The rest of the day was like that. All the details of our final afternoon in Paris floated into place and fit together. We investigated a variety of shops in the Latin Quarter, and I felt free. The ghost of “Gerard Past” didn’t jump out from around a corner to taunt me. The familiar sense of shame didn’t shadow my steps or haunt my choices. I felt free. I was out of the shadows and walking in the light.
We took our time walking along the Left Bank, examining original art for sale as well as an assortment of jewelry, souvenirs, and clothing.
I kept thinking about God. How patient He was. How gracious and how kind. It seemed that I finally knew who I was because I wholeheartedly knew who He was. I was my Beloved’s, and He was mine. His banner over me was love.
Amy and I made a loop through the area near the opera house and found an open-air market. I bought three kinds of jams for Joel along with a jar of some sort of special artichokes. Every time I thought about seeing my husband again I felt warm. I was eager to express love to other people now that the wet blanket of shame had been lifted.
By the time our feet were complaining, we had covered considerable ground. I was starving. The decision of where to eat dinner became complicated. While we knew a few options of where to find fabulous food in this city, we were aware there were oh so many more.
“It’s your turn to choose,” I told Amy. “All I ask is that we go to the hotel first so we can drop off all these bags.”
“I’m not sure what I want,” Amy said.
“If you say you want frog legs, you might be forced to dine alone this evening.”
“No, I’m not interested in frog legs. We’ve had so much great food.” She thought hard. “Would you be bummed if we just went back to the hotel and ordered room service?”
“Of course I wouldn’t mind.”
“Every time we’ve ordered from room service it’s been great,” Amy said. “I love the idea of putting on my jammies and having dinner brought to me. That won’t happen once I go home.”
Before she suggested eating at the hotel, I had hoped Amy would say she wanted to dine on the Eiffel Tower. While it was too late to check on last-minute reservations at one of the main restaurants, we always could have eaten at one of the snack bars.
Apparently Amy would have to come to terms with the Eiffel Tower on her own. I wasn’t going to push her or fight with her about it. She was up against fear the same way I had been for so long. If I was afraid of God’s disapproval, what was Amy afraid of? Gravity?
We went back to our room. I packed while Amy took a relaxing soak in the bathtub. Dinner was delivered, and we dined in our pj’s on salad, bread, chicken Marseilles, and crème brûlée for dessert. Instead of eating on our beds, we pulled the chair from the desk over to the corner chair by the window and balanced the plates on our laps, as if we were at some fancy buffet party.
The view from our hotel room window was dramatic. The City of Lights gave us her best performance. The skies were clear. The spring night was gorgeous. Despite the sound of car horns and the smell of traffic that rose through our open window, a slight scent of fragrant blossoms and rain-softened earth greeted us as well.
Amy chatted about her children and what all of them had said when she called home earlier. “I can’t wait to give everyone the gifts I bought. The only problem is, how am I going to fit everything in my suitcases? I brought way too much with me. But you already knew that.”
“At least you were prepared,” I said.
“Overprepared is more like it. I wonder if I could leave anything here. Or maybe I could mail some of my lighter T-shirts and things home.”
“Or,” I suggested, “you can go to the souvenir shop on the corner and do what I’m probably going to do tomorrow. I’m going to buy a lightweight carry-on bag for everything that won’t fit in my luggage.”
“Great idea.”
Leaning back and studying Amy’s slumping posture, I asked, “Are you okay?”
“No. Yes. No. I don’t know. I will be. I’m not ready to leave, but I’m ready to go home.”
“Is there anything else you want to do? Anything you want to see? Anything …”
“I know what you’re getting at, Lisa, and my answer is still no.”
“Okay.” I went over to my bed and stretched out under the covers. “I have a question for you, though.”
“What?” Amy looked at me skeptically. I knew that expression.
“Why do you think Eve hid?”
“Lisa …”
“No, I’m just asking. You asked me, and now I’m asking you. Why do you think Eve hid?”
