I Heart Paris

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘The train goes from the Gare du Nord, I believe the next train is at four-twenty.’ He wrinkled his nose, not even knowing it, but channelling concierge extraordinaire, Jenny Lopez. ‘And it will take approximately one hour. And then you can walk to the main square.’

  ‘I just came from the bloody Gare du Nord!’ I clung to the concierge desk and stamped out of sheer frustration. ‘It’s too late. How much would it be for a taxi?’

  ‘Very expensive.’

  ‘Very?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I put my forehead on the counter and waited for inspiration to strike. And waited. And waited. And—

  ‘Possibly I could help,’ Alain’s said reluctantly. ‘I could drive you to Arras.’

  ‘Are you shitting me?’ My face was shining brighter than a Christmas tree. ‘I mean, really? Are you sure? Because that would be amazing.’ Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was a huge imposition, but I was too desperate to decline politely. I hadn’t come all the way back to mess up now.

  ‘I live in Arras,’ he replied, signalling to another concierge further down the desk and saying something in rapid French. ‘I can drive you to the festival. I leave very soon.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, it sounds like a great plan.’ I waited for him to come around to my side of the concierge desk and gave him a little hug. Which, I realized as he stiffened, was apparently too much. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘This way.’ He coloured up and gestured out of the door.

  Alain listened to my story with polite attention as I was driven through Paris for the third time that day. I was just at the part where I saw Alex and Solène together, my hands gesturing wildly and practically jumping up and down in my seat when I realized that there was an actual possibility that Alain was just helping me to get out of work for the afternoon. His firmly-set jaw and white knuckles, tightly wrapped around the steering wheel did seem to suggest that he wasn’t finding my companionship relaxing. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten two bags of Percy Pigs and a Toblerone on the train back from London. My sugar buzz was worse than any early-morning champagne rush.

  ‘And well, I just really need to talk to my boyfriend, so thanks for this,’ I said, cutting the story short and folding myself back into the passenger seat. I checked his expression out of the corner of my eye, wondering if he would be desperate to know what happened next. Letting out a small sigh of relief, Alain stared at the road ahead, relaxed his vice-like grip on the steering wheel and reached across the gear stick to turn on the radio. Loud.

  I just about managed to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut for the rest of the journey, much to Alain’s visible relief. For every mile we drove in silence, I could see his shoulders slowing inching down from their previous position, tightly tensed up around his ears. After twenty long minutes of bad French radio (I would never have had Alain pegged as a country fan), we pulled up at the front gate of the festival.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I said, fumbling for the door handle. ‘You’re a life-saver. Really. I just can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘Of course.’ He loosened his concierge’s tie, confirming that letting me out of the car meant that his working day was really over. ‘We will see you back at the hotel very soon?’

  ‘Hopefully not too soon,’ I said, clambering out of the car. ‘I mean, hopefully not later within the next hour or anything.’

  ‘Yes, hopefully not too soon,’ he repeated, his intention pretty unmistakable. Still, he had brought me to the festival, and he hadn’t kicked me out on the motorway when I accidentally spilled half a can of Pepsi all over his upholstery, so I needed to be thankful, not pissy.

  Closing the door carefully, I waved him off, reapplied lipgloss and walked up to the gate. Unlike every other festival I’d ever had the misfortune to attend, there wasn’t a muddy field in sight. The huge stage was set at one end of, well, the main square. I wasn’t sure quite what I had been expecting, but this was beautiful. I decided it was a good thing that my guest pass was still waiting for me at the entrance and peered around the ticket gates into the festival. Man alive it was busy. How was I supposed to find Alex among all these people?

  ‘You’re such a genius, Angela,’ I muttered, pushing through the crowds. ‘Get delivered to the middle of nowhere in a country where you can’t speak the language, without a bloody phone, and then expect to be able to find your boyfriend in the middle of ten thousand people.’

