Free Eternal Journey by Carol Hutton Page B

pair of blue tights and her favorite baggy, fleece-lined sweatshirt. By habit, she
     put back in the small white pearl earrings she always wore, and went downstairs to fix herself something to eat.
    The message light was flashing on the answering machine on Michael’s desk. She made a mental note to check it before she went
     to bed. She changed the discs in the CD player, and started toward the kitchen when the sounds of Smokey Robinson filled the
     room. Some people never age, she thought as she began moving along with the rhythm.
    As she opened the refrigerator to get the wine, the bottle of capers caught her eye. That was when she knew what she’d make
     for dinner.

    “What would you like for dinner, Annie?” Beth asked, once they had been seated at the restaurant recommended by the young
     American tourist. They relaxed on bistro-style chairs with bright blue-and-white-checked cushions. The menu was posted on
     a blackboard directly above Anna’s head.
    They had never expected to find such a delightful café on the ground floor of the Louvre. But they had, after an exciting
     but exhausting afternoon meandering through the west wing. It was one of those times when Anna wished she had paid better
     attention in college. She and Beth had taken an art history course in their last semester at the University of Maryland to
     fulfill some requirement, and Anna had relied on Beth’s notes and memory for detail, as she’d rarely attended the lectures.
     Springtime was not to be wasted, Anna would tell Beth as she went off to the driving range to practice her swing.
    Unfortunately, the final exam consisted of slides, not questions, and most of the photographs the professor showed were his
     own and not from the text book. The credit was all Beth’s. It was totally due to her extraordinary eye for detail and gift
     for description, and her dedication and insistence on making her friend study at all, that Anna got a C. At the time, Anna’s
     only concern about getting a decent grade had been to ensure her entry into graduate school.
    Back then she had never anticipated having an interest in, let alone a passion for, art. But here in Paris, the City of Lights,
     how could she not? Anna now regretted that she was so ignorant of the culture, the background, and the artists’ stories that
     lent color and life to each masterpiece.
    It had been Beth’s suggestion to tack Paris on to that special British retreat the two had enjoyed just three years ago. They
     had weathered the hectic drive on the M-2, pausing to ramble through the sites they had read about in
The Canterbury Tales
as they hurried on their way to the hovercraft that would take them from Dover to Calais.
    Anna and Beth rode the train from Calais to Paris, where they would be staying in a very posh hotel on the Right Bank. Neither
     of them had been to Paris before, and Anna had been prepared not to like it. So many stories about the French people, from
     both her British and American friends, made her wary of the trip. Once they were settled in at the hotel, however, and started
     walking down the Champs Élysées, Anna fell in love with Paris. No matter that it was bitter cold and overcast, hardly the
     April in Paris depicted in all the brochures; Anna absolutely adored the city. While London had theater, Paris had—well, everything
     else.
    Anna and Beth wandered around Paris from dawn to midnight for three days, seeing more in that time than most people do in
     a week. They were debating whether their legs would carry them a few more hours so they could venture to the top of the Eiffel
     Tower. It was six o’clock on their last evening in the city. As they sat in the small café in the Louvre, they acknowledged
     that it was a bit early to dine by Parisian standards, but as Beth reminded Anna, who cared what people thought?
    That morning Anna and Beth had gone to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was magnificent. They’d spoken in whispers, or not at all,
     as