"Take your frickin' books and go outside and sit at a caf�. In the sunlight. Or the moonlight, I don't care which. Just get outdoors and suck some good pollution-ridden air into those wasted, consumptive, nineteenth-century lungs of yours. Surround yourself with people, for God's sake."
"But I do see people," I began.
"Leonardo da Vinci and Quentin Tarantino don't count," she interrupted.
I shut up. Georgia got up and laced the strap to her tiny, chic handbag over her arm. "It's not you who is dead," she said. "Mom and Dad are. And they would want you to live." Chapter Two
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" MAMIE ASKED, STICKING her head out of the kitchen as I unlocked the front door.
"Georgia said my lungs were in need of Paris pollution," I responded, slinging my bag across my shoulder.
"She's right," she said, coming to stand in front of me. Her forehead barely reached my chin, but her perfect posture and regulation three-inch heels made her seem much taller. Only a couple of years from seventy, Mamie's youthful appearance subtracted at least a decade from her age.
When she was an art student, she had met my grandfather, a successful antiques dealer who fawned over her like she was one of his priceless ancient statues. Now she spent her days restoring old paintings in her glass-roofed studio on the top floor of their apartment building.
"Allez, file!" she said, standing before me in all her compactly packaged glory. "Get going. This town could use a little Katya to brighten it up."
I gave my grandmother a kiss on her soft, rose-scented cheek and, grabbing my set of keys off the hall table, made my way through the heavy wooden doors and down the spiral marble staircase, to the street below. Paris is divided into twenty neighborhoods, or arrondissements, and each one is called by its number. Ours, the seventh, is an old, wealthy neighborhood. If you wanted to live in the trendiest part of Paris, you would not move to the seventh. But since my grandparents live within walking distance of the boulevard Saint-Germain, which is packed with caf�s and shops, and only a fifteen-minute wander to the river Seine's edge, I was certainly not complaining.
I stepped out the door into the bright sunlight and skirted past the park in front of my grandparents' building. It is filled with ancient trees and scattered with green wooden park benches, giving the impression, for the couple of seconds it takes to pass it, that Paris is a small town instead of France's capital city.
Walking down the rue du Bac, I passed a handful of way-too-expensive clothes, interior decor, and antiques stores. I didn't even pause as I walked past Papy's caf�: the one he had taken us to since we were babies, where we sat and drank mint-flavored water while Papy chatted with anything that moved. Sitting next to a group of his friends, or even across the terrace from Papy himself, was the last thing I wanted. I was forced to find my own caf�.
I had been weighing the idea of two other local spots. The first was on a corner, with a dark interior and a row of tables wrapped around the outside of the building on the sidewalk. It was probably quieter than my other option. But when I stepped inside I saw a line of old men sitting silently on their stools along the bar counter with glasses of red wine in front of them. Their heads slowly pivoted to check out the newcomer, and when they saw me they looked as shocked as if I were wearing a giant chicken costume. They might as well have an "Old Men Only" sign on the door, I thought, and hurried on to my second option: a bustling caf� a few blocks farther down the rue.
Because of its glass facade, the Caf� Sainte-Lucie's sunlit interior felt spacious. Its sunny outdoor terrace held a good twenty-five tables, which were usually full. As I made my way toward an empty table in the far corner, I knew this was my caf�. I already felt like I belonged here. I stuck my book bag under the table and sat down with my back to the building, securing a view of the entire terrace as well as the street and sidewalk beyond.
Once seated, I called to the waiter that I wanted a lemonade, and then pulled out a paperback copy of The Age of Innocence, which I had chosen from