He’s in a black button-down shirt with a black tie under a black vest. Monochromatic black against his dark skin and hair just pulls at something inside me. He looks like an old-world jazz player with new world twists, like the same green plaid bandana that ties his hair back. I have a feeling this is his signature thing.
I don’t know how long the show lasts. They play an indeterminate number of songs, most of them sounding exactly the same as the ones before, James flirting with the crowd in between, and then it’s over. The band disappears inside the bistro. It’s late, and the crowd wants to hardcore party now.
What am I supposed to do now? Go home? Try to find James and Gable? That’s what I want to do, but I don’t want to be that girl.
I go to the ladies’ room, since that’s as good a place as any to start, and when I exit, I find James outside the door engaged in a very enthusiastic conversation with a tattooed, pierced girl. Gable stands off to the side, one hand locked awkwardly around the other elbow, one foot tapping a frenzied rhythm.
James suddenly grabs my arm as I walk by. The girl he’s talking to glares daggers at me.
“Hey, nice to see you! How’d you like the show?”
“It was good,” I tell him and give a lame thumbs-up.
James goes back to the other girl and my eyes fall on Gable. Summoning all my courage, I walk around James and Punk Girl to Gable’s other side. I try to smile, but I think my face just spasms. “Hi,” I say.
Gable’s face spasms in almost the exact same way. “Hey.”
He wears black Converse sneakers—cool—and there’s a yellow design on them I can’t quite make out. I point. “What’s the yellow?”
He lifts up his trouser leg. The sides of the sneakers are splashed with a sketchy Batman logo.
“That’s so awesome,” I splutter.
He smiles properly this time. “Thanks.” He says something else, but the music playing is too loud for me to hear.
“Sorry?” I say, leaning in.
He repeats himself but I don’t catch it, again. Crap, he’s going to think I’m a moron. I shake my head and lift my hands in an I’m-sorry-I-can’t-hear-jack-shit kind of way. He motions for me to follow him.
The bistro has gotten way more crowded; we have to push and thread our way out. It’s like winding through a corn maze, if the corn was people and you could easily see the other side of the maze, but the corn is too drunk to let you through.
We finally stumble out the doors and Gable pulls me aside. It’s raining, droplets so fine it’s just mist.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying in there?” I blurt out.
He laughs and reaches up to adjust his hair under the bandana.
“I was saying ‘do you want to go outside?’ but we’ve since done that.”
I grin, crossing my arms over my chest. I wish I had another drink, or just something to do with my hands instead of looking like a total spaz.
“This is much better,” I tell him. “I’m not really a fan of crowded, loud places.”
“Me either,” he says. “Can’t hear a bleedin’ word coming out of anyone’s mouth.”
His accent. I have to rein in my smile, dial it back to normal. I don’t want to be one of those American girls who probably go nuts over his accent every day.
“That’s ironic,” I say. “Considering you probably play in these types of places all the time.”
Gable shrugs. “That’s just playing bass. Don’t need to hear anything else while I play, just the drums. And hearing drums is no problem, ever, really.” He laughs. “Um … did you like the show?”
“Yeah, you guys were good.”
“It wasn’t our best night,” he confesses. “I fucked up a couple o’times. James’s playing was sort of a mess—he always concentrates too much on his singing. We’re usually better. Not a lot better, but … a little.”
“Maybe I’m just not that hard to impress,” I say, and we both laugh.
“Sorry, I just realized I’ve forgotten your name,” Gable says, wincing. “Mine’s Gable, Gable McKendrick.”
“Keira Braidwood.”
“Keira,” he repeats. “And you were from Seattle?”
He pronounces the T’s in Seattle and I love it.
“Actually, I’m from Shoreline, a few miles outside of Seattle.”
“Close enough,” he says. “I’m actually from Leith, but I always round up to Edinburgh. Otherwise no one’d have any idea.”
“Right, exactly.”
And with that, we have nothing left to say. I giggle and rub the back of my neck. He laughs, looking down at his feet. His teeth slip out of his previously closed-lipped smile. They’re completely straight and sparkling white.
The words just pop out: “You have amazing teeth.”
His smile slips. His teeth disappear behind his soft-looking, pillowy lips.
“Um, thanks,” he says. “I wonder where James has got to.”
“He was talking to that girl …”
“God, then he could be anywhere.” Gable smiles a little again, lips closed. “Could be halfway to Monaco by now if she so much as mentioned it.”
I laugh. “Bit of a womanizer?”
“He’ll do anything for any member of the female species—and I do mean species. He’s a slave to his golden retriever, Betsy.”
I laugh in a quick burst, far louder than I intended. Gable grins and leans backward, trying to peer inside the club past the bouncer and through the door.
“I don’t see him,” he says with a sigh. “I’ll try texting him.” He gets out a slick phone and types quickly. After a minute or two, he looks up. “He says to, and I quote, make his apologies to Miss Keira, for he will not be at leisure to join us any time soon.” Gable sighs again, putting his phone away. “And that’s the end of it.”
“Is he always like this?” I ask Gable.
Gable nods. “Long as I’ve known him.”
“How close are you guys?”
