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Paris—the following spring Six days before the wedding
"MERCI." Kate Finney Donovan fumbled with the fistful of euros then finally handed them all to the impossibly good–looking bellman waiting expectantly by the door. "Merci beaucoup."
He bowed and said either, "May I be the father of your children?" or "Lady, you'd better take a crash course in the exchange rate," then closed the door behind him.
She laughed for the first time in eighteen hours of traffic jams, airport security checks, turbulence, and just plain mother–of–the–bride jitters.
Clearly it was a testament to the Parisians that she had made it from the airport to the hotel without incident and with most of her money still in her wallet. She had relied on the kindness of English–speaking cab drivers and her memory of high–school French to keep her from going too far astray and neither had let her down. Although, judging by the bellman's reaction to the tip she had given him, maybe she had better reread the section on currency in Paris for Tourists before bed.
She was staying in the apartment her great–aunt Celeste Beaulieu kept at the Hotel St. Michel on the Left Bank. Celeste was already at the inn named Milles Fleurs, which was located on the outskirts of the city, for the wedding festivities, and she had suggested Kate might want to spend a few days in pampered luxury before the wedding craziness got into full swing.
Celeste knew all about her lapse of sanity the night of the engagement party. She had listened as Kate poured out her heart a few days later, held Kate's hand across the transatlantic wires as she alternately blamed herself then Ryan for thinking with their hormones and not their heads. Only Celeste knew what Paris had meant to them and how hard it would be to see the city for the first time as one–half of an about–to–be–divorced couple.
"You will do as I say, chérie," Celeste had commanded, as only a Frenchwoman from Brooklyn could. "Send on your bags to Milles Fleurs and tell Alexis that you have business to attend elsewhere before you can join them."
"You want me to lie to her?" Kate had asked, warming to the idea despite herself.
"The business is your heart." What Celeste apparently wanted was for Kate to discover Paris in her own way, on her own time, so that she would have some control of her emotions when she finally saw Ryan again. Perhaps if she got all of those Paris "firsts" out of the way she would stand a fighting chance.
Considering the fact that she'd burst into tears at her first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, her aunt might have a point. Even through the thick fog of jet lag, the City of Light's staggering beauty had overwhelmed her as she rode in from the airport. It was every bit as dazzling as she had imagined it as a giddy teenager in love with love and dying for romance. Wide boulevards. Narrow cobblestone streets. Graceful trees dressed in the lacy greens of spring. The Eiffel Tower rising up into the late–morning sky like a dream.
She could almost see the ghosts of Renoir and Monet, Hemingway and Fitzgerald watching over the young artists and writers who sat hunched over sketch pads and laptops and steaming bowls of onion soup, feasting on every wonderful thing the city had to offer.
Why didn't we do this years ago, Ryan? Before it was too late for us….
She already knew the answer. Children happened. Careers happened. Life happened. And somewhere along the way dreams faded.
Thank God, she had listened to Celeste and claimed this time for herself. Her bags were safely en route to Milles Fleurs. Her daughters thought she was meeting with a gallery owner who was staying in a farmhouse in the Loire Valley.
All she had with her was an overnight bag, some toiletries, and the family portrait she had painted at her daughter's request. Somehow her daughter's request had validated her growing success as a portrait artist in a way her many commissions never had. Had Celeste known that traveling light would make her feel glamorous and sophisticated, like one of those world travelers who could put everything they needed in a duffel bag and have room to spare for tchotchkes? More than likely. When it came to life, eighty–something Celeste Beaulieu pretty much had it all figured out.
Celeste was Kate's grandmother's older sister who had moved to France in the 1950s, married a handsome Frenchman, and never looked back. She was one of those women who seemed born with an understanding of the inner workings of romance, a throwback to the days of salons and gentlemen callers. Celeste understood without being told that the combination of Parisian charm and Alexis's wedding might be more than a woman on the verge of divorce could handle.
The sitting room was elegant and quintessentially French. An antique armoire that would have been at home in the Louvre bumped shoulders with an angularly modern chair reminiscent of Vladimir Kagan. The sitting room opened into a library, which led to the bedroom in the rear of the apartment. The bed was short but invitingly wide, a frothy confection of heavenly pillows and down–filled duvets of dove–gray silk shot through with mauve as seductive as a secret lover.
