“I mean, not the decor. But getting on in one place and hurtling through the darkness and then emerging in a completely different world—yeah. Portland’s pretty monochrome, but here, I feel like I’m meeting the world every day. It’s magic.” I grinned like a complete goof. But I loved the Métro, grit and all.
He laughed. “You’ve had a little too much Champagne, mademoiselle.”
“Au contrary,” I said. “I’ve had exactly enough.”
He looked at me. “You’rethe magic. You turn an ordinary Métro ride into an adventure. You’re brave enough to own your ‘meh’ over theMona Lisa—”
“Meh, meh, meh,” I singsonged. “TheMona Lisais meh and I have spoken. Did you know she’s wearing a headscarf? That’s an un-meh thing about her.”
He nodded. “It is.”
We smiled at each other. “I’m magic, huh?” I said, fishing a little. Okay, a lot.
“Absolutely. You’re smart and funny. You thinkI’mfunny. You’re nice to my baby sister. And you have hair the color of an autumn sunset.”
My brain wentDing-ding-ding; correct answer!But I just said, “Those are lovely things to say about me, but none of that’s really magic.”
He rubbed his eyebrow. “So one of my dad’s US colleaguesbrought his family here on vacation last year. His daughter’s our age, and Dad volunteered me to show her around. She had a list of things she wanted to see: the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Montmartre—standard tourist stuff. Notre-Dame was closed because they were still restoring it after the fire, so I offered to take her to Sainte-Chapelle, which is this jewel boxof a church with incredible stained glass. She filmed some of the windows and said, ‘Okay, next?’ She ignored all the incredible carving and blew off seeing the reliquaries, which are gorgeous and weird and well worth seeing. We spent the day like that, going to one-of-a-kind places that she didn’t bother to look at with her actual eyes, because she was too busy getting ‘content’ for her feeds.” He made dismissive air quotes. “We stopped at a café for something to drink, and she complained that she only got three ice cubes in her Coke. We were sitting in a famous, beautiful café that everyone wants to see when they visit Paris, and she was counting ice cubes. She wanted to go to a club, so that night, I took her to Le Shopping and introduced her around. She was nice to my friends long enough for a photo op, and then she spent the rest of the evening in her phone, except for dancing with Yann.”
“Barbie’s dream date Yann?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah. See what I mean? She didn’t even remember his name. Then on the ride home, she said my friends were rude because they spoke French at her all night long. They spoke English. Yes, they have accents, but they were making an effort. They were being friendly. She wasn’t. This girl was surrounded by amazing things all day long, and she didn’t even see them.” I madea sympathetic face. “Whereas you,” he continued, smiling at me, “think the Métro is magical.”
“I’ve taken a bunch of photos. And I said theMona Lisais meh.”
“She is meh. And you took photos, but you also looked. You interacted. When we’ve gone to a café, you haven’t counted the ice cubes.”
“Because I was in a café in Paris. I was too excited to count ice cubes.”
“I show you something amazing and you see how amazing it is, not how trending it’ll make you on TikTok or whatever. You were nice to my friends tonight.”
“Because they’re interesting people. You do not meet many debate nerds out in the wild. And they were really nice to me.”
“Because you’re magic, mademoiselle.”
I felt as effervescent as Champagne fizz.
We were both quiet on the walk home from the Métro. At my apartment door, he seemed suddenly awkward. I smiled at him. “Thanks. I had an amazing time.”
“Me too.”
We stood there for a minute. The doorstep good-night is always the trickiest part of a first date. Do you kiss? Shake hands? Hug? Wave? Normally I’d be tense and awkward, worried about misreading signals, but I was full of Champagne, Nick had called me magical, and I’d seen how the cool kids did it. I leaned in, kissing him lightly on each cheek.
He grinned. “Good night, mademoiselle.”
“Night,” I said. I watched him walk down the hall to the elevator. He turned around and waved, and I waved back.The minute I closed the door behind me, I texted Madame Dupuy, hoping I wasn’t waking her.
Her call came back immediately.
“Bonsoir, Madame Dupuy,” I said. “I’m home.”
“Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Tosh. Please tell me what is in the refrigerator.”
“What?” Wow, I really had had too much to drink.
“The refrigerator, mademoiselle. Please open it and tell me what is inside.”
“Um, okay.” I walked into the kitchen, puzzled, and pulled open the fridge. “What the…”
