After a couple of minutes of aimless wandering around from computer to computer, a very young sales assistant sidled up to me, clad in the internationally recognizable aqua shirt of someone who is going to help you, but also make you feel really, really stupid in the process.
Realizing my ability to order coffee, croissants and wine weren’t going to get me through the purchasing of a power cable, I took out my laptop and pointed at the outlet.
‘Hi, I um, God, sorry,’ I gesticulated wildly with my free hand and pulled my best ‘I’m a really stupid tourist, I know’ face.
‘You need a power cable? Or an adaptor for your cable?’ he asked in a clear Californian accent. ‘People always forget them when they travel.’
I pulled a tight smile. Wow, he really wasn’t going to have to work at making me look stupid, I was doing quite a good job of that myself. ‘Power cable, please.’
While the child prodigy busied himself looking for a cable to work with my ‘wow, practically antique’ laptop (it was two years old), I hopped on to a stool and immediately logged on to one of the store’s MacBooks. The site of a browser window opening up in front of me was far more exciting than it should be, and I actually felt my blood pressure drop from ‘definitely-about-to-have-a-stroke’ to a ‘will-live-through-the day’ level as I clicked into TheLook.com.
There were about five emails from Mary, each one slightly more pissy than the last that I was ignoring her. And any number from Donna. My heart rate started to creep back up as I clocked through to the last message from Mary.
Dear Angela,
I realize you are far too important to acknowledge me now that you’re writing for Belle, but if you want to keep your blog, please email me immediately.
Regards,
YOUR EDITOR, Mary
Panicking, I pressed reply, hashing out a quick overview of what had happened to my case, my BlackBerry, my everything. Reading it back, I really didn’t feel ‘and it’s all because of that psycho bitch of an assistant, Cici. She’s a total mental’ was overly harsh. Spotting aqua-shirt man approaching with my cable, I pressed send and hurried over to the checkout only to have him wave his portable card reader at me. Seriously, was being a smug little bastard part of the Apple recruitment policy? I silently vowed never to be peer pressured into another Apple product again. Except for maybe a new iPod, who could live without that? And maybe an iPhone. Once I’d replaced my laptop with the new MacBook Pro.
The mid-afternoon streets were boiling compared to the ice-cold air conditioning in the Apple store and I was achingly hungry. I wasn’t sure if it was my bashedup face or the terrifying noises coming from my stomach that was scaring women and small children, but people did seem to be crossing the street to get away from me. Steeling myself, I walked into the nearest café and bought an orange juice and a croissant. The lovely, tiny grey-haired man behind the counter did a really great job of trying not to stare at my bruises and within a minute, without any major miscommunication problems, I was out of there. With the items I had gone in to purchase. It was a proud moment.
Going back to the hotel felt like admitting defeat on the article front, and so I trekked around a few more streets, looking for somewhere to sit and eat my bounty. After crossing a couple more streets, I spotted a group of French people walking along with bags of food. Following them through a giant set of wrought-iron gates at a safe and not stalkery distance, I found myself in a beautiful walled courtyard, all stone archways and manicured gardens. A small sign by the gates read Musée Carnavalet. I glanced around, trying to spot somewhere to pay, but I couldn’t see anything. Feigning ignorance, I bagged a spot on the steps and tore into my croissant.
For the first time since I smashed in my face, maybe since I’d got to Paris, I began to feel relaxed. Without the assistance of alcohol. I’d jotted down the names of lots of stores and taken crappy little pictures on my BlackBerry as I’d walked around, yes it was still very Marais-centric, but who at Belle was to say that the Marais wasn’t the coolest, hipster hangout in all of Europe? Virginie would help me take better pictures, but Belle knew I wasn’t a photographer. Their brief was just to get snaps and if we needed anything fancy, I was sure they could send a photographer out to get better shots. I was just the writer. A really, really good writer.
And Jenny couldn’t stay mad at me for ever. I would do whatever I needed to do to help her, and we’d sort things out. We always did. And Alex, well, my problem wasn’t really with Alex, when I thought about it. My problem was the fact that he’d dated a spectacularly beautiful woman before me and that spectacularly beautiful woman just so happened to be here, in Paris, with us. There wasn’t very much I could do about that. It wasn’t as if Alex was interested in her and it wasn’t as if she was interested in Alex, so what was I getting wound up for? Aside from the obvious ‘because I’m a girl’ reason, obviously.
The garden was so peaceful and ridiculously pretty. Tearing off a big chunk of croissant, my mind wandered off and I imagined myself solemnly entering the garden in the gorgeous Funny Face wedding dress carrying hot pink gerberas, my hair loosely curled and half pinned up, half falling around my shoulders. I had my dad at my side, Jenny and Louisa behind me. In something horribly unflattering. Like canary yellow Bo Peep dresses. My mum was sitting at the front of the congregation, complaining that we should be doing this in church and that I’d always been awkward. And at the front of the garden, under the archway, was Alex. And since it was my fantasy and not my mother’s, he was wearing a slim-fitting Dior Homme suit, a skinny black tie and his beat up black Converse. But he had brushed his hair to acknowledge the solemnity of the occasion. I walked slowly up between the two rows of seats, full of our nearest and dearest who had of course travelled to Paris for our wedding, and I smiled at him, and he smiled back and—woah! I blinked a couple of times and actually shook my head. Where did that come from? I’d been off weddings ever since Louisa’s debacle. It was way too early to start fantasizing about chasing Alex up the aisle. I’d only just decided I wanted to move in with him, there was no need to rush. As difficult as it was to accept, Beyoncé wasn’t always right, you didn’t have to put a ring on it.
