That Night In Paris

by Sandy Barker

  Leaning Tower of Pisa

  “So,” said Lou as she licked her cone. How did she still have so much left? I’d already finished mine. “Tomorrow’s your date with Jean-Luc. You excited?”

  “Of course.” She stopped the licking and looked at me. “What?” I wiped my sticky hands on my shorts.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Uh, nothing. I just said I’m excited.”

  She eyed me dubiously, then went back to her gelato. I realised it was a total counsellor move—being quiet—but it worked. “I’m a little nervous about it.” She nodded silently—another pro move. “Ever since the other night, I keep thinking about how awful I was to him.”

  “You mean when you stopped writing?” I nodded. “You were kids. I’m sure he’s forgiven you.”

  “Maybe. I hope so.” I was quiet for a moment. “It’s not only that, though. What if he wants … well, more?”

  “You mean sex?” Had I still been eating, I would have spat gelato all over the seat in front of me. Lou seemed like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but then she’d blurt out something like that.

  “No. I mean, yes to sex, but I mean, what if he wants more, a relationship.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Well, yes. It would be. I don’t want anything like that. I just miss my friend, that’s all.”

  “Your extremely hot friend who you want to have sex with?”

  “Yes, that one,” I replied. “Oh, I want to show you something. I can’t believe I forgot.”

  I took out my phone and scrolled to the photo Mum had sent. “Here. This was at my fifteenth birthday party.” I handed Lou the phone and looked at the photo from side-on—for about the fifth time that day.

  Jean-Luc and I were standing with our arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera. He’d had a growth spurt the month before and was a couple of inches taller than me, and he had the same longish hair he had as a man—only back then it had overwhelmed his face and only one of his green eyes peeked out from under his fringe. He was wearing a boxy dress shirt and jeans—the height of 90s fashion. He was adorable.

  My hairstyle back then was “the Rachel” like millions of other females around the world who loved FRIENDS. I was wearing a strappy floral dress, not dissimilar to what I’d wear today, with a white baby T-shirt underneath, something I would never wear today. Why did we do that? My lips were a matte burnt orange—and why did we love matte lipstick so much? Although my look was quintessential late-90s and rather dated from my current vantage point, I was adorable too.

  We were both adorable.

  “Oh my gosh, you two are adorable.”

  I chuckled. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “But you don’t want a relationship with him?”

  “With anyone.”

  “Why?”

  I trotted out my stock response. “Because, I’m happily single.” It was mostly true. The whole truth was that there was no way I would ever put myself through another devastating break-up like the one with Scott. And the best way to avoid a break-up was to steer clear of relationships.

  Lou’s eyes narrowed, just slightly, but I forged ahead on my previous trajectory, hoping to distract her from probing further. “Lou, I cannot tell you how hot I am for him. I mean, the other night when we were at the bar in Montmartre, sometimes I didn’t hear what he said, because I couldn’t stop thinking about sleeping with him. I really want to sleep with him.”

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that.”

  “So, I’m torn. Is this just two old friends reconnecting, or should I sleep with him and have what I am guessing will be the best sex of my life, then call it good?”

  “Why would you want to have the best sex of your life and call it good?”

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “Nope. I don’t. I don’t get the whole thing. You’re going to have to explain it to me.” Bollocks, she’d stomped right into my (literal) no-man’s land. I was going to have to say it out loud.

  “I don’t do relationships.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever. I do friendship and I do sex, but not the middle.”

  “The middle?”

  “Yes. Love. Well, I did—once—but that was aeons ago.”

  “Like, how long? When were you last in a relationship?”

  The ghost of boyfriend past did a fly-by and I felt my stomach tighten. Ten years on and just thinking about the break-up could still blindside me. “Ten years ago,” I replied, my voice tight. Lou didn’t seem to notice.

  “Oh, wow. And how old are you? Thirty-five?”

  “Yes.” Why won’t she stop asking me about this?

