Chapter 9

“I think it might be closed,” I said.

“The windows are boarded up. Of course it’s closed.” Olivier, for his part, kept trying to peer through the small spaces between the wooden boards hammered to the windows. Like he’d be able to see someone inside. But he was so agitated, I wasn’t about to tell him as much.

“Shit,” said Olivier. “Shit, shit, shit.”

I yawned. “Yeah, pretty much.”

We’d taken a taxi across Paris to find this antiques shop, the address of which Olivier had on a small piece of paper in his pocket. Despite both of our attempts to find the address on Google Maps, Google kept trying to redirect us to some random spot that turned out to be a broken-down bridge on the Seine. 

So we’d had to wander around on foot. Olivier had stopped to ask for directions—which made me grateful that he spoke French, but I wouldn’t tell him that, no way—but we got a lot of confused expressions. One man told us we were in the wrong part of Paris entirely. Another woman said that we were