Paris in Love (35 page)

In the deluxe department store Printemps, I stood on the escalator behind a woman wearing a dusky green coat with velvet lapels … and holding a bag. What a bag! It was a tote bag in rose, a kind of dreamy dark pink. It had the same electric effect on me that the Twist’n Turn Barbie did years ago: to see it was to lust after it. I edged up a step, determined to see the label. Goyard. Seemingly more exclusive than Vuitton, in business since 1853 … and the King of the Tote.

Alessandro came home from his conversation exchange with Viviane and told me they compared their students, Alessandro’s at Rutgers to Viviane’s at Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée. Viviane said that hers no longer remember how to spell, whereas Alessandro thinks his were never taught. I, too, have forgotten how to spell. With spell-check at my command, I simply don’t bother anymore.

Last night Alessandro and I went to a restaurant full of courting couples (always a charming backdrop), where the champagne tasted like apples. It should have been a perfect evening, but the food was not good. Alessandro’s risotto was more like rice soup; my duck was underseasoned; the pear clafoutis was bland and overcooked. Now here’s the surprise: it’s happened a lot here. In fact, I would venture to say that a nation of brilliant cooks tolerates a great many pedestrian restaurants—and this one hadn’t a tourist in it to excuse its mediocrity.

Luca threw himself on the bed next to me a while ago, and is apparently thinking deep thoughts. “Double-you makes some weird words,” he says finally. “Like
waaaarble
.” He drawls out the sound. “Plus
wanton
and
wonton
. They sound the same.” On reflection, I think that
wonton
is actually a more interesting-sounding word than
wanton
, though you’d never know it to read my novels, given my profusion of wanton heroines.

Today we went to Sunday brunch at one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants in Versailles, La Véranda. The entrées were fine … but the desserts! I tried
nine
, determined to learn, through empirical research, the very best one. The delicious, chewy passion fruit
macaron
? The froufrou hot pink marshmallows, the four flavors of crème, the fig tart, the delicate clafoutis? The winner was a dainty cake with a crackling top and luscious mango cream inside, because it was like biting into one of Alice’s Wonderland cakes: inside was a voluptuous surprise.

In Versailles, we visited the Musée Lambinet, which has a curious, motley collection of household objects from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including a bed built into the wall. Anna plopped herself on the floor beside it, and with her for reference, we decided it couldn’t have been much longer than five feet. They also had fascinating brass plates used to print toile fabric. One of the designs,
L’Art d’aimer
, showed a canoodling young couple with a sketchy gentleman peeking through the bushes, nothing like the tame images that show up on toile these days.

My favorite items at Musée Lambinet were two “surprise” Easter eggs, given to Princess Victoire, daughter of Louis XV. They are, essentially, historic Polly Pockets, but made with real hen’s eggs. The tops were held on with slender chains. One had a little house scene, with a tiny housewife receiving a visitor. The other was a forest scene. In comparison, Fabergé eggs (which postdated these by over a hundred years) seem gaudy and vulgar.

A very modish mademoiselle entered the Métro car just after me: her cherry red coat was trimmed in black and cinched at the waist with a wide elastic belt. She had bleached blond short hair, cat-eye glasses, and a leopard-print scarf over her head. She looked like a chic update of Brigitte Bardot. I was cataloging all this French fabulosity when it dawned on me that she was speaking English! And not just any English—
American
English. Go, red, white, and blue!

After school, Anna met me with a lopsided smile that always means trouble. Apparently at lunch she’d offered her cheese to a boy. Rejecting cheddar as beneath him, he tossed it back; naturally, she threw it at his head. He flung it at another boy, and within seconds the air was full of winged cheese, though the teacher didn’t see because he had his back turned. Anna retrieved the cheese and threw it back at the first boy, whereupon it bounced off his shoulder and hit … the teacher. Naturally.