I Heart Paris (22 page)

‘He is,’ I sniffed, half of me in the taxi with her for one more hug, half wishing I could jump in with her and leave all my troubles behind. Again. ‘And when you meet him, you’ll know.’

‘Can’t wait.’ Lou stuck her head out of the taxi window. ‘But you realize you have to bring him before I’m the size of a house or wait until after the baby is born. I’m not having you and your gorgeous boyfriend trotting around London while I look like Shamu trussed up in maternity gear.’

‘Got it,’ I saluted, waving madly as the taxi pulled away.

I stood at the side of the road, staring at the flow of traffic for far too long, waiting for my mood to balance out. I was so happy to have seen Louisa, but so incredibly sad to see her go. I really hadn’t registered how much I missed her. And she was having a baby. It seemed incredibly rude that her life should go on without me in it, but I was undeniably relieved that we had picked up exactly where we had left off. Well, about an hour before where we left off really, when she was still my best friend in the whole world, to whom I could tell anything. Not the sobbing, heaving mess of a woman who’d just had her wedding ruined by a mentalist, aka me. A huge part of me wanted to jump in a cab and go after her, reinvent myself as Auntie Angela, the favourite auntie who let you play with her make-up and always has sweets, but really, that wouldn’t help me. It might help me eat fewer sweets, but apart from that, it wouldn’t solve my present predicaments.

Luckily there wasn’t too much time for me to dwell on my cock ups, past, present or future. It was already after seven and I was meeting Virginie at some random bar she’d picked between seven and eight and since I didn’t have a working phone, I wanted to be there as early as possible. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was dealing with the
Métro
again, so I hopped in a taxi and gave him the address Virginie had helpfully written down for me, before I pulled out my black eyeliner and got to work. It turned out applying it in the back of a taxi was apparently how all the girls in Paris got that messy, smudgy look down to a tee. Combined with several lashings of mascara and a liberal powdering of the nose and chin, I was pretty passable, given the amount of sobbing I’d done earlier in the day. And it wasn’t quite dark yet, but the light was happily forgiving on the narrow, dim streets of Hipsterville-en-France, which made covering up my injuries so much easier.

I hopped out of the cab, throwing what I hoped was enough money at the driver, and looked around for Virginie. She was nowhere to be found, but I soon spotted the sign for L’Alimentation Générale, the place where we were supposed to meet. Annoyed that it mocked me and my GCSE French (it wasn’t a general store at all, it was a bloody trendy bar–why would the French lie to me?), I ventured inside to look for my new friend. It was early for a Saturday, but the bar was already busy and the music loud. Taking a seat at the bar, I ordered a mojito like everyone else and spun around on my stool to watch out for Virginie.

The bar looked fun and was lined with more of the same beautiful people I’d seen in Café Charbon on our first night. It was pretty cool and kitschy, with china cabinets lining the walls and weird lampshades. The crowd lapped it up regardless, already dancing and laughing. The Saturday night feeling was infectious as I sat back with a smile and indulged in some guilt-free people watching. It really was madness how clichéd the world was. New Yorkers all wore black and thought it was acceptable to wear trainers to walk to the office. Parisians all smoked and looked like characters from
Amélie
. And my most important observation, people in both cities drank like fishes. Of course, it was possible that I was spending far too much time amongst the hipsters in both of these countries. Not a healthy pastime.

‘Angela?’ a voice called from the door. Standing on my tiptoes, I could just about make out the top of Virginie’s head, or at least the giant neon pink floppy bow that was on top of it. She raised a hand from the doorway where she was talking on her tiny phone. I waved manically, bashing at least three people in the eye with my frantic elbow. Virginie slipped her phone into her bag, looked around the packed bar and gestured for me to come out to her.

‘It is too busy,’ she declared after a brief hug and two perfunctory air kisses. ‘I am sorry, I was coming early and got held up.’

‘It’s fine, let’s just go somewhere a bit quieter,’ I said, trying not to worry about the grandma-like implications of my statement. ‘It’s going to be loud enough at the gig later.’ I was going to be a godmother after all, I needed things like my hearing now. So I could fully enjoy all the wailing and screaming of my forthcoming godchild.

