by Melinda Minx
Our lips lock together, and our tongues meet, instinctively tangling in an intoxicating dance.
We kiss for a long time—it’s technically our first kiss in Paris, though does flying above Paris actually count as being in Paris? I’ll have to kiss him again when we land just in case it doesn’t.
A stewardess asks us to take our seats, as there may be more turbulence, and we sit beside one another on one of the couches. Once she’s out of earshot, I whisper to Liam, “Can she really tell you what to do?”
He grins. “It’s just a suggestion. One I continually chose to ignore until one day some turbulence on landing caused me to slam my head into the dining table. Now I follow their suggestions.”
I wince, imagining how badly that would hurt.
The turbulence picks up shortly after we have taken our seats, and I squeeze Liam’s arm in an effort to feel safe.
“Did you really mean what you said?” I ask.
“About what?” he asks.
“That this would just be a date? No ‘selling’ our relationship, no fake smiles for the cameras?”
“Yeah,” he says. “This is just for you and me. No one else.”
19
Liam
We disembark the plane, and Amber looks around with a wide smile.
“Where’s the car?” she asks.
“Private jet or not,” I say, “we still have to go through customs.”
“Shit,” I say. “I don’t have a visa or passport or anything.”
“You don’t need one for France,” he says. “James grabbed your passport last night from your room.”
A stocky man in a small golf cart-type vehicle drives up to meet us.
“Monsieur Lion,” he says.
I rattle off some fluent French to the man in response, and then I see Amber’s shocked reaction.
“Typical old money thing,” I say.
“French is the universal language,” says the guy driving the golf cart. “Of the nineteenth century!”
He laughs at his own joke. “But of course, most of us speak the language of the twenty-first century.”
He grins at Amber and then holds out a hand. “Madame.”
He helps her get seated in the cart, and I pass him a generous tip as I climb in to sit beside her.
He drives us toward the customs section of the terminal, and we are shuffled in with everyone else who flew on a commercial flight.
“You can’t like, buy your way through this stuff?” Amber asks, glancing at the long line ahead of us.
“If you’re rich in the U.S., you can,” I say. “But Europe has this egalitarian thing going on, and they like to make big shots like me wait in line whenever they can.”
The driver throws up his hands--while still driving--and says, “It’s the French bureaucracy! When we are not going on strike, we are making everything more difficult for everyone!”
“You’re not famous in Paris, right?” Amber asks.
“Not really,” I say. “But maybe a little.”
The driver bounces up and down. “Everyone is talking about le lion, that is what we call you, Monsieur Lions, it means--”
“The lion,” Amber says, laughing.
“Why are they talking about me?” I ask. “No one knows I’m coming.”
“Ah,” the driver says. “But we do know it. Everyone knows it.”
Amber looks at me, confused.
“There’s no way anyone could have known,” I say.
“Well,” the driver says. “Big crowds, all waiting for you. Paris is the city of love. We are...ah, how do you say? Enchanted! Yes, we are enchanted that you will marry for true love. You marry this peasant girl--”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Ah, forgive me,” he says. “I mean poor girl, not peasant. Yes, the poor girl, no money, you marry her! It must be true love, oui?”
Amber laughs then, but I’m still hung up on the “le lion” stuff, and all the people waiting to see me.
“Monsieur,” I say. “How did everyone know I was coming?”
“Big commercial for your company. It played on TV, websites…le lion loves France!” the driver says.
“I thought you said this was going to be low profile,” Amber says, frowning at me.
I pull out my phone and dial.
“Jeremy,” I say when he picks up.
The golf cart has stopped, and the driver and Amber are sitting there nervously with arms crossed over their chests.
“Liammmm,” he says, sounding overly friendly, “Heyyyyyy.”
“Don’t heeyyyyy me. What’s this I hear about an advertising campaign in France?”
“Well,” Jeremy says. “I know you said not to, but--”
“That’s right,” I snap. “I fucking said not to.”
Silence hangs heavy on the other end for a long moment.
“Liam,” he says. “There was pressure from the lawyers, pressure from everyone under me...we have quotas to meet, and this whole Frost thing is--”
“I said not to,” I growl. “Fucking unbelievable.”
I should fire him. But he’s right, there’s pressure coming from all sides. From everywhere within my company. I’ve set it up like that. Pressure to succeed, to maximize profits, to be ever present and everywhere. That’s the advertising department motto. If I fire Jeremy--or anyone else--over this fuck-up, I’ll be sending the wrong message.
“Kill the ads,” I snap, and then I hang up.
“Was that all just for show?” Amber asks.
“What?”
“You’re sure you didn’t set this whole thing up like this?” she asks, scowling.
“Why would I do that?” I ask.
“You like being le lion,” she says. “And this will play out well in the media…”
I take her gently by the chin, and pull her gaze toward me. “Amber, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
But I didn’t even fire Jeremy. I did nothing to disassemble this machine that I’ve built. A machine that cares more about profit than anything else. More than about how it affects Amber.
