Big Girl Playing in Paris: Big Girl Series Bk4

by Rose, Aubrey

  Alex ate up the crowd’s fervor, and some girl actually threw her bra onto his guitar in the middle of a song. A railing broke down and security had to throw ropes across the street to cordon off the screaming fans. Julian looked nervously out at the crowd. Jesus, there must have been a hundred thousand people teeming in the street, and all they had to hold them back were a few ropes and guards. Nobody played well, but the audience didn’t seem to care. Julian fucked up his main solo and they still cheered, and then he fucked up two more transitions, and they still cheered. It was infuriating. After the set was over, Julian retreated underground, where a bunch of fans screamed from behind the rails in the tunnel.

  “Julian! Julian!” Alex’s voice barely made itself heard above the roar of the crowd. Underground, the walls seemed to shake with the noise.

  “What?” Julian yelled.

  “Encore!” Alex said, thumbing back out at the Arc. Julian shook his head. He could see Pat, their manager, making his way over, and he did not want to talk to the man.

  “No way,” he said. “I’m done.”

  Alex grabbed his arm, and Julian felt a surge of anger pulse through his body. He didn’t want to be touched, he didn’t want anyone close to him. He needed to be alone. The fans screamed Alex’s name from behind him.

  “You gotta come back!” Alex shouted into his ear. Julian pulled away roughly, knocking Alex off balance. Throwing his guitar onto the pile of equipment, he turned away from Alex.

  “Julian! What the hell?” Daniel stood at the entryway of the tunnel, camera flashes going off behind him. Julian squinted.

  “I’m done,” he said, and strode off toward the tunnel, pulling a baseball cap onto his head. Grabbing a security guard jacket and throwing it over his shirt, he jumped the rail. The first few fans grabbed at him, but he pushed his way forward and soon he was past the group of people who had seen him come from the band. Amid the confusion he pushed his way outward and into the crowded street, his head bent over his cap.

  “Julian! Wait!” He thought he heard Asher yelling his name, but he didn’t care. He needed to get out. Tonight had been everything he hated. The music, especially. Nothing mattered except the music, and they had fucked that up royally.

  He hated it all, the crowds, the noise, the fame that wasn’t deserved. That set had been awful, and still the audience cheered. He wanted to curl up and die. He wanted to smash something. He wanted out.

  Shoving his way through the dense mass of people, he found himself in the doorway of a bar. The lights inside were dimmed and he went in, closing the door behind him.

  The ringing in his ears quieted down as he acclimated himself to the soft murmuring of bar conversation inside. The people here sipped wine and whiskey, smoking cigars in plush seats. Beautiful women milled around indifferently. A waiter came quickly over, eyeing Julian with disdain. Julian pulled off the security jacket and cap and tossed them aside, pulling a wad of cash from his pocket. He peeled off a 100 euro bill and flicked it out toward the waiter.

  “Merci, monsieur,” the waiter said, his expression quickly turning hospitable.

  “Where can I sit?” Julian asked, scanning the room.

  “This way, please,” the waiter said, slipping effortlessly into English. He motioned Julian to come to the back of the bar and produced an empty booth out of thin air.

  “What can I get for monsieur?” the waiter asked.

  “Water, please,” Julian said, sliding into the booth. The waiter paused, and Julian flicked another bill his way. “Quick.”

  “Yes, monsieur.” The waiter picked up the bill with expert fingers. A beautiful girl dressed in a skintight black cocktail dress returned with a glass of water, and Julian downed it, ignoring the stares of the patrons around him. He put his head in his hands, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. He had fucked up. He should never have joined Wilder Side. It wasn’t about the music anymore, if it ever had been. It was about the fame, and the crowds and… Jesus. A dull buzzing headache gripped the base of his skull.

  “Monsieur?” The beautiful girl was back, and she pushed a glass of something toward him. He began to protest.

  “A drink on the house for monsieur,” she said, ignoring his words. He thought maybe she didn’t speak English, because she left him the drink anyway and went to another table.

  He stared down at the glass. Two perfectly clear ice cubes rested in the golden liquid. He leaned forward to smell it, and knew at once it was brandy, and not the cheap kind. He felt a twinge of desire pulse through his body. His head ached with it.

  Just one drink. One drink would get rid of the horrible crushing pain in his head. Before he could convince himself otherwise, his hand reached out and tilted the glass up. The liquid burned his throat beautifully as it went down. A delicious warmth spread through his chest, and he forgot why it had been so important to him to stay away from alcohol. His phone buzzed in his pocket, so he turned it off without looking. He just wanted to be alone right now. Alone with a glass of brandy.

  “More?” The girl stood in front of him, the front of her dress showing the smooth line of cleavage. He blinked at the bottle she held in her hand.

  “Oui,” he said, testing out his French. Why shouldn’t he help himself to local hospitality? That should be part of the tour, after all.

  She leaned over to pour him another drink and he picked up the glass, then put it back down and reached for the bottle she was holding instead. Yes, he would like to keep it with him. Yes, that would be fine.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Shannon’s excitement bubbled up inside of her as she walked down the Champs-Elysees in the bright afternoon, the busy street crowded with tourists and shoppers. Paris. She was finally here.

