“That’s abateau mouche,” said Aubin. “Tourist boats that go along the Seine all day. And this is the fiftharrondissement. Paris is arranged in twenty districts, spiraling out from the center. Everyone has a postal code that ends in theirarrondissement, and eacharrondissementalso has a name for some major monument. So over there is the first, to the north is the second, to its right is the third, there across the Seine is the fourth, and we’re in the fifth. And it goes around like a snail shell. This one is the oldestquartier, called theQuartier Latin, because scholars who went to the Sorbonne, just up the road, spoke Latin.”
“Where you’d be going to school.”
“If I had marks like you. Oh—and my favorite shawarma place is right down here.”
“I wish we had a year.”
“I told you it’s absurd to come for a day.” Aubin led them down Rue du Chat Qui Pêche—maybe the narrowest street in Paris, he said—and leaned on one wall with his hands and climbed the opposite wall with his feet, so he spanned the entire width of the street.
“Take a photo, take it before I fall!” he said, laughing, wobbling, and she pulled out her phone and then dropped it by accident, which made her laugh, too, but she managed to snap the picture before he collapsed on the ground.
At the bottom of Rue du Chat Qui Pêche was Rue de la Huchette, filled with tourist shops selling Paris-themed everything. Restaurant owners enticed passersby to look at theprix fixemenu and dine in their establishment.“Déjeunez avec nous, messieurs-dames, venez, entrez!”From there they made it to Shakespeare and Company. It was five minutes to noon.
People milled outside the green and yellow bookstore, heading in the “in” door or out the “out” door. Sabine suddenly realized she wasn’t sure what her father might look like—she hadn’t seen him recently—and asked Aubin to Google him. All sorts of articles came up about Yves’ last feature at Cannes, and the fact that he was now up for much bigger movies. He seemed fancy. And yes, she did remember what he looked like. Predictably, he looked like her.
They waited. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Adjusted her clothing. Checked the time. Where was he? Would he disappoint again, as he had so many times, saying he’d swing through Toronto, then changing plans; saying he’d write, followed by radio silence?
Maybe there was a second entrance. She yanked Aubin around the corner and found the bookstore’s side door for deliveries. The window had parcels piled floor to ceiling and on the glass was printed: “You think your pain and heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive or who had ever been alive.”—James Baldwin. It made her feel less alone. She could make a chapbook with the quote as her text but didn’t want to linger lest they miss her father. So they returned to the front doors.
In one store window was a quote by Margaret Atwood: “This isn’t climate change—it’s everything change.”
“I keep saying this to my mother,” said Aubin, “but she says it will sort itself out. She wants to live in a world that drinks champagne—her champagne—and forgets.”
No Yves. Sabine had set herself up for a fall but did not want to cry in front of Aubin.
“We fight,” said Aubin. “I don’t like her, and I don’t think she likes me. She’s centered around the self. All she thinks about is the vineyard, winning awards, and marrying someone new. She is onto number three in the husbands department.”
Sabine clenched her fists at her sides. Had she been tricked by Yves again? She was more responsible than he was. More responsible than her mother and father put together. And she was tired of being the responsible one in the family—if you could even use that term.
“Not one word of encouragement about my terrible mother?” he asked, smiling.
“What? Oh. Yes. Sorry—I’m just tense. Maybe we should start a terrible parents’ club.”
“Excellent idea.”
“Is your father a member?” she asked. “You never talk about him.” She looked up and down the street for her own terrible father.
“Yes, definitely. He moved to Australia after they divorced. Now he has a girlfriend who is maybe ten years older than I am, if that.”
“Oof. That gets him a special sad-face sticker on his terrible family membership card, I’d say.”
“Agreed. And as for my mother,” he said, “she insists I carry on the Fortin name, go to school, learn how to manage a corporation, and make a profit—the only thing that matters to her. I care about the future of our family, but I care about other stuffmore. And what good is a future if you’ve wiped out the entire species? They say someone else will take care of it. That I will run Maison Fortin,point final, fin de l’histoire. So she gets a sad-face sticker also. Maybe two.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“To distract you from your own terrible parent being late. Is it working?”
“Sabine?”
They turned and there he was. Yves Barrat, in a black T-shirt, jeans, runners, and a jacket, a satchel strapped across his chest, looking very much the filmmaker. He kissed Sabine on both cheeks. She introduced him to Aubin.
“Have you been inside?” Yves asked.
“No, we were waiting,” she said, her palms now sweaty with nerves. She didn’t want to reprimand. She wanted to seem cool and casual.
“I’m late,” he said. “It happens too often. One of my least likeable qualities.” Her mum could think of a few more. “Let us step into this place of wonder. And I’ll show you something cool.”
Here we go,thought Sabine, insides aflutter.
