by Carina Lupo
“I’ve seen this look before,” I say laughing. “You must be up to no good. What are you cooking up?”
“Well I’ll be damned if I’m going to be in Paris with you and not be able to be with you.”
“Okay… what’s your plan? You look like a man with a plan.”
“Oh, yes I have a plan,” he says giving me his crocked smile that screams ‘I’m up to no good.’ It’s quite irresistible. “We have to take this opportunity since Susan is not around,” he continues. “Here’s the deal. I’ve already talked to Ted and James and they’ll cover for us. If anyone asks about me, they’ll say I’m hooking up with some groupie.” I roll my eyes at him but he ignores me and continues to lay out his plan. “As for you, you will go back downstairs and tell your new bodyguard that you are back from your walk and that you are going to your room for the rest of the day and you wish not to be disturbed until tomorrow. Then you get on the elevator and go down to the garage, I’ll be waiting for you there.”
“I see you are going with pretty elaborate and completely insane… Okay, let’s do it,” I say excited.
I follow my instructions and go to find Big Bob in the lobby.
“Hey Big Bob,” I say when I see him. “I’m back. Thanks for giving me some space. You can go relax now I’m not going anywhere anymore. I’ll be in my room, if anyone asks for me please tell them I don’t want to be disturbed.” I feel a bit guilty about flat out lying to him like that but not enough to stop me.
“Okay, will do, mam, I mean Lorelai.” He corrects himself quickly. I smile at him and then walk to the elevator. I make sure he sees me as I’m getting in, then I press the button to go down to the garage. As I walk out, I see Chris waiting for me in this shiny, spiffy, candy apple red sports Audi. I climb in the car and he immediately speeds off out into the street the sound of rubber on asphalt echoes against the cement walls.
“Nice ride,” I say. “Where did you get the car?”
“It’s a rental. I put a request with the concierge before we arrived.”
I look at him surprised.
“What?” he asks me, smiling.
“Nothing I’m just impressed at your resourcefulness.”
“You ain’t seen anything yet!”
We drive around some of Paris’s most famous sites, passing by the Arc the Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. Then, through the slow moving traffic we make our way to the Museé Rodin. At this time of the year, winter was already taking its grips on the city and so there weren’t many tourists around but the streets are still filled with trucks and Parisians. We walk around the museum first admiring the beautiful artwork and afterwards take a chilly walk around the gardens still very pretty with some of its fall foliage and of course its beautiful sculptures.
“This was a lovely choice,” I say to him as we are walking back to his car.
“Well I thought the Louvre would be too crowded to keep a low profile.”
“It was for the best, this was way more romantic.” I say smiling.
After we leave the museum area he drives to a small bistro for dinner. The restaurant is tiny, with dim romantic lighting and fantastic food. It was obviously a restaurant mostly frequented by French locals. We are the only couple speaking in English but no one gave us a second glance.
“This place is perfect. How on earth did you find this place?”
“I asked at the hotel for a dinner place that had zero tourists and was not some hip place to ‘be seen’.”
“Very smart. I don’t think we ever had dinner in a restaurant, just the two of us like this, at least since we started dating.”
“Yeah this whole hiding thing really sucks sometimes.”
“You mean sucks most of the time!”
“It does.”
“Thank you,” I say reaching for his hand over the table.
“For what?” he says, taking my hand in his.
“To tell you the truth, I was feeling pretty crappy today. But you have this way of casting a bright light into my dark days.” He gives me a wide smile and after taking another bite of his desert he says, “…talking about making a dark day brighter, how good is this crème brulee? This definitely makes my day brighter.”
“Oh man I want to marry this freaking thing!” I say mockingly and we both laugh. “This is stupidly good.”
After our dinner we walk back to the car and I think we are driving back to our hotel but Chris drives us to a different hotel. I look at him once again surprised.
“I told you I wasn’t going to be in Paris with you and not to be able to be with you…”
We enter a very fancy hotel and he tells me to wait behind as he checks us in.
“You’re the more recognizable of the two of us,” he says before he walks to the concierge.
He registers us under his parent’s name, and comes back with the keys.
“Let’s go Mrs. Henderson,” he says smiling at me, proud of himself.
“This is crazy. It’s like having an affair.”
“You are having an affair,” he says giving me a deep look that makes my heart skip a beat.
We take the elevator all the way to the top floor and walk to our room number. Chris swings open the door, the room looks like something out of a palace. It’s shining gold fixtures and glittering crystal chandeliers sparkle with light, the room is filled with old world decoration and charm. We walk across the expensive hand woven rug in the sitting area to the massive picture window. The view is breath taking. You can see the star lit Parisian night sky with the stunning Eiffel Tour and its happy twinkling lights in the back. On the table a bottle of champagne is waiting inside an ice bucket with two champagne flutes next to it.
“This must have cost you a fortune,” I say impressed and he rolls his eyes at me.
“In case you didn’t get the memo, we are millionaires now.”
“Oh you know me… I probably didn’t pay attention to that memo.” I laugh dismissively.
