“Excusez-moi!” says the woman sitting next to Kina. She and Kina are on the back bench seat of the shuttle van. Kina, dressed to ward off the cold of the Paris night, unbuckles and steps down from the van to permit the woman to exit the vehicle.
“Pardon,” says the older woman to Kina, now that they are face to face on the brick pavement.
“Sure,” replies Kina to the well-dressed woman, who quickly turns to the entrance of the Paris Ritz. The driver of the double parked van follows behind her, towing her wheeled bags through the line of cars parked along the curb in front of the hotel and up onto the sidewalk. He turns to the hesitant woman and with a gesture of his arm encourages her to walk between the cars to get to the sidewalk.
Kina climbs back aboard the shuttle.
“What the heck!” she exclaims.
“Hey, it’s the Ritz,” says Rashida. “It’s like the best hotel in the city. Famous people have stayed here, like Hemingway during the war. What do you expect?”
“I thought the Hotel de Ville was the city’s best hotel?” speculates Kina.
The other two laugh.
“The de Ville is the Paris City Hall, not a hotel at all.”
Kina is somewhat mortified.
“This is the Place Vendome, this big plaza,” says Megan with a sweep of her arm to the mammoth space set apart from the crush of urban Paris. Then she points to the eighty foot column at the center. “The Vendome Column. Napoleon.”
“How do you know all this?” asks Kina.
“High school trip,” replies Megan.
“Seriously?” Kina is feeling her third wheel status. Rashida and Megan, once involved, have formed their own club and she is discovering quickly that she is not among its members. The two have gone on without stopping the entire flight.
Kina looks at the bright façade of the Ritz Hotel, four arched doorways covered with four rounded and internally lit yellow awnings. Only one of these is the actual entrance, having wood revolving doors, a red carpet on its steps, and a crowd of people spread out before its pavement. Banners of icicle lights hang from old fashioned second story windows and the tiny balconies outside them. French flags fly over the entrance. Tall, elegant street lights with triple lanterns light up the hotel and the whole of the Place Vendome, a four story palace ringing the large square in which the Ritz is but a kind of tenant. The windows over the entrance of the hotel emit a gentle glow that welcomes at all hours of the night.
“Allons-y!” says the driver, bounding back into his seat up front.
“Oui! Let’s go!” replies Megan, enjoying that Rashida is taking all this in.
“Oui, Oui!” the driver throws back, adding emphasis by pointing skyward.
An internal groan almost escapes Kina, but they just let off the last of the travelers in the shuttle van and their destination cannot be that far off. Though the truth is she has no idea where they are other than somewhere in Paris and over an hour from the airport.
The driver takes them through the Place du Carrousel on his way to the River and they circle around the La Pyramide Inversee by the Louvre, a smaller version of the I.M. Pei a short distance away. Megan draws their attention to the skating rink of glass that serves as the skylight over the underground Carrousel de Louvre shopping center. The glass rink forms the base of an inverted pyramid of glass that sinks downward to the floor of the shopping center below. Megan can remember finding a place to sit there on a previous trip, just to watch people walking across the glass skylight of the pyramid above, while being observed by the shoppers below.
They are being taken hurriedly along the right bank of the Seine when Rashida’s phone fires off.
“Zak!”
In an instant, Megan is on the same call, phone to her ear. The two women begin to fill Zak in on their trip so far. Their van crosses the Pont Neuf and the tip of the Isle de Cite. The upper portion of Notre Dame and its Christmas tree are visible from their car. Megan nudges Rashida to look over at the cathedral and Kina follows her gaze. But as Kina scoots across her bench seat to the left side of the car for a better view, her phone also rings. Her parents are wondering how she’s doing. The driver looks in his rearview mirror and is not surprised to see three young American women all on their cell phones at the same time.
They wind south of Saint Germaine Boulevard, passing close to the Sorbonne and just past the Luxembourg Gardens when they pull up in front of Zak and Kim’s modest old hotel in the Latin Quarter. As the girls climb out of the shuttle the driver runs to the back doors of the van to retrieve their luggage. Zak and Kim, standing inside the glass doors at the front of the hotel, see them and push the doors, running out.
Everyone crashes into each other on the sidewalk in a series of hugs and hellos.
“Salut!” cries the driver toward them, having deposited their bags on the sidewalk, now waving and getting back into the van to leave.
Megan yells back to the driver, “Bonne chance!”
“I take that to mean good luck?” asks Zak.
“Of course,” replies Megan.
“Then I think we should have some too,” he says.
“We got you a room not far from ours,” Kim informs.
Kina clears her throat. Rashida knows this is her cue.
“We seem to be a bit light on funds. Mind if we crash?”
Kim laughs.
“No problem,” she says.
“Well, we might want to take the stairs in that case,” Zak suggests.
“Good idea,” goes Kim. “Come on girls. Let’s get your stuff.”
They grab their bags and enter the hotel, but veer off to the fire stairs. After lugging everything up several flights and down the hall to Zak and Kim’s room, they drop it all, including themselves, on the big bed.
“Nice room,” says Megan from the chair next to the side table. She turns on a lamp located there.
“Could be a little bigger,” ventures Kina.
“No. It couldn’t. Believe me,” retorts Kim.
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Rashida, already on her tablet by the tiny desk and window. “We have the essentials it looks like.”
Zak clicks the TV on and they are welcomed by a French beer commercial. He mutes it.
“Look, guys. We got Bog’s emails just like everybody else,” says Rashida, looking straight at Kim and Zak. She is still wearing her puffy coat.
“You’re safer here,” says Kim.
“Are we really?” asks Kina.
“Of course, Kina,” says Megan. “Somebody is after you, looking for what this journalist in Beijing found out, taking you out one by one.”
“At this point I don’t see any other option. But since Dubai is now out of the question, I think we’re going to have to come up with something else,” says Kim.
Zak looks at Rashida, Megan and Kina.
“That’s where you three come in. Okay?”
“Okay, okay,” says Kina. “But where’s the wine and cheese? I say it’s time for a girl’s night out!”
Everyone gives her a look.
“Well, isn’t it?”
Chapter 55