Just One Day (22 page)

Thirty

Paris

I
t takes approximately thirteen hours and six time zones for me to freak out.

It happens when I stumble into the arrivals hall of Charles de Gaulle airport. All
around me, other passengers are being greeted by hugging relatives or drivers with
signs. I’m not being met by anyone. No one is expecting me. No one is watching out
for me. I know I have people out there in the world who love me, but right now, I’ve
never felt so alone. I feel that flashing sign click on over my head, the one that
used to read
TOURIST
. Only now it also reads
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
?

I pull my backpack straps tighter around my chest, like they could hug me. I take
a deep breath. I pick up one leg and put it in front the other. A step. I take another.
And another. I pull out the to-do list I made on the plane. Number one: exchange money.

I go to one of the many foreign exchange bureaus and in halting French ask if I can
exchange my dollars. “Of course. This is a bank,” the man behind the counter answers
in French. I hand over a hundred dollars and am too relieved to bother to count the
euros I get in return.

Next on the list: find youth hostel. I’ve mapped the route, a train to the city, then
a Metro to the Jaurès stop. I follow the signs for the RER, the train to central Paris,
but it turns out I have to take an airport train to get to the RER station, and I
go the wrong way and wind up at a different terminal and have to double back around,
so it takes me almost an hour just to get to the airport train station.

When I get up to the automated ticket machines, it’s like facing off against an enemy.
Even with choosing English as the language, the instructions are bewildering. Do I
need a Metro ticket? A train ticket? Two tickets? I feel that neon sign over my flash
brighter. Now it says
WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE
?

I open the guidebook again to the section about getting into Paris. Okay, one ticket
will get me into Paris and transfer to the Metro. I look at the map of the Paris Metro.
The different lines knot together like snakes. Finally, I locate my stop, Jaurès.
I trace the RER line to the airport to the transfer point and realize with a start
that it’s at Gare du Nord. Someplace familiar, someplace to tie me to that day.

“Okay, Allyson, no way through it but through it,” I tell myself. And then I face
the ticket machine, shoulders back, like we are competitors in a duel. I punch the
touch screen, feed it a ten-euro note and then it spits me back some change and a
tiny ticket. A small victory against an impassive opponent, but I am flush with satisfaction.

I follow the throngs to the gates, which work like the Tube gates, though it turns
out, it’s much easier to get through them when you’re not lugging a giant suitcase.
Ha! Another enemy foiled.

In the Metro/RER interchange beneath Gare du Nord, I get lost again trying to find
the right Metro line, and then I misplace my little ticket, which you need not only
to get out of RER but into the Metro. Then I almost get on the Metro going the wrong
direction but figure it out right before the doors close and jump off. When I finally
arrive at my stop, I’m completely exhausted and totally disoriented. It takes about
fifteen minutes poring over the map just to figure where I am. I take a half dozen
more wrong turns until I hit the canals, which is the first sign that I’m in the right
area.

But I still have no idea where the hostel is, and I’m exhausted, frustrated, and near
tears. I can’t even find the hostel. And I have an address. And a map. What in the
world makes me think I can find him?

But then just when I’m about to lose it, I stop, look out at the canals, and I just
breathe. And my panic subsides. Because this place, it feels familiar. It
is
familiar, because I’ve been here before.

I fold up my map and put it away. I breathe some more. I look around. There are the
same gray bicycles. There are the same stylish women, teetering across the cobblestones
on heels. The cafés, crowded, as though no one ever has to work. I take another deep
breath, and a sort of sense memory takes over. And somehow I just know where I am.
To the left is the park with the lake where we met Jacques and the Danes. To my right,
a few blocks back, is the cafe where we had crêpes. I take the map out again. I find
myself. Five minutes later, I’m at the youth hostel.

My room is on the sixth floor, and the elevator is out of order, so I walk up a winding
stairway. A guy with a tattoo of some sort of Greek god on his arm points out the
breakfast room, the communal bathrooms (coed), and then my room, with seven beds.
He gives me a lock and shows me where I can store my stuff when I go out. Then he
leaves me with a
bonne chance
, which means good luck, and I wonder if he says that to everyone or if he senses
that I’ll need it.

