The questions prick at my brain, but I do my best to shove them aside.
I read until we’re not far from Gare du Nord, and then I stare out the window as the train rattles to a stop in Paris.
Growing up, I visited this city with my family many times. It’s the place where I fell in love with art. Catching the metro, I make a beeline for the Musée d’Orsay in the heart of Paris.
As I buy my ticket, I wonder if I will feel what I did at sixteen—that sense of inevitability, that certainty I’d found my calling, my passion.
The lions greet me and feel instantly familiar, like old friends. I meander through galleries I know by heart, visiting the Toulouse-Lautrecs, the Monets, my favorite Van Gogh—his Portrait of Dr. Gachet. The doctor’s coat practically shimmers. He always seems both thoughtful and amused. But I’m never sure which it is, and my impression of him varies by the visit.
Perhaps that’s why I chose to study art. It feels alive for me, rich with history and tales. The paintings and sculptures all tell their own stories if you slow down to listen.
I pay my respects to all my old friends, the ones who inspired me more than twenty years ago to carve out a career in this field. One by one, gallery by gallery, I visit them all.
And each time I pause, I ask myself the same question.
What’s next?
Mostly, I get the same answer, and that’s good.
By the time I’ve visited the last Degas, I haven’t spoken a word to a single person. It’s been blissfully quiet, and I’m in my own world.
There’s only one person I miss.
But she’s across the ocean, perhaps finding her own answers as to what’s next in her life and her career.
As evening falls, I leave the museum, head to a nearby brasserie, and order a glass of white wine and a niçoise salad. I dine alone at a sidewalk along the Seine, reading my book, taking photos.
I’m okay.
I’ll be okay.
And as I dine alone, I have the answer.
I’ve found the way.
If I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s how to find my own contentment. I’ve found it in books, in art, in photography.
And in my own two feet that take me wherever I want to go as I explore wherever I am. I suppose I am still curating—only now I’m curating photos of beautiful things. That’s a new form of art and art doesn’t have to be in London.
I didn’t think it was my place to tell her what I’d do for her when she hasn’t decided what she wants for herself.
It’s a hard thing to wait on someone you love. To give them the space to figure out what they want.
But it turns out I needed this space too. It’s given me all the clarity I didn’t have last night.
And so I plan to tell her what I’d do.
I walk along the river, back to the metro then to Gare du Nord. The train returns me to my home city after midnight. It’s two miles to my flat and the air smells of late spring, so I walk.
Just as I turn onto my street, a small, red car pulls up.
A woman with a suitcase places her bag on the curb.
My chest constricts. Does the suitcase mean she’s staying or going? I don’t know, but I’ve found my way. Time to tell her.
27
JO
My knee bounces as the Lyft driver weaves through the streets, blissfully empty at this hour. I want to speed up time, leap across the city, and arrive at his flat.
Knock on the door.
Ring the bell.
Whatever I have to do.
I didn’t call or text because I want to surprise him. I want to tell him in person everything I’ve realized over the last fourteen hours. Everything I had to fly across an ocean to see and hear and feel.
All the wild, surprising things — I love the job I have and I love him, and I want to love London.
Well past midnight, the driver sails onto Heath’s street and pulls to the curb.
“Thank you,” I say, my eyes lasered on the door of Heath’s building, my phone in my hand to tell him I’m here. But out of the corner of my eye, I catch the profile of a man coming this way on foot.
He’s tall, handsome, with a stubbled jaw, strong cheekbones, lush lips. Kind, soulful eyes I can read even in the dark. But his eyes aren’t on me inside this car. He’s scanning the street, taking everything in.
He’s always doing that.
Observing. Seeing. Cataloguing.
Even his own neighborhood, which he knows so well. I imagine he’s been looking for the thing out of place. A new poster at a bus stop, a magazine left behind on a bench, a flower growing on a tree-lined corner.