Kiss Me in Paris

by Catherine Rider

  “What is so important about the tower?” he asks me.

  I part the heels of my hands so I can talk through the gap. “My parents never actually made it there. It was the one thing they really wanted to do on their honeymoon, and they missed it.” I’ve never actually heard the story of why, but they did.

  “But I thought you wanted to see only the places your parents saw on their trip?”

  “I did … I do …” I wipe away the tears, sit back and sniffle. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Jean-Luc staring at me. His hand is still on my shoulder. I stare out to the Seine — a tour boat passes by, cutting a wound in the surface of the water that disappears within seconds. I wish I could heal myself as quickly as the river does.

  “I wanted to finish the trip for them,” I tell him. “I know that it always bugged them a little that they came all the way to Paris for their honeymoon only to miss the Eiffel Tower of all things. My dad mentioned it once, that it was a big regret of his and that — one day — he wanted to make it up to my mom.”

  I steal a glance at him and brace myself to say the words I’ve not said in two years, because — of course — he’s going to want to know why Dad can’t just bring Mom here himself. But his deep brown eyes are warm, narrowed in what looks like understanding. It’s the same look he had in the Louvre, as we walked to the Venus, and I realize that Lara must have mentioned something at some point since they met. I’m relieved I get to skip that part of the explanation.

  “My parents’ wedding anniversary is on New Year’s Day,” I tell him. “It would have been twenty-five years. I was going to give my mom a scrapbook, her daughters and her in some of those special places, all the photographs building to a shot of us at the Eiffel Tower. Like, through us, a part of Dad finally made it there, you know? I felt like I would be helping him keep his promise to Mom. Then Mom goes and gets called away on some conference in London — she’s an economics professor, so that kind of thing happens a lot — and then Lara decides she’d rather go to Madrid, but still … I’m a part of my dad, and I could get up there for him and get a photo. I’ve never been so psyched to take a selfie in my life! And today is the one day I don’t obsessively check …”

  I let my words collapse into a growl — if I don’t, I might start crying again — and look back to the river.

  “Maybe I should just call all of this off. I mean, the tower was kind of the whole point, and if I can’t get there —”

  “What about tomorrow?” Jean-Luc’s fingers relax, start to creep across my back, then return to their original position, like he thought about putting his arm around me and changed his mind. “La tour Eiffel is not going to disappear.”

  I shake my head. “I’d still need a ticket to get up there tomorrow, and I think it’s pretty much totally sold out right through New Year’s. Plus, I’ve got to get to Gare du Nord at one in the afternoon to catch a Eurostar to London that leaves at two. I’m going to be meeting my mom there. Jeez, what a disaster …”

  When I look at him again, I’m almost startled — he hasn’t moved at all. His eyes are staring straight into mine. He looks both curious and like he’s pitying me. I feel a sudden prickle of self-consciousness — explaining the reasons for my trip in all this detail makes me realize that the trip is actually a little …

  “Morbid. That’s what you’re thinking, right?” I ask. “What kind of eighteen-year-old comes to Paris to recreate her parents’ honeymoon?”

  The kind who is out of ideas about how to get over losing her dad and willing to fly 3,624 miles to see if a special city might do the trick.

  “I do not think this.” He lifts his hand off my shoulder, looks to the ground. Pondering something. “It is good to remember.”

  “Hah!” The sound I make is completely without humor. “Given how big a disaster this trip has been so far, I’m kind of hoping I get a concussion that wipes the last five hours from my brain.” I turn away from him, stare at the Seine and shake my head — at what, I don’t really know. Paris? Myself?

  Click-click.

  I whip my head to the right, staring straight into the lens of the camera that he is lowering.

