Seven Letters from Paris (9 page)

And why was I telling her all this? I needed diarrhea medication. For my mouth. Although I'd been living in Malibu where the crazed blond, blue-eyed look was all the rage, I was certain I'd scared her to death when she leaned as far away from me as humanly possible. The focus needed to switch from me to her fast. “Paris is a really romantic city, don't you think? I've been there three times. Have you?”

“Of course we've been to Paris, but we're on our way to visit family in Armenia. We only have a layover at Charles de Gaulle.” She went back to reading her gossip rag. “Good luck.”

Under normal circumstances, I'd find her behavior rude, but I wasn't surprised when she didn't press me for more information. Had our situations been reversed, I would have wanted all the juicy details. I'm built that way—an American woman who can't help but glance at the tabloid headlines in the supermarket or over the shoulder of the person seated next to me.

My stomach nearly dropped into my uterus as the plane lifted off. I leaned toward the window and pressed my forehead to the glass, taking slow, deep, purposeful breaths. Below, Los Angeles became a tiny speck, the Pacific Ocean glimmering like a beautiful blue velvet dress worthy of the red carpet. Once we were in the air, an overwhelming rush of freedom surged through me. My hands released the armrests and my lips curved into a smile. If Jean-Luc was as amazing in person as he was on paper, and if we connected the way we had the first time twenty years ago, then this love adventure was worth the risk.

The long flight gave me plenty of time to “Play it again, Sam,” to think about the first time I'd met Jean-Luc in 1989, to think about the man whose letters inspired seven blog posts and a two-decades-late apology, the man who now inspired me. Soon, instead of being seated on a plane, my thoughts gravitated to Paris, to that hot summer's night in 1989, right to the very first time I'd met Jean-Luc, the memory playing in my head like a movie.

The second night of my two-week European adventure way back in 1989 had all the ingredients for a clichéd romance. A crowded café? In Paris? A handsome Frenchman? Check, check, and, considering there was not one but
two
Frenchmen, double check.

Tracey had a much better view of their table. I had to crane my neck and peer over my right shoulder, making an effort not to be too obvious. But I was. My eyes locked onto a sexy man's eyes across the crowded restaurant. It was love at first sight, or, as the French would say,
un
coup
de
foudre
—a bolt of lightning, a shock to the system. Before I tipped over in my chair, I pretended to grab something out of my purse, a blush prickling my cheeks.

“So, which one do you want?” asked Tracey, as if we could just order the two Frenchmen right off the menu.

“That depends. Should I ask the waiter if the guy wearing the green shirt comes with a side of fries?”

“Oh, thank God! I was just about to call dibs on the darker-haired one. White shirt.” Tracey licked her lips. “This could be the best restaurant in all of Paris.”

It might not have been a Michelin three-star, but Dame Tartine was turning out to be a very tasty choice. We'd discovered the trendy café in front of this crazy fountain—the Stravinsky Fountain by the Centre Pompidou in the Beaubourg. The café was, in our American eyes, so very French, from the red awning with gold lettering right down to the heavily glossed red wooden chairs and the handwritten sign displaying the daily specials. Even the waiters wore the requisite white shirt, black tie, long black apron, and snobbish Parisian attitude. As it was priced right for our limited budgets, we figured there was no better way to take part in Parisian café society than sitting outside people watching, surrounded by wisps of cigarette smoke, the whimsical fountain of moving sculptures gurgling in the background.

Turned out, everybody else had the same idea that balmy summer's night; the outside terrace was packed. Too hungry to look for another place, we agreed when the host offered to seat us inside. Little did we know the view from our table would be much more…captivating.

“Tracey, stop staring,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to keep my lips from moving. As if—with my back facing their table—the guy in the green shirt could tell I was talking about him. I straightened up in my seat, sure that even my posture gave me away.

Tracey didn't even try to hide her ogling. Her brown eyes sparkled with something I can only describe as crazed lust. I shifted my body to block her view. “I'm serious. You've got to cut it out. They're going to think there's something wrong with you.”

“I can't help it, Sam. It's like I'm hypnotized. The darker-haired one is so gorgeous, he's like a French Tom Cruise.” She paused. “But way, way better looking.”

Although I was tempted to turn around and see if her comparison rang true, I was still reeling from the jolt to my heart. Instead, I leaned forward, placing my elbows on the white butcher paper-covered table, crumbs from crusty, flaky bread digging into my skin. “What are they doing now?”

Tracey's brows furrowed. “I think they're leaving.”

No, no, no! The romance I had created in my head couldn't end even before it began. The Frenchman wearing the green shirt, the one with the sexy lips and penetrating gaze, he and I were
supposed
to fall desperately head-over-heels in love. We'd have a wild affair, vow our undying love, and then, once I graduated from college, I'd move here: to Paris.

