“Yeah, no matter how many times I’ve been here, it always feels the same. Magical,” Maggie agrees, yanking her hair out of its ponytail, shaking it out, and pulling on her new designer hat. I turn to look at her and she smiles. I can tell she’s not used to having friends with her on these adventures. I love my parents, and I’m sure Maggie loves hers, but there’s just something so much more exciting about seeing the world without a guide. Without limits.
And that’s how it feels tonight — like there are no limits.
“What do you wanna do next?” she asks.
“Well, first I definitely wanna take a photo just to prove that I’m really here! Nobody back home will believe me, otherwise!” I say, whipping out my phone and pulling Maggie in beside me as I turn the camera toward us. We both flash our most genuinely blissful, goofy grins and I snap the photo. Paris sparkles in the background, like the city herself is smiling, too. Always ready for a photo op.
“Have you ever had a crepe with Nutella?” Maggie asks suddenly, grabbing my arm as though it’s the most important question in the world.
“What’s Nutella?” I ask, furrowing my brow. Maggie throws her hands up and squeals.
“Girl, you’re gonna find out en ce moment!” she replies, the French phrase rolling delicately and expertly off her tongue. For the first time, I feel the slightest dash of envy toward her. It’s not her money or her privilege that unsettles me — it’s the fact that she can speak the local language with such ease. While my high school only offered either Latin or Spanish as a half-hearted foreign language option, Maggie explained off-hand that during her lifelong travels with her parents she’s picked up French and Italian pretty fluently, and enough Spanish, German, and Russian to get by if need be.
So not only is my roommate rich, but she’s also a language savant.
Still, just like her money and familiarity with Paris are a benefit to both of us, her ability to easily communicate with the locals and read street signs are an enormous advantage. As long as I’m with her, I’ll never really be lost here.
And I’m realizing, as we race back to the lift, that I am not simply a leech in this blossoming friendship — I have something else to offer. Maggie is coming out of her shell, possibly for the first time in her life, now that she has someone to adventure with. In the few short hours we’ve spent together, she has unfolded like a morning glory under the dawn of a bright sun. When we first met on campus, she was stiff and almost cold, her words and gestures awkward. Everything about her screamed ‘fish out of water.’ But with me encouraging and reassuring her, she’s really begun to express herself.
For even though she may have felt at home waltzing in and out of designer boutiques, she was still reluctant to address a man selling pretty scarves on a street corner. She couldn’t meet the eye of the taxi driver. She apologized profusely any time she had to cross a street, even when we had the right-of-way.
But now, the two of us are skipping and laughing down the Champ de Mars, the green grass tickling our bare ankles. At my insistence, before we left the flat to embark on our citywide tour, I managed to get her into a little black dress from my own suitcase. For although Maggie has many items of designer clothing, they all fall on the hyper-conservative side. She wears the kinds of clothes one would expect of a Sunday school teacher, not a world-traveler with a perfected French accent. So with much coaching, she put on my black dress, and I slipped into a white, lacy frock. The pair of us look like we belong in a hipster photo shoot, but I think we pull it off swimmingly.
We find a crepe vendor on the edge of the green, and Maggie buys us both banana-Nutella crepes and a giant bottle of water. Then we settle down on the grass, staring up at the starry sky. The crepe is spectacular! Chocolatey, nutty, and just oh so light and delicious! And the evening? It’s amazing to me that we can still see the stars, faintly illuminated beyond the fuzzy glow of city lights. Back home, everyone always says that city people never get to see the stars. But sitting here now, I realize how very wrong they are. I’m catching onto the fact that they may be wrong about a lot of things about the world. I know there must be danger lurking somewhere in the shadows of the city, but right now all I can see is the shining light.
“This is gonna be so awesome,” Maggie gushes, wiping the chocolatey smudge from her lips with a pink napkin. “I was so nervous about coming here and being without my parents. I’ve never really done anything on my own before and I was so scared that I’d get a roommate who hated me. You always hear horror stories about college roommates, you know. But you and I… we’re gonna have so much fun, I think.”
