“Do you know that you look like a famous actress,” Penelope Fletcher, owner of the Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore said to me. I couldn’t possibly imagine who she meant. It was a cold, rainy spring day in Paris. My clothes were damp, my hair wind-blown. All I wanted to do was curl up in the stacks like a happy cat and browse through books. Nothing about me screamed, I look like a famous Asian actress!
“Really?” I said to her, playing along. I mean, in the right light, I could resemble Gong Li, Lucy Liu or Tamlyn Tomita.
But before I could get my hopes up, Penelope replied, “That gal from the movie, Sideways.”
“Sandra Oh,” the blond next to me said.
Sandra Oh? Okay, I guess with my wild hair, I could look like her character, Christina, on Grey’s Anatomy. And I am pretty headstrong and free-spirited.
“Are you sure?” I asked. Everybody in the store looked at me.
“Yes. Yes. Sandra Oh,” Penelope laughed.
It was a short exchange, but what I remember from that trip years ago was how warm that bookstore was. Talking with Penelope and her staff felt like that comforting cup of tea on a rainy day. I still have the two books I bought from her, The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas (an incredible mystery writer if you ever get the chance to read her) and Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. I’ll treasure those books for life; especially, since the Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore is no longer there.