who was on the other end of the line. My voice shook. My heart hammered against my ribs. Back and forth, I paced the length of the hallway.

“Samantha.” Even with one word, deep, strong, and sultry, Jean-Luc's voice carried the confidence I lacked. “For this first conversation, could you speak slowly?” he continued. “English isn't my first language. Sometimes it's hard to understand on the phone, and I don't want to miss one word that comes out of your mouth.”

“This is weird,” I said.

“Weird? How?”

“I'm sorry. It's just that I haven't spoken to you in twenty years. And the way we've connected in our letters, well, I'm finding this all pretty strange.” I went quiet for a moment. “I was only trying to apologize to you, but things…I don't know. I just find this all a little bit crazy—”

“Sam?”

Oh God, this was so awkward. “I'm sorry.”

“Never, ever apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

It was time to change the subject before I apologized again. Plus, my curiosity was killing me. “Your children are absolute angels. I love their photos, but when are you going to send me a picture of you? With your head in it?”

“I'm a little bit afraid that I am no longer this handsome guy you once knew. Right now, I'm in between Richard Gere for the gray hair, but closer to Bruce Willis for the lack of it. I'm not photogenic. Really, I'm not. As for you, Sam, and your pictures, you are so very pretty. I could never miss you on the street, no, never.”

I smiled to myself. He was nervous too. “Just send me one photo, please, just one.”

With a sigh, he agreed.

Once the initial shock wore off, Jean-Luc led the conversation, which I was thankful for. His sentences glided easily off his tongue. We discussed his looming divorce, how he'd had an initial meeting with an attorney, and how Natasha wasn't completely aware of his intentions yet. Meanwhile, call waiting was clicking in, along with dozens of emails and text messages coming in from Chris, heartbreaking and pleading, asking me to think about the good times. My responses to Jean-Luc came out in one-word answers, sounds—uh huh, yep, yes. It seemed he had everything figured out. I, on the other hand, was flipping out.

“Are you okay?” asked Jean-Luc. “You've barely said a word.”

“I'm fine,” I lied. My eyes leapt to the clock in the kitchen. “Jean-Luc, I'm really sorry, but I have to leave now to pick my sister up.”

“I understand,” said Jean-Luc. “And remember, you never have to apologize to me. For anything.”

We hung up and I sat at the dining room table, elbows on the table, supporting my head with my hands. The scent of the dark amber with ginger lily and nectarine blossom with honey still lingered on my wrists, conjuring the memory of the argument that happened minutes before Chris had given the two bottles to me. Nausea crept into my stomach. The perfume only masked my unhappiness—it was a temporary fix.

My cell phone buzzed with a text message from Jessica, alerting me to the fact that her plane had landed early, and she was now taxiing to the gate. I texted her back with an “I'm on my way. Meet me outside of baggage claim.” I figured by the time she disembarked and retrieved her bags, I had about forty-five minutes to navigate the twenty-minute drive. It was early enough in the afternoon to evade rush hour, there were no Cubs or Bears games, and so I had a couple of minutes. Before I left for the airport, I wrote Jean-Luc a quick email, thanking him for his support and explaining why I was so despondent during our phone call.

• • •

We weren't even up the stairs when Jessica made her demand. “I want to read those letters.”

“Me too,” piped Meg, a friend of ours whom we had picked up on the way back from O'Hare.

“Which ones?” I asked. “The old ones or the new ones?”

Jessica threw her suitcase onto the floor in the guest room. “How many new ones are there?”

“I don't know. Fifty? A hundred?”

“Shut the front door,” said Jessica. “Does he write you in French?” I nodded. Her baby blue eyes went wide. “And you remember it? From high school?”

“Not at all,” I laughed. “Thank the powers that be for Google Translate.”

Or maybe not. According to Jean-Luc, the letters I'd been writing him in French were completely nonsensical, and I'd have to write him back in English to clarify my thoughts.

Meg shrugged her shoulders. “I visited your blog. I want to read the seven letters.”

We strolled into the living room, zigzagging through the boxes and containers. The two girls took a seat on the couch, both with expectant expressions, hands in their laps, pursed lips. Teasing them with an overly dramatic sigh, I retrieved the letters from the nightstand and handed them over. While they busied themselves reading, oohing and aahing, I made myself useful by pouring the wine. Then I checked my computer to find Jean-Luc's response to my earlier email.

To: Samantha

From: Jean-Luc

Subject: Re: Thank You

Sam,

I talked too much and did not let you sufficiently explain your situation. Sorry for my behavior, but I was so nervous the words just flooded like a river from my mouth. Don't feel guilty. You are courageous, not a coward. You have to do what is right for you and you only. I am besides you whatever the stormy weather brings.

