You obviously can’t handle an emancipated woman. I was wrong about you. You’re too straitlaced. Please don’t contact me ever again.
He exhaled in relief. Her appraisal of him was unfair and unflattering, but if it made her feel better, he wasn’t going to argue.
And he definitely wasn’t going to contact her again.
***
FIVE
“I hate this weather,” Marie said after ordering another cappuccino. “It’s only the beginning of October, but it’s already cold and wet.”
Natalie nodded.
“I feel like eating chocolate all the time, which is bad for my figure,” Marie whined.
Natalie patted her friend’s hand. “Don’t despair. We may still get an Indian summer in a week or two.”
For an emotional person like Marie, weather was a significant variable, interfering with her mood and well-being for better or worse. Right now, definitely worse.
“I haven’t told you the latest. I had a second date with Stephan,” Marie said.
“How did it go?”
“Not well. We spent the evening talking about his work problems, his bitchy boss, and his ex-girlfriend.”
“Ouch.” Natalie wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t bode well.”
“It wasn’t until just before we got the check that he remembered to ask if I’d had a nice week.”
“And?”
“I started telling him how depressed I was about the weather, but he interrupted me and went on about his ex again. Can you believe it?”
“No third date then, huh?”
Marie chewed on her lower lip. “He is kind of cute, in a blissfully self-centered way, you know? As if he can’t see that people might not be interested in him. A bit like your Fred.”
Natalie frowned. “Fred isn’t like that.”
“Oops. Did I say something wrong? Sorry. Of course, Fred isn’t like that.”
In spite of Marie’s emphatic refutation, Natalie felt she needed to prove her point. “He’s swamped with work right now, and when he gets home in the evening, he refuses to talk about it. He doesn’t want to bore me.”
“That’s great,” Marie said enthusiastically.
They fell silent for a moment.
“I’ve got an idea. I’m going to throw a party next Saturday,” Natalie said.
Marie clapped her hands. “Yay!”
“Fred loves parties and having his friends over. He’s been so busy lately he hasn’t seen them much. I’ll call everyone and organize it. We’ll have a great time.”
“Ooh, invite that redheaded colleague of his who was there last time. I’d like to take a closer look at him.”
“Will do,” Natalie promised.
What a stroke of genius, she thought on her way home. A party would cheer Fred up and distract him from work. It would also relax the tense atmosphere between them since the “baby talk.” Not that he had said anything brusque, but she found him snippier and more on edge than usual. Or maybe she was just imagining things.
At any rate, before she went full steam ahead with invitations and preparations, she had to be sure Fred wasn’t working on Saturday evening.
And the only way to find out was to ask him.
Natalie glanced at her watch. It was only six, which meant Fred wasn’t coming home for at least another three hours—a long time to wait. She tried his cellphone, but her call went straight to his voice mail. After a moment’s hesitation, she dialed his office number.
To her disappointment, Fred didn’t pick up his office phone either. Probably stuck in a meeting with his cell turned off. She was about to hang up, when a sweet female voice answered the phone. “Reception. How may I help you?”
“I’m sorry. I was trying to reach monsieur Frédéric Gasque. Is he in a meeting?” Natalie asked.
“He just left the building,” the receptionist said.
“So early?” Natalie blurted.
“Monsieur Gasque always leaves the office at this time.”
Was there a note of mockery in her sweet voice or did Natalie imagine it? Her stomach knotted with unease. Fred always left at six? He used to leave at six, but not for weeks now. The receptionist would have noticed it, wouldn’t she? Was the woman trying to play some kind of stupid joke on her?
Natalie spent the rest of the evening attempting to distract her mind. She tried to read, watch television, and surf on the Internet. All with equally pathetic results.
Fred came home at half past nine. He hung his jacket by the door, declared he was done in, and spent the rest of the evening watching TV.
***
SIX
This was an inane idea. What was I thinking?
Natalie wiped her sweaty hands with a paper tissue and adjusted her sunglasses. She felt puerile and ridiculous hiding behind a tree in front of Fred’s office building. When she’d bought those oversized glasses, the newspaper, and the wig—a jet-black bob with blunt bangs like Uma Thurman’s in Pulp Fiction—she told herself it was a game. She would play a little game of detective to weed the seed of doubt planted by the sweet-voiced receptionist. She’d have a laugh about it with Marie later.
But now that she was playing the game, she didn’t find it the least bit amusing.
It was ten to six. Natalie peeked from behind the tree and saw Fred walk out the revolving door. He looked fresh and debonair in his well-tailored suit, with his navy-blue raincoat thrown over his forearm.
Natalie expected him to head to the parking lot, but he strode in the opposite direction. She followed, keeping a good distance. Five minutes later, he turned onto a pedestrian street, entered a bistro, and settled at a table in the corner. She hurried in unnoticed and found a vacant table at the opposite end of the room. After a moment’s hesitation, she yanked off her sunglasses and opened her newspaper.