“Honestly, not all that close. We’re roommates, and we play music together, but that’s pretty much it. Girls are his life, school is mine.”
He doesn’t elaborate, so I ask: “What are you studying? Are you in college, or …?”
“University,” he corrects, winking. “You Americans and your ‘college.’”
Oh God, I’m a moron.
We sink into silence. He kicks his Batman sneakers against the pavement. Without James being all exuberant and talkative, I feel like there’s nothing stringing us together. My heart is in my throat. He’s just so pretty! I can’t stop looking at his lips and wondering if they’re as soft as they look. His eyes dart around. I’m losing him.
I say, as brightly as possible, “What shall we do? Or, do you have to go, or …”
“No, I don’t have to go,” he says. “I mean, not if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t want you to.” The tips of my ears burn.
“Okay.” He smiles, closed-lipped. “What shall we do?”
“I have no idea,” I confess. “What does one do at …” I get out my phone and check the time. “Eleven at night in Paris?”
He says, “One finds a good late-night eatery and puts something in one’s belly, and then one goes for a walk in the rain and just enjoys the company of pretty American girls.”
Reining in my smile isn’t an option anymore.
“Do you have much experience in the field of enjoying the company of pretty American girls?” I ask. Look at me, I’m flirting!
He winks—he actually winks. “That bit is a first for me.”
Gable has never had a Nutella crêpe.
“How could you?” I demand. “How could you allow yourself to be in Paris without eating a Nutella crêpe? Do you not understand what that is? Nutella? Crêpe? Put together?”
“I know,” he says, studying the menu at the crêpe place we found. “I’m just always in the mood for savory. Ham and cheese and steak and the like. Can’t resist that.”
“I’m always in the mood for dessert ones. Even at dinner time.”
“Dessert for dinner?” He looks at me with one eyebrow raised. “You’re a loon.”
“You never have dessert for dinner, are you serious? How about breakfast for dinner?”
He shakes his head in mock seriousness. “The American public education system is even worse than I thought.”
Gable gets honey ham and capicolli, with Swiss cheese and a ton of herbs, and I get my signature Nutella. I spring for bananas, too. We sit at a tiny table in the tiny shop—has there ever been a crêpe shop in all the history of crêpe shops that is bigger than a jumbo-sized matchbox?—and unwrap our plastic cutlery. I eye his crêpe and I see him eyeing mine.
“Why don’t we just share?” I ask. “You know you want it. I want it, too.”
“Oh, do you?” he asks, laughing. “Well, then …”
He reaches over with his fork and steals the square of crêpe I just cut for myself.
“Well, then, I’m going to steal this rather juicy-looking shred of ham. And this crispy part.”
“Be my guest, madam. My life is but to serve you.”
I laugh, because it’s a joke, but part of me is being stupid. Part of me is hoping his jokes expose rather than mask. Maybe he’s feeling the same fluttery happiness I am? Just maybe, for the first time, could a cute boy dig me as much as I dig him?
My inner realist tells me to lower my expectations. Gable is just really charming and funny and he’s not trying to be charming or funny at me. I need to live in the moment for once, not constantly nurse my high hopes.
“This is really good,” he says after his first bite of Nutella-banana deliciousness. His hand brushes mine as he steals another piece.
I swallow hard. How could that have been accidental?
Stop it. Stop using everything as a measuring stick for how much he does or doesn’t like you.
“Snack tax,” I say, stealing another bite of his crêpe.
He laughs. “Snack tax?”
“That’s what my mom says, whenever she steals a bite of mine or my brother’s treats.”
“That’s brilliant. My mom would just use guilt, with no regard for the deep psychological scars it would leave behind.”
“Mothers, right?”
He nods, going back to devouring his crêpe.
I want to ask questions: Does your mom go crazy when you’re abroad, too? What’s Edinburgh like? Do you have a girlfriend or any kind of attachment, however slight, back home? But my inner realist, again, tells me not to. Too much, too soon, with someone you probably won’t ever see again. Skip all the getting-to-know-you stuff and just have fun. Besides, asking about someone’s mother when you’ve known them for just a few hours is nosy and weird.
I play it safe: “So what are you studying?”
He shrugs. “Just taking random classes right now. ‘Exploring my options,’ as the academic counsellors like to call it. Which is all right, if it wasn’t the state I’ve been in for two years now.”
If he’s been in college—university—for two years, that could make him … nineteen? Twenty?
“I just can’t really seem to settle into any particular discipline. Everything interests me, and nothing interests me. You know? I like too many different areas for there to be one feasible future career that incorporates everything, and if I settled too far into one interest, the other parts of my brain would feel unstimulated.”
“I think I know what you mean,” I say. “Sometimes I wish I could live ten or twenty lives with all the things I want to pursue.”
“What do you want to pursue?” he asks.
“French. Second to that would be German, and after that, I guess architecture, mostly Gothic, but I also, like, love Baroque and Rococo. I’d love to do something like art conservation, maybe. Unless I go for accounting or law instead, which I might. More money there.”
Gable smiles, without his perfect teeth. “Sounds like you’re all set,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll be successful, no matter what you choose.”