“We are,” I agree, smiling at her.
“So, what’s next?” she chirps happily, leaning back and starting to idly braid her hair over one shoulder. I shrug and take another bite of my delicious crepe, thinking hard. I don’t really know what all there is to do in Paris. I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot — but I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin.
“Well, it’s your city, Maggie! What do you wanna do next?” I shoot back, winking. She looks positively intimidated to have been given the reins yet again. She’s clearly not accustomed to being in control. I get the sense that, just like I’ve spent most of my life trailing after my parents who are in their own little world, Maggie has been her parents’ silent shadow for a long time.
“Hmm,” she begins thoughtfully, chewing her lip. “Well, we are both eighteen now… so we could do something bad.”
I have to snort at the way she says “bad.” She sounds like a little kid suggesting that we raid her mother’s cookie jar or something.
“Uh, like what?” I press her. She blushes.
“We could go to a bar or something,” she suggests, so quietly I have to strain to comprehend her words.
“Don’t we have to be twenty-one to drink?” I ask, confused.
She shakes her head, blinking at me in shock. “No, Liv. The drinking age in France is eighteen. We’re both old enough to buy alcohol.”
“What?” I gasp in full disbelief. I can’t believe how much of an idiot I am for not knowing this. I feel like such a stereotypical dumb American, assuming the laws are the same as they are back home. Except back in Toast, drinking at any age is severely frowned upon. That’s one of the many downsides to living in a formerly dry county. A lot of the stigma remains.
“I’ve only had a few sips of wine with my parents, though. Ever,” Maggie admits, looking ashamed of herself.
“I’ve never had alcohol except for… well, this boy on the flight over here gave me a little bit of his champagne,” I tell her, the whole awkward scene with Will jumping back into my mind.
“Ooh! Was he cute?” she asks, wiggling closer and resting her chin on her hands.
“Uh, yeah. He was alright,” I say, downplaying how cute he really was. Sure, he’s cute, but he crossed a line when he tried to kiss me. Didn’t he? Now that I’m sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, sucking the intoxicatingly mystical air of a Parisian evening into my lungs… I wonder if maybe I overreacted. Perhaps I was the one who got it wrong. Maybe that’s just the way things happen here — all of a sudden, with no warning and no real reason or rhyme beyond the fact that it feels good at the time. Back home, most of my friends hardly even held hands until the third or fourth date. But maybe here in Paris, it wasn’t unusual to kiss an almost-stranger.
Maybe Will deserved a second chance.
But, I realize with a sinking heart, I never gave him my number, nor did I get his. I simply ran away before I could really take full stock of the situation. Maybe he was really a nice guy who simply liked me and wanted to show it with a sweet gesture, and I just slammed the door in his face. Suddenly, I feel incredibly rude and cruel. And foolish.
Just then, as though summoned by some spirit of kismet, my phone screen lights up to indicate a new email. It’s a weird time of evening to get a school message, but I open my email just the same… and see that it’s not a message from the university add
ress, nor from Pavlenko.
It reads:
Bonjour Olivia!
Found your email address in a student registrar online, since I didn’t catch your number in time before you left this morning. Hope I didn’t freak you out too badly. Sorry if I was being too forward. I just got swept up in the moment, I guess. Anyway, if you’re feeling up to it, there’s a big party happening tonight in the 11th arrondissement. We’re meeting up at Zero-Zero on Rue Amelot in an hour if you want to join. I want to make it up to you for overstepping boundaries today. Please let me show you a good time. I promise not to kiss you… unless you want me to.
À bientôt!
- Will
“Oh my god, speak of the devil,” I murmur, staring in shock at my phone screen.
“Who is it?” Maggie asks, peering over my arm. I look up at her, biting my lip.
“It’s the guy from the plane,” I say flatly. “And he wants me to go to a party tonight.”
