“I know. It's a long story.” She was not going to explain to him, with subtitles, that she had been conceived on her parents' honeymoon in Paris. “Do you have all your bags?” she asked him pleasantly, still trying to figure out who was who. But if he was Belmont, the other two were obviously his assistants, although one of them looked old enough to be his father.

“We have everything,” he said in heavily accented but coherent English. “We have very little bag, only cameras,” he explained and pointed, and she nodded. There was something vastly charming about him. She wasn't sure if it was the accent or the hair or the earring, or maybe the smile. She kept wanting to laugh every time she looked at him. And the red-headed boy looked like a baby, and was in fact Jean-Pierre's nineteen-year-old cousin. Belmont himself was thirty-two, Paris discovered later, but looked nowhere near it. His whole demeanor and style was that of someone infinitely younger. He was the personification of charming, outrageous youth and totally Parisian.

She told him she would be back in a minute with the car, and left the three of them with a porter, and five minutes later she was back, and the two assistants and the photographer himself proceeded to pack her station wagon with such speed and precision that it looked like some kind of puzzle. And moments later he was in the passenger seat, the two others were behind them, and they were on their way to the city.

“We go to the hotel or to see the bride girl now?” he asked clearly.

“I think they're expecting you a little later. I thought you'd like to go to the hotel first, rest, eat, shower, and get ready.” She said it carefully and clearly as he nodded, and seemed very interested in his surroundings. He spoke to her again a few minutes later.

“What do you do? You are secretary… assistant… to the bride mother?”

“No, I plan the wedding. Bixby Mason. Flowers, music, decoration. We hire all the people to do the wedding.” He nodded, having understood what her function was in the scheme of things. He was quick and alert, and extremely lively. And as he looked out the window, he lit a Gauloise, papier mais, with bright yellow paper made from corn, and a pungent smell like no other filled her station wagon.

“Ees okay?” he asked politely after it was lit, remembering that Americans weren't nearly as amenable to smoking, but Paris nodded.

“It's okay. I used to smoke a long time ago. It smells nice.”

“Merci,” he said perfunctorily, and then chatted with the others. Although she spoke a little French, she had no idea what they were saying. They spoke far too quickly. And then he turned to her again. “Ees a good wedding? Beautiful dress?… Good?”

“Very good,” she reassured him. “Beautiful girl, beautiful dress. Handsome groom. Beautiful party. It is at the Legion of Honor Museum. Seven hundred people.” The Delacroix family controlled an enormous French textile industry and had moved to San Francisco during the Socialist regime, and then stayed there, to protect their fortune from French taxes. But they still spent as much time in France as they could get away with.

“Big money, yes?” he inquired, and Paris smiled and nodded.

“Very big money.” She didn't tell him, but they were spending two and a half million dollars on the wedding. More than respectable, to say the least.

She drove him to the hotel without further ceremony, and arranged at the hotel desk for someone to pick up their van and deliver it to them. All they had to do was show their driver's licenses and sign the papers. She handed Jean-Pierre Belmont a map of the city, and showed him on the map where they had to be at six o'clock.

“Will you be okay?” she asked, as he blew a cloud of smoke in her face inadvertently, and someone at the desk asked him to put it out. He found an ashtray full of sand a few steps away, and came back to Paris at the desk. “Call me if you need anything,” she said, and handed him her card. He was going to be doing portraits of the family and the bride.

He relayed everything to the others then, waved at her, and they disappeared into the elevator to find their rooms, as Paris went back outside to her car. Being around Jean-Pierre was like being in a whirlwind, with arms waving everywhere, hands gesticulating, clouds of smoke, and snatches of conversation with the others that she didn't understand. There were lots of exclamations, facial expressions, and through it all he never seemed to stop moving with his big brown eyes and spiky hair. He looked like one of Meg's friends, except everything about him was so French. And at the same time, although he looked young, he seemed very much in command. She could still smell his corn-wrapped cigarettes when she got back in her car and drove back to the office, to pick up her messages and a last file.

Bix was still there, and he looked up when she came in. “Everything go okay?” She nodded, glancing at her messages. Everything was on track for that night.

“Fine,” she reported, and then told him about Jean-Pierre Belmont. “He looks about twelve. Well, not quite, but close.”

