I Heart Paris (7 page)

Eventually, I let out a huge sigh and pushed through the crowds and into the café. I spotted Alex almost immediately. Even in a sea of skinny, dark-haired boys stroking their chins and nodding, he was the first thing I saw. Unfortunately, the second thing I saw was an impossibly pretty blonde girl, sitting on his lap with her arms wrapped around his neck, laughing her arse off. And the third thing I saw was the inside of my eyelids because that’s about when I passed out.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Jesus, Angela. Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, go back to sleep,’ I muttered, pushing away the familiar voice. I was so tired, couldn’t he just let me lie in?

‘Ahh, shit. Get me some water?’ A hand brushed my hair off my forehead and, as I tried to roll over, I couldn’t help but think the bed was very uncomfortable all of a sudden. And cold. And floor-like.

‘Don’t worry, she kind of makes a habit of this,’ Alex said, helping me find my feet, then a chair and then a very large glass of water. ‘At least she didn’t throw up this time.’

‘I’m not drunk,’ I muttered into the glass, gulping down the water. ‘I’m jet-lagged. And stressed.’

‘Hi by the way.’ Alex gave me a half-smile and brushed a chunk of frizzy hair behind my ear.
‘Bienvenue à Paris
.’

I looked around, but the mystery blonde I vaguely recalled setting up shop in my boyfriend’s lap had vanished. Had I imagined her?

‘Muh?’

‘Welcome to Paris.’ His smile turned into a frown and his green eyes peered closely into mine. ‘Angela, are you OK? Do you need a doctor?’

‘No.’ I breathed in deeply. Really, no blonde anywhere. ‘I’m fine, I just had the worst journey.’

‘Bad turbulence?’ An American voice across the table asked. Turning too quickly and getting a shooting pain through my temple for my efforts, I saw Graham and Craig, Alex’s bandmates, waving from across the table.

‘Great entrance.’ Graham gave me a reassuring smile and pushed his glasses back up his nose. ‘You could have just called if you couldn’t see us.’

‘I liked it,’ Craig added. ‘But uh, no offence Angie, but you might have changed? This is Paris, you know, not Brooklyn.’

‘Thanks Craig.’

He wasn’t nearly as polite as Graham, but then he wasn’t nearly as gay either. I had almost, for one second, forgotten the fact that I’d been wearing the same clothes for almost twenty hours. And that I hadn’t looked in a mirror for more or less the same amount of time. Although that one was through choice, not because all my belongings had been ‘securely detonated’.

‘You look great.’ Alex gave Craig a filthy look on my behalf. ‘But uh, you didn’t have time to change? Not that you need to change. Cus you look great.’

Holding my head in my hands, I relayed the whole sorry story, pausing to let Craig laugh his arse off at appropriate points and finally ask if that meant I didn’t have any underwear.

Graham shook his head. ‘Angela, that’s awful. But at least you’ll get to replace your wardrobe in Paris, right? What a place to shop yourself blind.’

‘Except my credit card is completely maxed from LA still.’ I tried to smile.

‘We’ll sort something out, I’m so sorry you had to deal with all this shit.’ Alex put his arm around my shoulders and pulled my head down on to his shoulder. He smelled so good. Another reminder that I probably did not. ‘Just relax now. You’re here. In Paris. It’s going to be awesome.’

‘Yeah.’ I closed my eyes and sighed. ‘I guess. Although I do need to get some clothes. I have literally no clothes. But I honestly don’t know when I’m going to have the time. I’m supposed to meet this assistant from French
Belle
tomorrow and I’ve lost all my notes and stuff.’

All of my notes, my camera, my laptop charger. All the research I’d carefully and painstakingly knocked off from other magazines and guidebooks, gone. Everything in my suitcase, gone. I could feel my second wind of grief coming on and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Tears prickled in my eyes as Alex stroked my arm and listened to Craig read out the menu. What was I going to do in Paris for almost a week without any of my clothes? Without my shoes? Without my hair straighteners? My stomach fell through the chair and hit the floor. And oh my God, Jenny’s clothes. How was I going to tell Jenny I’d lost everything she’d lent me? I didn’t want to get her into trouble, but there was no way I could pop into Balmain and buy a three-thousand-dollar sequined mini dress to replace the one I absolutely, one hundred per cent knew I shouldn’t have brought with me in the first place.

‘You’re totally gonna want to get some nice shit for the festival, Angie,’ Craig said. ‘You should see some of the girls in the other bands, man alive they are hot.’

