On the Brink of Paris by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel Page A

in PAREE?” cried Janet.
    â€œWhat?” I added.
    â€œWhen?” asked Charlotte, who was now exhibiting somewhat milder symptoms of hypnotization as she squinted up at the building.
    â€œThree, maybe four hundred years ago,” Bonnie said.
    Charlotte, Janet, and I simultaneously paused with our mouths open in prequestion gape.
    â€œFour hundred,” Bonnie clarified, having been given some quiet time for thought.
    â€œWow,” I said, trying to look casual and impressed at the same time. “Do they still forward your mail?”
    Charlotte, meanwhile, was flipping rapidly through her guidebook.
    â€œOkay, okay, here it is!” Charlotte said. “The Hôtel de Sens. It houses a fine-art collection. It was named for the archbishop of Sens.”
    â€œIt’s a hotel?” I asked. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Bonnie lived in Paris four hundred years ago in a HOTEL?
    â€œ Hôtel can also mean private mansion or important building,” Charlotte said. “It says the Hôtel de Sens is one of only three medieval-era residences left in the city.”
    I couldn’t stop staring at Bonnie. And it wasn’t just because she’d made this outrageous statement or led us straight through a city we’d never been in before directly to a building none of us, not even Charlotte, knew existed. I was staring at her because I believed her, and that might possibly indicate that I too had gone as nutty as a half-baked fruit loaf.
    â€œI told you I had a past life in Paris,” Bonnie said to me.
    â€œI know,” I said. “I just sort of thought it was…you know…a EUPHEMISM.”
    â€œIt was built in 1475,” Charlotte added.
    â€œAre we going in?” I asked. Bonnie shook her head.
    â€œNot necessary, man,” she said. “I want to remember it the way it was. The past is past.”
    And then she turned and walked on, just like that.
    â€œFinally!” Janet cried. “First café we see, we’re stopping!”
    â€œLily,” Charlotte whispered conspiratorially.
    â€œWhat?” I whispered back.
    Charlotte discreetly showed me a page of her guidebook, shielding it like it was a naughty magazine or a subversive publication.
    â€œLook at this,” she said.
    The page was devoted to the Hôtel de Sens. It had a picture of the outside view and a few shots of the interior courtyard, which looked…well, medieval.
    â€œYeah, that’s definitely the one,” I said.
    â€œNo, here! This!” Charlotte whispered.
    â€œIn 1605 the first wife of Henri the Fourth, Queen Margot, lived in the Hôtel de Sens,” I read.
    â€œShhh!”
    Now I admit, math is not my strong point. But I realized what Charlotte was pointing out. The year 1605 was more or less four hundred years ago. Which might just make Bonnie…royalty.
    Bonnie, once again, was in the lead.
    â€œFollow that queen,” I murmured.
    Â 
    We’d found a café with outdoor tables near the metro stop, and we were lounging back, our tummies bulging with pleasure. Janet had finally obtained her drink. After several futile attempts to communicate her desire for un Coca diète, the waiter finally inquired in perfectly good English if she meant a Coca Light.
    In spite of the warm weather, Charlotte, Bonnie, and I had opted for what we’d heard was a fabled drink of mythical proportions: the French hot chocolate. We were rewarded for our daring by the appearance of three soup bowl–size servings of a deep brown liquid that seemed part drink, part meal. The first sip confirmed what we’d heard. I made a sound like a cat that had found a way into a fish market. Charlotte’s eyes actually rolled back in her head. And Bonnie, whom I’ve seen looking peaceful more times than I can count, looked so serene, she appeared to be levitating several inches out of her chair. We were spoiled for life. We would never find