Free Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! by Robin Jones Gunn Page B

of his Vespa!”
    “Yes,” I said, still not seeing the cause for so much emotion.
    “A year ago if someone would have made me an offer like that I would have thought they were making fun of me!” She burst into a fresh round of tears.
    “Oh, Amy-girl!” I wrapped my arms around her. “Youdid a superb job losing all that weight. You should be flattered that he offered you a ride.”
    “I am flattered.” She pulled back and wiped her tears. “That’s just it, Lisa. Don’t you see?”
    I was having a hard time seeing anything through my hazy brain at that moment. I handed her another tissue. Amy blew her nose and dabbed away the final tears. “This is what I always dreamed of you and me doing.”
    “What, blowing your nose at midnight on a Paris street corner?”
    “No, being here. Together. Coming to Paris. We did it! We’re here! But I didn’t expect to be this old when we finally showed up. Don’t you see? We’re here, but we’re old. It’s all so wonderful and so tragic at the same time.”
    “I know.” I gave her my most sympathetic smile. But I knew something Amy didn’t. Age had nothing to do with the aching that had overtaken my forty-five-year-old friend. Paris was equally exhilarating and tragic when I was twenty-two.
    I said, “There’s something about this city that breaks your hope into a thousand pieces and then stands back and watches as you cut yourself trying to gather up the shards.”
    “Ooh,” Amy said pensively.
    “Yeah. Ooh or ow, whichever the case may be. Come on.” I put my arm around Amy’s shoulders. “We’ll both feel better after we get something else to eat and get somesleep. Why don’t we walk across the cobblestones, sit down at that café, and order some food?”
    “I’m too tired to try to order in French. I think I’ve used up every French word I know.”
    With no decision-making skills between the two of us, Amy and I ended up back at the creepy convenience store where we ignored the brooding man at the register. We left with bottled water and two oranges. We also bought contact lens solution for Amy, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and what we hoped was roll-on deodorant. It was either deodorant or a spot remover for clothing. At that point, we didn’t care.
    As we entered the hotel, the night desk clerk politely greeted us and asked if we met with success at the police station.
    “No,” Amy told him.
    He didn’t look too surprised, which was not very encouraging.
    We rode the tiny elevator to our fourth-floor room in silence. At least the room was a nice size, and the twin beds looked inviting. I ate my orange and brushed my teeth with the chalky toothpaste.
    “I miss my things.” Amy sat on the edge of her bed, rubbing her bare feet. “I wouldn’t make a very good player on
Survivor.
” She finished her orange and then went into the bathroom to wash up.
    “What am I going to do with my contacts?” she moaned.“At home the travel boxes of solution come with a lens case. This one doesn’t. Why is everything so complicated?”
    “Amy, just put them in the drinking glasses and get some sleep. We’ll figure all this out in the morning when we can think straight.”
    We turned out the light without a kind word between us and fell asleep in our clothes.
    When I woke, it was daylight, but I refused to open my eyes. I had been dreaming I was in a Jerry Lewis sort of movie that took place at a sidewalk café lit up in twinkle lights. A bunch of Johnny Depps in dark-rimmed glasses were racing around on Vespas. Amy was waving to me from the back of one of the scooters that I think was being motored about by Michael Nesmith, the tall Monkee with the stocking cap. A uniformed police officer stood in the middle of a busy intersection holding up a white-gloved hand and blowing a whistle. I didn’t know what people were saying in my dream because oddly, or perhaps expectedly, the dream was in nonsensical French phrases.
    I drifted in that floaty,