First Sight Read Free Page B

after her divorce.
    She stood quietly near a wall, watching people drift by carrying their bags, on their way to customs. As an American, with an entire clothing collection in tow, they had to go through immigration and customs as well. They had documents exempting them from duty and tax, although it was unlikely anyone would open any of their bags or trunks. They had paid five thousand dollars in excess baggage, which was roughly what they always paid, moving the collection from New York to London to Milan to Paris, and then finally back to L.A.
    As Timmie smoked her cigarette, she kept thinking how far she had come from her beginnings. Staying at the Plaza Athénée in Paris was second nature to her now, and felt like home, but she had come a long way to get here. She never lost sight of that, and was often grateful for her achievements and blessings, and her serendipitous beginning, all those years ago at the coffee shop. It had been a long, long road from there to Paris, as she stood in her vintage mink jacket, wearing a large diamond bracelet on her wrist, which a few passersby noticed as she smoked. She was so casual about it in spite of its size, that it was hard to guess if it was fake or real. She absentmindedly pulled the elastic out of her hair, and her long curly red hair cascaded past her shoulders. She looked like a young Rita Hayworth in all her glory. Timmie looked nowhere near her age, few people would have guessed that she was forty-eight. At most she looked forty, if that. And in her case, it wasn’t due to any special caution or attention, it was just good genes and blind luck. She hated exercise, had no need to diet, and rarely used beauty products. She splashed cold water on her face, brushed her hair, and brushed her teeth, and that was it.
    Her eyes drifted to a young mother, struggling to get her bags off the conveyor belt. The woman had an infant strapped to her, while a two-year-old girl holding a doll clung to her skirts, and a boy who looked about four argued with his mother, and finally burst into tears. Both mother and son looked exasperated and harassed. Timmie noticed that the little girl was beautifully dressed. The boy was wearing short pants and a navy jacket. The mother looked tired as she struggled with the bags, and the little boy continued to cry. He wasn’t having a tantrum, he was just upset. And without thinking about it any further, Timmie reached into the pocket of her jacket where she had a stash of lollipops that she liked to suck on whenever she had to draw. It kept her from smoking, and was a habit she’d always had. She pulled out two of the lollipops, and approached the mother of the crying boy. They were obviously French. Despite Timmie’s passion for all things French, she had never learned the language, except for a few cursory words. She usually got by with gestures and smiles, and the driver she always used in Paris usually helped her out. This time, she was on her own. She managed to catch the mother’s eye, showed her the lollipops, without the children seeing them, and smiled a questioning, shy glance.
    “Oui?” she asked. The woman understood her, and hesitated. She looked Timmie over carefully, and was about to say no, as the children turned around to observe her. With her free hand, Timmie gently stroked the boy’s fine, carefully cut Dutch boy hair, which surprisingly was the same color as hers, or the color hers had been at his age. Timmie’s had settled into a burnished copper over the years. His was more carrot-colored, and he had the same pronounced freckles she had had in her youth. The little girl was blond with big blue eyes, as was their mother. The baby had no hair at all, and was observing the scene peacefully with a pacifier in her mouth, which was keeping her quiet. The two-year-old was sucking her thumb, seemingly unaffected by her brother’s tears.
    The mother nodded then, having seen Timmie’s unconscious gesture, as she gently stroked the