Paris Is Always a Good Idea by Nicolas Barreau Page B

arrived.
    â€œWhat occasion?” she asked in some confusion.
    â€œBollinger,” he answered drily. “There is something to celebrate!”
    â€œBut it’s not your birthday yet!” Rosalie had said in surprise, quickly glancing at the calendar to make sure. Marchais’s birthday was the last day in August, and that was two weeks away.
    â€œWhat … my birthday?” he’d said in the indignant way she had come to know so well. “Childish nonsense! Now … are you free?”
    â€œBut why—”
    â€œIt’s a surprise,” he said in a voice that allowed no contradiction. “And wear something pretty: we’re going somewhere really high class. I’ll pick you up in a taxi.”
    *   *   *
    HE’D INVITED HER TO Le Jules Verne. Le Jules Verne of all places! Rosalie had been too awestruck to react appropriately.
    â€œI hope you don’t find this hopelessly old-fashioned,” Max Marchais had said somewhat apologetically, as she entered the restaurant at his side, dressed in a plum-blue wild-silk dress. “I don’t know what’s in in Paris these days.”
    â€œOld-fashioned? Are you crazy? Did you know I’ve always wanted to eat up here?” Her eyes shining, Rosalie had walked over to the table with its white cloth that had been reserved for them in the window and looked out over the lights of the city. The view was breathtaking. She hadn’t known that it was so beautiful.
    Behind her a soft tinkling sound rang out. A black-coated waiter was carrying a silver champagne bucket over to their table; it contained a dark-green bottle of Bollinger with its gold label, in a bed of thousands of fragments of crushed ice. The waiter dealt skillfully with the bottle, releasing the cork from its neck with a gentle plop . After they had sat down and the waiter had poured the champagne into their cut-glass flutes, Max pulled something out of his briefcase: it was wrapped in a paper bag and looked suspiciously like a book.
    He put the package down on the table, and Rosalie felt her heart begin to pound. “No!” she exclaimed. “Could that be … already? Could it be?”
    Max nodded. “The book,” he said. “I was sent a prepublication copy yesterday, and thought this would be the perfect occasion to drink a toast with you, my dear Rosalie. In Bollinger, as you wished. Excuse all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. But I thought it would only be right to celebrate this occasion alone with you.”
    They raised their glasses and clinked them. The clear ringing tone resounded for a moment above the murmured conversations of the guests at the other tables. Max Marchais smiled at her. “To The Blue Tiger ! And to the wonderful way that he brought us together!”
    Then Rosalie had carefully unwrapped the book, stroked the shining cover, which showed an indigo-blue tiger with silver stripes and a friendly catlike grin, and leafed through the pages with appropriate reverence. It had turned out exceptionally beautifully, she thought. Her first book! So that’s what it felt like. Rosalie could have sung for joy.
    â€œAre you satisfied?”
    â€œYes, very,” she replied happily. “Very, very satisfied.” She leafed back to the title page once more.
    â€œI’d like you to write something in it for me,” she said—and that was when she first saw the dedication: FOR R .
    â€œOh, my goodness!” she said, turning pink with joy. “That’s incredibly nice of you. Thank you. Gosh—I just don’t know what to say.…”
    â€œDon’t say anything.”
    Rosalie was so overjoyed at this proof that she was appreciated that she almost didn’t notice the old man’s embarrassment as he looked at her with a peculiar smile.
    *   *   *
    THE EVENING WAS A long one, with delicious food, and when the bottle of Bollinger was