They stand like insects amid all the carved stone. Mary looks at the box hedge planted around the large empty traffic circle; the way the lights shine on it, the hedge appears more like an institutional-green textured short wall than a living thing. Claire considers sculpture. She couldn’t resist touching one statue in the Musee d’Orsay: a marble woman draped in a lovely onyx robe. “S’il vous plait,” growled a seated guard she hadn’t seen. She shot him a sheepish look but his face was as stony as the sculpture. He was not amused. That event set Claire to pondering sensory pleasure and art. Of all our senses, Claire thinks we derive the most pleasure from touch.  She knows we’re very sight-oriented; she remembers a time in fifth grade when her teacher played a record for the class and then pointed out afterwards that all of the students watched the phonograph, even though they could have listened while looking anywhere in the room. And Claire certainly appreciates the pleasures of music, and the strange potencies in our olfactory systems. But there’s no question to her that touching and being touched bring the most actual pleasure. So she wonders why there isn’t more tactile art. It strikes her as incorrect to restrict people from touching most sculptures. There’s another idea for an editorial, she grins to herself.

The dog tags jingle again as Mary goes into her pocket for a cigarette. Her face is lit and shadowed by her lighter, and aromatic smoke mixes with breath condensation as she exhales. “What the hell: let me have a hit.” Claire makes it sound like she’s succumbing to something as she reaches out her gloved right hand. She takes the cigarette, white with a flecked tan filter, inhales deeply, closes her eyes while she tips her head backward, opens them slightly as she exhales to the velvety sky, and hands the smoke back to her friend, hot and long-ashed. “Oh, that’s nice. I’d better watch it. You want to walk to the Eiffel Tower?”

“Goodness no.” Mary’s response is not hesitant. “I’m cold and very tired. Let’s get coffee or a drink.” Their relationship began in the coffee house at their community college, and the two can always find pleasure in coffee together. They turn back toward their favorite bar and brasserie.

Claire is a little disappointed. She’d love the long walk. She thinks her ankle will heal faster if she works it more. And she’s fascinated with the tower. She finds it beautiful, compelling, majestic. She’s the true daughter of an engineer. She knows that the French respect the profession more than do Americans; her father taught her that the word “engineer” is French-derived from “genius.” But the non-engineering French seem to her to be incurious about science, at least compared to Americans. That puzzles her.

Claire puts her disappointment away. She knows Mary is having a hard time sleeping, and with reason (beyond the recent 9-hour time shift). Mary had always planned to spend most of her one-month sabbatical here, but until a month ago she didn’t know she’d be dealing with the question of where to put her mother. Mary’s mom had a stroke then, while receiving a shampoo. They’ve since learned that salon stroke syndrome is the medical community’s name for that not uncommon event. Her mother is doing well, but she won’t be able to live in her apartment any more. When Claire leaves in a week, Mary will have another half month to find a home and move her mother here, or bring her back to the States. Mary knows how hard it was for Claire to arrange two weeks off from family, work and school, so she is trying to postpone most of her family affairs until Claire leaves. But this trip has deepened their friendship, and Claire is starting to insist that they spend some time on Mary’s obligations. Claire is beginning to rebel against the date on her return ticket. She may just stay another week or so.

She puts her gloved hand through the triangle of Mary’s pocketed arm. This is Paris; it’s allowed without question. Mary presses that hand toward her bundled body in a moment of mutual unambiguous tenderness. They cross over to the left bank.

Claire starts building another editorial. These considerations used to take the form of imaginary speeches with Greg. Over 31 years, a strong habit developed of talking to him in her head. But lately, she finds she’s talking inside to no one. She can still hear the words. She still rehearses the indignation. But the imaginary audience has faded and diffused. It’s not Greg any more. It’s no one or many. It’s hard to see and it doesn’t matter.

She and Mary cross the last busy street before the brasserie. Small cars dart along lanes that seem too narrow for any motor conveyance. Claire marvels; for all the complaints about traffic and drivers, it amazes her how often humans don’t collide. She may not talk to Greg in her head any more, but he still speaks to her. He has always traveled in his job, and he has collected tips for how to get places. Greg says the important things to remember are to keep moving (even if the movement is temporarily not in the direction you select), to eat when you have an opportunity, and to never pass up an opportunity to use the toilet. Claire almost laughs out loud as she realizes that life is of course a journey, the journey, and it too can use travel tips. She begins to compose the end of an editorial as they enter the brasserie.