Paris Is Always a Good Idea Page 8

  But Robert Sherman was totally unaware of this when he glanced appreciatively at the attractive display in the stationer’s window as he walked past. And then suddenly came to a halt in bewilderment.

  Eight

  For two weeks Rosalie had been living on cloud nine.

  As she filled the postcard stand with fresh cards that morning, humming as she did so, she couldn’t help admiring the big poster that was hanging on the wall behind the till.

  It showed a big, blue tiger—the illustration from the title page of The Blue Tiger, the book that had appeared two weeks previously—and at the bottom of the poster you could see two faces, and, written beneath them, two names: MAX MARCHAIS and ROSALIE LAURENT.

  She smiled proudly and thought back to the reading that had taken place in Luna Luna three days before. Every seat in the little store had been occupied as Max Marchais presented his new book.

  And since the author didn’t like reading in public and Rosalie really did, he had gladly left that part to her and simply signed books and answered questions afterward.

  The audience had been enthusiastic. Even her mother had sat there, completely satisfied, and had come up to her daughter after the reading and hugged her with a happy sigh.

  “I’m so proud of you, my child,” she had said. “If only your father could have been here to see it.”

  The reading in the store had been set up by Montsignac, the jolly fat publisher. Montsignac thought it would be a nice idea if the book, after the extremely glamorous launch in the publishing house itself and some other events in major bookstores, could also be presented in the place where the illustrations had been produced.

  In his humorous introductory speech he had naturally not failed to mention that it had been he—Jean-Paul Montsignac, with his infallible nose for people and talent (“A good publisher immediately recognizes talent”)—who had brought these two lovable freelances together (those were his exact words, and Rosalie and Max had looked at one another in astonishment and then grinned conspiratorially).

  The publisher from Opale Jeunesse had every reason to be in a good mood. Since The Blue Tiger had appeared at the end of August on the very day of Max Marchais’s seventieth birthday, the book with its imaginative illustrations had already sold forty thousand copies, and anyone who believed that Max Marchais, the children’s author who had been living in seclusion for many years, had been forgotten by his readers had been proved wrong. Praised by reviewers, loved by readers great and small, the book had even been shortlisted for the Prix littérature de jeunesse.

  “Well, what a birthday present that is, mon vieil ami,” the beaming Montsignac had said, clapping his old companion on the shoulder. “There are some people who have to be forced to be lucky, eh?” And then he had burst into laughter.

  The vieil ami had not caught the reference, and so had smiled back, but the person who had beamed the most was Rosalie, who still couldn’t believe her luck. Since the launch of the book other publishers had also shown an interest in the young illustrator, and there was already a contract for a postcard book with ten different motifs. The demand for wishing cards had also mushroomed: many people came to Luna Luna because they’d read about it in the papers. If things carried on this way there would be no need to worry about rent raises, thought Rosalie with satisfaction. The only worry was how to cope with all the extra work.

  “You should consider hiring someone to help you in the store,” René had said to her a few days before as she was sitting at her drawing table until late in the night. “You’re working round the clock these days. But everyone knows that the sleep you get before midnight is the most healthy.” And then, with a reproachful and concerned expression, he’d given her one of his lectures on the human body and what was good and bad for it.

  Good old René! In the last few weeks and months he really hadn’t seen much of her. She’d thrown herself into creating the pictures for the tiger book with fiery enthusiasm. The sketches and trial drawings that she made initially had—with the exception of one picture—found favor both with the publisher and the author. She’d traveled to Le Vésinet three times to visit Max Marchais and discuss the selection of the illustrations with him. She appreciated his directness and humor, even if they had not always agreed about the choice of scenes that she wanted to illustrate. Finally they had sat in the delightful garden with its blue hydrangea bushes and eaten a delicious charlotte aux framboises that Madame Bonnier, the housekeeper, had baked. Without noticing it, they had begun to tell each other things that had nothing to do with the illustrations and the book. Like a loving couple they couldn’t stop recalling the circumstances surrounding their first meeting, and Rosalie had finally confessed to Max that she had at first taken the unfriendly customer who had stumbled into her store on her day off for a crazy old man who talked nonsense and had gotten lost.