  “Pardon,” he says, at least having the decency to blush a little. “Just so beautiful … I mean, the moment was beautiful. The city behind you, the sadness on your face — not that I am happy you’re sad, but … err …”

  His face has gone from pink to tomato-red. I am about to put him out of his misery, but he turns the camera to me so I can see the preview screen. There I am in the foreground, staring out to the river and the city. The cathedral is in soft focus, as if it’s trying not to disturb my quiet, contemplative, personal moment, hanging back out of respect for my sadness.

  “Feels pretty appropriate,” I tell him. “My body is in one of the world’s greatest cities, but my mind is elsewhere.”

  He lets his camera hang on his chest again, smiling at me as his complexion returns to normal. “Then we should walk.”

  We get off the bench and I go pick up my bag. I look around, about to ask him which of the remaining items on my itinerary is near here, when I catch a glimpse of something a little way along the sidewalk. Stalls, overlooking the river. They are covered in Christmas decorations that look older than the two of us.

  “What’s this?” I ask him. “Some kind of street market?”

  “Kind of,” he says. “The vendors are here every day, for the tourists. You are hungry again? Looking for food?”

  “No,” I lie. As fabulous as that crêpe was, it’s hardly going to keep me going when my belly is trying to figure out why it’s craving breakfast at lunchtime. “Just … I’m wondering if they sell scarves. One of my dad’s most favorite photos of my mom is of her by a Parisian market stall, modeling the scarf he bought her. She still wears it, twenty-five years later.” I’m walking toward the market now, Jean-Luc just behind me.

  I pass a few vendors selling model Eiffel Towers, a few more with long tables of secondhand paperbacks. Here and there, artists sit huddled in thick winter coats, waiting for tourists to come and ask them to sketch their portraits. I stop by a stall that sells scarves and hats and gloves. I can tell Jean-Luc isn’t impressed. His hands are in his pockets, because, apparently, there are no pictures worth taking here. I’m about to suggest we just turn around and leave, but then I see the next stall has a row of Eiffel Tower scarves — the tower a harsh black silhouette against a setting sun, with a kissing couple beneath the arch. It’s so tacky, and it’s the kind of thing that I know that my sister will laugh about for days.

  “I’m gonna go buy it,” I tell Jean-Luc. I think I hear him sigh as I walk over, but I’m too tickled by the tacky scarf and imagining how stubborn Lara will be about wearing it next semester, even in one of the fashion capitals of the world. One of the (many) things I love about my big sister: she likes to look good, but she also doesn’t mind looking a little silly.

  When I take down one of the scarves, I turn it over to look for a price tag. I don’t see one, so I spin around to ask Jean-Luc for help, but he’s not there. I turn a full circle, stepping away from the stall, when I’m assailed by a storm of French that actually makes me take a step back. The lady manning the stall points from the scarf, to me, to herself, her hippy-ish bracelets jangling like the rattling chains of a prison guard. That’s probably my imagination — and the jet lag — but I know enough to know she thinks I’m trying to steal the scarf.

  “No, no. I mean — non, non.” I think my attempt at a French accent lands me somewhere in Spain. And I don’t even have Jean-Luc to translate because he isn’t anywhere to be seen. Whatever photo he’s gone to get had better be something prizewinning.

  I turn back when I feel the scarf almost snatched from my hands. I really don’t want to have a tug-of-war over it, and Seller Lady’s voice is probably disrupting the service over at Notre Dame, but, for some reason, I’m not l
etting go of the scarf.

  “I actually wanted to buy this from you!” I yelp, just as some French guy appears by my side. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him making a placating gesture with his hands, as he says something to the seller. I hear the word “Américaine” and gather he’s putting the blame on my nationality.

  I decide to be offended after I’m out of this situation.

  Except this guy seems somehow … familiar. I break eye contact with the seller lady and look to see who has come to rescue me. I actually gasp when I take in the tall guy in a tan peacoat with faintly fashionable horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Ethan?” For a split second, it feels so surreal to see someone I know here in Paris, I wonder if I’m asleep, dreaming this awkward encounter. Then I remember that I did know Ethan was coming here, because he told me all about it, in great detail. Apparently, if you book a three-day city break just before Christmas, you save, on average, forty-two percent on airfare. That’s the kind of thing Ethan just knows.

