“Julia wants to find a hot rich French guy and have revenge sex with him all over Paris,” said Ashley.
“You totally should,” Megan agreed.
I blushed hotly. “No! That’s not it. I just want to get lost in the city, I think. I don’t know, find some narrow little streets and wander down there and find a cute cafe to sit in with a coffee or a glass of wine and forget about everything going on at home. Just- escape.”
Becca patted my knee sympathetically, but Ashley rolled her eyes. “We’re going to get you drunk and find you a hottie European to hook up with, mark my words. Another one please,” she hollered, waving her empty mimosa glass at the bartender.
By the time Becca, Megan, and I had finished our first drinks Ashley was polishing off her second. We left the bar and popped in to the departure lounge’s convenience store, buying gum, water bottles, and magazines for the plane ride. I almost pulled out my phone again, but Megan snatched it out of my hands and turned it off for me. “You’ll have to turn it off on the plane anyway,” she told me. “Might as well do it now, right?”
“You’re right,” I admitted. I opened a magazine instead and read all about the latest Kardashian drama until our flight was announced for boarding.
“Ooooh, Paris, here we come!” Ashley sang as we lined up to show our boarding passes.
“Well, New York, then Paris, but who’s counting really?” asked Becca.
The flight to New York was a shorter one, about an hour and a half. We were able to find our second departure gate without much trouble, and boarded not long after arriving. As we settled in to our seats I wished I’d sprung for first class tickets. Megan and I were sitting next to each other by a window, with Ashley and Becca across the aisle from us.
Megan settled back in to her seat. “I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” she said. She looked at me. “You okay? You look kinda sick.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I feel a little queasy. Not motion sickness queasy,” I added quickly. “Just a general, wow, I’m about to leave my kids and fly over an ocean for the first time.”
“You’ll be fine,” she reassured me.
“I hope so,” I said. “Listen. Um, I feel like I should tell you something. I haven’t said anything to Becca and Ash, but...well...know how I booked our flights and said we’d be doing some serious shopping and I’d pay for it all?”
“Yes...”
“Well...that wasn’t entirely truthful.”
Megan looked confused. “What do you mean?” she asked. “I mean, I can pay my own way of course, I don’t mind, I have savings for vacation and all-“
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I interrupted her. “I meant, I’m not paying for this. Bradley is.”
Her eyes widened. “Bradley is? How’d you convince him to do that?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I- well, I guess I can’t show you because my phone is turned off, but I took a picture of his backup credit card. He said some really awful things to me and I got so mad, I just wanted him to feel the way I do. I wanted him to just get the rug pulled out from under him from nowhere, just a total shock he didn’t see coming- I want him to know how I felt.”
“Shut. Up.” Megan’s mouth gaped open. “I can’t believe you had the guts to do that! Wow. I mean good for you, girl, but wow.” She shook her head, then giggled. “Let’s book a massive hotel suite and order all the room service. Should we tell Ashley and Becca?”
“We’ll tell them later,” I said.
“On the way home Bradley should upgrade us to first class,” said Megan, looking down at the foot and a half of space between her seat and the seat in front.
“Bradley will definitely be doing that,” I agreed.
When we landed in Paris, it was just past ten PM local time, but it felt like suppertime to our American-adjusted bodies. We got our passports stamped by immigration, collected our suitcases from the luggage carousel, and then stood around in a tight cluster.
“Soooo,” said Becca hesitantly. “Where now? Do we have a hotel?”
“This is an adventure,” I told her. “It came to my attention that any time I travel, I have to spend hours researching reviews and comparing prices and features, so I decided that this time everything we do, we’re doing on a whim.”
“You take the lead, then,” said Ashley. “Which bridge shall we sleep under tonight?”
Immediately, I felt silly and a bit self-conscious. Maybe Ashley was right and Bradley had been wrong. Maybe planning everything in advance was the way to go. After all, here we were standing around in the Paris airport without a clue where to go. I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. Catch one of the trains I saw signs for? Or a cab? But where would we go?
Megan rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Ash. There has to be some kind of guest services guest that can help us find a hotel.”
