The Art of French Kissing (12 page)

He smiled at me like nothing was wrong.

I shook my head. “Um, okay.” I didn’t know what to make of this guy.

“Night and day, you are the one!”
Guillaume suddenly broke into song again and began to dance around.

“Guillaume!” I said sharply.

He abruptly stopped. “What, you do not like Fred Astaire? That was ‘Night and Day,’ one of his greatest hits.”

“No, Fred Astaire is fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I just need to handle this situation. So can you stop dancing for a moment and talk to me?”

Guillaume shrugged. “Okay.”

“Great.” I took a deep breath. “I can have this money?” I asked, holding up the bills.

“That’s fine.” He nodded and smiled at me. “Whatever you want, Emma. You should buy a souvenir, too. To remember this day.”

“I think I’ll pass on that,” I said drily.

I knocked on the door to the security office and slipped inside, holding the roll of bills in my hand. The eyes of all three guards widened as I held it up.

“Okay, I have twenty-eight hundred euros here,” I said.

“
Mademoiselle
, where did you get that?” asked one of the guards.

“You don’t want to know,” I said.

“Mademoiselle
,
”
the security chief said slowly. “I think you misunderstand. You are trying to make a
pot-de-vin
?”

“What?” I asked. I rapidly translated the words in my head. “A pot of wine?”

“No, no,” he said, looking troubled. “It is an expression. It means to, eh, to try to get somebody to do something by giving them the money?”

“A bribe?” I asked. We seemed to be talking in circles.

“I do not know that word,” the guard said. “But in France,
mademoiselle
, it is
illegal
to trade money for a favor.”

“Oh,” I said, reddening. “I thought that’s what you were asking for.”

“No, no,
mademoiselle
!” the security manager said, shaking his head violently. I glanced at the other two, who were staring at the money rather more lustily than their boss. “I meant that perhaps we could trade a favor for a favor, so to speak.”

“A favor?” I asked hesitantly. I jammed the wad of bills into my pocket, feeling like an idiot.

“Oui.”
The chief glanced at the other guards and then back at me. “Could it be arranged to have Guillaume Riche play a private concert for my daughter and her friends? I would be the best father in the Île-de-France.”

“And my daughter, too,” said one of the guards. “She would also like to go to the private concert.”

“I do not have a daughter,” the youngest guard said. “But my girlfriend, she would like to see Guillaume Riche.”

I stared at the three of them for a moment.

“You just want Guillaume to perform a private concert?” I asked.

“At my house,” the security chief said boldly. “My wife will even cook him dinner.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “I think that can be arranged.”

Twenty minutes later, after extracting a promise from a reluctant Guillaume that he would put on a private show for the security guards’ loved ones, I was on my way downstairs in an elevator, my Celio-clad rock star in tow.

“Here,” I said, thrusting a piece of paper at him. I’d spent five minutes jotting out some notes while he signed autographs for the starstruck security staff. “This is what you’re going to say to the media.”

“I have to make a statement?” he whined. “C’mon, Emma! I just want to go home and go to bed.”

“You should have thought of that before you wound up naked in the Eiffel Tower,” I said.

“I wasn’t naked,” he pointed out with a grin. “I had my briefs on.
And
,” he added pointedly, “a top hat.”

“You are the strangest person I’ve ever met,” I muttered. “Anyhow, unless you want me to go out there and tell the truth, you’re going to have to read this.”

“You’re very tough, Emma,” he said sullenly. “You know that?”

I sighed. “Can we lose the top hat, too, Guillaume?”

He shook his head sadly, removed the hat from his head, and handed it over, along with the cane.

I led Guillaume outside to the wall of reporters. The moment they spotted us, they started shouting. I tried to avoid locking eyes with Gabriel, who was in the front of the crowd, staring at us in disbelief.

“Guillaume and I have a statement to make, and then we won’t be taking any questions,” I said firmly. The crowd quieted down a bit. “This has all been a mistake. Guillaume will be filming scenes for his ‘City of Light’ music video here, and he was simply scouting out locations. There was a miscommunication, which is why I wasn’t here with him. ‘City of Light,’ ” I added, throwing in a promotional plug, “is the first single off Guillaume’s debut album. I have no doubt you’ll be blown away. It’s the story of a man meeting the woman of his dreams in Paris, which is why this location makes so much sense for the video shoot. Of course the song will hit radio stations across the world this evening, for the first time.

“Now,” I concluded, “Guillaume has a few words to say to you.”

Guillaume looked at me for a moment, then shook his head, looked down at the piece of paper I had given him, and began to speak.

