She laughed and did a little twirl for my benefit. She was wearing a thin, silk dress with an open back in a fantastic navy blue that made her blue eyes look a little lighter. Her hair was shorter now, falling to just above her shoulders in a stylish bob.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
We started our walk down to the pier where our boat cruise was scheduled to leave. It was a fifteen-minute walk, but both Natalie and I loved walking the streets of Paris. On the way, Natalie kept getting distracted with all the little corner stalls and shops by the street side.
“Tommy would love that,” she said, pointing to an intricate model of an old-fashioned tricycle. “Let’s stop and get it for him.”
I glanced at my watch and smiled. “All right.” I nodded. “You have five minutes.”
Except five minutes was never five minutes with Natalie. She kept seeing more items she wanted to purchase, and soon I was following her around the cramped little shop trying to rush her along.
“What do you think about this?” she asked, dangling a pretty star-shaped necklace in front of my face.
“I think we’re going to be standing at the port, watching our dinner leave without us.”
She shot me a stare. “Don’t you think Sophie would love this necklace?”
“You’ve already bought Sophie a gift,” I reminded her. “And anyway, this is our anniversary trip. We’re not really expected to bring anyone presents.”
“I like getting everyone presents,” Natalie said, turning back to the arrangement of necklaces. “Besides, you know Tommy and Annie will expect something.”
“That’s because you spoil them,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and ignored me. “Annie’s birthday’s coming up, too… We have to get her something extra special.”
“See?” I said. “There you go again, spoiling them.”
“Tommy’s my only nephew, and Annie’s my only niece,” Natalie defended herself. “It’s my job to spoil them.”
I sighed. “Fine, how about this for her birthday?” I suggested, pointing to a large ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Natalie looked at me as if I’d gone crazy. “She’s turning four, not forty.”
I laughed. “I’m going to turn forty by the time you’re finished here.”
She laughed. “Okay, okay, I’m done,” she said, heading towards the counter to pay.
We got to our dinner cruise just in time and were ushered in by a waiter who led us to the private cabin we had requested. The moment we sat down, I felt myself relax. I remembered the first time we had sat down to a dinner like this. It was during that trip that I realized that I had just unwittingly fallen in love for the first time in my life.
I reached out for Natalie’s hand in the same moment she reached for mine, and I realized she was experiencing the same sentimental feelings I was.
“Do you remember the first time we were here?”
“Of course.” I nodded. “It was winter.”
“That was over five years ago,” she said, shaking her head. “I was only twenty-one. I can’t believe it sometimes… It feels like life’s been going by so fast there’s barely any time for me to sit back and savor it.”
“You haven’t been able to savor it?”
“Well…not as much as I would like to,” Natalie corrected herself. “It’s just that, after, I graduated we moved in together. Then we spent that summer traveling…you remember?”
“Like it was yesterday,” I nodded. “A week in Indonesia, Thailand, and China. Then it was Belarus, Finland, and Sweden.”
“That trip was so exhilarating. It was life-defining for me,” Natalie said.
“Was it?” I asked. “What about it was defining for you?”
“I suppose I realized that my life had just begun and even if I never got to travel again for as long as I lived, it wouldn’t matter. Because I’d have you.”