“She was afraid.” Amy appeared to dislike the taste of her words.
“Okay. That’s what I thought, too. Good night.”
“You’re going to sleep now?”
“Yes. You can leave the light on while you pack. It won’t bother me. I’m going to sleep soundly tonight.” I turned off the light by my bed. With my eyes closed, I talked with my heavenly Papa, closely and honestly. One of the things I talked to Him about was Amy.
I fell into a peaceful sleep, which was a surprise, since I’d been a night owl since we had arrived. If I was having dreams, crazy or calm, I didn’t remember any of them. What woke me was the sound of Amy’s sniffling. I rolled over and saw her standing by the window in her pajamas, wrapped up in the hotel’s plush robe. Her gaze was fixed on the lit-up Eiffel Tower that dominated the horizon.
I don’t know how I knew what to do next, but I knew. Maybe my years of being Amy’s friend made my steps certain. Maybe my heavenly Papa nudged me. Maybe it was both.
Rising quietly, I went over, put my arm around Amy, and gave her a hug. Then I turned on the light, went to her packed suitcase, and lifted out several of her stacked clothes. She didn’t ask what I was doing, nor did she protest. I unfolded her beautiful, Grace Kelly golden dress and laid it out on her bed. Then I went looking for her new black shoes and matching purse. I found her fuzzy pink beret and stuffed it in my purse.
Going to my suitcase, I pulled out my skirt, my new pink shoes, and the silver box with my new white blouse. I made sure my beret was in my purse as well.
We dressed in silence. I looked over at Amy. She smiled at me.
“Come on,” I said after she had on everything but some cheerful lipstick. “You can keep an icon waiting only so long.”
Without a peep Amy followed me out of the hotel room. Her dress swished when she walked. Her new shoes tip-tapped on the tile floor in the lobby. She smelled rich, and she walked as if she were royalty, with her shoulders back and her chin forward.
We silently rode in the taxi.
Stepping out of the car and into the glow of the brightly lit Eiffel Tower, I walked to the short line of people buying tickets to go up into the tower. We had an hour before the elevators closed at midnight. Amy stepped in line with me. I opened my happy new purse, pulled out my last fifty-euro bill, and paid for two tickets to the top. We stood in line for the first of three elevator rides. The elevator door opened, we stepped in, and stood beside each other in our dazzlingly yummy new shoes.
A variety of other late-night Eiffel Tower fans joined us. We were by far the best dressed of the bunch. That meant we received a few stares. Especially Amy. She didn’t mind. The door opened, and we walked out onto the first level into a space that felt solid and stable. Amy was doing just fine.
Taking our time to proceed to the next elevator that would transport us up to the next level, Amy nudged closer to me. “Lisa, am I on the Eiffel Tower?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“How does it feel?”
“It’s okay. I’m not afraid.”
I smiled the way she had smiled at me earlier that day in Notre Dame. I knew what she was feeling. Light. Free.
She looked to the right and then a little bit to the left. “I’m on the Eiffel Tower, Lisa. I’m standing on the first level of the Eiffel Tower, and I’m not freaking out. Look,
that’s Paris down there. I can do this. Hey, that’s a new verse for the dieter’s cards with Shirleene! ‘I cancan do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ ”
“I take it that’s the French version.”
“Of course.”
“Next elevator is this way,” I said with a wide, sweeping gesture.
Amy shocked me when she said, “Let’s take the stairs.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Really.”
We followed the sign to the stairs and began a journey upward that had me speechless. The metal stairs with the open metal girders on the sides let all the night air come rushing in so that our legs grew cold quickly. We took a set of eight stairs up, then a short landing, then a turn and eight more stairs. We kept climbing, both holding on to the railing. The optical illusion was freaky. Dots of light illuminated the sides of the airy metal structure and more dots of light appeared beneath our feet where the streets of Paris stretched out below. The higher we went, the queasier I felt. Why wasn’t Amy having a problem with this?