“I regret that I was locked accidentally into the Eiffel Tower last night while scouting locations for the ‘City of Lights’ video,” he read slowly and stiffly. It was obvious his words were scripted. I cringed and snuck a look at the media. Some of the reporters looked skeptical (especially Mr. Skepticism himself in the front row), but all appeared to be listening and jotting down notes. “I feel terrible that all of you have come here to report on what isn’t really a story. It was an unfortunate incident, and I’m sure you’ll understand when you see the video next month. Thank you for your concern.”

“Thank you very much,” I added quickly. “Please direct all questions to my office.”

The reporters started shouting out questions, but I ignored them and hustled Guillaume toward the dark-windowed limo idling at the curb. I’d called Poppy before coming down and asked her to order one for us. It was the least she could do from her cushy seat on the Eurostar.

“Nice job, Emma!” Guillaume said admiringly once the car pulled away from the curb and the Eiffel Tower began to disappear behind us. He had put his top hat back on his head and was fiddling with his cane.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Guillaume, what were you doing in the Eiffel Tower without your clothes anyhow?”

He looked puzzled. “You know, I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said slowly. “One minute I was drinking
manzana
with a girl I met at Buddha Bar. The next thing I knew, I was waking up without my clothes with some security guard staring at me. Rather embarrassing, you know.”

“You were at Buddha Bar?” I asked, startled. I thought back to Gabriel’s warning.

“Oui
,
”
Guillaume said. “Although it’s all a blur, really.”

“You are unbelievable,” I muttered.

“Thank you!” Guillaume said brightly.

I shot him a look. “That wasn’t a compliment,” I said.

He grinned and tipped his hat to me. “I know.”

Chapter Ten

I
filled Poppy in on everything when she returned from London late that afternoon, and she apologized about a thousand times for not being there to help out.

“It’s fine, Poppy,” I said. “Really.” And I meant it. Knowing that I could handle a situation like that changed something inside me. Perhaps I hadn’t been giving myself enough credit—for anything.

That night, all the news stations in Paris ran reports on Guillaume’s Eiffel Tower incident, and they showed clips of him addressing the media. He looked even more handsome on TV, and I knew that girls all across the world, wherever this was being aired, were probably swooning and saving up their money to buy his album. Poppy translated what the anchors were saying, and it was all good. Guillaume’s debut album, which would be mostly in English, was one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year, one anchor said. His good looks already had girls around the globe plastering his poster on their walls, said another. A third network’s anchor interviewed the president of the Club d’Admirateurs de Guillaume Riche—the Paris-based Guillaume Riche Fan Club.

“He has a
fan club
?” I asked incredulously.

“He has three hundred forty-one fan clubs around the world, at last count,” Poppy said mildly. “Including one in a remote village in Siberia where they don’t even get TV reception. It’s mind-boggling.”

That night, for the first time, Poppy and I heard “City of Light” on the radio while we were eating the premade meals from French supermarket chain Champion that we’d heated up. We both squealed and leapt from our seats.

“He’s really on the radio!” Poppy exclaimed, jumping up and down.

“He sounds fantastic!”

We went out that night to celebrate at the Long Hop, and thanks to my ebullience over the quick save at the Eiffel Tower, I didn’t even protest when Poppy brought two cute guys back from the bar along with our cocktails. She quickly disappeared into another corner of the bar to flirt with Alain, the sandy-haired, slightly freckled one she’d evidently chosen. That left me with Christian, who was tall with bushy dark brown hair, glasses, and a slightly crooked nose. He was cute, nice, and spoke great English. By the time we went home that night, Poppy had persuaded me to go on a double date with her and the guys later that week.

The next morning, the e-clipping service Poppy subscribed to had found 219 new hits for the name “Guillaume Riche” in the past twenty-four hours, and even the
New York Times
had dedicated five paragraphs to describing the “misunderstanding” that had ensued when a false tip led the press to believe “rising rock star and international playboy Guillaume Riche” was trapped inside the Eiffel Tower without his clothes.

“That report was false,” the security chief was quoted as saying. “We opened the tower so Guillaume and his production company could have a tour for their new video.”

The article went on to mention that Guillaume’s just-released single was already heating up airwaves across the United States and Europe and that his “Coldplay-meets-Jack-Johnson style” (a quote from my press release!) was expected to catch on.

“He’s the next big thing,” the paper quoted Ryan Seacrest as saying.

I was still riding high from all the success when Gabriel Francoeur called to rain on my parade.

“Hi, Emma, I’m glad I caught you,” he said when I answered. “It’s Gabe Francoeur from the UPP.”

The smile fell from my face. “What can I help you with?”

