The heat wasn’t nearly as oppressive as it had been in New York, but I was still starting to wilt by three. Happily, it seemed as if even Virginie’s puppy power was starting to wear off.
‘I think we need ice cream,’ she announced.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I agreed, peeling some sticky strands of hair off my face. ‘Where shall we go?’
‘The Seine is just here, do you see?’ Virginie pointed across a busy junction. ‘Across this road is Ile St-Louis and there we will find the best ice cream. The best in the world.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, following happily. ‘New York has some pretty good ice cream.’
For the first time, Virginie turned and looked at me with deadly seriousness. ‘It is the best in the world.’
‘OK.’ I shrugged, holding out my hands. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘Fucking hell, this is amazing,’ I mumbled through a mouthful of nougat ice cream. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to swear.’
Virginie nodded at me with a satisfied expression. ‘It is the best, yes?’
I answered by scraping my spoon along the bottom of my tiny metal dish. Ben & Jerry’s meant nothing to me now. Without the distraction of the ice cream, I looked around me and realized my mouth was hanging open. Everything about the city was beautiful. The mid-afternoon sun beat down on the grey stone bridge that linked the island to the rest of the city and sparkled off the Seine. Across the river, beautiful apartments with rows of shuttered windows lined the banks, while spires, steeples and bell towers marked out the skyline. It couldn’t have been more different from the stark, stylized view of Manhattan I’d got so used to from Alex’s living room window. Everything looked so old and elegant, I felt as if I could sit there and stare out at the city for ever.
‘There are many beautiful things to see in Paris,’ Virginie said, interrupting my daydream. ‘You would like to take a trip around the city?’
‘I would absolutely like to take a trip around the city,’ I said, visions of myself riding a bicycle along the Left Bank in a Brigitte Bardot inspired ensemble evaporating quickly. Sixties Brigitte Bardot, not crazy cat lady Brigitte Bardot. ‘But I don’t know, have we done enough work?’
I leafed through my notebook. It seemed as though we’d done loads of stuff, seen so many shops and cafés, but now that I looked at it, there really didn’t seem like much there. Certainly not 10,000 words.
‘We have done lots of work today,’ Virginie said, closing up the notebook on my hand. ‘You have many places already. And of course have tomorrow. And Cici is sendng you her list, non? You must see Paris, Angela, I insist.’
‘And I do want to,’ I said, whining slightly and staring at a big boat full of tourists as it sailed by. ‘But this is so important. Maybe we could do more research today and do the tourist thing tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow the weather is not going to be so good.’ Virginie scrunched up her pretty face. ‘But yes, if that is what you want. I thought tomorrow perhaps we would go to more shops and cafés on the other side of the city. Where it is better for the bad weather.’
‘Bad weather?’ I bit my lip and tried to ignore the nagging feeling in my stomach. I really, really wanted to do a good job on this article. But I had ages. And how was I supposed to give the article a genuine vibe if I didn’t have an overall feel for the city? I couldn’t. ‘And maybe we’d see some places while we’re going around, right?’
‘Of course. I was thinking we would take the open-top bus? That way you will see everything all at once.’ Virginie let out a little laugh. ‘It is, how do you say, tacky maybe? But I think you might find it is fun.’
‘I do enjoy tacky,’ I admitted. ‘Will we see the Eiffel Tower?’
‘We will,’ she pouted. ‘You know that Parisians do not like the tower. That they think it is ugly?’
‘You hear all sorts of things about the French,’ I said, standing up and reluctantly walking away from the man with the ice cream. ‘But I don’t believe everything I hear.’
‘This you can believe,’ Virginie said, pointing back across the road. ‘We must take the Métro.’
‘But you do shave your legs, don’t you?’
‘I wax.’
‘And you don’t give wine to children?’
‘I do not know any children.’
‘But you would?’
Virginie sighed. ‘The Métro is this way.’
