Seven Letters from Paris Read online

  And I never wrote him back.

  Not one word.

  Pas un mot.

  Ghosts from the Past

  My God, what an idiot I’d been. Punctuated with passion, Jean-Luc’s letters still heated my soul twenty years later. So why hadn’t I written him back in 1989? I needed to find the answer. By searching my past, I figured, maybe I could figure out my future—because I didn’t want to live the rest of my life in a passionless marriage or become a meanspirited, coldhearted spinster. If there was ever a time to change everything in my life, it was now.

  Setting Jean-Luc’s letters aside, I jumped up from my seat and turned on every light in the apartment. Ike lifted his big head, a look of irritation crossing his face. My furry old kid, complete with a graying muzzle, slowly stretched his way off the ottoman. He shot me another “look” before dragging his paws down the hallway, the effect sounding as if he wore fuzzy slippers. And there it came—the creak. He’d jumped onto the bed in the guest room—our bed, since I had moved out of the room I used to share with Chris.

  I sat on the couch, questions gnawing at my brain: Why would a married woman keep so many letters that supposedly meant nothing to her? Did I really care that much about what the other sex thought of me? Had I needed to keep mementos to prove I was loved? As if to answer me, a card fell to the floor. I picked it up. My hands shook with disgust and disappointment. It was from my biological father, Chuck.

  A crazed man with blue eyes and dark, curly hair stood in front of a comically oversized cake under a Happy Birthday banner, holding a gun to his head. Guests surrounded a table, all in exaggerated death poses, tongues hanging out, eyes rolled back. Chuck had written a banal message on the inside of the card, closing the note out with “Well, here’s the birthday card I modeled for. Love you.”

  Granted, it was better than the other birthday card he’d sent a few years later, the one with a woman dressed in a trench coat and lacy lingerie—the printed text reading, “Play with it again, Sam.”

  I pushed both cards face down into the folder, questioning whether to throw them out. Truth be told, I was questioning everything.

  My husband had always accused me of having “abandonment issues” because of Chuck—or as I called him, the Mother Chucker. Suffice it to say, I’d always harbored a deep resentment for my biological father. Anybody of sane mind would. After a year and a half of marriage, he left my mother and me for another woman. Stole the car. Drove off into the California sunset. Left the door to our apartment open so the cats escaped. Didn’t even leave a note. I was six months old, jaundiced and colicky. My mother was twenty-one years young, fearful of her future. Even worse, the Mother Chucker’s family wrote us off too, cutting off all correspondence.

  Still, life went on for my mother and me—and it was a much better life. When I was six, she married the man I proudly call my dad, Tony. As a precocious five-year-old, I probably played a tiny role in his decision to marry us when I looked up at him with wide blue eyes and asked, “Will you be my daddy?” And no, my mother did not prompt this question. It was all me—a little girl who wanted to complete the family circle.

  Tony accepted my proposal and Mom married him one year later. I wore my hair in Shirley Temple ringlets to their wedding. Our life was great, no, fantastic, all rainbows and marshmallows and unicorn-perfect, or at least, it was to me. Chuck wasn’t around to veto the judge’s ruling, and my dad formally adopted me when I was ten.

  Two months after my adoption had gone through, my mother gave birth to my baby sister, Jessica. Thanks to Peter Mayle’s book Where Did I Come From?, I knew enough about the facts of life when I stated matter-of-factly, “Dad is going to love her more than he loves me. She’s his real baby. And I’m not.”

  Then I burst into tears.

  Mom and Dad sat me down and explained that just because my dad didn’t make me during one of his happy sneezes (as depicted in the book) it didn’t mean I wasn’t his real daughter. Love didn’t come from just DNA. I was still jealous of the attention my sister received but, for the time being, the issue had been resolved. I forgot about my adoption, my old last name. I was a Platt and proud of it.

  Until the day I was reminded I wasn’t born a Platt at all.

  Which brings me back to Chuck.