  “That’s … well, you were young back then.”

  I decided to give her the truth; maybe it would appease her, and we could talk about something else—anything else. “I was young, yes—we both were—but it was also a long relationship. Five years, actually. Then he cheated. We also wanted different things, which is probably why he cheated. Not an excuse, just the reason.” I omitted the truly gory details, like how I had wanted to live across the world, and how Scott had wanted life to be staid and normal and boring.

  “It hit you hard,” she said, simply, and I suddenly found it difficult to swallow.

  I’d thought I could just give her an abridged version of the truth and she’d be satisfied, but I had forgotten who I was talking to.

  “Oh, Lou …” My voice cracked, and I let the rest of my words dissolve into the air. Do not cry, do not cry.

  I blinked back the tears and swallowed. When I finally spoke, my voice was steady, resolved. “I lost myself. I was a shell, a human shell. Maybe, if we’d just broken up like normal couples do sometimes, it would have been all right, but he cheated. He didn’t love me enough not to do that. I wasn’t enough.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. I hadn’t expressed it quite like that before—to anyone, not even Sarah. I was proud of myself.

  “Even so, you survived it and you’re a whole woman now. You’re no longer that girl riddled with self-doubt. But, you’re also still you. The teenager who was best friends with Jean-Luc is still in there. That’s why you two connected so quickly the other night.”

  I nodded as I chewed on my bottom lip.

  “Hey, did your mum send the letter?” she asked.

  I felt the weight of her scrutiny lift from my shoulders as she shifted conversational gears. “Not yet. I hope I get it before tomorrow night, though. I just want that glimpse, you know, of the younger Jean-Luc.”

  “Sure.”

  I stared down at the photo. We were adorable, but were we adorable together?

  The rest of the drive was quiet, Lou leaving me to my contemplative funk. She was a wise woman—I’d decided that about her almost as soon as I met her—and she was right. I was still me.

  But I wasn’t going to fall in love with Jean-Luc. Or anyone.

  ***

  An hour later, we arrived at the Florence campsite—well, a campsite in the hills outside Florence; I was seeing a pattern—Ventureseek tended to fudge the location of their campsites a little.

  Dani and Jaelee had filled in the rooming sheet, and we were all pleasantly surprised to discover that the cabins were a huge step up from Paris and a big step up from Antibes. Each pair got a room and there was a shared bathroom in the middle. I could barely contain my excitement at not having to traverse the campsite to go for a wee!

  The excitement was short-lived, however. We only had fifteen minutes to get changed and get back on the coach for our drive into Florence. “Right, it’s supposed to be quite warm this evening, so I’m going with a dress,” I said.

  “Remember, shoulders and knees,” said Lou as she pulled clothes out of her case with the abandon of a traveller in a time crunch.

  “Oh, that’s right.” We wanted to observe church dress for the Duomo—and any other church we might want to visit.

  “I need to brush my teeth t
oo. The gelato was incredible, but they’re furry,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s way too much information.”

  “Sorry.”

  On the way back to the coach, we told Dani and Jaelee our plan for the whirlwind tour of Florence and invited them along. Neither seemed enthused.

  “I think I’ll do the tour with the group,” said Dani.

  “You mean with Jason,” said Jae.

  “Well, yeah, he’s in the group. Hello.”

  “I’m going shopping,” said Jae.

  “You can go shopping anywhere,” said Dani.

  “Um, it’s Italy. Hellooo,” mimicked Jae.

  Lou and I threw each other a look. Trouble in paradise? Maybe the two of them spending some time apart was a good thing.

  “Are you guys going to the group dinner?” asked Lou. She was braver than I was—I was steering clear of the firing line.

  Surprisingly, they both answered in the affirmative. “Sure, that sounds good,” from Dani and, “Yeah, why not?” from Jaelee.

