One afternoon shortly after my father died, I had a revelation and a sign. The streets outside were steaming as if little teapots were brewing beneath the city, but I was cool underground. I was working at my desk in the windowless basement office. That morning the principal from a local boy's school called to cancel their one o'clock tour, and I was afraid I would cry all afternoon. A man I'd been dating had called me at noon to tell me he was returning to Detroit. He'd been looking for a job as a radio news journalist the whole year I knew him, but he had been unlucky and he felt that it was time for us both to face facts. For me the reality was more jarring, that he hadn't even asked me to go with him, let alone marry him. I couldn't say I was in love with him. I was just sad to be by myself again. I wanted to run away from so much loss all at once.

I was not allowed to be with my sadness for long. At one-fifteen the front door bell rang. I went up the stairs, crossed the foyer, and opened the front door. Standing there were a regal-looking, well-dressed older black woman wearing heavy gold jewelry and too much powder on her face and a younger man in a conservative dark suit who I guessed by their resemblance was her son. I invited them in and noticed that they spoke with soft West Indian accents. The son seemed more interested in the house than the mother. Sometimes he would whisper to her in what sounded like French. I gave them the standard tour and the son asked the standard questions. At the end of the tour the son looked around with a puzzled expression.

"I presume that Mr. Dimple was an educated man.

"Yes, he graduated from Yale."

"That is not what I mean. His collection seems incomplete. He traveled to Africa in the Fifties?"

"Yes, but he wasn't much interested in African art. He brought back several tapestries from Morocco, and you saw the Ibo mask?"

The man made a noise in his throat and pitched his eyes around the room once more. "You can tell so much about a man by what he keeps in his house."

"Thank you very much for the tour. It was lovely," the mother said, signing the guest book. I noticed she wrote down Paris as her address.

"How did you hear about the museum?" I asked, curious.

"The concierge at the hotel recommended it."

"Are you West Indian?"

"We are French," the mother said, as if I'd insulted her.

The son looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. His eyes assessed me quickly, lingering on my breasts before returning to my face. He seemed to want to continue talking with me.

"There are many black Americans living in Paris, many artists," the son said. "I believe the black American writer James Baldwin makes his home in France. Do you know him?" he asked, as if it were possible for me to know someone famous.

"I know his work. I've been listening to my aunt go on about France since I was a little girl. I'd love to go there someday."

The son warmed to me when I said I wanted to be a writer. He said there were many bohemian artists living in Paris.

"There are certainly enough entertainers," the mother said, dabbing at her perspiring nose with a delicate lace handkerchief.

For the next half hour the son, Maxime Bazille, and his mother, Madame Marie-Lise Bazille, convinced me that Paris was the last red apple on the highest branches of a tree well worth climbing. I thanked them, and for the first time Paris became a real destination, with real places to eat, museums to see, and wide boulevards to stroll. A list of inexpensive hotels, bakeries and cafes, clothing shops and museums neatly printed in Maxime Bazille's elegant hand was folded in my pocket.

By six o'clock that evening the security guard hadn't shown up. I called Dr. Bernard and offered to lock up the house and set the alarm. He agreed, and I began clearing up my desk. I called a local copy shop to find out how much they charged for passport photos. Before setting the alarm I went into the library, and my eyes fell on several books by James Baldwin. I'd seen them every day, but that evening it was as if a laser beam pointed them out to me and I was drawn to them. Each of the books was a signed first edition. Giovanni's Room, Another Country, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time. Each book was signed, "Affectionately, Jimmy." I sat in Mason Dimple's reading chair and read into the night, from one book to the next. The most brilliantly illuminating passages were underlined with blue ink. By the time the sun came up, my eyes were red and tired and an overwhelming sadness had clouded the room. When Dr. Bernard arrived he thought I was sleeping. He touched my shoulder and called my name.

His eyes fell on the bundle of love letters on the table next to me.

"I found them behind the stairs."

Dr. Bernard sat facing me in a leather wing chair, wearily, as if it were the end of a long day and not the beginning.

"After Mason read a book he liked or hated or was moved by, he would buy another and underline words and sometimes whole passages. Then he gave them to me. We went to Paris after he read Giovanni's Room. It was the happiest time of my life. I love him still." Dr. Bernard began to weep. I reached out and touched his hand.

"Don't take only what life gives you, reach out and take what you want," he said.

We sat quietly in the room thick with memories and desire. Reading my own copy of Giovanni's Room a few days later lit a fire in me. The main character, David, a white American living in Paris, begins a passionate affair with an Italian bartender, Giovanni, but because David is ashamed and scared of his desire, his love for Giovanni destroys them both. I was determined to have no such regrets, no such fears. I was still young and thought anything was possible.

I was awake, but I was dreaming about Paris, reading Baldwin, planning a new life. I made a reservation on a flight to Paris. I gave Dr. Bernard one month's notice, he gave me his blessings and a gold pen. When I told Aunt Vic I wanted to go to Paris, she didn't laugh or ask me if I was crazy; she sat down on her sofa, leaned over, and peeled back the carpet. She counted eighteen twenty-dollar bills into my hand and promised to send me more if I needed money to come home.

"I wish I had the balls to do it." She hugged me hard.

"Aunt Vic, that's some salty talk."

My mother was still deep in her grief over losing my father. She let her sadness at my leaving roll over her like a fog.

"Child, I wish I could see you married, but I know that's a long ways off. You still restless." She stroked my hair and kissed my third eye.

"Aren't you glad I didn't marry Leo just to ease your mind?"

"He was too handsome to be a husband anyway," she said, trying to comfort me. I had already put him in a box and shoveled dirt on top.

I had saved three hundred dollars, and I figured after selling everything I couldn't carry to France I'd have about five hundred more. I watched ten French videos in fourteen days to prepare my ear for my new language. Four weeks later I had a ticket to Paris.