Paris Is Always a Good Idea by Nicolas Barreau

then suddenly came to a halt in bewilderment.

 
    Eight
    For two weeks Rosalie had been living on cloud nine.
    As she filled the postcard stand with fresh cards that morning, humming as she did so, she couldn’t help admiring the big poster that was hanging on the wall behind the till.
    It showed a big, blue tiger—the illustration from the title page of The Blue Tiger, the book that had appeared two weeks previously—and at the bottom of the poster you could see two faces, and, written beneath them, two names: MAX MARCHAIS and ROSALIE LAURENT .
    She smiled proudly and thought back to the reading that had taken place in Luna Luna three days before. Every seat in the little store had been occupied as Max Marchais presented his new book.
    And since the author didn’t like reading in public and Rosalie really did, he had gladly left that part to her and simply signed books and answered questions afterward.
    The audience had been enthusiastic. Even her mother had sat there, completely satisfied, and had come up to her daughter after the reading and hugged her with a happy sigh.
    â€œI’m so proud of you, my child,” she had said. “If only your father could have been here to see it.”
    The reading in the store had been set up by Montsignac, the jolly fat publisher. Montsignac thought it would be a nice idea if the book, after the extremely glamorous launch in the publishing house itself and some other events in major bookstores, could also be presented in the place where the illustrations had been produced.
    In his humorous introductory speech he had naturally not failed to mention that it had been he—Jean-Paul Montsignac, with his infallible nose for people and talent (“A good publisher immediately recognizes talent”)—who had brought these two lovable freelances together (those were his exact words, and Rosalie and Max had looked at one another in astonishment and then grinned conspiratorially).
    The publisher from Opale Jeunesse had every reason to be in a good mood. Since The Blue Tiger had appeared at the end of August on the very day of Max Marchais’s seventieth birthday, the book with its imaginative illustrations had already sold forty thousand copies, and anyone who believed that Max Marchais, the children’s author who had been living in seclusion for many years, had been forgotten by his readers had been proved wrong. Praised by reviewers, loved by readers great and small, the book had even been shortlisted for the Prix littérature de jeunesse .
    â€œWell, what a birthday present that is, mon vieil ami,” the beaming Montsignac had said, clapping his old companion on the shoulder. “There are some people who have to be forced to be lucky, eh?” And then he had burst into laughter.
    The vieil ami had not caught the reference, and so had smiled back, but the person who had beamed the most was Rosalie, who still couldn’t believe her luck. Since the launch of the book other publishers had also shown an interest in the young illustrator, and there was already a contract for a postcard book with ten different motifs. The demand for wishing cards had also mushroomed: many people came to Luna Luna because they’d read about it in the papers. If things carried on this way there would be no need to worry about rent raises, thought Rosalie with satisfaction. The only worry was how to cope with all the extra work.
    â€œYou should consider hiring someone to help you in the store,” René had said to her a few days before as she was sitting at her drawing table until late in the night. “You’re working round the clock these days. But everyone knows that the sleep you get before midnight is the most healthy.” And then, with a reproachful and concerned expression, he’d given her one of his lectures on the human body and what was good and bad for it.
    Good old René! In the last few weeks and months he really