Wasn't that every American girl's dream?

But surely these two guys had better things to do than pick up nineteen-year-old American tourists and cater to their unrealistic fantasies. They probably had sexy French girlfriends, the kind of women Tracey and I had been seeing all day long—the sultry ones with long shiny hair and perfect pouty lips, the ones whose style could only be called Parisian, whether they were wearing sundresses or the chicest of Chanel. Yes, these girls were the kind who could lower anybody's self-esteem with one calculated stare from their smoldering, black-lined, almond-shaped eyes.

Tracey and I had tried our best to blend in, in a feeble attempt to look sophisticated and sexy, but we were out of our league in Paris. Our T-shirts with huge shoulder pads ate up our small frames. Add in the giant black belts with a huge silver buckles, the black mini-skirts, the black patent leather kitten heels, and you had two late-1980s fashion disasters.

This minor setback didn't faze my friend in the slightest. She brushed her hair off her shoulder and broke out into a wide grin. Her long, silver earrings swayed back and forth, a soundless metronome counting in time to the beat of my disappointed heart.

“Why are you smiling like that?” I frowned. “In fact, why are you smiling at all? They. Are. Leaving.”

Besides raising her eyebrows, Tracey didn't have to say another word. I made another lame attempt to pass a surreptitious glance over my shoulder to find our two Frenchmen approaching our table, a confident step in their swaggers.

The air was electric.

Before I knew it, one of them was standing right behind me. “American?” asked a deep, accented voice.

Pardon?

Seriously, what had tipped them off? We may not have been as put together as the French girls who haunted our vision at every turn, but with Tracey's dark hair, brown eyes, and angular features, she could have easily passed for Spanish, Italian, Greek, maybe even French. Was it my blond (or slightly orange-ish) hair (blame Sun-In and a hairdryer) and blue eyes that gave us away?

Tracey managed to sigh. “Yes, how'd you know?”

Took the words right out of my gaping mouth.

The guys positioned themselves in front of our table. Tracey's French Tom Cruise pointed to our bottle of wine, and they both laughed. “No self-respecting French woman would ever order a bottle of wine sans
un
bouchon
.”

Regardless of the sexy accent, my fantasy took a nosedive. Had they come over to our table to insult us? What the heck was a
bouchon
? Only one way to find out. “
Bouchon?
” I'd asked, meeting amused gazes and quickly looking away.

“Without a, ummm, a cork.”

“Oh, well then,” I said, my tone more defensive than I wanted it to be. “What should we have ordered?”

“A carafe would have been, um, more
ac-cep-ta-ble
.”

We were young American girls, clueless about how to order wine, and who better to point out our crass error than two young Frenchmen? And they were laughing. Laughing at us. Because of the screw top. Were Tracey and I progressive or what?

Note: In France, it's still un-ac-cep-ta-ble to order wine with a screw top.

Eyes cast down, I mumbled, “It was the cheapest.”

French Tom Cruise nudged his friend in the side and said something quickly, too fast for me to pick up a single word.

“We'd like to propose you a good bottle of wine,” said the object of my affection, his English amusingly formal but perfect. “But on one condition. If you would allow us the honor, we would like to join you at your table.”

Tracey smiled so big, I'm surprised her face didn't crack. That was all the encouragement they needed. The fantasy was back on.

“Permit me to introduce myself. I'm Jean-Luc,” said my Frenchman, pulling up a chair and taking a seat next to…Tracey?

French Tom Cruise sat next to me. “My name
eez
Patrick.”

Pa-treek.

“I'm Tracey.” She pointed at me, daggers of confusion shooting out of her eyes. “And that's Samantha.”

“Samantha,” repeated Jean-Luc. “It's a very pretty name.” He turned toward Tracey, brushing me off. “Where are you from?”

Wait one little second here.

What was going on?

Clearly, the whole thing with the wine had been a well-played pickup line, and Jean-Luc and Patrick were masters of “the neg,” long before shows like
The
Pickup
Artist
aired or books like
The
Bro
Code
were published, but I'd thought Jean-Luc and I had shared a moment.

I may have been smiling on the outside, but inside I was screaming.

Jean-Luc called the waiter over with a confident flick of his wrist. I found it impossible not to stare at his beautiful bow-shaped lips as he spoke to the server. He could have said anything and I would have swooned at the melody, the beautiful French language rolling off his tongue. A dark emerald green button-down shirt complemented his hazel eyes.

Eyes that I'd thought had been for me.

