Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink (22 page)

“No.”

I wave him off quickly. “You’re a guy, of course you don’t. Anyway, my
augury
didn’t tell me anything about love or happiness, it just said I was going to make a lot of money. And I shouldn’t be depressed about it, but I am. I don’t want money—I want romance, love, adventure, a reason to want to go to work every day. And then I started to wonder—are we all fated to our destiny, does everything happen despite ourselves? Or, if we make enough of an effort, can we change things? I mean, a planet naturally goes around in space over and over again, but if you use enough energy to push, it
can
leave its orbit. I mean, that’s just physics, right? So there might be a L’Arbre d’Argent in Paris. Maybe it’s a restaurant, and maybe the charm wasn’t dooming me to have money instead of love. Maybe it’s just trying to tell me that I need to go to Paris.”

“L’Arbre d’Argent?”

“It’s French for ‘money tree,’ Do you want to see my money tree?”

He opens his mouth, but I shut him down. “It’s not a sexual thing, if that was your joke.”

Ben shrugs. “Honey, you threw that right down the middle for me, I had to swing.”

He called me honey. Why am I just a little bit happy that he called me honey? I put out my wrist and show him the money-tree charm on my bracelet. “What do you think?”

He gently takes my wrist and gives the bracelet a good, long look. Finally he says, “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

Embarrassed, I pull my hand away. “Never mind. Maybe this is a girl thing. Girls are superstitious about psychics and charms and fate. Men don’t understand.”

“No, no. I think I get what you’re saying. And men can be superstitious. There are a bunch of athletes who have lucky charms of some sort or another: a pair of socks, lucky numbers on their jerseys, maybe a routine they do right before the game. So why not have a charm that means something to you?”

“Thanks,” I say, self-consciously glancing at my charm before returning my gaze into his green eyes. “I know logically it’s stupid, but I still keep trying to find meaning in the damn thing.”

“I think I know what it means.”

He’s patronizing me. I roll my eyes playfully. “No, you don’t!”

“Sure I do. Your life was okay, and going along pretty much as you planned it. But it wasn’t great—and you weren’t excited about anything anymore. So, no matter what that charm ended up being—an airplane, a heart, a puppy, whatever—you had already decided that that charm was telling you that you needed to change. And now you’re changing.”

I suddenly feel a little sick, and totally exposed. He may have a point. Shit! Am I that much of a basket case?

We hear a woman announce over the loudspeaker in Bronx English, “Flight Eighty-Six to Los Angeles International Airport will begin boarding in five minutes.”

“Whoa. It must be later than I thought,” Ben says, pulling out his wallet. “Kyle, can I get the check?”

Kyle immediately places the bill on the counter. I reach to pick it up, but Ben gets to it first, throwing down a credit card before I can even see the bill. “No, no. It’s on me.”

“But you barely had anything. And most of the bottle’s still left.”

“And you have four more hours until Paris. Enjoy. And enjoy Paris.”

He smiles at me, and for one silly moment I don’t want him to go. Something about him makes me feel relaxed and okay with the world. So I hint, “Do you live in LA?”

“Nope. Doing a big seeing-the-family run. Saw my parents in New York, now I’m going to see my sister and her kids.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointed.

Kyle gives Ben his card back with a receipt. Ben signs it quickly, takes his book and his carry-on, and stands up. He puts out his hand. “I had a lovely time, Mel…”

“Melissa,” I say, taking his hand to shake it. “Good luck, Ben.”

“Benoit.”

“Benoit? Is that French?”

“Oui.” He gives me a flirtatious smile. “My mom’s family is from there. See why I don’t believe in fate? All the times I went to Paris in my childhood, not once did I meet a vision of loveliness going there in the hopes of finding sex. I can’t catch a break.”

I smile. “Vision of loveliness, huh?”

“Too much?”

“No, no. Gotta say, you pulled it off. Charming as hell.”

He shrugs, still smiling. “Turned out I only had to be for less than an hour.”

Ben starts to walk away, then stops. He turns around and walks back to me, puts down his carry-on, takes my hand, and kisses it. “I really wish I hadn’t met you in an airport.”

