Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
“That sounds wonderful,” I repeated wistfully. “I’m only sorry I missed it.” I had been invited, but my brother David visited Paris that weekend, and I had to protect the city. Also, at that point Sébastien and I had been dating only a month, so I had met none of his family, and it had not occurred to me that doing so could be a pleasant experience. They were French, after all.
“It does look like fun, doesn’t it?” Claudine said, exchanging very pleased glances with Bruno. Titi gave them a minatory look. “The next time they do something like that, you’ve got to be here.”
“The next time?” I said, surprised. “You only get PACSed once!”
“Oh, there are plenty of other occasions to throw a party,” Bruno said airily. “Birthday parties, New Year’s Eve, weddings. You never know.”
The village festival the next day bore no resemblance to an ambush. We joined the crowd in a large yard behind the single building that served every possible government function in the village: school, city hall, salle des fêtes or party hall. White paper tablecloths covered two long rows of tables under a sagging white tent top. A homemade dance floor had been nailed together in the center of the yard, and the aroma of roasting pig filled the air. I wanted to embrace the whole day, to plunge into my last experience in France for a while. I couldn’t put my finger on when, but mixed in with the bad, I had somehow been seduced by snails, drunken restaurant owners, skating along the Seine, Sébastien’s family. Now that I was leaving what I didn’t like in France, I was suddenly, acutely aware of how much I loved. Leaving France had become painful.
Claudine was watching my face. “We could do something like this for your wedding, if you want. But even better. Something like Titi and Bruno’s PACS.”
“We could?” My image of a large U.S. wedding was of something formal and fussy and not very enticing. Nothing like this. “But I already promised my mom we would get married in the U.S.”
“Do you know, it was so sad when Mamie realized she probably wouldn’t be able to see her only grandson married,” Claudine told Sébastien. “She tried not to cry, but one tear rolled down her cheek despite herself. You’re her first grandchild to get married, you do realize that?”