Relieved, I smiled at my best friend. “Guest services,” I repeated. “Right, let’s find them.”
Between the four of us, we remembered enough vocabulary from high school French to figure out which direction we had to go. I was nervous that at this hour any desk would be closed for the night, but to my relief we found a guest services kiosk with a woman standing behind the counter.
“We’d like some help finding a hotel for the night,” I said, speaking slowly but clearly.
“For how many nights?” she asked, in perfect but heavily accented English.
I looked at my friends. “Are we going to stay here the whole time? Or visit somewhere else?”
“Seat of your pants,” said Ashley, swatting my on the butt.
“Five nights,” I said decisively. We had flights back two weeks from now, but now that we were in Europe, who said we had to stay in Paris the whole time?
“And do you have a preference for the area?” the woman asked.
“We’d like a suite,” Megan added. “The nicest one available. Actually, the most expensive hotel you can find.”
The woman tapped away on her computer. “I have two adjoining suites available,” she said. “The price will be one thousand four hundred euros per room per night. Will this be by credit card?”
I gulped. Holy shit. I couldn’t do that, especially since I wasn’t one hundred percent certain of the credit card’s limit. I thought it was fifty thousand, but with a few nights in a hotel like that we’d max it out in no time- especially if we planned to do any shopping.
“Actually,” I decided, “we don’t need the most expensive hotel available. We’d just like a big penthouse or two adjoining suites in a very convenient area for shopping and sightseeing. We’d like to be able to walk just about everywhere.”
The woman nodded briskly and tapped away at her computer again. “I have a nice hotel for you here. It is a smaller boutique hotel, but very luxurious. It is right here.” She turned the computer screen around and tapped a spot on the map she’d pulled up. “Just off the Champs-Elysees. A very short distance to the Seine and views of the Eiffel Tower. Five hundred euros per room per night.”
I could hear the appreciative sighs from my friends. I felt dazed myself. “We’ll take it,” I said authoritatively.
We all crammed together in a taxi to the hotel, giggling in the backseat. We arrived at the hotel and were greeted by a man who offered to take our bags upstairs to our room. The woman who checked us in offered us all a complimentary glass of champagne. “Is this your first time visiting Paris?” she asked. We nodded. “Bienvenue à Paris,” she smiled. “Here I have a map of the city for you. This is our hotel.” She circled a spot on the map. “You will find many things to do nearby. The Eiffel Tower is a very short walk away, and to arrive at the Champs-Elysees and many designer shops you will simply walk down the street in the opposite direction from the Tour Eiffel. If you have any questions or wish for directions we are happy to help you.”
“Merci,” we all said together, just like we were back in Madame Leblanc’s sophomore French class again. We walked upstairs t
o our rooms in a daze. I still couldn’t quite believe we were here.
“Is this real life?” asked Becca once we were alone in our suites. We stood in a small group by the door, gawking around us. There were two king size beds in each room, along with a small divan in one room and a table and chairs in the other. There was a balcony that joined the two rooms together, with a small table and chairs so we could sit outside and enjoy a drink.
“Ahhh,” said Ashley, stepping out on to the balcony. “I can sit out here in the morning with a coffee, croissant, and a cigarette!”
“You don’t smoke,” said Becca.
“So I’ll start,” said Ashley. “Paris just seems to call for a cigarette!”
“Did you guys see the bathrooms?” asked Megan, poking her head in. “Come here!” We all crowded in. The tile was so polished that we could see our reflections in it. Each bathroom had a large corner Jacuzzi tub, along with a soaker shower, and a huge sink and vanity. There were baskets filled with complementary products- shampoo, conditioner, soaps, lotions, perfume, moisturizers.
Ashley had wandered in to the other adjoining room. “Free wine in there,” she said. “Two bottles. So I’m not tired at all right now- are we going out or what?”
Megan looked at me. “Jules? What do you say?”
“Oh, let’s not,” interrupted Becca.
“Party pooper,” Ashley grumbled.
