“Maman, your heart is beating,” said Madeleine. “Why does it beat so hard?”
Daisy kissed the top of her head.
“Cherie, don’t you know? It beats for you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Babs
Rue Volney
Paris, France
April 1964
My heartbeat thrummed as Drew and I walked through the streets of downtown Paris, the city’s rhythm absurdly uplifting, the colors, sounds, and people strange yet somehow invigorating. I’d always considered myself a country girl, and always would be, I supposed, but there was something about Paris. Something that altered one’s perspective, at least for a little while.
As we crossed the street before reaching the bookshop, he quickly grabbed my arm. A motorbike sped by, narrowly missing me as I was attempting to cross the street while looking the wrong way. Again. It made no sense that the French couldn’t be as civilized as the British and drive on the proper side of the road.
“Après vous, madame.” Drew had let go of my arm and was holding open the door to the bookshop and looking at me expectantly. Which is the only reason I could guess at the words he’d just butchered.
I smiled my thanks. “You know, Drew, I don’t believe the consonant s is meant to be applied to the end of some French words such as ‘après’ and ‘vous.’”
He paused a moment to consider. “Really? My French teacher never corrected me. Of course, I was also the first person to volunteer to help her clean the chalkboards and move desks when the other guys ran out of the door first chance, so maybe that’s why.” His grin revealed those startlingly white teeth. “I always got As in French.”
“Of course you did,” I said, moving farther into the shop as he shut the door behind us and I was enveloped in that lovely scent of paper and binding glue that pervaded libraries and bookshops and made me a little homesick. As a child when my brothers and Kit had somehow managed to evade me and escape the house on one of their adventures, and Diana was too involved in one of her personal dramas to notice me, my haven had been to curl up in my father’s library with a good book and become lost in a world where I could have adventures of my own.
Despite it being the middle of the day, the shop was mostly deserted. A young couple was pressed against one of the crowded shelves, their faces so close they were apparently more interested in each other’s pores than in the books behind them. I glanced at Drew and he gave such a perfect impersonation of the Gallic shrug that I almost laughed out loud.
Placing a hand on the small of my back, Drew led me to a high counter at the front of the shop in the triangle of windows. A large brass cash register sat regally in the middle of the countertop, surrounded by a chaotic mixture of books teetering precariously like children’s building blocks.
“Bonjour,” Drew said rather loudly, as one does when speaking to foreigners. As if the volume might compensate for the lack of proper pronunciation.
Before I could suggest that the consonant n is also usually silent, a young man popped his head up from behind the counter. “Bonjour,” he said a little warily, as if unsure of which language we were meant to be speaking.
“Do you speak English?” I asked in my best French.
His look of suspicion changed as he regarded me and my yellow spotty dress, his gaze lingering a little longer than necessary on the exposed skin of my chest before returning to my face. He was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, with dark curly hair and scruffy cheeks, wearing the ubiquitous black roll-neck sweater so common among the French youth as to be almost a uniform.
“For you, madam, of course.” His English was good although heavily accented. “How can I help you?” He directed the question to me, ignoring Drew completely.
Drew pulled out the folded piece of paper of notes from his father and checked the name. “We are looking for a Jack Laypin. Does he still work here?”
Both the young man and I looked at Drew in confusion. I gently took the note from Drew and read it myself. “I believe he meant to say Jacques Lapin. We understand that Monsieur Lapin was the bookseller here twenty years ago.”
“Ah, oui,” the young man said. “Sadly, he is no longer with us. He died some time ago. I run the bookstore now.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said. I looked at Drew, wondering what our next move should be now that our one connection to La Fleur was dead.
“But I am Philippe, his grandson. Is there something I can help with?”
Drew let out a heavy sigh. “Probably not. We were hoping your grandfather could tell us about someone who may have once been a customer during the war.”