It wasn't as if I didn't find Patrick attractive. He was a perfect specimen of a man with movie-star good looks, his hair was dark brown, almost black, and he had beautiful crystalline blue eyes. Like Jean-Luc, he also had beautiful lips and a sexy cleft in his chin. Yet something about him was too perfect—for my tastes, at least.

The only thing Tracey and I could do was to try to put this potentially awkward situation behind us—although we'd never been in one quite like it before. In high school, things always worked out in our favor. She dated one guy. I dated his best friend. I dated one twin. She dated the other. After an amicable breakup, I even set her up with one of my exes. She'd dubbed him the Pac-Man kisser after an eat-your-face-off make-out session in which he almost dislocated her jaw. Good intentions aside,
that
relationship was short lived. Yes, guys had come and gone, but our friendship had always come first, with no boy ever breaking our bond.

Resigned to our fate, I smiled at Tracey with a shrug. She smiled back. Things could have been worse. After all, we were sitting at a café with not one but two handsome Frenchmen in Paris. Who were we to complain?

Our waiter returned with a menu, handing it over to Jean-Luc.

“Have you girls taken something to eat?” he asked. “I'd like to match your selections with the wine.”

Normally, I was the kind of girl who talked a mile a minute, the kind of girl who thrived on attention, flirted with the best of them. I wanted to answer, but I was so nervous that it was hard enough speaking English, let alone French. Odd. I'd been stunned into blushing silence.

“We both ordered the co—chicken with wine sauce,” said Tracey, coming to the rescue yet again. “What about you?”

I stifled a laugh, certain that Tracey didn't want to mispronounce the word “
coq
” in
coq
au
vin
. Jean-Luc popped his lips, as if to say, “No problem.”

“We've already had our meals. The wine is for you.”

Great. I didn't know if my nerves could take it. They were going to watch us eat? Either I had some kind of social anxiety disorder or first-date nerves had me on the edge of my seat. Would he think I was a pig? Would something get stuck in my teeth? Like a piece of spinach? Or some black pepper? Tracey, on the other hand, was still smiling away like a fool. The waiter tapped his pen against his pad impatiently. With a flourish of hand movements, Jean-Luc pointed to something on the menu, and I could make out the words
vin
blanc
. White wine. The waiter, with typical Parisian flair, rolled his eyes and said, “
Bon
choix
.”

Jean-Luc shot me a sexy wink. “I think you'll like my selection.” His eyes told me what his lips didn't say: he'd felt the connection too. “What brings you to Paris?”

His gaze didn't leave mine. Tracey took the opportunity to flirt her way over toward Patrick—a slight repositioning of her chair, a flip of her hair, and she was set.

It took me a second, but I managed to find my voice. “Well, my family moved to London last year, so Trace and I are doing the whole Eurail thing while we have the chance.” I paused. Lest he think I was some spoiled American, spending Daddy's money, I needed to make something clear. “I worked three jobs over the summer to pay for the trip—waitressing and an internship.”

“And when you're not traveling the world, waitressing, or interning?”

“I'm an art major at Syracuse University. Advertising design.”

“Ah, art. Plenty of that in Paris. Have you been to any of the museums?”

“Well, today, we went to the Louvre, Musée de l'Orangerie, and the Musée Picasso. Yesterday, we went to Notre-Dame, took a boat ride down the Seine on a
bateau
mouche
, visited the Eiffel Tower, and—”

“How could you visit all those museums in one day? The Louvre should take a week to visit in itself.”

Did I dare tell him Tracey and I had run through the Louvre in an hour, right past Delacroix's
Liberty
Guiding
the
People
, past the Rembrandts and the Caravaggios, the Renoirs and the Van Goghs, and right up to the
Mona
Lisa
, only to be disappointed to find the famed painting displayed behind plexiglass and surrounded by camera-wielding tourists? Or that we'd spent a good fifteen minutes mimicking armless Greek sculptures by stuffing our arms inside our T-shirts? No, some things were better left unsaid. I had to put my best patent leather kitten heel forward and pretend I possessed at least one ounce of sophistication.

“You know how it is. It's our first trip to Paris. So many things to see and do, so little time.”

Jean-Luc held me captive in his gaze. “And do you like what you've seen?”

Blushing, I nodded. Instead of playing along with an enticing quip, my idiot-mode kicked in. “We went on this huge Ferris wheel in the Jardin des Tuileries last night. It was amazing. Once we were at the top, we could see all of Paris. The Tour Eiffel looked like a Christmas tree, there were so many lights on it!”

Good God, I sounded like a child, babbling on about a Ferris wheel and sparkling lights. Next, I'd probably launch into some diatribe about how badly the mimes near the Louvre freaked me out, blocking my path with their painted faces, striped shirts, suspenders, and red berets.

