Page 2 of Tender Offer
Getting lost in the district’s boulevards is surprisingly easy when you don’t know where to go. My BlackBerry is laughing at me from where it lies next to my glasses on my nightstand. It’s turned off to avoid roaming and data charges and is only for emergencies.
Heather once racked up a $500 bill during a spur-of-the-moment trip to Lisbon over spring break. Never once did she bat an eye about forgetting to sign up for an international plan.
Unlike me, my college roommate can afford it, as well as the summer yacht trip around the Mediterranean she’s currently enjoying. Her father is too occupied with the demands of a Hollywood exec to care about his daughter ditching her year abroad to run off with a six-two model with perfect cheekbonesand three middle names. Heather would still have more than half a year in France if she didn’t blow off the trip, but her lack of interest is my ticket to calling Paris home until next spring.
We met during our freshman year at Bodie University. I was in a scramble to revamp my closet, which needed a resurrection, and she complained about her father subjecting her to a dorm. What style I did have on display caught her eye. One compliment turned into Heather telling a friend, who told a friend.
Before I knew it, I had a growing clientele of Bodie trust fund kids, who paid monthly styling fees for me to plan their outfits. It covers what’s left of my tuition but not this study abroad trip in Paris—let alone a $500 cell phone oops for trying to find a place to eat.
My $35-a-month prepaid cell plan is nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. I keep it for clients and to call home, not that the latter is quick to answer. My parents refuse to part ways with the landline we’ve had since I was a kid. Their promise to be more available while I’m in France means Dominique is at the library twice a week to check her email. Daddy is always on the boat, and Mama is “too old to be learning that technology.”
I stop in front of a restaurant on Rue Chaptal. The menu in the window does not suit my appetite or wallet. Mawmaw, rest her soul, is turning in her grave at the thought of me entertaining two pieces of lettuce as a meal.
“Moun ka manjé ça?” she’d say about those scraps passed off as a gourmet meal. My grandmother passed away six years ago, when I was sixteen, but she always kept us fed on rice dressing with leftovers. I miss her, but Mawmaw will have to understand tonight.
The farts in my stomach passed the point of embarrassment. Never mind that my toes are seconds from scraping the concrete like in aFlintstonesepisode. With all the miles I put on these cheap shoes, I need a break.
There has to besomethingstill open that doesn’t cost a small fortune and comes with a piece of bread. Frog legs are acceptable. They’re a delicacy back home, next to gator and boudin. I’m losing hope with every restaurant I pass, but I did not come all this way to give up. On this district or on Paris.
The swap for me to take Heather’s place wasn’t easy. It was a race for me to get a passport and the proper visa, but I did it. Heather and I both pursuing business degrees meant I could keep the courses she selected in play. The school agreed, and off I went.
Mama had a fit about me leaving the country, but she didn’t raise no fool. The host university here still calls me Heather, but I’ll answer to Coco Chanel if necessary.
I’m here. Beyond the edges of the small city I’ve called home since leaving for college two years ago. I love my family, but I want more than the life waiting for me back in Breaux Bridge. None of them have ventured beyond the city limits in years, outside of the occasional visits to Lafayette and New Orleans.
I was always different, reaching beyond what was in front of me to touch possibilities. I want more—the glitz, the glamour, and everything that comes with it.
Coming to Paris is a new chapter in a story I’ve yet to write.
A break in the buildings appears. I peek into an open walkway with trees sheltering an aged path from the sun and see a modest cream property with sage shutters. All hope dissolves. It’s not a quaint restaurant among rustic, wrought-iron buildings in the city’s bustle. It’s…a museum?
My overworked heels crunch against gravel on my way to the glass-paned double doors. The museum, which is focused on romantic life, houses antiques and paintings. I can’t douse any of them in Tabasco sauce and eat them. Love is nice, but I want food. Still, I step inside in search of a place to sit and rest my feet.
“Like what you see?” a voice asks in French, breaking through the silence. It’s low, a touch above a whisper, and very close.
My eyes lift from the portraits of women in gilded frames to the source, which is blessed with a perfect pair of lips. The bottom one has some weight to it and rests above a small patch of dark hair on his jaw. Warm honey skin peeks out from a crisp white shirt. A sequence of buttons draws my eyes up to a trimmed mustache, then to the sharp blade of a nose, and finally to cognac-colored eyes that are fixed on me.
The yellow parlor room is now two sizes too small, thanks to the presence of this runway model in the wild knocking the breath from my lungs. If he doesn’t pout in front of a camera for a living, he should find an agent. His stare alone is stifling.
A brow raises in wait. I haven’t answered him, and I get the sense he isn’t in the habit of repeating himself.
My “No” lacks any outward sign that the man next to me, in a navy suit tailored to his form, has zero effect on me. He’s not close enough to breach any personal boundaries but is thickening the air with his spiced cologne.
I steal another glance, this time at his near-black hair, which is thick and perfectly styled. There’s a curl at the edges, teasing the texture of its natural form.
“Do you like what you see?” I say in a tone that would make Miranda Priestly proud. My breath steadies to keep my pulse from pounding like shoes in a dryer.
No one except statues should have erect nipples in an art museum, but thank God for padded bras.
Two dimples peek out at his nod. “Very much so,” he says.
I redirect my attention to the antique table in front of me. Brass hardware. Tapered legs. It’s a beautiful piece, like some I’ve seen in the antique mall on Bridge Street back home. Vintage furnishings don’t turn me on. Gorgeous men do, and that’s not the point of this trip.
“Did you need something?” Steel anchors my question, catching him off guard.
He considers me under a fan of black lashes. My sandals have three-inch heels but still put me half a foot below his gaze. Seconds pass, our eyes locked in a standoff.
Remember Lauren Conrad.