  The department chair had been thrilled for her when she told him about her idea for her senior thesis, and they had quickly arranged for a semester abroad. An entire semester in Europe, taking band pictures and finishing her photography assignments remotely—it was a dream come true for Shannon. The sun shone down on her face as she walked down the sidewalk under the wrought iron lamps, and all around her the casual chattering of French natives immersed her. She tried to understand some of it, but the French-English dictionary she picked up had been all but useless. As soon as she spoke one word in French, the person she was talking to would switch to English, knowing immediately that she was American.

  She stopped in boutique after boutique, but while American stores were geared towards skinny girls, French stores pretended that curvy women didn’t even exist. She had all but given up on the idea of finding a dress above a size six after two hours of browsing, but then she came to a small chic dress shop at the end of the street. The sign said “Taille +” in frilly cursive font, and the mannequins’ hips stretched underneath the tight dresses in the show windows. Perfect.

  Shannon had heard that French employees were rude, but the shopgirls in this store fawned over her, picking out dress after dress for her to try on. As soon as she looked at the price tag, Shannon knew why—the prices were outrageous, and they must have been working on commission. But Julian had left her some money for the plane ticket, and she had foregone first class in favor of keeping the extra. You never know when you’ll need a few extra hundred dollars, and now Shannon was glad she had put up with the screaming children in the coach section of the airplane.

  One of the dresses the ladies chose for her fit perfectly—the fabric was a green and gold print, setting off her red hair beautifully. The hips hugged her tight but the hem flared out, and the ruching of the fabric in the front hid all of the bumps that would otherwise have been unseemly. She nearly fainted at the price when she glanced at the tag—over four hundred euros. She did the math in her head. That was over five hundred dollars. It wasn’t nearly as much as some of the other dresses in the shops she had visited, but most of her dresses came from the clearance rack at Sears. For four hundred euros, she could buy the whole damn rack!

  Feeling pleased with her purchase, an
d a few bills lighter in her wallet, she stepped back out into the Paris sunshine. The day was perfect. Nothing could ruin her good mood.

  Wilder Side had already played three of their gigs on the tour. She had been following along, emailing and texting Julian, and everything seemed to be going well, although he told her that he missed her more than anything. He would be so excited to see her there in Paris, weeks earlier than they had planned. She had emailed him this morning, complaining about her classes. He wouldn't find out until this evening.

  She hurried back to her hotel room so that she would have enough time. She took a shower, change in her new dress, and spent ten minutes adjusting her accessories in the mirror. She put on her favorite mascara, the one that matched her dark red eyelashes, and lipstick to match.

  "You are stunning," she said to herself in the mirror, and smiled. Her mirror image smiled back, echoing her confidence. She checked her watch. If she left now, she should be there in plenty of time for the show. Maybe she would even be able to catch up with Julian before the concert started. She squealed and shook her red hair out.

  "Allons-y!" She said. "Let's go rock the fuck out."

  But if she thought she was going to be able to see Julian before the show, she was sadly mistaken. The crowd leading up to the area where they were playing was packed tight, and when she insisted to the guards near the tunnel that she knew the lead guitarist for Wilder Side, they shook their heads and pretended not to know any English, pointing out to the general audience instead.

  "Great," Shannon said. "This is what I get for trying to surprise my boyfriend."

  She tried to make conversation, but all of the other girls in the audience ignored her efforts to chat in French, looking her up and down as though she was the dumbest, fattest tourist they had ever seen. By the time the show started, her nerves were frazzled and she had resorted to staring at her cell phone for company. Julian normally texted her right before a show, but there were no messages on her phone.

  "It's okay, Shannon," she said. "You're not gonna let anything bust up your good mood." As the lights went up on the Arc de Triomphe, the people around her began to scream for the band, and her energy shot back up.

  The show was definitely not the best they’d ever played, and Shannon could see that she would never get Julian’s attention from way back where she was standing. He looked irritated, and the technical screwups seemed to make the band play worse as the set went on. The crowd still loved it, though, and Shannon was thrilled to see how successful Wilder Side had become. It was so exciting to see them playing on tour in Europe!

  After the show, it took Shannon a half hour to push her way past and get to the tunnel that led backstage. Once there, she managed to flag down a crew member to escort her in.

  “Hey Asher,” she said, going over to where the drummer was packing up his microphones. He was the only one she had told about her early arrival. “Where’s Julian?”

  Asher’s face dropped.

  “Shannon, hey, what a surprise!” he said. “Julian left just after the show.”

  “What’s wrong?” She could see that he had a weird expression on his face.

  “Nothing, just he wasn’t in a good mood. I’m sorry, Shannon.”

  “It’s okay.” But Shannon was worried. No text from him before or after the show, and now he had run off to god knows where. She tugged at her dress. “You know where he went?”

  “I saw him heading down the street, going, uh, south? Towards the river. Not sure where he was planning on going, though. You know where our hotel is, right? Maybe he’s there.”

