“And I can see they make you happy. That’s Jeanette’s criteria, you know. She doesn’t buy anything with her own money unless it passes the yummy-happy test. It has to be yummy, and it has to make her happy.”
“What about being affordable?” I looked at the price tag and tried to calculate the amount from euros into dollars. If I did the math correctly, the shoes were a steal. “Amy, did I figure out this price correctly?”
Amy checked it and came up with the same price I was calculating. We looked at each other with enthusiasm for our retail experience of the day.
The salesclerk stepped away and returned with a purse that matched my pink shoes.
“That is so stinkin’ cute I can hardly stand it!” Amy squealed. “Look how perfectly it matches your pink top.”
“I know! This is the cutest purse in the world, isn’t it?” I held the perfect-sized pink purse up to my side, as if I were modeling it. The neatly tied black bow looked so snappy. I walked over to the full-length mirror and posed this way and that. I loved it. It was yummy. And best of all, I could afford it. Oh, yeah, this purse was coming home with me.
“Lisa, if you don’t buy that purse, I’m going to throw up in your shoulder bag so that you have to buy a new purse.”
We both burst into laughter, and the salesclerk, who obviously understood English, gave us a peculiar look.
“She threw up in my shoes.” Amy turned to the clerk and wiggled her toes. “That’s why I came in here in stocking feet.” She then repeated her line in French.
The clerk gave Amy and me the kind of look Gerard used to give me. Yes, we were crazy. Americans in Paris. What could we say? After trying to fit in and do everything right, clearly some of our lifetime quirks were ours alone to laugh about.
“You can keep your hands off my shoulder bag,” I told Amy. “I’m going to buy the purse.”
“And the shoes?” Amy asked.
“But of course,” I said, trying to imitate a French accent. I didn’t impress Amy, and I definitely didn’t impress the salesclerk. “They have to come home together so they can keep each other company.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Amy said.
I took myself for a happy little walk around the store while Amy tried on more shoes.
“I have to concentrate on these two pairs of shoes and see which ones pass the yummy-happy test.” Amy sounded as if she were a rocket scientist conducting an important experiment.
“You could buy both of them,” I suggested. “Do they come with matching purses?”
Our saleswoman already had gone to the window to pull out the purse that went with the yellow shoes. She seemed less concerned about our keeping her in the store past closing time since we were making purchases and not just trying on thirty-seven pairs of shoes.
“I think the red ones are my favorite.” Amy looked at the dazzling red low-heeled honey of a shoe on her right foot and the classy yellow and black high heel on her left. “But the yellow and black ones make my feet look smaller.”
“Are they both yummy?” I asked. “Do the yellow ones make you happy?”
“No. They pinch my toes a little. But the red ones don’t.”
“There’s your answer.”
“Jeanette will be proud of us both.” Amy slipped on both red shoes and walked around. She stopped in front of the mirror and grinned. Clicking her heels together she said, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
“Do you have a matching ‘Dorothy’ purse?” I asked the salesclerk.
Amy spoke up and explained my question. The salesclerk brought two purses for our inspection, but neither of them truly matched the shoes. Amy didn’t mind. She said the shoes were a world of cuteness all to themselves.
“You know, I did have a bit of an emotional connection going with the black ones.”
“I missed the trial run on the black ones,” I said. “Let’s see them.”
Simple, stunning, classy, the black shoes had my vote in an instant. “And just consider all the purse options.”
The salesclerk willingly gathered nine purses, and then she stood next to me while we watched Amy give us a fashion show. A black leather purse with a fabulous handle won our vote.
The Dorothy red shoes left the store on Amy’s feet, and the pink, happy snappies on my feet kept the parade going.
“You and I are a couple of très chic chicks! I’m so glad you were sick on the bonbons.”
“You’re welcome. Just trying to do my part, you know. But we must remember that you were the one who sacrificed your shoe.”
Amy clicked her heels together again. “All in the line of duty. So where should we take our yummy new shoes? The Eiffel Tower?” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Did I say that aloud?”
“Yes, you did. Does that mean you’ve been thinking about the ‘Awful Eiffel’?”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m thinking that we should find a taxi and just show up there. Then, who knows?”
“Fine. Let’s stop a taxi.”
“Okay, but don’t ask me if I’m going to go to the top.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll decide when we get there.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t try to get me to talk about it.”
“Fine.”
The taxi delivered us to the street in front of the Eiffel Tower, and we disembarked. Instead of hesitating and looking up, Amy headed across the busy plaza. I kept pace with her in my new shoes while she gave her red hot mamas a brisk workout. She was a woman on a mission, and I was her friend. I would always be Amy’s friend, and she would always be mine. Whatever happened in her love-hate relationship with Eiffel, I would still be her friend. I’m sure she knew that. I’m sure she knew that she would always be my friend, as well. Otherwise I don’t think Amy’s experience would have gone the way it did.
At first she didn’t say anything. She seemed to be scoping things out, trying on all the options in her mind, the same way we had just tried on shoes. When Amy paused and looked up, I did the same. When she walked away, I was her shadow. She didn’t talk so I didn’t talk. At one point I saw a few tears glistening in her eyes. My friend was fighting a fierce battle under this mighty metal structure.