  What made this especially difficult was the fact that at least sixty per cent of the ten thousand people were dressed just like my boyfriend. Every single one of Paris’s hipsters had descended on Arras and it looked to me like they’d shipped in some reinforcements, just in case. As much as the very idea of it pained me, I had to head to the main stage and see if I couldn’t get into the artists’ area. It was super unlikely that Alex would be in there, he was always out watching bands somewhere, but the chances of Craig declining backstage hospitality? Cold drinks and hot groupies? There was no way he was anywhere else.

  ‘I think I’m on the Stills list, it’s Angela Clark?’ I said, approaching the two very large men guarding the backstage gate and holding my lanyard out for inspection. It wasn’t quite a Jedi mind trick, but it should have worked. Instead, they looked at me, looked at each other and then carried on ignoring me.

  ‘No, really, I’m on there,’ I said, hoping it was true. ‘I’m looking for Alex Reid?’

  ‘You and me both,’ said a familiar voice behind me.

  I whirled around to find Graham carrying his guitar case, and threw myself into him for a hug. ‘What’s going on Angie, where is he?’

  ‘What do you mean, where is he?’ I asked, really not wanting to let go as he shook me off. It was so good to see Graham. It felt like for ever since I’d said goodbye to him the night before. ‘I came here to find him.’

  ‘But I thought you were back in London.’ He waved his access all areas pass at the great big men and they parted slowly, allowing us through. ‘You didn’t go?’

  ‘Why would you think I was in London?’ I asked, spotting Craig leaning against the bar, talking to a cute blonde. Of course.

  ‘Because I have some insane voicemail from Alex saying that you’d bailed on him and gone to London so he was going after you.’ Graham dug around in his pocket for his iPhone, pressed a few buttons and passed it to me. ‘Care to listen?’

  I pressed the hot phone to my left ear, sticking my finger in the other so that I could hear the message over the roaring crowd that were greeting the band just about to take the stage.

  ‘Hey man, uh, I gotta go to London and find Angela, I fucked up and I have to make things right.’

  I swallowed hard. He had gone to London? He’d followed me?

  ‘I’ll try and be back for the show, but uh, well. I guess I might not be. I’ll try and get back. Sorry man.’

  I handed the phone back to Graham, all of the colour draining from my face, rendering all of the Clarins girl’s hard work more or less pointless.

  ‘Did you call him back?’ I asked, frantic. Alex had gone to London? Why had Alex gone to London? How did Alex know I’d gone to London?

  ‘Of course,’ Graham said, pushing his glasses up his nose and giving me a not particularly friendly look. ‘I couldn’t get through to him. I’m guessing the reception isn’t that good under the ocean.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ I confirmed, trying to ignore the fact that he wasn’t looking any happier with me as the conversation went on. ‘But it has to come out the other side sooner or later. Can we try again?’

  ‘You try.’ He pushed the phone back into my hands. ‘I have to go sound check my equipment. In case the rest of my band shows up and we actually get to go on.’

  ‘Gotcha.’ I gave his back a quick salute as Graham strode off, physically dragging Craig away from the blonde and the bar. I really didn’t like it when he was mad at me. It took me a couple of seconds to work out how to redial the last number on the i
Phone and waited for it to ring through. Which, thank God, it did.

  ‘Hey, Graham, man,’ Alex answered and launched straight into his apology. I choked up before I could stop him. ‘I’m really sorry, I know I’ve fucked you and Craig over, but I have to talk to Angela, I’ve let this situation get way out of hand and I just need to get her to come back or to just listen to me or something. I’ll be back before we’re on. When are we on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I stuttered down the phone. ‘But I do know I’m not in London.’

  ‘Angela?’

  ‘Yes?’

  There was an awfully long silence on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Angela, are you in Paris?’

  ‘Arras, actually.’

  ‘You’re not in London?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you in London?’

  ‘Erm, just for a bit.’

  Another long pause.