I blush. I am speechless. He smiles, picks up his carry-on, and turns to leave. As I watch him walk away, I call out, “Hey! Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Arbredargent, would it?”

Ben turns back to me, smiles, and yells back, “Honey, if it had been, we’d already be on our way to city hall to get married.”

I laugh. “So what would your six-word memoir of our time together be?”

Ben gets this almost wicked look in his eyes. “‘Fell in love for an hour.’ You?”

“‘Saw change. It didn’t scare me.’”

He nods his head at me approvingly, then turns around and walks out of my life.

I sure liked the way he called me honey.

I sip my wine and check my e-mails. One from Seema just came in:

Scott was bitten by a green mamba snake before the safari even started. He’s fine, and in recovery. But we are soooooo never doing another cake pull.

T
HIRTY
-
TWO

I managed to get a few hours of sleep on the flight from New York to Paris, which was good because we landed around eight in the morning, Paris time, and I had no idea what to expect of the day ahead.

The view from my window before we landed was nothing like what I thought it would be. Instead of a huge cityscape, with the Eiffel Tower in plain view, the scenery was incredibly green and farmlike. It looked more like what Scotland looks like in my head. Not bad by any means—just totally different from how I pictured it.

Soon my plane lands at Charles de Gaulle Airport, taxies on the runway for a rather lengthy time (Are we going to that gate? No. That gate? No. How may fucking gates are in this terminal?), then finally parks at Terminal 2 (Deux).

I’m officially in Paris!

Okay, well, an airport outside Paris, which basically looks like every other airport I’ve been to. As I walk out of my gate and trudge toward customs, it occurs to me that I could have accidentally jetted into Detroit or Chicago. Other than the “Je vous blah, blah, blah” lilting over the loudspeaker system, and everyone’s dressed much better. Very few T-shirts and sneakers here.

Customs takes awhile, which gives me time to freak out again. I haven’t booked my return flight yet. Will that make me look stalkery, or will Jay think it’s a good thing? Spontaneous, whimsical. Although I have Jay’s phone number in Paris, I don’t know how to use the French phones yet, and I turned off my phone before we left New York. What if he isn’t here waiting for me? What if I can’t find him?

I’m next in line, and other than for the tightening of my gut that I feel every time I face police, I am fine. I show my passport, they ask me a few questions, and I am on my way. I wheel my old, black suitcase through the arrivals exit, and there he is.

I catch my breath. Everything is going to be perfect.

Jay’s dressed more formally than in Los Angeles, with a freshly ironed button-up shirt that shows off his buff chest and small waist, a pair of dark blue jeans, and black Mephisto loafers. His face lights up when he sees me, and he puts out his arms and pulls me into a bear hug. “Hey, kiddo! You made it!”

Kiddo?

I hug him back, and being in his arms again feels so good that I forget all about kiddo.

We begin kissing, making out for so long that I’m positive people are telling us to get a
chambre
.

Finally, the two of us come up for air, just long enough for me to see an older, blond woman glaring at us. “Oops,” I say to Jay, blushing a little, “I think maybe we overdid it. People are staring.”

He glances around to see whom I’m looking at, and his eyes make contact with the blonde. He leans in to me and whispers, “Oops is right. Let me introduce you.”

Jay takes me by the hand and walks us over to the woman. He brightly says, “Bonjour,” gives her a kiss on each cheek, tries to introduce me—

And then gets slapped.

Uh-oh. I think I’ve seen this episode before.

Jay doesn’t miss a beat. He puts his hand over his cheek, smiles at the blonde, and begins speaking to her in rapid French. His voice is warm and conciliatory, though his words are mostly gibberish to me. Apart from the occasional
elle
and
je suis,
I am completely lost.

The blonde yells in French, then switches to … Italian, maybe?

His French then sounds placating. When I hear him say the name Melissa, I smile and wave to the woman. She returns my smile with a glare as Jay keeps talking.

About a minute later, Jay once again kisses her on each cheek, only this time she kisses back, placated, and utters a crisp “Au revoir.”

And she walks away.

What the hell was that all about?

