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

I took all those risks?” he says, continuing to move toward me. “I felt something for you from the moment I saw you asleep on that bench.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m serious, Alice.”

“We don’t even know each other.”

“I think we do, actually. Or, rather, we recognized something in each other.”

I balk at this. “Come on, you’re not in love with me. You’re a womanizer. You told me so yourself—a girl in every port. You think I forgot that?”

“That was a lie. Part of my jazz-pianist persona.”

“You check out every girl you see!”

“I think you’re incredible, Alice. I love your bad temper, your quick wit. I’ve never felt as right with anyone as I feel with you.”

I stare at him, unable to speak. The sincerity I sense in his words petrifies me. He risked his life for me, it’s true. I very nearly shot him last night.

He keeps talking. “There are so many things I want to do with you. Talk to you about the books I love, show you the neighborhood where I grew up, make you my special truffle mac and cheese recipe…”

Tears blur my vision again. Gabriel’s words wrap me up in their gentleness and I want to abandon myself to this feeling. I remember the first time I saw his face on that bench in Central Park. There was a complicity between us from the first second. I see him again in that toy store, wearing his cape and performing magic tricks to amuse the children.

But I interrupt his flow of words. “This woman you claim to love, Gabriel…you know perfectly well she’ll vanish in a few months. She won’t recognize you anymore. She’ll call you monsieur and you’ll have to lock her up in a hospital room.”

“That’s a possibility, not a certainty. And I’m ready to take that risk.”

I drop my cell phone as the battery finally dies.

Gabriel is standing in front of me, less than thirty feet away. “If anyone can win this battle, Alice, it’s you.”

Now he is only inches away. “But winning doesn’t depend on me.”

“We’ll fight it together, Alice. I think we make a good team, don’t you?”

“I’m scared! I’m so scared…”

A gust of wind blows dust into the air and makes the golden needles of the larch trees tremble. The cold burns my fingers.

“I know how difficult it will be, but there will be…”

 There Will Be…

There will be bright mornings and others obscured by clouds.

There will be days of doubt, days of fear, gray and futile hours spent in waiting rooms that smell of hospitals.

There will be moments of lightness, moments of hope and youth when the disease will be forgotten.

As if it had never existed.

And then life will go on.

And you will hold tight to it.

There will be Ella Fitzgerald’s voice, Jim Hall’s guitar, a melody by Nick Drake.

There will be walks by the sea, the smell of cut grass, the color of a stormy sky.

There will be days spent fishing at low tide.

Scarves tied around necks to protect us from the wind.

Sandcastles that stand up to the salty waves.

And lemon cannoli eaten as we walk down the streets of the North End.

There will be a house on a shady road. Gas lamps with colored halos. A ginger cat purring in your lap. A large dog barking its welcome.

There will be a winter morning when I’ll be late for work.

I’ll rush downstairs, kiss you quickly, grab my keys.

Door, driveway, start the car.

And at the first red light, I’ll realize that the key fob is a pacifier.

There will be…

Sweat, blood, a baby’s first cry.

A shared look.

A pact for eternity.

Baby bottles every four hours, packets of diapers, rain on the windows, sunlight in your heart.

There will be…

A changing table, a baby bath, endless ear infections, a menagerie of stuffed animals, hummed lullabies.

Smiles, outings to the park, first steps, a tricycle in the driveway.

Before bedtime, there will be stories of princes defeating dragons.

Birthdays and first days of school. Cowboy outfits; drawings of animals stuck to the fridge.

Snowball fights, magic tricks, toast with jam at four in the afternoon.

And time will pass.

There will be other stays in the hospital, other exams, other alarms, other treatments.

Each time, you will go there fearful, your stomach in knots, your heart beating fast, armed only with your desire to keep living.

Each time, you will tell yourself that, no matter what happens now, you would not give up any of those moments torn from the hands of fate.

And no one will ever be able to take them from you.

Acknowledgments

To Ingrid.

To Edith Leblond, Bernard Fixot, and Catherine de Larouzière.

To Sylvie Angel, Alexandre Labrosse, Jacques Bartoletti, and Pierre Collange.

To Valérie Taillefer, Jean-Paul Campos, Bruno Barbette, Virginie Plantard, Caroline Sers, Stéphanie Le Foll, and Isabelle de Charon.

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About the Author

Guillaume Musso is the number one bestselling author in France. He has written seventeen novels, including the thrillers The Reunion, which is in development as an international TV series, and Afterwards…, which was made into a feature film starring John Malkovich and Evangeline Lilly. He lives in Paris.

Also by Guillaume Musso

The Reunion

The Girl on Paper

Where Would I Be Without You?

Will You Be There?