“I’m not so sure,” I say, sighing. “Anyway, what are your interests, if they’re so irreconcilable?”
“Physics was my best subject, as well as music. I played bass all through school. I’m really interested in the mining industry, since Pa’s worked the mines all his life. I also love drawing and painting, I dunno, I can’t really explain that one.”
“You don’t have to explain. I can’t explain why I’m so obsessed with languages I can barely speak.”
I say that, but I think of all the times I’ve used my French on this trip and I swell a little with pride. I’ve managed to get by—more than get by, actually. All those classes, Rosetta Stone sessions, and language apps on my phone, not to mention all the time and effort I dedicated to them, actually paid off.
“You want to learn,” Gable says. “To understand. To make more connections. To give yourself the tools to see more of the world and understand your place in it. Maybe create yourself a whole new place in it. Sound about right?”
“Yeah, I suppose that’s it.” I stare down at my plate. My chest is full of warmth. He gets it when I didn’t even get it.
We finish our crêpes in silence. I can’t tell if it’s awkward or not, full of rejection or not. Maybe I was prying. I’m so socially inept that I can’t tell if asking about someone’s deep, abiding passions on a first meeting is okay.
Gable looks up from his plate at me and smiles tentatively. I smile back.
“So?” he asks.
I check my watch again. It’s just after midnight. “It’s getting pretty late,” I admit.
He glances at his phone. “God, you’re right. I don’t even know where you’re staying or who you’re traveling with and if they’re expecting you back.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” I say, standing up. He follows suit. “It’s just me and my brother, no parents or anything. I should get home to him, though.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Treizième arrondissement,” I say, just a tiny bit embarrassed.
Gable’s eyes widen. “That’s pretty far! Come on, I’ll walk you to the metro. Will you need help finding your way along the routes?”
“No, I’m a metro expert.”
“Of course.” We exit the crêpe shop and take a couple steps down the road before Gable asks, “How long have you been in town?”
“Almost a week now.” It feels both longer and shorter than that simultaneously.
“Short amount of time to become an expert. This can’t be your first time in Paris.”
“It is. When you want to learn, you learn quickly.”
He laughs softly, and we’re silent the rest of the walk. It’s still drizzling and everybody acts like they’ve never seen rain before. Lots of umbrellas, even in fine mist, and newspapers or magazines clutched over heads. High heels tap furiously as women dash from doorway to doorway. I’m a Northwest girl; this is nothing.
“Has Paris never had rain before?” I ask as a woman dashes past us, squealing.
“Seattle’s pretty rainy, isn’t it?” Gable asks.
“It’s pretty much the defining characteristic of the area,” I say. “Stephenie Meyer owes her fortune to Pacific Northwest weather.”
“What?”
“Oh, you know, the author of Twilight? The gloomy weather is the trademark of the series.”
I look up to see Gable side-eyeing me.
“You aren’t a Twilight fan, are you?”
“No, no!” I laugh. “Just someone who lives in Washington. You can’t escape it. It’s become an industry.”
“Really?”
“I have cousins in Forks who work as Twilight tour guides in the summer. No joke.”
Gable gives a low whistle. “Like Harry Potter. Castles in Scotland have gotten a boost in visitors from having Hogwarts appeal.”
“I know which series I’d rather live in,” I say.
“Definitely. Vampires are so muc
h hotter than wizards.”
“No way! Harry Potter wins. Obviously.”
“I bet you’re a fan of those shirtless werewolves.”
“Do you want to see my Ravenclaw crest necklace as proof?” I offer. “It’s back in my suitcase, I can show you.”
And then I press my hand over my mouth to stifle anything else that could be considered a veiled invitation to come up to my hotel room. Luckily we’ve reached the metro. We descend the stairs and show our passes and then the hallway parts. I have to go east, he has to go west.
“Well, Keira …”
“Yes, Mr. McKendrick?”
He stands, feet apart, hands in his jacket pockets, and makes a face at me. I stick out my tongue. He reaches out his finger like he’s going to poke it and pokes my nose instead at the last second. I let out an honest-to-goodness giggle.
“I want to see you again,” he says simply.
“I want to see you again, too.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
We exchange TextAnywhere usernames.
“All set?” he says. “I will text you tomorrow and we’ll figure something out.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
We just stand there, smiling at each other, not making any step toward the hallways we should be walking down right about now. I have to go; he has to go. But neither of us moves.
“Well …” He holds his arms out awkwardly. “Hug, I guess?”
I laugh and step into his embrace. My head barely reaches his shoulder. It’s sexy.
“See you tomorrow,” he says.
I wave and step down the east-bound tunnel. He goes west and out of sight.
I feel like I’m walking on clouds all the way back to the 13e arrondissement. When I get home, Levi is still up watching TV. The room smells kind of rancid, like body odor and old socks.
“Hey,” I say, throwing my purse and jacket over a chair on my way to open the window.
“You took fucking forever.”
“Well, I watched the band play for like an hour, then I had dinner and went for a walk with Gable, not to mention the metro ride there and back.”
He glares. “Who’s Gable? The hipster who doesn’t shut up?”
Maybe in Paris Page 14