Jay smiles at me warmly, takes my wheeled luggage, puts his arm around me, and brightly says, “We could take the train in, but I’m thinking a taxi. Are you hungry?”

“Wait. Who was that?”

“Oh, that was Simone. She’s very high maintenance. Forget about her.”

“But she slapped you.”

“Oh,” he says, as though he had already forgotten that part, “well, I probably deserved it. Let’s get you some crêpes.”

“Okaaaayyyy,” I say, dragging out the words in the hopes I get more of an explanation.

Jay turns to me, kisses me lightly on the forehead, then leans in to almost whisper, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Though my Spidey sense is up.

Jay looks me in the eye mischievously, then proposes, “You know, instead of crêpes, we could go straight to my place and get you settled in.”

Who could resist such a suggestive suggestion?

We take a cab to his apartment in the eighteenth arrondissement (a French word that basically just means “section of the city”) and settle in.

We settle in for several hours.

T
HIRTY
-
THREE

Around noon, I awake from a catnap in the nicest sheets I think I’ve ever slept on in my life, and with an afterglow that could last until Christmas. A note is on Jay’s pillow:

I went out to get picnic supplies. Was going to wake you, but you looked so cute. Back in a bit.

I sigh contentedly and lie back down in the bed.

I’m in Paris, and for the first time in a long time I feel excited about the day and the future.

I look over at the light streaming through Jay’s bedroom windows. The sunlight feels different from home—brighter. I know Paris isn’t called the City of Light because of the sun, but today it sure feels like it could be.

And it’s not just the sun.
Everything
here feels different. More romantic. Better.

I stare out of Jay’s window at the stone buildings across the street, with their bow windows sticking out from well-preserved grayish-white rock, and their ornate cast-iron balconies. What an insane view. And this isn’t some hotel where you pay through the nose for a view for one night; this is just Jay’s day-to-day Paris view. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Breathtaking.

I watch a woman in an apartment across the way watching TV in her robe and slippers. How can anyone here ever have time for television when there’s nothing but amazing things to look at everywhere you turn? I mean, she could be getting groceries right now! Doesn’t she know that?

Jay lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Montmartre, near the trendy Abbesses area, and near the Sacré-Coeur. The apartment was built well over a hundred years ago, but it has clearly been restored: all of his floors are dark, shiny hardwood, set in a diagonal pattern, and no cracks anywhere in the walls. (I live in Los Angeles—earthquake territory. If you don’t have cracks in your walls, your house was just built last Tuesday.)

I ease out of the million-thread-count white sheets to grab my black J.Crew dress from the floor. I slip it on and make my way into the living room to get my luggage.

While his living room still has the slight feel of a bachelor pad (what is it with men and giant flatscreen TVs that take up an entire wall?), it looks like something out of a men’s magazine that would be entitled “How to Lull Your Women into a False Sense of Security.” He has tastefully decorated in earth tones and reds, and the couch and matching chairs are overstuffed and comfy. Coffee-table books are set out on his dark wood coffee table—one of Paris at night, and one of Paris in the day, plus an assortment of glossy art books from museums around the world.

In our haste to get to the bedroom, I left my suitcase on the floor by his front door. I wheel my suitcase into his bedroom, open it to find my makeup bag, and head into his bathroom.

The bathroom has stone tiles of various shades of green, and a green, stand-alone tub with gold claws. You know those gold talons at the bottom of bathtubs that look ridiculous in the middle of the suburbs of America? Those same feet look completely appropriate here, and positively decadent.

I peruse his shower caddy, which only holds basic shampoo and soap. How on earth can someone own a tub like this and possibly use the shower? Then I notice that he has three bottles of bubble bath in a basket on a wooden stand near the sink.

Nice.

I open the first bubble bath, a clear bottle with purple liquid inside and the word
Lavande
scrolled on the label. I sniff—
lavande
must mean “lavender.” The next bottle says
Rose
in purple calligraphy on its pastel pink label. One sniff brings me back to New Year’s Eve, when Seema and I regularly check out the rose floats that will be in the Tournament of Roses parade the next day. The third bottle says
Satsuma
, which I already know is orange.

Gotta love European men. The only American men I know who have bubble bath have girlfriends or wives to go with …