“Maybe next weekend?” I mirrored his gesture and touched his sleeve.
“Until then, Elizabeth.” He bowed, making me giggle.
I gave him an awkward curtsey while holding my bicycle.
His laughter followed us as we rode away.
Unfortunately, like all good things, the practically free payphone ended too soon. On Monday, word spread the phone had been fixed.
Saturday two weeks later found me studying at Bernadette’s dining table with Maggie while we smoked cigarettes and drank tiny cups of silty coffee.
Conjugating verbs and assigning gender to pronouns made me sleepy. I yawned and stretched, then rested my head on my French book.
The telephone in the hall rang, sounding like an old movie. Maggie jumped up to answer it. I only heard her side of the conversation, but could decipher she made plans for the evening. I understood:
“Allô?”
“Oui.”
“C’est soir?”
“Merci.”
“À tout à l’heure!”
She resumed her seat at the table, twisting her red hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. “We’re going to a party.”
“We?”
“Oui, we.”
I snickered like a little kid. “You said wee-wee.”
With a smirk, Maggie acknowledged my joke. “That was Sabine from the school. It’s a social mixer between the English programs and French students. Seulement en français.”
“Wonderful,” I moaned. Despite living in Paris and studying, my French lacked a certain je ne sais quoi of comprehension and fluency. I relied too heavily on Maggie to be my translator.
She tsked and purred, “En français.”
“Superbe!” I scowled at her smug expression.
“Maybe there will be cute French boys there. The kind who smoke unfiltered Gauloises cigarettes and madly discuss Sartre.” Her expression took on a dreamy, unfocused quality.
Both of us smoked more in France than we ever had in Olympia. Everyone smoked here. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see well-coiffed little dogs smoking. Not only did everyone smoke, they did it everywhere. I decided if my hair and clothes were going to reek of cigarettes, it might as well come from my own doing.
Inspired by Bernadette, I’d taken to wearing dark red lipstick and vintage dresses we found at flea markets, or marché aux puces. Like many things in France, it sounded glamorous, but literally meant market of fleas, which only made me itchy.
Maggie said I looked like a vamp. I took it as a compliment. Much better than a typical American college girl. My favorite pink mohair coat from the fifties, another street market find, complemented my new persona.
“I wonder if the Brits will be there tonight.” I attempted to sound nonchalant. I hadn’t seen Christopher since I bumped into him at Shakespeare & Company over a week ago. I didn’t know what to do with myself when he wasn’t around to tease me.
“Sabine said everyone had been invited. I imagine they were, too. You shouldn’t spend all your time with them. You’ll never learn French.”
“Je suis un parapluie,” I apologized.
“You’re not an umbrella.” Maggie chuckled. “See my point?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I am.”
“Hey Jude” ~ The Beatles
THE MIXER WAS held in a large dining room on our little campus. It looked exactly the same as it always did, with the exception of missing tables and a disco ball sadly spinning in the center of the ceiling.
“Let’s dance.”
“To the Beatles?” I remained perched on the banquette along the wall of the party, tilting my head to study Christopher’s expression. He appeared serious, sans the judgmental eyebrow.
“Why not? They’re British, I’m British. If you say no, you’ll be insulting England and the Queen.”
I arched my eyebrow. “The Queen? Really?”
“Yes. Dance with me.” He extended his hand, his palm up and bent two fingers in a gesture of command. My gaze lingered on his long fingers, his wide palms. I attempted to resist the images flitting behind my eyes of how they would feel on various parts of my body. He flexed his fingers again and I pressed my thighs together.
I wondered if his polite demeanor would remain in place when he was naked. Or would he finally crack and let go, exposing a wilder side that simmered under the surface when he argued? Would he speak French in bed? Cursing a soft merde if I put my mouth on him . . .
“Lizzy?”
I let my focus drift up his arm to his face. He stared at me, sharp blue eyes waiting for an answer.
“Yes?”
“Dance?”
“Hmmm . . .” It wasn’t a yes, or a no. I forgot what he’d asked. Que sera, sera.
Instead of waiting for me to give him a response, the hand I’d been fantasizing about grabbed mine and pulled me upright. After wrapping his fingers around mine, he set them on his shoulder, then settled my other hand on his waist.
“Do you know how to properly dance? Waltz?”
“We can’t waltz to this song. It’s not in three-three.”
He gave me a sly, sweet smile. “Fine, the fox trot it is.”
While everyone else danced like normal people, Christopher moved me around the floor as if we were at a V-Day celebration at the USO.
Okay, the song wasn’t that old, but the way we danced was. When the music changed, he started to jitterbug.
I couldn’t keep up for laughing at him. And myself. The French must have thought we were imitating Jerry Lewis, because they stopped dancing altogether to watch and applaud, big grins on their faces.
“Stop.” Breathing had become difficult. A wheeze rattled in my chest whenever I stopped laughing long enough to take a breath.
He set me down gently. “You sound like a pensioner with a chest cold.”
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic to him, but the French students swarmed him, slapping him on the back. Who knew a Brit jitterbug dancing like a fool would be the thing to mend the centuries old rift between the two countries?