“I figured he'd be older than that,” Bix said, looking surprised, and she nodded.

“So did I. He's very French. Too bad Meg has a boyfriend, he'd be fun for her.” But she wasn't sorry really that Meg had Richard. He was so wonderful to her. They'd been dating for almost three months, and Meg was ecstatically happy.

Bix and Paris were both at the Delacroix house that night, overseeing a family dinner for thirty people, as people started arriving from France. And Paris stood in a back corner to watch the portraits being done. Ariane Delacroix looked exquisite when she posed in her wedding dress, which no one else saw. The bride looked like a tiny fairy princess, and laughed when she saw Jean-Pierre smile his outrageously contagious smile. When he caught sight of Paris, he winked at her, and then went back to work, as his assistants alternated cameras, and changed film for him. He took several family portraits. And when the bride went upstairs to change into a dinner dress, to pose for a photograph with her mother, he stopped for a minute to talk to her.

“Would you like a photograph?” he asked Paris formally, since no one else was around, and she shook her head quickly. It would have been terribly unprofessional, and she would never have done that.

“No, no, thanks.” She smiled.

“Beautiful eyes,” he said, pointing to her green eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, and as he looked at her, she could almost feel an electric current run through her. It was exactly the opposite of what she had felt, or hadn't felt, for Malcolm Ford. She couldn't even talk to this man, and he looked about half her age, but everything about him was masculine and electric, and he had a visceral effect on her. She could never have explained it, nor wanted to. There was nothing gentle or subtle or cautious about him. Everything about him was bright and vibrant and bold, from his brilliant eyes to his spiky hair, to the diamond in his ear. And when the bride and her mother came back, he went back to work again and Paris disappeared. But she felt almost shaken as she left the room, as though she had touched something and gotten a severe electric shock.

“You okay?” Bix asked as she walked by. He thought she had an odd look on her face.

“Yes, I am,” she said, and they met again once the family and guests had gone into the dining room, and Jean-Pierre and his crew were leaving too. He smiled at her, and she had never had such a flirtatious look from any man. And certainly not one her own age.

“Pretty hot,” Bix commented, which was the perfect word for him. “In my youth, I'd have gone berserk over him,” he said, and laughed, as Paris did the same.

“In my old age, so would I,” Paris said. She was teasing, but nonetheless it would have been impossible not to feel the energy that emanated from the young photographer from Paris.

And for the next few days, their paths crossed constantly. He was always at work, crouching at people's knees, or hanging from somewhere, nearly falling off a staircase, or inching toward a face. He was in constant motion, yet every time Paris was in the vicinity, he made eye contact with her. And as the bride left the wedding, he finally seemed to unwind for an instant, and then walked over to where Paris was standing.

“Very good!” he said. “Very, very good marriage! Beautiful photographs … beautiful decor … et les fleurs !” The flower arrangements Bix had designed were beyond belief. They were all roses and lily of the valley, and exquisite tiny flowers Paris had never even seen before. They had been flown in from Africa and France and Ecuador, at outrageous expense. But the Palace of the Legion of Honor had never looked more beautiful. The lighting Bix had organized was spectacular and worthy of Versailles. And as she and Jean-Pierre stood there under a starry sky at two in the morning, she wasn't even tired. “We go for a drink?” he asked, and she was about to say no and then nodded. Why not? He was leaving in a few days anyway. She knew he was going to stick around to take some shots in San Francisco, although she also knew that his assistants were leaving the next day. “I go in your car?” he proposed, and she told him she'd meet him out front in ten minutes.

She told Bix she was going, and he was about to leave too. All the members of the family had left, and there were only a few stragglers left. Neither he nor Paris needed to stay.

“It was terrific, wasn't it? We did a hell of a job.” Bix beamed, tired but pleased.

“No, you did. All I am is the shepherd, and the organizer of details. You're the genius behind all this, Bix.” He kissed her and thanked her, and then she left to retrieve her car from the valet, and a moment later she and Jean-Pierre were in it, speeding off into the night. There was nowhere to go at that hour, except an all-night diner she knew, but he was enchanted when he saw it, and immediately started taking photographs at weird angles, including a quick roll of her. And then he settled back in the booth and ordered pancakes and scrambled eggs. He hadn't had time to eat all night.