“Darling, I just worked a full day,” she says. “I’m putting myself to bed.”
“Are you walking back to the flat?” Kit asks her.Theflat, notyourflat.
“It’s a nice night for it, don’t you think?”
“I’ll walk you,” he announces, like I’m stupid. Obviously he’s going home with her to their apartment, so they can puteach otherto bed. We can be adults about it. “Maybe tomorrow night, Theo?”
“Sure,” I agree. I put on my most suggestive grin. “Have a nice walk!”
Kit gives me a weird look, but they turn and leave together.
“Theo!” shouts Blond Calum as I watch them disappear arm in arm around the corner. “You with us?”
“Nah,” I decide in the moment. “I’m gonna go see the Tower.”
I set off on my own, across the street and through the wide green lawn at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, past amorous couples and teenagers with cheap champagne and guys selling light-up rubber balls that bounce thirty feet in the air. It’s five minutes to eleven, which means five minutes until the lights on the Tower sparkle.
It’s funny. I’ve seen this tower on so many screens, I assumed it’d be underwhelming in real life. None of those establishing wide shots capture how complicated it is up close, all the flourishes and arches and curlicues and starbursts of intersecting ironwork. It’s not so bad being romanced by something familiar.
Sloane answers my video call on the second ring.
“Oh, hello,” she drawls in a Katharine Hepburn voice. “I do hope you received my latest telegram.”
“Sorry, I was trying to reach my sister, but I must have dialed theTitanic.”
“The director thinks I should try more of a Transatlantic accent. I’ve been practicing.”
“By God, I think you’ve got it.”
“Yes, I believe I do,” she agrees. “How’s Paris?”
“Well, Kit and his hot girlfriend gave me a cake. Also I drank a lot of wine and now I might have to pee in a bush under the Eiffel Tower.”
Sloane drops the accent and sighs, “Oh, Theo.”
“I know,” I say. I flip the camera to show her my view. “But look, it’s sparkling.”
I briefly consider staying in my room the next morning.
I have a few concerns, based on my track record. I’m concerned I might get pickpocketed because I’m not paying attention on the metro and wind up hopelessly lost with no way to find my way back. Maybe all the beautiful, feminine Parisianwomen might glare at me on the street, and not in a sexy way. I could discover I was right four years ago when I believed I couldn’t handle a city like this, that I belong in my familiar valley and the closest I should ever get to the wide, curious world is the label on a bottle.
And then I think of how many things I’ll never taste or smell, and I put on my boots.
I hike up to Sacré-Cœur to see its glistening white scallops and sit on the steps where John Wick died, then climb back down to gawk at the Palais Garnier. I ramble the old stone paths along the banks of the Seine, poking around secret corners and watching day drinkers on floating wine bars. Everything is different here, in small details I never thought of as changeable before, but I find the city easier to navigate than expected, and I don’t even embarrass myself when I order coffee and a croissant.
I’m beginning to suspect that a flirtatious smile and a genuine love of food and drink might get me anywhere.
The tour meets back up for lunch on a gourmet sightseeing cruise on the Seine, and I talk to Fabrizio for an hour about spaghetti Westerns while licking caviar off a spoon. We’re served an Irouleguy Blanc so carefully sculpted, I write downbuilt likeSwayze in 1989in my notes. I’m in such a good mood, I don’t care when my eyes meet Kit’s across the dining room. I don’t even think about his pity cake or new relationship. In fact, I decide I’d be more concerned if Kitwasn’tdating anyone. He’s so good at it, it would be a waste for him to stay single forever, like Meryl Streep quitting movies.
I, personally, am single by choice, not lack of opportunity. I get plenty of opportunities. At my last wedding gig, I pulled a bridesmaidanda groomsman, and we gave one another so many opportunities that I had to have Gatorade for breakfast.
For the evening, we have tickets for the Moulin Rouge dinner cabaret, so I change into the nicest outfit I packed, a sleeveless black linen jumpsuit that plunges down my chest in a deepV.I turn in the mirror, pleased with the clean, subtle lines of my chest. I look good, strong, androgynous. Like someone who’s not afraid of this city and never has been.
My luck runs out under a glittering chandelier. Inside the theater, the space arches in lush, carpeted tiers with crisp white linens and lamps with opulent silk shades on endless tables. We’ve been divided into tables of six and eight, and as Fabrizio hands us off to our maître d’, I realize who I’m seated with.
“Hello again,” Kit says.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Hi.”
