As I lock my phone to put it back in my coat pocket, I see that it’s now 1:46 p.m.! And the only thing I’ve crossed off my itinerary is the Louvre. I’m almost regretting eating, even though that crêpe was the best thing I’ve eaten in, I don’t know, maybe forever.
I should have broken away from Jean-Luc when we left the Louvre, but he looked so keen to show me his gallery, so certain that I’d have a reaction to the photos there, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him no. And I did like the photos that were on display — I will admit that — this Noémie Dugarry lady is some kind of genius. But now, the only way I will catch up with my itinerary is if I somehow get my hands on a time machine.
“Hey, can you tell me which Metro station I need to get to Shakespeare and Company?” I ask him.
“It is not far,” he says, gesturing that I should follow him down the street. “You don’t need the Metro.”
He has his back to me, so he doesn’t notice that I throw up my hands. “It’ll be faster to take the Metro, though, right?”
“The tunnels do not have the Seine.” I don’t know if it’s his accent that makes him sound like he’s constantly disapproving or if he finds my wanting a convenient, fast method of travel offensive.
“I am certain,” he goes on, “that your parents took a walk along the river.”
I catch up to my “guide,” grateful for my sneakers, even though I’ve caught him giving them a snooty look on more than one occasion since we left his dorm. But I don’t care, because I’ve done a lot of walking already today, and my feet aren’t telling me to quit it. Comfort over fashion — always. “Oh, they did more than that. They took a tour boat — my dad told me. It’s just that I have a very specific list of places that I need to see and get pictures of, and I’m losing time.”
He grins at me, turning and walking away — I hope in the direction of the bookstore! “Just for you, we walk fast!”
*
Jean-Luc is gesturing as we walk along the broad stone walkway on the banks of the Seine. I know from my guidebooks that it’s called Quai Saint-Michel. Notre-Dame Cathedral looms on the other side of the river, very grand and very gothic. Even ghostly, because it’s shrouded in the fog. “You must be happy you get to see this?”
It’s hard to tell if he’s asking me a question or instructing me on how to feel. I mean, the cathedral does look great and all — and I have no idea how people pulled off building something like that nearly a thousand years ago — but it’s hard for me to appreciate its architecture when all I can think about is: Will I ever get to Shakespeare and Company?
Aaaand now Jean-Luc has stopped, falling back to take a photo of … something. I think it’s one of the cars crawling along the street — traffic in this part of Paris is almost as bad as Midtown Manhattan. He’s even crouching, and a hot flush of embarrassment swells in my face (the feeling so sharp I almost wince). It’s as if I’m the local and he’s the tourist, discovering the city for the first time.
“Hey!” I call out, digging through my brain for the words for “my friend.” I think it’s — “Mon frère! What is the French word for ‘itinerary’?”
He’s laughing now — and I don’t know why, but when he does, it makes me want to go over to him and kick him with my orange sneakers, right into the river he was so keen to walk along.
“What’s so funny?”
He straightens up and walks over to me, still cracking up. “I did not know I had an American sister.”
I will my face not to catch fire. The blush is equal parts embarrassment — of course “frère” is French for “brother”! — and fury, because, damn it, I hate being behind schedule!
I shove my hands into my pockets, so that my anger doesn’t get the better of me. It’s been so long since I really and truly yelled at someone, I’m not entirely sure what I’d do. Wave my arms? Pull at my hair? I just don’t know …
I don’t know what to do with these feelings.
What’s worse, the corner of my itinerary — which lost all meaning an hour ago — cuts at my bare fingers. I left my gloves in my suitcase, like an idiot. Everything’s going wrong! “Not that I’m trying to rush you or get in your way, but I’d like to keep moving — I have the bookstore, then Montmartre, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Champs-Élysées —”
He just looks at me. “This is too much for one day, non? Even with those terrible shoes, your feet will blister. And, believe me, you will regret this trip if you do not get to really see Paris.”