Excellent. I’d broken her at last.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘And then we went on this open-top bus ride and I saw the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame, the Louvre, God, loads of stuff. And we went on the Métro, I got the Métro here, did I tell you?’ I’d been talking at Alex for the last three minutes, not even pausing to kiss him hello. That was how much I loved Paris. A lot.
‘You did,’ he said, raising my hand up to his lips and kissing it lightly. ‘I’m glad you had a good day. Did you get any work done at all?’
‘Yes,’ I said, pouting slightly. He wasn’t nearly interested enough in my Parisian adventures. ‘Virginie took all my stuff, I mean, the stuff we bought for research, back to hers. I told her to come to the gig tonight, is that OK?’
‘Of course,’ he said, leading me off the main road and down a steep staircase. I liked following him up stairs, it gave a great view of his denim-clad behind, but down stairs, I was always slightly worried I would trip and that he was too skinny to offer any real cushioning when I landed on him. ‘I hate that you have to stand around on your own when I’m playing.’
‘You don’t have to make me sound like a sad groupie, it’s not like I’m not on my own that often,’ I said, my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the bar. ‘Just since Jenny left, I don’t have many other gig buddies, I suppose.’
‘Good thing you have me then, huh,’ Alex waved a hello at the man behind the bar and guided me to a tiny table at the back of the room. ‘Also, did I tell you that you look super cute?’
‘You did not.’ I shuffled slightly in my seat, leaning forwards casually to show off my new Parisian cleavage, courtesy of my amazing new Aubade underwear, and waited patiently for my compliment. And if he wanted to throw in a little something for my slightly clichéd, but irresistibly soft sky blue V-neck T-shirt that Virginie assured me brought out my eyes, I would be fine with that too.
‘You look cute,’ he said, his hand gently resting on my thigh.
‘Just cute?’
‘Super cute.’
‘Not très chic?’
Alex gazed into my eyes and clutched my hands to his heart. ‘Vous êtes la femme la plus belle et la plus renversante à Paris. Aucune autre femme ne compare à vous.’
‘I don’t know what you just said,’ I breathed, ‘but I’m pretty sure you’re getting laid tonight.’
‘Let’s get a drink,’ he laughed, nodding over at the barman. ‘It’s pretty much sangria or beer. And I wouldn’t bother with the beer.’
‘Sangria it is then,’ I said, glancing around. The jukebox was loud and already, at six-thirty, the whole place was packed out with pretty Parisians. The cool, grungy kind, not the impeccably stylish ones I’d seen wandering the streets this afternoon. Even though it wasn’t really what I was supposed to be researching, Virginie had promised to take me to the swankier parts of town the next day so I could sigh at pretty things through the windows.
The man from behind the bar, wearing a very interesting hand-knitted jumper with some sort of repeat animal pattern, scuttled over with two glasses and a jug of sangria. After splashing it all over the table, he muttered something in French to Alex and slapped him on the back with a big, hearty laugh. I gave him the raised eyebrow and sipped my drink. Bloody hell it was good. Bloody hell it was strong.
‘Whatever he just said to you, I hope it had something to do with tonight’s specials,’ I said, putting the glass back down on the sticky table. ‘I don’t think I should drink too much of this with only half a baguette and an ice cream in me.’
‘They don’t do mu
ch food here.’ Alex frowned a little, making his ‘I’m thinking’ face. I loved his ‘thinking’ face, it looked a little bit as if he was going to break out into a show tune. ‘It’s kind of just tiny bits of bread with cheese on top. There’s a great steak frites place down the block though. We have time if you want to eat?’
‘Right.’ I tried to ignore the fact that my stomach wasn’t rumbling, it was practically causing an earthquake. ‘And you know this because you used to come here when you were doing what in Paris exactly?’
‘Everyone comes here,’ he replied, filling my glass up to the very top. ‘Everyone meets at Odéon, it’s like, I don’t know, Union Square or Piccadilly Circus or whatever.’
