Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

On the ground floor, we exit the elevator and I hold open the lobby door and allow Marla to pass through first. Once we’re outside breathing in the brisk morning air, my head clears enough to talk sensibly.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” I ask. “There’s more to this than you not wanting people in the apartment, isn’t there?”

Marla shrugs.

“Please tell me what you’re thinking. It matters.”

Marla stops in front of a concrete bench and drops onto it. Her eyes are glistening with tears.

“What’s going on, Mom?”

She does a double take.

“I like it when you call me Mom.”

I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. I lower myself onto the bench next to her and wait patiently for her to speak.

“When I was growing up,” she finally says, “I always felt like the odd one out. You had Gram. Granny Ivy was mad protective of Mom and you, of course.” She shakes her head. “It’s… never mind.”

“No, keep going.”

She opens her mouth to continue but closes it again as if she can’t find the words.

“So, discovering this place sort of felt like a second chance to be part of that triangle?” I ask.

She shrugs. Blinks.

“It’s a chance to turn that triangle the three of you had into a square where I’m included. Does that sound dumb?”

“It doesn’t sound dumb.” I smile at her and I don’t know what comes over me, but I reach out and put my hand on hers. I half expect her to pull away, but she doesn’t.

“It’s just that this… this apartment feels like something for you and me. A gift from Granny Ivy and Mom—although, I don’t know that Mom even knew about it. It doesn’t matter. It feels like Ivy’s way of reaching out to pull you and me together. I remember something that Granny Ivy said to me once. Mom and I were in a really bad place. It was the day before I was leaving for Europe with my friend Callie. Mom and I weren’t speaking. It was really bad. That afternoon while Mom was at work, Ivy stopped in my bedroom doorway and said, ‘Lovie, I know your mum isn’t happy with your summer plans, but between you and me, I’m glad you’re going. Most people go about their lives as if they have all the time in the world. But they don’t and they only realize it after it’s too late. Be careful, but go out there and get whatever it is you’re chasing.’ ”

Marla’s voice breaks on the last word. She swallows hard and then clears her throat. I don’t want to breathe for fear that she’ll stop talking.

“I wish I would’ve asked her what she meant,” she continues. “Because looking back on it now, I think it might have had something to do with her time in Paris. But I was so self-absorbed, all I could think was, ‘Finally someone in this house is on my side.’

“It doesn’t matter now. You and me… We’ve never done well when others were involved. Since I arrived in London, I feel like we’ve been making such progress, but now there’s all this stuff coming at us from the outside. I know we need to clean the place up and it would be cool to have before and after pictures, but I don’t know that I’m ready to share our treasure with the world just yet.”

“I get it. I totally get it. For the first time in our lives, we’re on the same page.” Even if it feels a little tenuous. A little fragile. “I want to protect that, too. But this is our only chance to get pictures of how the place looks now, and just because we take the pictures doesn’t mean we have to publicize them immediately. I’ll talk to Gabriel about drawing up release paperwork. You can’t blame him for wanting the photos, but we are his clients at the end of the day, and I doubt he’s going to do anything rash to jeopardize that.”

“Oh, Hannah, you always see the best in people. How do you do that?” Marla laughs. “I guess you’re not old enough to be jaded and cynical like I am.”

She reaches up and touches my face. “You’re so pretty and you don’t even know it.”

We sit there a moment.

Her words have thrown me. It’s a totally un-Marla-like thing to say. I feel as if I’m living in an alternate Parisian reality. A decidedly non–Jane Austen dream.

ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, as Anastasia is wrapping up her shoot, the cleaning crew arrives.

“There is no sense in you remaining here while the work is in progress,” Gabriel says to us. “Why don’t you use the opportunity to step outside and enjoy the day? When you return, the place will be transformed.”

He snaps his fingers in the air as if that’s how the magic will happen.

“Thanks, but I’m not leaving,” says Marla. “Um, excuse me.”

She motions to one of the crew members who has taken an industrial vacuum to the dusty sofa. “Please be careful there. That couch is old. You’re being too rough.”

The woman must understand because she slows down and vacuums less vigorously.

“See, this is why I can’t leave this place unattended,” Marla says. “Why don’t you two go? In fact, Gabriel, why don’t you take Hannah somewhere and show her the sights? I think it would be a good break for all of us. She was saying she wanted to see the Eiffel Tower.”

With her next breath, Marla shouts at one of the workers. “Hey, be careful with that. It’s a very old lamp, not a soccer ball.”

Gabriel laughs as Marla moves in the direction of the offender.

“I’m sorry about that,” I say. “She means no disrespect.”

“No apologies necessary.” He arches his left brow. “Or perhaps I should have said you can make it up to me by allowing me to show you the Musée Rodin this afternoon and maybe the Eiffel Tower, too?”

“I’ll think