He takes me in his arms and gives me such a passionate kiss my knees almost buckle beneath me. I feel my heart race and the now familiar pang of desire. We go straight to the bedroom where we spend the night together, lost in each other, living in our own time, where nothing else matters but being in each other’s arms. I never thought I would have a more romantic night since that first time we were together back in New York, but this night had just climbed to the top of the charts.
**************
Later that night Chris is sound asleep next to me but I can’t fall back asleep. I finally get up, put on some clothes and walk down to the hotel’s piano bar. I had seen it advertised while we were riding up in the elevator earlier that day. It’s four in the morning now and there is no one at the bar but a couple of cleaning guys. I ask them if they minded if I played the piano, I don’t think they spoke English and I’m not so sure they understood me so I walk over to the piano anyway, it didn’t seem like they were going to stop me.
I had this song in my head. It was helping keep me awake so I needed to get it out. I slowly play out the melody on the piano and then start putting the lyrics down onto paper. I finish writing the entire song in less than an hour. I’m now just playing anything that comes to me when I see Chris walking towards me.
“I woke up and you were gone.” he says.
“Sorry, I needed to play. The problem with this tour thing is that hotel rooms never have a piano in them!”
“Yeah I don’t think there is a big clientele for in room pianos.” He laughs. He sees the papers on top of the piano and picks them up taking a seat next to me on the piano bench.
“Will you play it for me?” he asks and I am happy to oblige, I play and sing the song[3] for him and the two cleaning guys who now pretty much stopped working and are watching us.
“Was that inspired by me?” He asks me once I’m finished.
“Yes it was.” I tell him truthfully.
“That is immensely flattering. I should take you on more romantic getaways if i
t will help make you write music like this.”
“I think I could live with that.” I say truly believing my words, I could get used to living like this.
He takes deep resigned breath before he says, “I guess we better go now that is still so early… we can sneak back more easily this way.”
Chapter 16
Before we leave Paris to our next stop, Susan joins us again for the remainder of the European Tour. That was the end of the sneaking off for some alone time for Chris and I.
As we go deeper into this leg of the tour, hoping from country to country, fatigue starts setting in for all of us. We had now been traveling and away from home for almost a year. Our way of coping with this is to start joining Ted more and more often on his bar and club hopping escapades across Europe.
We are in Prague in the Czech Republic, the last town of the European tour, enjoying ourselves in a hip club in town before we leave the next day to Asia. I’m standing alone in a corner of the club with my drink for company, the guys, all enjoying the company of girls, including Chris that is surrounded by them. That’s disturbing me immensely, more than ever before. While I’m wallowing in my jealousy, I don’t even notice when I get approached by a buff looking guy.
“You look like you could use a refill,” he says to me in a deep voice. He then immediately gets the attention of a waitress and orders another drink for me. He is tall, tanned, with dark hair and light green eyes, very handsome and very European looking in his V-neck white muscle shirt reveling his tanned smooth chest.
“Thanks,” I say smiling to him.
“You are the girl from the band Wildfire aren’t you? I was at your concert tonight. You rocked.” he has a thick accent I can’t place where it is from.
“Thanks I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“I’m Nicko, by the way.” He gives me the European greeting, a kiss on the cheek. I can’t help but notice that this gesture immediately gets the attention of Chris who is now staring at us. Not so fun is it? I think to myself with a little joy.
“Lorelai.” I respond. “Where are you from?”
“Greece. I live in Athens, I’m here on business.”
“Nice.”
“Have you ever been to Greece?”
“No, I haven’t and our tour is not going there but I hear it’s supposed to be a very nice place.”
“If you would like, I have my private jet waiting for me to take me back. I could take you there, it’s a beautiful country it would suit such a beautiful woman.”
Now I’m thinking to myself, who is this guy? You move fast Euro trash…, but I just smile and say, “I’m sure it is but no thanks, I need to be in Tokyo tomorrow for our concert.”
“Ah…..pity. Well we still have tonight,” he says to me with a flirty look in his face placing his body very close to mine pinning me against a column. Now I’m feeling very uncomfortable.
“No I actually better get going… it was nice meeting you.” I say and try to walk away but his arm reaches over pulling me to him. He kisses me full on the lips. I push him away and am about to slap him but in that very same second Chris is in front of me and punches him right in the face. Nicko falls backwards to the floor, his nose bleeding. Big Bob immediately runs in next to me and Chris to protect us. Then another guy who looks like a body guard, (I don’t even know where he comes from), runs to Nicko and helps him get up. Once up Nicko yells, “Do you have any idea who I am? You will pay for this!” He points his finger to Chris while using his other hand to hold the bleeding in his nose. Ted and James are holding Chris who is ready to lunge at Nicko again. A crowd has formed around us. Big Bob is ready to fight anyone who gets anywhere near any of us. The situation doesn’t look good. I turn to Nicko and say, “I’m sorry. The guys can get a bit brotherly about me. Please,” I look at him pleading, “just let it go.” He looks at me and then to Big Bog and then back at Chris, “You’re in luck, punk.” He says to him and then walks off angrily leaving the night club with his body guard.
