But there’s a way that he’s looking at me right now. His eyes are not asking me what I want — he’s asking me, do I agree? Do I agree about how much we have in common, all the things that make me a “good fit” for his imagined future?
Suddenly, it feels like the fog is not only strangling Paris but poor American girls in Paris, too.
Ethan’s still talking: “I figure, by the time I’ve graduated, we could look to move back into the city — or at least closer to it, so my commute isn’t so bad. Whatever job I have after law school is going to be tough enough without spending an hour on a train every morning. But if we do that, we probably shouldn’t go anywhere too fancy, because we’ll probably be saving for a bigger place by then …”
I know where he’s going with this … Oh, God.
“Unless, you know, you haven’t really thought about at what age you’d like to start a family?”
Of course I haven’t. I’m eighteen, and there are literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of things for me to think about before I get to that. How did our surprisingly fun dinner turn into some weird future where I’m married to a lawyer and we’re thinking about kids?
The only thing I can think to do is laugh and hope I don’t somehow choke on the fog. “Let’s maybe not get ahead of ourselves, huh?”
I worry this might read to him as dismissive or even mocking, but he doesn’t seem bothered at all. He just raises his hand to call for the check, and I realize I’m going to have to plead a stronger case when debating with a law student.
*
8:22 p.m.
The dinner might be over, but as we head along Boulevard de Magenta, toward Gare du Nord station (where it’ll be easier to catch a cab), Ethan is still debating whether we’ll be able to afford to live in Manhattan seven years from now. He’s so into his spiel that I have to reach out and grab his arm to stop him from accidentally ruining a photograph being taken by a thirty-something man who gets dangerously close to the curb as he tries to get a shot of his three friends. They’re all in thick winter coats posing outside a wedding tailor’s shop. A groom and his wedding party, I guess, shopping for their outfits. (I wonder if the wedding is on New Year’s Day.)
The guy taking the photo thanks us in French. As we resume walking, I notice that Ethan lightly extends his elbow toward me. Since I’m holding on to him already, I go with it and slip my arm into his, and I guess we’re going to walk the rest of the way to the station like this.
It hits me only when we’ve reached the corner along the roundabout that will take us to Gare du Nord that the tailor shop we passed was called “Jean-Luc.” And now I’m wondering what he did after I stormed out of Anvers. I don’t think he would have gone to his “better” bistro in “real” Paris by himself. He just wanted to get away from his ex. He wasn’t even all that hungry. It was scandalously early, after all!
No, I bet he went back to his dorm and got all moody. Maybe smoked a cigarette and stared out the window, contemplating life and other deep, not-trivial stuff. That’s what French guys do for fun on a Friday night, right?
Why the hell are you wondering about what Jean-Luc might be doing? He has impeded the Romance Tour at every turn — sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose. He should not be on my mind when, right now, the guy who rode to my rescue — offering up his spare ticket to the Eiffel Tower, of all things — has just bought me an amazing dinner and spent a long time talking about how great our future could be. Why am I thinking about some guy I’ve found it very easy to bicker with? Even during our late breakfast in the café, when we’d known each other less than three hours, we started needling each other, and every conversation since has felt like one blunt comment or French “pfft!” away from becoming a kind of fight. Is it because fighting is not always about a personality clash or a conflict but occasionally a yearning?
Charlotte had said that to me the night everyone got back to campus after Thanksgiving. Charlotte had been staying with her boyfriend, Anthony, and his family, and I don’t know what happened between those two that weekend, but she seemed in a contemplative mood. I figured she and Anthony had had some heavy discussions.
We were sitting on the floor between our beds, playing poker for peanuts (literally!), when I dared to ask her if she and Anthony were heading for Splitsville. They’d been fighting a lot.
“Only about stupid stuff,” she said. “We’re not angry with each other so much as annoyed. When we yell, it’s really that we’re saying, ‘Be better,’ you know?”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble,” I said.
Charlotte laughed. “Being alone is easy. Being with someone means you have to deal with them. And that” — she made her point by laying down her cards (sixes and sevens) — “is your problem, Serena. You want to be with someone, but you want it to be simple and easy. You need to ask yourself, is simple and easy really what’s best for you?”
That was a month ago, and I still haven’t figured out the answer to that question. Why would I want to be with someone I argued with all the time? That wasn’t how it was for Mom and Dad — I don’t think I ever heard either one of them raise their voices at each other. At me and Lara, for sure — especially Lara — but never each other.
“Serena?”
I don’t know how long we’ve been stopped, but Ethan and I are now at Gare du Nord in a line for taxis, and he’s is looking right at me, curious and a bit concerned. I blush, feeling a little guilty, almost as if he might sense that being with him prompted me to remember that discussion with Charlotte.
But Ethan doesn’t seem to pick up on any of this. “I know this might not be the best time or place to ask, but … heck, why not? Do you agree? We should get together? See how things go?”
