I laugh and tell Jean-Luc to be careful as we weave our way through the tourists, who are standing stock-still and staring behind us, waiting for the Eiffel Tower to do its thing at ten o’clock. That’s what we’re here for, but — to be honest — it’s basically an afterthought.
We reach the end of the path, and I continue toward the stone steps that lead up to Musée de l’Homme. Jean-Luc pulls me to the side.
“What are you doing?” I yelp. “We’re going to miss the show.”
“Over here,” he says, guiding me to the top of the basin, just behind a series of idle water cannons that look like they’re aimed at the Eiffel Tower. Unlike the paths lining the basin on either side, there’s hardly any people down here. Probably because the glow of the streetlamps can barely make it this far.
I guess my doubts are obvious, because Jean-Luc grins at me. “It’s more peaceful. Less tourists!”
“Hey! I’m a tourist,” I protest, following him anyway. From here, there is no one to block our view — we can see the tower from top to bottom. Right now, it’s lit up in the red, white and blue of the French tricolor.
Jean-Luc puts the plastic bag down and takes out one of the wine bottles. Thankfully, it’s not broken or cracked. “Merde! I have no corkscrew.”
I drop to one knee, starting to untie my shoelaces.
“I know I made faces at those sneakers,” he says, “but this is not the time to throw them away!”
“Just watch,” I tell him, slipping the shoe off and taking the wine bottle. I use my fingernail to tear off the label, then stand the bottle in the shoe. “I should be able to pop the cork out …”
“By doing what?” Jean-Luc asks. “Beating it on the ground?”
“That’s right.”
“That will never work!”
I make a face at him. “Clearly you don’t go down any YouTube rabbit holes on Friday nights.” Then I lift the shoe-bottle and slam the sole — and the base of the bottle — down on the ground. Jean-Luc flinches like one of those water cannons made a sudden noise.
“You are going to ruin your sneakers,” he mumbles. “Actually, keep going!”
It takes longer than I’ve seen it take online. My shoulder starts to ache after a while — but soon, the cork has edged out enough that we can pop it all the way.
“Don’t ever doubt me again,” I say playfully, offering the bottle. Jean-Luc waves it away, gesturing that I should go first. “Merci.” I take a sip, thinking that I sure have taken advantage of the lower drinking age in Europe today.
When I hand the bottle to him, his whole body is bathed in dark blue. The light show is beginning. And it’s beautiful, especially the way that the tower seems to be radiating the colors, which swoop over us in slow, almost comforting waves before turning into reds and greens, broken by white stars. It’s pretty amazing, but not enough to keep my attention off just how close Jean-Luc is standing to me, how his hand is brushing against mine again, as if he’s suddenly nervous about taking it. And I’m nervous, too, which is ridiculous because we basically held hands all the way here.
But that was us being practical, making sure we didn’t lose each other in the Parisian Christmas crowds. This is … different. Now, as the lights from the tower become suddenly muted, the gasps of appreciation around us fading to a murmur, I feel uncertain all over again. This is a big moment, potentially a perfect end to a story I might be telling for a while, once I’m back home. It’d be really great if I didn’t ruin it.
I move my hand toward his, to let him know it’s okay. I’m kind of blushing, too — it is all kind of ridiculous but in a nice way.
He takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine. My fingers are stiff from the cold, and I fumble when trying to interlace my hand with his, and we end up with a kind of mangled grip on each other.
That I am not going to fix. Because it might not be a perfect fit, but it feels good. It feels like how we hold hands.
And now I’m staring at the French boy I’ve known for less than a day, his face lit up in the vivid colors the Eiffel Tower is painting Paris with. He’s looking back at me, and it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time.
He was a stranger this morning, but through him, I got to see this city and find my own version of it — not simply relive my parents’ trip. I found a way to both keep Dad in my heart and take a first step in moving on from my grief.
I can’t believe that, just a few hours ago, I was wishing for a concussion that would knock the memories of this “sucky” Paris trip right out of my head. Right now, I don’t want to forget a single thing that happened today.