I don’t know if I’m just too tired to argue with him, or if he’s talked about seeing Paris so much today that he’s finally gotten through to me, but I’m starting to think he might have a point. When we were in the Louvre, I was starting to feel a little frustrated moving from one piece of art to the next so quickly. It’s all well and good ticking off sights on a piece of paper, but that’s not the same as really experiencing them, is it? Mom and Dad had a whole honeymoon here, and maybe that’s why it meant so much to them — they would have had time to wander, they would have stopped, sat and talked. They would have held hands as they let this most romantic of cities become a part of them, of their connection. They didn’t come back from Paris with just a bunch of photos. They came back with memories that, years later, they still talked about — remembering how they felt, what they said to each other.
What will I talk about when I’m older? How will I describe my time in Paris to people? I’ll be able to say where I was and what I did, and I’ll have the photographs to prove it — prove that I was here — but what will I say to anyone who asks me, how was Paris?
What if my only answer to that question is to hand them my phone and say, “Take a look”?
I don’t want that. I want to go home and feel like Paris is a special place to me, too. And Jean-Luc is right, it is people who make a city. It would be nice to experience a strange city with someone, even if that someone’s a stranger.
“You’re right,” I tell him, taking out my pen — which feels more like an ax that I’m about to take to my itinerary. “I’ll just pick, like, the top five or so and make sure I hit them. Five spots should give me enough material for the scrapbook.”
“Scrapbook?” he asks. He sounds like he wants to hear more about it, but I’m too busy putting lines through certain places, question marks beside others. I’m sure that, if I had asked her, Mom would have told me which sights were her favorites, but I never asked her. What if I’m crossing off something that Mom considers essential?
The only thing I will absolutely not cross off, though:
“The Eiffel Tower. Whatever else happens, I have to be at the Eiffel Tower for ten p.m. — what?”
Jean-Luc’s got another one of his faces on — not snooty this time but definitely concerned about something. “You have a ticket, yes? I am not certain, but … I think tonight, there’s a big firework and light show. For the winter season. Very expensive, very, uh …” He clicks his fingers, searching for the English.
I skip to the end. “They’re sold out? Oh, don’t worry about that. I have my ticket” — and my sister’s and mom’s — “which I booked ages ago.” I don’t tell him about how stressful it was, booking these tickets. The light show seemed to make the Eiffel Tower more popular than ever, and the website said that every day in December only had three or four tickets left. I’m sure it’ll be great, and everything, but I’m not here for a light show! I tuck my itinerary under one arm, then use the other to rummage in my cross-body bag to prove it. I fumble around a little but feel only my guidebook and maps, the empty clear plastic folder that I kept my Louvre tickets in … but not the one that has my tickets for the tower. I kneel down so I can dig deeper, but just because I can now see into my bag does not mean the tickets will suddenly be there.
Actually, they are gone.
A memory comes to me — turbulence early in the flight, right around the time we were flying over Newfoundland. The plane shaking like it was having a seizure, and my tote bag … it was under my seat, and I noticed at the end of the flight that it was … upside down? It was knocked over by the turbulence … My tickets to the tower must have fallen out! Oh God, are they still on the plane? Can I head back to the airport and pick them up? No, that’s crazy — my plane is probably heading back to New York by now. And it would have been cleaned right after we deboarded, which means that probably a member of the airline crew picked them up. Maybe they have them right now. Maybe they’re thinking, “Why not? Free trip!” Could I head them off at the tower, explain the situation and ask for my tickets back?
You’re being crazy, Serena. The tickets don’t even have your name on them, so how are you going to prove they’re yours?
My eyes sting with tears of fury. Of all the disasters I’ve suffered today, this is the absolute worst!
Jean-Luc has one hand at the back of his neck, like he’s very uncomfortable watching me get emotional. “What’s wrong?”