  “Lou? Should we go too?” I asked.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Great!” I said with far more enthusiasm than I felt. Maybe these were mid-tour blues and we all just needed a break from each other. Maybe dinner together was a bad idea. Oh well, too late now. I decided I’d find Craig and Jason and the boys and make sure they joined us. Buffers.

  ***

  “Oh, my heck. Three hours? Three hours?!” Lou did not react well to the sign posted at the end of the massive queue for the Duomo.

  “Wait here.” I wanted to make sure it was the correct queue and walked to the head of it. Fortunately, it was the queue to go to the top of the dome, and there was no way in hell I was doing that.

  Sarah had told me what it entailed: hundreds of steps up a narrow spiral staircase, then going inside the outer and inner domes up a narrower staircase to get to the roof, while people were coming down the same stairs! It was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. Even Sarah said she’d felt a little faint and she’s usually fine with things like that.

  I needed to find the queue for the church itself. I saw a small group of people crowded around a young Italian woman and could hear the jabbering American accents from fifteen feet away. I surreptitiously made my way over and eavesdropped. It was exactly what I needed to know.

  “Right,” I said, a little breathless from my jog back to Lou. “We don’t need to line up.”

  “Really?’

  “Really. This is to go up inside the cupola to the roof. We go into the church over there.” I led her away from the queue and spilled the other nugget from my eavesdropping. “It’s even free—they can’t charge to go inside a church. It will probably be crowded, but at least we’ll get to see it.”

  I grabbed Lou’s hand and led her through the multitude of people to the other side of the immense structure. When we got to the correct entrance, I stopped still and dropped her hand.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Lou, impatience clear on her face.

  “Look, Lou. It’s incredible.” I peered up at the cathedral, at its intricate marbled façade and the enormous terracotta-tiled dome.

  “We’re in Florence, Cat,” she said after a few moments.

  “Yep. We’re in Florence. I can’t believe how massive this is.”

  She grinned at me. “C’mon, let’s go in.”

  When we emerged about half an hour later, my neck was sore from staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t known about the incredible fresco under the dome. I heard a nearby guide say it was called The Last Judgement. It was extraordinary, with six tiers and hundreds of figures depicting heaven and hell and everything in between. Most of the time I was looking up, I was wondering how they’d built scaffolding that high five hundred years ago.

  “Oh, my heck. That was incredible. I can’t believe I’ve been to the Duomo.” Lou was flushed, and I wasn’t sure if it was the excitement or that the cathedral had been crowded and quite warm.

  “Are you Catholic?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her wear a cross, but that didn’t mean anything.

  “No, Christian, yes, but not Catholic. Still, it is one of the greatest churches in the world, and I’m just … wow … this trip. Sainte-Chapelle, now this. And on Friday, St. Peter’s!”

  I’m not religious, but I was also enjoying the landmark churches. They impressed me in a multitude of ways—architecturally, historically, and especially artistically.

  Duomo

  “Hey, thanks for figuring out that we didn’t need tickets.”

  “Of course.”

  “I feel like an idiot for not knowing. I mean, I’ve wanted to come here for so long, you’d think I’d do some research. You know, like logistics! Geez, Louise.”

  “Hey, it’s no problem. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We got to see inside—that ceiling!”

  “I know, right?”

  “Now, you said Piazza della Signora?”

  “Signoria.”

  “Right. Lead the way.”

  She pulled out her phone and frowned a little as she searched the pins on her Google map. She lifted her head to get her bearings, then declared, “This way.” She sounded confident and this time it was me following Lou through the crowd. I’d had no idea Florence would be so overrun with tourists—in October. It seemed busier than Paris.

  ***

  The afternoon and early evening flew by in a whirlwind of piazzas and statues and more untenable queues. There was no way we’d get inside the Uffizi that afternoon. We’d have to settle for a postcard of The Birth of Venus, and Lou looked a little deflated. “It just means you have to come back. I mean, this tour is ridiculous—less than a day to explore Florence?”

  “You booked it.” She cocked her head at me.

