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Carol walked to her apartment in Le Marais, anxious to relieve the babysitter. She’d give her a big tip, Carol decided—keep the masses happy. She walked on the streets, not just cobbled but cobbled Parisian style, in a scallop pattern, to make the streets more elegant, more pleasing to the eye.
The falcon haiku she’d written tonight was good, she thought. It expressed her new life sans Jeffrey. She was in a storm, a tumult of emotion. A couple strolled in front of her, holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes. A stab of worry ran through her: would she ever find a man who wouldn’t turn out to be like Jeffrey, with his critical attitude? And Jeffrey made love like a squid. She worried about her tendency to date men like him. Unless all men were like him? No, that couldn’t be true. Generalities were for idiots, weren’t they.
She couldn’t help but watch the couple closely, looking for the snake in their Garden of Eden. They puckered and kissed as they walked very slowly. Then they pulled their lips apart and smiled. No snakes in their garden, at least not tonight.
A Northern European breeze that had strayed from the Seine wafted down Rue Pavée and lifted the hair off her brow. As it tickled her, she thought she was quite pleased with the writers’ circle. Strange that John, the least likely to be literary, had the best ideas in the whole group for her writing. She’d better not tell him. He was quite full of himself as it was. Though he’d seemed subdued tonight.
