Rebecca was smoking a cigarette at a brasserie in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. She had always dreamt of moving to Paris, but she shared her dogs with her ex-wife, Hae Jung, back in New York and couldn't bear to part with them. She resigned herself to the City of Lights for her summer vacation instead. She took French classes at the Sorbonne every morning to keep busy, after which she went to the same brasserie.
Rebecca put out her cigarette and ordered un café crème. The waiter, a different one from usual, replied to her in English that he'd be right back. She was frustrated that her accent always gave her away. While part of her heart had belonged to Paris since her first visit in college, she missed the warmth of New York. Everyone said New Yorkers weren't friendly, but whoever said that had never been to Paris. We are impatient, she thought to herself, but kind.
Her phone went off and it was her friend Leo who she'd met on a sex app shortly after arriving in Paris. He took her to the David Hockney exhibit and a small concert afterward in Montmartre where he lived. He was easy to talk to and they had passionate, rough sex for several hours at his flat. She texted him that yes, she was still available to go to the sauna party tomorrow followed by an eggplant emoji.
Rebecca took out her book, a French biography of Princess Diana. She was oddly fascinated by the royal family drama, and by Diana in particular. It had started several years earlier, when she was still married, through an old friend who became addicted to Princess Diana documentaries during Covid. Part of Rebecca’s desire to spend so much time in Paris—aside from being an expat for thirty-one days—was that she wanted the time to sit and read leisurely. How she had envied people at sidewalk cafés sipping a glass of wine for over an hour, chain-smoking and getting lost in a book—an impossibility in New York.
Rebecca spent a lot of time reading since the divorce. Being an English teacher, it was natural that it was always her favorite activity. But Hae Jung said it detracted from their relationship and put limits on how much she could read. And growing up she was always taking care of her sister, which left little free time for anything else. Now she relished her newfound autonomy in every chapter she read. Of course, things would be very different if she hadn’t miscarried, but she wouldn’t think about that now, not that she ever did.
Several hours later, Rebecca reached the place she had avoided the entire trip—the base of the hill at the Temple de la Sibylle. She and Hae Jung had come here ten years ago when Hae Jung demanded they hike to the temple at the summit. Rebecca did not enjoy hiking then, that was something that came years later, but she conceded as always. She remembered Hae Jung glancing back at her when the path grew steep, then quietly slowing her pace, gently smiling and holding her hand. Voluntarily this time, Rebecca mounted the peak.
She was sweating but not out of breath as she was ten years ago- surprising given how much she was smoking this trip (Rebecca maintained that smoking in Paris was good for one’s health). She looked at the northeastern view, the same as it was last time- an azure skyline capturing Sacré-Cœur. Rebecca and Hae Jung had taken a picture in this very spot.
Rebecca had been wearing a Return of the Jedi shirt with her arms around Hae Jung and they both looked happy. Standing there with the memory of the photo, she began to cry without realizing. It wasn’t until she heard someone over her shoulder say, "Pardon, tu veux un mouchoir?" that she noticed the tears and thought that perhaps she had been wrong about all Parisians being rude.
She dried her eyes and knew she should head back to the metro. She had a queer women’s meetup group in the Marais that was starting soon. But she looked back at the monument and decided to walk over instead. There was a round bench inside, which she did not remember seeing last time. She instinctively sat down and faced west to the periphery of the park's lakeside and some distant rooftops. She felt in her bag for her phone to take a picture of the scenery. Instead, her hand grazed her book.
She looked at the title: Diana, la princesse du peuple. No one ever called Diana that in her lifetime; Tony Blair gave her the title posthumously at her funeral. But the name was pertinent: Diana was relatable and resilient. She was the first royal to openly discuss bulimia and infidelity. And she did, in the end, seek a private life even if she never got one.
Rebecca's fascination with Diana, up until that moment, had primarily been about how much of the Morton narrative was true or conspiracy theories about the princess being murdered by the Queen and MI6. But now, Rebecca felt a stillness settling over her. She turned back to the page where she left off that morning and kept reading.
Bio: Lesley Brown is a New York–based writer and English teacher. Her fiction explores emotional interiority, queer identity, and the aftermath of intimate relationships.