At last she took her place in line at the ticket booth, looking up occasionally. The sun was setting, but hundreds of people continued to snap photos and come and go around us.
The sign above the ticket booth stated the options for those going up. One ticket took viewers to the first level where a snack bar, a few souvenir shops, an exhibit, and a display were open to the public. The restaurant on the first level, Altitude 95, was open only to those with reservations. The person in line in front of us told us that most reservations for that restaurant were made three months in advance.
The more elegant restaurant, located on the second level of the tower, took reservations six months ahead for eager diners who wanted a bird’s-eye view of Paris. A series of back and forth stairs connected the first and second levels. From the second level, two elevators ran straight up to the top and back.
Amy stepped out of line. I stayed in line.
She shook her head. I nodded mine. She had gotten so close. I was up to the ticket window, looking over my shoulder at her for direction. She shook her head again. I stepped out of line, and we took a cab back to our hotel where we ordered room service and didn’t talk about it.
Later that night, I thought that Amy, the early bird, was sound asleep in the darkness of our room. Well after midnight she turned over in bed and softly said, “Lisa, are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“We have issues, you and me.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Tomorrow is our last day. Our last full day.”
“I know.”
“Lisa?”
“Yes?”
I thought for sure she was going to make me promise her something. My guess was that she would want me to promise that I’d make her go to the
top of the Eiffel Tower before we boarded a plane to go home.
But she didn’t ask me to promise anything. All she said was, “We need to pray.”
The morning light brought welcome sunshine and that delicious spring freshness that was becoming familiar to us when we opened our bedroom window. Neither of us was hungry. Not even for coffee. We wanted to go to church. The church. Notre Dame. We had decided last night when we prayed together in the stillness, that we wanted—no, needed—to go to Notre Dame.
It wasn’t as if God couldn’t or wouldn’t meet us where we were, whether it was in our hotel room or at a shoe store. But going to a place set apart for centuries as a place of worship was mysteriously sacred. Amy understood this better than I.
We could have walked to Notre Dame. We could have worn hats since we both had purchased berets. We could have carried our Bibles. We also could have taken the Metro, since we had nearly mastered the system. But we took a taxi and sat quietly with our hands folded in our laps all the way there.
I opened the door of the cab and stepped out into the wide courtyard that for centuries had welcomed all pilgrims to the great soaring towers and immense stained glass window that framed the face of Notre Dame. Sunshine broke through the thick clouds and illuminated all the open space.
“I feel small,” Amy said as we walked toward the massive open doors of the cathedral.
“I know. Imagine what this place must have felt like to peasants when they came here. It holds ten thousand people.”
“I didn’t realize it would affect me this way.” Amy stopped to look up at the huge rose window.
“Do you want to walk around the outside first? Or go up into the tower to see the gargoyles?”
“Up?” Amy questioned, as if I’d used all my “up” opportunities the day before. “No on the up. Yes on the around.”
We circled the mammoth structure, stopping to take pictures of the flying buttresses on the back side.
“Tell me again why these are significant,” Amy said. “I don’t remember what the tour book said.”
“They’re for support. It’s the only way the Gothic architects could design a structure this large and keep the weight of the roof from pushing the walls outward and destroying the cathedral.”
“Support, huh?” Amy studied the beautifully crafted arches. She turned to me. “Lisa, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are my flying buttress.”
I found no way to take her comment, except the wrong way. “I’m your flying buttress, huh? Well …” No spunky comeback dropped into my mind at that moment.
“You support me,” Amy explained. “You’re there to keep my roof on and keep my walls from crumbling down. Thanks.”
I nodded slowly at the quirky compliment. “In that case, you’re my flying buttress, too. What do you say, we keep this to ourselves though.”
Amy smiled. The little pixie.
We finished our loop around the cathedral’s perimeter and entered with thousands of other visitors who were also making a shuffling journey around the inside.
I felt as if we were two beggar women, two peasants, in need of a place to sit and think. We had come to the right place. The “sanctuary” of Notre Dame. I was so aware of my shrunken size and importance once we were inside the gigantic space. Around us were thousands of pieces of religious art and rows and rows of pews and chairs. Dozens of stand held lit motive candles at private enclaves where even more art was displayed. Over our heads, high above us in this intricately-crafted cavern of stone, rose rounded domed ceilings also decorated. They gracefully, gigantically completed the elegance of this cocoon.
I stood in ant-sized silence, observing details and faces of people from around the world as they made their way through a place that many seemed to consider one of the most exquisite of all the Parisian museums. Yet it wasn’t a museum. It was a church. It had been started nearly a thousand years ago with the express purpose of exalting God and providing a place for His people to gather and commune with Him.
Finding an open pew, I lowered myself to the hard wooden bench and sat waiting. Expectant. How would God speak in the overwhelming majestic beauty of this sanctuary?
Ooh!” Amy’s voice beside me brought a sense of the familiar in the openness of Notre Dame. She was nodding toward the immense round window behind me, in the north end of the cathedral. Fragments of sunshine streamed through the stained glass, filling this place of so much empty space with light.
