A Summer in Paris by Cynthia Baxter Page A

giving a reason or even saying good-bye, my grandfather, Marcel, was heartbroken. For a long time he simply threw himself into his work. He became very successful at his law practice, but everyone could see that he was very lonely.
    “Then a young actress came into his life. She was beautiful, they say, and the pictures I have seen of her bear that out. But she was much younger than he was—and, I have heard, after little more besides his money.” Pierre sighed sadly. “They were married for a short time, only a year or two. During that time, my father was born. Then, when Papa was just a baby, the woman simply disappeared.”
    “Disappeared?” Nina blinked. She was so fascinated by Pierre’s story that she didn’t even notice when the café’s owner set her lunch down on the table before her. “What do you mean, she disappeared? Where did she go?”
    Pierre frowned. “They say she ran off with a road company, some theatrical group. The man who ran it apparently offered her the lead role in a play that was about to tour Europe. She went off ... and was never heard from again.”
    “And your grandfather?” Nina asked softly. “How did he react to all this?”
    “Of course he was heartbroken. At least, he was at first. It didn’t take him long to realize that it was probably for the best. Yes, he made a few efforts to find her, but he soon gave up. He discovered that whatever feelings he had at one time felt for her quickly faded.
    “But his child—my father—was a completely different story. It seems that Grandfather doted on him from the very start. He hired a nanny to care for him when he was a baby, but he devoted every spare moment he had to his son.” Pierre shrugged.
    “Then my father grew up, got married, and had two sons of his own, me and my brother. And here we are.” With that, he reached for his own lunch and began to eat.
    Nina, however, was still too enthralled by the story Pierre had just told her to care about anything as mundane as food. “So your grandfather never remarried,” she said wistfully. “He was hurt twice, and he gave up.”
    “It is tragic, isn’t it?” Pierre agreed. He spoke slowly as he went on, as if he were being very careful to choose just the right words. “Nina, after you left his house, my grandfather and I had a very long talk. He told me about your grandmother, and how he was destroyed by their parting. It is true that having met you, having heard what really happened, has helped him.
    “But the fact remains that many years ago, two people who were deeply in love were separated by forces beyond their control. And my grandfather has never quite recovered from that.”
    “I don’t think my grandmother ever did, either.” Nina was picturing her as a very old woman, sitting in her garden with that lost, faraway look in her eyes as she lovingly tended her yellow roses.
    She was silent for a long time, lost in her own thoughts. When she finally glanced up, she saw that Pierre was staring at her. There was a strange look in his piercing blue eyes.
    “Nina,” he said, his voice hoarse, “there is something I have to say. I ... I am a bit confused right now. I find I am experiencing feelings I have never had before. I have this sense that you and I are heading toward something—”
    “Pardon, Mademoiselle,” the cafe’s owner suddenly interrupted, coming over to their table. “Is there something wrong with your sandwich? You haven’t touched it.”
    Nina glanced up at him. The concern she saw in the man’s face immediately drew her out of her dreaminess. The intense moment that had existed between her and Pierre had vanished. When she looked at him, she saw that he was looking down, suddenly shy.
    “Oh, no, Monsieur. The sandwich is fine,” Nina was quick to assure him. “We were just so busy talking.”
    As they ate their lunch, Nina and Pierre talked about meaningless things: the bad traffic on the streets of Paris, the possibility of a spell of hot