So it was. Lucy had seen the cathedral only in pictures, but there it sat, solid and massive, complete with those amazing flying buttresses, right on an island in the middle of the river. “I can’t believe I’m really here,” she said.

“Well, you are,” said Bill, who was seated behind her in the crowded van.

The van driver had been waiting for them when they got through immigration, holding a sign that read TINKER’S COVE EIGHT. A touch of humor from Norah, Lucy had thought, or, more likely, Sidra. The driver, Henri, had led them through the chaotic terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport and through the automatic doors to the even more disorganized scene outside, where roadway repairs were forcing buses, cars, taxis, and vans to jostle for space at the curb.

“This would never happen in the U.S.,” Sue’s husband, Sid, had declared when a tiny Renault simply stopped in the middle of the single open lane to discharge a passenger, who took his own sweet time saying good-bye to the driver, heedless of the tie-up he was causing. Sid’s voice was full of disapproval. At home he designed and installed closet systems and liked everything to be in its proper place.

The four American couples had followed Henri, pulling their wheeled suitcases to a quiet parking area, where he’d helped them load their luggage into the van, arranging it like a puzzle. Then they had all squeezed inside, fitting their American-size bodies into the European-size van.

“I give you tour of Paree, no?” Henri had said, flooring the accelerator and zooming into traffic to be greeted with a chorus of beeps from the other drivers.

The first part of the drive had hardly been scenic. It was the sort of grimy autoroute that you’d find in the United States, leading into Boston or New York. But then they were in the city proper, and it looked exactly like Paris ought to look, with parks and shops and six-story buildings with tiled mansard roofs, French windows, and tiny balconies. Lucy could hardly take it all in.

“La Tour Eiffel,” announced Henri, pointing at the iconic structure. Then they crossed the river and were whizzing around the l’Arc de Triomphe, where a huge blue, white, and red French flag hanging from the center of the arch fluttered in the breeze, surrounded by a whirling ring of traffic. Horns blared as Henri took a right, cutting off several miniscule Smart cars, and headed right down the Champs-Élysées.

Then Lucy caught a glimpse of the famous glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, so quick she would have missed it if she’d blinked, and then they were battling traffic once again on the rue de Rivoli.

“Fantastic shopping here,” said Sue, adding in a reverential tone, “Bay Asch Vay. It’s the very French version of a hardware store.”