Paris Affaire

Paris Affaire is a love story with an unforeseeable ending that will knock you out of your chaussettes. It's the story of a young Parisian poet and his Angel in the City of Lights. They are both Parisian, but from opposite sides of the M tro tracks, so to speak.

Marc, 23, is a handsome, sensitive young poet and rebel struggling to survive (as a taxi driver, bar tender, lawn mower, bookstore clerk) while writing vignettes and cascades of lyric verse.

Emma, 30, is a wealthy, beautiful, classy faculty wife and former fashion model whose husband has abandoned her emotionally, is a paleontologist on a long term assignment in Australia, is playing around with not only ancient bones but also fresh young ones in the clubs and on the beaches of Sydney or Melbourne. Lately, he has called from thousands of miles away to tell her he has found another girl, and is making long-distance noises about divorcing Emma.

Emma, who looks ten years younger, an ageless beauty, has been alone too long. She has been faithful, living in her family's expensive and rambling, empty apartments in the City. When Marc happens into her life, they both click instantly. They run to each other's arms with passion, joy, and hunger.

Together, Marc and Emma live in a bubble without time, where the clocks have no numbers but the seconds and minutes are sweeping toward some inevitable encounter with fate. In the meantime, they pursue love with all the joy and faith in their youthful hearts. But there is always a shadow of trepidation that their happiness in Paris may not last.

He is her artist and she is his angel. Together, they make music along the same boulevards and streets that still bear haunting strains of Ravel or Debussy and verses of Verlaine or Apollinaire. Countless great artists have come here for centuries to walk in the covered passages and drink from fountains of inspiration. Can Marc and Emma overcome the differences that fate has thrown between them? Will their love last forever or just the one year told in this story?

This is a young people's story - quirky, happy, poetic, literary, sad, reckless, joyful. It's a roller coaster ride of emotions leading to an ending you will not see coming in a million years. Nothing lasts forever - not in Paris, not in this life. As the French say: C'est la vie. That's life. Enjoy every minute, every hour to the fullest. And be prepared: hold on to your socks, because other trains are on their way to this station, other eyes and faces linger thoughtfully in rainy windows, looking wistfully forward to... the surprise of your life. And it was there all along. If we could just read the telegrams along the way. But we can't, and that's part of our destiny, and why life is so filled with surprises. dith Piaf sang, "...I regret nothing..."

Author's Note: The story actually has two endings. Written long ago in Europe by a U.S. author of European-U.S. roots, the original had a rather melancholy ending a la The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The final story, completed in San Diego recently, has a more contemporary upbeat ending that will knock your socks off.

Read the story, treasure it, tell your friends. Come visit the *parisbookshop* website (or: www booksaboutparis com) for more info and lots of titles (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, and more) dedicated to the City of Light.