Chapter 4 Taylor #2
A few streets down, I enter a boutique with lots of florals and swingy skirts in the window display.
Inside, I let the young sales assistant, with her braided hair and bright lipstick, guide me through racks of chic dresses and striped T-shirts.
I’ve worked retail on and off for years, but I never buy new clothes for myself.
I grew up on hand-me-downs that were too small for me, like my body was too big for the world I found myself in.
Later on, the idea of spending money on myself felt as foreign as the possibility I might one day come to Paris.
Back home, I go to thrift stores, stick to a palette of black and gray so everything matches, and wear every piece until it falls off me.
But now I have money. For now I have money.
I tell the sales assistant that my luggage was stolen, again with that lie, when I’m the thief.
I’m the one over here, getting away with a crime.
I buy everything she suggests and then some, including a red dress with daisies that makes me feel like I’m in costume, and the kind of ballet flats you see on every other French girl.
I change into a black polka-dot skirt and a white T-shirt, which I pair with my boots, before leaving the store.
Back on the street, I start to notice the intricate molding on the buildings’ ivory facades, the imposing wooden doors painted in various colors, and the pigeons clambering down the pavement, alert for any crumbs.
I’m not a city person but there’s a lightness to Paris.
People smile, laugh, even. They look around themselves, noticing, like I do, the little pieces of street art painted on the walls, the greenery in the tidy little parks every few blocks, and the ambient charm.
I stop at a few more stores along the way, stocking up on new lingerie and a few other accessories.
Eventually I get to Le Marais—the hip neighborhood in the heart of the city—and come upon a lively corner café with a terrace spilling onto the street.
In the building above, oversized teddy bears with sweet faces look down from the windows.
Their smiles give me the creeps, but my feet are aching from the hours of walking and I haven’t eaten anything since the pastries this morning.
I stare at an empty table long enough that a passing server motions for me to take a seat.
I do, stacking all my shopping bags on the chair next to me. Then I allow myself a deep breath. The hardest part is over.
“Bonjour!”
Expecting the server has come back to take my order, I force a smile on before I look up.
It’s a trick I learned as a little girl—always start smiling before the other person can see you.
This way it has time to reach your eyes, which is how you make it look genuine.
But it’s not the server speaking; the voice comes from the man next to me.
He has thinning salt-and-pepper hair and is wearing thick-framed glasses with a plaid short-sleeved shirt, a newspaper folded next to a half-drunk beer.
“Belle journée, n’est-ce pas?”
There’s something cringeworthy about the grin on his face, like he’s trying too hard. I scan the space between us, trying to convey the fact that I don’t think he’s talking to me. It does little to deter him.
“You speak French?”
“No,” I say, focusing on the menu in front of me.
But my throat tightens, my mind swinging back to the safe in my room. Has anyone noticed I’m gone or tried to reach me? I peek inside my bag, but of course my phone is not in it.
The server comes back, at last, and I order a glass of white wine. Whichever one he recommends is fine by me. He takes the order of another table behind me, and it’s not until he’s out of sight that the plaid-shirt man speaks again.
“I saw you before.”
My heart pounds in my chest. I don’t have to respond to him. I can be here, sitting at a terrace, drinking a glass of wine. But something in his tone—something slimy and pervasive—makes me look in his direction.
“You were standing right there.” He points at the other side of the sidewalk. “You looked lost.” I let out a sigh, almost relieved. He doesn’t know anything. “Are you lost?”
I’m not. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Where I have every right to be. The man is still waiting for my answer. I hate that I feel the need to give him one, to comply with what society—let’s be honest, men—expect of me. Be spoken to and you shall reply. That’s what Good Taylor does. Did.
“I’m fine,” I say, but my voice is croaked, and I probably sound the exact opposite of fine.
The man takes a sip of his beer, then slowly refocuses his gaze on me. His forehead creases over his glasses, his thin eyebrows shooting up. “I noticed you.”
“What are you saying?” The words spill out of my mouth before I even realize it.
The server comes back with a glass and a bottle of wine, which he pours so slowly I almost reach for it to speed up the process. He leaves a small bowl of popcorn on the table, and I’m equally eager for and dreading what will come next.
After the server leaves, the man smiles, content to have my full attention again. “A beautiful woman like you. Anyone would notice you.”
My shaking breath empties me of everything I had, the shreds of normalcy I’ve been hanging on to all day.
I get up quickly, knocking the table and spilling the wine everywhere as I do.
My first thought is that I should clean it up—Good Taylor always cleans up!
—but I have to get out of here more. Grabbing onto the shopping bags, I squeeze through the few other people on the terrace, mumbling apologies as I bump against them.
Heat burns through my body, shame and fear all tangled up.
And then, without another look behind me, I start to run.