I look at him, shaking my head. “They’re gone,” I say, staggering to my feet. “The tickets. The tickets I’ve had for months.”
Jean-Luc looks sincerely upset for me. “I am sorry this has happened.”
I had to get to the Eiffel Tower. Dad really wanted to take a trip up to the top, but they never made it. It was the one thing he never got to show my mom, the one thing … My heart feels like it’s trying to crawl up out of my mouth so it can go for a swim in the Seine. My belly churns like I might throw up, my fists clench, and I feel like I could quite happily stomp on my cross-body bag, reducing all the useless itineraries inside it to the trash that they are at this point. The great day I had planned for (what’s left of) my family has been reduced to me, stranded in Paris, kind-of sort-of abandoned by said family and unable to do the one thing on my itinerary that I absolutely, positively did not want to miss.
I stagger over to a bench facing the Seine and put my face in my palms. Why didn’t I think to double-check my bag as I left the plane?
I feel Jean-Luc take a seat next to me. His hand falls lightly on my shoulder.
“What is so important about the tower?” he asks me.
I part the heels of my hands so I can talk through the gap. “My parents never actually made it there. It was the one thing they really wanted to do on their honeymoon, and they missed it.” I’ve never actually heard the story of why, but they did.
“But I thought you wanted to see only the places your parents saw on their trip?”
“I did … I do …” I wipe away the tears, sit back and sniffle. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Jean-Luc staring at me. His hand is still on my shoulder. I stare out to the Seine — a tour boat passes by, cutting a wound in the surface of the water that disappears within seconds. I wish I could heal myself as quickly as the river does.
“I wanted to finish the trip for them,” I tell him. “I know that it always bugged them a little that they came all the way to Paris for their honeymoon only to miss the Eiffel Tower of all things. My dad mentioned it once, that it was a big regret of his and that — one day — he wanted to make it up to my mom.”
I steal a glance at him and brace myself to say the words I’ve not said in two years, because — of course — he’s going to want to know why Dad can’t just bring Mom here himself. But his deep brown eyes are warm, narrowed in what looks like understanding. It’s the same look he had in the Louvre, as we walked to the Venus, and I realize that Lara must have mentioned something at some point since they met. I’m relieved I get to skip that part of the explanation.
“My parents’ wedding anniversary is on New Year’s Day,” I tell him. “It would have been twenty-five years. I was going to give my mom a scrapbook, her daughters and her in some of those special places, all the photographs building to a shot of us at the Eiffel Tower. Like, through us, a part of Dad finally made it there, you know? I felt like I would be helping him keep his promise to Mom. Then Mom goes and gets called away on some conference in London — she’s an economics professor, so that kind of thing happens a lot — and then Lara decides she’d rather go to Madrid, but still … I’m a part of my dad, and I could get up there for him and get a photo. I’ve never been so psyched to take a selfie in my life! And today is the one day I don’t obsessively check …”
I let my words collapse into a growl — if I don’t, I might start crying again — and look back to the river.
“Maybe I should just call all of this off. I mean, the tower was kind of the whole point, and if I can’t get there —”
“What about tomorrow?” Jean-Luc’s fingers relax, start to creep across my back, then return to their original position, like he thought about putting his arm around me and changed his mind. “La tour Eiffel is not going to disappear.”
I shake my head. “I’d still need a ticket to get up there tomorrow, and I think it’s pretty much totally sold out right through New Year’s. Plus, I’ve got to get to Gare du Nord at one in the afternoon to catch a Eurostar to London that leaves at two. I’m going to be meeting my mom there. Jeez, what a disaster …”
When I look at him again, I’m almost startled — he hasn’t moved at all. His eyes are staring straight into mine. He looks both curious and like he’s pitying me. I feel a sudden prickle of self-consciousness — explaining the reasons for my trip in all this detail makes me realize that the trip is actually a little …
“Morbid. That’s what you’re thinking, right?” I ask. “What kind of eighteen-year-old comes to Paris to recreate her parents’ honeymoon?”
