“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Where?” I asked, not caring about the time.
“We’ll have to cab it. I think it’s far from here.”
“Where?” I asked again.
“Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.”
“And what is the Père-Lachaise?” I asked, butchering the pronunciation. A chuckle built in her throat.
“You’ll see,” she explained, hailing a taxi.
She told the cabbie where to go in French and that earned her a place even closer to my side. Twenty minutes later, we’d arrived.
“It’s a cemetery,” I said gazing out the window.
“That it is, but not just any cemetery. This cemetery has a few famous bodies resting inside.”
“Who?”
“Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison. And that’s just who I can remember off the top of my head.”
“That’s pretty cool, but how are we possibly going to see anything?” I asked, paying the driver.
“I always carry a flashlight in my bag.”
“Why am I not surprised by this?”
“Got me. First stop? Oscar Wilde!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only one I know how to find.”
“This is rather adventurous for us. Cemetery. Night.” I accidentally kicked a pebble beneath my shoe and January jumped. “Sounds.”
“I think it’s romantic,” she said, squeezing herself into my side.
“That too,” I agreed, kissing the top of her head.
The tomb was fairly near the side entrance we snuck through and it was...odd. I’m not kidding. It looked nothing like I thought it would. A seemingly solid slab, the side had a simple winged sphinx or maybe angel, depending on how you looked at it, carved into its side. It was shockingly contemporary in look and feel. Personally, I didn’t like it, not for Wilde anyway. I mean, it was an unbelievably beautiful piece of art but for someone who lived and spoke aesthetics, it was too plain.
“Why is it barricaded?” I asked, running my palm up the glass fence surrounding the tomb.
“I kind of remember reading something about women kissing the sides of the tomb to the point it was deteriorating.”
“Get out.”
“I’m serious. We women can be a bit zealous at times.”
“Is that so?” I teased, tucking her in to me as we perused the cobblestone paths along the tombs.
“If you think that’s bad, you should hear the story behind Victor Noir’s grave.”
“And what’s that?”