Rather than fight for his attention, I slipped away to the little refreshment table in the corner. Rows of small glasses of red wine and sparkling water lined the surface. No red solo cups or cans of cheap beer here.
Maggie stood in the corner near the table, arguing loudly in French with a cute guy. I admired how well she’d picked up the language.
He gestured wildly with his hands. Fire burned in his eyes and manly sexual energy rolled off him like waves on hot sand in the desert. Not super tall, he made up for it with his handsome face and full lips. With his dark hair and dark eyes, he definitely seemed like Maggie’s type.
I was curious over his evident passion. I grabbed two extra glasses of wine and walked over to them with my peace offering.
“Oh, good! I need a drink.” Maggie took both glasses from me, but didn’t offer either to her new friend. Or enemy. It wasn’t clear where he stood at the moment.
With his eyes, he shot imaginary arrows at the extra glass of wine in her hand, mumbling in French about rude Americans.
“Did you want a glass of wine?” she asked him in English.
He scowled at her, but took the glass. After swallowing most of it in one long sip, he noticed me. “Merci.”
“De nada.” I covered my mouth. “That was Spanish. De rien.”
“Pas de problème.” He finished his wine.
Feeling very much a stupid American, I changed the subject. “What were you two arguing about?”
“Cheese.” Maggie briefly focused on the ceiling.
“Cheese?” My voice rose two octaves. “But you were shouting and arguing.”
She finished rolling her eyes. “Over le fromage, yes.”
Staring at both of them like I was watching the French Open, I waited for further explanation. Cheese itself wasn’t enough for what could have been mistaken for a passionate lover’s quarrel.
“She thinks those little squares wra
pped in plastic you eat qualify as cheese.”
“They do. The word cheese is in the name. American Cheese. You can’t call something cheese if it isn’t cheese.” She gulped her wine in exasperation.
He glowered at her. It was all sorts of sexy. “You can if you are American.”
“How do you even know about cheese slices? Have you been to the States?” I attempted to diffuse the tension.
“No. I have seen this cheese on your television shows.” He sneered.
I didn’t need to ask what he thought of those shows because his frown was the very caricature of disgust.
“Oh, stop it. You told me you loved Family Ties not more than twenty minutes ago.” Maggie huffed, and this time her eyes made a complete circle when she rolled them.
“Fine. Some of the shows are not terrible.” His “terrible” sounded more like “tear-e-blah.” The emphasis clearly on the blah.
Christopher joined our little circle, draping his arm over my shoulders. “What are we discussing?”
“Terrible American cheese and television shows.”
He lifted his hands and took a couple of steps away from the group.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Anywhere but this conversation.” He spun around in a circle, seeking a reasonable escape. “Oh, look, it’s a . . .” His unfinished sentence hung in the air as he raced to the opposite side of the room. He literally ran away.
Maggie whispered something in French to Le Fromage, and he stopped frowning. When not making faces like someone nearby him farted, he was handsome. Surprisingly good looking, especially when he smiled.
He politely asked if we’d like more wine before leaving to refill our glasses.
“He’s rather passionate,” I whispered to Magpie.
“He’s insane.”
“Is he this passionate about subjects not involving dairy products?”
“I don’t know. We met tonight. He’s here with a friend.”
Le Fromage returned with three glasses of wine. A short guy with a very long nose followed along behind him. What he lacked in overall height, he made up for in impressive nose cartilage.
“This is my friend, Oscar.” He pronounced it less like Oscar the Grouch and more like NASCAR with an “O.”
Uh oh. This was the friend. My focus flicked to Maggie. A set-up brewed and I needed an escape plan.
“Bon soir.” I managed to not butcher the words.
A stream of French flew out of Oscar’s mouth like a flock of pigeons flapping around my head. I had no idea what he said. His thick accent thwarted any attempt on my part to decipher his words. I nodded, hesitantly, hoping I wasn’t agreeing to anything nefarious or sexual.
Seeing my blank expression, Maggie translated, “He said your dancing was unlike anything he’d ever witnessed before in person or in the cinema. I mean, movies.”
I smiled. “Merci.” I had no idea if he paid me a compliment or insulted me. After the cheese conversation, insult seemed more likely.
“I am sorry for your friend’s rudeness for not introducing us.” Le Fromage extended his hand. “I am Julien Armand.”
Maggie’s eyes bugged out. “You didn’t really give me a chance. You went from bashing my country’s food to insulting our culture.” This time she spoke in English.
Oscar looked on in confusion. His English was probably as good as my French.
Julien huffed and swore a string of expletives in his native tongue. I caught a few of the more colorful expressions. I couldn’t conjugate in subjunctive tense to save my life, but the swear words were seared on my brain.
Oscar handed me another glass of wine. I held my existing glass up to show him but he gestured for me to drink mine first, and quickly. While our mutual friends continued to argue about fromage and hamburgers, Oscar and I silently drank red wine.
Without preamble, their arguing turned into kissing. The passion Julien had for defending the sanctity of dairy products paled next to his zest for kissing my best friend.
“Zut alors!” Oscar gulped down his wine.
I thought only Pepe Le Pew said those expressions. Oscar stared and bounced on his toes, not unlike the little cartoon skunk.