I shake off the feeling. I explicitly told everyone not to exploit this trip. I can’t be held responsible for that.
I sigh. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
When we first enter the terminal, there is no crowd waiting there for us. The paparazzi can’t get through this end of customs.
Waiting in line, I notice some people pointing and whispering, but most everyone is too occupied with their imminent trip through customs to bother with us.
Amber and I both pass through smoothly, and as soon as we exit the agent’s station, I can hear the roar.
We turn a corner, and there are huge crowds pressed up against the small metal gates sectioning off people coming from customs from those in the main terminal.
I can see my driver holding up a sign with my name on it, but he’s surrounded by dozens of people from the press.
Amber looks at me with a mix of worry and anger.
“What?” I snap. “I told everyone not to do this. They disobeyed me. What do you want?”
She scowls at me.
“You want me to fire Jeremy? Or should I fire everyone? These people depend on me to put food on their tables, to raise families. You want me to fire people--”
“I don’t want you to fire anyone,” she mutters. “Let’s just smile and get through this.”
She takes my hand and flashes a big fake smile. The cameras start snapping photos.
We press through the mobs of people, and I plaster on a fake smile of my own.
I make the smallest of small talk as I plow my way through. We reach the driver and begin walking with him, but the people follow.
I decide to make a decisive move to push them away. It’s easier to give them a small piece of what they want--a bone to chew on--to distract them. It’s preferable than having them follow me out to the car.
I stop and turn around.
“I’d
like to say something,” I say.
Everyone stops in place. The press gets their mics and cameras poised and ready.
“This is Amber’s first time in Paris--”
“Speak French!” someone in the crowd shouts out in a thick accent.
“Amber doesn’t speak French,” I say, putting an arm protectively around her. “I want her to hear this, too.”
I clear my throat. “I want to show her an amazing time in your beautiful city. I know the ads have made a big deal about our visit, but I would like to ask all Parisians to let us enjoy your city as you yourselves enjoy it.” I point to the big mob of people. “As happy as I am to see such a...warm...reception, how can we relax and enjoy the beauty of your city if there are always cameras and microphones in our faces?”
I look out to the throng of bodies, gauging their reaction. My words could be interpreted as ungrateful, or convey that I’m just an asshole, but I see some people nodding and smiling.
“So to all Parisians,” I say. “If you see Amber and me strolling along on your lovely streets, dining in your cafes, or enjoying the exhibits in your museums...treat us as you’d treat any other visitor to your beautiful city.”
“How is that?” one of them asks.
Someone shouts out, “With a polite smile! And cold European distance!”
Everyone laughs, myself included, and I use that as my cue to turn and hurry away.
Amber smiles at me. “You handled that kind of well.”
“Let’s see if it actually works,” I say.
“I think you won them over,” she says.
“We’ll see.”
“You don’t think it worked?” she asks.
“What do you think?” I ask the driver.
“I think,” he says, “that it maybe will work.”
“There you go,” I say, smiling.
Once we are settled in the car, I lean back against the seat and stretch. “So, are you hungry, or are you tired?”
“I slept the entire flight,” she says. “But I am starving.”
“You slept through both lunch and dinner.”
“I ate some!” she says.
“Some.”
“I was saving room! I can eat a lot now!” She says pointing to her belly as if to emphasize how empty it is.
“We can go to my villa, you can change into something nice, and--”
She frowns.
“Why are you frowning?” I ask.
“Number one,” she says, holding up a finger. “Of course you have a fucking villa in Paris. I’m just a bit bitter and miffed that you have so much stuff.”
I laugh.
“Number two,” she says, holding up a second finger. “I’m hungry now, and I want to see the city now, and I don’t want to change into a dress--”
“Wouldn’t the dress be number three?” I ask, holding three fingers up for her.
“Whatever,” she says. “I’m too hungry to keep count. I want to go somewhere low-key where I can wear this.”
She points to her jeans and t-shirt.
“I’m wearing a suit,” I say.
“The good thing about a suit,” she says, “is that you can wear it anywhere.”
“Not to a black tie event--”
She rolls her eyes at me, and I realize I’m just being a jerk.
I smile, lean in, and kiss her forehead. “All right, we’ll go wherever you want. What are you in the mood for”
“Waffles and Nutella?” I ask. “Really?”
“You said we could go wherever I wanted.” She crosses her arms.
I sigh. “If I had known ‘Waffles and Nutella’ existed, I would have stipulated that--”
“It’s too late for stipulations,” she snaps. “You already said anywhere.”
We go inside the restaurant, and it’s decorated in all bright colors with simple, plastic tables and chairs. The clientele appears to be mostly made up of drunken teenagers out for a late night snack after a night of drinking. Everyone looks up at me when I walk in.
As ridiculous as it is wearing a suit to a place like this, the smile on Amber’s face when she looks at the menu makes it all worth it.
