The Apartment Finds You – Part 2

Per aspera ad astra

Note: This is Part 2 of a previously published story.

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Paris

This time would be different.

Arriving at the address Yuna had given me in the rue des Grands Augustins, I tapped the digicode, pushed open the carved wooden door, and rolled my orange suitcase as quietly as possible over the cobblestones of her building’s courtyard. After lugging the case up the four flights of worn wood and terra-cotta tiled stairs, I gave it a final yank up a separate set of just two steps. There was Yuna, waiting for me in the dimly lit hall in front of her chambre de bonne, a former maid’s room. She welcomed me with her wide smile and an open door.

“Allison! Hello! Come in, come in.”

“Yuna! You’re a sight for sore eyes. Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

After an effusive hug, she ushered me in to her bedroom under the sloped ceiling, where the chassis parisien, or old-fashioned skylight, was propped open with a metal bar, letting in some of that golden late-September light.

Le chassis parisien

“Of course! You knew I’d return the favor one day. If you hadn’t let me stay with you two years ago when I first came to Paris, I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Well, thank you. I’m so happy to be back! I really missed the city.”

I squeezed my suitcase into the only corner available in her jumble of a room, and Yuna patted the bed next to her, motioning for me to sit.

“So how was Kansas?” she asked, a spry twinkle in her dark eyes.

“Ugh, what a flail! I mean, Lawrence is cool for a college town, and honestly, if I hadn’t already lived here for two years, I might have been happy there. But moving to Lawrence from Paris? No way was that ever going to work.”

“I bet! I can’t imagine what it would have been like there. I’ve only ever lived in Manhattan and Paris. Anyway, I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too! And as I always say, there are no coincidences. If I hadn’t gotten that job teaching in the French department at KU, I wouldn’t have ended up back here with a job and a carte de séjour to stay.”

“So what’s the job?”