Midnights In Paris | Jenlisa

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

Stumbling down the dark streets of Paris, a tall girl with ash brown hair was trying to make her way back to her hotel. Too bad she didn't know neither the address or where exactly she was right now. Of course she could try to repeat the extremely complicated french names that were inscribed on the corner of the buildings and call a cab to come fetch her up but, she didn't have her phone with her.
How could you not have your phone with you in a foreign city? you might ask. Well, the answer is, Lisa lost it. She wasn't sure wether it had happened at the underground club her friend, Angèle, had brought her to, or at the fancy bar where a cosmopolitan had cost her eighteen euros. But the fact was, she had lost it and was now roaming aimlessly around the streets of one of the biggest cities in Europe. Drunk, alone and with no phone or the ability to explain her situation to anyone.
All she could do was hope for a miracle.

That afternoon she had wanted to go to the Champs-Élysée, but after trying to ask for information to a 40-something, very-Parisian-looking woman she had lost all her hopes to be able to just roam around the city without a guide. The woman didn't speak English at all and Lisa, well, she didn't speak French. She had once bought a "learn French in thirty days" book at the airport to kill the wait after her flight had been delayed, but she never actually read anything past the introduction. She could at least confidently introduce herself in French. Okay, not exactly confidently, but well enough if she practiced in front of a mirror a few times before speaking.

After turning right on a road, Lisa found herself in a street that looked big and long enough to be a somewhat main one. She drunkenly smiled to herself, feeling content and congratulating her own persona for her amazing orientation skills. However, after about 200 meters, she started feeling her feet hurting. Like, really hurting. The alcohol in her system must have not been enough for her to not feel any pain because as she looked down at the cause of her suffering, she noticed blisters on the back of her feet that were now bleeding onto her twelve hundred dollar shoes. Not caring about the expensive shoes and only about relieving herself from such misery, she took her heels off. The leather insides were covered with dry blood and instead of "Miu Miu", it only read "Miu". Lisa started laughing by herself while repeating the name with different tones of voice.
By passers must have thought she was some kind of lunatic. Had she seen the scene from the outside, she would have thought it too.

Walking barefooted down the street, she started thinking how she ended up like that. A twenty four year old girl who had come to Paris for a modeling job, taking a three in the morning stroll down, luckily, one of the busiest streets of Paris with a pair of bloody shoes in her left hand. What a sight, she'd say.

She had been too busy reflecting about her poor life choices to notice that the street was almost ending and had emerged into another, just as large, that ran along a river. Lisa couldn't help but stare with her mouth wide opened at the sight in front of her. Since when there was a river in the middle of Paris?
Gosh, she should have really payed more attention during the few actual school years she had done in her life.

Even if ignorant of the name, she decided to walk along the unknown river. She had always thought that at night, places unraveled a hidden beauty. This river was no exception. There was something about watching a city slow down when the sun was no longer up in the sky that made her want to stop and admire it. But, her feet had been as restless as her mind so, instead of sitting down in one of the benches that adorned the pavement, she kept her unsteady yet determined walk towards the unknown.

Suddenly, a blue metallic box caught her attention. It was a pay phone. Hurriedly speeding her steps, Lisa found herself in front of the phone box. She panicked a little when she saw that the instructions were written in French which, as already mentioned, she did not speak at all. But her determination was stronger than her confused state. She thanked both God and Angéle who had made her take a cab to go from the bar to the club. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have paid in cash with the  only twenty euros bill she had left. All her credit cards had been on her phone.