‘Really?’ I asked, looking to Graham for confirmation.

He half shrugged, half nodded. ‘I guess, but hey, what do I know?’

Brilliant. Something else to worry about.

‘Don’t sweat it, Ange. You’re probably as hot,’ Craig offered. He stopped eating for a second and squinted at me. ‘In your regular clothes. And I guess you’ll want to pick up some make-up or something.’

‘Who died and made you Tyra?’ Graham asked quickly. ‘Ignore him. You look great.’

‘Yeah you do. Beautiful, in fact.’ My lovely boyfriend kissed the top of my head and stood up. ‘Just running to the bathroom. You want to stay and eat or just go back to the hotel?’

‘Hotel.’ I nodded. ‘I just want to sleep for a month.’

Alex nodded and bobbed off through the crowded bar. Even from the back he was gorgeous. Possibly I was biased and/or a bit mad, but really, he was hot from every angle. Being able to spot his slightly slouchy posture in a darkened room from twenty feet was one of my keenest talents.

‘Sorry for being so rubbish.’ I offered Craig and Graham a pained expression and glugged another mouthful of water. ‘Not to go Yoko your evening, but I really do need to go to bed.’

‘We totally get it, go get some beauty rest.’ Graham waved away my concerns. And I elected to ignore his beauty rest comment. ‘I’m sure Alex doesn’t want to hang out with us anyway. Craig was a pain in both our asses on the plane.’

‘Yeah, he won’t want to hang out with his best friends when his best girl is here.’ Craig sipped his beer and smiled. I wanted to be embarrassed, but instead I actually giggled. For shame, Angela. ‘And y’know, he’s totally pussy whipped again.’

‘Again?’ I asked.

‘Like with that French bitch he used to date.’ Craig nodded over his beer, ignoring Graham’s warning cough. Which ironically, I picked up immediately.

‘French bitch?’ This was new information. Why didn’t I know about a French bitch? ‘Alex never mentioned dating a French bit—I mean, girl?’

‘Yeah?’ Craig carried on ignoring Graham. ‘Yeah, she was—’

‘For ever ago. It was for ever ago,’ he interrupted. ‘He’s so over it. Totally.’

‘He dated her in New York?’ I asked, flicking my gaze between the two suspicious-looking boys.

‘Yeah, well—’ Craig started.

‘Yes. And it was a long time ago,’ Graham said sternly. ‘Which is why he never mentioned it. I’m sure.’

There were a million more questions swimming around my mind, but before I could form a coherent sentence, Alex reappeared with two large glasses of red wine.

‘I know you want to leave, but Sam on the bar just gave me these and I couldn’t say no – you want?’ Alex asked, sliding into the chair at the side of me. ‘I thought maybe a drink might do you some good.’

On one hand, this clearly was a bad idea. I was exhausted, I’d already passed out once and I needed a clear head in the morning. On the other, I could really, really, really do with a drink. But back to the other hand, it really was a bad idea.

‘Sam on the bar?’ I asked, nodding and holding out my hand for the glass. I could maybe just take a sip.

‘Old friend,’ he explained, pushing the glass towards me. ‘Just this one drink and we’ll make a move.’

I nodded and leaned against Alex, taking in the mirrored walls, high ceilings and racks and racks of bottles behind the bar. It reminded me of Balthazar in New York, except instead of posing as a French bistro, it actually was one. Every single table was full, and it immediately made sense to me that the guys had picked the café. There wasn’t one ugly person in the place and I was pretty certain that none of them were bank managers or geography teachers either. Nothing so ordinary here. So this was where Paris’s pretty people came to hang out. Note to self. And
Belle
magazine.

The boys talked band while I held my wine quietly, concentrating on not spilling it down my T-shirt. The odds were pretty good that I was going to have to wear it again. Oh, it had been a long time since I’d washed something out in a hotel sink – where was my mother when I needed her? Although her area of expertise was really knickers in a Mallorcan bidet rather than American Apparel V-neck in a Parisian boutique hotel. Much of a muchness though, surely? Maybe it was in my blood.

I clutched my wine, but just couldn’t bring myself to drink it, so I people watched instead. I couldn’t help but stare as four girls rose from a table at the back and started dancing around a raised DJ booth. They were laughing happily, pushing each other on to the dance floor, and just like everyone else in the café, they were all skinny jeans, long messy hair tossed over one shoulder and at least a fortnight’s worth of eyeliner smudged all over their faces. But my God they were gorgeous. I’d never had so much as a same sex leaning in all my life and even I wanted to go over there and lick their beautiful faces.