Jean-Luc turns to face me fully, and I feel my hand tighten around his. Is he going to kiss me?
But that’s not what he does. Instead, he asks a question. “How did you know Ethan wasn’t right?”
The answer comes to me so quickly, I barely have to think about it. “I just did. I mean, it’s not like Ethan’s a bad guy or anything. He’s a great guy, actually. But he … he didn’t see me. You know?”
Jean-Luc’s dark eyes reflect the light show, flaring green and red. His face stays so still, I wonder for a second if he doesn’t like my answer. But then he nods. “I know what you mean. It is only today that I realized, I could never really see Martine. I mean, see her as in, really understand her. Perhaps that is because I was not meant to … It was not the right thing …”
He pulls our intertwined hands toward himself, holding mine against his chest. “The right thing is when you both see each other.”
I close the gap between us so quickly, I barely think about how unlike me it is. Jean-Luc gently takes my shoulder with his free hand and pulls me in closer.
We kiss.
We don’t see any more of the ten o’clock light show.
*
11:30 p.m.
As fun as it was to drink red wine straight from the bottle at the Trocadéro, I much prefer drinking from the glasses in Jean-Luc’s dorm.
Jean-Luc’s sitting on the floor, his head resting on my shins. We’re holding hands lightly. I’m starting to feel a little sleepy. I hope the bed in Olivier’s room is comfortable.
“When do you need to catch your train to London?” he asks me.
“It leaves at two,” I say. “So I guess I have to be at Gare du Nord for one o’clock, right?”
“Then we should make the most of the morning,” he says, through a yawn. “That doesn’t leave me much time to take you around, so that you can see my Paris.”
“What makes it ‘your’ Paris?”
From the way he looks into his wineglass, I can tell he’s a little shy. “You know … my neighborhood, the places that I know.”
“That sounds interesting. I gotta say, I’m curious to see where this” — I gesture to him like he’s some kind of exhibit in a gallery — “came from.”
My momentary prickle of fear that artistic French guys won’t react well when gently mocked is soothed when he just smiles at me. “It will be a Paris without itineraries, without scrapbooks.”
I sit forward and kiss the top of his head. Lean back and look into his eyes.
“And no cameras?” I ask.
He smiles up at me. “No cameras,” he agrees. “We will walk, and we will just … see.”
“I’d like that,” I tell him.
We kiss again. And again.
~ EPILOGUE ~
SERENA
SIX MONTHS LATER
“You’re not seriously going to make me watch Doctor Who, are you?” Anthony sounds legit worried.
Charlotte just laughs at him. “No, of course not. Although, it will be a very easy way to get my sisters to like you.” It’s first thing on a Thursday morning in June, so the observation deck of the Empire State Building is pretty deserted. Just beside me on my left, Charlotte and her boyfriend hold hands and st
are out toward the East River, but I get the feeling that Anthony is really looking out toward England. He and Charlotte are catching a red-eye tonight, although Anthony was almost going to bail until his older brother agreed to look after their dog, Mistake. It kind of blows my mind that those two got a dog the day they met. But what really blew my mind was when Anthony and I once shared Brooklyn stories and found out that we went to the same high school (he was ahead of me by one year). Even more freaky was figuring out that his older brother, Luke the Cop, was the same Luke the Cop that Lara dated in her freshman year of college. I chose not to tell Anthony how much like a puppy dog Luke was when he was around Lara, just in case Anthony idolizes his big brother!
“Those two are funny,” Jean-Luc murmurs, putting his arm around me. I don’t think he’s let go of me since he turned up at the dorm this morning, having first spent the weekend with his dad. Absence might make the heart grow fonder — Skype and FaceTime make it grow very, very needy!
“I can’t believe you dragged me up here again,” Anthony mumbles, as he and Charlotte walk off along the deck. Jean-Luc and I walk in the other direction, coming to face the Hudson River on the opposite side.
And just like Anthony seemed to be looking at London, Jean-Luc is very definitely looking at New Jersey.
