The bakery lady starts makes soothing noises and Jean-Paul has a strange grimace on his face. Then I realize I’ve been squeezing his upper bicep as I listened to the messages. “Oh, je suis désolé,” I apologize, dropping my grip. My head is clearing. I can tell because my French is coming back to me.
Okay, the silver lining for right now is that I’m safe. I’m being taken care of. I’ll just find a taxi to the Loire Valley. Or maybe missing the tour of Château de Chenonceau—a scrumptious never-to-be-seen-again castle—isn’t the end of the world.
I think I’ll have to work on that one because with my luck I’ll never get to France again in my life.
I dig into my purse again and open up my wallet. I have an ATM card, my school ID, lipstick, hairbrush, and if somebody has a bottle of glue, I’ll even have shoes back on my feet. My eyes are still watering way too much and I really don’t want to start blubbering in front of these people. I should be able to handle this. I’m eighteen, not eight.
I think of Sera’s voicemail again and picture a team of Educational Tour sleuths hot on my trail with Robert look-alikes barking orders into walkie-talkies, their hands clutching a map with every single La Patisserie shop in Paris circled in red.
Except, I won’t be at any of the pastry shops. I’m headed to the hospital for x-rays. Doctor LaCroix’s orders.
Seven Months Earlier
I stared down at the ugly, vomit-colored carpet in the apartment hallway and put my head in my hands. I was in the middle of a soap opera—a soap opera called my life. I plugged my ears so I couldn’t hear the fight between my mom and Jerry on the other side of the plasterboard. Mom had thought they’d get married, and it was true that I thought Jerry was pretty nice, too. He was funny, brought gifts, paid for everything—he just didn’t want to get married. Or inherit an instant teenage stepdaughter.
Jerry was nice as far as men go. Nobody could ever replace my dad, of course, but I was learning that my mom was the kind of person who needed someone. Losing my dad was the worst thing that could have happened to her. Plus, our finances weren’t exactly a rock of stability and I think she was getting more worried all the time.
“It’s a sign, Mom,” I whispered. “Don’t beg him.”
I looked up at the ceiling as though I’d spot God up there handing out advice and granting wishes. “Don’t let me ever get that desperate over a guy,” I added, feeling mortified for my mother.
I had always assumed that after high school was over and I was in college, all the jealousy between other rival girls and the angst over boys and relationships would disappear. I had this dream of being confident and sophisticated, living on my own, having standing tickets to the ballet on weekends with tall handsome men who paid for everything and opened taxi doors.
I mean, I could see how bad the guys are that my mother dates, and how they screw around with her heart and her trust. It’s so obvious, so why can’t she see it? Either I’m totally wrong or the adults around me need serious therapy.
Someone touched my hand and I gasped as I looked up. It was Mathew. I’d forgotten he was coming over.
He crouched down next to me, eye level—and started to sing. “Love me tender . . . Love me true . . . All my dreams fulfilled.”
I wiped my wet face and smiled back at him. Damn, he looked good. His collar brushed his square chin, and his eyes were dark green in the dusky hallway because the super hadn’t replaced the burned-out light bulb yet.
“For my darling, I love you,” he paused, giving me a silly grin which sort of spoiled the romantic words, but I tried not to let it bother me. “And I always will.” His singing voice could make a girl totally swoon. One night when I’d been invited to his house for dinner, Mathew and I listened to a bunch of old records from his parent’s collection while his parents watched Wheel of Fortune. Music of the 40s and 50s became background music for our make-out sessions in his bedroom.
Mathew leaned over and kissed me softly on the lips. My stomach turned to liquid.
“Hey, thanks for coming,” I said.
Just then something huge slammed into the wall behind me, shaking the two-by-fours. I hoped it was just a book.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mathew said, lifting me to my feet.
“I’m not sure I should just take off and desert my post,” I told him. “My mom is going to want hot tea and a good cry in about ten minutes.”
“Women,” Mathew said with a sigh, bringing me in close.