  “So did you.”

  “Well, I’m glad I did, because I got to meet you and Dani and Jaelee. It’s corny, but it’s true.”

  “It’s not corny, it’s sweet. Right, we’ve got about forty-five minutes before dinner and we still haven’t walked across the fancy bridge.”

  She laughed—it was at me, I could tell. “Ponte Vecchio. Old Bridge. How can you not know that? It’s, like, as famous as the Eiffel Tower.”

  “Bollocks it is. I bet you every adult in England would know the Eiffel Tower from a photo, but would have no idea where Old Bridge was, or even what it was.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Can you spout lies and walk at the same time?” She walked away and I ran to catch up—her stride was much longer than mine.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey nothing. Hurry up.” Mama Bear Lou was turning on her cub.

  ***

  “And this!” said Jaelee. She pulled a red leather handbag out of a carry bag—six others were shoved under her chair at the restaurant.

  “Well, that’s gorgeous,” I admitted. “Let me see it.” I reached across the table and took the bag from her. I smelled it. “Ahh, divine. What is it about leather?”

  “I don’t like that smell. It just smells like dead animal to me,” said Dani, her nose scrunching up.

  “You ordered the veal,” Jaelee retorted.

  “So?”

  “Well, isn’t that a little hypocritical?”

  “How so? I mean, I wear leather. I just don’t like the smell.”

  “Here you go, Jae,” I said handing the bag back across the table. I wished I hadn’t said anything.

  “So, how was the walking tour, Dani?” asked Lou, brightly. I sensed she was tiring of our bickering bus-mates too.

  “Yeah, it was okay. I mean, Jason and the guys didn’t end up going, but there was this old church, Santa Croce, and that was cool. And we saw Ponte Vecchio, like you did, and we went past the warthog at the markets …”

  “Wait, what warthog?” Lou seemed concerned she’d missed an attraction.

  “It’s this statue of a warthog. It’s made of brass and if you rub its snout, you’re supposed to return to Florence.” Lou’s frown hadn’t budged. “You know, it’s no
t far from here,” added Dani. “Maybe we can go see it after we finish dinner.”

  Lou perked up. “Really?”

  “Sure, yeah, it’s, like, five minutes away.”

  Craig arrived with Jason and the other Kiwi boys. I’d long given up trying to remember their names. As a teacher, I kept the names of hundreds of pupils in my head. I didn’t have room for many more.

  “Hey, guys,” I said as they found their places on the table. Who needed names? “Guys” was fine, right? Craig sat next to me.

  “Hey, Cat.”

  “What did you guys get up to this afternoon? Dani says you weren’t on the walking tour.”

  “Yeah, the All Blacks were playing, and I went with the guys to a bar so we could watch.” He meant the New Zealand rugby team.

  “Who were they playing?”

  “South Africa.”

  “Did they win?”

  “Too bloody right we did,” said Jason from across the table. Dani beamed at him as though he’d just won the Nobel Prize or something.

  “Oh, well, good.” I picked up my cheap wine glass, which was brimming with cheap wine, and raised it in a toast to a team I didn’t support for winning a game I hadn’t known was on, in a sport I didn’t follow. Being on tour with strangers was sometimes like entering the staffroom at a new school for the first time—banal small talk abounded.

  Dinner was fine—not great, but the food was abundant. Family-sized platters of pasta arrived for the first course, a red sauce and a cream sauce. For secondi, we’d had a choice of veal, chicken or fish. I’d gone with fish to offset the gelato for lunch, but it was so bland, there wasn’t enough salt on the table to turn it around. I also ate a reasonably sized portion of the overcooked boiled vegetables—again, gelato for lunch! I was eating my penance.

  Dessert was tiramisù, which I think is disgusting. Why would anyone take a perfectly good biscuit, make it soggy, then pile it up with other soggy biscuits and call it dessert? I nibbled on some of the biscotti that came with the coffee.