“You okay?” I asked as we caught our breath on one of the short landings.
Amy’s face was radiant in the glow of the lights coming from all directions. “Yes. I’m more than okay. I’m climbing the Eiffel Tower!”
“Yeah, you are.” I personally would have done much better with an elevator ride that popped me out at the final destination. But this was typical of Amy. When she went for something, it was all the way. Step by step she was conquering her fear of heights, and I was trying hard not to take on the phobia she was defying.
We reached the second level. Amy was unstoppable now. With every step, her elegant gold dress made a ruffled swish. Her sassy shoes clicked across the metal platform as if they owned the place.
“More?” she asked me, as if I was the one who needed coaxing.
“Elevator is over there,” I said, catching my breath and nodding at the line of others waiting for what suddenly felt to me like a rocket ship to the moon.
The line moved steadily. We looked around, standing close together but not saying anything. The elevator wobbled slightly as we packed inside. Holding on to one of the side rails, I smiled at Amy as she swallowed and smiled back. The doors opened, and we stepped out onto a narrow platform that was surrounded by safety bars and mesh netting. My heart pounded as we took a step closer to the guardrails and grasped them in unison. Aside from being in an airplane, I had never been this high before. All the world seemed to spread out before us in a dazzling display of twinkling lights.
Amy held the guard bar with one hand and grasped my arm with the other. We both caught our breath, looked at each other, and laughed.
“You did it, Amy!”
She laughed the laugh of freedom.
“To commemorate this moment, I have a little something.” I pulled her pink beret from my purse. “This is an essential component in our rite of Eiffeling.”
“Eiffeling?”
“Just lower your head a minute.” Clearing my throat and not caring what the other tourists thought, I proceeded. “Amelie Jeanette, for being a faithful friend, a heroine of the French Republic revered by honest taxi drivers and policemen on Vespas, a defender of the nauseous, and an overcomer of childhood fears, on you I bestow the first ever Oui Oui Mon Ami Award for bravery and loyalty beyond the call of duty!” With that, I placed the fuzzy pink beret on the top of her head, tilting it just so.
“I feel like a poodle,” Amy said. “But on behalf of Sisterchicks everywhere, I accept this esteemed award.”
She reached for my beret peeking out of my purse. “Your turn. Bow, Lisa Marie—and I do mean Marie. Ahem. I now present you with the one-of-a-kind Flying Buttress Award for outstanding accomplishments in keeping a lifetime of promises to your dearest friend, renouncing fear with clear-hearted honesty, and assisting finicky eaters of random Parisian bistros by cleaning their plates!”
My beret was plopped in place and tilted a little to the right. The moment was sealed with a picture that I took of both of us by holding my camera at arm’s length and snapping.
Laughing and linking our arms, Amy and I turned to face the vast expanse that sprawled far, far below us. Paris was tucked under a blanket of light. And we were standing above her, looking down on her patchwork of twinkling diamonds from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
We both had waited a lifetime for this trip. This moment.
In unison, without prompting, Amy and I put our shoulders back, tipped our chins high, and with one mighty breath we held on to our berets and shouted, “Ooh la la!”
When I returned home, I unfurled all the details for my husband. I told Joel without a hint of shame that I had fallen in love in Paris twice. The first time was with Gerard. The second time I fell in love with God. I told Joel it wasn’t as if I didn’t already know God or trust Christ or believe that I was saved. I told him I’d come out of hiding, and that fear and shame no longer covered me. I was covered with grace.
Joel cried. I’d only seen him cry a few times.
Over the next few years, our marriage flourished as it never had before. My growing love for my heavenly Papa fueled me with an unending supply of love for Joel.
Amy lost another ten pounds and has stayed at that comfortable weight for the past two years. She and Shirleene made up packets of their special verses. Instead of Diet Verses Shirleene renamed them Soul Snacks and passed them out to all the women at the Lighten Up! aerobics class. The gang liked them so much they started a verse exchange the way some women do a recipe exchange. Each woman has a recipe file box where she keeps her verses and pulls out favorites once a month for the verse exchange.