Call me blonde, even though I’m a brunette with highlights, but after awhile I find myself wanting to shake these adorable French citizens and cry, Please speak English, I can’t flip through my dictionary fast enough! Actually, I stopped trying to look up every word hours ago. The dictionary is now resting comfortably at the bottom of my handbag.
The only English that makes it out of anybody’s mouth is the French boy with the hot fudge sundae eyes—pardonnez-moi, I mean Jean-Paul Dupré.
I think my emotions need to get slapped with a restraining order. What’s that condition called where someone gets a crush on a person who saves them from disaster or death? Like when a patient falls in love with their nurse? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in love with Jean-Paul Dupré, but I can certainly understand some other girl falling in love with Jean-Paul if she’d been saved from a pastry shop floor after being assaulted by chocolate éclairs.
This morning was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. I think it even tops the time I fell backward on stage during my second grade play and my dress flew up over my head.
Not to mention that the whipped cream from the tarts, which had splattered all over my face, had turned my okay hair day into a truly horrific one. But Jean-Paul didn’t laugh like other guys might, and he didn’t get irritated that I’d thrown pastries all over the shop and driven away customers. Jean-Paul was sweet and an absolute gentleman. The guys at my school in New York would never let a girl forget that her dress slid up her thigh and she spent the day with dollops of filling on her eyebrows.
Jean-Paul took me to the hospital himself and stayed by my side through the x-rays and the doctor’s exam. He even hunted down a warm blanket from the nurses when he noticed me shivering.
Jean-Paul knows English so well, there are moments I cling to him like life-support. It takes forever to say something in English to the doctors or nurses, have Jean-Paul translate it into French, and then get the answer translated from French back into English for me.
If he weren’t here I’d have a brain melt-down.
A nice grandmotherly nurse with white hair and crinkled sugar-cookie eyes bandages me up with thick support gauze. My ankle isn’t broken, not even sprained really.
“Just a—what do you say? Muscle strain. Maybe a little bruised,” Jean Paul explains. “The doctor says you’ll be walking around normally soon. Maybe even in a day or two—if you’re careful.” He wags a stern finger at me, mimicking the doctor before he left with his flip chart and thermometer.
I give a salute. “Yes, sir! Must be all that track I run—and the milk I’ve doused on countless bowls of Cocoa Puffs every morning since pre-school.”
Jean-Paul looks confused, probably wondering if Cocoa Puffs are some kind of American space shuttle food.
“It’s just chocolate,” I tell him, shrugging my shoulders. “Crunchy chocolate balls doused in sugar and milk? Sort of like what everyone serves here for breakfast.”
The nurse finishes wrapping my ankle and lets out a slew of French.
Jean-Paul pats my hand reassuringly while I wait for the translation, and when he touches me my heart goes into sprint mode like I’ve just run the 800. “She says you need to put lots of ice around your ankle. And raise your foot up. You’ll be good as new.”
I nod and force my eyes away from his face. I can’t look at him any longer. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anybody as gorgeous as Jean-Paul Dupré. And here I thought Mathew was the best looking guy on the planet. The knowledge is disturbing. Maybe I’ve
just got a case of homesickness due to all the trauma. Or I’m emotional because I don’t know where my group is, and they don’t know where I am. I did hit my head on the floor, after all. There are explanations for these things.
The sooner I get my cell phone charged and call Mathew the better. That’ll put everything back into perspective. Jean-Paul is just a regular boy, nothing special. I mean, he isn’t a movie star or anything! Do the French even have movie stars like Johnny Depp or Jude Law? He’s just a guy in high school who has to do homework the same as everybody else and work in his family’s pastry shop. I mean, how exciting is baking trays full of croissants every morning?
For some reason that sounds very sexy to me right now . . .
Jean-Paul is staring at me with a full-on smile.
Oh, Lord. I close my eyes and pray that I did not just speak my thoughts out loud. I need to get out of here before I start babbling. Again.
