Tuesday carried the smell of distance. The sky over Lumièra was clear but restless, the kind of blue that expected letters. Mira opened the café to find an envelope already waiting on the floor, slipped through the crack of the door like an idea that didn’t knock.  

It was pale blue, edges damp from morning mist, her name written in looping ink: *For Mira, care of Café Lumièra.* The handwriting was elegant, foreign, and familiar in the way perfume remembers a room.  

Carlo arrived just as she turned it over. “Fan mail again? Please tell me it’s not another secret admirer with stationery.”  

“Unclear,” she said.  

“Blue envelope—definitely romantic, possibly tax-related.”  

“Only one way to find out.”  

Inside was a single page and a train ticket printed in French.  

> *Mira,*  

> *Paris remembers your words. Our gallery would like to host a reading of “The Lovers’ Observation Diary,” accompanied by Aiden’s sketches. If the two of you would cross the sea, Lumièra might echo differently.*  

> *— Camille*  

Carlo whistled. “An invitation or a provocation?”  

“Both.”  

“You’ll go?”  

She folded the letter. “I haven’t decided.”  

At eight, Aiden entered, carrying sunlight on his shoulders and a paint-stained sleeve. “Morning,” he said.  

“You’re on time today.”  

“I was curious which crisis brewed first.”  

“Paris,” she said, sliding him the envelope.  

He read silently, mouth tightening at the signature. “Of course she’d write in color coordination.”  

“She invited both of us.”  

“To collaborate or to test our endurance?”  

“She mentioned a reading. Of my words.”  

He met her eyes. “Do you want to go?”  

“I’m not sure.”  

“That’s rare.”  

“I’m practicing uncertainty.”  

“It suits you,” he said softly.  

The cat leapt onto the counter, sniffed the ticket, sneezed, and walked away. Mira interpreted it as democracy.  

By late morning, the café buzzed with noise—students, tourists, the hum of ordinary life pretending permanence. Aiden worked on a new sketch at the corner table; she served pastries but kept glancing at the blue envelope under the register.  

Finally she approached him. “Would you go if it weren’t Paris?”  

“I’d go if you wanted to.”  

“That’s evasion.”  

“That’s agreement, just disguised.”  

“You hate travel.”  

“I hate luggage. Travel’s acceptable.”  

“So you’d go.”  

“I’d follow the story.”  

She exhaled, half a laugh. “You realize this could ruin our peace.”  

“Peace was never permanent here, only paused.”  

At noon, rain began again—thin, polite. Carlo watched them from the kitchen doorway. “If you two leave, who trains the new barista?”  

“There is no new barista,” Mira said.  

“Exactly. I’m irreplaceable.”  

Aiden grinned. “We’ll bring souvenirs of existentialism.”  

“Bring me chocolate instead.”  

Evening settled like ink. Mira locked the door, the envelope still on the counter. Aiden sat opposite her, sketchbook closed.  

“What scares you about going?” he asked.  

“Not going back. Coming back.”  

“Afraid Lumièra will feel smaller?”  

“Afraid it won’t wait.”  

“It will,” he said. “Cities forget slowly.”  

“And people?”  

“Depends who’s remembering.”  

He slid his sketchbook toward her. On the first page was a drawing of the café’s doorway, rain pooled at the threshold, an envelope lying just inside. Underneath he had written: *Every invitation is a mirror.*  

She traced the outline of the sketch. “You already decided.”  

“I decided to let you decide.”  

“That’s manipulative.”  

“That’s considerate.”  

They both laughed, tired and aware of what laughter postponed.  

Before closing, she placed the ticket under the counter light. The paper shimmered faintly, as if aware of its purpose.  

She wrote a note on the back of a receipt and pinned it beside yesterday’s observation:  

> *Observation #61 — A door looks ordinary until you remember which way it opens.*  

When she turned off the lights, the café glowed in the reflection of the harbor—half shadow, half departure, perfectly undecided.