I sit down on the bed and unhook the sleeping bag from the top of my backpack, and
as I slump into the springy mattress, I wonder if Willem has stayed here. Has slept
in this very bed. It’s not likely, but it’s not impossible either. This is the neighborhood
he introduced me to. And everything seems possible right now, this feeling of rightness,
throbbing right alongside my heartbeat, soothing me to sleep.

I wake up a few hours later with drool on my pillow and static in my head. I take
a lukewarm shower, shampooing the jet lag out of my hair. Then I towel it try and
put in the gel like Tanya showed me—wash and wear, she said. It’s very different,
all chunks and layers, and I like it.

Downstairs, the clock on the lobby wall behind the giant spray-painted peace sign
reads seven o’clock; I haven’t eaten anything since the hard roll and yogurt they
gave me on the plane over from London, and I’m woozy with hunger. The little café
in the lobby only serves drinks. I know that part of traveling alone means eating
alone and ordering in French, and I practiced that a lot with Madame Lambert. And
it’s not like I haven’t eaten alone plenty of times in the dining hall this past year.
But I decide I’ve conquered enough things for one day. Tonight, I can get a sandwich
and eat in my room.

In front of the hostel, a bunch of people are hanging out in the drizzle. They’re
speaking English in what I think are Australian accents. I take a breath and walk
over and ask them if they know of a place to get a good sandwich nearby.

One muscular girl with streaky brown hair and a ruddy face turns to me and smiles
brightly. “Oh, there’s a place over the canal that makes gorgeous smoked salmon sandwiches,”
she says. She points out the way and then she resumes talking to her friend about
a bistro that supposedly sells a prix fixe for twelve euro, fifteen with a glass of
wine.

My mouth waters at the mere thought of it, the food, the company. It seems incredibly
presumptuous to invite myself, the kind of thing I would never do.

But then again, I’m alone in Paris, so this is all virgin territory. I tap the Australian
girl on her sunburnt shoulder and ask if I can tag along with them for dinner. “It’s
my first day traveling, and I’m not sure where to go,” I explain.

“Good on you,” she replies. “We’ve all been at it for ages. We’re on our OAs.”

“OAs?”

“Overseas Adventures. It’s so bloody expensive to get out of Australia that once you
go, you stay gone. I’m Kelly, by the way. This is Mick, that’s Nick, that’s Nico,
short for Nicola, and that’s Shazzer. She’s from England, but we love her anyway.”

Shazzer sticks her tongue out at Kelly, smiles at me.

“I’m Allyson.”

“That’s my mum’s name!” Kelly says. “And I was just saying I was missing my mum! Wasn’t
I? It’s karma!”

“Kismet,” Nico corrects.

“That too.”

Kelly looks at me, and for half a second, I stand there, because she hasn’t said yes
and I’m going to feel like an idiot if she says no. Still, maybe it’s all that prep
in French class, but I’m kind of okay with feeling like an idiot. The group starts
to walk off, and I start to turn toward the sandwich place. Then Kelly turns around.

“Come on, then,” she says to me. “Don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.”

“You might do. They eat those here,” Shazzer says.

“No they don’t,” one of the guys says. Mick or Nick. I’m not quite sure who’s who.

“That’s Japan,” Nico says. “It’s a delicacy there.”

We start walking, and I listen as the rest of them argue over whether or not the French
eat horse meat, and as I amble along, it hits me that I’m doing it. Going to dinner.
In Paris. With people I met five minutes ago. Somehow, more than anything else that’s
happened in the last year, this blows my mind.

On the way to the restaurant, we stop so I can get a SIM card for my phone. Then,
after getting slightly lost, we find the place and wait for a table big enough to
seat us all. The menu’s in French, but I can understand it. I order a delicious salad
with beets that’s so beautiful I take a picture of it to text my mom. She immediately
texts me back the less artful looking loco moco that Dad is having for breakfast.
For my entrée, it’s some kind of mystery fish in a peppery sauce. I’m having such
a nice time, mostly listening to their outrageous travel tales, that it’s only when
it’s time for dessert that I remember my promise to Babs. I check out the menu, but
there are no macarons on it. It’s already ten o’clock, and the shops are closed. Day
one, and I’ve already blown my promise.