“Ahh! Liv, you have to go! Can I come with you? Please, please, please!” she gasps, wiggling up and down excitedly. Gone is the nervous, fidgety girl of this afternoon. I raise an eyebrow at her.
“I don’t know, Maggie. They’re meeting up at a bar… I’ve never really been a part of that scene, you know,” I wheedled, my stomach turning anxiously. The logical, sensible part of my brain is urging me to ignore the email and just go home since I have to be up early tomorrow for my first day of training.
But another voice in my head reminds me that I’m in Paris — if I don’t take this chance now, then I’m still just the same old boring girl who had no social life in Toast, North Carolina. Everything about Paris has been like a dream, and I might as well see how much farther this crazy ride will take me. Within reason, of course.
“Okay, fine,” I sigh. Maggie lets out a giddy squeak. “But we have to get back in time for me to get some sleep tonight? And we have to stick together, alright?”
Maggie nods vigorously and jumps up, tugging my hand to pull me to my feet.
“Come on, come on! Let’s go! The night is young! Let’s do this!” she exclaims.
I can’t help but laugh at how enthusiastic she is and the oddness of the situation, this guy tracking me down like that... but deep inside I’m beginning to wonder what the hell I’m getting myself into. Call it intuition, but I feel like I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.
5
Liv
The cab rattles along down Boulevard Saint-Germain, taking us away from the Eiffel Tower and toward the eleventh arrondissement, with the sun only barely peeking out above the horizon behind us. I glance back over my shoulder through the rear window of the taxi, an ominous pit settling in my stomach. The sun is going to sleep while we ricochet through the darkening city in the opposite direction, like we’re trying to outrun the rise of the moon. I fold my hands in my lap and stare anxiously out at Paris passing by, watching the street lights dance on the glossy shop windows. Next to me in the backseat, Maggie is positively vibrating with nervous excitement.
“I’ve never been to a party at a bar before,” she mutters, fidgeting with the hem of her black dress. I’m pleased that it fits her so well, considering that it’s my dress, and Maggie is at least four or five inches taller than me. It falls to just about mid-thigh for her, and I suspect that this look is the most scandalous one she’s ever attempted.
I look over at her to see that she’s now looking slightly downcast and she continues sadly, “Actually, I’ve never really been to a party before without… without my parents around. They took me to a lot of charity galas and society balls, but I was pretty much just another accessory for them, I think. My dad with his cuff links, my mom with her pearls, and then me.”
“You got to travel the world, though,” I remind her, trying to brighten her spirit.
She shrugs. “I know, and I’m grateful for that. But it would have been nice to have a friend my own age, you know?”
I nod and bump her shoulder with mine. “Yeah, I know what you mean. So, this is kind of your one chance to break free, huh?”
Maggie smiles weakly at me. “Mhmm. Sorry for pushing you into this, it’s just that — well, I don’t know if I’ll ever be in this position again. As soon as the gymnastics program ends, I’m sure my mom and dad will ship me off to some other training seminar for whatever new hobby they’ve picked for me. You know, I always wanted to be a veterinarian but my parents wanted me to do something flashier, more fun to tell their friends about at parties.”
“But it’s your life, not theirs,” I rebut, frowning. Maggie sighs heavily.
“Try telling them that,” she replies softly. The cab turns a corner and we drive across a long bridge over dark, glimmering water down below. A sign indicates that we’re now on Boulevard Henri IV, approaching the Place de la Bastille, where the famous prison once stood. Traffic here is a little tight, and I can’t stop gritting my teeth together, my hands clutching at the seat to hold myself in place as though we might collide with another car at any moment.
“Well, if this is the one chance you’ll get, then we better make the most of it,” I tell Maggie, who responds with a wide grin.
“Thank you for understanding and not judging me,” she says. “Usually as soon as people find out what my life is like, they treat me like the weird homeschooled kid.”
I instantly feel a twinge of guilt, recalling the fact that I did think that of her upon our first encounter, taking in her conservative clothing and high-strung personality. I inwardly pledge to make up for this harsh first impression by giving her a really good night. Despite her wealth and privilege, I still feel a little bad for her, having to trudge around in her parents’ shadow all the time. Besides, she’s a sweet girl, and it is nice to have a friend who forces me to open up and expand my horizons a little bit.
