Flower of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

car at home if Jacqueline needed it.
    Jacqueline was no longer working, there was no need to, and she proudly spent her days in her new garden where she planted flowers and nurtured them as she had done with her children. Although only fifty-three years old, she looked well into her sixties. The early years of struggle to keep her family alive had taken their toll on her. Her eyesight was failing, her figure became noticeably plump and she had an increasingly difficult time in keeping her weight down due to her more relaxed lifestyle.
    Weekends for Louis were now without Françoise who knew her way around Paris far better than her father. He had taught her well and she had not been content with only what her father had shown her. It wasn’t enough; Françoise was like an engine that required more and more fuel to keep it running. In her case, the fuel was a new site, an old building, and another piece of history about the city.
    Françoise had applied to be a tour guide with Le Bourget, the Paris airport for international travelers. Throughout recent years, she had learned to speak English quite well and was studying to become an interpreter for the French government. Le Bourget was getting so much traffic from people abroad that it needed more guides to explain the sights of Paris on its bus tours that picked up tourists at various hotels in the city.
    At first, the tour director was hesitant at hiring a seventeen-year-old girl for a position requiring an older, more seasoned person. After some preliminary testing by the director, he simply asked, “Do you know where the Place de L’Etoile is located?” Françoise smiled and said, “La Place de L’Etoile was constructed in 1854 in Neuilly and originally was the focal point where five avenues intersected. Hausmann, the engineer, made it a circle in later years where twelve avenues now meet. In 1860, Hottorf, the architect, constructed twelve identical town houses bordering the circle. You would reach the monument by way of Boulevard Hausmann, named after its engineer..” Françoise conducted her first tour that Saturday.
    For the next two years, Françoise would conduct tours on weekends and every day during the summer months. She had completed her formal schooling and was now earning a good salary as Paris underwent major renovations and tourism continued to flourish. Traffic congestion forced improvements to the Metro and train system. Poor water and sewer systems forced the government to speed the development of better housing facilities with improved water treatment facilities. Ever changing, Paris was her life, Françoise reflected, as she proudly pointed out the new and how it blended in nicely with the old during her tours.
    Françoise had matured into a very attractive woman of nineteen by the spring of 1951. Her long brown hair radiated from her face and brought out the beauty of her facial features. Blue eyes, a smooth and radiant complexion without a blemish, teeth that emanated a warm smile each time she spoke, and a statuesque body with perfect curves in all the right places. She had grown to feel not only the yearning of the city but also the desires of the heart. More so in recent months than before, it was as if a flower had suddenly blossomed and young males could now see the body beneath the smile. She had reached the time in her life when she began to think of love and romance and what it would be like to be with a man.
    The tour bus was loaded on this August morning. The driver of the bus, Rejean Boiteau, was a quiet man in his early twenties who had recently joined the company. He had just moved to Paris from Dijon where life for a young man was not as exciting or as promising as in Paris. Françoise entered the bus and immediately introduced herself to the passengers, ignoring Rejean as she faced her eager students of the city.
    “We will today cover the main attractions of Paris, stopping at each one to allow time for photographs and to walk