30 First Dates (11 page)

Job:   
Marketing Copywriter

List:   
French a Frenchman (aka No.1: See Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower)**

I'm sitting in the cutest Internet café in the history of the world, sipping café crème with the world's most perfect chocolate croissant—excuse me, pain au chocolat—resting on a dainty plate beside it.

I don't know why I was worried about finding dates in Paris. I know it's a cliché, but this truly is the most romantic place I've ever seen, or imagined. I met Michel* on just our second day here. Sherri and I were walking in the St. Germaine district near our apartment—thanks to Sherri, we're staying in an apartment instead of a hotel, which is amazing. Sherri has a real talent for planning trips. We popped into a restaurant on a random side street because we'd been walking for hours and we were starving. This wasn't a tourist kind of place, and I know that because the menu was entirely in French, no English translations. Beside us was a table of businessmen—and when I say beside us, I mean we could have reached over and touched them. The place was tiny, with big plate glass windows overlooking a sidewalk terrace and green-and-white tile floors inside.

The men at the table were listening to us order in our broken French, but I doubt they'd have paid any attention to us if not for the fact that an American man was sitting with them. He said something about the salmon quiche Sherri ordered, and we started talking. He's from New York and is here working at a French ad agency for a couple years while he writes his first novel. Seated beside him was a cute, quiet man named Michel. Michel was, not shy maybe, just very French, and he didn't talk to us. But Chris, that was the American, turned his chair toward our table and by the end of lunchtime, we were practically one party. Chris was pushing Michel in my direction, and before we left Chris and I exchanged numbers.

Fast forward, and Chris actually called yesterday. We all met up again—me, Sherri, Chris, Michel, and Arnaud, a co-worker of theirs who wasn't at the restaurant. Chris brought his fiancée, Amber, and we all sort of paired off. Arnaud didn't talk much, but Michel was friendlier this time and seemed open to doing whatever we wanted to do. I couldn't believe it when he agreed to go up the Eiffel Tower with me, but he did. The lines were terrible because one of the elevators was shut down, so Sherri, Arnaud, Chris, and Amber decided to continue walking instead, and Michel and I walked up the 500 or so steps to the highest level of the tower. Thank God I'm in good shape.

I maybe wouldn't have called this a "date," per se, since it was impromptu and since, technically, it was more of a group outing, but being alone with a man on the Eiffel Tower counts. It just does. Especially since I kissed him at the top, with the sun just setting and all of Paris spread beneath us like a vision from a dream. And French men—well, let me just say I can see why kissing was named after them.

On this date I scratched not one, but two items off my list, because in the course of the evening I definitely held a full conversation with Michel in French, broken French though it was. Thank God for slave-driving Ms. Bevel in advanced conversational French in high school. I'm sure Michel and Arnaud got a good laugh at us clumsy American girls later, but to me the day was as perfect as a day can get. Paris gets under your skin. It can make you forget your problems, your insecurities, your own name.

Erin clicked "submit post" and took a sip of her coffee. Across from her, Sherri was playing on her phone, probably reading restaurant reviews or checking museum hours. In four days they'd seen more new places than Erin felt she'd seen in her entire life. They'd been to the Louvre, to Notre Dame, to the Tuileries, and to Musee de L'Orangerie to see the panoramic paintings of Monet's water lilies hanging there. They'd walked what seemed like the full length of the Seine and crossed all the most beautiful
ponts
, including the Pont des Arts with its thousands of padlocks representing the eternal love of tourist couples from across the globe, an eyesore in a city more beautiful than any picture or guidebook could possibly convey.

Love was everywhere here, but it was love of the city itself, not romantic love, that was pervasive, that hung in the air and painted its own impression on the picturesque streetscapes. No wonder it was the city of light, Erin thought. Its luminosity came from within and filled up everyone who came here. She never wanted to leave.

 "What do you want to do next?" Sherri asked, ripping into her reverie.

