Chapter Seven
An hour later, when Poppy emerged from her apartment building onto Rue Saint André dressed in the most fabulous dress she had ever worn, she felt confident, uplifted, and ready to enjoy her evening soaking up the sights and sounds of Paris with someone who knew the city well. Not for one moment had she contemplated what she would do if Stéphane stood her up or left to go to the bathroom and didn’t return.
She sauntered down the street, marvelling at how vibrant the place was, how every bar, café, bistro, restaurant, and store bustled with people enjoying a pre-dinner drink, or engaging in a bit of window-shopping before heading home or to their hotel for the night. Fairy lights twinkled in the trees and elegant wrought iron streetlamps bestowed the scene with a warm amber glow, and once again, Poppy sent up a missive of gratitude for her good fortune to be in such a dazzling place.
She strolled past Bistro Fabien, pausing briefly to peer through the window in the hope of catching a glimpse of Fabien, but she could only see Pascal serving drinks to a table of women who looked like they were on their way to a ball. However, this time she didn’t experience the twinge of envy she had previously felt when she witnessed the effortless beauty of her French counterparts because she too was wearing an outfit that could give any branded fashion house a run for its money.
When she arrived at the bookshop, she took a moment to examine its frontage, painted in a dark sapphire blue, its name – Librairie Juliette – picked out in bright yellow letters. She checked her watch, glanced to her left, then to her right, and when she saw there was no sign of Stéphane, she stepped into the shop, inhaling that familiar fragrance of old parchment and new books that booklovers everywhere wished could be bottled and sold.
No matter where she looked, there was a kaleidoscope of literary treasures upon which to feast her eyes. Towering wooden shelves were crammed with books, the multicoloured spines of modern classics sitting comfortably alongside more ancient tomes that were bound in leather and sprinkled with dust. There were sections for fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, biographies, anthologies, poetry, children’s books, graphic novels, and books on every subject you could possibly want. To her delight there was also a gallery, accessed by a rolling wooden ladder that she wished she could climb, just to say she had done it.
A low murmur of conversation permeated the tranquil air, and many visitors had taken advantage of a scattering of mismatched chairs at the back of the shop to spend a few moments perusing their chosen bibliographic gem. When she spotted a bookcase housing cookery books featuring a wide array of culinary genres, she desperately wanted to join her fellow booklovers and spend the rest of the evening burrowing into their glossy pages, seeking out new recipes and fresh inspiration, and of course adding a few of the books to her burgeoning collection.
But that would have to wait.
She reluctantly replaced a book entitled Fungi and Where to Forage for Them back on the shelf, hoping that it hadn’t been sold when she came back to liberate it from the confines of its current home between Fifty Shades of Fungi and Murderous Mushrooms, and headed out of the door, wondering if she had been too quick to discard the possibility of being stood up by Jamie’s friend. When she had called her brother earlier, he had sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t seen Stéphane for several years, and that he had been surprised that he was working at Librairie Juliette as he’d dreamed of becoming a news journalist.
‘Poppy!’
She looked to her left but couldn’t see anyone who looked like they had shouted her name, or indeed anyone who looked like they were waiting for her. She started to walk towards the bottom of the street where Patisserie Madeleine was located, and to her surprise, she saw a man waving vigorously from the driver’s window of an old black Reneault Clio, its bumpers badly scraped and dented.
‘Poppy, over here! I’m Stéphane Laroche, Jamie’s friend!’
She quickened her step and when she slid into the passenger seat, she was perturbed to see that the footwell was full of discarded books, magazines and newspapers. She chanced a quick glance over her shoulder at the back seat and her jaw loosened at the sight of even more books; for someone who worked in a bookshop, he had a worryingly cavalier attitude to the preservation of his stock. The reading nook at the Boathouse Bistro might be small, and the extent of the subject matter might be narrow, but Beckie treated her travel memoirs and autobiographies with the utmost of respect, telling customers who commented on her library-standard cataloguing system that every author leaves a little of their soul within the pages.
She turned towards Stéphane, unsurprised to see that he looked just as dishevelled as the inside of his car, with unruly brown curls, day-old stubble, and a pair of tortoise-shell glasses that kept slipping to the end of his nose. Despite this, he still looked like he’d stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine, sporting a cashmere polo-necked sweater, a pair of smart black dress pants, and a huge gold watch that glinted in the streetlights. He hadn’t skimped on his cologne, either; the car smelled like a Parisian lady’s boudoir.
‘Okay, are you ready for your tour?’
‘I am.’
‘Jamie says you haven’t been to Paris before.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ Poppy decided not to tell him that it was only her second trip abroad. ‘I’m looking forward to finding out what the city is like from the perspective of a real Parisian.’
‘Oh, I’m not from Paris. I was born and brought up in Provence, Cannes to be exact. I came here when I was twenty-one to work at the Ritz, which is where I met your brother.’ Stéphane revved the engine, shoved the car into gear, and swerved into the stream of early evening traffic. ‘Hold onto your hat, Poppy! One of the many things Paris is famous for is the tenacity of its drivers. Here, we make full useof our bumpers and horns, and we all think we are worthy of a place on the starting grid at the French Grand Prix. Allons-y!’
