I was forty-five minutes late. I didn’t think he’d be there. Why would he be there still? But when I crossed the street from the café to the fountain, with no bus driver this time to egg me on, he was standing by a sphinx. One hand was in his pocket, and the other held a cigarette down by his thigh. He was gazing off in the other direction, face set and unhappy.

He turned and saw me almost right away, and his face lightened with relief. He started to smile but then didn’t. He searched my face, his own somber, and he didn’t ask what had kept me.

“I couldn’t decide what to wear,” I said. “I was talking with friends and lost track of time.”

He nodded and smoked his cigarette, which was another flaw he had. Other than his being French, I’d found two. Then he took my hand and we descended the steps to the lower quay. Instant calm enveloped us, down below the sounds of traffic and the honks of horns, down here where no one was in a hurry. Hurried people did not take the lower Seine route. The smell of urine wafted out to us from under the nearest bridge, and we held our breaths as we passed through the tunnel of stench into the brightness beyond, upwind. Between the bridges, on the cobblestoned quays, the breeze was clean. The diesel smell of the trucks above had been reduced here to the occasional whiff from passing barges, blending with the heavy, wet smell of the river. It was another nice day. Paris was just busting her little heart out to give us nice days all of a sudden. You’d think she would have spent some effort trying to lure me in a lot earlier in the year, not just before I was due to leave.

One road did permit car traffic on the lower quay, but it was Sunday and that road had been closed to traffic, freeing the paved part for skaters, pedestrians, and cyclists. “Do you know how to in-line skate?” Sébastien asked.

“No.” There could be few good reasons for that question. I gave him a wary look.

“It’s the best way to explore Paris. You’d love it. You could come with Éric and Fabien and me some nights.”