Paris Cravings: A Paris & Pastry Novel (19 page)

Then suddenly, from around the corner of
L’Opera
building, Gerald Polk steps out, putting up a hand to stop us.

He startles me so bad, I let out a yelp. “What! How did you find us here?”

“That doesn’t matter, Chloe. Now quit these silly games of running away and get into the automobile. I’m losing my patience with you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I tell him. “I’m not sure I trust you any more.”

Gerald Polk yawns and puts a foot on one of the steps leading up to the opera house. “Did you ever?”

I bite my lips, then stick my hands on my hips. “Not really.”

“Can I see some identification?” Jean-Paul says, stepping forward.

“Of course,” the tour director tells him, and stops to get out his wallet and extract one of those business cards with the cartoon of the joyful, touring students all hanging out a bus window as though they’re in junior high rather than high school or college.

“Picture I.D.,
s’il vous plait
,” Jean-Paul adds
.

While Mr. Polk is digging for his driver’s license, Jean-Paul grabs my hand and we dart up the steps to the Opera House. He pushes on the small rear door of the opera house—not the public front door—pulls me through and slams it behind us, expertly locking it.

Before I can take a breath, Gerald Polk is pounding on the thick wooden door, his voice calling to us, muffled.

“You are getting sneaky,
monsieur
,” I tell Jean-Paul. “Are we allowed in here?”

“Of course. How do you think I know about this secret back door?” He leans closer, confiding in me. “Chloe, forget about that guy for a little while,
d’accord
? Because this is my favorite place in the world and I want to show it to you.”

Chills run down my arms. “I think our minds are linked together, like we’re old lost friends or something.”

Jean-Paul turns back from the door to stare at me. “What are you saying?” he asks softly.

“What I mean is,” I chatter away, trying to hide the fact that I’m suddenly flustered. “
Phantom of the Opera
is my favorite story, my favorite movie, my favorite theatre production . . .being here is like a dream come true.”

He nods silently and I see the muscles in his neck as he swallows—as though he’s thinking about something really, really hard. It’s the strangest feeling I’ve ever had. Being with him is truly like we’ve known each other in a different life or a different time. I can’t explain it.

Jean-Paul guides me through another door and into an enclosed hallway, taking my hand firmly in his so that I won’t stumble around and bump into the walls or pitch myself down a dark staircase. I know that’s the reason. Besides, he’s gripping my hand in a very platonic, friendly way, but it feels as though my hand has suddenly become electrified.

The feeling is powerful and amazing and just plain
obvious.
I can’t help wondering if Jean-Paul feels the charge running through our hands too, but he doesn’t say anything. Holding hands with a guy has
never
felt like this before. I don’t know what that means, but I’m excited and confused at the same time.

Jean-Paul casually slips his hand from mine as the wooden hallway door closes with a creak behind us. Slowly my eyes adjust to the dimness.

“How can you just sneak through the back door?” I whisper, wondering if we’re breaking and entering.

He whispers back, “My uncle works here. I just need to make sure there’s no rehearsal going on.”

How lucky am I?

The grand foyer is silent as a tomb as we glide across the sleek marble floor. Gold is a major color scheme. I get a crick in my neck staring up at the lofty domed ceiling with its paintings and ornate woodwork—all covered in gold leaf. There are no words to describe the utter majesty and beauty.

Jean-Paul’s voice comes out from the softly lit shadows. “What do you think?”

“I’m speechless. And I keep pinching myself that I’m really, truly here.”

“You’ll be black and blue by morning then, because we’ve only just begun.”

All I can think is,
Sera will die of envy when I tell her.

We wander rows of gilded seats in the hushed air of the theater auditorium. My head spins in circles as I whip around to stare at carved ceilings and paneled walls and murals and velvet and alabaster statues and busts. It’s all just as I’d imagined it.

There’s even the fantastic chandelier hanging overhead, thousands of crystals catching the light like glittering diamonds. I try to picture it crashing to the floor as it happens in the movie, feeling a tiny shudder. I can almost hear the screams of the audience, the flames of fire, the heat, the panic.