Conversation stopped while Stéphane navigated the narrow streets, giving Poppy the chance to surreptitiously contemplate her tour guide. She was surprised that he’d spoken to her in English from the off; everyone else she’d met had addressed her in their native tongue, and only when they realised she was struggling did they switch to English to help her out. Also, there was very little evidence of the sexy French accent she had expected, which she assumed meant he had learned to speak English at a very early age.
‘You speak—’
‘Okay, we’re here!’
Stéphane scooted into a parking space that was scarcely wide enough for a toy-sized car and cut the engine. Without waiting for Poppy to join him, or indeed telling her where in Paris they were, he headed across a wide tree-lined boulevard and turned left. Poppy grabbed her satchel and dashed in his wake, grateful she had worn her brown leather boots instead of the orange leopard-print stilettos Camille had offered her, assuring Poppy that they went perfectly with the fern-green dress that Pierre had so generously loaned her.
A few seconds later, Poppy had no need for Stéphane to explain the first stop on their Friday night itinerary. After sprinting across six lanes of completely manic traffic, they arrived at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, the white limestone monument standing proud at the top of the Champs-élysées in the heart of the 8th arrondissement. She couldn’t wait to climb the steps to the terrace from which her research had told her there was a magnificent view of Paris – the Eiffel Tower, the Sacre-Coeur Basilica, the golden dome of Les Invalides, the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral, and a long list of other iconic buildings that together made Paris one of the most visited cities in the world.
However, before she climbed the two hundred and eighty-four steps, she spent a few moments alongside Stéphane in quiet contemplation at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, framed with red, white and blue floral wreaths, the eternal flame flickering in the light breeze. She stepped aside to allow others to pay their respects and was shocked when, instead of heading for the steps up to the terrace, Stéphane guided her towards a spot at the edge of the roundabout where no less than twelve roads converged, causing a maelstrom of congestion and vigorous tooting.
‘This is the Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806 to commemorate his many battle victories across Europe. Construction began on his thirty-seventh birthday and took thirty years to complete, which meant that he didn’t get to see the finished monument. The roundabout is called the Place Charles de Gaulle étoile and to the uninitiated it is a nightmare to navigate as there are no road markings, and those already circling the roundabout must give way to those entering. As you can imagine, it’s often total chaos.’
No sooner had Stéphane finished rattling off his unembellished list of facts, than he reached for Poppy’s hand and, without pausing for her to even take the obligatory selfie for her Instagram page, he launched back into the continually circulating traffic, retracing their route back to the Champs-élysées to where they had left the Renault a mere ten minutes earlier.
‘Stéphane, do you think we could spend a little more time…’
But Stéphane had already dropped into the driver’s seat, inserted the key in the ignition and was impatiently revving the engine as he waited for her to join him. She quickly fastened her seatbelt, then hung onto the side of her seat as he zipped off along one of the roads that led away from the scariest roundabout in France. Again, conversation was sparse, and Poppy realised with a spasm of guilt that perhaps Stéphane hadn’t wanted to give up his Friday night to escort his friend’s sister around Paris to the places he had probably seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.
‘Stéphane, it’s okay if you’d rather not do this now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m sure you’ve got lots of other things you’d rather be doing tonight than escorting me around Paris.’
‘Not at all. I’m having fun. Aren’t you?’
‘Yes, of course, but I’d much rather—’
‘Ah, this is perfect!’
Stéphane skidded to a stop next to a green Citroen 2CV outside a very cosy looking bistro, and Poppy wondered if their whistlestop visit to the Arc de Triomphe was because Stéphane had a dinner reservation that he didn’t want them to miss. She relaxed as she alighted from the car, smiling at a couple who were sipping red wine on the bistro’s outdoor terrace, protected from the strengthening breeze by a handsome red canopy. She had taken a few steps towards the restaurant’s door when she heard Stéphane laugh.
‘Look up!’
She followed his pointed finger and gasped. Rising majestically above her head was the Eiffel Tower, its iconic wrought-iron latticework frame illuminated with golden lights, sparkling against the dark inky blue of the night sky. It was a truly awe-inspiring sight that whipped the breath from her lungs as she stared, mesmerised, trying to fix the image in her mind’s eye for later extraction.
‘Welcome to le Tour Eiffel, Poppy, or as the locals call her, La Dame de Fer, Paris’s most famous landmark. It was constructed by Gustave Eiffel in 1887 for the Exposition Universelle and comprises three levels that are home to shops, restaurants, museums and offices. The observation deck at the top is the highest in Europe and is used to transmit radio and digital television signals. It is the most visited paid monument in the world and is thought to have welcomed over 300 million visitors in its time.’
When Stéphane paused for breath, Poppy took several quick strides away from him on the pretext of snapping a few photographs. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but his clinical recounting of bare facts was uninspiring to say the least. She was standing in front of one of the world’s most elegant landmarks, somewhere she had dreamed of visiting for years, and Stéphane’s monotone description was doing the tower no justice at all, something she thought strange for someone who aspired to be a journalist.