  He’d gone on to say he wondered, as someone who considers himself too rational to believe in coincidences, did it mean anything that we were both going to be in Paris at the same time?

  This conversation happened right before what my dormmate, Charlotte, came to call the kisstastrophe.

  “Hi, Serena.” He still has his perfectly manicured hands raised in an It’s okay gesture for the seller’s benefit. His pale blond hair is only a shade or two darker — if that — than his perfect teeth, which he flashes in a smile at the woman. He says something in French — he speaks French? — and she relaxes her grip on the scarf.

  Then he turns back to me. “I told her you want to buy it.”

  “I’m having second thoughts now,” I grumble.

  The seller says something else in French — it must be something outrageous, because not only does Ethan roll his eyes at her, he also throws up his hands …

  … and says “Pffft!,” which I’m pretty sure is French for “You gotta be kidding me, lady!”

  “What?” I ask him. “What did she say?”

  He actually places one hand on his belly, like he’s about to erupt from laughter. He’s a pre-law student back home, so I’m not surprised he can hold his own in an argument — but I don’t think there’s this much pantomime during class at Columbia. “She wants thirty euros.” Ethan puts his free hand on my shoulder while he continues his haggling. I know the stakes are — probably — only about twenty bucks, give or take, but in French, it feels so much more consequential. Finally, he turns back to me, not taking his hand off my shoulder. “She’s willing to take ten. I still think that’s way too much, but you look like you really want this scarf?”

  I nod, dig into my bag for money and hand it over. The seller takes it with a snort, then turns her back on me as if I was never here.

  “Thanks,” I say, as Ethan follows me a few steps away. Instinctively, I look around for Jean-Luc. I’m wondering why he didn’t come running over when he saw me wrestling for a scarf — but Ethan moves to stand in front of me.

  “Don’t mention it,” he says. “Any excuse to put my mediocre French to work.”

  “You sounded like a local to me.”

  He grins sheepishly. “Well, I’ve studied it since freshman year of high school,” he said. “I thought it might help me with the ladies. ‘Language of love’ and all that.”

  I laugh politely. Language of love. Right. How could I forget?

  He’s smiling at me now, no longer sheepish. In fact, he seems to be beaming at getting me out of that silly jam with the vendor, all over a tacky scarf.

  And I start to feel bad that all I can really think about right now is the kisstastrophe.

  *

  The last time I saw Ethan was on the final day of classes. I’d gone along to a Christmas party on campus, which was being hosted by some sophomore girl whose name I didn’t know and never found out. I only went because my dormmate, Charlotte, bugged me to go, and I quickly regretted it, because, as soon as we were there, I realized why Charlotte had been so insistent. Ethan was at the party, and Charlotte thought he and I were a good match.

  “You should give him a chance,” she told me, after I’d made it clear I did not appreciate the scheming. “It’s not like you’re making your decision based on actual evidence, is it?”

  She had a point — and, just like her, I could see how super-organized, never-misses-a-class me and super-organized, gets-started-on-essays-in-week-one Ethan were a good match. (If it had been the two of us taking the Romance Tour, I’d have ticked off more than the Louvre by now, that’s for damn sure!) But that was on paper.

  “Shouldn’t I feel something?” I mumbled to Charlotte as we fought our way into the kitchen for drinks. Two football players were arm-wrestling over the breakfast bar, and I was concerned, from how red their faces were, that one of them was going to have an aneurysm.

  “Only after you’ve actually gone on a date,” Charlotte told me. “Anything you feel before that is not to be trusted.”

  And then, pretty soon, Ethan was making a beeline for me in the kitchen, his tall body so slender he seemed to pass through the crush of people unnoticed. The way the lights bounced off his horn-rimmed glasses could have made him look a bit like a superhero but actually made him look more like a mad scientist. Of course, Charlotte instantly ditched me to go find her boyfriend, Anthony. (I mean, I get why she did — Anthony’s a pretty cool guy — but ditching is still ditching.)

