I hung up the phone and opened the door. Jake immediately walked straight into me and threw me down onto the bed, catching me on the upward bounce. He pinned my wrists down to the mattress. The back of my head sunk into the plushy covers.
“You torture me.”
“Shoo! Jake, you’re already late for your meeting with the lawyers.”
“And I’ll be later if you keep slowing me down,” Jake said as I batted his hands away from my top. “Just let me kiss them once—”
“You’re late!”
“It’s alright, we’re in Europe. Everyone is always late. Especially the French government.”
He reached into his pocket and handed me an envelope. I opened it up. There was a black and gold credit card as well as a whole wad of crisp euros.
“Something so you can buy clothes for the trip. There’s a credit card,” Jake pointed out. “Fifty thousand dollar limit, okay? Don‘t go crazy.”
I gaped at him. I don’t know what his definition of crazy was, but fifty grand was well beyond my personal line.
“Call me if you need anything.”
“My phone—”
“I’ll get someone to fix it so it’s Europe-okay,” Jake said, anticipating my question. “For now, don’t worry about roaming.”
“Well, alright then.”
“Have fun. Eat something delicious. I’ll be home by nine.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
“Nine at night?”
Jake’s shoulders slumped.
“I know. Business. It’s hard on these international things. I have to squeeze in as much as I can now. Or I’ll have to be back in two weeks.”
Why did I feel so disappointed? I bit my lip and tried to play it off as nothing.
“But no supermodels today?” I joked.
“Lawyers today. Supermodels tomorrow.”
I smiled, although my heart was clenching. I wanted to be supportive of Jake and everything he did. I wanted to be the cool, awesome girlfriend, not the super jealous type. I just couldn’t help shake the feeling that something was off.
Chapter Three
I watched the birds scrabbling for food in the shadow of the Eiffel tower. They moved about in clusters of four or five, breaking apart and reforming like a weird, feathery lava lamp. Some were white, some gray, some mottled with dark spots. A little boy came over and toddled around with arms outstretched. The pigeons scuttled around the boy, easily avoiding his grasp.
The mother of the boy came over and pulled him away by the hand.
I remembered chasing crows. Right then, I could almost feel the frost on the soil in the winter. I could hear the cawing in the dusky mornings when the sun stirred the air and everything sparkled with dew.
Strange, how being in a foreign place reminded me so much of home.
My memories were interrupted by someone jostling my elbow.
It was a man in front of me. He thrust a handful of Eiffel Tower keychains into my face, jangling them.
“Souvenir? Souvenir? Two euro.”
“No thanks,” I said, backing away. Strange, too, how the hawkers could guess your nationality so effortlessly. Do I look American? I’d stopped in a small shop that Jake’s driver had recommended. I bought a matching set of bra and panties, thick knee-high eggplant wool leggings to protect me from the cold, and a fitted wool dress in cream with a thin black belt across it. Short-heeled black leather boots matched the belt. I thought Jake would approve, and the wool socks were a nod to practicality.
Still, I had to try very hard not to faint when the saleswoman rang up the total.
Was all of my effort in vain? Maybe I just hadn’t developed the right sense of taste. I would have to ask one of Lucas Black’s girlfriends to come shopping with me, I thought. He would be working on the negotiations alongside Jake. I sighed, wishing that I could be seeing all of these things with Jake right now.
There was another man setting up shop near the far end of the Eiffel Tower. I watched as he threw a plastic pigeon in the air. It had a small motor inside, and its wings flapped as it flew. It circled once over the heads of the tourists, making a horrid mechanical chattering noise as it curved down and flew right back into the street vendor’s hand.
As if by a signal, all of the pigeons on the ground in front of me took off in a flurry. In the flutter of bird wings, I looked up, to see what had caused their flight. Hundreds of people were pushing their way from one side of the Eiffel tower to the other. But there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing, at least, that I could see.
Awestruck, I walked around Paris throughout the early morning, taking it all in. I know most artists would have headed toward one of the museums of art, but I was happy today to walk around and take in the graffiti.