“Ah, yes! You chose the best time to come to Paris. It's the
Bicentenaire
de
la
Révolution Française
—a party all summer long. It's too bad you weren't here for the
quatorze
juillet
. Beautiful artificial fires lit up the night. There were performances in the street, right on the Champs-Élysées.”

Et
voilà
. It was time to impress him with some knowledge. “Bastille Day, right?”

“
Oui, c'est ça
, but a very special one. The two-hundredth anniversary.”

Perhaps somebody suggested that Patrick should teach Tracey a few French phrases? Maybe the guys went to the bathroom and switched seats upon their return? No matter how it occurred, a game of musical chairs had been played and the awkward situation had been rectified. Somehow I found myself sitting next to Jean-Luc with him enlightening me with the history of the French Revolution, which I only found interesting because of his excitement for his country's past. And because he was hot.

Naturally, I tried to impress Jean-Luc by speaking my mangled French, better known as
Franglais
, much to his amusement. Funnily, he insisted on “practicing” his English, which was already close to perfect. As for Tracey, who didn't speak French, save for a few words like
bonjour
(bong-or) or
au
revoir
(or-ree-vor), and Patrick, who only spoke a little English, well, their conversation was a little more animated—like those dreaded mimes outside of the Louvre, there were a lot of hand movements going on.

“I have to be honest,” said Jean-Luc. “I found the confidence to come and talk to you by approaching Tracey first. Your back was to me. And, she,
et
alors
, how do I put this, seemed friendlier.”

My heart stuttered a few beats.

Glancing across the table, I couldn't help but think about the first time I'd met Tracey my freshman year of high school. When she'd introduced herself, she'd stuck out her hand, said, “Shake,” and when I'd reached for it, she'd pulled it away and did this bizarre Copacabana shimmy shake with her shoulders. Her dark brown eyes met mine and she'd said, “You look like fun. I know we're going to be friends.” Then she turned on her heel and strutted down the hall like she didn't have a care in the world. After that, it had been my intention to avoid the girl at all costs. But I guess I couldn't shake her. I laughed silently at this memory, wondering how Jean-Luc knew Patrick. So I asked.

“We did our tour of duty together in the military—officers' training in Salon-de-Provence, in the South of France.” He puffed out his chest proudly and said something sounding like “I was a lwhetnut.”

“A wet nut? Could you spell that, please?” I asked. And he did. “Ohhhh, a lieutenant. So, you're an officer and a gentleman?”

“And a doctor too.” He laughed. “But not a medical doctor. I'm finishing up my PhD.”

My God, this guy was every girl's ultimate fantasy. Every mother on the planet would approve.
My
mother would have approved. Jean-Luc went on to explain how at the age of twenty-six, he had come to work at the French equivalent of NASA and spoke four or five different languages, including Russian. Heck, even though Jean-Luc was French, my retired colonel
Great
Santini
of a grandfather, Poppy, would have given Jean-Luc his stamp of approval. Officer status trumped anything.

I was over the moon. Until my insecurities came crashing down like a rogue meteor.

Earth
to
Sam! Come in, Sam!

I wondered: Why in God's name was Jean-Luc wasting his time with me? He must have been after something, right? After all, we American girls had the reputation of going
Girls
Gone
Wild
when traveling Europe, lifting up our shirts and dropping our thongs for any handsome stranger who crossed our path. With nothing better to do on a Monday night, maybe he and Patrick were out trolling the streets with the hopes of getting laid.

“So do you and Patrick make it a habit of picking up American girls in touristy cafés?”

A flash of understanding sparked in Jean-Luc's eyes. “Aha, but this is Paris in the summer. Tourists overtake the city—every museum, every street. They even tour our sewers. No café is safe.” He raised a brow and popped his lips. “Just so you know, you're the first American girl I've ever met.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It's true. And now I don't believe what they say, the stereotypes.”

“And that would be?”

“Americans are rude.”

“I've been on my best behavior.” I smiled. “What else?”

“They're uncultured.”

“Do I have to remind you about the bottle of wine with the screw top?”

“You speak French.”

“
Pas
bien
.”

“At least you try. And you have a passion for art.”

“It's my major.”

Jean-Luc took my hands. “You're unlike any other girl I've ever met.”

“Please tell me that's not an insult.”

“
Et
alors
, not only are you beautiful, you're smart and you're funny. It's hard finding all three traits in one person.” Intensity and truthfulness shone from his eyes. “How long are you in Paris?”

It may have been a crock, but I was done for. I gulped. “We leave tomorrow.”

“Then tonight can never end.”