Page 51 of Wished

He’s asking more than he’s willing to say. But I hear his meaning anyway.

“Yes, please.”

He smiles.

I take his hand.

16

We beginat Paris Point Zero. It’s a small circle with eight triangular points set into an octagon set in paving stones. Max tells me it’s from here that all distances in Paris are measured. Paris Point Zero is hidden under a massive line of people waiting to enter Notre-Dame, and most of them trod over the stones without looking down.

Max claims that if we’re going to get lost, then we might as well start at the heart, in the center, at the very middle of the maze.

“Do your worst,” he says, giving my hand a squeeze.

I grin at him as a stiff spring breeze tugs at my dress and whistles around the stone walls and spires. The cobblestone area in front of Notre-Dame is crowded, and even though I’m standing close to Max, holding his hand, I still feel jostled and jarred.

I spin in a circle and Max shifts with me. I keep turning until all the stone and spires and gargoyles and sky have blended together in a dizzying swirl. Then I stop and thrust my finger, pointing away from Notre-Dame, along the lazily flowing Seine, down the Parvis de Notre Dame.

“That way,” I say, wobbling on my feet.

Max tugs me close. “Not back to Notre-Dame to see the Crown of Thorns or catch Quasimodo at the top of the tower?”

I shake my head. “If I go that way, I won’t be lost, will I? And what’s the fun in that? If you already know what you’ll find, then there really isn’t any point in going.”

Max studies me, and even though there are about a hundred zillion people whirling around us, jockeying for pictures or jostling in line or cutting across the cobblestones, he makes me feel as if we’re all alone.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I have to admit, I prefer familiarity and comfort. I like going to destinations where I know exactly what to expect. I like people who are constant and true. In my experience the unexpected never brings anything good.”

A car horn cuts across the noise, and Max’s eyes flicker as he looks toward the stone bridge straddling the Seine.

It’s interesting. I thought I knew Max. I thought I knew his habits, his personality, his likes and dislikes. But every minute with him, something new unfolds. I wonder how much we’ll discover about each other, spending the day together.

How much can you learn about someone in a day? And at what point do you stop looking and decide you know everything there is to know? That belief is never true. You can’t ever knoweverything. But at some point people become comfortable with each other and stop looking for the unexpected and only see the expected.

Right now, though, everything is unexpected.

Even the way Max rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his brow at the truck honking again then rumbling down the street, back toward the flower market.

When he turns back to me, he gives a small smile and absently runs his thumb over the back of my hand.

“I think,” I tell him, enjoying the way his thumb kisses my skin as gently as a spring breeze, “I’m going to give you a gift.”

“Really?” His thumb stills, and I lean closer.

“Yes. Today you gave me Paris. In return I’m going to give you the joy of surprises. I’m going to help you delight in the unexpected. That way, from now on, you can have at least one time in your life that the unexpected brought you something good.”

He smiles at that, his eyes crinkling at their corners. “Lead on.”

Above pigeons flutter against the clear blue sky, their wings beating like an elated heart, echoing across the stone. I grin and pull Max with me, clasping his hand.

After we cross the street I tug Max toward an elegant sandstone building called the Hôtel Dieu. Inside the courtyard there’s a beautiful Italianate garden with a maze of shrubs and blooming flowers set against stone archways, long stone sunlit galleries, and twisting stairways.

The courtyard is quiet, a contrast to the crowds and noise outside Notre-Dame. A fat bumblebee buzzes past, landing on a deep red geranium. The garden smells like soil and wet mulch and spring blooms.

“I like how they called this the Hotel of God,” I say, taking in the stairs curving around us as if they’re leading up to the heavens.

“It was quite common to call Catholic charity hospitals God’s hostel,” Max says with a wry smile.

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