(The opening scene is set in Paris, nearly sixteen months after the Christmas Eve talk in New York in Chapter X.)

The air’s cool tonight, Bette realized, as she stepped out of the cab, and walked into a stiff breeze that blew suddenly from the direction of the park.

She unwound the pashmina scarf that hung loosely around her neck in large knots, then shook it out, before casually throwing one end across her chest, then over her shoulder.  She adjusted the other end of the large scarf that hung across her other shoulder, so that the middle section of the scarf went around her back. To keep it snug around her frame, she tucked the long side of the scarf that went across her chest more firmly under her chin. Feeling warmer, she walked slowly towards the small gate that led to a walking path that cut across the width of the park.  From the small gate, it was a short walk to the giant Ferris wheel that dominated the Parisian skyline.

As she neared the ticket booth, she stopped to gaze up at the top end of the arc of giant wheel.  Like a lot of the other sites she had strolled through earlier during the day, she mused the Ferris wheel had retained its innate charm, “like a giant chandelier lying down its side,” she whispered to herself, repeating the description Tina gave it when they first caught a glimpse of Ferris wheel, as they rounded the corner towards it from the Champs Elysee boulevard, during the limo ride that fateful early summer evening two years ago.

As she had to all throughout the day, Bette sought to blink back tears that sprang up, unbidden.  “At least I’ll have some privacy here, sitting by myself in a carriage,” she told herself.  Unlike in the other stops she’d made earlier, which were, for the most part, public spaces.  In some cases, like the stroll by the landing in the river, where the converted river barge had been berth, her tears had merely tracked down her cheeks as she remembered the party scene that they joined.

Those she could surreptitiously swipe away with her handkerchief while she walked past the silent barge that was now berthed there.   But in other cases, like the pause at the bend of the river, wherein she and Tina had sat back two years ago, to gaze in awe at the Eiffel Tower, as it was lit up with LED lights that transformed it into a sculptural object of surprising delicacy that night, the memory shared in that particular site hit her more deeply.  She paused near the spot where she berth the speedboat Ric had lent them, sobbing openly, at times doubled up, as if in pain, to the surprise of others strolling around also.