Page 143 of Ten Years and Then…
“Oui,” Bianca said brightly. But apparently that was the extent of her French vocabulary. “We have a reservation, under Cavelli, two rooms.”
Daniel blinked. “Bee?”
She laughed. “Of course I got us separate rooms. What if I want to walk around naked when I get out of the shower?”
The woman at reception didn’t react at all. Neither did Daniel. “You’ve never done that in your life, Bee.” He grinned. “And, anyway, I have seen you naked, or did you forget I was the one changing your bandages and getting you undressed for bed after your surgery?”
Two minutes later, they had their keys and a bellhop was lugging all of Bianca’s bags up to their rooms. “See, we’re right next to each other in case you get lonely, Danny.”
He opened his door; the room wasn’t big, but it was beautiful, with a queen bed, a tiny balcony looking out onto a courtyard, and a very fancy bathroom. Bianca definitely picked a winner.
He unpacked his one bag, set out his toiletries on the bathroom sink, and then there was a knock at the door. Bianca was there, fur coat and all. “Ready to go exploring?”
“Aren’t you going to unpack first?”
She rolled her eyes. “How long have you known me, Danny? Fun first, chores later. Let’s go!”
He couldn’t argue with that. They set off in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower, and when they crossed Rue de Sèvres, Daniel stopped short.
“I know her,” he said, pointing towards a dark-haired woman with a bright blue scarf across the street. “I can’t remember from where, but I know I’ve seen her before.”
“At least she’s not blonde. I’m glad you’re not seeing Nora’s ghost here,” Bianca answered.
It wasn’t Nora, obviously, but the woman with the scarf somehow put him in mind of her anyway.
Nora, that evening
“Rachel, what are you doing?”
Nora had never seen her aunt pull out a phone—or do anything else distracting—at a meal. She didn’t think Rachel even knew how to communicate by text message, but that’s what she had to be up to now.
“I’m sorry, Nora. I have to put out a quick fire at work.”
Rachel had also never before interrupted a vacation for work emergencies. “Time off is time off,” she’d told Nora more than once. “You remember that.”
But she had been promoted recently, so maybe occasional messages on vacation were the price of a bigger title and fatter paycheck.
It occurred to her that there might be a dozen messages on her cell phone, too. But if so, they’d have to wait; her cell phone was plugged into its charger in her kitchen back in Boston. She’d made it clear to everyone that she would be completely unreachable until January 3rd.
“No problem. I hope it’s nothing too crazy.” It had to be something fairly important, to stop Rachel from eating the grape leaves and the handmade hummus. If she didn’t get off her phone quickly, there wouldn’t be any left for her, and it would be her own fault.
Nora hadn’t ever had Lebanese food before, and she hadn’t planned to have it tonight. The aroma that hit her when she crossed Rue Bonaparte was irresistible, though, so here they were in Assanabel, which, as best she could piece together from the historical note on the back of the menu, had been in this exact spot since 1985.
Five minutes later, Rachel finally put her phone away. “Nice of you to leave me some hummus,” she said, glaring at the empty bowl in the middle of the table.
“We can order more,” Nora answered. “And maybe some of the—I’m not even going to try and pronounce it, the yogurt dip?” She looked around, trying to catch the eye of their waiter, but instead something caught her eye. A woman in a fur coat, with her dark hair in a bob cut, walking right past the window.
“Bianca!” She didn’t mean to say it out loud, but Rachel stared at her in surprise. “Daniel’s cousin. I could swear that was her, right outside.” She’d only met Bianca once, at Daniel’s graduation, eight years ago. But she had a great memory for faces, and she’d bet—maybe not everything she owned, but quite a bit—that it was her.
She was here to try and move past Daniel, to start a new millennium—even if it technically wasn’t until next year—fresh.
So why was she still seeing signs of him wherever she went?
Chapter 47
Paris, Part 2—Paris, France
Daniel, December 29, six o’clock in the evening