  Deadbeat daddy-o first made contact when I was twelve years old—right when I was in the throes of puberty, right at the time I didn’t fit in. As if life wasn’t confusing enough. Naturally, his wish to get to know me upset my mother, but she gave me the choice to speak with him or not. Curious about my origins, I’d hoped to get some answers. Like, why? Why did he leave my beautiful mother? Leave me? Yet I was too nervous to ask these questions.

  Soon after this first phone call, the gifts arrived—a red suede coat from Saks and a pair of diamond earrings. Like that could make up for never paying child support. In eighth grade, I lost one of the earrings. A jealous classmate destroyed the jacket; the blue pen marks scribbled on the back of it couldn’t be removed.

  After he made this initial connection, I sent Chuck some photos of me. In return, he sent a picture of himself roller-skating down the Santa Monica pier wearing a leopard-print banana hammock. And then as quickly as he skated into my life, out he skated again, proof that leopards—especially the kind that wear Speedos—never change their spots.

  Many years would pass before Chuck would contact me again. Somehow he managed to track me down at Syracuse University the summer before my family moved to London for my dad’s job, and he got in touch with me, asking if there was anything I needed. Why yes, came my reply. I told him of my plans to travel Europe, how I’d be working all summer waitressing to pay for the trip, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind donating two hundred dollars to my travel funds.

  “No problem,” he’d said. “The check is in the mail.”

  For weeks, I stalked the postman. And every day was the same. He would watch my face turn from expectant to a look of pained disappointment. He’d do a little dance, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. My eyes would search his face for an answer. His voice was always apologetic—as if it was his fault he’d brought me bad news. The check never showed up and once again, Chuck disappeared from my life.

  I swore to write him off.

  But I didn’t.

  Always the optimist, or maybe the type who always goes back for some more pain and punishment, I gave Chuck one more chance to prove himself when my family moved from London to Newport Beach. Regardless of my feelings toward him, I couldn’t ignore my curiosity that summer. Chuck lived an hour away. The timing felt right. I was twenty-one, a bona fide adult, and the urge to meet this man face-to-face was strong. So I did what any red-blooded American girl would do. I called him.

  Amazingly, he answered. I asked him to meet me for lunch. He accepted my invitation and we agreed to meet at some trendy café. I swore my mother to secrecy, not wanting to upset my father, the man who raised me. It would be a clandestine meeting. The next day, I drove two hours on the hell that will always be the 405, to the 10, to Pacific Coast Highway, nervous to confront the man who was half-responsible for my creation. Surprise, surprise, there he stood outside the restaurant. He hadn’t blown me off.

  Over lunch, as he talked and talked—mostly about himself—I inspected Chuck like he was some kind of bizarre attraction at a freak show, trying to see if we shared any similar characteristics. Like mine, his eyes were blue, but they were darker, didn’t have the hints of green or the golden sunburst surrounding the pupils. His hair was also dark, curly, almost black, and his complexion was darker too. But the worst thing about him was his smile. Oh, the joy in his face made me nauseous. Who was this person seated across from me?

  Then Chuck did the unthinkable. He dragged me all over the restaurant, introducing me to people as his daughter. Sourness filled my mouth, my meal threatening to come back up. The man was a complete stranger. A
fter I left the restaurant, I never spoke to him again.

  I had my answer. Little did I know, Chuck would influence the many bad decisions I’d made concerning the opposite sex. I’d developed a pattern—going after guys who didn’t want me, dumping the guys who did. If somebody liked me, there must have been something wrong with them. After all, my biological father, my own blood, had left me high and dry.

  Out of sight, out of mind. Before the Parisian fling with Jean-Luc could crush my heart into tiny little pieces, I returned to my studies at Syracuse University, never to be heard from again. I didn’t write Jean-Luc back because I liked him. Which, to me, made all the sense in the world—no risk, no broken heart. Instead of setting myself up for the fall of all falls, I avoided any kind of real intimacy.

  Now, twenty years later, I hoped it wasn’t too late to put a stop to the cycle. I’d been so afraid of falling in love I’d never truly done it.

  With nothing to lose, I made a decision.

  I was going to apologize to Jean-Luc.

