The Little Antique Shop Under the Eiffel Tower (24 page)

I harrumphed. “That may be, but what about him? What if he’s the one?”

“Then you buy a small island off Brazil and go make a million babies.”

I clucked my tongue. “Not
The One
, but the one who is the thief!”

“I know that,” she said. “Hence the need to hide out! It could be so romantic! On the run from authorities, living life for every sunrise in case it’s all snatched away.” Her expression softened, as she no doubt pictured me hiding out in some jungle with a half-naked Tristan.

“Oh my God, Madame! Non! The fact he’s stealing from France doesn’t bother you?”

“Well of course I’m loyal to my country. But with a body like that, and that powerful saunter of his, imagine what he’d be like, that stamina…” She had a faraway look in her eyes.

“Madame! Honestly!” If sex kept you young, it had definitely worked for Madame, but I wasn’t so sure how it had affected her morals. Imagine running off to Brazil with Tristan! Hide out with the bad guy? It was absurd.

“You’ll see, ma chérie. Sometimes, it’s the liars and thieves who make your pulse race, and what’s a girl to do?”

I cut her off, and held up a hand. “Madame! Did he say anything at all that you think we could tell the gendarmes? I know he was in Italy before he came here. But that’s not enough.”

“Really? You want to get him arrested? Can’t you do that
after
a little fling?”

In the sunny day, with my body aching from lack of sleep and adequate hydration I could easily do it. Get him convicted and out of my life. I was peeved he wasn’t the person I needed him to be. He was trouble. And so what if he oozed sex appeal? I wasn’t so shallow to only admire a man who was outwardly appealing. After two bottles of champagne things might have got hazy, but I wouldn’t be so careless again.

I stared her down and she eventually capitulated. “OK, OK. All he said was he had to go away, but he’d be back.”

“Go where?”

“America.”

And when was he going to tell me? I pursed my lips. “He’s going sell the antiques he stole!” What a mess I’d made. “He was probably trying to gauge what price you’d pay, and then use that as a guide for his black market buyers!”

“Or maybe not. He
is
American after all; maybe he’s going to visit his parents? Why are you so sure it’s him anyway? I do think we need to be careful about this…delicate situation.”

I huffed and puffed. “He just arrives one day, and no one has ever heard of him? He comes from Italy where a jewel thief has just been? His website advertises a big fat nothing, and he didn’t even have a website when I first met him. It was made after. He can tell a real opal on sight, which the vendor couldn’t even tell. He cancels dates coincidentally the night another robbery takes place. The postcard bandit signed off with the letter T –
Tristan
Black?”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s it?” Laughter barreled out of her. “That’s all you’ve got to go on? Anouk, please! There could be a number of reasons to explain all of that.”

I steeled myself. How could I tell her about all the little signs? I just
knew
; I could feel it, read it in his body language. He was involved. “You’ll see, Madame. Until then, promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” she said fervently. “But let’s not be too hasty to lay blame. Perhaps we should just leave it to the investigators. And let the gendarmes do their thing. I’m sure they know who it is and they’re tracking them.”

“I promise,” I lied. I didn’t trust the gendarmes one little bit after their lack of help with Joshua.

“Though…” she tapped her chin “…we do have an insight they don’t, being part of the inner circle in the antiquarian world. Let me muse, my dear. Maybe we could compile a list of pros and cons, pardon the pun.”

I gave her a grateful hug, glad she was finally listening to me. “Oui.”

We kissed goodbye and I headed into the sanctuary of my shop.

I flipped the sign to appointment only. I wasn’t at my best with two different shoes on, and a tsunami of a headache, but I was here at least. The air inside was thick with age, musty, as if overnight the treasures leaked memories from their pores, filling the space with that particular times-gone-by scent. Sometimes I wanted to capture it, in case it ever evaporated for good. The phone buzzed behind the counter so I dashed to answer it, praying it wasn’t Tristan.

“The Little Antique Shop,” I said.

“Bonjour, Anouk. I’m Vivienne and I was hoping for some help, some…advice. My papa passed away a few weeks ago and we’re going through his apartment. Would you consider giving us an estimate on some of his antiques?”