What do I say to that? Twelve hours ago, I would have said, “Probably not, Ethan — the kisstastrophe and everything.” But I’ve spent most of today feeling pretty alone. Walking in my parents’ footsteps has been a constant reminder that the kind of connection they had is one that only a lucky handful of people in the world ever get to have and I sometimes worry I might never have. Have I been chasing something that doesn’t exist? I was starting to believe that when the simple and easy guy appeared out of the blue and invited me to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Ethan reads my hesitation as a bad sign. “Not that I’m trying to put you on the spot or anything,” he says.
Um, he totally has put me on the spot.
The taxi line shuffles forward, and I tug Ethan’s sleeve. “Can we see how the next few hours go?” I ask. “Before we commit to the next few years?”
Ethan smiles with his mouth but not his eyes. Finally, we reach the front of the line. We get into a taxi, and Ethan speaks to the driver in French, asking to be taken to “Tour Eiffel.” I unhook my cross-body bag and place it between my feet as the driver turns up the radio, which is tuned in to what sounds like a soccer match.
The taxi pulls away from Gare du Nord and merges into the traffic. The amber glow of streetlights swoops over our faces in rhythmic waves, and eventually Ethan shifts to face me.
“Look, I’m happy to take things slow, if that’s what you want, but — just for the record — I know we’re a great match. I’ve known it since the first day of classes. The amount of stuff we have in common, the ways in which we’re alike, it’s almost funny — because there’s so much, it’s ridiculous. You’re awesome, in all the right ways. I don’t think I’m going to need any more time to make my decision. I think I’ve already made it.”
He turns to face forward again. I stare at his profile, as I get some weird tingly feelings in my belly. Not butterflies — or even excitement, really — but having someone say something like that to me does feel kind of nice. And we’re in Paris, at Christmastime, heading to the Eiffel Tower — we’re having a moment, right? It’s definitely a story we can tell in the future.
I hesitate for a second bu
t then take his hand, and …
I don’t know what I was expecting. Not fireworks, but maybe a swelling or a quickening of the pulse. There’s none of that. I tell myself that Mom and Dad weren’t touchy-feely, lovey-dovey all day, every day, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love each other. In fact, it was the way they were so comfortable around each other that showed me they were always in love.
Ethan is beaming. I smile back at him, tell myself that I need to be here. Be present. I’m sharing the final stop on the Romance Tour with someone who is here for me … who could be the right guy for me …
So why am I thinking about someone else?
~ CHAPTER TWELVE ~
JEAN-LUC
20H12
My dorm room is a mess — lengths of string run from wall to wall, and I move quickly through the room, hanging printouts of the photos I’ve taken today with paper clips because I don’t have any clothespins.
When I’m finished, I step back to the door frame so I can view the whole room. It kind of looks like I live with Sherlock Holmes — except that the images are not crime-scene photos of dead bodies or random pieces of evidence.
They are photos of Serena, mostly. Beginning with her in the courtyard of the Louvre, just outside the pyramid, averting her gaze as she thinks about her father, and what this city meant to him. In each one that follows, a shred or a suggestion of Paris hovers in the background — sometimes in focus, other times blurred like it is under water. Like the city is somehow decorating her as her heart continues its quest to get away from the pain that brought her here in the first place. The photos form the story of her day, a sequence capturing all the emotions that she felt as she set about her Romance Tour. Still, I think something is missing.
It is then my eye goes to a few rejected photos, placed carelessly on my nightstand, because I did not think they were right for the project — they did not fit the theme. But something is drawing me to them now, and I walk over …
They’re the photos of the noticeboard for “Lonely Hearts and Missed Connections” that I slyly took while we were in Shakespeare and Company …
To H.,
I will never understand how I can see you every day and still feel like I miss you.
To my dumpling,
even sardines taste different now.
To Adam,
I wish you all the happiness in the world, but I could not make the memory of seeing you marry someone else
Please forgive me
S:
I feel like I chased you all over the world. I just wish I now knew how to get home
Is there anyone in Paris who wants to have coffee and talk about botany?
K,
At first, I thought you had intruded on my life. It’s only now I realize my life was on pause, waiting for you — now, it is stopped.
I don’t know if it was Paris that healed my heart, or if it was you.
I read each message a couple times. I have to squint and hold the image right up to my face to see some of them, and there are at least three with handwriting so messy that I give up.
Each one is a message from one sad heart to another, all of them very specific. But, altogether, the noticeboard feels like a single message, just for me — telling me something I didn’t know I already knew.
It’s better to reach out to someone, than to always be running away.
~ CHAPTER THIRTEEN ~
SERENA
8:39 p.m.
The Eiffel Tower feels very familiar from all the photos I’ve seen, but the sight of it still takes my breath away — with its lights on, it looks like a sword of fire rising up out of the ground, even the fog hanging back warily, like it doesn’t want to get burned. Near the very top, two thin beams of light turn slow circles, as if searching for someone who’s hiding out in the city. All around me on Pont d’Iéna, tourists and locals slow down to crane their necks and gawk. It’s magnificent. Amazing. And I’m not just tingling with awe but sagging with relief — at last, something has gone perfectly today. I am going to get to complete my parents’ Paris trip for Dad. A part of him will make it to the top of the tower, after all.