“Nothing big,” he said. “I just want to see if I can schedule an interview with Guillaume about some of his, um, odd behavior lately.”

“There’s nothing odd about his behavior,” I said right away, hating how stiff my voice sounded. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

“Ah.” Gabriel sounded amused. “Right. I’m sure you’re not. But in any case, I’d just need a few minutes of his time. And yours, of course, if you’d like to sit in and comment.”

“I’m afraid that will be impossible,” I said. “His schedule is really quite busy right now.”

“Really?” Gabriel asked. “That’s funny, because I happen to know that right now, he’s sitting on the sofa in his apartment, watching cartoons. He doesn’t
seem
busy.”

“How would you know that?” Panic prickled at the back of my neck. “Are you
spying
on him?”

Gabriel laughed. “No, Emma! Of course not. But a good reporter never reveals his sources. So how about it? An interview?”

“No, really, we’re not doing interviews right now.”

He sighed dramatically. “Okay then,” he said casually. “I’ll just have to go with the story I’m working on about how he keeps getting into unsavory scrapes that his publicity team manages to get him out of.”

“Mr. Francoeur, I assure you that’s not true!”

“Call me Gabe,” he said. “All my American friends do. And, Emma, I won’t really have another option if I can’t get that interview, will I?”

“Is that blackmail?” I demanded.

“Call it creative negotiating,” he said. He paused and added, “I’m sure
you
know all about creative negotiating.”

“What?”

“I’m sure you know what I mean.” Gabriel sounded smug, and I felt suddenly uneasy. Did he know about the Eiffel Tower bribes? How would he know? But I couldn’t take any chances.

I cleared my throat. “I’ll get back to you about your interview request later this week,” I said stiffly.

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Emma.”

I hung up feeling like I’d just been outmaneuvered. And I didn’t like it one bit.

The rest of the workweek was spent studiously avoiding Gabe’s calls. He called every morning and every afternoon, like clockwork, and I always made sure to wait until at least 8 p.m. to call him back and leave an apologetic gosh-I’m-sorry-I-missed-you-again-but-maybe-we-can-connect-tomorrow message. So far, the avoidance seemed to be working, although I was slightly concerned that all this call dodging was just going to make him more annoyed at me.

Meanwhile, Poppy and I were working overtime to prepare for the press junket in London. We had a confirmed list of journalists, we’d ironed out all the reception details, and I was beginning to believe that everything would go off without a hitch. On top of that, Guillaume hadn’t gotten himself locked half naked in any major monuments lately.

On Friday, Poppy and I went out on our double date with Alain and Christian. They took us to dinner at Thomieux, a restaurant in our neighborhood specializing in southwestern French cuisine. Afterward, we went to Bar Dix, which Poppy said was one of her favorite hangouts. It was like no place I’d ever seen; it was small and had two levels that looked as if they’d been carved into the side of a cave. We wound up wedged into a tiny booth in the basement, sharing three pitchers of the best sangria I’d ever had. Poppy and I told stories, and Alain and Christian, both of whom had their arms thrown protectively over our shoulders, laughed and leaned in to give us pecks on our respective cheeks.

As our taxi pulled away from the curb at the end of the evening, leaving the two Frenchmen staring wistfully after us, I turned to Poppy, who was smiling.

“See?” Poppy asked. “Doesn’t it feel good to leave them in the dust?”

“I guess . . . ,” I responded, my voice trailing off. But actually, it didn’t feel that great at all. They seemed like nice enough guys. There was really no reason to reject them.

“Oh, stop worrying,” Poppy said. “They’d eventually do the same to you anyhow. You’re just beating them to the punch. You know what the author of
How to Date Like a Dude
says!”

That weekend, Poppy and I went out a few times, to a disco near the Place de la République and to a Latin American bar near Bar Dix. Both nights, she flirted with guys like crazy in fluid, rapid French, while I blushed and tried hard to make myself understood in English.

On Monday night, Poppy had a date and I was planning to stay home alone and watch
Amélie
, a French movie Poppy had insisted I needed to see. So, figuring that there was no rush, I decided to work late at the office to finish the following week’s junket interview schedule. Hours after Poppy had flitted out the door in a cloud of perfume, I was still hunched over a list of TV reporters who had requested interviews with Guillaume. Suddenly a deep voice above me startled me so much that I nearly fell off the edge of my chair.

“I figured you’d still be here.”

I looked up in shock and saw Gabe Francoeur smiling down at me. I was so shaken that I stood up too quickly and knocked over a box full of ballpoint pens in the process.

“Sorry,” he said, bending down to help pick up the pens that littered the floor. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Uh, no,” I said. “You didn’t startle me. I just, uh, wasn’t expecting anyone. How did you get in?”

