“I know. But trust me, the best is yet to come.”
He took her hand again and led her toward a door that opened onto another staircase.
“Are we going to see the lake?”
“You Brits are very odd. Do you really think they’d put the lake on the top floor?”
Mia looked through the doorway. “Those steps could have led down!”
“Well, they don’t. We’re headed up these steps. There is no lake—it’s just a reservoir of water in a concrete tank. Otherwise, I’d have brought my snorkel and flippers.”
“In that case, what’s the raincoat for?” Mia asked, annoyed.
“I told you: you’ll see.”
As they were climbing an old wooden staircase, they heard a thunderous rolling sound. Mia froze with fear.
“Don’t worry. It’s just the stage machinery,” Paul reassured her.
When they reached the final landing, Paul pushed the panic bar on a metal door and ushered Mia through.
She found herself looking out at a walkway that spanned the rooftop of the Opera, offering an absolutely stunning view of Paris.
She swore out loud, then turned to Paul.
“Go ahead,” he told her. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute.”
“Why would you come all the way up here if you can’t even take a look?”
“So you could. There isn’t another view like this anywhere in the world. Keep going—I’ll wait for you here. Take a good look. There aren’t many people lucky enough to see the City of Light from this vantage point. One winter night, you’ll be sitting by the fireside in an old English manor and you’ll be able to tell all your little great-grandchildren about the night you saw Paris from the roof of the Opera. You’ll be so old that you won’t even remember my name, but you’ll remember that you had a friend in Paris.”
Mia watched Paul as he clung to the door handle. Then she walked out over the rooftop. From where she stood, she could see the Madeleine church and the Eiffel Tower with its roaming searchlights. Mia looked up at the sky like a child who is convinced she can count every star in the heavens. Then she looked over at the skyscrapers in the Beaugrenelle district. How many people were eating, laughing, or crying behind those windows, each looking as tiny as those stars twinkling in the vast firmament above? Turning around, she saw the Sacré-Cœur perched on the hill of Montmartre and spared a thought for Daisy. The whole of Paris lay stretched out before her. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her whole life.
“You can’t miss this.”
“There’s no way I can make it out there . . .”
She went back to where Paul was standing, took off her scarf, and tied it around his head, covering his eyes. Then, holding his hand, she guided him along the walkway. Paul walked as if he were on a tightrope, but he didn’t resist.
“I know it’s selfish,” she said, removing the blindfold, “but how could I tell all my little great-grandchildren about this moment without having actually shared it with my Parisian friend?”
Paul and Mia sat on the ridgepole and admired the view together.
A fine rain began to fall. Mia took off her raincoat and spread it over their shoulders.
“Do you always think of everything?”
“I try. Now . . . can you please take me back?” he asked, softly pulling at her scarf.
Two security guards awaited them at the foot of the stairs. They escorted Paul and Mia to the director’s office, where three police officers stood, arms folded.
“I know, I went against what you said,” Paul said to the director. “But we didn’t do any harm.”
“Sorry—do you know this man?” asked Officer Moulard, the highest-ranking police officer in the room.
