Page 33 of Cowgirls Love French Kisses
Except that I'm wrong. It doesn't say “transaction denied” at all.
It eats my card.
Please see teller, flashes in front of me.
“No, no, no,” I start recklessly pressing the cancel button, but the screen is unchanged and my card is gone.
I march right back into the bank, my boots thumping out a rhythm that's either determination or desperation. The teller sees me coming, and her expression sours like she’s chewed on a lemon.
“Ma carte, s'il vous plaît,” I say, my French rough around the edges but clear enough. “The machine took my card.”
She sighs, the sound heavy with exasperation. “Mademoiselle, you must call your bank. There is nothing more I can do from here.”
“But I told you?—”
She cuts me off with a flurry of French, her words too quick for me to catch all of them. “Toujours la même chose avec les Américains, toujours un spectacle. Bonne journée, mademoiselle,”she finishes with a smirk that doesn’t reach her eyes.
I stand there, a flush creeping up my cheeks as the meaning filters through.Always the same with Americans, always a spectacle.
Have a nice day, indeed. The sting of it sits heavy in my stomach, but I square my shoulders, refusing to let it show.
“Mercifor nothing,” I declare and turn on my heel, the click of my boots rapping their farewell, leaving the teller and her thinly veiled scorn behind me.
Hoofing it away from the bank, each step feeling heavier than the one before. Always a spectacle? Well, I’ll be. But I can't shake off her words, or the way they seemed to repeat the same tune I've been trying to ignore since I got here. My Texan twang sticks out like a sore thumb in a city that wraps its tongue around words as smooth as silk.
I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window—all denim and paisley in a sea of black and beige—no wonder I feel like I don’t belong here. Even my smile feels out of place, like it's just too darn big and too darn genuine for a city that's as mysterious as a locked diary.
Paris, you're a puzzle with too many pieces, and I'm not even sure I've got the right box.
Will I ever fit into your beautiful, bewildering picture? Or am I destined to be the piece that got lost behind the couch, only found long after the puzzle's been regifted?
I’m late now, darting down Rue de Rivoli, where the grandeur of Paris stretches in the elegant shop fronts. Dodging tourists is a sport, while I’ve got skipping around street performers down to an art.
The gigantic block that is the Louvre peeks out between streets, and I can be sure my CEO pupils are already around the table and likely sighing loudly at what is going to be my late arrival. Only by five minutes, but late none the less, and these are not the type of folks who find that fashionable.
The closer I get, the more I push the teller’s sour face from my mind, replacing it with the what I know is going to be a great follow-up lesson on idioms. The CEOs love that stuff. I need that right now, as well as the cash payment for the week, especially since every euro counts after that blasted ATM ate my card.
Every distraction is a welcome?—
Mathieu.
That’s him, Lord as my witness, it is him in the flesh and blood and I’ll be a horse hoof if I’m wrong this time. Just ahead, just across the street, right in front of the Louvre like it’s any old Friday. He's been plucked out of my wishful thinking and placed right in my path.
He sees me.
The world shrinks to a pinpoint, just Mathieu and me, locking eyes across the bustling street. It's as if the morning's chaos, the honking cars, the chattering crowds, even the very beat of the city's heart, has slowed to an inhale. His gaze holds a softness, and I can’t read that look. Like a conversation stopped mid-word.
And then he smiles.
It’s him. This is real, and finally we can finish whatever it was that started between us. An invisible thread pulls me toward him and my mind is a blank slate as I step off the curb. I have to believe the right words will come to me when he’s in front of me.
But his smile falls.
Don’t tell me he doesn’t want this. I will dissolve into a pile of mess if he doesn’t at least feel a little bit the same.
I freeze in the middle of the crosswalk and Mathieu's eyes widen with a fear that cuts through the stillness. In a flash, he's moving, not away, but toward me—a lightning bolt and I am one-hundred percent confused about what’s happening here.
“Oof!” I barely register the motion when he crashes into me, a tangle of limbs and urgency, and we hit the ground hard.