The kind who is out of ideas about how to get over losing her dad and willing to fly 3,624 miles to see if a special city might do the trick.
“I do not think this.” He lifts his hand off my shoulder, looks to the ground. Pondering something. “It is good to remember.”
“Hah!” The sound I make is completely without humor. “Given how big a disaster this trip has been so far, I’m kind of hoping I get a concussion that wipes the last five hours from my brain.” I turn away from him, stare at the Seine and shake my head — at what, I don’t really know. Paris? Myself?
Click-click.
I whip my head to the right, staring straight into the lens of the camera that he is lowering.
“Pardon,” he says, at least having the decency to blush a little. “Just so beautiful … I mean, the moment was beautiful. The city behind you, the sadness on your face — not that I am happy you’re sad, but … err …”
His face has gone from pink to tomato-red. I am about to put him out of his misery, but he turns the camera to me so I can see the preview screen. There I am in the foreground, staring out to the river and the city. The cathedral is in soft focus, as if it’s trying not to disturb my quiet, contemplative, personal moment, hanging back out of respect for my sadness.
“Feels pretty appropriate,” I tell him. “My body is in one of the world’s greatest cities, but my mind is elsewhere.”
He lets his camera hang on his chest again, smiling at me as his complexion returns to normal. “Then we should walk.”
We get off the bench and I go pick up my bag. I look around, about to ask him which of the remaining items on my itinerary is near here, when I catch a glimpse of something a little way along the sidewalk. Stalls, overlooking the river. They are covered in Christmas decorations that look older than the two of us.
“What’s this?” I ask him. “Some kind of street market?”
“Kind of,” he says. “The vendors are here every day, for the tourists. You are hungry again? Looking for food?”
“No,” I lie. As fabulous as that crêpe was, it’s hardly going to keep me going when my belly is trying to figure out why it’s craving breakfast at lunchtime. “Just … I’m wondering if they sell scarves. One of my dad’s most favorite photos of my mom is of her by a Parisian market stall, modeling the scarf he bought her. She still wears it, twenty-five years later.” I’m walking toward the market now, Jean-Luc just behind me.
I pass a few vendors selling model Eiffel Towers, a few more with long tables of secondhand paperbacks. Here and there, artists sit huddled in thick winter coats, waiting for tourists to come and ask them to sketch their portraits. I stop by a stall that sells scarves and hats and gloves. I can tell Jean-Luc isn’t impressed. His hands are in his pockets, because, apparently, there are no pictures worth taking here. I’m about to suggest we just turn around and leave, but then I see the next stall has a row of Eiffel Tower scarves — the tower a harsh black silhouette against a setting sun, with a kissing couple beneath the arch. It’s so tacky, and it’s the kind of thing that I know that my sister will laugh about for days.
“I’m gonna go buy it,” I tell Jean-Luc. I think I hear him sigh as I walk over, but I’m too tickled by the tacky scarf and imagining how stubborn Lara will be about wearing it next semester, even in one of the fashion capitals of the world. One of the (many) things I love about my big sister: she likes to look good, but she also doesn’t mind looking a little silly.
When I take down one of the scarves, I turn it over to look for a price tag. I don’t see one, so I spin around to ask Jean-Luc for help, but he’s not there. I turn a full circle, stepping away from the stall, when I’m assailed by a storm of French that actually makes me take a step back. The lady manning the stall points from the scarf, to me, to herself, her hippy-ish bracelets jangling like the rattling chains of a prison guard. That’s probably my imagination — and the jet lag — but I know enough to know she thinks I’m trying to steal the scarf.
“No, no. I mean — non, non.” I think my attempt at a French accent lands me somewhere in Spain. And I don’t even have Jean-Luc to translate because he isn’t anywhere to be seen. Whatever photo he’s gone to get had better be something prizewinning.