We exit the club right after. Big Bob puts the four of us into a taxi and follows us in another taxi.
Once safely inside the car James asks me, “Who was that guy?”
“I don’t know,” I respond. “Some wealthy Greek guy that started talking to me.” Chris is fuming next to me.
“You mean that you were flirting with,” Chris says with anger blazing in his eyes.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I respond equally angry. “I said three words to the guy and I was walking away. And don’t even get me started! You’re not one to talk! I have to watch you all smiley with a bunch of girls throwing themselves at you on a daily basis, one guy approaches me and you want to give me shit?”
“I never kiss them! You kissed this guy,” he yells at me.
“I didn’t kiss him! He kissed me and I pushed him away! That’s totally different.” I yell back with the same intensity.
“And why would you go to him after I punched the idiot?” he says looking at me, betrayed.
“Because what you did is really stupid! We can’t go around punching rich guys we don’t know in a foreign country! Don’t you understand how much trouble we can get into? I don’t care how much your male ego was hurt. I was trying to make the situation go away.”
“If you hadn’t flirted with him I wouldn’t have needed to punch him,” he says to me as the taxi pulls into our hotel. I look at him in disgust.
“Go to hell, Henderson!” I shout at him as I storm out of the car and into the hotel.
“Oh, oh she called you by your last name! You are in trouble dude,” Ted says jokingly. Chris gives him such an angry look that Ted stops laughing immediately.
Chapter 17
The next morning the car takes us to the airport where we board our Jet to take us on the long boring trip to Tokyo. No one brings up the subject of last night but you could feel it weighting in the air around us and even though it’s a long flight, everyone keeps to themselves. No one is feeling chatty.
Once we finally arrive in Tokyo, we are hardly prepared for what is in store for us. The crowd of fans waiting for us at the airport is huge. There are thousands of screaming fans, like we have never seen before. It‘s crazy. Big Bob is hardly enough to deal with a crowd this size but luckily it’s big enough that the local security was provided to help. From the airport a limo takes us directly to a TV studio where I would be interviewed on a popular local show.
The studio was big and very high tech. The crew greeting us is very professional. We are directed to the show’s producer who immediately takes me to make-up to get prepped to go on camera, I’m sure after coming out from such a long flight I need help. When the time comes I am directed to the side of stage and I walk in when I hear my name called. The host bows, shakes my hand and greets me speaking in a very fast but strange version of English, I feel like I should be able to understand what he is saying but I don’t. The experience that follows is certainly a weird and different one. The host starts acting wacky while electronic dance music is piped into the studio. I see on the studio monitors that lots of colorful animations are appearing on the screen. The host starts blabbing away in Japanese and I don’t understand a word of what’s happening. I just stand there smiling and looking awkward. Behind the camera, in the darkened studio, I can see the guys having a great laugh at my expense but I try to ignore them. Finally, the host directs a question to me and the guy that is standing next to me translates it, or at least that’s what I think he is doing. The host speaks to me for what seems like ten minutes and all I get from the so called translation is a small question! I’m sure that’s not all he said, I think to myself. I give my answer to what the translator said to me and hope for the best. That’s the way it goes for the rest of the questions except that a few more times during the interview the host would be speaking and then some more music and animations would come on. I don’t know what the hell that was all about, but whenever that happened I could see the guys break into the most ridic
ulous jig behind the cameras. I had to muster all the strength I had to not just break out in laughter. I just pretend to clear my throat whenever I could feel myself losing it. I couldn’t wait for that whole thing, whatever it was, to be over!
When we leave the studio and get back to the car my suffering isn’t completely over as the guys can’t seem to get enough of mocking me.
“Susan,” Ted says from the farthest back seat in the limo “I’ll give you anything you want if you get me a copy of that show.” They are all laughing now.
“Oh man, that was freaking hilarious,” James adds between bouts of laughter.
“You can usually handle pretty well most things that are thrown at you but this was the most awkward I’ve ever seen you look!” Chris adds trying to contain his laughter.
“I didn’t know what was going on, the guy would wildly speak Japanese for long time then I would get a small question translated then a bunch of animated dancing kittens would come up in the monitor. I was just standing there with my best WTF look! I just gave up in end and focused on not laughing since you guys weren’t making my job any easier! Like the whole thing wasn’t surreal enough you had to add the most ridiculous dancing in the background.”
“What can we say Lori,” Ted says in between bouts of laughter. “The weirdness was contagious! We couldn’t help ourselves!” We are all laughing and I take it all good stride. I didn’t mind being mocked… when you are in a band everybody gets their turn ridding the mock train.
We arrive at the hotel and there is a huge crowd of fans there too. We all wave and greet the fans but when Chris waves to the crowd, the high pitched screaming that comes from the girls is deafening! We manage to squeeze our way into the hotel while being blinded by camera flashes. Once we finally get inside we all look a bit flabbergasted. It’s a little unsettling having so many people screaming at us, even if it is out of love for us.
Once in the quiet and calm lobby Susan pulls me away from the guys for a talk. She looks more serious now.