Never or Forever (from 3rd book in the Year of the Chick series)

Chapter Three

It was a sick joke. It had to be. What else could explain why some intersections in Paris had five or six streets coming out of them all diagonally, or why the street signs were nailed up on buildings way up high, in size twelve font that you couldn’t even read unless you’d brought along your glasses which I’d sadly forgotten?

At the risk of walking up to every single street sign and looking like an obvious tourist, I consulted my trusty map. It wasn’t an actual map, of course, since carrying a map would bring me right back down to that obvious tourist thing. Instead, I’d looked up all the directions beforehand and typed them into my phone, so now as I consulted them it looked like I was casually reading a text message. Genius.

If only it wasn’t the most confusing text message anyone had ever written.

I scratched my head. Then squinted my eyes. Exactly like a tourist would do. Next I bumped into an elderly man, who despite seeming extremely annoyed, said “Pardon” in the gruffest French. It was something I’d noticed several times, and something I was now finally learning about the French. It didn’t matter how much they didn’t have time for you, or how much they wished you’d just disappear into thin air, they always said “pardon” which translated to “excuse me,” and they always said “bonjour” and “au revoir.” It was the most “polite when annoyed” culture I’d ever encountered. And I admired it.

At the bottom of my directions, past the names of French avenues and boulevards I could barely pronounce, I saw a final note to myself: “Two blocks past the Starbucks.”

I scanned the six streets before me and there it was; the beacon of green and white. There was something so wrong about using Starbucks as a homing device, when real café terraces were such an important part of Parisian life. In that moment I vowed to never visit a Starbucks for as long as I lived in Paris.

But not even the pumpkin-spice lattes?   

Now on the right path, I casually strolled past the Starbucks (with a half-second look of longing), en route to my very first wine tasting in Paris. I was slightly confused by the concept of a wine tasting that wasn’t in some sprawling vineyard or deep in a darkened cellar, but when I’d learned about it on a meet-up site I signed up right away. I also signed up in the hopes of meeting a man, for the promise of optional romance in the famous city of love. Or any man really, as long as he wasn’t a twenty-three-year-old American in Paris.

Before I could make it inside, I realized my skinny jeans were sliding down my ass. First I pulled them up in frustration, then I cursed skinny jeans for never staying above the curvature of my ass, then I cursed my ass for not having enough curvature, then I made a mental note to Google Jennifer Lopez butt exercises when I made it home.

With that marathon of over-analysis complete, I finally entered the wine bar, excited and curious for what lay ahead...

***

I pressed my nametag onto my boob over and over, but my thin blouse wasn’t letting it stick. I slapped it on the base of my neck instead. Not weird at all. In my hand was what looked like a debit card, and with it I tentatively approached the wine machines. The leather armchairs and exposed brick walls were reminiscent of a cozy cellar, which made the computerized machines equipped for “tastings on demand” seem out of place.

The clusters of people were already well into pleasant conversations, some in English and some in lightning-fast French. With no room to interject or smile broadly, I slid my card into the slot of the closest machine, and waited for the digital screen prompts.