Zut alors indeed!
Avoiding the PDA in front of me, I scanned the room, telling myself I wasn’t searching for Christopher.
Very few men in attendance at this little fête stood anywhere near as tall or as blond as my new friend. He shouldn’t have been difficult to spot.
Unless he’d gone. Maybe he thought I’d left. I wished I had. Instead, I found myself stuck in a corner with Oscar, Julien the Grouch, a flustered Maggie, and my wine.
“Scanning the room for suitors?” A warm breath hit the back of my neck along with the crisp British accent.
“No, as a matter of fact I was searching for you.” I spun to face him. The wine heated my cheeks. Or perhaps it was his close proximity.
His laughter rumbled in his chest, rich and throaty. “If only I believed you.”
“Dance with me.”
“To this?” He jerked his head toward the dance floor.
Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking” played on the speakers.
“Sure.” I pulled him by his shirt cuff to the floor. I knew all the words and sang them loudly while I danced a weird shimmy-twist.
He pretended to be shocked, but his smile lit up his entire face as he laughed at me.
Finally, my charms wore him down and he joined my dancing. Jerking his fists over his head, he stomped around in a circle.
The uptight, proper British private school educated boy disappeared as he let himself be ridiculous. I suspected this was a very rare moment for Kit Liddell, not a baron by birth order.
We giggled ourselves silly, attempting to outdo each other with archaic dance movements. I held my nose and pretended to sink to the floor. He followed with an impressive Charleston. When he lifted me over his shoulder for a spin, tears ran down my face.
“I can’t breathe!” I slapped at his back. “Put me down.”
Instead, he carried me off the floor and set me on my feet by a chair in the corner.
“Where did you learn to dance?” I rubbed the back of my hand across my damp brow, hoping he didn’t notice.
Along his hairline, sweat darkened his hair. He pushed it back and ran his fingers through it a couple of times to get it to stay in place. “My grandmother loves to dance. She taught me so she’d have someone to dance with.”
“Not your grandfather?” I sat and patted the empty chair next to me.
Slouching down on the chair, sadness passed behind his eyes. “No. Not for a very long time. He died when my father was a young man. I never met him.”
“I’m sorry.”
He acknowledged my apology with a small nod of his head. “No need for you to be sorry.” I swore I even saw his upper lip stiffen. “What about you? What’s your family like?”
“My father is in sales. My mother is a school nurse.”
“Very respectable.”
“Very middle class you mean.”
“We can’t control who our parents are.” He sounded resigned.
“No, but we can create our own lives, follow our dreams.”
“That’s very American of you. Pluckish optimism.” His tone didn’t infer his words as a compliment.
“We’re in Paris. The city of light. The city of love. Even you can’t be immune to its charms.”
“The English have a love-hate relationship with the French. It’s in our blood.”
“Is it really hate?”
“More like envy.”
“For the food?”
“No, the passion.” He threaded his fingers through his hair, leaving it more tousled.
“Maybe you should take a French woman as a lover.”
He choked on nothing. “That’s not the kind of passion I meant.”
“Oh.” I blushed.
“Everything in my life is plan
ned out for me. Even more so for my brother, who will inherit the estate and title. Months like these are small holidays from reality and responsibility.”
“Kind of like your very own Rumspringa?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“The Amish? Like the movie Witness?”
“With Harrison Ford?”
“Aha, you have seen some American movies.” I bumped his shoulder. “Yes, the one and the same. The Amish have this thing where at a certain age, teenagers are allowed to leave their society and explore the modern world.”
“Oh, like our gap year.”
“Yes. What did you do on your gap year?”
“Nothing. My father thought it would be a waste of time. I went straight to uni.” He drummed his fingers on his knees and stared at the floor.
I couldn’t help but think of how young and resigned he seemed.
No grand adventures loomed on the horizon for him.
“Whatever Will Be, Will Be” ~ Doris Day
I REACHED INTO my bag and touched a thin paper cylinder. With the tips of my fingers, I traced its familiar shape and texture.
Ohmygod.
Ohmygod.
Maggie dozed on the row of seats across from me in our six-person train compartment, which we had all to ourselves. I gently kicked her to wake her up.
“What? Are we back in Paris?” Her words came out muffled and groggy.
“No, we only crossed the border about ten minutes ago.”
She balled her coat under her head and closed her eyes again. “Shh, more sleep. Wake me up when we get to the station.”
“Maggie,” I nudged her with my boot again, “We have an emergency.”
She lifted her head and shoulders, but didn’t sit up. “What’s going on? Is there a strike or fire or something?”
I tilted my bag in her direction and showed her the joint in my hand.
“Where did it come from?” Now she sat up, fully awake.
“Selah probably. She asked me to hold it for her when we went to the Van Gogh museum after the café.” Getting stoned and looking at art had been one of Selah’s goals when visiting us over winter break. We’d spent a couple of days going through the Louvre, and other museums in Paris, before deciding to hop the train to Amsterdam.
We Were Here: A New Adult Romance Prequel to Geoducks Are for Lovers (Modern Love Stories Book 1) Page 21