“Sorry,” said Becca. “But I’m kind of tired from travelling all day and I’d kind of like to just stay in. It’s eleven-thirty here- we can drink and watch a movie or something. Then wake up tomorrow all rested and do some shopping or sightseeing and go out tomorrow night. Isn’t that a better plan?”
“Yeah, sorry Ashley, but I’m beat too,” Megan admitted. “Let’s open those bottles of wine and find something good on TV.”
“Jules?” Ashley asked me hopefully.
“I’m all in for tomorrow night,” I told her. “We can go shopping tomorrow and find something to wear out. I’m pretty sure I have nothing nice enough to wear out in Paris, anyway. Tomorrow, Ash. We’ll get dressed up and go to dinner and then find a spot for dancing.
Ashley made a face. “Well, okay,” she said. “But I’m definitely drinking this wine!”
“Go for it. We can even order room service,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Girls- this trip is on me. Or rather...on Bradley.”
Ashley and Becca stared at me. “What?” they asked in unison.
“Um- well, it’s going to be a surprise to him,” I said. “But yup, he’s going to pay for what he did to me, one way or another. I have his credit card.”
An evil smile spread across Ashley’s face. “Find the room service menu,” she ordered. “Bradley is going to live to regret the day he screwed Julia over!”
Chapter Seven
We stayed up until 2 am local time, drinking and laughing and making outrageous plans to take revenge on Bradley. It was only 8 pm to our bodies so I thought I might take a while to fall asleep, but it had been such a long day and the bed I collapsed in was so luxurious, I had fallen asleep within minutes.
When I woke up the next morning, it was eleven already. I jumped out of bed and shook Megan awake in the bed next to mine. “Megs!”
She rolled over and groaned. “What?”
“It’s eleven! Come on, we’ve wasted almost half the day!”
Megan sat up in bed, yawning, while I grabbed the plush hotel robe from inside the wardrobe. After an amazing shower with some wonderful smelling, free bath products, I blow dried my hair. Then I opened my suitcase to try and choose an outfit for a day of shopping in Paris. I suspected that no matter what I chose I’d be easy to pick out as an American tourist, so instead I went for comfort and decided on a cute sundress with flat open toed sandals.
As Megan shuffled towards the shower, I opened the door that joined our room to where Becca and Ashley were sleeping. Becca was sitting on the bed straightening her hair.
“Ashley’s out on the balcony,” she nodded towards the door. “We were thinking we could go somewhere for something to eat, then do some shopping maybe? And since the Eiffel Tower is so close, we could go there too. Then dinner tonight and go to a club or something.”
“Sure,” I said. “I can’t believe we slept half the day.”
“Well, there’s the time difference,” Becca pointed out. “Anyway, we’re on vacation, remember? If we want to sleep in, now’s the time to do it.”
“Right. Go with the flow. No schedules,” I reminded myself.
I walked over to the balcony door and stepped outside. Ashley was sitting on a wrought iron chair with her legs pulled up, wearing oversized sunglasses and holding a cigarette. On the table next to her sat a coffee and a plate with a half-eaten croissant.
“Where did you get that?” I asked her, amazed. “How long have you been up?”
She shrugged. “An hour or two. Where’d I get what?”
“The cigarette- you don’t smoke. the coffee, the croissant, and the sunglasses.”
“Bought these online before we left,” she said, gesturing to the sunglasses. “The coffee and croissant are room service. I went down to the front desk and got the cigarettes there. The girl handed them over like mints. This is France, I guess.”
“You don’t even smoke,” I echoed Becca from last night.
“I’ve had like two puffs,” she said. “It’s just nice sitting on a balcony in Paris with a cigarette. If I tilt my head at this exact angle and don’t move, I can see the Eiffel Tower between those two buildings.”
“Where? Let me see!”
Ashley stood up and let me sit in her chair. I imitated the tilt of her head and caught a glimpse of the famous tower in the gap between two buildings. I sighed happily. “I’m so excited to finally be here,” I said.