We wandered down the street a while until we found a smaller, slightly less crammed bar. Somewhere right in the back, dangerously close to the toilets and the cigarette machine, we found a tiny table and slid on to the stools on either side of it.

‘I will get wine,’ Virginie announced, throwing her bright purple sweater at me and venturing back out to the bar.

I couldn’t help but take a quick look at the label. Sonia Rykiel, nice. Between this and the Louboutins, Miss Virginie wasn’t quite as clueless as she claimed to be when it came to fashion, but then, working on a magazine like
Belle
, I guessed that it would be impossible not to pick up anything, whether you were into it or not. A year ago, I’d have struggled to tell the difference between Prada and Primark if I couldn’t see the price tag. And she really did seem wedded to her jeans and ballet flats, which might have been why I loved her.

She reappeared almost as quickly as she had vanished, grasping a bottle of red wine and two not-so-clean-looking glasses, but given the venue, I supposed I should have been pleased we weren’t supposed to swig it out of the bottle. I was all for dive bars and low-key venues, but good God this place was rough. While Virginie poured the wine and began to rattle on about how she’d spent her day rereading some of my blog posts for inspiration (I still hadn’t quite kicked her off the hero worship wagon), I stared at the flaky red walls, plastered with posters for past shows and random pieces of framed pop art.

I also noticed that the crowd was slightly different to L’Alimentation Générale. The out-and-out party atmosphere was somewhat stifled by a very obvious desire to see and be seen although, God forbid anyone should look like they were trying. Also, I was absolutely certain they would never play Britney here, in an ironic sense or otherwise. A couple of carefully put-together girls leaned against the window, tossing their hair from side to side, occasionally rolling their eyes at each other and desperately trying to pretend they weren’t checking out the tall dark-haired boy in the corner with his back to the room. Apparently, he was the only one who really didn’t care who was or wasn’t in the bar. Clearly, he won ‘coolest person’ prize for the evening.

‘So you met with your friend?’ Virginie asked loudly.

I turned back to face her and was met with great big, wide questioning eyes. Good God, she was always so interested in everything. It was quite unnerving.

‘Yeah.’ I glugged back a mouthful of the wine. When in Rome, right? Or, well, France. ‘We had lunch, it was really nice to see her. She’s just found out she’s pregnant so it was a bit weird. Good weird, but weird.’

‘You miss her?’

‘So much,’ I nodded hard and my hair bounced up and down. ‘I didn’t actually realize how much until I saw her. It’s her wedding anniversary tomorrow, which means it’ll be a year since I last saw her. And a year since I moved to New York.’

‘You don’t think about going home at all?’ She glanced over my shoulder as she spoke, I presumed towards Mr I-Don’t-Give-a-Shit in the corner behind me. Ha, she was just as at risk to a hot boy as the rest of us. ‘A year is a very long time to be away from your friends, from your family.’

‘I know. And honestly, I have hardly been homesick at all, but after today I don’t know, I feel a bit weird. Different.’ I contemplated. ‘Louisa is having a first anniversary party tomorrow. It’s so strange to think that more or less everyone I know will be in one place, all together, two hours away on a train and I’m not going to be there.’

‘You don’t want to go?’

‘I actually sort of do,’ I admitted quietly. ‘I know it’s not a good idea though, it’s only because I’m having a bit of a downer on stuff back in New York.’

‘But your life, it is so amazing,’ she protested for what seemed like the millionth time. ‘I would kill—’

‘It doesn’t matter how many times you say that,’ I warned, ‘it doesn’t actually make it any more true right now.’

Virginie shook her head. ‘I am sure that London is a great place, but New York! It is the best place in the world. So tell me, what is so bad that would make you want to go back to England?’

‘Just, well, loads of stuff.’ I took another sip of the wine before I tried to explain. ‘Me and Alex are sort of in limbo, Jenny isn’t speaking to me and there’s just something he said the other night that’s been playing on my mind.’

‘It might help to talk to someone?’ she offered cautiously. I wrinkled up my nose and stalled for a moment. Virginie wasn’t that likely to give me objective advice and the last thing I needed right at that moment was all my scary opinions bounced right back at me. On the other hand, talking to Louisa had helped, and she hadn’t exactly been pro-Alex. Maybe my own cheerleader-slash-pitbull was exactly what I needed.

