Page 36 of French Kiss

14

Bonjour

July 11 - Morning

TGV Train from Amsterdam to Paris

I’d wokenup before seven in the morning to catch the high-speed train to Paris.

I made sure to pick a window seat so I could lean against the wall and nod off during the ride, but the views out the window were too pretty to miss. After the train had been moving for a half hour or so, I made my way to the food car and bought a café au lait and a pain aux raisins pastry.

When I got back to my seat, I surveyed the passengers seated around me and noticed a lot of them were men in suits, presumably going to Paris for meetings. We were set to arrive at just before noon, plenty of time to get in a good half day of work. The two men sitting across the aisle from me each had on light-colored sport coats, one soft brown with purple threads running through in a crosshatch pattern and the other light-grey checks. They both wore pale-pink shirts. So different from the way men dressed at home.

There was something fashionable about suits that deviated from the standard black, grey, or navy blue. I looked down to check out the socks visible in the space between their pants cuffs and their shoes. One wore purple striped socks, and the other had paisley ones in dark brown. Again, different from what I’d see at home.

The fact that I was noticing things like this was a sign that I was starting to cast off the stresses of my San Francisco life from the past three years and open myself up to the broadening influences of travel. It felt good.

The coffee tasted bitter and hot, and after another hour, I was craving a second cup, so I got up and went back to the food car. This time, I lingered and drank my coffee while looking over the copies of Le Monde and the International Herald Tribune. Only the Tribune was in English, so I took in the headlines, realizing I hadn’t even thought about politics or news since I’d gotten on the plane. That, too, was nice.

I checked my phone to see if Maddox had texted or left a message, but I had no missed calls and no new texts. That was strange, but it was not unlike him to go silent. I was actually relieved because that meant we were still meeting as planned.

Under the Eiffel Tower, right in the middle, between the four legs at the base. That’s where we’ll meet. Five p.m. Don’t be late, he’d texted.

I felt nervous and excited at the idea of us being alone together in Paris, and the coffee wasn’t helping me stay calm. So I dumped the remains, went back to my seat, and stared out the window for most of the rest of the ride.

I couldn’t believe how beautiful the scenery was in the middle of the country. I saw the occasional farmhouse, but mostly, I gazed out on one kilometer after another of verdant fields made lush by the year-round rains. Every so often, the train would speed through a station, not stopping and blowing a gust of wind at the people standing on the platforms, waiting for other trains. The ash on the end of one man’s cigarette glowed deep orange as the train blew past. He stood motionless, as though accustomed to the movement of trains.

Living in San Francisco, I’d ridden the BART trains occasionally, but I’d never traveled a long distance by train. I found it far more relaxing than flying, partly because I could get up and move around whenever I wanted. Also, the seats were bigger.

Eventually the train started to slow as we approached the Gare du Nord, the Paris station for trains to and from the north. As we got closer, I saw rows and rows of tracks, all converging from different directions and running parallel to each other, at least twelve across. Then we pulled up to the platforms, dozens of them, all bustling with porters and passengers coming and going.

When the train stopped, I joined the crowd and walked alongside the train until I entered the station with its soaring ceilings and intricate details, demonstrating that the European rail systems were not an afterthought but an important part of life. The outside of the station was equally impressive.

I consulted my GPS to help find my way to the hotel I’d picked out in the sixth arrondissement. I didn’t have much luggage, just a small overnight bag in which I’d packed a few days’ worth of clothes and another small roller bag. The summer weather made it easy to pack light, so a couple of dresses, skirts, tops, and a pair of pants fit easily in my bag with other essentials. I slung it over my shoulder and dragged the other bag down the road in the direction of my hotel.

It didn’t take long before I realized the walk I had in mind was too far with a bag weighing on my shoulder, so I called an Uber, and it took me right to where I planned to stay, at the Hôtel de Seine.

As the Uber snaked down the small one-way Rue de Seine, I took a moment for a gut check. Is this crazy?

I’d been having a perfectly nice trip with friends, and here I was, traveling three hours south to meet a guy. We’d had three years for a romantic spark to ignite between us, and nothing had happened. Was I so infatuated with him that I was willing to take this desperate chance to be alone with him in a romantic city to see if the one hot hour we had on the roof of the bar might turn into more? My self-esteem hated to think the answer was yes.

But as soon as I pulled open the door to the Hôtel de Seine, all those thoughts left my mind because I was in Paris. The hotel lobby was an appealing array of rose-colored velvet settees and marble-topped antique side tables. The light from tiny wall scones seeped out under floral lampshades, casting shadows on pale-pink-patterned fabric that covered the walls.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” the clerk at the desk said when I walked up.

“Bonjour,” I said uneasily. “Parlez-vous Anglais, s’il vous plaît?”

“Oui, bien sûr. Welcome to the Hôtel de Seine. How can I help you?” Her accent was strong, but her English was perfect, and I was relieved.

“I reserved a room here under the name Hannah Stein.”

She looked in her reservation book, which was a charming handwritten record of guests’ names. Before I could believe I’d fallen back into the twentieth century, however, she turned to a computer screen and began typing and paging through entries and then looked up. “Yes, I have it. You have a room with one queen bed, breakfast included, yes?”

I glanced up at her, a tiny part of me expecting to see a knowing glance, acknowledging that I’d requested a bed big enough for two. I’d booked the room for myself, but in the back of my mind, I allowed for the possibility that Maddox might stay there with me. We’d never talked logistics, and I assumed he’d found his own hotel room, but with the way he’d described us meeting… “Let’s fall in love,” he’d said.

If he kissed me like he did on the roof, there was no way I’d be able to resist letting him fuck me senseless. If not here, it would never happen. So when I’d looked at the room options, I bypassed the singles and chose one that could accommodate two and only had one bed. Protecting myself from potential embarrassment, I reasoned that many people would choose a hotel room with a decent-sized bed even if they weren’t expecting someone else to join them.

“Yes, that sounds right,” I managed to say.

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