Christian: Ideally, by licking champagne off your breasts. But I think before we get to that, we should do something fun. What do you like to do for fun? Besides go on crazy roller-coaster rides, shop for your friends, plant flowers, and enjoy fancy and decadent meals out.
My heart does a little jig—he already knows some of the littlest details about me, like my penchant for showering my friends with gifts for no reason. Those are my favorite kind of gifts—pointless ones, because that’s the point.
Elise: All of the above, and I also like dancing.
Christian: Swing? Tango? Foxtrot? Please say no as I can’t do any of those, and ballet is out of the question.
An image flickers by of the type of dancing I want to do with Christian, and I wonder if he’s any good at it.
Elise: None of the above. I mostly like dancing late at night in clubs when I can let loose with my girlfriends.
Christian: Do you want to go clubbing with your girlfriends, or do you want to go with me when I return this weekend?
I write back, the answer falling from my fingers so easily, so smoothly, that it feels like the only way possible I could want to celebrate, though I haven’t yet won a thing.
Except, perhaps, a night out with the man who’s front and center in my mind.
Elise: With you.
23ELISE
Saturday looms before me like the face of the clock, the second hand ticking obnoxiously in my ear.
I busy myself with work in the morning, cloistering myself in the office with Polly, my creative director, who’s whipping through Photoshop mock-ups for the Luxe. Just a few extra items to send to Nate. Call it campaign Impress the Hell Out of Him.
As I look up from the media plan, she smiles, points to her screen, and declares, “Booyah.”
It always makes me laugh when she blurts out supremely American sayings. She is American, but she also says them with a certain over-the-top flourish.
“And what has earned your booyah seal of approval?”
She slides the laptop in my direction, showing me a new concept for a social campaign. My eyes widen, and my marketing bones hum. “That is booyah and a home run.”
She nods approvingly. “You haven’t been away from the homeland too long. You still know our little sayings.”
“You know I can still shoot the breeze,” I say, with a wink.
Polly has been with my agency for four years, and we’ve bonded over a love of marketing, and of being Americans working abroad. She flicks her pink-tipped blond hair off her shoulders and gives me an inquisitive look. “Also, I don’t think I’ve said this, but you seem happier lately.”
I blink, surprised at the forthright comment, but then she’s always been like that. “I do?”
“There was a time when you weren’t—” She shakes her head, as if she can’t find the words. “I think for a while you put on a happy face and sort of made it through what I suspect was a tough time.”
She doesn’t know all the sordid details. At least, I don’t think she does, and I could kiss her for phrasing her words more diplomatically than Dominic did.
“Now,” she says, gesturing to me, “you seem to be glowing.”
“Don’t even say it. I’m not pregnant.”
“I would never suggest that. I’m just glad that you seem so buoyant.” Her eyes drift to my silvery wedding band.
I follow her gaze and nod. “I’m glad to hear that it’s evident.”
I don’t elaborate, and she doesn’t ask, and I like it that way. My new marital status isn’t a secret, but it’s not something I feel the need to announce to my employees.
For a moment, though, I wonder. I worry. If my attention wandered during my whirlwind marriage to Eduardo and during the fallout too, what does it mean that Polly is able to read me now? Even though the situations are vastly different, is it good or bad that she can tell I’m in a better place emotionally? And does that mean I’m not giving my all to my work?
I try to reach for an answer, but none comes easily, so I decide being in a better place is a better thing, plain and simple. That better place is also synonymous with here—me at the office on a Saturday morning, pouring all my focus into work. I’m on the cusp of brand-new opportunities, rebuilding and shooting past the place where my agency was a few years ago. Maybe an arrangement where everything has been brokered from the start is the best kind for my bruised heart and my wounded business. Both are healing. Both are becoming stronger on the other side.
“Anyway, I like seeing you happier,” she says as she shoulders her messenger bag.
She leaves, and I stay, finishing a few items and sending along a marketplace insight to Nate on Copenhagen, gleaned both from Christian’s analysis and my own observations of the city during my trips there. Nate replies quickly: That’s interesting! I hadn’t thought of those angles.
A grin spreads across my face as I move the mouse to close down my inbox.
But a new message pops up before I shut down. It’s from John Thompson, the head of the Thompson Group. He’s probably vying for Nate’s account.
Hey Elise! How are you? Should we meet for drinks? Maybe we can join forces and discuss winning some deals together?
I give his email the side-eye. He’s a competitor. I don’t want to meet with him to join forces, but I also believe in keeping your enemies close.
I reply: I’m pretty busy, but my schedule should free up in a week or two. Talk then?
He writes back swiftly: Count on it.
I take off soon after. I cut across the city to The Marais, where I spend the afternoon wandering through the intricate network of streets, the curvy jigsaw puzzle of one of the oldest parts of Paris, its cobbled passageways that cars can barely squeeze through. Some days, when I’m in the maze of The Marais, I feel like no one can find me. Like my phone is uncallable, my life untraceable. Like I’m one with the place.
Over the years, I’ve tried to truly understand my ties to this country, given I spent my first two and a half decades of life in New York. Sometimes, it’s the creative heart of the city that I discover in unusual places. Like the whimsical cookware store I stroll past that sells antique rolling pins and irresistibly mismatched saucers and cups. I pop in and pick up a white rolling pin with red handles for Veronica.
Or the shop on the corner that still boasts an old sign reading “atelier” even though it peddles eclairs. The baker never removed the sign. I stop in and buy a small box of caramel eclairs for my next-door neighbor who doesn’t get out much since her hip surgery but still craves her favorites.
I don’t always find the answers to my questions about why I’m drawn here even when my family is still stateside, but Paris seems to be the true north on my compass. It points here.
As I turn the corner, I stumble across a café I’ve never been to before, with carnival music playing softly inside. It’s parked right across from an eight-room hotel I’ve heard of—a decadent little inn said to have the most opulent rooms, complete with gold fireplaces and ornate decorations, like a celebration of debauchery.
Maybe that’s why I like this city. If you want to celebrate, it’s easy. Food, and wine, and drink, and treats are everywhere, and you never have to travel far to indulge.
I take a seat at an outside table and order coffee as I gaze at the hotel, remembering my first time in this city. I was six and Ian was twelve, and I felt like Madeline from the children’s books. Maybe Fancy Nancy too.
For so long, I was raised out of place. I was the halfsie, as I joked with Christian. The child of French parents, speaking that language at home, embracing that culture behind closed doors, while to the outside world, I went to American schools and American classes and lived in an American city. All of that shaped me. It shaped my brother too. But the funny thing is he stayed behind, or maybe he stayed where he was always meant to be.
As for me, I was restless. I never felt truly content until I boarded a plane and spent my junior year of college here. That was the first time I felt the hummingbird beating in my heart slow to a more reasonable pace, one that didn’t make me frantically wonder what was around the corner and if I’d fit in.
When I moved here, I felt distinctly like all my memories had come home, and all my new ones would be crafted inside the city walls. The city was like a calming hand on a shaking heart.
At last, a part of me that had been unsettled could find peace.
As I sip my coffee, I return to my conversation with Polly about happiness. My mind boomerangs farther back in time, to the trip to Copenhagen with Veronica. As we’d left, she talked about how happy she was after her night with the boat captain.
