Part 2 (2/2)
”This is excellent, bros,” Bonnie said. She had been staring, transfixed, at the cathedral since we'd arrived. This was the first time she'd spoken. ”There are going to be some ma.s.sively good vibrations in there. I'm going to go find a quiet spot and attune my consciousness.” She began walking toward the cathedral. Actually, she looked more like a disembodied spirit, gliding over the paving stones, all delicate and mystical.
My consciousness could probably use a tune-up too, but I didn't really know how to go about doing that. Not only could I not locate the information sheet Madame Chavotte had given us, but I hadn't bothered to read it before I lost it. Rats. This meant I didn't have the map either.
”Do you have the map?” I asked Charlotte, giving her a wide and innocent smile.
Charlotte looked stern.
”Where's your-Oh, never mind. We'll explore the cathedral seules together.”
I hugged her and saw a pleased twinkle behind her stern expression.
”But you have got to get more organized,” Charlotte said as we walked toward the cathedral with our arms linked.
”I will,” I said.
And we went inside.
As a writer I am ashamed, ASHAMED, to admit it, but it is difficult to find the words to describe what I felt when I stepped into Notre Dame Cathedral. It was like suddenly finding oneself at the bottom of a spectacular ocean. There was a sense of hugeness. The vaulted ceiling was so high, it seemed like an optical illusion. The altar at the far end of the cathedral looked miles away. Everything was so big: the pillars, the stained gla.s.s windows.
I felt positively puny.
It was also strangely quiet. There were noises-I could hear other people and stuff-but everything was sort of m.u.f.fled. Even the air felt quiet, and...smoother. Maybe it was those ma.s.sively good vibrations Bonnie had mentioned.
We don't have much Really Old Stuff in the U.S. Our ancient historical sites are more of the Laura Ingalls Wilder variety. But the Little House on the Prairie was an architectural infant in diapers compared to this. Some person-a girl my age, even-might have stood on this EXACT spot seven hundred years ago. Looking at the EXACT same thing I was looking at now. My mind sagged trying to get around the idea.
Charlotte tugged my arm, and I stifled a shriek of alarm.
”Come on,” she whispered. ”I want to see the Le Brun paintings and the rose windows.”
I followed Charlotte as we strolled past Lewis, who was fiddling with his Sidekick while standing next to a statue of someone very pure and holy-looking. Charlotte led me by the paintings down to an enormous circle of stained gla.s.s. She occasionally whispered to me (everyone seemed to speak in hushed tones here), but I had trouble focusing on anything she was saying. We must have wandered for an hour, Charlotte pointing out statues and carved screens. I was actually beginning to regret not reading the information sheet as the Simple Tourists had. Because I didn't know what anything was, and now that I was here, I couldn't retain the information Charlotte was giving me. I was hypnotized by the stone, by the greatness, by the age. By Bonnie's ma.s.sively good vibrations.
Plus, I was really jet-lagged.
Still, I took something away with me when we left Notre Dame. It wasn't a specific gem or nugget I could identify for my Mental Pool. I just felt...refreshed. Maybe my consciousness had been tuned up without my even trying.
On the way back to the VEI, Madame Chavotte had us stop in the Place des Vosges, a square that surrounded a tree-lined garden with a fountain in the middle. She had indicated through a series of barks and hand gestures that we should stretch our legs, window-shop at the street-level boutiques, or park it on a bench for the next hour. Charlotte paced the entire perimeter of the square, looking for a news shop that sold The Economist. Bonnie found a quiet, shady spot on the gra.s.s and was sitting in the lotus position. She looked like Siddhartha sitting under a Bodhi tree awaiting enlightenment.
I parked it on a bench beside Lewis, who had also parked it on a bench. Curious, I peered at him out of the corner of my eye. He had flipped open his Sidekick. Again.
”I don't get it,” I said.
”Don't get what?” Lewis asked, fingers already tapping at b.u.t.tons.
”All this technology you're so hooked on. You're in PARIS! Why miss it all while you bury your nose in the computer screen?”
Lewis looked at me blankly. I tried again.
”My parents took me to New York City for a weekend last summer,” I said. ”They had this whole museum agenda, part of their Frequent Outings Program to torture and traumatize me, but that's another story. Anyway, we kept seeing these double-decker tour buses go by, like down Fifth Avenue, and all the people on the top deck were filming with their video cameras. They're riding right by Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral and all these tourist landmarks, and most of them never took their eyes out of the viewfinders. It's like they were so intent on videotaping every last second of their vacation, they were essentially experiencing the whole trip through a lens. Might just as well have stayed home and watched a TV show about New York, don't you think?”
Lewis waited a moment, to make sure I was finished talking.
”Is that what you think I'm doing?” he asked.
”You web surf, like, twenty-four/seven.”
”No, I don't. I text message every once in a while and post updates on my blog-”
”Blog?” I asked. ”You have a blog?”
”-and there are some sites I check every day. But at breakfast, for instance, I was looking at this.”
Lewis turned the Sidekick to face me. On the screen was a series of drawings of the Place des Vosges, from the time of its construction in the seventeeth century to the present day.
”Where did you find that?” I asked.
”I Googled it,” Lewis said. ”It shows how the Place des Vosges is completely symmetrical. Nine houses on each side. The square could be bisected from any angle and still produce twin images, the perfection of bilateral symmetry. Humans are attracted to bilateral symmetry. That's a biological fact.”
I absorbed this information with my mouth hanging open.
”You see,” Lewis continued, ”technology doesn't have to be a mindless escape, Lily. It can enhance an experience. You're just prejudiced because you're a writer, and writers consider the Internet beneath them.”
I was thrilled both that Lewis had (accurately) referred to me as a writer and that he thought I had a big enough ego to consider anything ”beneath me.”
”I don't think I'm above it, or anything,” I said quickly. ”Maybe it's just my genes. I come from, like, the least technologically savvy family since the Flintstones. We don't have DSL. We didn't even have Internet access until a year ago, when my dad needed to read his office e-mail from home. And if my mother didn't entertain these recurrent terrifying fantasies that I was going to get Separated from the Group on this trip, she never in a blue moon would have bought me a cell phone.”
”Show me,” said Lewis.
I groped around in my bag until I found it. Then I silently handed it over to Lewis, who flipped it open and scrutinized it.
”Nice one. You can text message on this,” Lewis said. ”And take pictures. It's a good phone.”
”I don't know how to text message,” I said.
”It's easy,” Lewis replied. He started pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons on the phone, which chirped back at him in a friendly way. ”Okay, I just entered my e-mail address in your address book. So you down-arrow-key to 'write text message,' then highlight my address from the address book. After you've finished writing, just hit 'send.'”
”Well,” I said, taking my phone back, ”that's great, thank you, Lewis. But I'm not much of a correspondent, text messagewise.”
In reality, the only person I would ever want to text message was Jake, and I didn't even know if his phone could do that. But I didn't mean to sound ungrateful.
”Thanks for showing me how it works, though,” I added.
Lewis shrugged. ”Just thought you should know how to use what you've got.”
”Anything on the Internet about Lindy Sloane?” I asked, switching the subject. When Lewis didn't answer right away, I clarified.
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