Paris Cravings: A Paris & Pastry Novel (11 page)

Before the taxi can shoot forward, I slam the car door shut and hobble as fast as I can through the crosswalk. When I get to the other side, I only have one second to spare.
Attendez
now blinks red.

I’m limping a little and slowing down, but the taxi is sandwiched in traffic, which forces the cab driver to follow the detour signs with obedience.

I’m already walking down the opposite side of the street trying to look casual, but my heart is pounding like crazy, and my palms are sweaty. I’ve just jumped out of a car! I’ve run away! It’s surreal. And exciting. I want to tell Jean-Paul all about it—I mean I want to tell Mathew.

I catch a glimpse of Mr. Polk’s face as he frantically rolls down his window and yells over the beeping traffic, “Chloe, what the
hell
are you doing?”

I love how his voice fades away as the taxi honks its horn several times. As if I don’t know he’s still there. As if I jumped out accidentally and want him to wait so I can jump back in. I glance over my shoulder and watch as the taxicab is forced to turn the corner because there’s no place to pull over and traffic is bumper to bumper with the road construction and detour signs.

“Don’t go anywhere! We’ll pick you up around the next block—” Gerald manages to screech before the car disappears down a one-way street.

I stare at the empty spot where he used to be, shivering with delight. It’s luck, I tell myself. No, it’s destiny. But he’s coming back. And soon.

Walking faster, but careful of my ankle, I duck into a clothing store and drop down behind a rack of dresses. When the taxi doubles back to get me, I won’t even be on the street any longer.

I’m about to congratulate myself when I hear the sound of high heels clicking across the hardwood floor. Slowly I raise my eyes.

A woman lifts two pencil thin eyebrows and sticks her hands on her hips as though daring me to thumb through her designer stock.

“
Bonjour
?” I whisper, saying the polite greeting Robert taught us to use whenever we enter a shop or café.

She lets loose a stream of French.

I draw my finger across my throat and hoarsely whisper while pointing to the door, “
Mon copain
!”

She whips her head to the glass door and then back again, puzzled now.

“
Mon copain
!” I repeat in a frightened voice, blaming a non-existent abusive boyfriend for wanting to hide out under her sale rack.

Her face turns soft with understanding. “
Ah, oui
.”

There’s a flutter in my belly. Like the thrill you feel when the roller coaster drops and you feel weightless, then scream with the sheer delight of being alive and rushing through the air. I can’t believe I pulled it off. I ran away from Gerald Polk and Educational Tours. I’m free. And nobody can find me until I show up at the airport.

The dress shop woman frowns. I guess I’m looking too happy for a girl trying to escape her horrible boyfriend. I turn my expression back to a frightened look and crawl to the plate glass window, peering furtively up and down the street. The woman follows, staring through the window along with me. I can smell her French perfume and feel the hem of her soft dress against my arm.

No sign of the taxi. No Gerald Polk hanging out a car window screaming into a cell phone. There’s no doubt he’ll be back searching every shop along this street to find me. But this is a very long avenue with about a million shops. Odds are with me, but I cross my fingers just in case.

On the way back to
La Patisserie
, I stop every few moments to hide out in a grocer’s or a beauty salon or a magazine booth, but I manage to get back without a sign of the taxi or any Educational Tour guys. Inside the pastry shop, there’s a line of customers buying their desserts for dinner.

I sit down at one of the small tables, trying to get a grip on my financial problems, and keeping one eye out for taxis. It’s more difficult than I first thought because taxis come in several colors, not just yellow like New York.

Late afternoon sun slants through the window, brushing the tile floor like melted butter. A bus roars up to the curb and a slew of people disembark while a second crowd pushes to get on. I watch Jean-Paul lay out tissue paper and assemble boxes while his mother rings the purchases up on the register.

I try to catch his attention to make a funny face, but his eyes slide past me and fasten onto a girl in line. He smiles at her, lifting his chin, and giving her a wink.

Where did
she
come from?

“
Bonjour, Mireille
,” he says.

“
Bonjour, Jean-Paul
,” she answers with a flirty lift of one shoulder. Is this how all the French girls act when they go to the market? Well, I suppose if you live in the same neighborhood as Jean-Paul Dupré you can’t help yourself. Any girl would drool when she came in to buy her evening dessert cakes.

This girl’s eyes never leave Jean-Paul’s face. I watch him steal glances at her as he rings up the customer in front of her. She’s not in any hurry, one hand casually tucked into the pocket of a very short skirt. Her legs are brown and bare and very defined in skinny red heels. I thought Parisians lived too far north to have a tan. Maybe she just spent the last week on a Mediterranean beach in a bikini.

I try not to choke with envy as I study her honey-colored hair falling in perfect, silky waves. Above her skirt, she wears a yellow blouse with the top two buttons undone. A gold chain around her neck ends in cleavage. She also wears bangles on each wrist and matching earrings that brush her neck as she moves her head.

She notices me watching and gives me a long look, her eyes flicking down to my wrapped ankle and the solitary sandal on my good foot.

I slowly fling my hair over my shoulder so it looks like I don’t care who’s watching me. She’s just some unknown customer, but I suddenly feel stupid in my stained pink jacket.