The tallest of the four, a slender blonde with masses of Debbie Harry-a-like white-blonde hair hanging in her bright blue eyes, looked over at our table and then disappeared behind a door in the back wall. Was that her? The girl I thought I saw with Alex when I walked in? I looked back at the boys around the table. They were discussing their set for Sunday’s festival and without meaning to, more or less ignoring me altogether, aside from an occasional arm stroke from Alex or lewd grin from Craig. Once Alex was into ‘work stuff’, he was impossible to distract. I could have stripped off and performed an entire Pussycat Dolls routine and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. It might have slipped into his subconscious enough to throw an ironic cover into the set, but that would have been about it.

Not having eaten anything in, bloody hell, I had no idea, the wine was making its way through my system fairly quickly. I slipped away from the table and followed the blonde girl through the door at the back of the room, hopefully to the toilets. Not that I wanted to give her the wrong idea, I wasn’t nearly that drunk. Although maybe some girl-on-girl action would get Alex’s attention back. Wow, sometimes I wondered if I’d been spending far too much time with Jenny. The blonde girl was washing her hands as I pushed through the door.

‘Oh, sorry,’ I said, bashing into her. Face to face, she was absolutely stunning. Her heart-shaped face looked to be bare of make-up aside from the lashings of eyeliner, and her platinum hair wasn’t even dyed. I wasn’t jealous at all. ‘I was just looking for the loo.’

‘
Pardon
?’ she replied.

Right. I was in France. Completely forgot.

‘Uh,
la toilette
?’ I asked, pointing at what was very obviously the toilet.

‘
Oui
?’ She looked at me without quite the same reverence I’d sent her way. In that she looked at me as though I was slightly retarded. Which was probably fair.

I made some sort of laughing, oh-I’m-so-stupid snorting noise-cum-hand gesture and locked myself in the toilet cubicle. OK, so I couldn’t even attempt to make myself understood when trying to get in the lav, but that wasn’t going to be a problem, was it? Alex was practically fluent, and when I wasn’t with him, I’d have my French
Belle
assistant. Surely she would be ecstatic to spend all her time translating for me. And lead me around town all day long. Surely the super trendy, young, hot, French fashionista would love that. Oh crap.

When I came out of the toilet, the gorgeous girl had gone. Reluctantly, I checked myself out in the mirror, trying not to compare and contrast. My light brown bob looked better for its trim last week, but without hair straighteners, a half-decent conditioner or even serum, it was a fluffy, bird’s nest mess. Flat at the roots, puffy at the ends. My skin was dry and greyish from the flight, but for some reason, my nose and forehead were so shiny, I could see a reflection of my reflection in my forehead. How could my skin be dry and shiny at the same time? For want of a better idea, I pulled down the V-neck on my T-shirt until I could almost see the edge of my bra. Admittedly, it wasn’t my finest moment, but a girl had to fight with whatever weapons she had, and until I’d been to a pharmacy or something and picked up hair product, my 34Cs were all that I had.

But they weren’t going to be enough.

Wandering back through the busy bar, I fought the fug out of my brain and tried to spot our table, but I couldn’t seem to see it. Mainly because the tiny table populated by three very American boys that I was looking for, was now covered in four very French girls. Most notably, the beautiful girl from the toilets, who appeared to be compensating for the lack of chairs at the table by kneeling on the floor. At Alex’s feet. I paused by the maître d’s station and watched for a second. She took his hand in hers and cocked her head to one side, smiling. Alex was not smiling. Instead, he pulled his hand out of hers, took his phone out of his jeans pocket, stood up and walked out the door. And down the street. The girl laughed, said something hilarious to the others and hopped up, taking Alex’s seat. I looked down, breathing deeply. What was that all about?
Was
that the girl I had seen when I came in? And why was there a number listed by the phone for ‘Centre Anti-Poison’? Well, she’d be needing a number for an ambulance if she touched my boyfriend again. Not that she could, given that he’d completely disappeared out of sight.

I cautiously wandered back over to the table, standing awkwardly beside Graham and waiting for him to acknowledge me. Instead, he and Craig giggled with the other French girls, chattering away. Did everyone speak French except me? The blonde stared at me from Alex’s seat, then picked up his wine glass and drank deeply. Colour me stunned.