The top of Mary’s head appears first, her short dark hair tousled, glossy, and slightly silver-streaked. Then her French face and slim body rise into the room, both looking younger than her 45 years.

“Have you seen my – oh there they are…” Mary begins to ask and ends almost humming. She has located her father’s dog tags on the table near Claire, and she smiles at them as she moves to a chair, picks them up with her right hand to lay them in her left palm and then begins to play the silver-toned chain like a deck of gaming cards, or a rosary, as she turns her attention to Claire. “How goes the writing?”

Claire stretches her legs under the table. She flexes her left ankle. She pushes her hand nape-to-crown through her heavy blonde hair, and then sits forward to pour more bourbon into her small tumbler. She has a fleeting vision of Lillian Hellman or Dashiell Hammett. She wishes she still smoked cigarettes. “I started well but I petered out,” she answers.

Mary pulls the chain up out of her palm again, and lets it run like water back. “Let’s take a walk,” she suggests. “Maybe that will jump-start you.” She weaves the chain around her fingers. The dog tags were her father’s, and they used to be a talisman for her but now they’re more of a charm. She carries them with her in France, just as she carries her mother’s old I.D. bracelet when she’s in the States.

“A walk sounds good.” Claire stands and tips the bourbon in her glass. It catches the light like liquid amber. She drinks. “Let’s dress for it,” she says as she glances around for her scarf. It’s colder than they expected, colder than the locals expect. October in the Seine Valley is normally around 60° F, but they’ve had days in the high 40s since they arrived. They don’t mind. Their lips and thighs tend to get chapped, but their hair doesn’t frizz, the sky doesn’t rain, and the air is cold and dry and bright like a mountain top. They layer their torsos with sweaters and jackets, equip themselves with mufflers and gloves.

Unexpected is the whole experience. Mary and Claire didn’t expect to become friends, let alone make this trip or have this weather. They’re about the same age and nearly the same height, and that’s where similarity stops. Mary is the daughter of an American soldier and a French shop girl, born in New Orleans to a war bride and an outgoing mechanic, only child of divorce when she was six, alternately raised after that in Paris with her mother or in Atlanta with her father and his current wife. She looks French, with her big eyes, short upper lip, nose not-small and bent as if she used to box. She’s completely bilingual and can teach French in the States and English in France. Claire and other Americans always expect her name to be “Marie” instead of “Mary.” It’s “Mary.” But she pronounces it charmingly; instead of a long “a,” she makes it sound like the “a” in “apple:” Ma-a-a-ry. She has been married and divorced twice, has no children, and now teaches English at a community college east of San Francisco.

Claire is blonde and getting heavy-set. She’s the daughter of a stay-at-home mom and an engineer dad, both American and still together. She has been married to Greg for 24 years and they have children in both genders: 21-year old Annie and almost 18-year old Jason. Greg works for the EPA and Claire has been employed by a large insurance company since she re-entered the workforce seven years ago. She’s bored with her job, which is why she signed up for the journalism course at her community college. She’s bored with Greg, which is why she’s now in Paris.

Mary turns off the apartment lights while Claire makes sure she has the keys. Unlike California light switches with their up-or-down obviousness, French switches are two-inch by two-inch toggle plates; Mary punches them lightly with the side of her soft fist. They make their way downstairs to the apartment house door, across the cobblestoned courtyard, and out the big doors to the street. The wind off the Seine is biting. Mary pulls her wool muffler up over her nose and mouth; with that and her black tights she looks perfectly Parisian. Claire tugs her coat sleeves over her wrists and puts those gloved hands in her jacket pockets. They cross the street against the signal and have to run the last few steps to the curb. The dog tags jingle in Mary’s coat pocket.

“As frantic and crowded as these streets are, you never hear horns honk,” Claire marvels. “There’s a busy sort of patience here (or maybe a patient sort of busy-ness) that I admire.” They are crossing the river, and what with the cold wind and her muffled mouth, Mary gives her agreement with smiling eyes, raised brows, and tilted head. Then she speaks through her wool. “Maybe that could be a subject for an article,” she suggests.

Claire looks appreciative and exasperated. “I don’t seem to lack ideas. I just don’t know where to go with them. I guess it could be worse. At least I have ideas.”

Mary’s answering look is almost merry. “She has it too,” Claire thinks. She’s half French and she has the quality Claire is trying to describe. “Come to think more of it, it doesn’t seem to be patience exactly. I don’t know…you French seem to be able to find some humor or good in every situation. Whether or not you make the motion, there’s a kind of shrug and smile.”

“The Gallic shrug? It’s true. But it’s also true that Americans are wonderful. So mobile. So filled with energy.” They are approaching the Louvre plaza, and sculpted buildings shelter them from the wind. Mary pulls her scarf away from her face. Claire looks toward the glass pyramid, while Mary turns her gaze the other way, trying to sight through a close arch down the Champs Elysées to the big Arc. The distant traffic makes lines of white and red light, like neon airport art. The plaza is deserted.