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Consulting on Notre-Dame came about organically. When I first saw news of the fire, my heart sank for the people of Paris. It was devastating to watch a piece of history burn, and I was still glued to my TV, watching the live broadcast, when I got the first call from Emmett.
“My father is already moving funds,” he’d told me. “As far as contracts go, we’ll push for you and your firm. You’ll do it, won’t you?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Of course I would. But…Emmett, the firm must be French. You know that. Even if I had the time—”
“You’ll consult then. Give your input. There’s no one better at this.”
He sounded desperate, so I agreed, naively thinking it would be something I could give my time to here and there. That’s not been the case. I’ve flown to Paris sixteen times in the last year. I’ve sat in on countless meetings filled with builders, head architects, engineers, the Roman Catholic Church, the Parisian Architectural Planning and Design Board, and the French government that have stretched well past the point of productivity. Talk about too many cooks in the kitchen. I’ve never had a project move so slowly. There’s giving credence and care and respect where it’s due, and then there’s this. It’s a nightmare, all of it. Paris residents complain it’s too expensive and repairs are taking too long. Critics worry the new building won’t perfectly mimic what was there before. No one agrees.
All in all, it’s consumed too much of my life. I’m relieved to be flying home to Boston.
I’m not due back in Paris until spring. In the meantime, I’ll need to throw my full attention toward this Belle Haven Estate, attend to the course I’ll be teaching at MIT, and perhaps see about picking up the pieces of my personal life.
The flight attendant could have helped with that, but I’ve gotten to the point where my brain is starting to sabotage me. It works ahead three weeks, past the quick sex, past the shallow enjoyment of the chase, straight to the vapid, awkward ending, and then it just doesn’t seem worth it.
I tried giving it a real chance with Miranda this past year. We were introduced by Emmett while I was in Paris early last summer. She works at GHV, in the PR department, but she’s from our world. Boarding school bred, Ivy League legacy—it made perfect sense to everyone when she and I hit it off. Miranda is everything that should make me happy: smart, beautiful, driven, not too clingy, not too distant. She knows how to make a perfect French omelet, and she’s fluent in German and Mandarin. When I don’t call her back, she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s never pushed me to commit more of myself to her or complained that we’ve never established clear boundaries in our relationship. Every time we speak or find the time to see each other, it’s good, interesting, fun.
She emailed me tonight, along with everyone else.
I suppose we’ll have to celebrate the next time you’re in Paris.
What a wonderful achievement, Jonathan.
XX,
Miranda
Reading her words does nothing.
My heart thumps its same steady rhythm as if trying to emphasize to me that there is no way to force yourself to love someone. You do or you don’t.
I hate that my thoughts slip back to Emelia.
I’m aware she’s become something akin to a mirage. What real memories I possess have been tainted by fantasy and longing and despair for so long that I can’t trust myself when it comes to my real feelings about her. I’ve put her on a pedestal and made it impossible for any other woman to stack up, not because of some ridiculous once-in-a-lifetime connection we shared but because I likely have an undiagnosed commitment phobia or something.
At first, years ago, I berated myself for not pursuing her after the night we shared at the bar.
But what the hell was I going to do? Try to start a relationship with a student? God, she’d just turned twenty-one. She was young and wrong for me in so many ways. That doesn’t mean I didn’t fantasize about her. It doesn’t mean I didn’t let things play out between us in my head. For the remainder of that semester at Dartmouth, I walked into ARC 521, looked at that wooden chair, and wished Emelia were sitting in it. I searched for anything I could find about her online, I stalked her semester schedule, I penned more than one letter to send to her university email address—only to wisen up and hit delete at the last minute. Over and over again, I picked up the phone to call Emmett, to ask him about his sister, but when we spoke, I could never gain the courage.
I imagined how that conversation would go.
Oh, Emelia was enrolled in your class at Dartmouth? Was she a good student?
And what would I have said to that?
I don’t know, Emmett. I was an asshole to her for a few weeks, and then after reprimanding her for something that seems insignificant now and forcing her to drop my class, I slid my hand up her skirt in a bar bathroom.
Playing it all back in my head should make me feel guilty and depraved.
But I don’t.
As pathetic as it sounds, I was obsessed. I kept track of her work at Dartmouth, followed her thesis project, and the day she was due to present it, I snuck into the reception hall, after everyone was seated and the crowd was filled in, and I stood in the back, out of her line of sight, and listened. Her project was a conceptualized French Quarter eco-tourism campaign, a way to bring clean energy and green building practices to New Orleans while maintaining the quintessential architecture it’s known for. She spoke of the problems surrounding the city: how infrastructure, fragility, and regulations protecting historic construction can make green improvements difficult or prohibitive. Not only that, many businesses that were damaged in recent floods expended their rebuilding resources to get back on their feet, forsaking going green, which was an understandably missed opportunity. Her thesis suggested New Orleans could at once restore a few key historic buildings within the French Quarter, specifically near Bourbon Street, and in the process, bring about the city’s first LEED- or Green Seal-certified hotels.
To her, there was no limit. She wanted a reduction in motor traffic and an increase in pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares, better drainage to prepare for future flooding, and solar energy hidden on rooftops along with outdoor gardens.
While idyllic and naive in some ways, the fact is, her project was the best one among her peers. I would have commended her for that,rewarded her, if it were my place. But I was a good enough man to know I couldn’t cross that line with Emelia again. Still, it didn’t stop me from wishing I had.
After the last time we spoke on campus, when she swore to me she’d never tell a soul what happened between us, she never came back to that bench outside my office window. Whatever peace and solitude she’d found in that courtyard was gone, thanks to me.
