"I love your shoes!"
"I just bought them."
"Today?"
"I couldn't wear my work shoes."
She pulls a face. "Because I drenched them in wine?"
Fabien looks at her as if she has not understood anything he's been saying. "No! Because I am going out to dinner with an Englishwoman in Paris."
He gazes at her until she smiles back, and then he climbs off his bike, secures it, and holds out his arm.
"Tonight we walk. It's not far. Okay?"
Paris buzzes gently in the autumn evening. Nell carries her coat, even though it is just a degree colder than is comfortable, because she is enjoying wearing the pineapple dress so much and because she suspects it's what a Parisienne would do. They walk slowly, as if they have all the time in the world, pausing to look in shop windows or to point out particularly beautiful masonry carvings above their heads. Nell wishes briefly that she could bottle this evening, this feeling.
"You know," says Nell, "I was thinking about last night."
"Me also," says Fabien.
Nell looks at him.
Fabien reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little padlock. "You left this. On the boat."
Nell glances at it and then shrugs. "Oh, throw it away. It's kind of meaningless now, right?"
As she stoops to stroke a passing dog, she does not see Fabien slide it into his pocket. "So what were you thinking about?" he says.
"About your dad and his boat." She straightens up. "I was thinking he shouldn't try to compete with those big tourist boats. He should do something different. You and he. Like, individual tours of Paris, for lovers. You could advertise online, show people all those things you showed me, talk about the history. Maybe offer a hamper with lovely food and champagne? It would be heaven. Even just you and me last night . . . it was all very . . ." Her voice tails away.
"You thought it was romantic?"
She feels suddenly foolish. "Oh, I didn't mean--"
They walk on without looking at each other, both feeling strangely awkward again.
"It's a good idea, Nell," Fabien says, perhaps to break the silence. "I'll tell my father. Maybe we can set something up with the restaurant."
"And you must get a really good Web site. So people can book directly from other countries. Paris is the city of romance, right? And you could make it all sound beautiful." She finds herself uncharacteristically voluble, her voice lifting, her hands waving as they walk.
"A boutique tour," he says, mulling it over. "I like it. Nell, you . . . you make everything sound possible. Oh. We're here! Okay, so now you must close your eyes. Hold my arm--"
He stops at the corner of a little cobbled square. Nell closes her eyes and then opens them abruptly as her purse starts to buzz. She tries to ignore it, but Fabien gestures at it, signaling to go ahead. He does not want this moment to be interrupted. She smiles apologetically and pulls out her phone.
And stares at it in shock.
"Everything is okay?" says Fabien after a moment.
"Fine," she says, then lifts a hand to her face. "Actually . . ." she says. "No. I think I need to go. I'm really sorry."
"Go?" says Fabien. "You cannot go, Nell! The night is just beginning!"
She looks stunned. "I'm . . . I'm really sorry. Something has . . ."
She is reaching for her bag and coat. "I'm sorry. Something has . . . someone has turned up to see me. I have to--"
He looks down at her, and he can see it on her face. "You have a boyfriend."
"Sort of. Yes." She bites her lip.
He is shocked by how disappointed he feels.
"He has turned up at the hotel."
"You want me to take you?"
"Oh, no. I think I can walk it from here."
They stand for a moment, paralyzed. Then he lifts his arm and points. "Okay. You walk down to the church there, then turn left, and you are on the road of your hotel."
She cannot meet his eye. Finally she looks up. "I'm really sorry," she says. "I had such a great time. Thank you."
He shrugs. "De rien."
"It was nothing," she translates.
But it was something. He realizes he cannot ask for her number. Not now. He raises a hand. She looks at him once more. Then, almost reluctantly, she turns away, and she is off, half walking, half running down the street toward the church, her bag flying out behind her.
Fabien watches her, then turns and walks around the corner. In the tiny courtyard, Emile stands in full waiter's uniform by the little table, set with two places. A bottle of champagne sits on ice. Above it fairy lights twinkle in a tree.