“Serena — slow down, wait for me!”
I stop so suddenly that the stream of tourists heading for the crossing at the foot of the bridge breaks apart like a wave. I force myself to turn around (which isn’t easy, given what’s on the other side of the street) and see that Ethan is just finishing up paying the taxi driver.
To my left, a crêpe stand and a small souvenir hut look almost embarrassed by the gaudy carousel that’s behind them. To my right, a stone column topped by a statue of a man walking a horse (they’re both naked — obviously) obscures my view of what I know from my research to be the Trocadéro, where we were just driving in the taxi. Ethan tried to run down some facts and trivia about it, but I wasn’t listening. I’m sure it’s great, but it wasn’t what I was here for.
Am here for.
I raise a hand in a kind of “Sorry” gesture, then turn back, taking a deep breath to let the sight wash over me again, hoping it’s as awesome as it was before Ethan distracted me. Before I can reabsorb the view, he appears on my right.
“Hey,” he says. I mumble “Hey” back, as I shift my cross-body bag to my right side. It makes holding hands with Ethan a little awkward as we take the crossing, but I’m barely thinking about that right now. The closer we get to the tower, the more my body floods with adrenaline — no way do I feel like I got in on a red-eye this morning.
Finally, we’ve crossed the six lanes of traffic. I quickly get a sore neck from walking with my head leaned back so I can take it all in. I can’t help noticing that, up close, all this tangled iron looks kind of … ugly. But it gets a pass, because it’s the Eiffel Tower! I see a line of people waiting to be admitted, and my legs seem to move independently, running toward it …
Well, I would be running toward it, if not for Ethan keeping a firm grip on my hand and tugging me back.
“Let me get a picture first,” he says, reaching into his coat and taking out his phone. I try to ignore the flush of disappointment I feel in my chest — a cell-phone camera is not exactly going to get the best-quality shot of me in this world-famous landmark.
But I tell myself, it’s not about the quality of the photo — it’s about capturing the moment.
Ethan walks backward, away from me, and I try to stay loose, like in the other photos I’ve “posed” for today.
“What are you doing?” Ethan asks. “Why are you looking up like that?”
“That’s kind of what I was doing before you wanted to take the picture,” I tell him. “It’s the Eiffel Tower — I should look at it, right?”
“Why don’t you just look here, at me?” he says, dropping into a crouch and turning his phone sideways. “That’s how photos are supposed to be.”
I look at him.
He doesn’t take the photo. He points toward my hips. “Could you just …?”
I take my hands out of my pockets, let them hang by my sides.
“And smile …”
Being asked to smile suddenly makes my facial muscles get a little tight, but I do my best. As soon as his phone flashes, I relax and start to turn and walk toward the line again.
“Ah, damn …” I hear him mumbling. I turn back, seeing him still crouched, looking at his phone with a grimace. For a guy who’s so convinced I’m his matching jigsaw piece, he’s not shy about letting me know I am not all that photogenic.
“Let’s get one more,” he calls out, “but this time, maybe untie your hair?”
I laugh. “That won’t make it any less of a mess.”
“Then what about that scarf you bought,” he says, pointing at my cross-body bag. “Put that on, you’ll look all cool and Parisian.”
“It’s a photo of me at the Eiffel Tower,” I say, using both hands t
o point to the world-famous landmark right above us and — for a split second — kind of hoping Ethan has the presence of mind to take a photo right now. “How much more Parisian can it get? Besides, I got the scarf as a joke for my sister — I was never going to wear it.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun and ironic, right?”
“Okay …” I reach into the bag and take out the scarf. It is just one photo, I guess. When I’ve put it on, I do my best to strike a pose — I stand with my feet wide apart, hold on to the edges of the scarf, look right at the camera and give a big smile.
Ethan misses the one-second window he has to take the photo while my smile looks natural. He just frowns at his phone — at me on his phone. “You sure you don’t want to try it with your hair down?”
“I’m getting kind of cold here,” I say.
Another flash, and this time, he stands up. He nods at his phone as he draws level with me. “Cool. Look.”
He turns his phone so I can see the shot. Everything is perfectly framed, even if the fog looks thicker and grayer than it does in real life. The way I’m standing dead center in front of the arch formed by the tower’s base, with fiery light falling over me, does look kind of cool — but there’s something off. It’s not just that Ethan appears to have taken the photo the second my smile started to freeze.
For some reason, I almost don’t recognize myself.
“Now get one of me,” he says, taking the spot where I was just standing and almost making a shooing gesture as he signals that I should step back. When I’m in position, he stands perfectly still, hands hanging by his side, big smile, all of his attention on the camera, not the sight — the photo serving only as proof that he visited the Eiffel Tower, rather than capturing whatever experience he might have been having. What would Jean-Luc say about this?
Kiss Me in Paris Page 13