|
Page 9.
 Rob and Hannah next saw each other neither in Paris nor in Frankfurt but in Luxembourg two weeks later. Rob was back to work, feeling grounded, had everything running smoothly, and could afford a three day weeked to visit with his sister. Hannah told him that she, too, was glad to be back in the saddle, resuming her own life, and pursuing her romantic interest with Yves Cartier.
Rob called as Hannah and Yves were each having a glass of wineon her tiny balcony. They sat with their legs entwined, facing each other amid flowerboxes overflowing with red blossoms, and enjoying a long, lazy afternoon. The sun was hidden in a hazy, golden-cloudy sky as the western suburbs of Paris rustled with traffic in a light wind. On a clear day, she got a faint glimpse of the very top of the Eiffel Tower’s spidery girders.
“Where are you?” Hannah asked with her Droid in one hand and a wine glass in the other, while Yves (looking humorously seductive) cradled her bare feet in his. The balcony was barely large enough for the two of them plus a tiny round table. They were half-shielded by the flowers and wrought-iron railings. As she spoke, Yves wriggled his toes against hers, and she wriggled back in a whimsical code.
“Frankfurt,” Rob said far away. “We’re driving down to Luxembourg, and I thought maybe you and Yves could meet us there. It’s almost halfway.”
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “How halfway is it exactly?”
“Frankfurt to Luxembourg is a three hour drive, and Paris to Luxembourg is about four hours. So we can each do about half of a run for one of us to drive between Paris and Frankfurt.”
“Let me ask Yves what he’s doing this weekend.” She lowered the phone and swatted his foot. “Be serious for a second. You want to go to Luxembourg?”
Yves frowned, wrinkling his lightly tanned face with its overhanging curly, short brown hair. “Eh? Why not.”
She told him, “I don’t feel like driving by myself. Otherwise, I could just hop a train and be there in the same time.”
Yves shrugged. “For you, anything. It’s a nice little city, and I haven’t been there in years.”
“Okay,” she told Rob. “It’s a deal.”
On Saturday morning, Hannah and Yves packed a weekend satchel each, which they tossed into the trunk of his Mercedes sedan.
She wore a loose, white-and-faded-blue striped cotton summer dress with white strapped sandals; plus sunglasses and a yellow silk headscarf, and her silver studded earrings.
Yves wore knee-shorts, crew socks, deck shoes, and a comfortable burgundy hockey jersey.
They left Paris early, glad to get out of city traffic. At that hour, most of the traffic was coming into the city. They were for a while stuck in massive traffic on the peripheral highway that circles Paris. Once they were on the A4 heading east-northeast in the direction of Reims, Verdun, Metz, Thionville, it was straight shooting all the way. They stopped for lunch in a pizzeria in a small town near the Meuse River. They split a small pie topped with peperoni, mushroom, olives, and tomatoes. They washed it down with crackling Vichy water with a slice of lemon. They crossed the border amid grasslands and forests, marked with a square blue sign on the highway containing the word Luxembourg at the center of a standard EU circle of small stars. They zipped through what looked like a truck weighing station. It was much like crossing from one state to another in the USA, she thought. No more international checkpoints like in the old days when Dad was stationed in Europe. They were now in Luxembourg and cruising toward the capital city on European Route 25 (E-25).
“That was not so bad,” Yves said cheerfully as they cruised into the Gare quarter, the main train station on the south side of the capital. The Gare was a large, antique-looking Belle Epoque building with weathered greenish-copper roofing on complex mansards and round windows and little turrets.
“Everything is so small and cute,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s almost the tiniest big country in the world. Only places like Andorra, Liechtenstein, and the Vatican are smaller.”
“And Monaco,” she added for precision.
“There are a few,” Yves allowed. He poked a finger at the GPS on the dash. The female voice speaking told them they were already close to their destination. They cruised along the Avenue de la Liberté, crossing the Grand-Duke Adolphe bridge over the Petrusse Valley with its tall cliffs and overhanging green tree crowns. There, visible across the valley, rose the thin spires of the national Notre Dame Cathedral, in this staunchly Catholic country, darkly (or brightly, depending on how you looked at it) dedicated to Mary, Consoler of the Bereaved. European history, Hannah thought, had a lot to feel bereaved about. In ten minutes, they had circled the High or Old City and were in Limpertsberg.
“Wow, that was quick,” Hannah said.
“There we are.” They pulled into a driveway that was narrow, descending between mossy green stone walls overhung with ivy, down into a cobblestone quartier with a mix of old and surprisingly antiseptic looking new buildings (plain walls, straight sheet glass windows) designed to blend in.
Standing on the sidewalk, waving, was Rob. At his arm was a slender, shapely brunette with a quietly, smolderingly beautiful face. “That must be Elise,” Hannah said delightedly. She waved, and Elise’s face lit up with pleasure. “We’re going to get along fine,” Hannah said.
An older man stepped out, wearing gray trousers and a white dressy shirt missing a necktie. “I’ll bet that is her papa,” Yves said.
Papa guided Yves to a safe place to park, nosing into an impossibly tight looking corner overlooking the Grund valley through some bushes and trees.
They got out and made happy introductions. Hannah found that the Europeans usually did not warm up as quickly to strangers as North Americans or even the English would. Here, the ice was already broken because Rob and Elise clung inseparably to each other (which made Hannah happy to see).
It was early midafternoon by now, and the Gillen household smelled of fresh coffee and sweet cakes. Everyone but the English (tea drinkers) seemed to be coffee drinkers across Europe, Hannah observed, so she felt right at home as they sat around a sunny, airy living room table adjoining a large, modern kitchen. Elise’s mother, a heavy-set, pleasant woman in her sixties, had prepared a generous Kaffi with ham, butter, bread, sweets, and that pungent coffee.
“We just ate in Verdun,” Yves said apologetically. “We’ll do our best.”
Elise’s parents laughed congenially. “The stuff won’t run away. You can always eat a little later. You must be tired from your drive.”
Yves said as he held a chair for Hannah and then took his own seat: “The hardest part was fighting our way out of rush hour traffic in Paris. After that, it was a picnic.”
|
Thank you for reading. If you love it and want to know how it ends, buy the whole book. The e-book edition is about same the price as a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. Thank you (JTC).
|
|
|
TOP
|
MAIN
|
