Seven Letters from Paris Read Free Page A

initial connection, I sent Chuck some photos of me. In return, he sent a picture of himself roller-skating down the Santa Monica pier wearing a leopard-print banana hammock. And then as quickly as he skated into my life, out he skated again, proof that leopards—especially the kind that wear Speedos—never change their spots.
    Many years would pass before Chuck would contact me again. Somehow he managed to track me down at Syracuse University the summer before my family moved to London for my dad’s job, and he got in touch with me, asking if there was anything I needed. Why yes, came my reply. I told him of my plans to travel Europe, how I’d be working all summer waitressing to pay for the trip, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind donating two hundred dollars to my travel funds.
    â€œNo problem,” he’d said. “The check is in the mail.”
    For weeks, I stalked the postman. And every day was the same. He would watch my face turn from expectant to a look of pained disappointment. He’d do a little dance, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. My eyes would search his face for an answer. His voice was always apologetic—as if it was his fault he’d brought me bad news. The check never showed up and once again, Chuck disappeared from my life.
    I swore to write him off.
    But I didn’t.
    Always the optimist, or maybe the type who always goes back for some more pain and punishment, I gave Chuck one more chance to prove himself when my family moved from London to Newport Beach. Regardless of my feelings toward him, I couldn’t ignore my curiosity that summer. Chuck lived an hour away. The timing felt right. I was twenty-one, a bona fide adult, and the urge to meet this man face-to-face was strong. So I did what any red-blooded American girl would do. I called him.
    Amazingly, he answered. I asked him to meet me for lunch. He accepted my invitation and we agreed to meet at some trendy café. I swore my mother to secrecy, not wanting to upset my father, the man who raised me. It would be a clandestine meeting. The next day, I drove two hours on the hell that will always be the 405, to the 10, to Pacific Coast Highway, nervous to confront the man who was half-responsible for my creation. Surprise, surprise, there he stood outside the restaurant. He hadn’t blown me off.
    Over lunch, as he talked and talked—mostly about himself—I inspected Chuck like he was some kind of bizarre attraction at a freak show, trying to see if we shared any similar characteristics. Like mine, his eyes were blue, but they were darker, didn’t have the hints of green or the golden sunburst surrounding the pupils. His hair was also dark, curly, almost black, and his complexion was darker too. But the worst thing about him was his smile. Oh, the joy in his face made me nauseous. Who was this person seated across from me?
    Then Chuck did the unthinkable. He dragged me all over the restaurant, introducing me to people as his daughter . Sourness filled my mouth, my meal threatening to come back up. The man was a complete stranger. After I left the restaurant, I never spoke to him again.
    I had my answer. Little did I know, Chuck would influence the many bad decisions I’d made concerning the opposite sex. I’d developed a pattern—going after guys who didn’t want me, dumping the guys who did. If somebody liked me, there must have been something wrong with them. After all, my biological father, my own blood, had left me high and dry.
    Out of sight, out of mind. Before the Parisian fling with Jean-Luc could crush my heart into tiny little pieces, I returned to my studies at Syracuse University, never to be heard from again. I didn’t write Jean-Luc back because I liked him. Which, to me, made all the sense in the world—no risk, no broken heart. Instead of setting myself up for the fall of all falls, I avoided any kind of real intimacy.
    Now, twenty years