by Stacy Travis
The rest of the day disappeared in a blur because I couldn’t pull myself out of the groggy nap. I knew all the rules about getting past jet lag, and the middle of the day was the worst possible time to give in to fatigue. But working so hard to stay awake and function like a normal human had made this feel like anything but a vacation. If it took me another day or so to get my body clock on track, so be it. I’d preferred not to push through the afternoon only to be a basket case by dinner.
By the time I woke up, it was almost four o’clock. I scrambled off the bed and into the shower. I wanted to have time for my hair to dry before I met Chris for dinner. He hadn’t confirmed we were even meeting yet, but I needed a shower desperately, so technically I wasn’t doing it for him.
When I dried off and checked my phone, I found a text message with a time and a place, along with a couple of emojis—a fist bump and a smiley face. See you then? he’d typed.
I had no idea where the place was, but I typed back a thumbs-up and Looking forward.
And I was. He’d seemed kind, and there was nothing wrong with having a table for two instead of a table for one. Plus, he seemed to know his way around, so I’d have a safety net to keep me from skirting more French customs.
The restaurant was not too far from my hotel. I looked on the map to see what might be between here and there so I could do some sightseeing on the way. The Musée d’Orsay, with its world-renowned impressionist collection, was open until seven in the evening, so I could get there and have at least a little bit of time to look at a couple of floors of art before finding the restaurant. It seemed like the perfect plan because the museum was a place I wanted to visit and the timing worked perfectly.
The walk along the Rue de l’Université took me past some art galleries and a lot of large closed double doors, some of which had interesting doorknobs. I started snapping photos of the best ones, a couple that looked like lions with door knockers in their mouths and a few round decorative knobs on red or blue doors. The best was a claw holding a ball that hung down as a knocker on a maroon door.
As I passed by, I heard the buzz of an electronic lock, and one of the doors swung open as a man in a long coat stepped over the transom and exited the building. Before the door shut, I caught a glimpse of an adorable cobblestoned courtyard entrance to the apartments in the back part of the building. After that, as I passed the painted doors, I imagined the courtyards that lay behind them and the lives of the people who lived in those buildings. I realized I could probably find an Airbnb rental instead of my hotel, and if I could afford it, maybe I could stay in a cool apartment off a pretty courtyard like one of these.
It didn’t take long before I was walking up the steps outside the museum and paying my entry fee. Once inside, I looked up at the high ceiling of the atrium, admiring the ornate design of the glass ceiling and the carved arches of the building. It had once been a train station, its outer facade recognizable by the large clock faces that looked over the Seine. Arrows pointed to the restaurant on the top floor. Never one to pass up a good view, I headed up there first.
A large clock, backed by glass, took up one whole wall of the restaurant, and I could see through it all the way across the city to the white-domed church, Sacré-Coeur, which sat atop Montmartre—another place on my long list of sites I wanted to see. For the moment, I settled for seeing it through the clock face, which made for a cool photo. The open doors of the restaurant urged me outside to the balcony, and from there, I could see across the Seine to the right bank and the Tuileries Garden.
I was already lovestruck by the Musée d’Orsay for its view of the sites of Paris, and I hadn’t seen a single piece of art. After swooning for a few more minutes, I headed back inside and went floor by floor, artist by artist, taking in as many impressionists as I could before the alarm on my phone reminded me to meet Chris. I saw whole rooms filled with Monets and Manets, water lilies, ladies with parasols, and lakeside scenes. I ogled dancers painted by Degas and fields and portraits by Van Gogh. I’d never seen so much stunning art in one place.
For the first time since the plane had landed, I felt fully alive as if in the beginnings of a great love affair. With masters of art. With centuries-old architecture. With Paris. As I looked at room after room of gorgeous paintings, a wave of emotions washed over me and left me with a rosy aura of calm and appreciation for being here.
This was why I’d traveled so far—to be in Paris, staring at paintings of the masters. All residual worry over traveling alone fell away. I could easily look at art and architecture for two weeks. And I felt firm in my conviction that I was done worrying about being alone, done thinking about Johnny. He had no place in my life anymore.
Lower floors of the museum had sculpture and furnishings, but it was the impressionist paintings that I couldn’t stop gazing at. When my phone alarm pulled me from a love fest with Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhône, I kind of didn’t want to leave and meet a guy I’d talked to for five minutes in a doorway, even if he’d been exceptionally nice to me. I debated texting him and apologizing that I couldn’t make it. The museum would be closing soon, but I could spend the last twenty minutes staring at more paintings. I hadn’t realized how much I loved the art.
And Chris was leaving in the morning. He’d never see me again and probably wouldn’t think anything of it. Maybe he could still meet up with his friends.
I took out my phone, prepared to send him a thanks anyway text, but then I fast-forwarded a couple of hours to the evening, picturing myself back where I’d sat the night before, alone with my plastic cup of wine, looking at all the couples around me. After a little wine, I’d start feeling lonely again, and I couldn’t keep running back to Guillaume, as nice as he was. He did have his own life.
