LITMIR.BIZ

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he went on. “Everything ended when my scooter crashed. I broke my left leg.”

      “Oh, how awful!”

      He grimaced ruefully.

      “When I tell you how, you have to promise you won’t laugh.”

      “Why would I laugh?”

      “’Cause I was hit by a sausage truck.”

      I cackled. He smiled and gently punched my shoulder.

      “I asked you not to laugh.” But he was smiling. “Anyway, the doctor didn’t set my leg right. I stayed in Dallas for a while and then I hobbled around campus in a weird metal contraption.”

      During the year that Terry had been scooting around Europe, I’d been immersed in motherhood: breastfeeding Matt at 2:00 a.m., changing diapers, and delighting in my baby boy’s milestones, his first smile, coo, babble, word, and step.

      But Europe! Images danced through my mind. Elsa and Rick riding in a convertible through the French countryside in Casablanca. Princess Grace in her Monaco palace. Scott and Zelda cavorting with wealthy expatriates and artists on the Riviera. Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney hitching rides in Two for the Road.

      Me? Hitching rides? Out of the question.

      “Here I am thirty-four-years-old and I’ve never been to Europe.”

      “Oh, you’ll get there someday.”

      Terry told me that a friend from college, Diane, had spent a year in France, where she met her future husband, Jacques, while hitchhiking. After graduation she moved to Paris to marry. Back then most of us married right after graduation.

      Instead of hitching rides through Europe, I’d married my high school sweetheart, Anthony, in 1964. High Mass at my parish church, St. Kevin’s, and a lavish reception at Leonard’s of Great Neck. We’d headed south to Gainesville, Florida, where he worked on a PhD in sociology and I returned to school for a master’s degree. Our son, Matt was born in 1970.

      “So was Paris as romantic as in the movies?”

      “Yeah, like An American in Paris. You remember that one?”

      “Gene Kelly, dancing with Leslie Caron . . . in the fountain spray, from the Place de la Concorde . . . how could I forget?” Terry grinned at my enthusiasm, whether for Paris or for the film, I’ll never know. Encouraged, I went on, now in full spate.

      “I’ve got an idea. Maybe we could go to Paris this summer and stay with your friends. It wouldn’t cost that much if they’d put us up. Anthony has Matt for six weeks this summer. And I’m teaching only one class the first semester. So I’m free for a whole month.” Terry’s brow furrowed comically, but I was barely getting started, and my ideas were flowing out in a torrent.

      Back then, I free-floated in a mist of mania, a “go-for-it” mindset of magnificent possibilities—including a trip to Europe with my friend and lover. My wanderlust wasn’t new, but I hadn’t previously had the courage or opportunity to act on it. When I was seventeen, I’d begged my parents to send me away to college, but they wouldn’t hear of it. “Frances, where do you get these ideas?” they asked, genuinely puzzled by my desire to leave home. Back then young women in traditional Italian families didn’t leave home until they married. Period. No exceptions. So I lived at home and matriculated at City College. My father placated me by offering to pay half the cost of a car if I earned the other half. I worked part time at Lord & Taylor’s department store and saved my money. During my sophomore year, I saved enough to purchase half of a shiny, new, bright blue Mercury Comet. Not long after graduation, I married and headed south, eventually landing in Chapel Hill, a pleasant enough town. It had been nice. But it hadn’t been Paris.

      “What do you think of going to Europe? Is the idea too outrageous?” I asked.

      Terry smiled but let go of my hand. He bit his upper lip.

      “No offense, Frannie, but how do you know that we’ll even be dating next summer? It’s pretty far away. Besides, I probably can’t afford it. And I might not be able to get away from work.”

      Undaunted, I plunged right off the high-dive. As if I were the trained lawyer, I laid out a reasoned argument. One, plane tickets were cheap; two, food was inexpensive (a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou); three, Terry’s friends in Paris would probably put us up, and if not, we could stay in hostels and pensiones. (Although this was the era of “Europe on Ten Dollars a Day,” the idea of backpacking, though it would have been even cheaper, wasn’t an option for me.)

      “Frannie, I can’t imagine you staying in a hostel. Your idea of camping out is a room at the Holiday Inn.”

      I pushed ahead.

      “Well, at least think about it. If, for some reason—and I can’t imagine what that would be—we break up, or something comes up, then we cancel. People cancel all the time.”

      Since I knew Terry loved to gamble, I pulled out the ace of spades.

      “You know, after Paris we could drive south to Monte Carlo. Visit the palace. You could gamble at the casino. Try your hand at blackjack or roulette.”

      He changed the subject.

      “You thirsty? Want something to drink?”

      Once at his apartment he drank beer, I drank Coke, and we made love for the rest of the afternoon.

      Years later when we dug out photos from the trip, Terry said: “Remember that day we first talked about going to France? You came on pretty strong. Pushy New YAWK-er. And guess what? Turns out you are.” He grinned, raised a Bud, and saluted me. “You know I’m only kidding.”

      “You’d better be.”

      On July 20 of the year following our first meeting, Marlene and David were waving good-bye to Terry and me at the Kanawha County Airport. Terry and I were boarding a puddle jumper to Pittsburgh for a connecting flight on Icelandic Airlines. In Reykjavík my feet hit foreign soil for the first time. In terms of our relationship, however, it was as if we had crossed the Atlantic Ocean only to land on the shore of another sea; the Sea of Desire.

      But as that day began, Terry and I trudged behind other weary passengers to the duty-free shop. I sifted through bins of hand-knitted sweaters, scarves, and gloves and purchased purple mittens for Matt and two cartons of Salem Menthols for myself, and Terry carried two bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label and Cuban cigars back to the plane.

      Hours later, we arrived at the tiny airport in Luxembourg. Anticipating jet lag, I had booked us into what was, for us, an expensive downtown hotel. After surrendering our passports at the front desk, we followed a porter to an elegant room—high ceilings, enormous bed, ornate headboard, plush duvet, and heavy drapes in rich mauve. A chandelier glistened overhead. His-and-her bathrobes hung in the closet. This was no hostel. I untied the heavy drapes, pushed open the shutters and gaped at the pedestrians strolling in the park below. Terry ordered ice and poured himself a tall glass of whiskey.

      “Terry, come look. It’s . . . charming, like I imagined.”

      He reached around my waist with one arm, while with the other he raised his glass.

      “Here’s to you, kid.”

      We held hands and lingered at the window. I ran a bath, and, like every American encountering one for the first time, felt compelled to make a comment on the bidet.

      Steam soaked the mirrors and the black-and-white tiles as we sank into a claw foot tub. Like children, we splashed, played footsie, and soaped each other’s backs.

      “I can’t believe I’m here. I feel as if I’m in a movie,” I said.

      “Not too shoddy,” he said as he raised another glass of Johnnie Walker. Wrapped in thick terrycloth robes, we tumbled onto the king-size bed and nestled beneath the thick duvet. We quickly shed our robes, and some time later, as I basked in the afterglow of lovemaking,

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