I lean back against the hospital pillows and try to look casual. His smile means nothing! Everybody smiles—it’s just being friendly.
An hour later, we’re in the Paris Metro as the underground railway zooms us back to the pastry shop. Paris is huge and confusing, but probably not much more than New York. The morning commute is over now so the Metro is half empty. New York subways are always crowded, except at midnight, but then nobody I know rides the subway at midnight. Not if you want to live to talk about it.
“What are you thinking?” Jean-Paul asks, stretching out his legs and looking completely relaxed, hair falling into his brown eyes.
“What am I thinking?” I repeat, sitting on my hands so I can resist the urge to fix his hair. I’m still self-conscious from the hospital so I’ve been trying to avoid eye contact, even though he’s sitting directly across from me. “Um, nothing.” My voice comes out in a squeak, and I’m hoping he won’t guess that I’ve been thinking about him. I feel guilty, like Jean-Paul has caught me doing something illicit.
I’m sure Mathew would be so hurt if he knew. I suddenly wonder about Mathew’s private thoughts. Which brings me back to The Worst Night of My Life. Does he compare me to Parvati? Is she prettier or smarter? She’s certainly a better singer than I am. And she can dance her juttis off all over the streets of Bombay. (Jutti = beaded slippers from India, and very cute. Parvati gave me a pair for a Christmas gift.) She also manages to stay in the top two percentage of our class. Life is so not fair.
My stomach clenches in that familiar way it’s been doing the last few months. Long before I left for Paris. As Parvati and I became better friends, I got this nagging feeling every time Mathew was around us. Like some secret chemistry sizzled between the two of them. Mathew always brushed it off and told me all he wanted was me. Sera warned me over and over again. I ignored the signs. I feel so stupid now.
I know what Mathew has been wanting from me for months, but while I’ve been in Paris I didn’t have to worry about it or think about that problem for nine days. The relief surprised me, caught me off-guard. It feels like being tied to a chair for an obscenely long time and finally discovering how to loosen the ropes and launch myself out the door.
I dreamed that once. That Mathew sneaked into my bedroom one night dressed like a burglar. He tied me in a chair then kissed me hard and furiously until I couldn’t breathe. I was stuck in that chair all night. The dream made me feel jumpy and tense the whole next day.
When I told Mathew about it, he laughed and pulled me against his chest. “I guess I know what fantasies you’ve been having.”
“It was not a fantasy, Mathew. I was scared. It felt like I was suffocating. What do you think it means? They say your dreams mean something.”
He rolled his eyes and told me to forget about it. “It doesn’t mean anything. It was just a stupid dream, Chloe.”
The train slows and stops at the next station and I grip the crutches in my fists like I’m going to crack the handles in half. Doctor LaCroix insists I use them at least until I get back to the shop. Staring at my bandaged foot, I realize that crutches do not show off legs to their best advantage.
Jean-Paul’s expression is thoughtful. “Your face—it is—how do you say?” He pauses. “I don’t know the right word.”
Can Jean-Paul actually read my thoughts now? I study the empty space below my seat wondering if I’ll have to crawl under my chair from sheer embarrassment.
“Will this help?” I dig around in my bag and hand him the pocket dictionary.
His eyes light up as he takes the book and dives in like I just saved his life. My heart melts. Dear Lord, get me out of here, I pray. This guy is way too close. He smells way too good. Those chocolate brown eyes—I want to pour them in a cup and start guzzling.
Jean-Paul flips through the pages like an expert while I look out the opposite window for a different view, but the older woman with the canvas shopping bag next to me glares so I whip my face forward again, wondering where I can safely direct my eyes without getting into trouble.
“Expressive!” Jean-Paul says, nodding emphatically. “Your face, that is what it is! When I was watching you—you have a way of many expressions crossing your face. Your eyes move, your mouth does this thing—c’est interesante—” he breaks off. “That is why I ask, what are you thinking about? There are many thoughts zooming around in your head.”