Once I fully admitted to myself I was using Chris so I wouldn’t have to face an empty dinner table, I turned my back on the beautiful Renoir paintings of children’s faces and happy crowds and headed back down the stairs and out of the museum. I wasn’t proud of my motives, not at all. But I gave myself a half a point for being honest.
There were worse things than meeting a good-looking guy for dinner, and I reminded myself that I’d be in Paris for two weeks. There would still be plenty of time to return to the museum and ogle the impressionist paintings.
Chapter Nine
La Fontaine de Mars
It was about a ten-minute walk from the museum to Rue Saint-Dominique, where Chris had said to meet him. The street was packed with restaurants, cafés, and people. Everyone seemed like they had somewhere to go.
At first, I didn’t see Chris outside La Fontaine de Mars, because he had his head down, looking at a menu. He also had his back to me and I barely knew him. But I recognized the trendy sneakers, which he was wearing with light-colored cotton pants and a dark grey T-shirt—casual, and necessary in this heat. Anything with more fabric or weight would just soak up sweat.
I exhaled a small sigh of relief that I wasn’t underdressed in my navy-blue wrap dress and the leather sandals that my feet would tolerate even if I walked several miles. Walking was a given in Paris. It was still pretty warm out, and the sun was high in the sky, reflecting brightly off Chris’s sunglasses when he turned, his face half-hidden by the menu.
I caught his eye and he put up a hand to wave me over. He continued to hold the menu up in front of both of us like we were reading it, but he was talking instead. “How’re you doing?”
“So much better than this morning. I slept, I showered…”
“It looks good on you,” he said, his gaze moving from my eyes to my lips and back with a look of appreciation. I couldn’t process the meaning behind his look because he was already rattling off instructions. “I thought we could grab a drink here then find someplace else for dinner. There are a bunch of great places that don’t take reservations, so it’s good to go either early or late. We’ve already missed early… Does that work for you?”
“Um, sure. Sounds good,” I said, a little surp
rised that he’d already decided on the course of our whole evening but equally pleased that he’d relieved me of having to come up with a plan. “A plan that I don’t have to make is a good plan.”
“Especially in a new city, right?”
“Exactly.”
He spoke in French to the waiter, who led us to a table at one end of a patio. Chris gestured for me to take the seat facing the street, and he took the one opposite. “So you can people watch if you want.”
“Thanks.” I scooted into my seat, which was wedged against the wall, and Chris said something I couldn’t understand to the waiter. I took the opportunity to get a better look at him. I’d been too overwhelmed by exhaustion and embarrassment when I met him that morning to really take in his features. Well, that’s not true. I took them in then, and I allowed myself the bonus of taking them in again.
Now that I sat facing him, there was little stopping me from noticing the strong curve of his jaw and the two days’ growth of beard that looked good on him even though half his face was still hidden by his sunglasses.
“Do you like red wine? There’s one I liked when I was here once before and they still have it. I checked the menu while I was waiting.”
“Sure. Red is good,” I said, fighting my feminist instinct to be offended that he was taking control again. I kind of liked it, and he seemed to have a preference, whereas I had none. Guillaume had done the exact same thing the night before, and it hadn’t bothered me at all. But he was French. It was a cultural thing. This guy was American, so I questioned his motives.
Did he just think I was a clueless tourist who couldn’t order her own drink, or was he trying to show me that he knew his way around a wine menu? Or was he just trying to make things easier because I was new here and he was nice, and I needed to chill the hell out?
I had to go with the odds, which were stacked in favor of the latter. I needed to chill.
He explained what he wanted to the waiter, who was nodding and smiling like he was downright charmed by Chris and his pretty face. “I hope you like it,” he said to me. “The wine.”
“I’m a big wine aficionado. Hard to impress. I won’t even drink wine unless it comes in a cardboard box,” I said, my self-deprecating attempt at humor masking my discomfort at what felt like an awkward date. He looked at me like he wasn’t sure I was kidding.
I could be looking at a few more Renoirs right now.
“So… you speak French well,” I said, searching for a topic.
“I’m really trying to learn. Definitely better now than the first time I came here, when all I could say was ‘I’d like a beer’ and ‘Where’s the bathroom?’”
“Both useful.” I smiled, but I was terrible at small talk. “So when was that—the first time you came here?”
“College. I did a semester in Spain, and my friends and I traveled every chance we got on weekends. France was an easy trip over the border.”
“So you speak Spanish too?” I wasn’t about to test him with my leftover Spanish skills from high school.
“Yeah. I grew up with it. My mom’s from Madrid. She raised us bilingual.” In my foggy brain, something about that sounded familiar. Did I know someone else whose mom was from Madrid? I couldn’t remember.
As I was puzzling this out, the waiter returned with a small bowl of olives and another bowl of potato chips, along with the wine, which was chilled, as it had been the night before. He showed the bottle to Chris, who nodded. As he uncorked the bottle, he spoke to Chris, rattling on so quickly I couldn’t make out a single familiar-sounding word.
Chris smiled and said, “Merci” a couple of times. That, I recognized. I wondered what he was thanking him for. The waiter patted Chris on the shoulder a couple times and grinned at him some more.
