Paris, My Sweet by Amy Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

(such as the seventh arrondissement’s Moulin de la Vierge), gelaterias (Il Gelato in Saint-Germain), and Anglo-American eateries (H.A.N.D. in the 1er). Throwing a soirée or just feeling especially gluttonous? Batches of custom-order cupcakes are gladly supplied by Sugar Daze and Sweet Pea Baking, two American bakers who have been supplying Parisians with frosting-topped treats for years.

You wouldn’t know it from the hyperactive social life I’d left behind in New York, but I’ve always been a closet introvert. After my parents’ divorce, I spent so much time alone. If Chris and I weren’t parked on the couch, watching back-to-back episodes of The Brady Bunch or hours of Billy Idol, the Go-Go’s, and Bananarama videos on the new cable channel called MTV, then I’d lock myself in my room and focus on my new passions: journaling and writing poetry. I became good at withdrawing inside my head.
    After years of being on the go in New York, I was once again relishing peace and solitude in Paris; I was having a relationship with me . I could binge on Top Chef for hours (and, all too frequently, did), cocoon myself in a warm café with a juicy novel, or take off on a Vélib’ for a pastry-sampling mission any time I wanted. Having so much freedom was almost as seductive as the city itself.
    That said, after a couple months as a foreigner, with no post-work happy hours, no groups of girls gathered for cocktails, no delicious tête-à-têtes , no titillating first dates, and not being able to just let loose in a gush of words—in English —I was practically ready to explode with my unexpressed thoughts, observations, joys, and frustrations. I was hungry for conversation and companionship. When friends and family started making plans to visit me, I practically wept with relief.

    I knew the upcoming girls weekend I was planning with AJ and our three other best friends was going to be brilliant. From the time of bad perms and acid-wash jeans, AJ, Julie, Elisa, and Meredith were my soul sisters. We had all graduated from the same high school two decades earlier. We’d been through first dates and heartbreaks, driver’s ed, and art history exams. When everyone scattered to different states for college, we sent each other off with teary good-byes and mixed tapes of Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, and the Indigo Girls. Many years and miles later, we were just as close—and just as cheesy.
    Meredith, Julie, and Elisa were married with two kids. But, impressively, it didn’t stop them from saddling their husbands with child care duties for a long weekend every year so we could all get together. We made a point of doing getaway weekends as often as we could, and my living in Paris was the perfect excuse for a spring fling.
    But while I was researching good restaurants and bars for the girls weekend, my mom and stepfather became my maiden visitors to Paris. My brother Chris and his family lived just a couple hours north in London, where he worked for a British consulting firm. Now that I was in Paris, it was the perfect excuse for Mom and Bob—two typical, conservative all-Americans—to visit their grandkids in one world-class European capital before making their way to another. So early one Friday morning in late April, instead of Vélib’ing to work, I took the Métro four stops to Gare du Nord and awaited my first visitors.
    Being rush hour, the station was abuzz with commuters, travelers, and—pigeons. People talk about the minefields of dog poop in Paris and warn you about the pickpockets on the Métro, but they never breathe a word about how insane the pigeons are. Every time I sat on a park bench or café terrace, the filthy creatures had no qualms about hopping around my feet and hovering dangerously close to my head. When I was Vélib’ing, they’d play chicken, daring me to run them over before ascending in a dirty flap of wings at