“Especially me,” she told him.
The water of the Seine licks the side of this low road. Jeremy doesn’t see anything ahead that might provide a spot for a picnic, if that’s what Chantal is looking for. Halfway across the river, on the Île Saint-Louis, long stretches of riverbank provide sunbathers a place to stretch out. Jeremy glances at the darkening sky. He imagines the almost naked boys who are lying on the grass at the edge of the island running for cover in a thunderous moment.
But Chantal is not headed for the bridge, which is on the higher road. And Jeremy doesn’t ask her plan-that has been one of the delights of his days with Chantal. He gives it all up to her. She leads the way in conversation and in their peregrinations through the city. So why is he feeling anxious all of a sudden? It’s not as if they’re lost. It’s impossible to imagine that they’ve run out of things to talk about or sights to see.
But there’s nothing ahead, just a long stretch of road. They walk, quickly, Chantal’s low heels clicking on the cobblestones.
Jeremy remembers the story he was telling-the girl at summer camp-and feels a rush of relief. They are in the middle of a conversation. He can find his way back after all.
“That night, at camp-” he says, but Chantal interrupts him, something she never does.
“Wait a moment,” she tells him. “We’re almost there. Save your wonderful story.”
Jeremy worries-it is not a wonderful story. It is barely a story at all. The girl didn’t show up, the other girls teased him, and he avoided the lake for the rest of the summer. Why did he choose to tell this story at all? First love? He could have talked about Dana, because of course, even though there were plenty of girlfriends along the way, she was the first to claim his heart.
“Nous sommes arrivés,” Chantal says proudly. Here we are.
She has stopped walking and stands there, her arms open. Jeremy looks around. There is no patch of grass, no tree to sit beneath, nothing that bears noticing.
Until Chantal steps toward the river and then keeps going, down a few steep stairs and onto a short plank. Une péniche! She is leading him onto one of the many old boats that are moored along the river. This one in particular is badly in need of painting, though it was once a bold red, with the words JARDIN BLEU painted in yellow on the side. It’s not as long as many of the other boats-maybe forty feet-and it looks like it hasn’t budged from its spot in years.
Jeremy glances up and down the long stretch of boats and sees immediately what makes this boat different-it is a garden! The deck is covered with potted plants and flowers and ferns, bursting with them, in fact. Flowering tendrils spill over the sides of the boat and hang down, sometimes dropping as low as the water. And a deep, lush jungle smell rushes at him-there’s something wild and untamed here.
Chantal is already stepping onto the boat, her long, lean legs easily maneuvering the gap from the quai to the boat. She leans back and gives him a hand. He takes it, though of course he could make this step without her help. The bags on her arm bump against each other and she says, “Let me put these down. Come in. Welcome to my home.”
Her home.
He stands with his feet firmly planted on the boat’s deck and feels a momentary shift-of course, they’re on water-and the boat rolls as a bateau-mouche goes by. He catches himself with a hand on the rail. Chantal reaches out her hands and he’s confused until he remembers his packages, draped over shoulders and forearms. He unloads them into her hands.
“Please. Take a seat on the deck. I’ll be right there.” She gestures with a tilt of her head to the back of the boat.
He sees a table and two chairs in the middle of the garden. The table sits under a trellis; wisteria, in full bloom, drapes the wood, cascading down. Jeremy has never seen anything like this before. He must say something, but when he looks back, Chantal is gone. He sees the back of her head as she descends some steps into the belly of the boat.
Again the boat rocks; again Jeremy grabs the rail and widens his stance. I need sea legs, he thinks.
He walks back to the table and chairs, winding through the pots of flowering bushes and exotic ferns. Everything is newly watered from the storm, and the smell of damp earth fills the air.
Chantal’s home. Jeremy could have imagined many places where she might have lived-a chambre de bonne near the Eiffel Tower, a small apartment on the Left Bank, maybe even a loft in the Marais-but this is beyond his imaginings. And yet it is perfect. That is what it is like to learn someone, he thinks. You know many things about them, and then one new bit of information takes all the knowledge you’ve gained and shifts it so completely that you begin again.
He walks around the boat, weaving through the planters. Some hold single plants, some hold a wild mixture of foliage that tumbles over the sides of the pots, verdant and alive. There is much color in these plants-shades of purple, from pale to vivid. And the blue! He fills his lungs with a deep breath, taking in the rich, loamy smells.
He hears music-Nina Simone-and he sees the speakers set in the very back of the boat. She is making lunch for him. She has invited him to her home. The boat rides a wave and his hand grabs the rail.
Suddenly he thinks, Will he tell Dana? Of course he will. There’s nothing to hide. His French tutor took him for lunch on her houseboat. They sat at a lovely table in the back of the boat and she taught him the words for flowers and plants and river life. He imagines telling this story at a dinner party. Amazing! And your wife bought you the French tutor!
Then he remembers Lindy and her reaction to Chantal. Was she jealous? Protective of her mother? Worried about losing Jeremy? Impossible. He will assure her that the lessons are over. There was nothing to worry about.
If he even needs to mention it at all.
He hears Chantal making her way up the stairs and he takes his hand off the rail.
“It is wonderful,” he tells her as she emerges, carrying a large tray.
She smiles at him, a smile as full as any he has seen. She is home, he thinks. She is where she belongs.
“Our lunch,” she says simply.
But it is far from simple. Jeremy follows her to the table, where she sets down the tray. He sees a bottle of red wine and two glasses, a plate of cheese, a basket of bread, a saucer of olives and cornichons, a bowl of sliced apples and pears. Every item of food looks perfect-or perhaps Jeremy is seeing the food as it should be seen, presented almost as a celebration of itself. The plates and bowls are creamy white ceramic, without design, the napkin in the bread basket is a pale rose color.
“A feast,” Jeremy says.
He is extraordinarily hungry. He sits at one of the chairs and offers to pour the wine while Chantal sets out the plates.
Then she sits across from him and lifts her glass.
He imagines a toast-last night at dinner there were almost a dozen toasts-to his and Dana’s anniversary, to the film, to France, to someone’s new book of art criticism, to the great director.
But Chantal simply reaches her glass across the table and clinks it against his. They smile and sip. The wine is delicious.
“Tell me your love story,” Chantal says.
“It’s nothing,” Jeremy says. “I’d like to hear about the boat.”
“First, love,” Chantal insists.
And so Jeremy begins his story. Or begins again. And this time, his story becomes a fairy tale, an enormous lie. He has never invented stories before.
“That night I went to the canteen at the camp, the place where we all hung out after the evening activity. She was waiting for me. She wore her hair down for the first time and it covered her back like a blanket. I had never seen such beautiful hair.”
Chantal looks pleased and so Jeremy continues, his voice deep, the French words spilling from his tongue as if he often sat on a houseboat with a young woman in Paris and fabricated impossible love stories.