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We cross onto a crowded avenue, full of cinemas, outdoor cafés, all of them packed, and also a handful of s by the prices advertised on the sandwich boards Most of the signs say complet, which I’m pretty sure ht be able to afford if I were to exchange the last of my cash, about forty pounds

I haven’t been able to broach tonight with Wille He hasn’t seemed too worried about it, which has e bureau I tell Willee some money

"I have some money left," he says "And you just paid for the boat"

"But I don’t have a single euro on me What if I wanted to, I don’t know, buy a postcard?" I stop to spin a postcard caddy "Also, there’s drinks and dinner, and we’ll need soe to finish "Tonight" I feelout there as I wait for Wille But he’s looking over at one of the cafés, where a group of girls at a table see at him Finally, he turns back toOne of the him over "Do you know them?"

He looks over at the café, then back at me, then back at the restaurant "Can you wait here for a minute?"

My stomach sinks "Yeah, no problem"

He leaves me at a souvenir shop, where I spin the postcard caddy and spy When he gets to the group of girls, they do the cheek-cheek-kiss-kiss thing--three tih, instead of twice like he did with Céline He sits down next to the girl as gesturing to hi her hand on his knee He throws darting glances in my direction, and I wait for him to wave me over, but he doesn’t, and after an endless fivedown on a bit of paper and gives it to him He jams the slip deep into his pocket Then he stands up, and they do another cheek-cheek-kiss-kiss thing, and he strides back toa deep interest in a Toulouse-Lautrec postcard

"Let’s go," he says as he grabsto keep up with his long stride

"No"

"But you know them?"

"I knew them once"

"And you just randomly bumped into them?"

He spins toward me, and for the first time today, he’s annoyed "It’s Paris, Lulu, the most touristy city in the world It happens"

Accidents, I think But I feel jealous, possessive, not just over the girl--whose number, I suspect, he now has in his hip pocket if he hasn’t already transcribed it into his little black book--but over accidents Because today it has felt like accidents belonged solely to us

Willem softens "They’re just people I knew fro in Willeed, like a la before it burns out And it’s then that I notice the final and defeated way he says Holland, and it , not once has he said he was going hoht hitshome--or to Holland, where he’s from--for the first tio home, and there will be a crowd at the airport Back at my house, there will be a welcome-hoed to eat After only three weeks on a tour in which I was led around like a show pony, I’ll be given a hero’s welcoetting a hero’s welco for him?

"When ere at Céline’s," I ask him now, "did you call anyone?"

He turns to me, his dark eyes furrowed and confused "No Why?"

Because how does anyone know you’re delayed? Because how do they know to postpone your hero’s welco you?" I ask

Sohtest of moments, a slip of his jaunty mask, which I hadn’t realized was a mask until I see how tired, how uncertain--how much like me--he looks underneath it

"You knohat I think?" Willeet lost"

"I’ve got news for you, but I’ve been lost all day"

"This is different This is getting on purpose lost It’s soo into the o"

I can see what he’s doing He’s changing the scenery, changing the subject And I get that, in some way, he needs to do this So I let him "Like traveler’s pin the tail on the donkey?" I ask

Willeood that I forget not everything computes

"Is this about accidents?" I ask

He looks at ain But then just like that, it’s back in place It doesn’t matter It slipped, and I saw And I understand Willem is alone, like I auish as his or mine has opened up inside of me

"It’s always about the accidents," he says

Nine

I pick a doozy

Using the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey strategy, I close er on the benign-sounding Château Rouge