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Sonya smiled. The clerk insisted into the phone that the flight be held until his guests arrived for their bags. Pan Am said they would do their best. Sonya thanked the clerk and took a ten franc note from her purse. He slipped it under his note pad and asked if she needed any further help. She smiled and walked away.
“We’ve got to get to the airport before the plane leaves,” Sonya insisted, grabbing Charles by the arm as he started through the glass door held open by the doorman. “It will ruin everything, if I have nothing to wear.”
The doorman laughed. Charles turned to him and stared. “What’s so funny?” he asked the doorman.
“No English,” the doorman said.
“Come on let’s go,” Sonya said and ran towards a taxi parked in front of the canopy. Hearing the taxi engine start, Charles turned and ran after her.
The taxi started through town. As they approached the Seine, they stalled in a big traffic jam. They looked out at all the cars stopped along the banks of the river and stopped on the bridges and knew it was hopeless. They rode in slow silence all the way to Orly and arrived 15 minutes after the flight had left. From the airport, Sonya called long distance to New York to find out from Transatlantic-Worldwide which hotel they were booked at in Rome. Charles wrote down Hotel Alfredo and the address and phone number.
Hanging up the phone, Sonya said, “We shouldn’t leave Paris until our clothes come.”
“Absolutely,” Charles said. ”Let’s check into the Hilton. Some place less foreign. We can have the bags sent there and, after they arrive, we’ll get out of Paris.”