“The Hotel Bac Saint-Germain,” I said. “You know where it is?”
Katherine and I both laughed.
“You speak English,
“English is not so necessary. But to drive a taxi you must have big sense of humor,” he said as he guided the car toward a ramp that said A106.
“Where are we staying?” Katherine asked me.
“It’s a little hotel I found online. It’s on the Left Bank, in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Pres, which is the hippest, coolest section in all of Paris.”
“And about to get hipper and cooler,” she said.
The driver laughed. “You two cool hipsters are art lovers?” he said.
“The district where you are staying, there are art galleries on every street corner,” he said. “And many cafes, and beautiful shops, and crazy, wonderful people.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “We heard you had room for two more crazies.”
“You like Aznavour?” he asked, sliding a CD into the sound system.
“Who doesn’t?” I said.
And then the seductive voice of Charles Aznavour filled the cab.
If you’re not in love when you get to Paris, you will be when you leave. If you’re already in love, it only gets better.
Katherine curled up in my arms, with her head on my chest, and for the rest of the ride, we were serenaded by the sexiest tenor in all of France, possibly in the world.
“Are your eyes open or closed?” Katherine whispered to me at one point.
“Open.”
“Mine, too,” she said.
Chapter 42
THE HOTEL WAS colorful, modern, and cheap — only 110 euros a night. Our room wasn’t ready when we checked in, so a bellman escorted us to a cozy little restaurant on the seventh-floor terrace, where we enjoyed steaming cups of frothy cafe au lait, flaky buttery croissants, strawberry jam, fresh fruit, yogurt, and a magnificent view of the entire district.
Forty minutes later the bellman returned and took us to our room. He set down the bags, and I tipped him, hung the NE PAS DeRANGER sign on the doorknob, and locked the door.
Katherine and I hadn’t been alone since she came by my apartment an eternity ago, and we couldn’t wait to get our hands on each other. Within seconds, our clothes were strewn on the floor and we were under smooth, cool sheets.
The sex was a little fast, but the afterglow lasted much longer. We talked, then drifted off to sleep. Katherine woke me three hours later, and again we made love, this time slowly and tenderly, then took a long, hot shower together and headed out to explore Paris.
“Where to first?” I said. “I can think of a dozen places I want to go. Right off the top of my head.”
“Lunch,” Katherine said. “But you have to let me buy.”
“Lunch?” I said. “Okay, sure.”
“Good. We have a one-thirty reservation.”
“We do?”
“I decided to stick with the surprise theme of our vacation.”
We caught a taxi. “Le Jules Verne restaurant,” she told the driver. Ten minutes later he dropped us off at the base of the Eiffel Tower. We walked under the tower to a yellow awning, where we were greeted by a smiling maitre d’.
“Sanborne,” Katherine said. “We have a reservation for two.”
“I called from New York,” Katherine told me as the maitre d’ checked his book. “It’s kind of popular. I was hoping to get a dinner rez, but that was impossible.”
We took a private elevator to a magnificent room that was suspended from the steel latticework of the Eiffel Tower. It afforded us a spectacular panoramic view of the city below.
A tuxedoed host escorted us to a table near the center of the room.
“There’s a six-week wait for a window table,” Katherine explained.
“I hope that’s not an apology for this one. I’m floored.”
It was the most fantastic lunch I had ever had. And the most expensive. I almost choked when I looked at the prices on the menu.
“Don’t worry about it,” Katherine said. “If you can spend all your ‘newfound diamonds’ on everything else, the least I can do is buy lunch.”
We were sipping champagne when the waiter brought a small, intricately decorated chocolate cake with a single candle in the center to the couple sitting at the next table. White-haired, well-dressed, and from the way they held hands across the table, very much in love, they had to be in their eighties.
The woman blew out the candle.
“Happy birthday,” Katherine said.
“Congratulations,” I said. “How many years?”
The man smiled. “One-half,” he said. “Emilie and I have been dating for six months.”
The City of Love was living up to its reputation.
After lunch we went to the
“It’s just like Parsons,” Katherine said.
“Almost,” I answered. “Except for the fact that Monet, Degas, Moreau, and Delacroix didn’t go to Parsons.”
“True,” she said. “But Jasper Johns, Edward Hopper, and Norman Rockwell did.”
I winced. “As they say in Paris,
“As they say in New York, gotcha, dude.”
After that, we hit the Louvre, along with about fifteen thousand other people. We didn’t see them all, but that’s how many the guidebook said show up on a daily basis. It could take a week to see all four hundred thousand pieces of art that are in the Louvre. We decided to spend two hours focused on a handful of works by Michelangelo, Raphael, and other Italian masters.
Then we did a one-eighty and took another taxi to the Galerie Mona Lisa. The average tourist wouldn’t know about it, but the elderly couple in the restaurant had tipped us off to it. It was jam-packed with works by contemporary artists. There was no single medium, no unifying school of thought, just great art from people who were still very much alive.
“One day you could be hanging here,” Katherine said.
“And the best part is, I don’t have to be dead to get in.”
We left the Galerie and were strolling along the Boulevard Saint-Germain when we took a random left turn on Rue de Buci and stumbled on Cacao et Chocolat.
The store was a work of art in itself, and every bit of it was edible. We sat in a booth while a petite waitress