“Bananas, blueberries…” she whispers.
She grabs hold of my arm. “What are you going to get?”
I shrug. “Waffles and Nutella, I guess.”
“But look!” she says. “You can add all kinds of cool stuff to it! Isn’t it great?”
“Maybe I’ll get mine with peanuts then.”
“No fruit?” she asks.
“I want to enjoy as best I can the pure experience of the Nutella and waffles. The peanuts are just to add some texture,” I say, grinning.
I order for both of us, and the girl at the register gives me an odd look, focusing her attention on my tie. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to realize who I am.
We sit down and wait for our food to be prepared.
“This is so cool,” Amber says. “I’ve always loved Nutella, but there’s no place like this in the States.”
“You can buy Nutella at the supermarket,” I say. “And make your own waffles.”
“That’s so much work though!” she says. “Now we can just chill out and wait for it to be ready.”
I smirk, realizing that if I really wanted something like this back home, I’d just get Andreas to make it for me.
The waitress brings our plates to us, mine with peanuts and Amber’s with blueberries and bananas.
“Real plates,” she says, smiling. “In the U.S., places like this never have real plates.”
“The places I go to always do,” I say.
“You don’t go to places like this,” she says, wagging a finger at me.
“Bon appetit,” she says, wasting no time cutting into her waffle.
I smile and cut a piece of my own. I bite into it, not expecting much. I admit I’ve never had Nutella before. It always seemed like such a waste of good bread--something that would completely overpower any other flavor. But the hazelnut flavor hits my taste buds, and then the peanuts give it a nice salty crunch. Finally, the warm softness of the waffle hits me, and it all merges together into a decadent tasting treat.
Amber laughs, still with her mouth full. She points at me as she swallows it down. “I saw your eyes widen! You like it!”
I smile. “Maybe I do.”
She cuts a big piece off of her waffle, and before I can object, she piles it onto my plate. “Try mine!”
I’ve been wrong enough already, so I try the food she’s put on my plate without objection. The blueberry and banana adds a whole new dimension to everything. There’s no solid crunch of peanut, but instead there is the smooth firmness of the banana, and the blueberries explode with fruity flavor.
“Well?” she asks.
“Yours is a bit better than mine,” I say.
She grabs my plate and takes a bite.
“Hmmm,” she says. “I think you were right, though. Yours is better for enjoying the taste of the waffles and Nutella just as they are.”
At first I think she’s making fun of me, but her eyebrows scrunch up as she takes another bite.
“You know I just made that up,” I say. “I’ve never even tasted Nutella before this.”
She punches my shoulder. “You asshole!” She looks down at the plate. “But the thing you made up about how it would taste was right, the peanuts were a good call.”
I shrug. “They wouldn’t have it on the menu if it didn’t work; don’t give me more credit than I deserve.”
We finish eating, sharing off the two plates between the two of us.
“Well,” I say. “Do you want to get a drink?”
She grins. “This would have tasted even better if we went drinking before eating it.”
I smile. “We can drink, and then we can come back here and order some more.”
Her face lights up. “First, though, we have to go dancing to work off the calories.”
20
Amber
We arrive at a small little place in a small little alley. It’s the kind of place you’d only ever stumble across. The kind of place you could never intentionally find, though Liam certainly seems to know the way to it. It must be a place he stumbled across on his own during previous trips to Paris.
He holds the door open for me to enter.
“What’s this place called?” I ask. I didn’t see a sign.
He shrugs. “People who live around here just call it ‘the pub.’ I don’t think it has a real name.”
It’s dimly lit, and my first impression of the place is that it’s totally genuine and unpretentious. There’s a table of old men wearing little Old World-style hats playing cards at a corner table. There are younger people drinking wine together and laughing, but they seem so at ease that it almost looks like they live here. The bartender is a middle-aged woman who is talking to a man at the bar as if they were best friends.
I definitely feel magic in the air here. It’s like I’ve wandered into someone’s home, but everyone turns and smiles at us as we come in. They’ve immediately welcomed me into their home and made me part of their family with just one inviting look.
“Liam,” the bartender says, and then she breaks into French.
When I’m reading signs in French, I can often pick out some words or phrases that look like English. There are a lot of them. But when I’m hearing the language, it all slurs together into one nasal and incomprehensible sound. I can’t understand a word.
“This is Amber,” Liam says, switching to English. “We’re on a date, and it’s her first time in Paris.”
The bartender leans forward and extends her hand. “I’m Marie,” she says in a thick accent.
I shake her hand and smile. “This place seems really special.”
“Everywhere in Paris is special,” Marie says. “But since my parents owned this place, and since I own it now, I might be biased when I say that this place is a bit more special than all the others.”
Liam laughs. “I stumbled onto Marie’s pub almost a decade ago. I always make sure to stop by whenever I’m in Paris.”
“It wasn’t my pub the first time you were here,” she says.
“Her father was great,” Liam says, grinning.