  Max had then revealed to her that he had at first not been at all enthusiastic about trying out a “dilettante” and that he’d really only visited the rue du Dragon to be able to tell Montsignac with a clear conscience that he found the scribblings of this postcard store owner execrable.

  They had both had a good laugh and eventually Rosalie had revealed to Max that blue had always been her favorite color, that—to use her mother’s words—she had a real thing about blue, and then she’d looked directly in to his bright eyes and asked: “Do you believe in coincidences, Monsieur Max?” (Although they were becoming increasingly close they had still remained on formal terms.)

  Max Marchais had leaned back in his wicker chair with a smile and fished a raspberry from his plate with his fork.

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence,” he had said, adding with a grin, “it’s not something I said.” He shoved the raspberry into his mouth and swallowed it. “That was said by a far more important man than I am. But anyway it was the first time in my life that I had to knock a postcard stand over to get to know a pretty woman.”

  “Monsieur Max!” Rosalie had exclaimed in amusement. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Could be,” he’d replied. “But I’m afraid I’m years too late. Tragic!” He shook his head with a deep sigh. “And anyway, you already have a boyfriend. That … René Joubert. Hmm. A nice young man…”

  The way he said that confused her.

  “But?” she had asked.

  “Well, yes, my dear Rosalie. A nice young man, but he’s not the one for you.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “My experience of human nature?” he suggested with a laugh. “Perhaps I’m just envious. I’m an old man with a walking stick, Mademoiselle Rosalie, and that sometimes gets on my nerves. But I wasn’t always like this, you know. If I were younger I’d risk anything to steal René’s pretty girlfriend from him. And I’d bet a bottle of Bollinger that I’d succeed.”

  “What a shame you can’t lose the bet,” Rosalie replied cheekily. “I’d like to drink Bollinger someday.”

  “It’s a very fine wine, Mademoiselle Rosalie, you don’t just drink it any old how. They say that anyone who hasn’t had a sip of that champagne hasn’t lived.”

  “You’re making me curious.”

  “Well, perhaps the occasion will arise,” Marchais replied.

  And then—it was weeks later, on a hot August day and Rosalie had completely forgotten about the Bollinger question—Max Marchais had called her one morning and asked if she was free that evening, because the occasion had arrived.

  “What occasion?” she asked in some confusion.

  “Bollinger,” he answered drily. “There is something to celebrate!”

  “But it’s not your birthday yet!” Rosalie had said in surprise, quickly glancing at the calendar to make sure. Marchais’s birthday was the last day in August, and that was two weeks away.

  “What … my birthday?” he’d said in the indignant way she had come to know so well. “Childish nonsense! Now … are you free?”

  “But why—”

  “It’
s a surprise,” he said in a voice that allowed no contradiction. “And wear something pretty: we’re going somewhere really high class. I’ll pick you up in a taxi.”

  * * *

  HE’D INVITED HER TO Le Jules Verne. Le Jules Verne of all places! Rosalie had been too awestruck to react appropriately.

  “I hope you don’t find this hopelessly old-fashioned,” Max Marchais had said somewhat apologetically, as she entered the restaurant at his side, dressed in a plum-blue wild-silk dress. “I don’t know what’s in in Paris these days.”

  “Old-fashioned? Are you crazy? Did you know I’ve always wanted to eat up here?” Her eyes shining, Rosalie had walked over to the table with its white cloth that had been reserved for them in the window and looked out over the lights of the city. The view was breathtaking. She hadn’t known that it was so beautiful.

