29
The Dot
July13
Right Bank
The pathbetween our café and the dot on the map that was Josh took me straight through the middle of Tuileries Garden, and I realized I hadn’t been there yet. My mind flashed back to the conversation we’d had on the boat, when Josh told me I had to walk through these gardens.
Because I’m a Type A nightmare who needs to slow down.
It almost felt like I owed it to him to take my time walking through the blooming, manicured gardens, which were laid out symmetrically with curved swaths of grass that wrapped around sculptures that looked like urns and figures on top of pedestals and flowers in purple, pink, and white, not a dead or dying bloom in the bunch.
The gravel-and-sand pathways led me past one sculpture after another and a sprawling fountain where small kids pushed sailboats with wooden sticks and waited for the wind to blow them to the other side. All around the fountain, almost every one of the green metal reclining chairs was occupied by someone reading, chatting with a friend, or napping, face cast upward to the sun.
As I walked through the Tuileries alone, it hit me how much I really did want him there with me. I could have spent an hour just walking through the gardens, but I had to move on and try to get to Josh before he left town.
I couldn’t tell from the map where he was exactly, so I was following a series of streets on the other side of the gardens that led me down the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. I walked past almost every designer store I’d ever heard of, from Hermès to Gucci and Moncler, which were far beyond my shopping budget, yet they begged me to slow down to ogle the gorgeous clothes and handbags in the windows.
The route took me farther away from Shelby and Amrita—who’d stayed behind in the sixth arrondissement to do some champagne-influenced shopping—and toward the Madeleine Church, which was surrounded by other high-end shops. I passed the Maille boutique, which had mustard pumped into ceramic carafes, and the Mariage Frères tea shop, which sold metal canisters of exotic blends. I realized then that I’d taken a detour by going a couple of blocks out of my way, and I rerouted myself back onto the Rue due Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where I passed by large hotels, heading in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.
It was like a beacon, keeping me on track and reminding me of the kiss on the boat with the lights sparkling just beyond us. I remembered what I’d felt for Josh in that moment and wondered if there was a way to get it back. I had to see him to know.
The walk turned out to be a lot longer than it had looked on the map when I’d told Shelby and Amrita that I thought I could walk there in fifteen minutes. I’d been walking for almost an hour, and I still wasn’t quite at Josh’s dot.
The more direct route took me down the Champs Élysées, which was flanked with green park space. The wide boulevard ran straight toward the Arc de Triomphe, which I could see in the distance.
When I turned on to Rue Pierre Charron, I started getting closer to his location. I was on a two-lane street like so many others I’d walked over the past two days, with buildings around four stories high, all featuring detailed facades, balconies, and corbels between the tall paned windows. On the ground floor, between clothing boutiques, were imposing doors to the residences, ten feet high with detailed flourishes of leaves and flowers carved from stone and supporting heavy molding. This had to be the neighborhood where his parents’ friends were going to let him stay if he hadn’t spent the night with me.
As I stood outside, looking up at the imposing facades, my heart started beating faster, thinking about the night before and worrying that I wouldn’t have the right words to say to Josh.
Maybe coming to track him down had been a mistake.
Or maybe it was my only option.