“The door was ajar,” he said. I rolled my eyes; Poppy must not have pulled it closed behind her when she left, starry-eyed, for her date. “Still,” Gabe added, “I should have knocked. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, whatever,” I grumbled.

Gabe straightened up and handed me the pens he’d retrieved. I righted the box, put them back inside, and tried to give him my best impassive expression.

“So I see you’ve been ignoring me?” he said, arching an eyebrow at me.

I cleared my throat. “Um, no,” I said. “What would give you that idea?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the fact that you’re never available, no matter how many times I call?”

“I’ve been busy,” I said defensively. “Besides, I’ve called you back.”

“Yes, this may surprise you, but I’m not generally in the office after eight in the evening,” he said, looking almost amused. “But then again, you know that, don’t you?”

I ignored him and sat back down in my seat. I gestured halfheartedly to Poppy’s chair, which he dragged over so that it was facing me. He settled into the seat. “So, what is it you want?” I asked, trying to sound mean. “Clearly it’s something important, since you’ve called twenty times.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I don’t believe a word of what you’ve said,” he said pleasantly.

My eyes widened and I stared at him. “What?”

“About Guillaume. I don’t believe you. I know you’re covering for him.”

“Well, it’s not really my concern what you do or don’t believe,” I sputtered, feeling my temper rise. I hoped it wasn’t too obvious that he was making me nervous.

Gabe smiled. “I realize that,” he said. “But I’m working on a profile of Guillaume for the UPP. I think he’s going to be big in the United States. Really big. And don’t get me wrong. I think he deserves to be. He’s quite talented. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not buying the things you and Poppy are saying. I know you’re lying.”

I felt a little sick. I stared at him for a moment. “So that’s it? You don’t have a question for me or anything?”

Gabe shrugged. “Nope. Just wanted to let you know.” He stood up and added nonchalantly, “Oh, and I’ll be needing that interview with Guillaume, too.”

“What, I’m supposed to give you an interview now despite everything you’ve just said?”

He grinned. “No. You’re supposed to give me an interview now
because
of everything I’ve just said.”

I glared at him.

“And even if I’m right about all his insanity, certainly a rock star like him should be able to charmingly explain it all, right?” Gabe continued, that same amused look on his face.

“Well, I—” I started to retort, but then I stopped and clamped my mouth shut. I thought about it for a moment. I hated to admit it, but he was right. Obviously, Gabe wasn’t going to stop until he had some kind of story. “He’s not insane,” I finally said in a weak attempt to defend my completely nutty client.

“Oh, I know.” Gabe nodded. “He adores the attention, though. And lately, he’s been going too far. So about that interview?”

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ll try to schedule something for this coming week.”

Gabe seemed to consider this for a moment. “Okay,” he said finally.

“Okay,” I echoed. I swiveled back around in my chair to face my computer, hoping the man would disappear.

Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to get the hint.

Finally, I rolled my eyes, shut down my computer, and said loudly, “Okay, well, I have to be going now, Gabe. Thanks so much for stopping by!”

“My pleasure,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

I just looked at him. “What? No, I’ll take the Métro.”

“Oh, c’mon, Emma,” he said. “It’s like a hundred degrees outside. And I’m talking Celsius. The Métro will be miserable.”

I shrugged. What was he, Jekyll and Hyde? He was ready to destroy my career one second, and the next he wanted to drive me home? “I’ll be fine,” I mumbled.

“My car is air-conditioned,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sure I’m out of your way.”

“Where do you live?”

“Rue du Général-Camou,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t have heard of the tiny side street between Avenue Rapp and Avenue de la Bourdonnais.

Wrong again.

“Oh, fantastic!” he exclaimed. “I live in the seventh, too! What a coincidence. You’re just a few blocks from me.”

I gaped at him. I was out of excuses.

“So? Are you coming?” Jingling his car keys, he started toward the door.

In the passenger’s seat of Gabe’s immaculately clean Peugeot, I braced myself for an onslaught of questions about Guillaume, but instead he made pleasant conversation, asking me where I was from, why I’d come to Paris, and where I’d gone to school.

“You went to the University of Florida?” he exclaimed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “I can’t believe it!”

I looked at him, startled. “Why?” I asked defensively. How on earth had he even heard of the school? Sure, it was well known in the States thanks to its dominance in football and basketball. But how could some guy in France have such strong feelings about my alma mater?

“Because I went there, too.”

I was sure I’d heard him wrong. “What? But you’re French!”

“Emma, French people
are
allowed to go to school in the United States, you know,” he deadpanned.