“The Rose Window,” she whispered. “It’s more amazing on the inside than I imagined. I think that’s the window that still has some of its original glass.”
I looked up at the window and watched the light come through all those fragments, creating a kaleidoscope of color. Like spokes radiating from a small hub, the images depicted in the huge window were all from the Bible. According to the guide book, the theme of the window was “redemption after the fall.”
As I stared at the masterful work of art with a sense of awe, light came through every one of those stories told in pieces of colored glass. Every one was true. Every piece reflected light somewhere in the vast cathedral and had been doing so for more than nine hundred years.
Amy sat beside me, her chin all the way up, staring at the beautifully arched ceiling that was held in place by the flying buttresses.
Beside us rose a huge pillar. A little girl suddenly dashed around the back side of the pillar. A dark-haired man called to the little girl, but she didn’t go back to him. Instead she stayed in hiding, covering her face with her hands, as if that would keep him from seeing her.
Eve hid and covered up with fig leaves. Why?
I watched the little girl as she tried to stay in the shadows and not be seen by her father.
I knew that feeling. From the time I had started to help out in the church nursery, I had been trying to stay off of God’s radar so He wouldn’t come looking for me. I was afraid, and so I hid.
That’s it! I was afraid. Eve was afraid. That’s what it says in Genesis. Eve was afraid, and so she hid. I get that. I’m afraid. That’s why I hide. But what am I afraid of?
I looked into the face of the little girl’s father, who came toward the pillar with swift, deliberate steps. His expression was set on her alone and overflowing with love. He didn’t want to be separated from his little one.
Calling to her and opening his arms for her, the father waited. From where we sat, I could see what the child behind the pillar could not see. Her papa wanted her back. Now.
The timid child stepped out of hiding with her chin tucked and her eyes lowered. She took the first step. Her father came the rest of the way and scooped her up into his arms.
In that moment, I knew the answer to Amy’s riddle. I knew why Eve hid. I knew why I hid. Both Eve and I were afraid of God. Afraid to see His expression of disappointment and displeasure. For Eve it would have been the first time she saw that expression on her Creator’s face.
Is that what I’ve believed all these years? That God is disgusted by me or disappointed in me?
Viewing the earthly father in front of me who was pursuing his wayward daughter, I saw that his intense desire for reconciliation was far greater than his intent to punish.
All these years I had believed a lie. God wasn’t mad at me. His anger was momentary, but His lovingkindness toward me was forever. God wanted me.
I always thought I had to prove to God what a good person I was so He wouldn’t be angry. That’s why I tried to work everything out on my own. I thought I was supposed to be an “A” student and make God proud of me for doing everything as correctly as I could. Yet now I saw the truth. He didn’t want my stacks of well-done homework or a report on my commendable behavior. He just wanted me. Now.
I watched as the little girl looked up at her father. He held her close. Speaking to her in gentle tones, he stroked her hair and spoke to her softly in a language I didn’t understand. But the child understood. She looked at her daddy face-to-face and nodded her head, as if
in accompaniment to a sincere apology.
He spoke to her again. She spontaneously kissed her papa on the cheek. He smiled, and she rested her head on his shoulder in the curve of his neck. As I watched, he held her close and walked away, carrying her in his arms.
Grace upon grace.
I felt my heart racing the way it had at Angelina’s, when I felt as if God was coming close to me. This was it. All my senses were alive.
“I’m here,” I whispered, picturing myself as a frightened little girl who had been hiding far too long. In that moment, I stepped out of hiding. The deepest, most timid part of my spirit told God I was sorry. Sorry that I had held back from opening up my heart to Him. Sorry that I had spent so many years hiding.
But my lengthy confession was cut short. All I could think of, and all my senses could feel, was lightness. He was lifting me, drawing me closer and closer. I was in His arms, the very place I had longed to be and never felt I was good enough to go.
All these years I thought You would reject me, too, if I opened up to You like this. But, Father God, You have never left. Never rejected me. This is what You’ve wanted and waited for all along, isn’t it? Not my sterling behavior, but this. This closeness.
The truth began to fill all the hollowed-out places of my soul where the lies had been swept out. Light came in. Light was the missing piece. Lightness in my spirit. This closeness to my heavenly Papa was why I was on this earth. This lasting love would fill the depths of my emotions and set me free.
I didn’t realize I was crying. Amy handed me a tissue and gave my hand a squeeze. “What just happened?” she whispered.
I tilted my head and rested it on her shoulder for a moment. I smiled. “I know why Eve hid. I’m not afraid anymore.” Swallowing a rising wave of amazement-tears I said, “He wants me. God wants me.”
As I looked up at Amy, she grinned. Her dark eyes glowed with the reflected light from the nearby stand of votive candles. I didn’t have to explain what had just happened in my heart. She could see right through me. Just like always.
Amy linked her arm in mine, and for a long while we sat where we were, watching all the movement around us. We didn’t talk or evaluate or expound. We just sat together, receiving from our Papa.