I even participate. Not in aerobics, but in the verse exchange. I keep my box by the bathroom sink and have a frame by the mirror so I can change the verses once I memorize each one. Last week I told Amy I’d memorized thirty-seven of the Soul Snack verses. She said she had memorized fifty-two. I told her she was an overachiever. She said it took one to know one. I spent a whole day trying to find a verse that said, “Don’t get sassy with me, young lady,” so I could use that one for my next Soul Snack exchange. It turns out that isn’t actually a verse, like my mother always said it was.
The other fun change in Amy since our trip to Paris has been her biannual presentations to the French classes at the high school. I went with her the first time she gave her presentation of Paris, complete with pictures of the two of us. She started off with the account of our luggage riding off with the driver who stole the taxi and ended, not with the story of how she victoriously scaled the Eiffel Tower, but rather with the story of my goof at the local bistro and the sign that said, “Please place your dirty dishes here.” Amy gave the students the punch line in French. The quick ones, who did the translation in their heads, whispered the meaning to the others, and all eyes were soon on me as chuckles floated around the room. Yeah, I don’t go with her anymore when she does her presentations.
But I do go shopping with her. More often than we used to. Amy and I have both developed a funny little delight in yummy shoes that make us happy. No pair will ever take the place of my Paris Pinkies, as Amy now calls them. But we do have fun looking for a pair that comes close. And the pink purse is still in use. Jeanette borrowed it once and said she was proud of me for being so fashionable.
Probably the biggest change of all since our trip to Paris has been my involvement at church. I no longer help with the nursery. I came out of hiding, so to speak, and began to teach a class on Sunday for the teenage girls. They love the attention and having a group just for them so they can openly ask all their questions. A bunch of them come by the house every chance they get. I love being involved in their lives. I love speaking truth to them. I love watching some of them open up and step away from wrong thinking. The truth starts to shine like a light in their eyes when they see how tenaciously God has been pursuing them. Some of them have horrible situations at home. I love telling them how their heavenly Papa will neve
r leave them and never betray them.
Last Friday eight of the girls came over for a pajama party. I pulled out my beret and told them how this was the same beret I wore in our picture from the top of the Eiffel Tower. They looked at me as if I were the coolest middle-aged woman on the planet. Either that or the craziest. All of them want me to take them to Paris. Who knows? Maybe Amy and I will organize another adventure one of these days.
When I went into the kitchen to make popcorn, Amy’s younger daughter, seventeen-year-old Lizzie, followed me. “Aunt Lisa, what do you do if you really, really like a guy, but he doesn’t like you back the same way?”
My heart felt free. I looked her in the eye. “You have yourself a good cry, and then you go on. If you’re quicker than I was, and I know you are, you’ll transfer all those emotions to the only One who will never leave you. Love God first and the most. Keep your heart full of His light, and you’ll mend. You really will.”
Tears filled her eyes. “That’s what my mom says. But it hurts so much. She doesn’t understand that part. She said you would understand.”
I took her in my arms and drew her close. With a depth of love and honesty I’d not known or understood until my second trip to Paris, I gave my best friend’s daughter the gift her own mother wasn’t able to give. I cried a few tears of sympathy and whispered into her silky hair, “I know, Lizzie. I really do. But if you keep your heart open to God and to others, you’ll be okay. The hurt eventually will go away.”
She pulled back. “Do you promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
A thin trace of hope formed a Mona Lisa smile on her adolescent lips. She believed me because I was telling the truth.
Maybe one day I would tell her my story. But not that night. That night she was going to open up and tell me her story. I knew that when she did, I would be given the privilege of speaking truth over Lizzie the same way her mother had spoken truth over me in the City of Lights. That truth would continue to set free. Free to mend and free to love again.