Thank you for being here and for your nice soul.

Jean-Luc

My nice soul? Even with all my deepest and darkest secrets revealed, Jean-Luc still saw me as a saint. I sucked in my breath.

Meg looked up at me with tears in her eyes. She held out the letters. “Oh my god. I want this.”

So did I. Until that moment, I just hadn't realized how much. I averted my gaze and nervously fingered the rings I still wore on my left hand. Naturally, this act did not go unnoticed. Jessica grabbed my hand and released it immediately as if I had a deadly and contagious disease. “Why the hell are you still wearing those?”

“Give me a break. After nearly twelve years of marriage, you get used to some things. And I did try taking them off, but I felt so strange, so naked without them.”

“Oh, please.” Jessica's expression changed her face from Kewpie doll into Chucky. She brushed her long blond hair off her shoulder in defiance. “You're getting divorced. That's why I'm here, right? To help you pack?”

There it was, the dreaded “d” word. I didn't know what scared me more: the finality of it all or the fear of the unknown. “Jessie, I'm not divorced yet. I need some time to get used to the thought. Please, no judgments.” I grabbed my coat. “Let's just go to dinner.”

• • •

A twentysomething woman popped through the open sunroof of a stretch limo, a glass of champagne in hand. Her T-shirt depicted a bride dragging a groom by the hair. I had to squint to make out the words above the caricatures: “I got one.” Oh yes, it was the quintessential bachelorette party.

Since I was seated at one of Chicago's crowded outdoor cafés, the reasonable thing for me to do would have been to raise my glass of wine in offer of congratulations like the other patrons, but a single, bitter thought held me back. I wanted to scream, “Don't do it!” and it took sheer willpower not to. I just stared at the girl and bit down on my bottom lip. Unfortunately, the bride-to-be caught my gaze before the limo drove off.

She yelled: “I'm getting married…”

To which I instantly replied at the top of my lungs: “I'm getting divorced!”

The chatter of nearby conversations ceased.

Forks and jaws dropped.

What can I say, besides I had a knee-jerk reaction?

Jessica and Meg spit red wine all over the table—a waste of a perfectly good Pinot Noir if you ask me—and everybody in the restaurant, and I mean everybody, stared in my direction with what I can only describe as shocked bemusement. I sank into my seat and shrugged my shoulders in mock apology. Within seconds, laughter rocked the patio, glasses were raised higher, and shouts of encouragement came from every corner.

“Smart move, girlfriend!”

“Men suck.”

And I think I made out the words, “Can I have your number?”

Jessica jabbed me in the ribs, her blue eyes watering with tears of laughter. She could barely get her words out. “I can't believe you just did that.”

Neither could I.

“It's good to have the old Samantha back.”

Jessica's statement threw me. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you've got a spark, a light in your eyes.”

“Chris wasn't a bad guy,” I muttered. “He just wasn't the right guy for me.”

“Gee, I've never heard that one before.” Jessica snorted and continued. “What you're doing is so brave.”

Me? Brave? If I were brave, it wouldn't have taken me six years to garner up the courage to end things. If I were brave, I wouldn't have asked for a divorce in a Hiroshima-like explosion after drinking two martinis with a lemon twist. “It's the way I ended things. It wasn't right.”

“What way would have been better?” asked Jessica. “Look, you finally said what was on your mind. So it was fueled by alcohol. Big deal. Get over it. Seriously, how many marriages end in a good way?”

I nodded, thankful that at least we didn't have children to complicate the matter. “Still, I should probably have ‘Beware: I'm an evil, soon-to-be-forty-year-old divorcée' tattooed on my forehead.”

“No, you're definitely not evil,” said Meg. “And that thing with the bachelorette was damned funny. People are still laughing.”

I gulped back my last sip of wine. “I guess timing is everything.”

Meg lifted her glass. “Here's to timing.”

Tired beyond all belief, I went home early and crawled into bed, only to wake up the next morning with a serious hangover. It wasn't from the wine we'd had at dinner, but from fear. Jessica and I spent all day packing up the rest of my things. I flipped through old photos. Even the pictures were alien, the life I'd shared with the soon-to-be-ex galaxies away. When we were finished, it saddened me to see everything from the past thirteen years taped into ten medium-sized moving boxes. Jess and I dropped them off at the local mail station, sending them to my parents' house via UPS. This added another nine hundred dollars to my already dangerously high credit card debt.