Paris Seen in Four Days

“Oh my..” she said from the back of the cluttered vintage store. He tried to see her over stacks of antiquated books but could only see her jet black hair, forehead and bright blue eyes as they widened in excitement.

“What did you find?”

“The perfect travel guide.” Her hand reached over the stacks with a small pamphlet-sized booklet that was probably once a deep red but had, over the decades, faded into a pinkish color. He took the small book carefully and looked at the cover.

“Paris Seen in Four Days” he read aloud. “How old is this?”

“I was too excited to look!” she whispered. Now it was her turn to see his brownish eyes widen.

“Wow the map in here is beautiful. I would feel horrible traipsing around Paris with such a work of art.”

She sighed. “I agree. But it’s so magnificent, we could use it to see the city the way people did back then. Is there a year?”

He paused and with care turned the first few pages. “I don’t see any. But it’s probably almost a hundred years, give or take. How old is the metro?”

“The first was in 1900, but the majority of construction would have been in 1920,” she said with an immediateness that made him smile at her obsession.

“Well then it’s not quite one hundred years old then, it has a metro map.”

She suddenly went from a pair of eyes over the books to just the top of her head, he assumed she’d been standing on her toes.

“I think it would be so magical to roam the streets and metro with something like this rather than a modern travel guide.”

“I dunno…what if half this stuff is gone? Or streets changed names?”

“Meet me around the bookcase,” she said as her head bobbed and disappeared around the corner. He followed her instructions. Her eyes still shone bright when they met up.

“Please?” she said with multiple blinks.

“How can I resist?” he asked her as she did a little cheer and then hugged him.