How am I supposed to reply—that my thoughts about you are behaving wickedly? Or that I’ve just realized I might be a teensy bit afraid of my boyfriend holding me captive in a chair all my life? I mean all night.
“Um, my brain was blank,” I tell him. “Really. I wasn’t thinking about anything.” Do I come across as lame as I sound to myself?
Jean-Paul places the dictionary into my hands. “I understand you do not want to say.”
What is with this guy? How does he know that? Jean-Paul is inside my head, without me even inviting him in. He’s smart and intuitive, and asks about me, studies me, as if he really wants to know. All the things girls complain about most guys—that all they do is talk about themselves and don’t care what a girl’s opinion is or ask about her feelings.
I realize with a funny feeling that Mathew has never noticed my “expressive” face before. Desperately, I change the subject before Jean-Paul can recite my thoughts word for word. “How did you learn English so well? You’re very fluent.”
He shrugs and I notice that he has a small dimple on the left side of his mouth. It’s boyish and completely endearing. “We begin learning in school when we’re only five or six years old. How long have you known French?”
“A whopping nine months. I thought I was doing so good until I heard you.”
“Oh, but you are! The longer you stay, the better your French will become. And,” he smiles, the dimple deepening. “I have a few years on you.”
“Actually, I’m leaving France soon—sooner than I’d like,” I tell him. “No more practice for me. Unless I sign up for French again next fall.”
“Leave Paris? But why?”
“Because my school tour is ending, silly,” I tell him, smiling up into his face and trying not to stare. “Actually, our flight leaves Monday morning—after we spend Sunday in the Loire Valley touring. Well, we come back to the airport here in Paris sort of in the middle of the night. You know, when it’s after midnight, but usually you’re asleep then.”
“Your shoe—the fall—you missed your bus,” Jean Paul says, turning serious. “I need to help you find your tour. That is next on the list, right, Chloe?”
I give a little shrug, smiling weakly at the way he says my name. I suppose connecting with my teacher and the tour group should be my next chore. If Jean-Paul insists. But do I really have to? At the moment, hanging out with Jean-Paul is much more fun. I’ve never known a pastry chef before. Or a French boy. Or anyone who looks and acts quite like him. He could have just put me in a taxi to take me to the hospital. Or sent me with Dr. LaCroix, and gone on with his own life. Instead, he accompanied me every single moment and made sure I wasn’
t scared or nervous.
I try to picture Mathew doing this for a stranger—and I simply cannot. As I lean against the crutches, all of a sudden I feel depressed. The problems at home are looming closer and closer.
“This is our stop,” Jean-Paul says, putting a hand under my elbow to help me rise to my feet. My broken high-heeled sandals are at the pastry shop and I’m still wearing the hospital’s fashionable paper slippers.
“Um, I think I can walk.” I want to throw away the ugly crutches. My ankle is sore, but I can walk, even though I’m slow.
Jean-Paul laughs at my pouting face. “Doctor’s orders. You can get rid of them later.”
See what I mean? He practically parrots my thoughts. Is my face that transparent? “How many hours must I endure this torture, Doctor Dupré?” I say, as if we’re in an old black and white movie with dramatic music blasting in the background.
He gives me a grin and holds the Metro door open with his shoulder so it won’t close before I can get out. “At least one or two agonizing hours, but I’ll have to check the patient’s progress first. I suggest a pack of ice first, Mademoiselle Dillard.”
A shiver runs down my arms, thinking about what I would do if I had landed on some unknown street all by myself, lost and alone. I was lucky to get stuck inside La Patisserie with nice people. I could be wandering the streets without any money and a dead phone, my ID stuck in my carry-on bag on the bus and my passport who knew where. I barely have change for one call at a pay phone. It’s hard not to think of Jean-Paul as my knight in shining armor. Or my hot guy in jeans and a forest green shirt.
Correction there, brain. Not my hot guy, just a hot guy.
Paris Cravings: A Paris & Pastry Novel Page 3