"Ta-daa!" says Emile. "I was beginning to think you would never get here! Quick! The duck is going to dry out." He peers around Fabien. "What? Where is she?"
"She had to go."
"But . . . where? Did you tell her we did all this--"
Fabien sits heavily on one of the chairs. After a moment he leans forward and blows out the candle on the table. Emile watches his friend, then throws his tea towel over his shoulder and pulls out the other chair.
"Okay. You. Me. We're going clubbing."
"I'm not in the mood."
"Then you can drink and I will dance. And then you can go home and write something incandescent and rage-filled about the fickle nature of Englishwomen."
Fabien looks over at him. He sighs, beaten. Emile holds up a finger.
"But first let me put this food back in the fridge. We can eat it later. C'mon, don't look at me like that! Duck is six euro fifty a kilo!" He lifts the chair to take it back inside. "Besides, I hate to say it, but your papa's marinade is really good."
Chapter Ten
He is waiting in Reception. He sits, legs apart, arms wide along the back of the sofa, and doesn't get up when he sees her. "Babe!"
She is frozen. She glances at Marianne, who is looking very hard at some paperwork.
"Surprise!"
"What are you doing here?"
"I thought we could turn your weekend in Paris into one night in Paris. Still counts, right?"
She stands in the middle of the reception area. "But you said you weren't coming."
"You know me. Full of surprises. And I couldn't leave you here alone with the cheese-eating surrender monkeys!'
It's like she is looking at a stranger. His hair is too long, and his faded jeans and T-shirt, which she had thought were so cool, just look tacky and tired in the elegant confines of the hotel.
Stop it, she tells herself. He has come all this way. He has done the very thing she wanted him to do. That must count for something.
"You look great. Cute dress! Do I get a welcome?"
She steps forward, kisses him. He tastes of tobacco. "Sorry. I . . . I'm just a bit shocked."
"I like to keep you on your toes, eh? So, shall we dump my stuff and get a drink? Or we could spend the evening upstairs with a bit of room service?" He grins and lifts an eyebrow. Nell sees the receptionist out of the corner of her eye. She is looking at him the way she would look at something nasty a guest had trodden into her hallway.
He hasn't shaved, she thinks. He hasn't even shaved.
"They don't do room service here. Only breakfast."
"What?"
"They don't do room service. At this hotel."
"Everywhere does room service," says Pete. "What kind of hotel is this?"
Nell doesn't dare look at Marianne's face.
"Well, they don't here. Because . . . because why would you eat in when you're in Paris?"
He shrugs and rises from his seat. "Okay. Whatever."
It is then that she notices his feet.
"What?" he says, catching her staring.
"You didn't change your shoes." As he frowns, she says, "You came for a romantic weekend to Paris. In your flip-flops."
He sounds irritable now. "What, are you going to tell me some fancy French restaurant won't serve me because I'm wearing flip-flops?"
Nell tries to stop looking at his fe
et.
"What's the matter, Nell? Jeez. This isn't the welcome I was expecting."
She tries to pull herself together. She takes a breath and raises a small smile. "Okay," she says, trying to sound conciliatory. "You're right. It's good that you came. Let's go upstairs."
They begin to make their way across the reception area. Then Nell stops, thinking. Pete turns around, now properly irritated.
"One thing, though," she says. "I just . . . I just want to know--how did you end up coming after all? You said you weren't going to make it. That's what the text said. Very clearly."
"Well . . . I didn't like to leave you here alone. I know how anxious you get about stuff. Especially when plans change and that."
"But you were fine leaving me alone on Friday night. And last night."
He looks awkward. "Yes. Well."
There is a long silence.
"Well . . . what?"
He scratches his head, smiles his charming smile. "Look, do we have to go into this now? I've just gotten off a flight. Let's go upstairs, hit the sack, then go hit the Paris hot spots. Yes? C'mon, babe. This ticket cost a small fortune. Let's just have a good time."