A waitress with dyed pale blue hair served Fred a beer. Natalie ordered a glass of Bordeaux and waited. Ten minutes later, the waitress was back at his table again, holding another beer. But this time she no longer wore her uniform. Instead, she was clad in skinny jeans and a formfitting black leather jacket. Natalie watched her discretely. Her hair was cut pixie style. She had a luscious mouth, with a little piercing on her lower lip. As for her body, it was undeniably hot. Lava-grade hot.
The bistro was nearly empty, with the exception of an old lady reading a book, a guy in a baggy sweater staring at his laptop screen, Fred, and herself. Natalie could hear the waitress’s words even from her distance.
“Et voilà—I finished my shift. Did you enjoy your beer?”
“It was refreshing, thank you.” Fred grinned at her. “You ready to leave?”
“Not before I’ve finished my own.” She pointed at her beer and sat down across from him. “How was your day?”
“Thrilling.” He paused for effect. “I processed a huge pile of insurance claims. How was yours?”
She flashed him a dazzling smile. “Challenging. At lunchtime, I was flanked by a greenhorn who was supposed to help me.”
“Did he have a meltdown?”
“He tried his best to keep up, I’ll grant him that. But he failed miserably.”
“Poor chap.” A playful smile danced on Fred’s handsome face.
Natalie gasped. She hadn’t seen that smile in months. It used to make her weak in the knees, but now it made her sick with sadness and jealousy.
“Poor me. Not only was he not much help, he generated a lot of extra work during the busiest hour at the bistro,” the waitress said.
“Lunchtime?” he asked.
“You know how it is here between one and two. I really didn’t need broken plates and mixed-up orders on top of the usual craziness.”
The waitress took a gulp of her beer. They fell silent for a while. Natalie sat still, trying to rein in her emotions. She didn’t dare peek from behind her paper, afraid that Fred would turn in her direction. When she finally did look, he had already left.
And so had the waitress.
> ***
SEVEN
What if there was a perfectly logical and innocent explanation to Fred’s behavior? Natalie had pondered this question for a good part of the night, unable to find sleep. Maybe he had enrolled in an evening class at Le Louvre, and the waitress was his classmate. Or maybe he was envisaging a complete change of career, like becoming a chef or a café owner and didn’t want to tell her yet because it was such a long shot.
That thought had cheered her up a bit before falling asleep. Even though Fred had clearly kept a secret from her, perhaps it wasn’t what she thought. Anyone in her place would have thought that. She could, of course, just ask him. Only . . .she wasn’t ready for his answer. What if his secret wasn’t about a career change or self-improvement, but good old two-timing? She needed to be sure before confronting him.
She finally dozed off just before dawn and woke up a couple of hours later to a dark and chilly morning. At least it wasn’t raining.
Fred was already awake.
“Are you working again this weekend?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Fred said with an apologetic smile. “And in the evening, I’m having drinks with an old friend. He’s in Paris for only two days.”
“Do I know him?”
“No, it’s a classmate from Valence.” He began to fumble for his slippers. “You’ve never met him.”
“Maybe I could join you?”
“You’d be bored silly with our reminiscences.”
“I rather enjoy—”
“Listen, why don’t you and Marie go to the movies? With me out of your hair, you can see any dumb romantic comedy you like.”
Of course. That’s exactly what she’d do.
“Good idea.” She turned to look out the window. “It’s a perfect day for a dumb romantic comedy.”
Fred left at midday, saying he had a brainstorming lunch with his colleagues before the work session. As soon as he was out the door, Natalie donned the Uma Thurman wig and shoved a newspaper into her handbag. Thirty minutes later, she entered the bistro and went straight to her side of the room.
She looked around furtively. There he was, saying something to the blue-haired waitress. She said something back, making him smile, and went away. The bistro was full, and Natalie couldn’t make out their words. But it didn’t matter. She was going to tail them when they left and get answers.
Fred wasn’t going anywhere though, at least not yet. The waitress returned to his table, carrying a tray with sliced bread, a pitcher, an appetizer, and a glass of wine. This could only mean he was going to have a full meal. He probably had to wait for the waitress to finish her shift.
Very well. I have time to kill this afternoon.
Natalie moved to the other side of her table and opened the menu. This was a perfect spot—she could see Fred in her peripheral vision, but he could only see her back. In this way, she’d be able to eat without having to hold the newspaper in front of her face.
When a waiter asked her for her order, she picked grilled fish.
“I recommend Chardonnay with it,” the waiter said.
Anything to make me feel better. “I’ll have a glass, please.”
She folded the menu and looked around. The baggy sweater guy from the other day sat at a table placed so close to hers they could have been having lunch together. He smiled at her and opened his mouth as if to say something, but then didn’t.
The waiter brought her grilled fish a few minutes after Fred got his main course.
Impeccable timing.
“You must have moved into this neighborhood recently. Am I guessing correctly?”
The baggy sweater had finally made up his mind and spoke.
“Not exactly,” she said with a polite smile.
“So much for my attempt to play Sherlock Holmes. I was actually quite proud of my power of deduction,” he said.
“How so?”
“You see, I live nearby, and this bistro is a favorite haunt. I’m sure I haven’t seen you here before Thursday. And now it’s the second time within a week. Hence my deduction.”
“Nothing’s wrong with the deduction,” she said, pleased to be distracted from her misery. “I’d have concluded the same thing in your place.”
