Page 152 of Ten Years and Then…
“There,” Nora pointed down, at the white and green houseboat she’d fantasized about earlier this afternoon. “That’s our boat.”
Daniel stopped to see what she was pointing at. “Wait. You rented it for tonight? I didn’t know you could even do that.”
What an amazing idea.
She wished she had thought of it. How cool would it be to watch the fireworks from on the Seine, toasting the New Year with everyone else on the deck of their own boats? And then to go belowdecks for their own very personal fireworks?
“Sorry, nothing like that. I just saw it when I was walking over to the bookstore to meet you, and I was imagining what it would be like if we moved here and bought it to live in.”
His eyes glazed over, and she knew he was right there with her, picturing it too.
“I’d live with you on a boat. But it looks like it would be pretty close quarters. Where would we put all your clothes?”
He said it completely deadpan, so at least one thing about Daniel had changed over the years. He was better at delivering a joke now.
“I guess we’d have to buy a second boat for that,” she said. “We could tie them together.”
A new thought came to her. Tying together—what if she and Daniel did that, right now? She had no idea where to go in Paris to get a marriage license. But they were both smart, surely they could figure it out and get there before the office closed.
Why not?
“Let’s do it,” she said softly. “Let’s get married. Today. Now.”
He turned away from the boat to stare at her. “You’re serious?”
She nodded.
He kept staring. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He didn’t look scared, though, so that was a good sign.
“We can’t.”
After everything they’d gone through to find each other? After what they’d said in the bookstore?
“We will get married,” he said, just as she was about to answer him. “Just not here. It would be perfect, except for one thing.” Now he laughed. “My mother would disown me if we got married and she wasn’t there.”
Daniel, half an hour later
“What do you think?” Nora asked. “Was this worth the walk?”
Daniel didn’t know how to answer. The Musée d’Orsay was breathtaking—and a little overwhelming.
Kind of like Nora.
“Totally worth it.” He looked all around. “But where do we start?”
She took his hand, led him out of the lobby and into a gallery of sculptures. “My mother told me about this. She said if I was ever here, I had to see it first thing.” She kept going, not stopping to look at any of the sculptures or into the side galleries. “See?”
He understood immediately why her mother had told her to go here first. It was a huge, intricately detailed cross-section model of the opera house he and Bianca had been to Wednesday night.
“That’s where we sat,” he said, pointing to the orchestra section of the model. “Dead center, twenty rows back from the stage. I don’t want to know how much Bianca spent on the tickets.”
She was still holding his hand. “What did you see?”
He described it as best he could, but he wasn’t sure he conveyed much about the performance to her.
“We saw Sleeping Beauty,” she said, her breath catching. “And when we got back to the hotel,” she went on, her voice trembling, “I cried myself to sleep. I felt like her—like I was stuck in a dream. Except you were my prince, and I didn’t know if you’d ever come kiss me and wake me up.”
He took her in his arms, held her close. “You should have known I’d be there.” Except how could she have known, when he didn’t know himself until today?