Turning my eyes away from her piercing blue ones, I concentrate on thinking about Mathew, my tall, handsome Texas boyfriend whom I’ll get to talk to in a few hours. Unless he sleeps really, really late. Unless he meets Parvati and forgets to call me. Okay, that was stupid. Instead, I’ll focus on the promises Mathew made right before I left. And the promise I made when I told him I’d give him a second chance.

Somebody ought to shoot me. I can’t help glancing at the line of customers again and I have this urge to yell at this girl and tell her to quit looking at Jean-Paul. She’s really annoying me, waiting until she’s the last customer in the shop so she can be alone with him.

And then to my complete and utter astonishment, the girl leans over the counter and kisses Jean-Paul. Kisses him! Not the usual double cheek greeting that everyone in France does with every single friend or relative they meet on the street. No, she kisses him on the lips! Who
is
this girl?

After the warm, lingering kiss, the girl places her order, in perfect, beautiful French, pointing out the pastries she wants with pretty, expressive hands, and chatting with Jean-Paul the entire time. But of course.

My heart is pumping and my ears are buzzing, and I concentrate on the black swirly letters of the
La Patisserie
window menu, trying to understand what Jean-Paul and the girl are saying, but I’m lost in all that French.

“Chloe.”

I give a start, ripping my eyes away from a mother and teenage son who are having an argument at the bus stop.

Jean-Paul is beckoning to me to come over to the counter, but then he slaps his forehead. “
Bien-sûr
! I am not thinking. You stay in your chair, Chloe. I will come there. Of course you can’t walk on your foot.”

“Chloe?” the girl says, lifting a perfectly plucked eyebrow. At least they’re not painted on like the dress shop owner’s eyebrows.

Jean-Paul comes around the cash register. “Mireille, this is the girl I told you about this morning on the phone.”

What
? Rewind please.

He was talking on the phone with her? This morning? About me?

“Chloe, this is Mireille,” he continues. I’m still sitting and they’re both hovering over me and I feel like a little kid. I’m also at a huge disadvantage because I can’t get up and walk away. Which is what I really want to do. My legs itch to go running. Cross-country and fast.

“Mireille—is my girlfriend,” Jean-Paul concludes, stammering slightly.

Mireille slips her palm into Jean-Paul’s hand and laces her fingers with his. She smiles at me, very slowly, very sweetly.

Unable. To. Breathe.

I’m frozen to my chair, not knowing what to do or what to say. Actually, I’m trying not to whimper. But that’s silly. Why should I care about her, this beautiful, stunning Mireille girl?

Jean-Paul’s girlfriend
.

I plaster a smile across my face and manage to gasp, “
Enchanté,
I’m sure
.
”

Jean-Paul gives me a funny look.

“
Oui,
enchanté
,” Mireille says with a little laugh as she clutches Jean-Paul closer, putting a hand against his chest.

Her body language speaks volumes. I feel like I’m looking at one of my mother’s romance book jackets come to life before my eyes—a beautiful, airbrushed couple hanging on each other with looks of adoration on their faces. All she needs is to be wearing a flowing off-the-shoulder dress while pressed up against Jean-Paul’s naked chest to complete the right novel pose.

The unspoken words in Mireille’s eyes are loud and clear.

Hands off my boyfriend, American tourist chick
.

Who—
moi
?

Three Months Earlier

The manager at Sam’s Sandwich Shop snapped his fingers,
indicating my order was ready. I grabbed the bag of food and drinks and headed back to the bookstore where Mom was doing a book signing.

Then I saw him. Mathew. Coming out of the music store directly across the crowded mall. I tried to wave, but the drink tray sloshed, threatening to spill all over the tile floor.

“Hey!” I squeaked, but my greeting was lost in the piped music. He stopped by a group of benches and potted plants, hands dangling from the pockets of his jeans. His profile was so damn good, and my stomach jumped just to see him standing there.

The hair on my neck rose like stinging prickles when Parvati walked out of the music store thirty seconds later, right after Mathew. What was she doing here?

My heart slammed against my ribs and I told myself to take long, deep breaths. I wished I had Mom’s emergency paper bag for panic attacks, but I vowed to stay cool, calm, and collected. It had to be pure random chance that Parvati was here at the very same time my boyfriend was hanging out.

A flicker of pride swept through my mind. I could be an adult about this. I wasn’t going to go off in a rage just because Parvati happened to be buying a CD at the same time Mathew was shopping for—someone.

The next instant Parvati shrieked Mathew’s name like she hadn’t seen him in a year instead of just
Spring
Break. I watched as she wrapped her arms around his neck. As if bouquets of mistletoe hung above her head everywhere she went now.

Mathew’s glance skirted the bustling mall, and that’s when his eyes met mine.

His entire body froze and he quickly straightened, but Parvati’s hand clung to his arm. Mathew’s face drained of color and he gave me a weak smile, but Parvati was in his face, talking, jabbering, and pulling him to the storefront window.

My mouth went dry. I wished there was a bench underneath my trembling legs.

“
Yeah, it’s Chloe, your girlfriend!”
I wanted to scream. Or did you forget I exist? I’ve only been gone to Florida a few days to visit my grandfather, not a month.

It should have been me beside Mathew. Me kissing him hello after Spring Break. I thought about the phone calls we’d exchanged since I’d returned, but this was the first time I’d actually seen him.

For some weird reason we were failing to connect.

Like destiny was conspiring against us.