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CHAPTER 1
Natalie
“Forget rugged cowboys, little cuz.” Annie’s eyes were on fire in a way I didn’t understand. “France invented romance. They live what we only read about in books.”
Those words changed my life.
Now look where I am. The city of love. Destiny kissing my cheeks, matchmaking me to my future.
Paris.
Nobody would have guessed that Natalie McBride, field hockey enthusiast and fourth-generation resident of Sage Township, Texas, would be strolling the streets of modern mythology.
Indeed, I can even pretend I didn’t just step in a giant dollop of dog droppings. Nothing a good swipe on the grass can’t fix.
Cool spring air fills my lungs as I take the deepest possible breath because I still can’t believe this is happening. The sounds of morning are an unlikely combination of chirping birds, accordion music, and honking horns.
Tiny cars and limos fly past along the wide boulevard as the morning rush hour rages. It’s not so different from Houston in that way. But it’s a far cry from Sage, population twelve thousand and forty-seven souls. Sage is the only place on the planet I’ve ever really known, which was precisely why I had to get out. For all my childhood, I barely knew there was a world beyond Sage Township.
That was before.
Before Annie Clayton, my first cousin ten years my elder, came home from a summer trip to Paris. I was thirteen then, and Annie had always been my favorite cousin. I admired the way she walked with her head held high, ignoring the kids who teased her for learning French. While most of us were playing hide and seek in haystacks, she strolled in long dresses with a scarf around her neck. She’d wink at me when I waved hello, always making me feel like I was more special than the other young cousins.
When she got home from Paris, most of Sage pretended like nothing had changed. But I saw something different in Annie, and secretly I was dying to know more. I’d always felt like Sage wasn’t my future, but I couldn’t imagine living like they do in movies. Everything felt too big, too scary, except for the quarterly trip with my mom to Houston for shopping and a haircut.
But Annie changed all that.
“Annie,” I said, kicking at the dirt as we walked to our beloved Gram’s place so she couldn’t see the desperation that rumbled inside me. “What’s so great about France anyway?”
She responded with a sigh in her voice. “What’s so great about France?” Then came her famous words: “Forget rugged cowboys, little cuz. France invented romance. They live what we only read about in books.”
She stopped me as we reached the winding driveway to Gram’s house.
“I’m in love with a man in France.”
“You’re what?” I asked like her words themselves were foreign.
“I’m in love, and I’ve got to find a way back to him. I’ll do it too.” She gestured along the stretch of County Road 72. “This is beautiful in a rustic way. But what I need is adventure. I can’t bear the quiet that sets in after seven in the evening. Not anymore. Not after what I’ve lived.”
“But—” She sounded totally different, no longer just the classy girl I looked up to. Annie had become a lady. There was so much I wanted to ask. “Leave Sage… forever?”
Annie took my shoulders in her hands, squeezing them tight. “It’s a big old world out there, little cuz, and it’s waiting for you. Don’t you forget it.”
In my mind, there was no getting out of Sage. Generations of folks had left for school, for work, for opportunity. But they always came back.
That’s what I thought ten years ago, until Annie broke wide open a big world waiting to be discovered.
I’m finally showing them. “Flaky Nattie” who was destined to take over the family tomato farm is no more. Now I’m “Natalie de Paris”, and I will make my way in this city. I will become one of those French ladies who struts her stuff without the least concern what anyone else things of her.
“BEEEEEP!” a tiny car honks as I step off the curb and I jump back. Paris is not exactly pedestrian-friendly. Sage feels a million miles away from the historic buildings and cafés with awnings that surround me now. It’s hard to believe two places so different can exist at the same time, but this moment is the living proof.
I wish Gram could have seen me now. She was the only one who understood my need to get out of Sage. She was a dreamer, but one who had her two feet planted solidly in the tomato farm soil. While she didn’t want me to ever leave, she also encouraged me to follow my heart, wherever it took me. God rest her soul.
“How to be French in a Hundred and One Rules”, the bulky book I bought in the airport on our arrival a month ago, is exactly what the doctor ordered. I felt like an alien descending in the city, and these rules are keeping me on the French straight and narrow. If I’m going to become one of them, and I absolutely must if I’m going to prove to them all back home that this year in France was worth it, this book is my first port of call. I try to read and internalize one rule a day. Also, it’s very French to walk down the street reading a book.
Rule #34 - Stop and smell the roses.
The gentle spring breeze nudges a big, fat pink rose in my direction. Very convenient. Does anything smell as divine as a rose in Paris in the spring?
