French kiss (5 page)

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Grinning, he leaned in and started kissing her again. Figuring Paris could wait a little while longer, Alexa responded happily, wrapping her arms all the way around Diego's back. The two of them started to roll over to Alexa's side of the bed -- and Alexa was thinking about how much this felt like some lush romance movie (a French one, of course) -- until Diego suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" Alexa asked, her skin still tingly from their kissing. She pulled back to gaze down at her boyfriend, who now only had one arm around her waist.

"I'm
stuck"
Diego replied, sounding both amused and annoyed.

Shaking back her tousled hair, Alexa sat up all the way and saw that, in fact, her boyfriend's elbow was tightly jammed between the two twin beds, rendering any movement impossible.

"Oh, no," Alexa whispered, unable to stop herself from bursting into giggles. "We can't leave you like that forever, can we?"

"No," Diego retorted, now looking one hundred percent annoyed. He tried in vain to wrest his arm from the narrow gap, biting down on his full bottom lip. "This isn't funny, Alexa."

Um, yes it is,
Alexa thought, fighting back her laughter. Alexa was a seasoned traveler, and though

43

she couldn't stand roughing it, (any kind of camping was a
big
no-no) she was quite accustomed to sleeping in all sorts of conditions. She hoped Diego would be able to deal with her cousins' less-than-swank setup once they left the hotel.

Through various efforts, the two of them finally managed to free a disgruntled Diego from the beds. By then, it was almost two o'clock, and, as far as Alexa was concerned, high time to head out. They dressed -- Alexa in a heather-gray Marni scoop-neck sweater and Chip & Pepper jeans tucked into shearling boots, and Diego in baggy cords and his hooded Princeton sweatshirt, which Alexa, appalled, demanded he trade for one of his zillion striped button-downs. To Alexa's slight distaste, Diego's style tended toward conservative/preppy -- she preferred guys who dressed more scruffy/sexy -- but
anything
beat loud-and-proud Princeton gear.

"Otherwise, we might as well walk outside with giant 'tourist' signs stuck on our foreheads," Alexa explained as she and Diego walked into the corridor and locked the door. "Trust me, in Paris, you want to downplay the whole 'ugly American' thing."

"Ugly American?" Diego echoed as the elevator zipped them down to the lobby. He furrowed his brow, looking confused, but also a little defensive.

On cue, the elevator doors slid open to reveal three

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teenage girls in jeans, white sneakers, and dark blue anoraks, all clustered around the front desk. "Can you believe how much bread people eat here?" one of them, whose puffy dark hair was hidden under an Atlanta Braves cap, complained loudly. "Have they even
heard
of low-carb?"
"Here's
the Eiffel Tower!" her blonde, pig-tailed friend was squealing, jabbing at a spot on her enormous city map. "My aunt Doreen said it's the only thing worth seeing in Paris!" The third, a chubby redhead, was accosting the dapper concierge:
"Please
tell me you speak English," she snapped, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Urn, them, for example," Alexa murmured, taking Diego's arm as they passed the embarrassing trio. Despite the girls' sub-stylish wardrobes, they reminded Alexa of her friends. She could easily picture Portia and Maeve behaving exactly the same way in Paris -- right down to Portia bemoaning how hard it was to stick to Atkins (the French found the idea of diets hilarious), and Maeve assuming no one spoke English (when most everyone in Paris was bilingual). Alexa hadn't been in touch with -- or given much thought to -- the girls since their blowout on Thursday. Now, she felt supremely thankful that she'd never traveled to France with them.

"Yeah, but we
are
American," Diego was saying

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as they cut through the spotless beige lobby. Though Diego's parents were Cuban, he'd been born in Miami, and Alexa knew he considered himself very much American. "I mean, just because you're in a foreign country," he added thoughtfully, "why should you pretend to be something you're not?"

