book set in Paris? An academic or a journalist? His rumpled linen suit, worn leather attaché case, and straw hat looked curiously antiquated for someone in his early thirties. Since he hadn’t spoken, I didn’t know what nationality he was, but from his coloring I would guess Italian. A newspaper was folded on the table beside him, but I couldn’t see what language it was written in.
Madame Weiss interrupted my speculations by coming herself to say good morning and take my order. “Mademoiselle James,” she cooed in the same tone as the pigeons in the garden, “we have seen so little of you! You are very busy doing your research, eh? Just like your mother when she stayed here, always busy!”
I smiled at Madame Weiss. She must have been at least eighty, but she was slim as a girl of twenty in a black pencil skirt, loose cream silk blouse, and high-heeled sandals. Her gray hair was impeccably cut in a soft, chin-length bob. A silk scarf patterned with seashells was deftly knotted on her shoulder. “Really?” I asked. “Do you know what she was so busy doing?”
She shrugged and pursed her lips. “There is so much to do in Paris. Who can say? Would you like a café au lait? Croissant? Jus d’orange? ”
I said yes to everything and Madame Weiss patted me on my shoulder, covertly rearranging my scarf as she did so. I was sure it looked ten times better. I turned my attention back to my guidebook, determined not to stare back at the Italian journalist (as I’d decided to think of him). I was here to find Will, I told myself sternly.
But it’s not as though you’re married to him, another voice intruded into my head. I recognized this voice as belonging to my friend Becky Jones. She would probably point out that Will had betrayed me and that only yesterday I’d been about to give up on finding him. But then my encounter with Jean Robin had changed all that. I had been waiting for a sign, and although I hadn’t gotten one that told me how to find the Summer Country, I’d gotten a referral to someone who could help me.
I looked up the Jardin des Plantes in my guidebook and read that it had been founded in 1626 by Jean Hérouard and Guy de la Brosse. I recalled that Jean Robin had mentioned them last night as the two men who’d been inspired by his work to create the botanical garden. The garden featured a natural-history museum, a botanical school, a zoo, an alpine garden, and a labyrinth, which contained the first wrought-iron structure—a gazebo built in 1788—and a “majestic” cedar of Lebanon that had been planted in 1734.
I wondered if the cedar of Lebanon housed a bevy of tree fey. Perhaps that was where I’d find Monsieur Lutin. Jean Robin hadn’t given me any more specific instructions than to go to the Labyrinth. I didn’t even know what kind of creature Monsieur Lutin was.
I flipped to the map section at the back of the book and plotted out a route to the park, which looked to be a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk away. I closed the book just as a waitress appeared with my breakfast tray. I looked up, hoping to get another glance at the handsome Italian journalist, but he was gone. He’d left his paper, though, and I decided to swipe it to get a clue to his nationality. When I’d retrieved the paper—an International Herald Tribune —I forgot all about trying to find out more about my fellow hotel guest. Staring out from the page was a picture of Amélie, the homeless woman from the Square Viviani. The caption below said that she’d been found dead at dawn, drowned in the Seine.
* * *
I walked to the Jardin des Plantes thinking about poor Amélie. According to the newspaper she’d been a great beauty once, an artists’ model and mistress of several well-known artists, but she’d fallen on hard times. The reporter implied that her death was most likely a suicide. Pausing above a flight of stairs, I recalled Amélie’s yellow, nicotine-stained fingers, scabby knees, and
Madame Weiss interrupted my speculations by coming herself to say good morning and take my order. “Mademoiselle James,” she cooed in the same tone as the pigeons in the garden, “we have seen so little of you! You are very busy doing your research, eh? Just like your mother when she stayed here, always busy!”
I smiled at Madame Weiss. She must have been at least eighty, but she was slim as a girl of twenty in a black pencil skirt, loose cream silk blouse, and high-heeled sandals. Her gray hair was impeccably cut in a soft, chin-length bob. A silk scarf patterned with seashells was deftly knotted on her shoulder. “Really?” I asked. “Do you know what she was so busy doing?”
She shrugged and pursed her lips. “There is so much to do in Paris. Who can say? Would you like a café au lait? Croissant? Jus d’orange? ”
I said yes to everything and Madame Weiss patted me on my shoulder, covertly rearranging my scarf as she did so. I was sure it looked ten times better. I turned my attention back to my guidebook, determined not to stare back at the Italian journalist (as I’d decided to think of him). I was here to find Will, I told myself sternly.
But it’s not as though you’re married to him, another voice intruded into my head. I recognized this voice as belonging to my friend Becky Jones. She would probably point out that Will had betrayed me and that only yesterday I’d been about to give up on finding him. But then my encounter with Jean Robin had changed all that. I had been waiting for a sign, and although I hadn’t gotten one that told me how to find the Summer Country, I’d gotten a referral to someone who could help me.
I looked up the Jardin des Plantes in my guidebook and read that it had been founded in 1626 by Jean Hérouard and Guy de la Brosse. I recalled that Jean Robin had mentioned them last night as the two men who’d been inspired by his work to create the botanical garden. The garden featured a natural-history museum, a botanical school, a zoo, an alpine garden, and a labyrinth, which contained the first wrought-iron structure—a gazebo built in 1788—and a “majestic” cedar of Lebanon that had been planted in 1734.
I wondered if the cedar of Lebanon housed a bevy of tree fey. Perhaps that was where I’d find Monsieur Lutin. Jean Robin hadn’t given me any more specific instructions than to go to the Labyrinth. I didn’t even know what kind of creature Monsieur Lutin was.
I flipped to the map section at the back of the book and plotted out a route to the park, which looked to be a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk away. I closed the book just as a waitress appeared with my breakfast tray. I looked up, hoping to get another glance at the handsome Italian journalist, but he was gone. He’d left his paper, though, and I decided to swipe it to get a clue to his nationality. When I’d retrieved the paper—an International Herald Tribune —I forgot all about trying to find out more about my fellow hotel guest. Staring out from the page was a picture of Amélie, the homeless woman from the Square Viviani. The caption below said that she’d been found dead at dawn, drowned in the Seine.
* * *
I walked to the Jardin des Plantes thinking about poor Amélie. According to the newspaper she’d been a great beauty once, an artists’ model and mistress of several well-known artists, but she’d fallen on hard times. The reporter implied that her death was most likely a suicide. Pausing above a flight of stairs, I recalled Amélie’s yellow, nicotine-stained fingers, scabby knees, and
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