‘That’s not strictly an answer to my question, is it?’ I said, squeezing his leg. I was trying to keep things light, but the more evasive he became, the more annoyed I was getting. ‘How come you know Paris so well? And not just tourist stuff. You know where bars are without looking at maps, you know where people meet at night. Spill it, Reid, how?’
‘OK, so don’t freak out,’ he started, leaning back against the wall behind the table. ‘I used to date a girl from Paris and we spent some time here. That’s all. Paris isn’t a huge city, you get to know your way around pretty quick.’
‘And why do you think that would make me freak out?’ I asked in a very, very high-pitched voice. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I guess because we never really talked about our pasts since, you know, the first time,’ he said, his green eyes still cautious. ‘And anyway, it was so long ago.’
‘Were you here for a long time?’ I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. I remembered this sick in the stomach feeling from the last time we had a conversation about exes. It wasn’t pleasant.
‘No. Not for long. And the reason I know the city so well is almost the entire time I was here, we were fighting so much I was out wandering the streets, making friends with bartenders. You pick up the geography pretty quickly that way. The language too.’
‘Right,’ I said, picking up my sangria and having another go at it.
‘So you’re gonna stop asking questions you don’t actually want answered?’ Alex asked, leaning forwards into my line of vision. ‘’Cause, I don’t want to piss you off, but I know you and I don’t think you want to know any more. Apart from that I ended it and then I went back to the States and I met you and I have never been so happy in my entire life.’
‘Sounds fair enough,’ I replied, taking a long drink. Did the bit of dodgy chopped up orange count as one of my five a day? I chose to believe, yes. Yes it did.
‘And you’re not going to completely obsess over everything I’ve said?’
‘No.’ Of course I bloody was.
‘I don’t believe you, but OK.’ He waited for me to set my drink back down and then took both of my hands in his. ‘Because I was serious about this being a good trip. You don’t think I would have brought you here if the place was all about some other girl for me, do you?’
I shook my head and didn’t say anything, but I was shouting the words ‘you better bloody not have’ over and over in my head. And as happy as I was that he was there with me, there was still a tiny part of me that was fuming over the idea of him sitting at that very table with some other girl, whispering sweet French nothings and feeding her bits of cheese on bread. Well, maybe not the last bit, that wasn’t very sexy anyway.
‘Angela, I wanted you to come because I love Paris and I love you,’ he leaned across the table and kissed me gently. ‘And if it helps, I never came here with my ex.’
Brilliant. My boyfriend the mind-reader. The cheesy mind-reader.
‘Well, I’m fairly keen on you too, so that should work out quite nicely,’ I said, kissing him back, not entirely sure whether or not ‘mind-reader’ was a desirable quality in a boyfriend. Unless it was related to birthday presents and buying the right sized bra, I was definitely leaning towards ‘not’.
Happily for my jet lag, Alex’s gig was at a bar right opposite our hotel so it was just a short taxi ride back to The Marais and then straight on to the show. Virginie was waiting for us outside bar Pop-In, perky as ever in a T-shirt that just about covered her arse (way shorter than the one I’d been sporting – no wonder she didn’t mention it) and a washed-out denim jacket. I tried not to be insanely jealous of how cute she looked, her thick brown hair scraped back in a ponytail that was on the verge of exploding all over her face, and her bright eyes that danced as I introduced her to Alex. And I knew air kissing was the done thing in France, but really, did it have to extend to my boyfriend? I was fairly against any sort of kissing in relation to Alex. After taking us through to the bar and ordering our drinks, Alex vanished into some tiny back room to get ready for the gig, leaving Virginie and I to try and talk over the loud rock music that throbbed out of the speakers.
‘Alex, he is the Brooklyn boy in your blog?’ Virginie asked.
‘He is.’ I nodded, sipping a truly terrible glass of wine. Wasn’t all wine supposed to be amazing in France? This was like paint stripper. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
‘No,’ she said, looking around. ‘I did, but he is cheating on me when I am in New York and so we break up. Alex, he is very attractive.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, not entirely comfortable with the compliment and massively awkward about her revelation. What were you supposed to say to that? The bar was tiny and dark, much smaller than the places I was used to seeing Alex play in New York, and the bright lights that lit the stage made his black hair shine, his green eyes even more vivid and his pale skin glow.