“Well, if you don’t judge me for being a sheltered small-town girl, I won’t judge you for being a jet-setting cosmopolitan,” I tell her with a wink, some of France seeping into my words more and more all the time. She giggles.
“Deal,” she agrees. The cab lurches forward suddenly and we both instinctively reach over to hold onto each other, our faces wearing identical expressions of panic. Once we look at each other we immediately burst into laughter at how jumpy we are.
“Je suis désolé,” comments the cab driver, glancing at us apologetically in the rear view mirror as the taxi slides into another lane.
“Pas de quoi,” answers Maggie with a wave of her hand.
The driver takes us down Boulevard Beaumarchais and then Maggie taps his shoulder to tell him to let us out at the next cross-street, which reads Rue Saint-Sebastien. He obliges, pulling to the sidewalk. I slide out of the backseat onto the pavement and look around, blinking in the fuzzy glow of the street lamps.
“Merci beaucoup, bonne nuit,” Maggie quips to the driver as she pays him, smiling. He nods and waves at us as he drives away, leaving the two of us standing alone on the street, far across town from our apartment and the relative familiarity of the most touristy area around the Eiffel Tower. I get the sense that we’ve now moved much closer to the heart of where native Parisians hang out, where the French go to evade the gawking stares of loud-mouthed, confused tourists and sightseers.
It’s dark and the air is getting cooler by the second. I shiver ever so slightly, suddenly feeling very small and out of place in this enormous hodgepodge of an ancient city. Maggie takes my arm and looks around for a long moment, surveying the area. Then she seems to get her bearings and starts leading me down the street.
“If I remember correctly from the map I looked at this morning, Rue Amelot should be right around this corner,” she says, thinking aloud. “Aha! I was right.”
We find ourselves across the street from a tiny bar with heavy graffiti coloring the shop front with indiscernible lettering and symbols. The words ZERO ZERO appear in weathered letters above the narrow doorway, and there doesn’t seem to be any light emanating from the place. How
ever, we can certainly hear loud music sending thrills of bass through the ground to tickle our feet as we stand on the street corner. Maggie squeezes my arm.
“Ready to go in?” she asks cheerily.
I’m still surprised at how enthusiastic and brave she is for wanting to do this — at first glance she certainly doesn’t seem like the partying type. But I suppose all it takes is a miniature dose of courage and suddenly the reluctant wallflower can bloom into a vibrant rose.
I still feel more like I’m wilting rather than blooming, though.
Something instinctual in the back of my mind warns me not to step through the door. There’s a small, gloomy voice telling me that I’ve fallen too far off the beaten path, that I’m only two steps away from stumbling down the rabbit hole. And I don’t know if Wonderland is what awaits me at the bottom, or perhaps something much, much darker.
But maybe I’m just being overly cautious. After all, it’s just a bar. It’s a public place, and it’s not like I’m totally alone here. I’m with Maggie, who has both money and the ability to speak French. No matter what happens, the two of us will make it out okay. I assure myself that everything is fine and there’s no need to overreact. With a nod to Maggie, we walk up and open the door, stepping over the threshold into a dimly-lit bar scene.
There are neon signs on the walls, no chairs or tables whatsoever, and there’s graffiti absolutely everywhere. People are hanging over the bar counter, sipping cocktails and beers, while others are swaying and toe-tapping on the dance floor area. The whole bar could easily fit inside our little apartment, it’s so small. But what it lacks in size, it clearly makes up for in character. The crowd here is a little more edgy and hipster than what we’ve seen elsewhere, with jagged haircuts, tattoos, and piercings galore. Still, I don’t get a particularly bad vibe from the place, to my relief. It actually feels somewhat cozy, in a way.
“This is awesome,” Maggie murmurs under her breath. “Let’s get drinks!”
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 56