  “Okay,” Shannon said, a sinking feeling in her stomach. “I’ll try that.”

  While the rest of the band packed up, Shannon called the hotel. The receptionist there told her that nobody had come back from the band, so she left her number just in case.

  She walked down the street toward the river, her eyes scanning the groups of people on the sidewalk. How many millions of people were there in Paris? There was no way she would find Julian just by looking. She sighed. All this effort into surprising him, and now this.

  Oh well. She would have fun walking along the Seine anyway, and he was bound to show up back at his hotel. She knew he needed to cool off sometimes and just go walk around alone, so maybe he was doing that. She sent him a brief text—how was the show?—and put her phone back in her purse.

  She walked for an hour by the river, stopping on a bridge to watch the water pass underneath. The dark river flowed slowly, the currents underneath invisible except for the fluttering ripples of light on the surface of the water. It gave her the chills, although the night air was humid, almost warm. She circled back towards the Arc de Triomphe. Maybe she could meet up with the band and wait for Julian with them. She pulled out her phone. Still nothing from him.

  Crossing the street, she heard a commotion on the sidewalk outside of a bar. She was about to walk away—she didn’t want to get involved in a bar fight or whatever it was—but then she heard the words Wilder Side and stopped, turning back. As she got closer, the door opened and she saw Julian come out of the bar. He held a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other, and two slim, beautiful women were on either arm, swooning over him. He nearly fell down the steps and the crowd cheered, excited to see the American celebrity. Julian held up his glass in a mock toast and yelled something in French. Shannon couldn’t make out his slurred words but everyone around her laughed and yelled. One of the women leaned over and kissed his cheek, and Shannon felt a burning pain rise up in her as he smiled and tilted his head back for another drink.

  Julian turned to walk down the sidewalk, and the crowd parted before him, giving her a good look at him. His eyes were glassy, rimmed red and he only took two steps before tripping and stumbling forward, catching himself before he could fall but dropping his glass. His glass shattered on the sidewalk and someone yelled something in French. Retching, he leaned over to the gutter, leaving the two beautiful women behind, and emptied his stomach into the street.

  Camera lights went off, and Julian halfheartedly waved away the young man recording the scene on his phone. The crowd surged back as he took another swig from the bottle, rinsing his mouth with alcohol, and spit. Shannon watched as he leaned forward, one hand bracing himself on his knee, and heaved again, then coughed and pounded his chest. His head came up, and he saw her.

  They stood ten feet apart, staring at each other. Shannon’s lips trembled and Julian blinked hard, as though he couldn’t believe it was her. The woman on his left leaned forward to whisper something in his ear, and he shook her off roughly.

  “Shannon?” he said. He swayed on his feet, his eyes focused roughly in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

  Shannon felt tears rolling down her cheeks. She turned and ran.

  The roar in her ears could not block out his yelling, and she knew that in heels she wouldn’t be able to get away unless he was too drunk to run. Still, she tried, unable to stop the sobs rising in her throat as she fled down the sidewalk, pushing people aside. It was only a block before she reached the river and he caught up to her.

  “Shannon, please.” Julian caught her by the arm and spun her around. They stood partway across a huge stone bridge, and passing tourists eyed them warily as they crossed the river. Shannon reeled back as the scent of his breath hit her—the overwhelming smell of alcohol masking the bitter tang of bile underneath.

  She couldn’t stop crying. Everything she had looked forward to, her dreams of reuniting with him, evaporated into the cold night air.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Julian tried to hug her but she pushed him away. He caught her wrists, wringing them in his. “I’m sorry Shannon. I’m so sorry.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Why? Why, Julian?”

  Shannon looked at Julian, but he just shook his head shallowly. The guilt in his eyes threatened to brim over into tears. She didn’t care. He had only been gone for a little over a week, and he had already gone
and gotten drunk. And two girls on his arm! Who knows how many groupies he had fucked? Shannon caught a sob in her throat as she thought about the beautiful women bending over him, kissing him…

  “I don’t know,” he said. He looked miserable, but any sympathy she had for him was currently buried in the rage and sorrow boiling inside of her.

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “I know.” The words were like a door clicking shut. That was it. Julian had never felt anything real for her. And after he had been so jealous of her! She couldn’t believe it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry, Julian. I thought this could be a real relationship.”

  “It can! It is!”

  Shannon shook her head sadly.

  “Please, Shannon, don’t do this—”

  “Me?” Shannon tore her wrists out of his grasp. “I’m not the one who’s done anything.”

  Realization dawned on Julian’s face.

  “Shannon, no. No. I didn’t do anything with those girls. And this was the first night—”

  “The first night, sure. What, do you think I was born yesterday?” Shannon blotted her fingers against her bottom eyelashes, blinking away the tears spilling over her cheeks. “The first night. And what would you have done tomorrow night, Julian?”

  “Nothing! I would never—”

  “I don’t believe you!” Shannon trembled. All of her body quivered with anger and hurt.

  “I got drunk. I’m drunk.” Julian said, leaning forward. “It’s stupid and I’m the biggest idiot in the world, but I would never ever do anything like that to you.” He paused.