Nell stares at him as he holds out his hand. Almost reluctantly she passes him the room key, and he turns and begins to walk up the wooden stairs, his holdall slung over his back.
"Mademoiselle."
Nell turns, in a daze. She has forgotten that the receptionist is there.
"Your friend left a message."
"Fabien?" She fails to keep the eagerness from her voice.
"No. A woman. While you were out." She hands over a piece of hotel-headed paper.
PETE IS ON HIS WAY. HAVE KICKED HIS ARSE. SORRY, WE HAD NO IDEA. HOPE REST OF WEEKEND WORKS OUT OK. TRISH XXX
Nell stares at the note, gazes toward the stairwell, and then she turns back to the receptionist. She thinks for a moment as she hears Pete's feet echo in the staircase, and then suddenly she stuffs the piece of paper deep into her pocket.
"Marianne? Could you tell me the best place to get a taxi?" she says.
"With pleasure," says the receptionist.
She has forty euros in her pocket, and she throws twenty at the driver, then leaps out, not caring about the change.
The bar is a dark mass of bodies, bottles, and low lights. She pushes her way through, scanning the faces for someone she knows, her nostrils filled with the smells of sweat and perfume. The table they sat at is filled with people she does not recognize. He is nowhere to be seen.
She goes upstairs, where it is quieter and people sit chatting on sofas, but he is not there either. She fights her way back down the stairs to the bar where she was served.
"Excuse me!" She has to wait to get the attention of the barman. "Hello! My friend who was here. Have you seen him?"
The barman squints, then nods as if he remembers. "Fabien?"
"Yes. Yes!" Of course they all knew him.
"He is gone."
She feels her stomach drop. She has missed him. That's it. The barman leans across to pour someone a drink.
"Merde," she says softly. She feels hollow with disappointment.
The barman appears beside her, a drink in his hand. "You could try the Wildcat. That's where he and Emile usually end up."
"The Wildcat? Where is that?"
"Rue des Gentilshommes des--" His voice is drowned in a burst of laughter, and he turns away, leaning across to hear someone else's order.
Nell runs out onto the street. She stops a taxi.
"Emergency!" she says.
The driver, an Asian man, looks up into his mirror, waiting.
"Wildcat," she says. "Rue des Gentilshommes something. Please tell me you know it."
He turns in his seat. "Quoi?"
"Wildcat. Bar. Club. Wild. Cat."
Her voice lifts. He shakes his head. Nell puts her face into her hands, thinking. Then she winds down her window and yells at two young men on the pavement outside the bar. "Excuse me! You know the Wildcat? Wildcat Bar?"
One nods, lifts his chin. "You want to take us?"
She scans their faces--drunk, cheerful, open--and she makes a judgment.
"Sure, if you know it. Where is it?"
"We show you!"
The young men jump in, all drunken smiles and handshakes. She declines the offer to sit on the lap of the short one and accepts a mint from the other. She is squashed between them, breathing in the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke.
"It's a good club. You know it?" The man who first spoke to her leans across and shakes her hand cheerfully.
"No," she says. And as he tells the taxi driver where to go, she leans back in a car of strangers and waits to see where she will end up next.
Chapter Eleven
One more drink. Ah, come on. It's just getting good." Emile claps a hand on Fabien's shoulder.
"I'm not really in the mood."
"So she had a boyfriend. It happens! C'mon, you can't let it get you down. You only knew her two days."
"You hardly knew her at all," adds Rene.
Fabien says nothing but swigs back his beer.
"You take it all too seriously, you know? But look--it means you are over Sandrine. So that's good! And you are a handsome man--"
"Very handsome," adds Rene.
Fabien raises an eyebrow.
"What?" Emile protests. "I cannot appreciate the male form? Fabien! My friend! If I were a woman, I would be climbing all over you! I would be swimming in the still waters of Fabien. I would be climbing the Fabien tree. What?"
"Too much," says Rene.
"Okay. So, luckily for womankind, I am other ways inclined. But c'mon! Let's go find other women! At least now we have more than one name to avoid."