I turn back when I feel the scarf almost snatched from my hands. I really don’t want to have a tug-of-war over it, and Seller Lady’s voice is probably disrupting the service over at Notre Dame, but, for some reason, I’m not letting go of the scarf.
“I actually wanted to buy this from you!” I yelp, just as some French guy appears by my side. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him making a placating gesture with his hands, as he says something to the seller. I hear the word “Américaine” and gather he’s putting the blame on my nationality.
I decide to be offended after I’m out of this situation.
Except this guy seems somehow … familiar. I break eye contact with the seller lady and look to see who has come to rescue me. I actually gasp when I take in the tall guy in a tan peacoat with faintly fashionable horn-rimmed glasses.
“Ethan?” For a split second, it feels so surreal to see someone I know here in Paris, I wonder if I’m asleep, dreaming this awkward encounter. Then I remember that I did know Ethan was coming here, because he told me all about it, in great detail. Apparently, if you book a three-day city break just before Christmas, you save, on average, forty-two percent on airfare. That’s the kind of thing Ethan just knows.
He’d gone on to say he wondered, as someone who considers himself too rational to believe in coincidences, did it mean anything that we were both going to be in Paris at the same time?
This conversation happened right before what my dormmate, Charlotte, came to call the kisstastrophe.
“Hi, Serena.” He still has his perfectly manicured hands raised in an It’s okay gesture for the seller’s benefit. His pale blond hair is only a shade or two darker — if that — than his perfect teeth, which he flashes in a smile at the woman. He says something in French — he speaks French? — and she relaxes her grip on the scarf.
Then he turns back to me. “I told her you want to buy it.”
“I’m having second thoughts now,” I grumble.
The seller says something else in French — it must be something outrageous, because not only does Ethan roll his eyes at her, he also throws up his hands …
… and says “Pffft!,” which I’m pretty sure is French for “You gotta be kidding me, lady!”
“What?” I ask him. “What did she say?”
He actually places one hand on his belly, like he’s about to erupt from laughter. He’s a pre-law student back home, so I’m not surprised he can hold his own in an argument — but I don’t think there’s this much pantomime during class at Columbia. “She wants thirty euros.” Ethan puts his free hand on my shoulder while he continues his haggling. I know the stakes are — probably — only about twenty bucks, give or take, but in French, it feels so much more consequential. Finally, he turns back to me, not taking his hand off my shoulder. “She’s willing to take ten. I still think that’s way too much, but you look like you really want this scarf?”
I nod, dig into my bag for money and hand it over. The seller takes it with a snort, then turns her back on me as if I was never here.
“Thanks,” I say, as Ethan follows me a few steps away. Instinctively, I look around for Jean-Luc. I’m wondering why he didn’t come running over when he saw me wrestling for a scarf — but Ethan moves to stand in front of me.
“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Any excuse to put my mediocre French to work.”
“You sounded like a local to me.”
He grins sheepishly. “Well, I’ve studied it since freshman year of high school,” he said. “I thought it might help me with the ladies. ‘Language of love’ and all that.”
I laugh politely. Language of love. Right. How could I forget?
He’s smiling at me now, no longer sheepish. In fact, he seems to be beaming at getting me out of that silly jam with the vendor, all over a tacky scarf.
And I start to feel bad that all I can really think about right now is the kisstastrophe.
*
The last time I saw Ethan was on the final day of classes. I’d gone along to a Christmas party on campus, which was being hosted by some sophomore girl whose name I didn’t know and never found out. I only went because my dormmate, Charlotte, bugged me to go, and I quickly regretted it, because, as soon as we were there, I realized why Charlotte had been so insistent. Ethan was at the party, and Charlotte thought he and I were a good match.
“You should give him a chance,” she told me, after I’d made it clear I did not appreciate the scheming. “It’s not like you’re making your decision based on actual evidence, is it?”