"Mmmm," Erin said, absorbed suddenly by the right column of the computer screen, which contained a few widgets and thumbnail photos of the readers who'd signed up to follow her blog. "Holy cow!" she said. "I'm up to 957."

Sherri jumped up and peered over Erin's shoulder at the screen. "957 readers?" she asked. "Oh my gosh."

"Yeah," Erin answered, dazed. "Oh my gosh."

When they'd left for France four days earlier, her subscriber total was at 517—no doubt because of the scandal she'd left in her wake at Northside High School. She figured at least 512 of those readers were students at the school or their friends. She wasn't sure, though, how her subscriber base was building from there. She
was
posting every couple of days without fail. When she didn't have a date to report, she wrote about her thoughts on romance and relationships and, when she was really desperate for a topic, she wrote snarky snippets about her dating past.

"You're going viral," Sherri said, sounding awed.

"I'd hardly say 900 people equals going viral. I still can't believe this though." She clicked into her settings menu and looked for her reader stats. Her eyes bugged in their sockets when she saw she'd had more than 3,000 unique visitors so far this month. 3,000 people had heard about her blog and read her words? She blinked hard and looked again, as if she might have imagined an extra digit.

How's this even possible?

People were commenting, though, and a lot of them were strangers. She'd been trying to post a response to every comment, but now she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep it up. At least not while traveling.
Of course, when I get home I'll have plenty of time.
She could make it a full-time job, since she didn't have one at the moment.

Erin sipped thoughtfully at her tepid milk-and-coffee mixture and picked up the remains of her pastry, closing her eyes as she chewed the last bite. She was going to have to find a good bakery when she got back to Texas. Now that they'd been introduced, she didn't think she could survive without chocolate croissants in her life.

"So, I'm thinking we hit another couple of museums today, and then go shopping. Tonight, dinner somewhere in St. Germaine and then a club. But we can't stay out too late because our train to Versailles leaves at 9."

"I'm exhausted just thinking about it," Erin said, but she grinned so Sherri would know she was kidding. She was grateful for her friend's obsessive planning tendencies, since she herself was fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants. If not for Sherri, she wouldn't be seeing half the things she was seeing in Paris. Hell, she might not have ever found her way to the apartment.

She logged out of her blog, clicked all the windows closed on the screen, and pushed her chair back from the computer station.

"I'm ready when you are."

*  *  *

Erin stretched her arms above her head as she walked, working out the fatigue in her bones from a late night at
une discothèque
, a steamy, chic little club on a side street off Champs-Élysées.

She glanced around. The sun gleamed down from the eastern sky, filtering through the leafy branches that bowed over the sidewalks and created intricate, dappled patterns on the concrete. To the right, picturesque brown-brick row houses towered, and to the left, traffic filled the narrow boulevard, motorcyclists whipping in and out of lanes like daredevils with a death wish. Sherri had been thumbing through her Rick Steves guide the entire train ride, but as it turned out all they had to do was follow the crowd from the station. It seemed all foot traffic was moving in the same direction this morning—and probably every morning.

They rounded a corner, and Erin gasped. She'd seen the Palace of Versailles in pictures, but no image could do justice to the enormous structure that loomed ahead of them, its elaborate front gates shimmering as brightly as a new gold coin in the hot white sunlight. She'd never seen anything so regal in her life.

*  *  *

"Oh. My. Gawd." Sherri stopped in mid-stride and doubled over, putting her hands on her knees. "I wish we'd caught one of those train thingies."

Erin giggled. It
was
a longer walk than she'd anticipated to get through Versailles' extensive gardens to the smaller palaces behind the main structure. At least she had an up on Sherri in one aspect of their trip—she had endurance for days. She handed Sherri her half-drained water bottle.

"I don't think it's that much farther. We'll definitely get the tram on the way back."

