His hotel room was small but large for Paris. Big enough
for a bed, a desk, and a closet for a toilet and shower.
It had a small balcony with a table and chair. He
could sip the instant coffee provided by the hotel in small packets and watch people
pass through a small corner park where young couples sometimes sat to make-out on
the small park bench.
He was on the fourth floor. Above it all. He stood
by the rail of the balcony thinking, “I would have to go headlong, or I might
just be maimed.”
He didn’t want to kill or maim himself, and he was
never good at diving, so he dismissed the thought.
She wanted to go to Paris. He did not. His friends
told him she’d gone on to a better place.
He’d gone looking for better places…. to see the
reconstruction site at the Notre Dame. The line was too long at the Shakespeare
Bookstore, so he didn’t go in. He’d strolled along the Seine and passed several
young lovers. Met and was passed by joggers and bicyclists. He saw the Eiffel
Tower but didn’t join the cue to see Paris from above. He’d walked by the
Louvre but didn’t go in. He’d walked by romantic sidewalk cafes but didn’t take
a table but once. He did not find her in Paris. That was the only better place
she wanted to go.
So, Max stood by the balcony rail watching young
couples making out on the park bench from above it all four stories up and
decided to see if he could find her.
No, Max didn’t jump headlong from the fourth floor.
He took a cab to the Charles De Gaulle airport and flew to Biarritz where he
met with an old friend. A woman he’d fallen in love with years ago and years
before he met her. He went to her home… a beautiful place in the hills between
Biarritz and Saint Luz. He remembered why he loved her and her… both hers. One
unrequited and won fulfilled.
“One should be so lucky,” he said to her… both hers.
A neo-Francophile -
Max wanted to get back to Paris thinking it
is a better place after all.
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