She really wanted to join the throng of people milling around its legs, gaping with incredulity, marvelling at the feat of engineering on show, buzzing in anticipation of riding the elevators, then standing on the glass floor and looking down at the esplanade below, or for the lucky few, eating at one of the restaurants. She didn’t just want to “see” the beauty of the tower, she wanted to touch it, to feel it, to experience the emotions of standing at the summit and staring out across the whole of Paris.
‘Can we visit?’ she asked.
However, when she turned to where she had left Stéphane, she saw he was scrolling through the messages on his mobile phone, oblivious to her presence. A wave of sadness rolled through her, not because he had forgotten she existed, but because he had become so blasé about the abundance of architectural beauty that surrounded him every day of his life. She made herself a promise then and there that she would appreciate the splendour of the English Riviera more often.
‘Stéphane?’
‘Ah, yes, sorry.’
He slid his phone back into his pocket, spun round on the heels of his pristine leather loafers, and headed back to the car. Poppy wasn’t surprised to see Stéphane completely misinterpret her enquiry, but she still sighed in disappointment, and as she followed him, she realised that it wasn’t just the sights of Paris that they’d skimmed over; she had spent over an hour in Stéphane’s company and she knew nothing about him apart from his name, that he worked at Librairie Juliette, and that her brother had told her his dream was to be a journalist. Maybe that small nugget of personal information would introduce a more relaxed vibe to the evening.
She settled into the passenger seat and as Stéphane joined the amateur’s version of the Parisian Grand Prix, she scoured her brain for a way to engage him in a conversation that didn’t involve facts and figures. To her surprise, she realised that she felt exactly the same way as she did when she was out on a date with one of her brother’s sports-mad friends. They might not mention the year the building they were having dinner in was constructed, but they did talk endlessly about their favourite sports team, regaling her with stats about their league position and who was currently injured or on the transfer list, or when they had last had a hole-in-one.
Maybe it was her fault; maybe she had nothing interesting to say, so she simply left the art of making conversation to the person sitting opposite her. Was that why Drew had done what he did? The thought caused her heart to skip a beat, even though she knew it wasn’t true. Nevertheless, she resolved to make more of an effort and there was no time like the present. However, she found herself cringing when she ended up uttering the first thing that came into her head.
‘How long have you worked at the bookshop?’
‘Just over a year. I love it, but my dream is to be a reporter.’
Stéphane paused to take a tight corner, wrenching the steering wheel sharply to his left, and to Poppy’s dismay, he didn’t ask any of the usual follow-up questions about her; why she was in Paris, how was she finding working at Patisserie Madeleine, was she struggling with speaking and understanding French, never mind what her dreams were. She tried again.
‘I’ve always wanted to write, too.’
‘Journalism?’
‘No, a novel.’
‘Crime? Thriller? Fantasy? Horror? I love a good gothic horror story.’
Poppy was about to launch into an explanation of her desire to write a romantic comedy, that she had been planning it for years in her head and intended to use her time in the undisputed capital of romance to gather inspiration. She wanted to tell him that she hoped to put pen to paper and write those precious first words – or chapters – before she left for home, and maybe ask for his advice as a fellow enthusiast. However, the fact that romance was one of the genres Stéphane had left out of his list caused her confidence to seep away, and she switched to safer ground.
‘Jamie might have told you that I’m a trained pastry chef, so I’m thinking perhaps a cookery book, a fusion of recipes from—’
‘We have a great selection of cookery books from all over the world at the bookshop. If you call in tomorrow, I’d be happy to show you.’
‘Thanks, Stéphane,’ Poppy said without much enthusiasm.
‘No problem.’
A few minutes later, they arrived back at Rue Saint-André, and for what seemed like the first time since she’d met Stéphane, he swivelled in his seat and met her gaze. He was handsome in a quiet, relaxed kind of way, with intelligent eyes and a sculpted jawline, but it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t in the least bit invested in their time together, which was actually something of a relief. However, she was grateful for the time he’d given up to show her what he thought she wanted to see, and that their conversation had been conducted in English, although she would have welcomed the opportunity to practice her French.
‘So, did you enjoy your tour?’
‘I did, thank you. I have—’
‘Great. Send my regards to Jamie. Tell him I’ll catch up with him when he’s over here for the Six Nations in February. Au revoir, Poppy.’
When she stumbled out of the Renault onto the pavement, she felt as though she had been caught up in a sightseeing whirlwind, spun around the streets for a couple of hours before being unceremoniously deposited back down to earth with a bump.
She felt disappointed, and, if she was honest, a little cheated, that she – and Camille, Pierre and Hélène – had made such an effort with the preparations and her evening hadn’t turned out as she had expected. She felt she would have got more from one of the organised walking tours she saw wandering the streets of Le Marais on a daily basis, and while she might have just visited two of the most iconic sights in France, if not the world, she hadn’t experienced them, or been given the chance to feel what it was truly like to be Parisian.
Perhaps she should have accepted Hélène’s offer to join them for their flamenco class after all!