  Ethan came and stood in front of me, casting a shadow by standing beneath one of the ceiling lights. He was at least four inches taller than the next tallest person at the party. His shoulders were hunched up by his ears, as though they were trying to restrain his gangly arms. He hadn’t even said a word, and he was already blushing. “Hey …”

  “Hey,” I said back. I started to ask if he was having fun but chose not to risk him thinking I was being sarcastic. It was a party, and he was Ethan — I knew he was not having fun.

  “Quite a semester, huh?” He gestured at the drink I was holding. “I think you’ve more than earned that drink.”

  “This is just Diet Coke,” I told him. His face reddened again, like he was super-mad at himself for assuming anything. And I must have felt bad, because I suggested to him that we move out of the noisy kitchen, into the hallway outside the dorm room, so that we could hear each other talk. Even though I had no idea what we’d actually talk about.

  Less than a minute later, we came up with something.

  “I’m going to be in Paris, too,” he said, launching into an explanation of all the money I could have saved if I had shopped around a little.

  “I’m organized,” I told him with a smirk, “but I’m not psychotic.”

  He did not laugh at all. In fact, he started to defend himself, as if he thought I was being serious. I wanted to tell him to calm down, but I figured that would just make it worse, so I talked over him. (Flirting, it seems, is not really my thing.)

  “No, it’s a family trip,” I told him — because, at that time, it still was. “We’re all going to kind of relive our parents’ honeymoon, so Mom can, like, reminisce, and we can be there with her while she does.”

  “So you’re just going to take your mom to see a bunch of sights that she’s already seen?”

  His question — and the disbelieving look on his face — was like a punch. A soft punch, sure, but who wants to be punched? And unlike the conversation we’d just been having, this time he wasn’t aware that he’d said anything wrong. Because he didn’t blush, didn’t stutter — he just kept talking. And that was the one thing I did not want him to do at that point.

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a vacation, Serena. You’ll be traveling all the way to Europe, just to come away with sad memories?”

  The noise from the party seemed to get louder and louder, echoing in my brain. I was grate
ful for it suffocating whatever it was that he said next, but that question — why would I do it? — was already taking root in my mind. I had to tell myself, he didn’t mean to upset me the way he had. Maybe he was asking a question that my other friends wanted to ask but didn’t dare.

  When I had tuned back in, Ethan was still talking: “… if you have any time left over?”

  I figured he was saying we should meet up in Paris. “Probably won’t have time,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “The itinerary is pretty strict.”

  He smiled, as if he liked the sound of that. “Well, you know, keep in touch. Be great if we could.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And maybe” — there was something in the way his voice rose on the last syllable that signaled even to me, with my severe lack of experience at this sort of thing, that he was thinking about Making a Move — “next semester, we could, you know … hang out a bit more. I think that would make a lot of sense. From both our perspectives.”

  He was looking right at me then, right into my eyes — he couldn’t have held my gaze any more firmly if he had put both his hands on my face. Even I knew he was going to lean in — and I was going to lean away as far as I could …

  Which turned out to be only a few inches, because I happened to have my back against a wall. Which my head rebounded off, my cheekbone clipping his chin … It was a miracle he didn’t lose any of his luminescent teeth.

  Like Charlotte said the next day, when we were talking about everything that happened at the party … Total kisstastrophe!

  “Oh, gosh, Ethan, I’m so sorry,” I told him, as he ran his fingertips over his chin. He was waving away my apology, like it was no big deal, but I could tell from the way that he was looking straight at the floor that he was even more mortified than I was.

  We exchanged apologies and wished each other well in Paris, saying that we guessed we’d just see each other next semester.

  Then I watched him walk down the hallway, his shoulders slumped, hand still rubbing his chin.