Ding-a-ling!
Normally, Fran loved the cheery sound of the bell above her shoe shop door. It was a friendly companion over the course of her day, merrily punctuating the time she spent chatting with the shoppers of Frankfurt and watching her small business thrive. Ding-a-ling ch-ching! Even better, sometimes the jovial bell rang as her friends arrived for the weekly Book Club she held out the back of the shop, amongst the shelves of twentieth-century classics and the slogan-painting materials. A bit of book talk, wine drinking, knitting, and rebellious chat was the perfect way to break up the week, if you asked Fran.
Today, though, she barely noticed the bell. Her mind was whirring.
The customer had barely spoken, but with those blue eyes and that dark hair she was the spitting image of her mother — a ghost from the past. Fran had been expecting her, sure, but the sight was still a shock. It wasn't every day you encountered the daughter of a friend you'd said goodbye to decades ago.
Then Fran's nephew, the burly policeman Caspian, had swung by and the two young people had gone off together. Hot on the heels of who knew what at the Frankfurt Buchmesse — something that sounded dangerous, something that sounded political.
Something that sounded a lot like scenes Fran had encountered before.
She'd encountered them with Beatrice's mother Charmian. Ah, the old gang: Fran, Charmian, Sylva and DeNanielle. Fran's eyes misted over. Sitting on the stool behind the counter of her shoe shop, she let her mind travel back, back, back in time, to when they all met. Back to May 68.
To Paris.
The European springtime of history.
The city of love, revolution...and reading.
YOU ARE READING
Tante Fran's May '68 Book Club
Romanzi rosa / ChickLitMay '68. Four friends converge on Paris, the city of love, revolution... and reading. Fran, DeNanielle, Charmian and Sylva share a passion for shoes and manifestos, but when their holiday is disrupted by protests in the street and the promise of uto...