“It weighs six tons,” Jean-Paul tells me. A couple of spotlights glow down below on the stage, pinpoints of light in the huge, dark theater, and I can almost hear the rustle of ladies’ dresses settling in for an evening of
La Bohème
or
La Traviata
. My mom and dad used to be culture fanatics. Until Dad got sick.

We try out the patron’s box seats and then Jean-Paul takes me onto the stage itself. I stand there, pretending I’m Christine looking out at a packed audience, wanting to throw out my arms, wanting to pretend to sing, wanting to flirt with the Phantom, to flirt with danger and sex.

Suddenly, Jean-Paul tags my arm as though we’re playing a game. “You are it!” he says in a stage whisper. Then he races across the wooden floor of the stage and darts behind the heavy velvet curtains. I can barely open the stage curtains myself as I reach for him in the shadows while we play the childish game of hide-and-seek. We’re like two silent mice darting through the curtains, around stage props and scenery, muffling giggles, holding our breath, and then bursting into laughter when we bump into each other in the dark.

“You’re good,” Jean-Paul tells me. “Very silly, but good.”

“I was the neighborhood “Kick The Can” winner when I was nine.”

“That’s a game you’ll have to teach me.”

“We’ll play it tonight. When it gets dark.”

“Ah,” he says with a teasing look in his eye.

“Oh, you!” I say, trying not to be embarrassed. “Kick the Can is
completely
innocent. A little scary sometimes when you’re only six or seven and hiding out in the neighbor’s alley under a bush, but way fun.”

“Come on,” Jean-Paul says, tugging on my arm again to go exploring the dozens of rooms behind the stage. “You’re very easy to tease.”

Narrow corridors and hallways branch off in every direction, open to the rafters overhead.

“Hundreds of actors and dancers used to live and work right here, making the theater their actual home,” Jean-Paul tells me like a tour guide.

There are dressing rooms, living quarters, spiral staircases, backdrops and pulleys and huge sets. More prop rooms than I could ever begin to count. The place reminds me of a magical maze, and I feel lost in it all, but I’ve got Jean-Paul to lead the way. Every time he reaches out to grab my hand when I linger too long or takes my arm when I need a boost up a ladder, his touch produces the same powerful jolt.

I stop trying to figure it out. One day I’ll just blame it on the magic of
L’Opera.
Maybe it’s just Paris itself. I’m sure this feeling will go away as soon as I get home and back to my old life. I’m infatuated with Paris. Which means I’m infatuated with Jean-Paul. Nothing more than that.

We finally take a rest on one of the old catwalks. The walkway isn’t hanging suspended in the air, but lying on the floor in the back of the stage waiting for repair so we’re perfectly safe hanging out there. No masked Phantom lurking around to chase us up into the air where ropes and pulleys can be deadly.

Jean-Paul and I kick back and talk about everything. From running track to schoolwork, favorite movies, favorite foods, family vacations, and most embarrassing moments.

“You had a front row seat during my most embarrassing moment,” I tell him. “I used your cream puffs for hair mousse.”

“Ah, and splendid it was,” he says, sitting back to gaze at me with his perpetual smile.

A comfortable silence comes over us, and I can hear rustlings and whispers in the corners of darkness. Softly, I say, “There must be spirits walking the halls around here. Theater ghosts from past productions over the decades.”

Jean-Paul nods. “I’ve always believed they are here, watching over things, but the ghosts only show themselves after midnight so we’re safe.” He reaches out to squeeze my hand, and then quickly pulls away as if he’s done it without thinking. “For years I’ve always thought I was crazy to think there are ghosts. Nice to know I’m not alone.”

“We can be crazy together,” I tell him with a quirk of my eyebrow.

He grins, his dark eyes rising to meet mine. “Deal.”

I want to ask him about Elise, but I’ve been too afraid to speak her name out loud since he has never mentioned her. Maybe I’m making way too much of it. Unfolding my legs, I start to stand, but Jean-Paul touches my arm to keep me from getting up.

“I need—I mean—I want to tell you a story. My sister loved to come to the opera house, too,” he says, and now I know for sure we’re reading each other’s thoughts. “We’d visit Uncle Victor and make up our own plays. Hide out if we wanted to get out of working in the pastry shop. My mother eventually caught on to where we were going.”