“Shit,” I say. “Or make that
merde
!”

“What’s wrong?” Mick/Nick asks.’’

I explain about the macarons, and everyone listens, rapt.

“You should ask the waiter,” Nico says. “I used to work at a place in Sydney, and
we had a whole menu that wasn’t on the menu. For VIPs.” We all give her a look. “It
never hurts to ask.”

So I do. I explain, in French that would make Madame Lambert proud, about
ma promesse du manger des macarons tous les jours.
The waiter listens intently, as though this is serious business and goes into the
kitchen. He returns with everyone else’s dessert—crèmes brûlée and chocolate mousse—and,
miraculously, one perfect creamy macaron just for me. The inside is filled with brown,
sweet, gritty paste, figs I think. It’s dusted with powdered sugar so artfully it’s
like a painting. I take another picture. Then I eat it.

By eleven o’clock, I’m falling asleep into my plate. The rest of the group drops me
off back at the hostel before going out to hear some French all-girl band play. I
fall into a dead sleep and wake up in the morning to discover that Kelly, Nico, and
Shazzer are my dorm mates.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Late! Ten o’clock,” says Kelly. “You slept ages. And through such a racket. There’s
a Russian girl who blow-dries her hair for an hour every day. I waited for you to
see if you wanted to come with us. We’re all going to Père Lachaise Cemetery today.
We’re going to have a picnic. Which sounds bloody morbid to me, but apparently French
people do it all the time.”

It’s tempting: to go with Kelly and her friends and spend my two weeks in Paris being
a tourist, having fun. I wouldn’t have to go to dank nightclubs. I wouldn’t have to
face Céline. I wouldn’t have to risk getting my heart broken all over again.

“Maybe I’ll meet up with you later,” I tell her. “I’ve got something to do today.”

“Right. You’re on an epic quest for macarons.”

“Right,” I say. “That.”

At breakfast, I spend a little time with my map, figuring out the route between the
hostel and Gare du Nord. It’s walking distance, so I set out. The route seems familiar,
the big wide boulevard with the bike paths and sidewalks in the middle. But as I get
closer to the station, I start to feel sick to my stomach, the tea I had a while ago
coming back to my mouth, all acidic with fear.

At Gare du Nord, I stall for time. I go in the station. I wander over to the Eurostar
tracks. There’s one there, like a horse waiting to leave the gate. I think of when
I was here a year ago, broken, scared, running back to Ms. Foley.

I force myself to leave the station, letting my memory guide me again. I turn. I turn
again. I turn once more. Over the train tracks and into the industrial neighborhood.
And then, there it is. It’s kind of shocking, after all that searching online, how
easy it is to find. I wonder if this one wasn’t listed on Google, or if it was and
maybe my French was so mangled that no one understood me.

Or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe I was perfectly understood and Céline and the
Giant simply don’t work here anymore. A year is a long time. A lot can change!

When I open the door and see a younger-looking man with hair in a ponytail behind
the bar, I almost cry out in disappointment. Where is the Giant? What if he’s not
here? What if she’s not here?

“Excusez moi, je cherche Céline ou un barman qui vient du Sénégal.”

He says nothing. Doesn’t even respond. He just continues washing glasses in soapy
water.

Did I speak? Was it in French? I try again: I add a
s’il vous plaît
this time. He gives me a quick look, pulls out his phone, texts something, and then
goes back to dishes.

Con,
I mutter in French, another of Nathaniel’s teachings. I shove open the door, adrenaline
pushing through me. I’m so angry at that jerk behind the counter who wouldn’t even
answer me, at myself, for coming all this way for nothing.

“You came back!”

And I look up. And it’s him.

“I knew you would come back.” The Giant takes my hand and kisses me on each cheek,
just like the last time. “For the suitcase,
non
?”

I’m speechless. So I just nod. Then I throw my arms around him. Because I’m so happy
to see him again. I tell him so.

“As am I. And so happy I save your suitcase. Céline insist to take it away, but I
say no, she will come back to Paris and want her things.”