Page 6 of That Weekend in Paris
I ask him how the weather is supposed to be tomorrow, and he proclaims it will be early spring perfection. And since I’ll have most of the day free, I ask if he has any recommendations for nearby sightseeing. He immediately offers up, “The Louvre, of course. You can spend days viewing its treasures. But I recommend to pick your most intense interest and focus on that. You will not be disappointed. It is a most amazing place.”
I thank him for the recommendation and hand him a tip.
“Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” he says, and with a nod, leaves the room.
I sit down on the chair by the window with my food, tapping into the search engine on my phone and typing in “Louvre.”
I spend a few minutes scanning the different areas of the museum, decide on the two things I most want to see: the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.
The food is delicious, and once I’m finished, I sit back in the chair and scan through emails on my phone.
Most are work-related. But there’s one from Riley. I consider scrolling past it, then tap in before giving myself a chance to change my mind.
“Hey. I know you’re not reading my texts. Or I assume you’re not because you’re not answering. So here I am resorting to email. I’m sorry, Klein. I’m so sorry. I should have involved you in the decision. I just didn’t think you were ready. Or that I was ready. You were touring. I tried so many times to make myself tell you. I wanted to. I really did. I just didn’t want the two of us being together to be about anything other than you wanting to be with me. I didn’t want you to come back to me out of some sense of obligation.”
I stop reading there, clicking out of the mail app, and throwing my phone on the bed. I stand at the window, staring out at the Paris night. I feel as if a knife has been inserted straight through to the middle of my heart and is slowly being turned, the pain excruciating.
I keep thinking that time will make this feel better, bring me to the conclusion that she was right not to include me. But it’s not a place I’ve been able to get to. There’s just a gaping hole inside me, raw with grief and anger.
Was she right to question what my response would have been? Can I say for sure I would have done the right thing? Knowing I’d already decided the two of us weren’t right for each other?
There’s no law that says I had a right to know. A right to do anything other than go along with her wishes, whatever they were.
I just don’t understand how that can be. How I could be fifty percent of what was needed to create that tiny life and not have any right whatsoever to be its father? Pictures play through my head, images of a baby boy or a baby girl. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to turn them off. Tears leak down my cheeks, and I wipe them away with the back of my hand.
The minibar glares at me, beckoning me with assurance that it holds the key to turning off my thinking. I know I only have to open the door to find a row of small bottles that will provide temporary numbness, anyway.
The desire to give in to them yawns wide inside me. But that is a hole I do not want to jump into. Instead, I open the drawer in which I had thrown my running clothes, grab some shorts and a T-shirt. I throw them on, find my running shoes in the closet, and a couple of minutes later, take the stairs to the lobby and hit the cobblestone street outside the hotel at a pace certain to put my focus on the next breath and not the next thought.
Dillon
“When I dream of afterlife in heaven, the action always takes place in the Paris Ritz.”
?Ernest Hemingway
NEVER ONE TO skimp on luxury, Josh had made a reservation at the Ritz Paris located in the 1st arrondissement. I’d done some research on the hotel during the flight over, not surprised that he had chosen what was notably the most elegant hotel in the city, in most of the world, in fact. I wonder if he would have taken me here if he’d ever agreed to that second honeymoon.
The Mercedes taxi I’ve taken in from Charles de Gaulle turns onto the enormous square that stretches out before the architectural wonder that is the Ritz Paris. I’m admittedly a little fascinated by its history and the fact that it had been closed by its Egyptian billionaire owner for a nearly four-year, $450 million renovation, the effects of which are easy enough to see.
A black Rolls Royce sits at the entrance, the sportiest version I’ve ever seen, and I wonder if it belongs to the owner of the hotel, or if it is a perk for super notable guests. Just behind it is a black Range Rover, equally eye-catching. A driver stands by the back door, apparently waiting for his passenger.
I am welcomed by the dark-suited staff out front as if I am arriving royalty. I wonder if they have confused me with actual royalty who are booked to stay at the hotel. A Frenchman with beautifully accented English takes my bags, and another leads me to the front desk. I’m checked in by a lovely young woman with long dark hair and vivid blue eyes. Her French-accented English provides a distinct contrast to my Nashville-twanged responses, polite as I try to make them.
As she checks the computer screen, I glance around me at the elaborate lobby, its high ceilings and marble floors, the elevator that leads to the hotel’s renowned spa. I feel alone for the first time since I’d left my car in the Nashville airport’s long-term parking lot. Maybe it’s something about checking into a hotel by yourself that does that. And maybe I’m a little intimidated by the luxury of this place and the realization that I would never choose it for myself because I would never think I deserved to stay somewhere reserved for the world’s wealthiest people.
From first glance, the Ritz Paris is everything the reviews had raved it to be. It had first opened in 1898, and never once closed for over a hundred years. The current owner had apparently wanted it to remain the choice for the world’s most affluent travelers and embarked on a renovation that ensured it would remain the destination for five-star luxury. Judging from the hustle and bustle of its extremely well-to-do clients this morning, it’s clear he has succeeded.
“Ah, here we have it,” the young woman whose name tag reads Céline says. “And it appears you’ve booked a suite. Excellent. You will be so happy there.”
I’m tempted to ask her the rate, a little surprised Josh would have gone that elaborate in a hotel already so obviously expensive. But then he’d planned to bring her with him. The suite had been meant to impress his twenty-something girlfriend.
“We have your American Express on file, madame. Will that be sufficient, or would you like to provide me with another card?”
“The American Express is fine,” I say.
She types for another minute or so and then hands me the key. “Henri will be escorting you to your room, madame.”
She waves a hand toward an older gentleman standing at attention. He gives me a courteous smile, offers me a nod, and beckons me down marble steps to the rug-adorned marble floor and past the Bar Vendôme, which he points out as one of several beautiful places in the hotel to have a drink.