  Letter Two

  Paris, July 30, 1989

  My Lady and Sweet Samantha,

  Your souvenir from France is missing you very much. Everything in me misses you. I want so much to share my time with you that this letter links us together. I am in front of the paper as I could be in front of you—talking with you, but unfortunately not able to exchange touches and kisses. Every time I leave my apartment, I wonder if you are calling me from Nice without me being able to get to the phone. It’s quite an unpleasant feeling.

  If you had stayed, in a couple of days, I would have been able to show you the fabulous French castles and Normandy—a souvenir to your patriots who came forty-five years ago to be killed on the beaches. I would have liked to have shown you Paris and France through French eyes, for you to understand our way of life, different from the bread and wine bottle under the arms. Through the knowledge of France, it’s me I want you to know. Every Frenchman’s life is tightly linked with his nation’s history.

  Sam, I want you to know I feel like a kid writing a letter to his first girlfriend. In my life, I’ve known lots of girls, but few I’ve really liked or even loved. Don’t think that I’ve got (as we say in French) a “sugar heart,” that I fall in love with every girl I meet. It is really not my way of life. But it’s so marvelous to care for someone, to share thoughts, to live for someone else. Life is great.

  Sometimes funny things change your life with the strength of a hurricane. You don’t know how or why, but it does. I like to write when I feel my heart beating on every word.

  I am a boy from the sea, heated by the sun of Provence, but your heat is greater and makes my blood boil in every part of my body. My brain, usually cool, is burning in such a matter that I don’t recognize it. You are a witch on the run from Salem, aren’t you?

  Samantha, believe me when I said I felt so well with you, so well loved in your arms. Your tenderness toward me showed me we were in harmony.

  Our adventure is not of a tourist meeting a stranger in a foreign capital. It wasn’t my purpose since the beginning. You are the Sam I cherish. I hope you share my feelings. In your blue eyes, I want to be lost for a long, long time.

  Avec amour et désir,

  Jean-Luc

  The Love Blog

  Now, it wasn’t like I thought Jean-Luc had been pining away for me all these years, sitting around in some Paris flat, crying out, “Oh, Samantha, you broke my heart! I’ll never fall in love with another woman. Why didn’t you write me back? Why? Why? Why?”

  First of all, if he’d said those words, they would have been in French. Second, he probably wouldn’t even remember me. Third, I was fairly certain that he was a player—after all, he was an attractive, smooth-talking Frenchman. Honestly, he could have written dozens upon dozens of letters to other girls.

  This did not change my mission.

  By apologizing to Jean-Luc, I was facing myself one regret at a time, making amends with my past—a kind of twelve-step program for the emotionally disabled. First on the agenda: find him.

  I sat at the dining room table with my laptop, opened up a browser window, and plugged his name and occupation into the search bar. Of course, I didn’t know if professionals in his field actually called themselves rocket scientists, but it was a start.

  I held my breath and…

  Forty-two thousand results showed up—the first listing being Jean-Luc Picard. Now I’m no Trekkie, but I knew my Jean-Luc wasn’t captain of the USS Enterprise. Had he been wearing the adult-sized, tight-fitting maroon and black onesie when I met him in Paris, our relationship would have turned out a lot differently…meaning it never would have happened. This minor glitch, however, did not leave me discouraged. How many French rocket scientists could possibly have shared his exact name?

  Well, his last name, anyway.

  Using a little trick I’d learned to pare things down, I Googled Jean-Luc’s full name in quotes. Once again, I clicked on search. This was much more promising at thirty-nine results. I clicked through each and every one, which included reading a PDF dissertation relating to the aerospace industry. What was a high-enthalpy hypersonic project? Entry and reentry to and from the Martian atmosphere? I may not have understood one word I’d read, but beam me up, Scotty. A modern-day Mata Hari, I’d tracked down my rocket scientist.

  My limited comprehension of what he did for a living put aside, I now found myself in even more of a conundrum. I couldn’t just shoot off some arbitrary message. What would I say? “Dear Jean-Luc, you may not remember me, but I’m the somewhat neurotic woman you met twenty years ago in Paris. You wrote me seven beautiful love letters. I never wrote you back. Well, I just want to apologize. Sorry, it wasn’t you; it was me. Hope all is well, Samantha.”

