The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elizabeth Adler Page A

Holland,” she said, licking chocolate off her fingers. “So now I’m going to Paris. Alone. And that’s that.”
    Vannie removed the plate of cake from in front of her. “You don’t need that many calories for comfort. And did you ever think of those little words
I’m sorry?
An apology might be all it would take. After all, you were in the wrong.”
    But Lara shook her head. “It’s over,” she said with such a note of finality in her voice they knew it was true.
    â€œThen the hell with it, there’s no time to be wasted.” Delia slid her feet into her sandals and pushed back her chair. The others stared inquiringly at her. “Well, we can’t let Lara go to Paris looking like this, can we?”
    They turned to inspect Lara, blushing in her old Rolling Stones sweatshirt and ancient jeans, hair a mess and not even a touch of lip gloss.
    Lara stared down at herself. She knew she was dowdy, shuffling into middle age. Then Delia hauled her to her feet. “You’re up against a sex symbol in a doctor’s white coat,” she told her firmly. “Think
ER.
You can’t win. Not without some sexy new clothes. Get your skates on, girls, we’re going shopping.”

CHAPTER 13
    T he new clothes hung in Lara’s closet, the shoes and sandals neatly stacked underneath. The expensive handbag was still wrapped in its own smart little cloth cover, and the new underwear, or rather “lingerie,” was quite different from the cotton kind she usually wore, all lace and thongs. The thongs had shocked the hell out of her but Delia had said, “This is a Second Honeymoon, and even if you are going on your own, you never know what might happen.” She had held up the miniscule bit of lace. “This thong may turn you around,” she added solemnly. Lara looked questioningly at her. “In the nicest sense of the word, of course,” Delia added with a giggle.
    Personally, Lara thought her butt looked big in a thong and, besides, she doubted she would ever get used to the way it felt, but the Girlfriends had been so eager, so pleased to give her the makeover. Smartening her up. But for whom?
    Bill had not called her back. And neither had Dan Holland. In a few days’ time she would be leaving for Paris. She would be staying, all alone, in a lavish room at the Ritz—the same hotel she and Bill had stayed in on their honeymoon as a gift from her mother. She would dine in solitary state at a famous Michelin three-star restaurant. She would drive, alone, through the Loire, looking at châteaux, staying in thesame little inns, eating in the same cafes and bistros she and Bill had eaten in together.
    She would picnic alone by the lake near Limoges, where she and Bill had fed the ducks. She would stay, alone, in that little hotel near Bergerac with the Dordogne River lapping at its walls, and from where you could watch the swans floating past your bathtub. She would drive across country to Avignon, gateway to Provence. She would explore the hill villages. Alone. Stay in an old farmhouse and dine, alone, on stuffed zucchini blossoms and Cavaillon melons awash in sweet Baumes de Venise wine.
    Alone, she would plunge south to the coast, to the Riviera. She would stay in the same places, sunbathe on the same beaches, linger in cafes in the blue, blue evenings. Alone.
    She didn’t want to go.
She didn’t want to go so bad that she was already reaching for the phone, prepared to cancel. Then she looked at the new clothes, remembered her own confident words to the Girlfriends.
    She touched the little diamond necklace that she still wore at all times, the talisman that was supposed to bring Bill back to her. Bill was not coming back, but still, she did not take it off. Was she still hoping? Despite the way she felt about Dan Holland?
    Â 
    Dan had not been out of her thoughts for more than a few minutes ever since he had left her. He was in