‘Sorry to hear about your ex. Mine cheated on me too, not that it helps to know that,’ I raised my voice slightly over the sound check.
‘Really?’ Virginie spun around so quickly, half her ponytail made a break for freedom. ‘I cannot believe that someone would cheat on you. You are so pretty and funny and nice. And you have a lovely handbag also.’
‘Well, I didn’t have the handbag.’ I clutched my beloved Marc Jacobs tightly to me. ‘But to be honest, I don’t think that would have stopped my ex from shagging his tennis partner.’
‘He is an idiot,’ she declared. ‘Any man is very lucky to have you. I hope Alex, he knows this.’
I smiled awkwardly and sipped my drink. Ew, nasty. No one, not even Jenny I didn’t think, had ever said that. Alex was lucky to have me? Hmm, radical concept.
‘Well, don’t tell him, but we’re going to be moving in together soon,’ I said as quietly as the music would allow.
‘And he doesn’t know?’ Virginie sounded confused. ‘Maybe you should tell him before you begin to pack.’
I laughed loudly, squirting wine up my nose. It was no better up there than it was in my mouth. ‘No, he has asked me to, I just haven’t told him that I’m going to yet,’ I explained. ‘It’s a surprise for his birthday.’
‘Then he is even luckier,’ she said, knocking back her wine. ‘This wine is terrible. Do you want a mojito?’
‘That is one of my favourite questions.’ I put my dodgy wine back on the bar. ‘Yes. Yes I do.’
One and a half mojitos later, Alex was halfway through his set and I was standing in my favourite gig-watching spot. Leaning against the bar, behind the pulsing crowd, with a clear view of the band. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d seen Stills play in the last year (actually, yes I could, it was seven), but every time I saw Alex get up on that stage I fell for him a little bit more. Seeing him up there, everyone in the room hanging on his every word, made it a little bit difficult to believe Virginie’s words. How was he the lucky one? He could have anyone in the room, in any room mostly, and I was the one that got to take him home. And even though I knew that was what would happen tonight, and every night when we got back to New York, it was still sometimes hard to deal with the fact that every girl in the room was lusting after my boyfriend. Not to mention a few of the boys. Of course, I got a little rush of smug to know that they all wanted him and I had
him, but it was still a difficult thing to get my head around. I hoped that made me human and not an arsehole.
The set was almost over when I spotted Solène at the front of the stage. Her blonde hair shone white under the bright lights that lit Alex, Craig and Graham, and I could see her dancing, holding another girl’s hand high in the air and jumping around. The bar was tiny and they were only a few rows of people away from us. I could see her singing along to every word, her eyes closed, dress riding up dangerously high every time she threw her hands up into the air. In between songs, she would stop dancing, pull down her dress, brush her hair back off her face and smile blissfully. So, she was a Stills fan.
‘This girl, you know her?’ Virginie asked, pointing towards Solène.
I shook my head. ‘Not really, I met her last night. She’s in a band here, I think they supported Alex’s band or something. I don’t know, we really didn’t talk that much.’
‘She likes your boyfriend very much.’
I looked back over to Solène, her eyes weren’t closed any more, this time she was looking right at Alex and singing directly to him, her hands clasped over her heart, tapping out the bass line. And I didn’t love it.
Virginie tapped me on the shoulder. ‘They were boyfriend and girlfriend?’
‘Uhh…I don’t know.’ I didn’t feel terribly eloquent as that theory flitted around in my head. Had they dated?
‘I thought, perhaps. They look like friends.’
‘I suppose,’ I nodded, starting to feel a bit sick. And it wasn’t from the mix of sangria, red wine and mojito. Well, it might have been, a little bit. ‘He hasn’t really told me anything about her.’