Page 28 of Husband Material
is a new smile in your eyes on our third hour mark
love
is our dirty socks entwined in the hamper
love
is just you
I read it again and again. The answer to a question I hadn't even asked her started strumming through my veins.
"Sorry, Gray," I told him, "Just realized something. Talk to you later, brother."
I lifted the paper to my lips, pressed and held it there. My eyes closed, and I breathed deeply in and out.
It was obvious now. What my body had known, but my mind had taken too fucking long to figure out.
IlovedGiselle, and shelovedme too.Thank God she had the courage to say it.
I didn't know what in hell that would mean for me now, except that by letting her go, I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.
So now, the only thing for me to do was to set it right.
* * *
Later that evening.
The flightto Paris was one level beyond unbearable.
Unable to secure anything in business class, my last-minute seat assignment had me wedged between a tired mother, her cranky toddler, and a very large man on the aisle in a flop sweat. With the toddler shrieking and the man's prolific sweaty rolls angling for me, it seemed like they were in an unofficial competition as to who could make the flight more awful.
I slapped headphones on and cranked up the music…and thought about how Giselle would make this hideous experience somehow laughable—something funny to reflect upon at a later time. My French beach fairy possessed special skills like that.
When my seat mate fell asleep and began snoring (and sweating) on my shoulder, no matter how many times I prodded him off, he won.
Seven-hours and twenty minutes of claustrophobic hell later, it all came to a welcome end when I stepped out into the early morning Paris sunshine. I hadn't been to Paris in years, but I soon began to align myself with the layout of the city. My chest still had the ache firmly in place, but maybe it was eased somewhat in knowing I was on the same continent as Giselle again.
The taxi line out of the airport wasn't exactly a quick affair, and the trip into the city took a while, but I knew where I was headed. Although calling it a "lead" was being generous.
"I just cannot get enough of drawing at the Tuileries Garden," she said. "My favorite spot is under those perfect rows of trees, in the shade." A wistful smile came over her face as she remembered. "Before I left, it had gotten to the point where I had named all of the trees and learned the names of some of the regulars. There was Maurice, the little old man who talked to himself and even to me too if I bothered him enough. There was Hillary, the middle-aged woman with the long winding yellow scarf, who came at twelve o'clock for one hour precisely each and every day. There was Winston the squirrel, who would stop by every so often to nibble at my sunflower seeds."
So, to the Tuileries I went.
Unlike my expectations, most people I asked for directions knew English and were very polite to use it with me. Although I'd been to Paris before, I'd never gone to the Tuileries. So, I followed their instructions and sure enough, when my squint stopped on green that extended as far as I could see, I knew I was golden. A quick walk through the gardens found them far bigger than I expected.
But I was fatigued to nearly collapsing-level proportions, so I stopped in at a nearby express grocery store to deal with the basics. After loading up with several incomprehensible but still clearly ham packages, Doritos, some oranges, and a container of strawberries, I hit up the bathroom.
There, after washing the strawberries in the sink, I popped one in my mouth.
“I just love strawberries.”she'd said amidst the sunflowers. It had only been a month ago, but it seemed like a different era entirely.
Quit fucking crying about it and get your sorry ass moving, fool.
Determined not to waste another second, I strode outside and into the park. There, I began my search, which also doubled as sight-seeing. Now I could see it through her eyes just as she'd sketched it for me in my mind.
I meandered past several giddily spurting fountains, brigades of expertly crafted statues, a ton of painstakingly tended gardens with flowers every shade of the rainbow, and an infinite number of trees.
After an exhaustive search, peering around every shrub and oak, examining every vaguely Giselle-resembling girl who passed me by, there was nothing left to do but camp out by the long rows of trees Giselle had told me about. The shade was where I slouched for my wait.