I take his hand and can tell from how tense it is that something’s on his mind. I know what.
“How was it?” I ask him. “Seeing your dad?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the view. “Awkward at first … and often. And my two stepbrothers are kind of annoying. But they’re good kids, really — and my father is maybe not the bad guy I thought he was. You know, back in April, he offered to fly out to Paris for the funeral.” Jean-Luc’s grandfather passed away in the spring. “He and Mama talked for a long time. I think it was good for both of them — they can forget the past now.”
“So your mom’s okay with you spending the summer here?”
He nods. “She wants me to have a relationship with my dad, with my stepbrothers.” Then he smiles awkwardly, his shoulders bunching up around his ears. “Also, I think she has a new boyfriend. She met him in one of her art classes. So she’s probably happy I am out of the country.”
“Oh, she introduced you to Michel, finally?”
He turns to look at me. “How do you know about Michel?”
“Oh, please, your mom emails me every week. Sometimes, we even Skype.”
Jean-Luc just laughs, shaking his head as he looks back out to the Hudson. “Looking after Grandpapa for as long as she did must have been very tough on her.”
I squeeze his hand, pull him to me a little. “You still miss him?”
I see his jaw clench as the breath catches in his throat, his eyes closing briefly as he wills himself not to cry. “I do,” he whispers. “I think I probably always will — just like you’ll always miss your papa. It might never go away. But that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the present, right?”
I pull him in for a soft kiss, then rest my head against his chest, feeling completely at ease. I don’t know how long this feeling will last, but I hope it’s a long time. Especially now that Jean-Luc will be coming here in September, on a study-abroad year at NYU. I’m trying not to get too excited about that.
After a few more moments gazing out over the Hudson, I take both his hands and start leading him toward the exit. “We should go get breakfast,” I say. “If you’re going to go apartment hunting this afternoon, you’ll need all the energy you can get.”
He’s resisting, and I’m about to turn around and tell him to hustle, damn it, when I see that he’s grinning at me.
“What’s with the look?” I ask him.
“Nothing,” he says. “I just like looking at you, that’s all.”
I smile and shake my head. “Okay. As long as you see me, too.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Huge thanks again to all the people who read so many iterations of this story: Samantha Noonan, Charles Nettleton, Clare Hutton and Kate Egan. A hat-tip to all the creative bravehearts at Working Partners, who support and inspire on a daily basis; and to Alexandra Devlin and our friends at Rights People, for helping us send these figurative kisses all around the world!
Follow Catherine Rider on Twitter @CRiderYA.
JAMES NOBLE is an editor who also writes under a variety of pseudonyms. He was born and raised in London. He went to primary and secondary school in London. He went to college in London. He got his first — and only, and current — publishing job in London. He has intermediate Cockney rhyming slang, loves pie and mash (though he recoils at the mere mention of jellied eels), and never forgets to “mind the gap.” But he still loses far too much of far too many days daydreaming about what it’d be like to live in New York.
Eternal gratitude to my parents, Debbie and Jimmy, and to my brothers, John and Joe (and Emma!), for putting up with me in all the ways that you do! Much love to the Brennan-Finnegan and Bailey/Cheshire Clans, who I’m proud to call my family. A “mad” hat tip to all the supportive writers I know. Thanks, most of all, to my friend and collaborator Stephanie, whose daily example never leaves any choice but to always be better.
STEPHANIE ELLIOTT is a book editor who moved to New York immediately after college. She has never been mugged, ridden a Citi Bike or been harassed by a rogue Elmo in Times Square (though one did get a little salty with her, once). She feels strongly that bialys are better than bagels, yellow cabs are better than Ubers and pizza must NEVER be eaten with a fork. She loves visiting London, where people are SO polite! She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and five-year-old daughter.
Love and thanks to my parents, my supportive friends, the Elliotts, the Lanes and the indescribable city of Paris, which always inspires me. Particularly big hugs to Dan and Maggie, my two loves who are always up for exploring with me. And a special thanks to James, for his love of this story and his amazing contributions!
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