“You mean there were times you didn’t want to work in the shop?” I ask in mock horror.

“There are days we all want to escape,” he says softly. “Right?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, and his words make me wonder if that is what I’m doing here in Paris. Just wanting to escape. To run away from my life. I want to be treated like I really am eighteen, an adult. But I also want to forget about my problems with my mother as well as Mathew and the uncertainty and hurt between us.

Sometimes I also want to run away from the weight on my heart over the loss of my dad. There are times when his death is so acute, it’s almost physically painful. He was the one I talked to the most about friends and teachers and problems. He never got emotional or crazy, just listened and empathized. My mom reacts with panic and outrage. I’ve had a week of forgetting during this trip, but now it’s time to go back to it all, and I’m not ready.

“Her name was Elise,” Jean-Paul suddenly says.

When he speaks of her in the past tense my heart drops. A long drawn-out silence fills the space between us, and it feels as if the very air of the auditorium is holding its breath. “I know,” I say softly. My words have startled him, but then his confusion clears.

“
Mais oui.
Right. Her name is above the table in her room. She died almost two years ago.”

I lean forward, suppressing the urge to touch him. “I’m so sorry, Jean-Paul.”

“I don’t want to burden you,” he adds quickly. “Most people don’t like to hear me talk about her. They never know what to say. It’s awkward.”

“You can talk about her all you want. My father passed away, too. Four years ago. He was sick for a long time.” I can feel his eyes on me, questioning. “You know the whole Sunday cemetery trips with my mother I was talking about earlier? We go to visit my dad. It’s the only place my mom can get away and feel some peace. That probably sounds strange, but the cemetery is pretty, almost like a park and very peaceful. A place to get away from it all. Away from the constant noise and stress of the city, and bills, and life.”

Deliberately, Jean-Paul takes my hand and places it between both of his own. His hands are warm, his fingers strong, and the feeling of his hands wrapped around mine is unexplainable as my stomach rises into my throat. “You know what it’s like, then, to lose someone you love so dearly. Not many people do.”

“What happened to her, to Elise?”

“Brain tumor. There was surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, but it grew too fast. Only ten months from diagnosis.” Jean-Paul glances off into the darkness, and then looks back at me.

I stare into his eyes, nodding, knowing exactly how he feels. “I always thought my dad would pull through, that he’d beat the cancer and return to a normal life. He played on the company softball team, bicycled in Vermont during the summer on our family trips. Raced me when we fast-walked the streets. We played tag along 51st after he’d taken me to see
Wicked
. And we went home singing all the songs. Making up the words if we forgot.”

“I’m sorry for you to lose your father like that. Elise and I were best friends. She would have been fifteen next week.”

That’s when the motivation for Jean-Paul’s sightseeing trip hits me, like a brick between the eyes. Jean-Paul is tender and kind and understanding because I remind him of his sister. Even though he and I are nearly the same age, perhaps I’m like a kid sister to him. It’s all beginning to make sense. This is why he’s so kind to me, taking care of me, showing me around Paris. But we have a strong connection, too, the loss of someone we loved more than anything else in the world. On one level, our friendship just got more complicated, and on another, much less thorny. I will be easy to say goodbye to in the morning. And he will feel Elise’s loss keenly again over the next few weeks after I’m gone.

My heart suddenly hurts and I press a hand to my chest, glancing away so he doesn’t see the tears in my eyes.

Besides me, Jean-Paul asks, “Do you think it’s harder to lose the love of your life or your child?”

I shake my head, unable to answer. Thinking about the past four years, the times when Mom and I holed up in our rooms with unspoken grief. And then the times she talks about Dad too much, and I want to tell her to stop smothering me.

“I hope I never have to find out,” I say, my voice wobbling. “Either one of those losses would be devastating for the rest of your life.”

“I think there can be no comparison,” he says thoughtfully. “Do you think your mother will marry again?”

I bite my lip and shrug, blinking my watery eyes and catching my breath. “Sometimes I want her to, just because she’s lonely, but then I get selfish and I don’t want her to ever marry again. It’s like she’d be forgetting my dad. Maybe we’d never talk about him again, and I couldn’t stand that.”