My hands were empty before my stomach was ready to accept that the croissant was gone, so I forced myself to stand up and headed back to the gate, giving the group of late lunchers a quick smile as I passed. And got weird stares in return. Which reminded me to put my sunglasses back on.
After another hour of getting to grips with the Marais and adding several charming little cafés and bakeries to my notes, I declared my afternoon a success and attempted to find my way back to the hotel, only getting lost twice. Happily sailing past an Alain-less reception desk, I headed up to the room to plug in my laptop. The Apple logo glowed reassuringly and I kicked off my flip-flops, settling in for a lengthy blogging session.
The Adventures of Angela: Sacré bleu!
It’s safe to say that my first twenty-four hours in Paris were not entirely what I had been hoping for. There hasn’t been a single tandem bike ride down the Left Bank in Breton shirts and black Capri pants. And would you believe it, not a single beret in sight? But I’ve decided to take a more positive attitude from here on and be very laissezfaire, je ne regrette rien, and so on.
And I have to be honest, aside from the fact that I have a killer black eye (I fell over my boyfriend’s shoes – no, really, I did. Our relationship has not taken a dramatic turn for the worse) I think I might love Paris. Compared to London and New York, everyone seems very chilled out. Every other building is a bar, and the ones that aren’t bars are cafés and restaurants pushing wine and beer on you. No wonder France has a reputation, hic. The city really is beautiful though, I saw Notre-Dame all lit up last night and I thought I might cry. And that wasn’t just because I had to walk back to the hotel with no idea where I was going in borrowed, but not broken-in four-inch heels. I felt as if it was floating on the river and it might sink at any moment or melt away or something. It was j
ust too magical to be real. To clarify, I didn’t feel as if I was floating, I felt as if I was walking on hot coals and smashed glass. Ouch.
Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all romantic on you, the only thing that brought me back down with a bump of course, was me. On my face. Serves me right for getting up in the night to pee. Or, serves me right for drinking so much that I had to get up in the night to pee, I’m not sure which.
Anyway, I just wanted to check in and let you all know I’m OK. Sorry I’ve been AWOL, but there was a problem getting a cable for my laptop (bloody Macs) and my BlackBerry isn’t working (anyone ever had trouble getting Verizon service in France?), but I’m back now and still in desperate need of your top tips. It could end up in Belle magazine! Have to go now, I have approximately three hours before Brooklyn Boy gets back from his long hard day of interviews (poor lamb) and I have to take him out for a slap-up birthday dinner. And at least two of those hours will be spent trying to cover up my black eye, otherwise there will be no gazing lovingly over dinner. In fact, I would imagine he’ll struggle to keep anything down at all.
Ah, c’est la vie…
I posted the blog and flipped the computer shut. There was no reply from Mary even though I knew she would be at her desk, and the other emails, including an urgent request from the bank of Paraguay, would wait until I’d had a very long, very hot bath.
Before I’d moved to New York, it took me about three minutes to decide what to wear on a date with my boyfriend. Usually, whatever was on the top of the ironing pile that didn’t actually need ironing. After almost a year living with Jenny, I couldn’t decide between a pair of black jeans, a pair of black leggings and three identical V-neck T-shirts in black, white and grey. After trying on all three, I opted for the white, teaming it with my skinny jeans, Virginie’s baby blue Louboutins, and a long, delicate silver chain with a beautiful aquamarine stone pendant I’d picked up during my last spin around the shops in the Marais. I wasn’t convinced it would pass as an insurance-covered replacement for an essential item in most work places, but this was Belle after all. How was a girl supposed to go out to dinner in Paris on a Friday night with her boyfriend on his thirtieth birthday unacces-sorized? The extra make-up I’d picked up from MAC (vive la American world domination!) on the way back to the hotel however, was definitely an essential, whichever way you looked at it. By eight, you could barely see my bruised cheek and black eye. If I set the dimmer fairly low. And parted my hair to one side. And didn’t look up. Finally satisfied that I was passable, I sat in the chair by the window, editing the beginnings of my article for Belle and waiting for Alex to sail through the door.
Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting. I closed my laptop and flicked through the TV channels, trying to be reassured by the fact that the chair still smelled like Alex and not unnerved by the fact that it smelled like him because he’d slept in it for half of last night. Ten more minutes of French Wheel of Fortune (starring Victoria Silvstedt!), I worked out that I could call Alex’s mobile from the French hotel landline. Cross-legged on the bed, my mobile in one hand, the handset of the hotel phone in the other, I attempted to work out how to put through an international call. When the door clicked open five minutes later, I had got as far as bashing the receiver into the mattress, while repeatedly calling it a piece of shit.