After Chris had sampled and approved the wine, he offered me a taste. “I shouldn’t be the only one who decides.”
I appreciated being considered even though I didn’t know squat about wine. I was pretty sure red wine came from red grapes and white wine came from green grapes, but I wasn’t about to share my pseudo knowledge with Chris. I took a sip. It was cool and had a nice dry fruit taste. “It’s yummy. Does that qualify as an official wine rating?”
“Works for me.” He nodded at the waiter, who filled both our glasses and, with a regretful last glance at Chris, left us alone. He held up his glass for a toast. “À santé.” We clinked and sipped. I didn’t want to be rude, but it was tempting to look over his shoulder and watch the people walking past. Everyone seemed to be a study in fashion or relationships or the marvel of contemporary people living in a historic place.
“Fun to watch, huh?” he said. But he didn’t turn his head to see what I was seeing. Since we were seated at the end of the row of tables, there was room on the side if he wanted to move his chair around for at least a partial view.
“Do you want to sit there?” I asked, gesturing to the seat with the better view.
“Nah, this works for me.” I liked that he wasn’t fussy.
“So how long have you been in Paris? You said you came with friends?”
“Sort of. I have friends who live here. I’ve been in the city off and on for a couple months.”
“Nice gig if you can get it,” I said.
“I’m not complaining. It’s been an interesting time to be here, politically.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I followed the news as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t have jumped all over a trip to France just for arguments between socialist and far-right politicians. “Are you involved in politics?” Maybe he was a diplomat or something.
“No, I’m just an armchair policy wonk. I studied it in school, and I can’t tear myself away from politics no matter where I am. It’s an election year, so it’s been particularly brutal here.”
“I haven’t been following French politics, though it would have been a good thing to do before coming, I guess.”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily. I’m happy to fill you in on what I know, but be honest. Does it really interest you ore are you just being nice?”
I laughed. “I’m interested. But I’m afraid you’d have to back way up to the Napoleon era because I haven’t taken a history class in a while.”
He took me at my word, and for the next forty-five minutes, I got an in-depth tutorial on protests by city workers, socialist economics, and the fragile political détente that held the whole system in place. It was fascinating, and I slowly found myself tuning out the passers-by behind Chris and all the chatter around us and soaking up his wealth of knowledge.
He went deep on issues in parliament and the complexities that came after the Brexit vote in neighboring England. I’d studied math and computer science, so most of my political knowledge came from a freshman year poli sci survey class and whatever was on my phone’s news feed. His knowledge came from reading Politico, reading books, and asking questions. “Okay,” he said, finally, shaking his head. “I’m stopping now before your eyes glaze over.”
“I wasn’t glazing.”
“I’m still stopping.” He grabbed the wine bottle and refilled our glasses. Then he gazed quietly into my eyes again and I got uncomfortable. I had a hunch he could see right through to my brain and read my thoughts, which were about him. Who was this gorgeous poli sci nerd?
“So are you here for work?” I asked, wondering if I was being too nosy. But he’d invited a complete stranger to dinner and had to know there would be some getting-to-know-you questions. Like I said, I’m terrible at small talk. I didn’t know how else to fill the quiet void.
“Yeah, pretty much. I finished up a week ago, and now I’m taking a break, kind of still getting daily emails that are keeping me from leaving anything at the office, so to speak. How about you? Work or play?”
I opted not to pour out my whole saga about the breakup and the trip that was supposed to be for two. “Vacation. I was supposed to come with a friend, but it didn’t work out.” Much as I tried, I’d stum
bled a bit on the word friend.
“Got it,” Chris said. I had the feeling he’d caught my meaning. “Well, your friend’s loss, because look at this place. Have you gotten to see much outside of the fluorescent lights in Monoprix?” He was smiling. What I saw in Chris’s expression was genuine contentment in being in the moment. The feeling was contagious. I felt myself relax, aided a little bit by the wine, which tasted just fruity enough and was perfectly chilled as it rolled over my tongue.
“I spent a great couple hours at the Musée d’Orsay. I might have to go back.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? The first couple times I went, I didn’t know you could get out on to the roof, but then I saw a photo in a travel magazine taken through the clock with a view of Sacré-Coeur.”
I nodded and produced my phone to show him I’d taken that exact photo. “I guess I’m not that original.”
“Hey, at least you figured it out on your first trip there. I had to go back three times and read about it on a plane.”
“Do you travel here a lot for work?” I asked. I was curious to know what he did that allowed him to be in Paris for two months. He’d made a reference to an office. I knew management consultants who traveled most of the year, moving from one city to the next so they could help companies downsize or evaluate their growth plans. One friend had been gone so often he’d given up his apartment in LA and just stayed in a hotel when he was home, which he referred to as being “on the beach.”
“Sometimes. At least a couple times a year.” The wheels in my mind chugged along, determining what I thought he might do for a living, purely based on surface impressions. He seemed bright, so business or law felt like logical assumptions. I tried to think of other reasons a person would come to Europe for work. Of course, I could have come right out and asked, but this way was more fun.