  Behind her a soft tinkling sound rang out. A black-coated waiter was carrying a silver champagne bucket over to their table; it contained a dark-green bottle of Bollinger with its gold label, in a bed of thousands of fragments of crushed ice. The waiter dealt skillfully with the bottle, releasing the cork from its neck with a gentle plop. After they had sat down and the waiter had poured the champagne into their cut-glass flutes, Max pulled something out of his briefcase: it was wrapped in a paper bag and looked suspiciously like a book.

  He put the package down on the table, and Rosalie felt her heart begin to pound. “No!” she exclaimed. “Could that be … already? Could it be?”

  Max nodded. “The book,” he said. “I was sent a prepublication copy yesterday, and thought this would be the perfect occasion to drink a toast with you, my dear Rosalie. In Bollinger, as you wished. Excuse all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. But I thought it would only be right to celebrate this occasion alone with you.”

  They raised their glasses and clinked them. The clear ringing tone resounded for a moment above the murmured conversations of the guests at the other tables. Max Marchais smiled at her. “To The Blue Tiger! And to the wonderful way that he brought us together!”

  Then Rosalie had carefully unwrapped the book, stroked the shining cover, which showed an indigo-blue tiger with silver stripes and a friendly catlike grin, and leafed through the pages with appropriate reverence. It had turned out exceptionally beautifully, she thought. Her first book! So that’s what it felt like. Rosalie could have sung for joy.

  “Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes, very,” she replied happily. “Very, very satisfied.” She leafed back to the title page once more.

  “I’d like you to write something in it for me,” she said—and that was when she first saw the dedication: FOR R.

  “Oh, my goodness!” she said, turning pink with joy. “That’s incredibly nice of you. Thank you. Gosh—I just don’t know what to say.…”

  “Don’t say anything.”

  Rosalie was so overjoyed at this proof that she was appreciated that she almost didn’t notice the old man’s embarrassment as he looked at her with a peculiar smile.

  * * *

  THE EVENING WAS A long one, with delicious food, and when the bottle of Bollinger was empty, Rosalie heard herself saying—to her own astonishment—“Did you know that I actually come here on my birthday every year?”

  Max had raised his eyebrows. “What, here? To Le Jules Verne?”

  “No, of course not here. I mean to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I had already decided to give it up, and then you walked—or rather fell—into my life.” She giggled, already a little tipsy, pushed her hair, which she was wearing loose that evening, from her forehead, and lowered her voice. “I’d like to tell you a secret, Max, but you must promise not to tell anyone. And you mustn’t laugh at me even if it sounds a bit childish.”

  “I’ll be as silent as the grave,” he assured her. “And I’d never laugh at you. I write children’s books, as you are well aware.”

  And so it came about that Max Marchais, the creator of a blue cloud-tiger that could fly through the night sky and believed in the magic of wishing, became the first person with whom Rosalie shared her Eiffel Tower secret. And of course all the secret wishes that had fluttered down with the postcards—unexpectedly, three of them had been fulfilled in recent months: She had been discovered as an illustrator. Her mother was satisfied for the first time in her life. And she’d been invited to dine in Le Jules Verne—even if not by the man of her dreams.

  “But, well…,” she ended gaily. “I hope you won’t get me wrong, dear Max. I should really be sitting here with my boyfriend, but even so this is lovely as it is.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Max with a chuckle.

  And when they parted on the avenue Gustave-Eiffel later that evening, he said, “So, if I’ve counted right, the only things still missing are the house by the seaside and a man with a sense of poetry who will give you a silly little padlock for the railing on the bridge.” He had twinkled at her. “I’m afraid that will be a real challenge. But don’t give up hope.”

  * * *

  ROSALIE LOOKED OVER AT the store window, where several copies of The Blue Tiger formed part of the display, and had to smile as she thought back to the evening with Max Marchais—now more than three weeks ago. Of course she would never in her life be given a silly little padlock, but that didn’t matter. This was one of those days when everything seemed to be going right with the world.