She had a point — and, just like her, I could see how super-organized, never-misses-a-class me and super-organized, gets-started-on-essays-in-week-one Ethan were a good match. (If it had been the two of us taking the Romance Tour, I’d have ticked off more than the Louvre by now, that’s for damn sure!) But that was on paper.
“Shouldn’t I feel something?” I mumbled to Charlotte as we fought our way into the kitchen for drinks. Two football players were arm-wrestling over the breakfast bar, and I was concerned, from how red their faces were, that one of them was going to have an aneurysm.
“Only after you’ve actually gone on a date,” Charlotte told me. “Anything you feel before that is not to be trusted.”
And then, pretty soon, Ethan was making a beeline for me in the kitchen, his tall body so slender he seemed to pass through the crush of people unnoticed. The way the lights bounced off his horn-rimmed glasses could have made him look a bit like a superhero but actually made him look more like a mad scientist. Of course, Charlotte instantly ditched me to go find her boyfriend, Anthony. (I mean, I get why she did — Anthony’s a pretty cool guy — but ditching is still ditching.)
Ethan came and stood in front of me, casting a shadow by standing beneath one of the ceiling lights. He was at least four inches taller than the next tallest person at the party. His shoulders were hunched up by his ears, as though they were trying to restrain his gangly arms. He hadn’t even said a word, and he was already blushing. “Hey …”
“Hey,” I said back. I started to ask if he was having fun but chose not to risk him thinking I was being sarcastic. It was a party, and he was Ethan — I knew he was not having fun.
“Quite a semester, huh?” He gestured at the drink I was holding. “I think you’ve more than earned that drink.”
“This is just Diet Coke,” I told him. His face reddened again, like he was super-mad at himself for assuming anything. And I must have felt bad, because I suggested to him that we move out of the noisy kitchen, into the hallway outside the dorm room, so that we could hear each other talk. Even though I had no idea what we’d actually talk about.
Less than a minute later, we came up with something.
“I’m going to be in Paris, too,” he said, launching into an explanation of all the money I could have saved if I had shopped around a little.
“I’m organized,” I told him with a smirk, “but I’m not psychotic.”
He did not laugh at all. In fact, he started to defend himself, as if he thought I was being serious. I wanted to tell him to calm down, but I figured that would just make it worse, so I talked over him. (Flirting, it seems, is not really my thing.)
“No, it’s a family trip,” I told him — because, at that time, it still was. “We’re all going to kind of relive our parents’ honeymoon, so Mom can, like, reminisce, and we can be there with her while she does.”
“So you’re just going to take your mom to see a bunch of sights that she’s already seen?”
His question — and the disbelieving look on his face — was like a punch. A soft punch, sure, but who wants to be punched? And unlike the conversation we’d just been having, this time he wasn’t aware that he’d said anything wrong. Because he didn’t blush, didn’t stutter — he just kept talking. And that was the one thing I did not want him to do at that point.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a vacation, Serena. You’ll be traveling all the way to Europe, just to come away with sad memories?”
The noise from the party seemed to get louder and louder, echoing in my brain. I was grateful for it suffocating whatever it was that he said next, but that question — why would I do it? — was already taking root in my mind. I had to tell myself, he didn’t mean to upset me the way he had. Maybe he was asking a question that my other friends wanted to ask but didn’t dare.
When I had tuned back in, Ethan was still talking: “… if you have any time left over?”
I figured he was saying we should meet up in Paris. “Probably won’t have time,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “The itinerary is pretty strict.”
He smiled, as if he liked the sound of that. “Well, you know, keep in touch. Be great if we could.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And maybe” — there was something in the way his voice rose on the last syllable that signaled even to me, with my severe lack of experience at this sort of thing, that he was thinking about Making a Move — “next semester, we could, you know … hang out a bit more. I think that would make a lot of sense. From both our perspectives.”