‘Ahh, Kodak moment,’ Alex said from the doorway.
‘Where were you?’ I half shouted. ‘It’s nearly bloody nine.’
‘Didn’t we say nine for dinner?’ he asked sheepishly, brushing down the back of his hair.
‘You said eight,’ I replied, emphasis and finger-pointing on the ‘you’.
‘Shit, Angela, I’m sorry.’ He winced. ‘I guess I got caught up with everything. You ready to go now?’
‘Yes,’ I said, feeling bad right away. He’d had to work on his birthday after all, I ought to give him a little bit of leeway. And if he really did think we were meeting at nine, he was fifteen minutes early. I stood up and gave him a twirl. ‘Do I look ready enough?’
‘You look awesome,’ he said, crossing the room and wrapping his hands around my face. He kissed me gently and peered at my injuries. ‘How’s the face?’
‘Painful.’ I pressed my lips together to redistribute what gloss there was left on them. ‘Does it look awful?’
‘I can’t even see it.’ He brushed my carefully arranged hair out of my face. ‘Really, you look beautiful. And really, I’m sorry I’m late.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I kissed him again. ‘It’s your birthday, you can do whatever you like.’
‘Thanks. I’d done a great job of forgetting about that.’ He ran a finger from the fine, short hair at the nape of my neck all the way down my spine and back up again. ‘I can do whatever I like, huh? Sure you don’t want to celebrate in here?’
Looking up at his high cheekbones, his dark eyes, I paused for a moment.
‘They have room service,’ Alex promised, his finger on the base of my spine making figure of eights all the way back up again.
‘I think I’m offended that all it takes to get in my knickers is the promise of room service,’ I said with closed eyes, my back melting.
‘They have steak frites.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘Saignant.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Just cooked on the outside, bloody as all hell on the inside.’
‘Oh.’
‘And I’ll let you sing happy birthday to me.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to help matters, do you?’ As difficult as it was, I wriggled out of his arms, trying to solidify my spine. ‘We’re going out for dinner whether you like it or not, it’s your thirtieth birthday.’
Alex stuck his hands in his pockets and gave me a defeated half-smile. ‘And you’d think I’d get to do whatever I wanted to do on my own birthday, wouldn’t you?’
‘And you will later,’ I replied, blushing at my own brazenness. ‘But you promised to show me Paris.’
‘So if I show you mine?’ Alex never blushed.
‘Take me out for dinner and we’ll talk.’ I picked up my bag and headed for the door with a great big smile on my face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘So how was everything today?’ I asked, ripping into the bread basket. Bread first, booze later. I’d learned my lesson. ‘Did all the meetings go OK?’
Alex nodded, sipping a glass of red wine. I’d suggested champagne, but he had insisted he had nothing to celebrate. Boys are so touchy.
‘You saw all the record label people?’ I thought I may as well carry on asking questions, even though I knew he wasn’t going to answer. The second we’d walked out of the hotel, it was as if someone had thrown a switch on him. I could barely get two words on a subject. And it wasn’t as though he was the world’s most chatty individual, but he was definitely being weird.
‘Yeah, all done,’ he said, reaching for a piece of bread and then thoughtfully tearing off the crust. ‘Tell me about your day.’
‘Got up, got a power lead for my Mac, came home, blogged and waited for you,’ I briefed him. ‘Come on, spill. What interviews did you have today? Did you tell all of France how much you love me?’
‘Ah, come on Angela!’ Alex pulled a face. ‘I’ve been talking all day. Can we just go an hour without questions?’
‘OK,’ I said, trying to keep up with his mood swings. ‘Um, what are we going to do after dinner?’
‘That’s still a question.’
‘Oh yeah.’ I bit my lip, thinking for a moment. ‘I found this really beautiful little garden in the Marais this afternoon.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Alex nodded at the waiter as he placed two plates full of steak frites in front of us. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘It was lovely.’ I tried not to be distracted by the giant piece of meat on the plate in front of me. Good God, I loved food. ‘There was this really gorgeous courtyard, surrounded by these really elegant archways, and through them there was
a garden with really low manicured hedges that were in like, swirly patterns. It was so peaceful and pretty. So different to New York.’
‘Was it the Musée Carnavalet?’ he asked in between mouthfuls.
‘Yes! I loved it.’ I nodded enthusiastically. ‘We should go if we get the chance. I keep forgetting that you know where stuff is.’
‘Yeah, I don’t know.’ He looked down at his plate. ‘I mean, you have lunch with Louisa tomorrow, right? And it’s the festival on Sunday and, well, then Monday we’re going home.’
‘It’s such a shame,’ I said, letting my knife slip into the steak as if it were butter. Oh, this was going to be good. ‘I really wish we’d been able to do more stuff.’
‘All I know is that I can’t wait to get home.’ Alex poured us both more wine. ‘This wasn’t as good an idea as I’d thought it would be.’
‘Oh.’ At that moment, I may as well have been eating a tin of Stagg stewing steak. ‘You’re not having fun?’
‘Hey, I didn’t mean I’m not glad you’re here,’ he started to backtrack. ‘I just hadn’t thought we’d be doing so much work.’