Page 3 of Falling for Paris
Like two squirrels looking very pleased with their acorns, they stuffed the rest of the food into their mouths.
“You can call me—”
“Tori! What the hell, Tori!” Two girls from down the alley jogged their way. The brown-haired one with a long summer dress was waving her phone in the air. “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour! Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“It hasn’t been an hour,” Victoria muttered as she grabbed her phone from the back pocket of the shorts. Alarmed by what she saw, she shot up to her feet. He did the same.
“I was so worried! Oh, hi,” the brown-haired girl’s tone shifted when she looked at him. “Bonjour, I mean.”
At that moment, the restaurant’s sous chef, Inez, gave three hard knocks against the steel door, wordlessly indicating Rafael was needed in the kitchen immediately.
“Bonjour,” he addressed the two girls. Rafael sought Victoria’s beautiful eyes before expressing his regret. “I have to go back to work.”
“Thank you, Rafael.”
“Will I…” He didn’t know how to ask but he didn’t have to.
“Are you working tomorrow? Maybe I can come down and try your restaurant with my friends?”
“Yes, I’ll be here after four tomorrow afternoon.” He tried to sound casual but his smile was so broad his cheeks hurt.
“I’ll see you, Rafael.” They were already trotting away since her two friends were on the phone dramatically announcing the retrieval of their lost companion.
“Goodbye, Victoria.”
“All my friends call me Tori!” she stated over her shoulder.
“Sorry about Sydney, Tori,” he called out. He needed her to turn around one more time.
Her friend whined, “Who the hell is Sydney?”
She ignored her companion and turned to Rafael. Walking backward, she mouthed a silentmerci.
It was past midnight when he came back outside to throw the last of the evening’s garbage. He glanced at the crate and smiled at the thought of tomorrow. Except she didn’t come back the next day. Nor the day after that.
Eventually, he accepted that the pretty girl with the stunning eyes—the very first person who had voiced the deep wish in his heart to be a chef—would not be returning.
The last time Tori was in Paris, she was a twenty-one-year-old college student who travelled with classmates for a study abroad program. When the class finished, she didn’t just want to major in French; she wanted tolivein France. What followed was a summer of uncomfortable beds and lost train tickets, cheap food and even cheaper booze, scrambling for cash and loving every minute. Life was itinerant and messy and adventurous.
Eventually, she went back to Seattle broke, exhausted, and only marginally repentant. Tori returned to university to finish her degree and moved across the country, trying to revive a bit of the adventurous spirit of an amazing summer.
Instead of an adventure, she got a job, a husband, and a condo in DC.
Now, in her thirties—OK nearly forty—less itinerant but more exhausted, Tori had accepted a few facts about herself. The very memory of her summer in France made her feel more alive than her demanding job, her mundane condo, or her ex-husband.Combined.
Now that she was back in Paris, Tori clung to the most important fact of her current circumstance:she was a divorcée on a month-long vacation with zero fucks to give.In other words, Victoria Espinoza had every intention of enjoying herself.
Her small loft rental on the outskirts of Montmartre was sparse but clean. It faced an inner courtyard of hanging clothes instead of the atrium garden advertised online, but at least it was centrally located. Before heading out for dinner, she called her sister Katerina, who was a travel expert and worrywart.
“You’ve arrived! How’s the neighborhood? Oh my god, Paris in early summer! It must be heaven,” Kat cooed. “Send me a selfie. I’ll start an album for you. You should blog about your month there.”
“I’m here to escape, not to work for your travel agency.”
It was true that Tori was due for an extended vacation. She deserved a break from the grind of her demanding position as marketing director for a prestigious accounting firm. But this trip was more than an escape.
When Tori divorced more than three years ago, she embarked on what she had come to think of as an overdue emancipation. A freeing from constraints—social, emotional, marital—that held her back for a long time. Exploring her love of cooking while returning to a city she always recalled fondly was high on her list of liberating adventures.
“I’m an international brokerage consultant now, not a travel agent,” Kat reminded her with mock seriousness. “Fine, don’t document your travels. Not like you ever did, anyway.”