  On the street outside she noticed a man who was cursing and wiping something off his shoe—his view of the world at that moment was clearly somewhat more critical. He was tall with dark-blond hair, and he was wearing a light, medium-blue summer pullover under a sand-colored suede jacket as he sauntered past her store. As he did so he cast a fleeting glance at the display, then stopped, and stood in front of the window for a while, staring at it with fascination.

  He had the loveliest blue eyes that Rosalie had ever seen—they shone a pure azure blue—and Rosalie stared at the stranger with at least as much fascination as he was staring at the books she had used in her display.

  “Not bad,” was the thought that shot through her mind, and she caught herself feeling an extremely pleasant buzz as a result.

  The man outside the window then frowned and a vertical crease appeared on his forehead. He looked at the display with indignation—possibly even with shock, and Rosalie wondered if there was something there that was not suitable for the display in a stationery-store window: a big tarantula, for example, or maybe a dead mouse.

  At that moment William Morris gave a little snort and she looked over toward the basket where her little dog was lying asleep.

  When she looked up again, the good-looking stranger had vanished. Rosalie gazed at the empty street, feeling a stab of disappointment that seemed completely uncalled for.

  If anyone had told her that only a quarter of an hour later she’d be quarreling bitterly with that apparently likeable man, she would not have believed them.

  Nine

  For years the little silver bell over the door at Luna Luna had done its job perfectly well. Was it coincidence that made it fall off at precisely the moment when the man with the azure-blue eyes whom Rosalie had seen looking at the window display seconds before entered the store?

  The door was pushed open, and the little bell produced a clear tinkle and then hurtled to the ground, but not without an intermediate landing on the back of the stranger’s head. He started in shock, raising his hands instinctively and stepping aside—straight into the dog basket beside the door. William Morris howled furiously, and the stranger gave a cry of surprise and tumbled backward, straight for the postcard stand.

  Stunned, Rosalie watched it rocking wildly, feeling that she was going through a déjà vu experience, but this time she was quicker: with two strides she reached the stand and held it up firmly, while the man, his arms rowing frantically, managed to regain his balance.

  “Are you okay?” asked Rosalie.

  “For heaven’s sake, what was that?!” said the man, rubbin
g the back of his head. He had an unmistakable American accent, and he looked at her reproachfully. “Something attacked me.”

  Rosalie bit her lower lip to stop herself laughing. The way he was standing there as if he’d just survived an alien attack was just too funny. She coughed and regained her composure.

  “That was the doorbell, monsieur. I’m very sorry—it must have fallen off somehow.”

  She bent down and picked up the heavy silver bell that had rolled under the table. “Here, you see. That was the fatal missile. The cord has snapped.”

  “Aha,” he said. Her barely concealed amusement had obviously not escaped his notice. “And what’s so funny about it?”

  “Um … nothing,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I hope you haven’t been hurt.”

  “It’s all right.” He drew himself up to his full height, looking at her suspiciously. “And what was that infernal row?”

  “That was my dog,” she explained, feeling a laugh about to burst out again. She turned away and pointed to the dog basket, where William Morris was now lying asleep like Snow White. “He’s normally very peaceful. You scared him.”

  “I’d say it was he who scared me,” retorted the American. Nevertheless he allowed himself a brief smile before saying with a frown: “Are you actually allowed to keep a dog in a store? I mean, isn’t it dangerous?”

  That morning Rosalie had decided that it was a particularly lovely day, and that she was feeling particularly lovely herself. She was wearing her favorite dress—a bright millefiori dress with tiny blue flowers, a round neckline, and a little row of cloth-covered buttons. She was wearing sky-blue ballerina slippers and her only adornment was a pair of turquoise earrings that swung jauntily back and forth. She had no intention of letting her mood be spoiled by anyone—certainly not by a tourist with a dog phobia. She stood in front of the man in the suede jacket, crossed her arms behind her back, and gave him a sweet smile—but one to be enjoyed at his peril. Her eyes sparkled as she asked, “You’re not from here, are you, monsieur?”