Her voice was raspy, as if she’d been crying. “Oui, of course. My condolences about the passing of your papa.” I had these types of requests all the time, and I tried to be as gentle as possible.

“Merci, merci. It’s just we’re not sure about…”

I interrupted, knowing instinctively what was coming next. “I’ll give you an estimate, and that price will stand, but there is no rush. You’ll know when the time is right, or not. And it may never be right, and that’s OK.”

We finished up our call, and I promised to visit her at the end of my workday, glad the visit would be a distraction from the bedlam in my mind.

Chapter Twenty-One

As the sky darkened I made my way to the address Vivienne gave me. Tourists with cameras slung around their necks sauntered past, slowly, as if they’d walked enough steps for one day. My headache had abated after copious amounts of water.

The apartment was the 8th arrondissement, just near the Arc De Triomphe. I introduced myself to the doorman and he buzzed the apartment, sending me up in the lift.

Vivienne answered the door dressed immaculately in a chic pantsuit, her shiny brown hair was bobbed and her face made up, yet you could still see hollows beneath her eyes from her grief. “Come in,” she said, kissing me quickly. “Thank you for visiting so soon. My father owned Leclére Parfumerie, so apologies if the scent is overwhelming.”

A wave of sadness washed over me. Vincent was a lovely old alchemist of a man. “I’ve been buying jasmine perfume from your papa for years,” I said quietly. I hadn’t heard of his passing. To think he was gone from that little shop just off the Champs-Élysées. What a gap his death would leave. He was unassuming, and doddery, always lost somewhere between his lab, and his reverie. He lived and breathed his concoctions. “Paris won’t be quite the same without him.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It happened so suddenly, we’re still in shock. My brother will run the parfumerie now, after a period of mourning.”

Her brother was similar to Vincent – dreamers, lost inside their minds with their creations. The reason the parfumerie had been so successful was because Vincent kept his compounds a closely guarded secret, and tried new things.

“I’m glad your brother will continue his legacy.” At least their magical perfumes would live on.

“My maman, too,” she said. “Even though they separated a lifetime ago. She’ll move back from Provence to help my brother.” I recalled Vincent’s ex-wife. She was a lovely bubbly woman, but Vincent’s affair with his work came at a cost.

Perhaps, she would find comfort in the little shop after all these years, and a level of understanding. Vincent’s passion resonated with me; it was how I felt about my shop too.

The apartment smelled like the parfumerie, a mixture of heady scents, all fighting for space. The old man still played with his concoctions at home, too. The thought made me smile.

The living room was a reflection of the man himself. Cluttered with disorderly stacks of books whose covers were gray with dust. An old leather couch, wrinkled, dipped on the left, the seat he must have favored.

“As you can see,” Vivienne said, “it’s all a bit of a jumble. He liked collecting, whether it was old perfume bottles, or paintings, he loved it all.”

Suddenly, I wished I’d taken more time to know Vincent. Walking into his apartment was like finding gold. I knew from the trinkets that took up every nook and cranny that Vincent had prized every little find. Like me, I bet he sat there most nights, and gazed at them. They were wondrous. The abstract painting on the wall, daubs of red so scarlet they were like a cry for attention. The perfume bottles, lined up in size order on a mirrored shelf, so their bottles reflected upward, double the beauty, each wafting a faded, barely there scent, one last trick of osmosis, which sweetened the air.

“He had eclectic taste,” I said with a smile. On a side table a cluster of seashells perched, leaving a faint trace of the sea.

“He loved the ocean,” she said, following my gaze. “His last perfume, the one he vowed to perfect, was a re-creation of the beach. He wanted to capture the Mediterranean in a bottle, not just the sea air, the waves, and sand, but the feeling you had when you stood there, staring into Mother Nature’s most glorious creation. Peace, relaxation, and above all hope. That’s what he was like – it was a quest for him, and he was lost to it.”

The thought of Vincent trying to bottle that, not just a perfume but a
feeling
, was so incredible goose bumps broke out over my skin. Tristan flashed briefly into my mind. He always smelled rugged and sea swept. But I pushed the vision of his face firmly from my mind, and instead thought of poor Vincent not achieving his dream. I wondered how close he got to perfecting the idea.