Alexa rolled her eyes as they stepped out onto the wide, windswept boulevard St-Germain. Leave it to Mr. Princeton to turn everything into a philosophical debate. "Darling," she laughed. "That's one deep thought too many for a springtime Saturday in Paris."

Their first stop was Café de Flore, where they lunched on chewy baguettes slathered in butter, fresh mussels, and crispy fries. Two porcelain cups of ink-black coffee sitting on the white tablecloth rounded out the perfect Parisian picture.

"Heaven," Alexa sighed between bites. She'd been craving a visit to Flore. The fabled corner café, with its brightly lit sign set amid a spray of flowers and its crowded, mirrored interior, was one of Alexa's favorites. Legend had it that Picasso used to hang here, so in years past, Alexa would linger over her espresso, smoke a few Gauloises (Alexa didn't smoke, but in Paris, she liked to indulge occasionally), and imagine she, too, was a famous Left Bank
artiste.
Alexa
did
fancy

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herself a photographer. She'd photographed Paris before, but she hoped she'd have a chance to take some interesting new shots of the city this week.

"Mmm," Diego agreed, reaching for a fry. He was smiling, Alexa observed, and seemed to have recovered from the whole attack-of-the-twin-beds trauma.

"See? Aren't you glad you're
not
cramming for midterms?" Alexa laughed, lifting her delicate coffee cup to her lips.

Although Diego had been totally into the idea of a Paris trip, his spring break fell a month after Alexa's. So it had been a huge effort on Alexa's part to get her stubborn boyfriend to pause in prepping for his biology exams and agree to join her.

"I guess," Diego chuckled, giving Alexa an affectionate look. "If I were at school now, I'd be, like, suffering in the library, instead of sitting here with you -"

"Eating the best food
ever"
Alexa interjected around a mouthful of baguette.

"Though not the healthiest," Diego pointed out. His brow furrowed in concern as he examined the salt-speckled fry between his fingers. "Do you realize how much sodium is in one of these babies?"

Alexa swallowed the last of her coffee, feeling a spark of impatience. Diego was premed at Princeton and loved showing off his vast medical knowledge.

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Usually, his drive and dedication turned Alexa on, but now she was
un peu
peeved.

"Relax, Doctor Mendieta," she retorted, toying with one of her oversize silver hoops and glancing out the window at the ritzy passersby on the boulevard. A light drizzle was falling, shrouding the elegant, cream-colored buildings in a thick fog. Alexa had forgotten that Paris in the springtime sometimes felt more like late winter. But what was it her father always said?
Our city is stunning in any season.
It was true; the rain only added to the romance.

Alexa, who hadn't brought her cell along, figured she should find a phone booth and check in back home; Diego had called his parents in Miami earlier that day to tell them he'd arrived safely. But Alexa knew her very French, very chill father wasn't the type to fret over her. And her ambitious American mother, busy being a Manhattan fashionista, had barely remembered to punch Alexa's trip into her BlackBerry. Alexa was an only child, and her parents' culture-clash marriage had crashed and burned soon after the move from Paris to the States. As Alexa liked to joke to Diego, the upside of her occasional loneliness was that she had the freedom to do pretty much whatever she pleased.

Sort of the opposite of Holly Jacobson's life,
Alexa mused, thinking of her old friend and wondering how she was faring across the Channel.

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"So where to next?"

Diego's voice startled her. Alexa glanced at her boyfriend, who was impatiently drumming his long fingers on the table as he glanced around for their waiter.
Next?
she wondered. They'd only been at the café for an hour.

"There he is!" Diego said, furiously signaling to their waiter. "Can we get the check?" he shouted across the café. A rail-thin woman in a Dior trench coat glanced up from her espresso and
Paris-Match
with a scowl.

Alexa cringed. Couldn't Diego at least
attempt
to speak French?

"What's the rush, baby?" she asked as the waiter disdainfully dropped the tissue-paper-thin bill on their table. She was perfectly content to sit here all afternoon, people-watching and listening to the vintage Serge Gainsbourg playing softly in the background. In Paris, café culture was practically a religion.

