Read Online The Secrets of Lizzie Borden by Brandy Purdy - Free Book Online

sitting opposite them at small tables for two in sidewalk cafés, leaning toward each other, holding hands, or even boldly daring to kiss in broad daylight on the boulevard or a park bench.
    Carrie, Anna, and Nellie turned up their noses at the notion of visiting the Louvre and Notre Dame, and instead rushed off to the dress shops. They could not hail a cab or find a post office without imploring help from some English-speaking bystander, but they could say “Where are the dress shops?” in four different languages. And poor Miss Mowbry indignantly took to her bed and refused to leave it for days after an “impertinent waiter” suggested she try the escargots . When she accepted his recommendation “with pleasure” he smilingly set a plate of snails before her, bidding her, “ Bon apétit, madame.”
    â€œYoung man, in America we do not eat snails; we step on them!” she witheringly reprimanded him. “Take these away and dispose of them properly!” she commanded, then, nose high in the air, retreated grandly to her hotel room and ordered tea and toast sent up.
    But we all had a weakness for the sweets. The French pastries—chocolate éclairs, cream puffs, marrons glacés, and chocolate bonbons stuffed with decadent creams, supple caramel, or rich fruity syrups.
    I saw the Mona Lisa on my own; I thought she looked like a woman made most unhappy by love and wondered what secrets she had kept in the lockbox of her heart. I saw love—its promises, fulfillment, the lack or loss of it, and the longing for it—in almost every painting and statue my lovesick eyes lighted upon.
    I heard the bells of Notre Dame and gazed up in awe at its magnificent Gothic edifice, the first to use flying buttresses, to prevent stress fractures in the walls, my architect had told me. Inside I stood, with my arms spread wide and my head thrown back, and let a rainbow of light wash over me as the sun shone through the stained glass, bathing me in vibrant color.
    And I went, alone, to see Monsieur Eiffel’s controversial tower, the tallest in the world, just completed the previous year. Some called it “an eyesore,” “a pox upon the skyline of Paris”; they thought that it was too modern, that the riveted iron structure lacked the romance and grace of Gothic cathedrals and the palaces of kings. They did not see it the way my architect did—as a triumph of engineering and mathematics—or understand the prime importance of wind resistance in its design. Though I far preferred the palaces and cathedrals myself, I still thought it magnificent. I climbed its many stairs and stood for over an hour, alone with my thoughts, staring out at the view wishing my love were there beside me.
    The one place my traveling companions did accompany me was to the Moulin Rouge, the notorious Red Mill; even Miss Mowbry roused herself from her bed of wounded dignity, because she felt a chaperone was an absolute necessity if we were to venture into such a hedonistic atmosphere, though the hotel desk clerk assured us that respectable ladies went there all the time and we simply could not miss the Can-Can; we would reproach ourselves for the rest of our lives if we left Paris without seeing that. Then he kissed his fingers and launched a volley of rhapsodic rapid-fire French so dizzyingly fast that it went right over our heads but set our curiosity on fire. So away we went to the Moulin Rouge to see the Can-Can.
    And it was amazing, to see the blades of the giant windmill spinning slowly against the night sky, lit up with thousands of red, gold, and white electric lights. I never dreamed there could be so many lightbulbs on one structure!
    Inside, it was as big, bright, and gaudy as it was out. Amidst the rapid, carefree music and babble of voices we were relieved to see a great many women of seemingly respectable appearance, both escorted and unescorted, seated at the tables, and this