  ‘I’m gonna run out of battery,’ Alex said finally. ‘Can you please just sit your ass down and not move until I get back?’

  I nodded emphatically.

  ‘Are you nodding at the phone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK.’

  And he hung up.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I stared at the phone and wondered what I was supposed to do next. I thought about texting him, apologizing for sending him on a wild goose chase to London except I had no idea how to text from an iPhone and I really didn’t want to have to ask Graham. And besides, if Alex’s phone was out of battery, he wouldn’t get it anyway. Damn it. Feeling like a complete spare part, I wandered back to the bar area and asked for a coffee. Dropping into a chair at an empty table, I pulled out my iPod and laptop. All I really wanted to do was sleep until Alex got here and then wake up just in time to see him take the stage, sweep me up in his arms in front of all of Paris’s assembled musos and declare his love for me. But given the events of the last twenty-four hours, that seemed about as likely as me getting onstage and filling in for him if he didn’t make it back in time for the band’s set.

  My laptop was still on the same page as when I’d closed it in the Gare du Nord hours ago. I read and reread what I’d written in the morning. It was all still true, I had been completely effed over by a girl this week although no one had really messed anything up quite as magnificently as I had messed up myself. I apple-xed the text until I was left with an empty page and then started again.

  The Adventures of Angela: Know Your Enemy

  Confession time. This is the second time I’ve written this blog post in the last twelve hours and I am slightly worried that it might be my last. To cut a really long story short (this is only a blog, after all) I came to Paris this week with visions of bicycle rides by the Seine, skipping through the Louvre hand-in-hand with my Brooklyn boy and generally devouring everything edible that came my way, but instead I got something really quite different.

  Rather than La Vie en Rose, I got La Vie en Rubbish. Between transatlantic rows with my best friend, a total psycho trying to steal my boyfriend, another one trying to steal my job and a great big bout of homesickness, I really haven’t had a lot of time to steal kisses on the Pont Neuf or inhale macaroons at Ladurée. It’s been a bit of a busy week. And now I’m sitting here trying to work out just what the bloody hell went on. I can’t help, but feel that if I had just had more confidence in my own decisions and in myself, I really could have avoided at least some of my problems and it’s possible that I wouldn’t be sitting backstage at the Main Square festival in Arras, looking like something Worzel Gummidge threw up. At least my black eye has more or less gone now – I’ll explain that later.

  So I’m trying a new approach from here on. I’m going to actually tell people what I’m thinking, do what I want to do and see what happens after that. Que sera, sera and all that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to let you know how that works out for me…

  I pressed send and hoped for the best, closing up my laptop and sipping my coffee. Graham and Craig were still AWOL, presumed sound checking and so I rested my head on my forearms for just a minute, closing my eyes and listening to the lilting music that drifted around from the front of the stage.

  ‘Angela?’ a small voice whispered above me.

  I opened my eyes, realizing that I was still face down on the table and from the smudgy black marks on my arms, I’d been there for a while. The music blasting out of the backstage speakers was quite different to the gentle lullaby that I remembered playing and my arms prickled with goose bumps. How long had I been asleep?

  ‘Angela?’ the voice asked again.

  I looked up, blinking and confused. Where was I again? Standing beside me at the side of the table, but well out of arm’s reach, was Virginie. It took me a moment to remember why I felt a burning desire to claw her eyes out, but once I worked it out, the feeling did not go away.

  ‘Sod off,’ I said, plonking my head right back on to my arms. I was too tired to deal with her and really, what could she have to say that would help?

  ‘I have sent an email to your Mary to tell her everything.’

  Oh. What do you know?

  ‘Really?’ I asked, opening one eye.

  She nodded, still standing a fair distance away, with her arms wrapped around her back. It made me feel a bit weird to think that she might be scared of me, but it also made me feel ever so slightly awesome. I was badass and somewhere in LA, Jenny Lopez would be smiling.