"Well, we're only here for seven days," Diego replied, reaching into his messenger bag and to Alexa's horror taking out a large, glossy Frommer's guidebook. "We should get in some sightseeing, don't you think?"

Pardonnez-moi?

Alexa stared at her boyfriend, not comprehending.

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Sightseeing?
Diego knew she was from Paris. By the age of seven, she'd already had the whole Notre Dame Arc de Triomphe Eiffel Tower gig down cold. Alexa St. Laurent had seen all there was to see in this city.

"Like -- like which sights?" Alexa managed to ask, pulling her pale pink wallet out of her Chloe lizard bag; Diego had forgotten to exchange his dollars for euros at the airport, so she'd been the unofficial bank thus far.

Diego shot her a sheepish grin and ducked his head. When he spoke, he addressed the guidebook in his lap. "Well... at the risk of sounding like those girls from the lobby, I've always wanted to, um, go to the top of the Eiffel Tower."

Alexa gasped in shock, her manicured hands flying to her mouth. "Oh ... my God," she whispered, consumed by shame. Her boyfriend may as well have gotten down on all fours and started chewing on the tablecloth even
that
would have been preferable to this declaration. "Diego, no. You
can't
be serious."

Alexa had always thought that the Eiffel Tower -- all graceful steel lacework -- was lovely. But the super-famous structure was also
so,
well, Kodak Moment Number One not to mention tainted by the gross Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes proposal that Alexa now

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considered it no more than a cheesy tourist trap. She'd even torn up the photo of the tower that she'd once displayed on the bulletin board in her bedroom.

"Would you hear me out?" Diego's dark eyes flashed. Both he and Alexa had a certain fire in their temperaments, which worked out nicely for some activities -- but could lead to angry flare-ups when they
weren't
getting it on. "You know I was only in Paris once before -- for that weekend with my parents and sister. We did, like, the two-second tour of the city, but we didn't even
go
to the Eiffel Tower."

Alexa felt a slow, sinking dread in her stomach that told her this issue wasn't going to resolve itself any time soon. "It's just that there are
so
many better ways to spend our time here," she explained, trying to keep the sharpness out of her tone. "Like walking across the Pont-Neuf or shopping at Collete or --"

Diego silenced her by leaning across the small table and taking her hands in his. "Alexa, think about it," he urged, his expression intense. "We could go at night.
you
and me, at the very top, the entire city spread out beneath us ..." He tilted his head, leaned in closer, and softly kissed her pouty bottom lip. "Remember?" he whispered, his dimples showing.

Alexa nodded, weakening. How could she have forgotten? A year ago, she and Diego had shared a breathtaking rooftop experience in South Beach

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and had been together ever since. This trip was supposed to be their anniversary, after all; it
would
be meaningful for the two of them to re-create that magical night.

But Alexa wasn't ready to give in yet.

As a compromise, she agreed to Diego's Frommer's-inspired suggestion that they hit up Montmartre, the funky Right Bank neighborhood where the domed, all-white basilica, Sacré-Coeur, stood. They left Café de Flore, rode the Métro to Abbesses ("The trains are so clean here!" Diego exclaimed loudly while Alexa looked for places to hide), and silently hiked up the steep hill to Sacré-Coeur, the tension still crackling between them.

But being in Montmartre cheered Alexa up; she loved its crooked alleyways and slightly seedy atmosphere. Street vendors hawked piping-hot crêpes alongside miniature replicas of Sacré-Coeur, white-faced mimes performed for wide-eyed children, and wannabe artists perched on stools, sketching at their easels. While Diego made straight for the grand steps of the basilica, Alexa hung back, wanting to scope out the scene some more.

When one of the sketchers glanced up from his easel, Alexa's heart fluttered. Clad in a tight black T-shirt, torn jeans, and scuffed-up boots the French dirty-boy uniform -- he was on the short side, but