Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! by Robin Jones Gunn

Author:Robin Jones Gunn [Gunn, Robin Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56308-8
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

Tell you what?” I asked nonchalantly, stirring a pinch more sugar into my Darjeeling tea.

“Your Paris story,” Amy said without glancing at the other diners in the Victorian teahouse. “When are you going to tell me the whole story? I want to hear what happened to you here twenty years ago. I know something did.”

I could feel my heart rate picking up but tried to keep my expression static so she wouldn’t notice the tears in my eyes. All they needed to do was push the first one over the edge, and the rest would follow. I didn’t want to start the cascade here or now—not with strangers sitting a few inches away. Especially after I had done such a stellar job the past few days of ignoring all the memories I had of this city and the paralyzing feelings that always accompanied those memories.

“Ask me later,” I said. “I can’t tell you now.”

This was another one of Amy’s shining moments. She always honored my boundaries, never questioning or pushing. Not when it came to my mother’s rule about Barbies and not now. Amy always said, “okay” and never made me feel I owed her something in return for her kind favor.

The thing I realized after we began to sip our imported loose-leaf tea was that she knew. I’d never told her any details about Paris or my broken heart. Joel didn’t know. My brothers didn’t know. My mother, of course, didn’t know. I hadn’t told anyone. But Amy knew. She knew about Gerard, even though I had never mentioned his name.

I suppose an individual couldn’t walk in stride with you for so many years and not notice even the tiniest hitch in your step when a pebble sneaks into your shoe. Gerard was the pebble in the corner of my heart that would not fall out no matter how many times I’d tried to shake out the memories.

I realized that by answering with not now, I was finally admitting to Amy and to myself that I did have a story to tell. Up until that moment I had managed to convince myself there was nothing to tell. But now I even invited her to ask me later.

I’m sure the chocolate was divine. The macaroons are one of Ladurée’s specialties, but I couldn’t tell what they tasted like. I listened to Amy and smiled. I took appreciative bites and dabbed the chocolate from my lips. But none of it filled me. What I was really doing was sobbing on the inside. The tears found my resolve too strong, and so they retreated, cascading back into the corner of my heart they had kept flooded all these years.

We split our bill, bought some more goodies at the bakery counter downstairs, and ventured back out to the sweet afternoon air.

Our next tentatively scheduled event was to go the rest of the distance on the Champs-Elysées and see the Arch of Triumph.

We approached the grand memorial and stood at a distance, just as we had with the Eiffel Tower.

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