Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

I look into his eyes, and I like what I see.

I throw him my keys. He catches them easily.

Évry, Auxerre, Beaune, Lyon, Valence, Avignon…

Our long, surreal trip down the “Sunshine Highway” takes us past all these towns. For the first time in a long while, I have lowered my guard with a man. I let it happen; I let myself get carried away. We listen to music on the radio while nibbling Petit Beurre and Pépito cookies. There are crumbs and sunlight everywhere. Like a summer vacation—Provence, the Mediterranean…freedom.

Everything I need right now.

It’s 2:30 p.m. when Paul drops me off in front of the prison in Luynes. Throughout the whole trip, I have deliberately avoided thinking about this confrontation with my father. Now, as I stand before the austere façade monitored by security cameras, it is too late to change my mind.

I emerge a half hour later, in tears but relieved. Relieved to have seen my father again. To have spoken with him. To have planted the seed of a reconciliation that no longer strikes me as impossible. This first step is undoubtedly the best thing I have done in years. And I owe it to a man I barely know. Someone who saw in me something other than what I wanted to show him.

I don’t know what you’re hiding, Monsieur Malaury—if you’re as twisted as I am or simply a unique person—but thank you.

With that weight off my shoulders at last, I fall asleep in the car.

Paul smiles at me.

“By the way, did I mention that my grandmother has a house on the Amalfi coast? Have you ever been to Italy for Christmas?”

When I opened my eyes, we had just crossed the Italian border. We are now in San Remo and the sun is setting. Far from Paris, far from Bordeaux, far from the rain and the police.

I can feel his eyes on me. It is as if I have always known him. I don’t understand how we could have grown so intimate in such a short time.

There are rare moments when a door opens and life offers you an encounter you had stopped even hoping for. An encounter with someone who complements you, who accepts you as you are, as a whole person, who senses and tolerates your contradictions, your fears, your resentment, your anger, the torrent of dark thoughts that flows through your mind. And who calms it all. Someone who hands you a mirror into which you are no longer afraid to look.

All it takes is an instant. A look. A meeting. To overturn your entire existence. The right person, the right moment. Chance or fate, the whim of some invisible god.

We spent Christmas Eve together in a hotel in Rome.

The next day, we drove along the Amalfi coast, then crossed through the Valley of the Dragon to the hilltop gardens of Ravello.

Five months later, we were married.

A week later, I discovered that I was pregnant with our child.

There are rare moments in life when a door opens and your existence is filled with light. Rare instances when something unlocks inside you. You float weightless through the air. You drive along a highway with no speed limit. Choices become clear, answers replace questions, fear gives way to love.

Everyone should experience moments like that.

They rarely last.

7Biting the Dust

Chinatown

Today

10:20 a.m.

THE SOUND OF the crowd. The nauseating stink of dried fish. The creak of a metal door.

Gabriel emerged from the pawnshop and took a few steps along Mott Street. Seeing him, Alice was jerked abruptly from her memories.

“Are you okay?” he asked, seeing the expression on her face.

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “So, my husband’s watch?”

“I got sixteen hundred dollars for it,” he said, proudly waving the sheaf of bills. “And I promise we’ll get it back soon. In the meantime, I think we’ve earned a good breakfast.”

She nodded and they left Chinatown in search of the more welcoming sidewalks of the Bowery. They walked back up the sunny side of the busy street.

Not so long ago, this part of Manhattan had been a dangerous area, rife with drug dealers, prostitutes, and homeless people. These days, it was a chic, lively, pleasant place. The street was light and airy, its architecture varied, its store windows colorful. The disconcerting shape of the New Museum stood out from the buildings, little shops, and restaurants that surrounded it. Its seven stories looked like a precariously balanced pile of shoeboxes. With its bold lines and the strange color of its façade—an immaculate white crisscrossed by silver ropes—it exploded like a pale bomb amid the bright colors of the Lower East Side.

Alice and Gabriel went into the first café they found, the Peppermill Coffee Shop. They sat in a booth with cream banquettes, facing each other. White-tiled walls, moldings, a large bay window, wide oak floorboards—the place was both cozy and refined, a warm and welcome respite from the frenetic energy of Chinatown. Beautiful autumn sunlight poured through a large skylight, illuminating the room and making the espresso machines behind the counter shimmer and sparkle.

Embedded in the middle of each table, a digital tablet allowed customers to consult the menu, go online, or read a selection of newspapers and magazines.

Alice looked through the menu. Her stomach was so twisted by hunger that she could hear it growling. A waiter dressed in a shirt, vest, and fedora quickly took their orders. She asked for a cappuccino and a bagel with cream cheese, smoked salmon, shallots, and dill. Gabriel went for a latte and a Monte Cristo sandwich with fries.

They devoured their food and drank their coffees in practically a single gulp. Alice polished off her salmon bagel. Her hunger sated, she closed her eyes and let her mind drift to the sound of the old blues songs playing on the varnished wooden jukebox. It was an attempt to empty her head and “put her brain cells in order,” as her