After Becca and Megan were ready, the four of us headed out towards the Champs-Elysees. Paris’s biggest street stretched out before us just like I’d always imagined it. High fashion boutiques, fancy restaurants and cafes, and jewelry stores stretched out on both sides. The sidewalks were so wide they seemed even wider than the street itself. A line of impeccably pruned green trees separated the sidewalk from the street. We headed down one side of the street slowly, heading down towards the Arc de Triomphe. We stopped to look in the windows of some of the shops, but I felt so overwhelmed that I was sure a snooty Parisian shop assistant would laugh at me and escort me out if I dared to set foot in the door of Chanel or Dior.
When we reached the end of the street, we stopped at the massive traffic circle and took pictures of the Arc de Triomphe. “Do you want to climb to the top?” asked Becca hopefully.
“NO,” said Ashley. “Let’s walk down the other side of the street. I want to find something to wear out tonight.”
“We’ll do tourist stuff tomorrow, Becca,” I promised her. We crossed the street and headed down in the other direction until finally Ashley dragged us in to a Louis Vuitton store. I felt like I had to whisper, like I was in a museum or something. The saleswoman ignored us at first until Megan pointed out a beautiful leather purse to me.
“You should get yourself something like that,” she said. “Honestly, even if it’s not to get back at Bradley, you could carry that bag every day.”
“You think?” I asked her.
“Of course. Excuse me- um, excusez-moi...” Megan gestured to the saleswoman, who came over with a doubtful look on her face. “My friend would like to see this handbag, please.”
The saleswoman took it out and handed it to me. I put it over my shoulder and looked in the mirror. It was a beautiful bag. The leather was heavy but soft to the touch, and the style was so classic I could use it for years to come. “I love it,” I admitted.
“Three thousand euros,” said the saleswoman.
The old, practical Julia winced at the price. That was a few mortgage payments, or a new dining room set to replace the one that had gotten scratched in the move! That was summer camp for Henry and horse
back riding lessons for Olivia. But the new, go with the flow Julia who sometimes took time to do something nice for herself, looked in the mirror and saw a beautiful handbag. “I’ll take it,” I declared.
After the saleswoman had wrapped it up for me and I’d handed over Bradley’s credit card, we decided to get something to eat. A cafe was a few doors down; it was a cute sidewalk café, so ordered sandwiches and wine. I couldn’t stop sneaking glances down at my new handbag.
Lunch was expensive, but with Bradley footing the bill I was able to relax and enjoy the atmosphere of sitting on a sunny sidewalk on one of the most fashionable streets in the world, watching tourists and Parisians hurry by.
When lunch was over we continued down the Champs-Elysees, mostly window shopping but occasionally going inside a store. We came across a shopping arcade, where we discovered a store that sold dresses that would be great for going out tonight. It was almost like high school again, as the four of us crowded in to the tiny dressing rooms, trading dresses, going back for different sizes, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and sometimes shaking our heads until we had each found a dress we were happy with.
“I can’t wait to wear this out tonight,” said Ashley, as we left the store.
“Where do you guys want to go?” asked Megan. “For dinner and dancing, I mean.”
“I could Google-“ I started to say, but Megan shook her head.
“Remember, Jules? No planning. Just let what happens, happen.”
“Agreed,” said Ashley. “We can ask at the front desk of the hotel a good area to visit, but once we’re there, we just follow our noses and find a great spot.”
It was four o’clock by that time, and I knew the French wouldn’t eat dinner until late, so when Becca asked if we could walk across the bridge down the street from our hotel to visit the Eiffel Tower, we all agreed. We stopped in at our hotel to stash our shopping bags in our rooms, and then walked across the bridge spanning the Seine.
The Eiffel Tower stood in the middle of a huge garden, and the lawns were covered in tourists. Some were big groups- school groups in matching t-shirts, or a busload of Japanese tourists crowding in for a group photo- and others were smaller...families, couples, young college age kids. For a minute I felt jealous of the college kids, getting out and travelling the world before a husband and family came along. I’d married Bradley right out of college and we’d had Henry right away. At the time it had felt so right, and we’d been so happy to start a family. I didn’t regret having my son, but I couldn’t help but wonder for the first time what my life might have been like if I hadn’t stayed with Bradley.
Love Far Away (A Spicy Contemporary Romance) Page 5