  ‘What about this beauty assistant job you applied for?’ I opened the other eye.

  Virginie shrugged. ‘It has been filled. I do not think Cici was even speaking to anyone about me. I am sorry. I have been stupid.’

  Waking up properly and taking a good look at her, I realized Virginie was not looking her sparkly pep-tastic best. In fact, she looked slightly shit. Her eyes and nose were rimmed with red and her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and not the stylishly messy kind, it actually looked as if it needed washing.

  ‘They already filled the job?’ I pulled out the chair beside me and nodded for her to sit. Instead, Virginie regarded me nervously and ran her fingers along the back of the chair. ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, sit down, I’m not going to hit you,’ I said, holding up my hands in a gesture of peace, ‘not again anyway. And well, sorry about that.’

  ‘I would hit someone that did the same to me,’ she said, sitting across from me. I made a note never to piss her off. ‘And they have filled it, if there was a job to begin with. It is possible that she created the advertisement herself, is it not?’

  ‘It absolutely is,’ I agreed, refusing to feel sorry for her. ‘So you didn’t bother to check it out with anyone at Belle before you agreed to try and ruin my life?’

  ‘The girl I knew, the old beauty assistant, she was fired,’ Virginie explained. ‘Cici told me she got fat.’

  ‘They can’t actually fire someone for getting fat,’ I said, really hoping it was true. ‘If she was fired then there is a job?’

  ‘I do not know, but there is so much talk of restructure and lay-offs in the US office it is possible she is not being replaced.’ Virginie wiped a stray tear away from a tired-looking eye. ‘And yes, you can be fired for being fat.’

  ‘Shit,’ I breathed, regretting getting full-fat milk in my coffee. ‘Well, I appreciate it. The email.’

  ‘It is the least I can do.’ Virginie tried to smile, but didn’t do a terribly good job. ‘I know I have not helped you this week and I know it has been difficult.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ I rubbed at the smudges on my arm and tried not to think what that meant for the make-up on my face. ‘I saw Solène at the show last night, before I saw you outside. Apparently she’s decided she’s taking Alex back.’

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry.’ She tentatively reached a hand out and lightly squeezed my forearm. ‘I was hoping that we were wrong.’

  ‘Well, I said she’s decided, not he’s decided,’ I clarifi
ed for my pessimistic pal. ‘I don’t know what he’s decided. ’

  ‘You did not speak with him last night?’ Virginie asked, pulling her hand away. Baby steps.

  ‘He didn’t come back to the hotel last night,’ I said. I really hated telling people that part. ‘And I wasn’t around this morning.’

  ‘I see.’ She pressed her lips together and rolled her silver necklace between her thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right.’

  We sat in silence for a moment, neither one of us knowing quite what to say. There was no point in Virginie leaping back on to the cheer wagon, I wasn’t going to believe it now, and I was all out of energy. I just wanted to see Alex.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked, as much to break the tension as anything.

  ‘Six-thirty?’ Virginie checked her watch. ‘Six-thirty-five. Alex, he is playing very soon. Isn’t he here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I stood up, looking for Graham and Craig. If Alex’s phone was flat, he couldn’t let them know whether he was going to make it or not, and there was no way he would know anyone’s mobile number off by heart to call from a payphone. ‘I’m going to go and have a look.’

  ‘May I come along?’ Virginie asked, leaping to her feet. ‘I would like to help, if I can.’

  ‘Why not?’ I shrugged. It was just a waiting game now. There was no more damage to be done.

  The security around the stage area was conveniently lax and between my guest pass and Virginie’s press pass, we managed to make it up to the side of the stage without too much trouble. Graham and Craig were standing with their equipment, looking anxious.

  ‘Did he call?’ Graham asked, holding his hand out for the phone I’d completely forgotten I still had. I pulled it out of my handbag, attempting to peel the sticky Toblerone wrapper off it before I handed it back.