She took the map of the gardens out of Sherri's hands and studied it. After meandering through the throngs of tourists inside the grand palace for more than two hours, they'd set off into the gardens. They'd been treading over the dusty gray-dirt paths for what seemed like miles. Towering hedgerows to their left and right created a disorienting, maze-like effect, and Erin wondered if they were, in fact, traveling in circles. She looked ahead, breathing in the pungent, earthy fragrance of the greenery around them, and saw a round stone pond with a gilded sculpture centered in still green water. She matched it to the map. If she was reading right, they were on track to reach the Petit Trianon, the "small" chateau used by Marie Antoinette in the late eighteenth century, within minutes.

"This had better be worth it," Sherri grumbled. "And we'd better get there quick, because we have to be back to the train station by 4."

Erin glanced sideways at her. This was the grouchiest either of them had been so far during the trip. For the most part, they'd both been giddy since the moment they'd stepped off the plane at Charles de Gaulle. Erin still had to pinch herself to be convinced she was truly here. She couldn't believe they had to leave again in three days.

"You girls lost?"

Erin's head jerked up, and beside her was one of the most beautiful men she'd ever seen. He was about 5'10", with chestnut brown hair that curled around his ears, freckles over the bridge of his nose, and eyes that seemed all the more blue because of his deeply tanned skin. Unfortunately, his accent was distinctly American, and so was his tourist-garb—backpack, New Balance sneakers, worn blue trucker cap. He had a friend with him who wasn't quite as spectacular, but he wasn't half bad, either.

"We're looking for the Petit Trianon," Erin said with her best clueless smile. They weren't lost, but Mr. American Dream didn't need to know that. The guy smiled, showing two rows of white, even teeth.

"We're headin' there, too," he said in a southern drawl. He pointed in the direction she and Sherri had been heading. "It's through here. We just stopped and asked a guard." He gave them a disarming smile, and Erin's breath caught in her throat as she and Sherri fell in step beside the man and his friend. He reached out a hand to her.

"I'm Travis."

She shook it firmly. "I'm Erin, and this is Sherri." Sherri reached over and took his outstretched hand.

"And I'm Alex," the other guy said with a wave. Erin glanced over at Sherri, whose eyes were wide as she smiled coyly at the two men.
I doubt she'll mind the walk now
, Erin thought, laughing inside and looking forward to the afternoon even more.

*  *  *

That night, back in Paris and seated at a table in the rear of Café du Marche—a lively, Rick Steves-recommended bistro in the seventh
arrondissement
—Erin nibbled on the assorted
fromages
arranged on a plate in front of her and sipped at a delicious house cabernet. Beside her, Travis looked ready to nibble on her ear, and she wasn't sure if the wine or his attention was behind the warm flush on her cheeks.

Luckily, Sherri and Alex seemed into each other, too. They'd all ridden back to the city together after another couple of hours of walking Versailles' dusty paths, and Erin couldn't believe her luck at having run into these adorable, nice
Texan
guys halfway across the world. Alex and Travis lived in Austin and played in an alt-country band—Travis vocals and guitar, Alex stand-up bass.

Erin had never dated a musician before. Her hand brushed his as they reached for the same piece of Camembert, and she wondered how she could broach the subject of her blog and turn this night into an official "date."

"So what do you want to do tonight?"

"Hmm?" Erin asked, thrown off guard by the way the question mirrored her thoughts.

Travis paused with a bite of cheese in mid-air. "Do you already have plans, or are you and Sherri cool with staying out with us?"

Erin glanced over at Sherri, who was listening to Alex but watching her and Travis. "I don't know. Sherri's the one with the itinerary. Anything on the agenda tonight, Sher?"

By this time, Alex was watching them, too.

"I kind of wanted to go to the Pompidou," Sherri said. "It's open late on Thursdays. There's supposed to be an awesome view of the city from the escalators on the front of the building. Plus it's in Beaubourg, and we haven't been to that area yet." She looked up at Alex, who shrugged.

"Another art museum?" Erin wrinkled her nose, and Sherri's face fell. Quickly, Erin grinned. "Just kidding. I think it sounds fun." Inside, she challenged Travis to disagree with her.

"Yeah, that's cool," he said. "As long as it's good with Alex. We haven't really done the museum thing yet."