Paris in September

Is it possible that I still have an editor's timetable implanted in my brain? Is this why I am veering toward Paris in these sentimental September days? One of my favorite issues of Victoria was A Woman's Private Paris. I knew that many of my readers had never been or would never be able to go to Paris, but I wanted to share the magic of that special place through a woman's eyes. Interestingly, two of my favorite issues happened during the last year I edited Victoria. The other, was In Love with Shakespeare's England. If I had stayed on, I would have lobbied that that issue become the basis for a book.

I loved both of these issues because they had the work and enthusiasm of the editors who worked on them--Trish Foley for England--and Susan George and Eliette Markhbein for Paris. Also, the incomparable Mary Forsell brought her knowledge of literature to the quotes in the Paris issue. I signed Mary up at once to do the quotations I included in my new book, My First Best Friend. Her ear for voices from women's literature is impeccable.

And so, yesterday, after a visit to my dentist, I virtually walked across the street to the Paris Theater. It is a treasure in New York--at the tip of Central Park and across the street from the Plaza Hotel (moan, the Palm Court is now gone). When my long time dentist, Dr. Bill Munton, moved to 61st Street and Fifth Avenue, I knew it was a danger zone. At least my husband felt that way. It is also a hop and skip from Bergdorf Goodman, where I go to look at lovely new and old furnishings on the 7th floor.

The Paris is beautifully maintained and even has a mezzanine which takes me back to my old movie-going days. Showing was Coco Before Chanel with the enchanting Audrey Tautou. The theater was packed with young women eating and drinking their way through a good but not great film. I'll let you all judge for yourselves if your interests take you to a movie house near you or watch it in the future on DVD. What excited me, almost more than the film I was watching, were the previews for The Young Victoria. I shall be first in line for that one. I'll find my aisle seat at the Paris, if I am in New York and not in Ames at the time.

And so during an early autumn day, I was engulfed in Paris, in more ways than one. I even stopped at Bergdorf's and got a spritz of a lovely French perfume on my wrist. Was that the reason I did the impossible--get a cab on Fifth Avenue at the beginning of a good rain? Maybe so. A woman's private Paris day in New York.