“How do you like the food?” he asked after a short silence.
“It’s pretty good for a neighborhood bistro.”
“Don’t let its casual air fool you. This place is known from the Grand Rex all the way up to Montmartre.”
Natalie found the exchange entertaining. Or at least educational. “Owing to what, may I inquire?”
“Several reasons. Number one is the chef’s cooking. Claude is legend. If it weren’t for his occasional bouts of depression, he could have been a chef at one of the finest restaurants in this city.”
She stopped chewing her fish, closed her eyes, and resumed much more slowly. “You should’ve told me earlier. I’d have enjoyed my food in an entirely different way.”
He smiled. “The second reason is that the owner, Pierre, encourages his staff to be friendly to the customers.”
“No kidding?” She raised her wine glass. “I’ll drink to that. I never thought I’d live to see a proprietor who didn’t encourage rudeness. You know, to uphold the age-old Parisian tradition.”
He raised his glass of sparkling water. “Cheers.”
She took a closer look at him while he was drinking. His friendly face was rather easy on the eyes, notwithstanding the tousled hair. It wasn’t a fashionably styled tousle, but an artless one of a person who didn’t think looks were important. He appeared to have broad shoulders, but the rest of him was fully camouflaged by his enormous sweater and the table. He could have been any size and shape. Well, outside the extremes.
“Is there a third reason?” she asked.
“Yep, and a good one, too.”
“Do tell.”
He beckoned, as if about to tell her a big secret. “They let you stay for hours without asking every ten minutes if you’d like to order something else.”
“Really? So you spend hours here with one espresso?”
“Well, no. I do have some decency. I’m happy to reorder . . .I just don’t like being interrupted.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Precisely what is it that you do with your laptop? I saw you the other day. You mostly stared at the screen and then touched the mouse pad once in a while. I was mystified.”
He held his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Hmm. Should I tell you, or hold on to my mysteriousness?”
“Your choice. But know that if you decide not to tell, I’ll think the worst.”
“I was playing chess with my computer,” he said.
She quirked her mouth into a half smile. “Who won?”
“The computer.”
“Will you get over it?” she asked with exaggerated concern.
“Oh, I think you misunderstand. I let it win. I always do. Otherwise it will sulk for weeks and freeze at the most inconvenient times.”
Natalie chuckled before catching herself. Oh God, what if Fred could hear her? What if he looked this way and recognized her? She turned carefully to ascertain if she was safe. An old man sat studying the menu where Fred had been.
There was no trace of him in the bistro.
***
EIGHT
What just happened?
Adrien frowned, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. One moment she was laughing and the next, looking around in panic. When she turned back to him, disappointment was written all over her heart-shaped face. He had the impression she was blaming him for something.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
She blinked. “I’m fine. Never mind me. I do weird things sometimes.”
“Who doesn’t? The world would be incredibly boring if everyone behaved rationally at all times.”
She smoothed her hair and looked down at her plate. “This fish is delicious but takes a hell of long a time to eat.”
“A
re you in a hurry?” he asked.
“Not particularly. Just making a point.”
“Because if you aren’t, you should absolutely order today’s special for dessert. It’s a lemon cheesecake. I’ve tried it—unforgettable.”
“I’ll think about it when I’m done with the fish,” she said and waved at the nearest server. “Can I have another glass of Chardonnay, please?”
Adrien ordered another bottle of mineral water. It was tempting to keep her company with some wine, but he needed a clear head for his afternoon practice.
“There’s one more thing that mystifies me about you,” she said.
“Fire away. I live to clear up mysteries.”
“Where do your . . .unique sweaters come from? If I’m not mistaken, the one you wore on Thursday was red with a green pattern, right?”
He nodded, trying to keep a straight face.
“Whereas this one is distinctly yellow. And yet it has the same . . .configuration and pattern as the other one. Are they a special order from a hippy Inuit collective in Northern Canada?”
“You overestimate my connections. They are French made.”
“Seriously? Which brand? I must know.”
“I’ll tell you over dessert,” he said.
She gave him a strange look. “I wasn’t planning on having any.”
He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Then you’ll never know about the sweaters.”
Christ, this is immature, but . . .a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
She didn’t answer, concentrating on removing the bones from her fish. Adrien began to panic. Had he been too forward? Did he scare her off? He really sucked at flirting. His ex had been a friend for a long while before they started dating. Before her, he’d gone out with a chess player he’d known through his club. And before the chess player . . .well, not much had happened before the chess player.
And let’s not even mention the Louise episode.
He pushed the remaining food around his plate. How long before the pretty brunette asked for her check and walked out the door, never to return? He didn’t know much about this girl except she was fun to talk to and lovely to look at. She appeared to be his age, and . . .lonely. That was what had given him the courage to address her in the first place. He’d watched her turn the pages of her newspaper, her eyes unseeing and her mouth turned downward. She didn’t look like a person who was happy to be by herself. She looked like someone who was miserable in her solitude, who needed companionship and comfort.
You're the One: a Contemporary Romance Novella Set in Paris (Bistro La Bohème) Page 2