“Perhaps your brother can continue his dream, and finish that scent?” I know I’d buy something that conjured up those nostalgic moments in life.

She smiled, and it changed her features dramatically. All at once she appeared younger, more vibrant. “I hope so. He’s as good as Papa, but is crippled with self-doubt sometimes. We’ll see, anyway. Shall I make some coffee while you look around?”

I nodded my thanks, not sure where to start in the jumbled apartment. Vivienne left the room but I knew I wasn’t alone. The edges blurred, like her father was here, standing off to the side, watching me with that same lackadaisical smile of his. Vivienne wasn’t ready; I could feel it instinctively. The apartment with myriad pieces had to stay complete.

“Your things are beautiful,” I whispered into the ether, hoping Vincent could hear. A breeze blew in from the balcony, ruffling the curtains like a sign he was pleased.

Vincent had an armoire in the corner of the room that drew my eye. I opened the cupboards, and inside where stacks of notebooks. I flicked them open, curious as to what he’d written. Smiling, I quickly closed them, and shut the doors. They were full of chemical equations, complex diagrams, and colorful sketches, the secrets to his perfumes, and that was not for me to see. Even in death, I respected his privacy. I’d have to tell Vivienne to put them somewhere safe.

Leaving the room, I inched down the passage, stopping to admire black and white photographs hanging on the whitewashed wall.

When I came to his bedroom, I hovered on the threshold, unsure if I should enter the chamber. Shadows played here, dancing along the walls, like children were playing in the next realm, half here, half there, and I knew this was where he died. It came to me, him clutching his heart, staggering down the passage, seeing the photos for the last time. Or maybe I was imagining things. With a steadying breath, I entered the room. Moonlight shone through thick drapes that were left open. What was in here that he wanted me to see? Just then Vivienne’s brisk footsteps sounded.

“This was his favorite room,” she said, leaning her head against the doorframe. “It was the view he loved.”

I followed her gaze, and through the mottled windows you could just make out the top half of the Eiffel Tower. The lights flashed, like tiny fireworks. “I would sit here every night too, and soak up that spectacle,” I said.

“I can still feel him here.”

I gave her arm a soft pat. I could too, but it wasn’t my place to say. “The high-back chair, it was where he sat every morning, fresh, ready to tackle another day?”

She smiled, and lifted her head from the doorjamb. “Yes,” she said, surprise shining in her eyes. “He used to sit there, and pull on his boots, exclaiming, ‘Today will be a good day. Today will be the day I make a perfume so immortal, it will outlive us all.’ And we always believed him. He was like a nutty professor, but so fervent that it seemed like anything was possible, if only you put your heart and soul into it.”

This was why antiques, and a person’s belongings were more than just ‘things’. A person’s lifetime seeped into the medium and made it ripe with possibility, with passion. With love, and loss and hope.

“He was writing a memoir, you know.” Her voice was barely audible, as if she was overtaken by picturing her papa sitting in his chair, face shining with enthusiasm that he got to follow his passion every single day.

“But he didn’t finish it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “From the stack of pages, I think he expounded maybe too much. His gift was perfume, not words, but I’ll read it, one day, when the time is right. His greatest regret was letting our mother go. But it was too late. She fell in love with another man. And Papa was too polite to step in, and confess his mistake.” Lost in her recollections, her voice came out a whisper. “He was too gentle for this world. Life only made sense to him when he was lost among fragrance charts.”

I mulled his story over, as a feeling of recognition hit me. I too, chose work over almost everything else. Sure, I had other responsibilities, but my little shop was my refuge, my best friend, the place I hid in times of crisis. Would I have the same fate as Vincent? Choosing antiques over love, and not realizing until it was too late? The thought made me shiver.

“Did your maman ever hint that she still loved him?” I asked gently. Hoping at least there was some kind of happy ever after for the old man, no matter how tenuous. Perhaps if he knew she loved him, but had promised herself to another man that might have been enough to get him through the long, lonely nights in the dark of winter.

Vivienne lifted a shoulder. “She never confided in me, out of respect for her second husband. But when Papa died, she was the first person to say his legacy needed to continue, and that someone would have to help my brother Sébastien. Her second husband recently died too. So she’s moving back to Paris after all these years…”