Long casement windows overlooked the wide street below and, just beyond, the legendary Seine made its way to the sea. Once upon a time the hotel had been a haven for young artists and Kate's sharp eye caught faint smears of phthalo–green and alizarin–crimson on the sill.
"I'm in Paris," she said out loud to the empty room and waited for the rush of excitement she'd been expecting since her plane landed.
To her dismay, despite the beauty all around her, she might as well have been in Philadelphia.
It was the timing.
Who would have thought the Fates would conspire to grant her fondest wish two weeks before she and Ryan signed the papers that would officially mark the end of thirty years of marriage? Apparently fate had a twisted sense of humor, but for once Kate wasn't laughing. Paris was everything it was supposed to be and more, but Ryan wasn't there to share it with Kate and that made all the difference.
It took her a moment to realize the telephone on the escritoire was ringing. "Bienvenu, chérie!" Celeste said when Kate answered. Celeste was truly ageless. She still retained the enthusiasm of a twenty–year–old–girl.
"I have been phoning for two hours now. You had a safe trip?"
Kate rapped her knuckles against the mahogany table. "Knock wood. Slow but safe."
"And you are settled into the apartment?"
"It's beautiful," Kate enthused. "I can't thank you enough."
Celeste made one of those Gallic sounds that could mean just about anything. "And what are your plans for the day?"
Good question. Everyone said traveling west to east was easy, but she felt as if she had spent the flight strapped to the wheel well. "I guess I'll order up some room service and take a nap. Try to get myself adjusted to the time change."
"Mais non!"
"Mais oui," she countered, laughing. "I'm not as young as you, Aunt Celeste. I need a nap before I go sightseeing."
"A nap!" Celeste's outrage was formidable. "I forbid you to nap. You're in Paris, chérie. You can nap in New York. Comb your hair. Put on fresh lipstick. That's all you need."
Maybe that was all Celeste needed, but Kate's list was growing longer by the second with caffeine in the top position.
They chatted a few minutes about the wedding. Neither one mentioned Ryan, which was fine with Kate although he was clearly the blue suede elephant in the room. Alexis and Gabe had talked to Celeste last winter and the family matriarch had bestowed her seal of approval on the match.
That didn't surprise Kate at all. Gabe Fellini was everything Kate could have asked for in a sonin–law. With Aunt Celeste's help, he and Alexis had arranged the entire wedding festivities with flawless precision and so far there hadn't been a ripple of discontent from anyone involved.
The extended Fellini and Donovan families were crazy about one another. Alexis's sisters Shannon and Taylor had happily granted the middle child her day in the sun. And the only thing required of the mother of the bride was that she show up a few days before the Big Day with her dress and the family portrait she had promised them on the night of their engagement party.
Which was otherwise known as the night she lost her mind.
There was no other way to explain what had happened. Not even to herself. It was as if her body had been taken over by an alien being whose sole purpose was to leap into that Toyota and have her way with Ryan.
When the girls told her, so very gently, that their father had said he was bringing someone with him to the party, Kate had steeled herself for the sight of another woman at her husband's side. He was a gorgeous man. Sooner or later he was going to realize there was a world of women out there and he could have his pick.
She was braced for a twenty–year–old bimbo with fake breasts, porcelain veneers, and thighs the likes of which Kate could only dream about.
But it didn't happen that way. Long Island's snowstorm had moved north and flights between Boston, where Ryan hosted a successful sports radio show, and New York had been cancelled.
Kate was ashamed of the quick surge of relief she experienced when she realized she would be spared the sight of him with another woman.
"We can't have this party without Daddy here," Alexis had said, but Kate had been firm in her resolve.
"He told you to go ahead without him and he meant it, honey. Your father wouldn't want you to cancel your engagement party because he couldn't get a flight down."
In a world of change, the one constant was Ryan's love for his daughters. He wanted the best for them and would do anything to make sure they got it.
About an hour into the party, Kate was carrying a tray of shrimp appetizers into the living room when she heard familiar laughter ringing out in the front hallway.