  No. Definitely not.

  Considering how overdue my response was, I needed to do something more, something special, maybe even a little poetic. Tracey’s idea about the love blog began to look good, with some major—and I mean major—tweaks. Forceful as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, the idea charged into my brain. I called Tracey to put the kibosh on her million-dollar idea.

  “I thought about Jean-Luc’s letters today,” I began. “And there’s no way I’m posting his letters online so we can compare them to others.” I wasn’t exactly breaking the news gently, but at least I got to the point quickly. “Trace, I came up with something a little bit different.” Excitement made my voice quiver. “Your idea about the love blog wasn’t so bad. In fact, it inspired me.” I caught my breath. “I’m going to write a seven-post blog, the same number as the letters he wrote me, recounting our time in Paris. Then I’m going to send the link off to Jean-Luc along with my delayed apology.”

  I’d half-expected her to belt out Timbaland and One Republic’s song “It’s Too Late to Apologize” to add some shock value. She didn’t. “I’m so glad you’re taking some initiative. After all, I only came up with this whole ‘Love Blog’ thing to kick your mind into a better place.” She paused. “You needed a good kicking.”

  Regardless of Tracey’s true intentions, her plan worked. Suddenly, Jean-Luc and his letters were all I could think about. The memory was pure happiness, and I needed more. “Please, find the photos from our trip,” I begged. “I’m dying to see them.”

  “Not seeing those pictures won’t harm you one bit, but by staying in your marriage, you’re killing yourself. So when are you going to leave Chris?”

  And I’d always thought I was a “till death do you part” gal. “When the timing is right.”

  “The timing will never be right.”

  “It’s just so hard to leave. Staying is easier. My confidence is shot.”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen,” she said. “Stop making excuses.”

  When my best friend had turned into a relationship guru, I’d never know.

  That evening, be
fore I went to bed, my husband called. We talked for a few minutes. Nothing out of the ordinary. He told me about his trip. My voice was chipper enough, but my thoughts were elsewhere. He told me he missed me. He’d see me in a few days. Out of habit, I told him I missed him too, couldn’t wait to see him. Guilt weighed me down like an iron suit I couldn’t shake off. I didn’t miss him.

  Not at all.

  In the beginning, I’d been attracted to my husband’s entrepreneurial spirit, his drive and dedication, his quirky sense of humor. He had a nice house on Chicago’s north side with a spectacular garden and a beautiful magnolia tree. I was a twenty-seven-year-old optimist and thought we could build our future together. For the first couple of years, we’d been the clichéd happy couple, hosting dinner parties and going out on the town, taking amazing trips. But after a couple of failed businesses, things changed. He began comparing us to other couples, friends of his or mine who had bigger houses, made more money, had kids. I opted for sleeping in the guest room with my dog, blaming my husband’s buzz saw snoring for the room change. Behind closed doors, the facade of the happy couple was stripped down until only anger (him) and resentment (me) were left.

  We hung up. I pulled up my blog and I wrote the first post. I didn’t have any passion in my current life, but at least I could relive the glory days of my past. Swept away in my Parisian adventure, the first post was followed by the second, my fingers taking on a life of their own. I called my sister and gave her the URL. I alerted a few other friends via email.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about Jean-Luc?” my sister Jessica screamed into the phone the next morning.

  “Jessie, it’s not as if we shared things back then. Eight-year-olds don’t give out the most stellar relationship advice.”

  She snorted. “So that’s why you never confided in me?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “But the times have changed.”

  Really, when it all came down to it, there wasn’t much dissimilarity between a thirty-nine-year-old and a twenty-eight-year-old—especially when the former is a bit crazier than the latter. Whereas I was definitely my mother’s daughter, Jessica had our dad’s more pragmatic mind. Still, our age difference wasn’t as important as it had been in the past, especially since she’d experienced a bit of life herself by now.