"Thanks, Emile, but I'll finish this beer and go. Work tomorrow. You know."
Emile shrugs, lifts his own bottle, then turns back to the girl he's been talking to.
It was bound to happen. Fabien watches Emile laughing with the redhead. Emile has liked her for ages, but he is not sure how much she likes him back. Emile is not unhappy, though. He just bounces onto the next thing, like a puppy. Hey! Let's have fun!
Don't knock it, Fabien scolds himself. Better than being a loser like you.
He feels a faint dread at what will come next. The long evenings at his flat. The work on the book that he is no longer sure is worth working on. The disappointment because Nell simply disappeared. The way he will kick himself for thinking it was going to be something more. He can't blame her--he never even asked if she had a boyfriend. Of course a girl like her would have a boyfriend.
He feels his mood sinking further and knows it is time to go home. He does not want to depress anyone else. He claps Emile on the shoulder, nods good-bye to the others, and pulls his hat lower over his ears. Outside, he climbs onto his moped, wondering if he should even be driving after all he's had to drink.
He kick-starts the little bike and pulls out onto the street.
He has stopped at the end of the road to adjust his jacket when he hears the clunking sound. He looks down and sees that Nell's little padlock has fallen out of his pocket. He picks it up from the ground and gazes at it, rubbing dirt from the brass surface. There is a public bin over by the railings, and he considers whether to throw it in. It is then that he hears the whistle.
Another whistle.
He turns. Emile is standing on the pavement beside a crowd of people. He is pointing at someone and waving for Fabien to come back.
Fabien recognizes the tilt of her head, the way she stands, one heel lifted, the flash of a green dress beside Emile. He sits for a moment. Then, a smile breaking over his face, he turns his bike and rides back to her.
"So," says Emile as the two of them gaze at each other. "Does this mean I don't get to eat the duck?"
Chapter Twelve
They are walking arm in arm through the deserted streets, past art galleries and huge old buildings. It is a quarter to four in the morning. Her legs ache
from the dancing, her ears are still ringing, and she thinks she has never felt less tired in her life.
When they left the Wildcat, they had swayed a little, drunk on the evening, beer, tequila, and life, but somehow in the last half hour she has sobered.
"Nell, I have no idea where we are going."
She doesn't care. She could walk like this forever. "Well, I can't go back to the hotel. Pete might still be there."
He nudges her. "You shared with the American woman. Maybe he's not so bad."
"I'd rather share with the American. Even with the snoring."
She has told him the whole story. At first Fabien looked like he wanted to hit Pete. She realized, with shame, that she quite liked that.
"Now I feel a little bit sorry for Pete," says Fabien. "He comes all the way to Paris to find you, and you run away with a cheese-eating surrender monkey."
Nell grins. "I don't feel bad about it. Isn't that awful?"
"You are clearly a very cruel woman."
She huddles closer to him. "Oh. Horrible."
He puts his arm around her. "You know, Nell, I'm sure you will probably say no, but I just wanted to tell you again--you can stay with me. If you like."
She hears her mother suddenly. You'd go back to a strange man's house? In Paris?
"That would be lovely. But I'm not going to sleep with you. I mean, I think you're wonderful, but--"
Her words hang in the night air.
"But you don't know me. And we are both at the wrong stage of your breakup chart."
Her hand closes around the little piece of paper with the code in her pocket. "So is it okay? For me to come back with you?"
"It's your Paris weekend, Nell."
His flat is ten minutes' walk away, he says. She has no idea what will happen next.
It is absolutely thrilling.
Fabien lives at the top of a narrow block that looks over a courtyard. The stairs are lined with cream stone, and they smell of old wood and polish. They walk up in silence. He has warned her that elderly women live in the other apartments. If he makes any noise after 10:00 p.m., they will rap on his door early in the morning to complain. He does not mind, though, he tells her. His apartment is cheap because the owner is too lazy to update it. Sandrine hated it, he adds.