‘OK.’ I decided to go for it. There was something about that pink floppy bow that really made me want to confide in her. ‘He made this totally flippant comment about me being on my own at his gigs all the time and it just got me thinking. He’s right, I suppose. I haven’t made that many friends in New York outside Jenny and her friends. I mean, I’m used to having a small circle of friends and I’m totally fine with that, but I’m worried that the circle just seems to get smaller and smaller all the time and before I know it, I’ll be left with no one, but Alex. And that’s what happened in London, there were millions of us at uni and then a group of us in London, and after a couple of years, it was just me and Mark, Louisa and Tim. And as of right now, I don’t even really have a Louisa in New York. I can’t let that happen again. If me and Alex break up, I’m not sure I’d have anything to stay for.’

‘And you really think you might break up?’ Virginie refilled my glass quickly and then gave me an embarrassed smile. ‘I’m sorry, I drink too fast, I know.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ I lied, making a mental note not even to attempt to keep up. ‘I’m just not a very good drinker. One too many hangovers when I was in LA, I’ve sort of tried to avoid getting completely hammered since then.’

‘Hammered?’

‘Fall down, throw up, pass out and wake up with a stranger in your bed drunk,’ I elaborated, sipping my wine slowly. ‘And I really can’t even think about the breaking up question.’

‘Did you work on your article today?’ Virginie changed the subject expertly. ‘I feel so bad. I hope you will still be able to complete your assignment with only two days left in Paris.’

‘There are only two aren’t there?’ I couldn’t believe this week had gone so quickly. Not that it had been without incident. ‘It’ll be fine,’ I reassured her (and myself). ‘I actually put some notes together yesterday and felt a bit better about it. Not that there isn’t more to add, but I can stick in the bars from tonight. I reckon it’ll be OK. What’s this place called again?’

‘UFO.’ Virginie looked over at the bar where the crowds were starting to gather. ‘It does get very busy, perhaps it is not so secret?’

‘Not to you, but I bet there aren’t many Americans in here,’ I said, following her gaze. The other half of the room was like a different bar, the clientele were completely different to the moody hipsters in the back. Everyone was talking, waving their hands around, laughing, touching each other on the shoulders, kissing.

‘I think perhaps there is one American,’ Virginie pointed her almost empty wine glass towards the tall dark haired boy with his back to us. Except he didn’t have his back to us any more. He was standing up, ducking his head slightly to the left to avoid the low ceilings, a guitar case in his hand. It was Alex. And following him across the room and out of the bar was Solène.

‘Isn’t that…’ Virginie pointed as they paused outside the window, just inches away from us.

‘Yes,’ I said, trying not to freak out on a monumental scale. ‘It is.’

Solène magically produced a packet of cigarettes from her skintight jeans and placed one carefully between her lips, lifting her chin for Alex to light it. She gave him the lit cigarette and repeated the process, just in case I hadn’t seen it clearly enough the first time around. Taking a deep drag on the second cigarette, she flicked her long fringe across her face and cocked her head to one side, smiling up at my boyfriend before they set off down the street. Before I could decide what to do, Solène looked back over her shoulder, straight at me and gave me the most smug, self-satisfied smile I had ever seen. Turning away, she slipped her hand through Alex’s arm and carried on down the street and out of sight.

‘Angela?’

I stared out of the window, ignoring the quiet voice at my side.

‘Angela, please, you will break the glass.’

Snapping out of my trance, I realized that I was gripping the stem of my cheap wine glass so tightly, it really was at risk of shattering. Which would make it all the better to stick right through Solène’s heart. If she, in fact, had one.

‘You did not know that Alex was meeting that girl?’

I gave Virginie a look that hopefully made it clear that she had asked a very stupid question.

‘I don’t think that he saw you,’ she said. ‘And I am sure it was nothing.’

I still couldn’t actually make words. In the words, or rather, acronyms of Jenny Lopez, WTF?

‘They are both in bands, yes? And playing at tomorrow’s festival? So it is like a work meeting.’

I couldn’t even raise an eyebrow at that. Did she think I was stupid?

‘As you have said, there is nothing between them now. It is all history.’