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
The wonderful time started out a little negatively. Since they took the most economical fare they could find, they had been traveling for eighteen hours by the time the flight landed in Atlanta, and we expected them to be tired. When their plane had been on the ground for over an hour and they still hadn’t appeared on the escalator into the baggage claim area, we thought they would be even more tired, and that they might possibly be lost. “I don’t understand how this kind of thing happens to people in Atlanta,” I said. “It’s a very clear airport, really.”
“Laura. There are five Métro stops between their gate and baggage claim. That’s half of Paris. They probably got out and are wandering around in one of those malls you call a terminal, thinking that they went too far and reached downtown Atlanta and that it looks exactly like in the films.”
Two hours after their plane was on the ground, we began to worry. I found an airline representative for the third time and finally persuaded her to tell me if our guests had gotten on the right flight. Yes, the family was somewhere around. Where, she didn’t know, but no one had mentioned any passengers falling off in midflight, so in Atlanta they were.
Three hours after their plane landed, they finally appeared at the bottom of the escalator. I almost didn’t recognize them, they looked so washed out from exhaustion. “Did you get lost?” I asked. “Customs problems? It was the champagne, wasn’t it?”
“Did we get lost?” Bruno said bitterly. “No. Our luggage got lost. Or, I’m sorry, misdirected. They sent it to Puerto Rico. They think.”
“All of your luggage?” Sébastien said.
“All ten bags. Well, fifteen, counting mine.”
“But that’s okay.” Titi held up a plastic packet and regarded it with deep irony. “They gave us this.”
“It’s so cute.” Martine pulled out her own and displayed a toothbrush the size of her thumb, similarly sized toothpaste, shampoo, soap, conditioner, and a piece of blue flannel.
“Useless at a wedding,” Claudine said. “But cute.”
“Pajamas,” Titi explained as I touched the flannel tentatively. “It took me a minute, too.”