He was looking right at me then, right into my eyes — he couldn’t have held my gaze any more firmly if he had put both his hands on my face. Even I knew he was going to lean in — and I was going to lean away as far as I could …
Which turned out to be only a few inches, because I happened to have my back against a wall. Which my head rebounded off, my cheekbone clipping his chin … It was a miracle he didn’t lose any of his luminescent teeth.
Like Charlotte said the next day, when we were talking about everything that happened at the party … Total kisstastrophe!
“Oh, gosh, Ethan, I’m so sorry,” I told him, as he ran his fingertips over his chin. He was waving away my apology, like it was no big deal, but I could tell from the way that he was looking straight at the floor that he was even more mortified than I was.
We exchanged apologies and wished each other well in Paris, saying that we guessed we’d just see each other next semester.
Then I watched him walk down the hallway, his shoulders slumped, hand still rubbing his chin.
It was only once he was outside that I realized that I was in pain. I rubbed my cheek, wincing and hoping I wasn’t going to get some kind of “shiner,” and then went back into the party to find something to add to my Diet Coke. I had earned it by now.
I found Charlotte in the kitchen. She was sitting on a countertop next to Anthony, showing him pictures of London on her cell phone — part of her mission to convince him to go home with her in the summer.
Charlotte hopped off the counter when she noticed I was back. She clasped both my hands excitedly. “How did it go?”
“I head-butted him in the face.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You could have just turned him down!”
I laughed ruefully. “You know what? I really don’t think Ethan’s right for me.”
Charlotte stared at me for a second, then shrugged to signal: I’m done trying to convince you that you’re wrong.
I changed the subject by asking Anthony and her about their summer plans, then zoned out as I wondered how a smart, practical, mature guy like Ethan could feel so wrong to a smart, practical, mature girl like me. I wondered, was it because he didn’t get why I wanted to walk in my parents’ footsteps this Christmas? His confusion — the look on his face that kind of asked, was I for real? — made me, briefly, question if the Romance Tour was kind of lame, kind of silly.
The fact that Ethan couldn’t get that made me wonder, was there any poetry — romance — in Ethan’s soul?
Because I want to have poetry and romance in mine. I just have to figure out where to find it.
*
That was the last I thought about Ethan until he suddenly appeared: this new, confident, cosmopolitan version of himself. Here in Paris, I’m looking at Ethan 2.0 and wondering if I was too hasty after the kisstastrophe. He’s not fidgeting with his glasses when he talks to me. I always thought that was his thing.
“You seem weirded out that I’m here,” he says.
I flap a hand dismissively. “Jet lag. Plus, it’s been a crazy morning.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“I really, really do not.” We laugh. “So, how’s your trip going?”
“It’s been kind of awesome so far.” He gestures with his eyes: Do I want to go over to the bench just off the last market stall? I shrug yes, and we both walk over and sit down, facing each other. I have a view of the Seine and Notre-Dame to my right and have to force myself not to keep looking for Jean-Luc. I can’t decide if I’m worried that he ditched me or worried that he might think I ditched him — but if Ethan 2.0 is still a little sensitive, a little shy, I worry how he’ll react if some cool, good-looking French guy suddenly shows up.
“I was so efficient with my route yesterday,” Ethan says, “that I even got through half of what I had planned for today. That means, I have only five things to do to meet today’s schedule — I can actually take my time,” he says.
“Ugh, I’m so jealous. I’ve had a total failure of efficiency on my trip. Due to a series of disasters beyond my control, I’ve only seen one thing on my itinerary so far. Plus, the whole Big Finish to my trip went out the window when I found out that I left my Eiffel Tower tickets on the plane.”
He makes a sympathetic face. “Oh, man, that must have sucked. I know how long that online queue was — it took me an hour and thirty-seven minutes to get my tickets.”
I’ve grabbed his arm before I’ve had time to really think if it’s a good idea. “You have tickets? To the Eiffel Tower? Tonight, you have tickets?”
He’s leaning back, and I cringe. I’m so excited, I’ve actually gotten Ethan to recoil from me! “Um, yeah,” he says, through a nervous chuckle. “When I was researching what I was going to do, I saw that the display was tonight, so …”
“You said ‘tickets’ — plural, right?”
He’s making a face, like he doesn’t like where this is going. Of course he doesn’t like it — why would he want the kisstastrophe-girl tagging along? “I’m so sorry, but … I kind of told my buddy Jesse that he could have the other ticket. I’ve known him since boarding school, and he’s letting me crash in his dorm while I’m here, so I thought I’d better offer it to him.”
“Oh.” I force myself not to lean back and turn away from him too quickly, too decisively. I’m a little bummed out, but I’m not an asshole. Even if Ethan did have a spare ticket, it’s not like I’d have any real claim to it. “Well, that should be fun.”
“Yeah, it should be real romantic.”
“Oh …” I say again. I didn’t know Ethan was bi.
Then I see him smiling at me. Sarcasm! I didn’t know Ethan did sarcasm.
His face gets serious. “Listen, I know you, uh, got this whole … family thing going on, but if that itinerary of yours really is flexible, maybe we could meet up for coffee before you go to London. I expect to be free between six thirty and eight tonight.”
I’m kind of impressed he doesn’t even need to consult his schedule. Just as I’m reaching into my bag to find mine — trying not to laugh too bitterly at the fact that I’m even still consulting it — he’s handing me a piece of paper.
“My cell works here,” he says. “Here’s my number, just in case you … lost it.”
I hope my face doesn’t show that I did seriously consider deleting it after the kisstastrophe.
“In case there’s any problems with cell coverage,” he says, “I’ve put Jesse’s number on there, too.”
I accept the offer. “You think of everything,” I say. I mean it as a compliment.
He smiles back at me. A few weeks ago, that pale complexion would have turned rose red, but now he’s in Paris, traveling alone, bunking with friends, seeing the sights and haggling in French.
Was I wrong about the lack of poetry?
Ethan stands up and says that he really ought to get going, because he needs to be at the Musée d’Orsay in — he checks his watch — twenty-seven minutes. “Can’t wait to see an actual Van Gogh!”
“Okay.” I stand up, too, putting the paper with the phone numbers into my cross-body bag. “It was good to see you.”
“It was good to see you, too.” And now his left hand is lightly on my upper right arm, just the fingertips for a second, before he takes a firmer grip. His eyes are on mine, and I wonder if we have another kisstastrophe coming.
But it’s just one of those European kisses — right cheek, then left. I guess Ethan’s subscribing to the when-in-Rome philosophy. Except, you know, in Paris.
And then Ethan — or some confident, assured Europhile wearing his face — is gone, weaving his way through the street market toward the river.
“You found a friend.”
Jean-Luc is suddenly beside me — standing very still, as if he’s been there awhile. He’s watching Ethan go, and because Jean-Luc’s in profile, I can’t tell if he’s curious or upset. He may have a right to be, as I kind of ditched him just now. No, what am I saying? He just wandered off, while I was getting yelled at by some street vendor.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I snap. “I don’t want to get spooked and hit you over the head, or something. Think of the medical bills.”
“In France, we have universal healthcare. I’d be well looked after.” He turns his face to me now, and there’s a gleam in his brown eyes. “Unlike in America.”
“Just don’t startle me like that, please. And I didn’t ‘find’ a friend — that’s actually someone I know from school back home.”
Jean-Luc points to the bench where Ethan and I had been sitting. “Do not forget the scarf he bought you.”
“He didn’t buy it for me,” I say, leaning down to scoop it up. I wrap it around my neck. “But he did make sure I had to pay only ten euros, when the lady wanted thirty.”
Jean-Luc chuckles as he turns to walk away from the market. “Good for him,” he says. “But it is not worth more than five.”