You're the One: a Contemporary Romance Novella Set in Paris (Bistro La Bohème) (3 page)

“Et
voilà—I finished my shift. Did you enjoy your beer?”

“It was
refreshing, thank you.” Fred grinned at her. “You ready to leave?”

“Not before
I’ve finished my own.” She pointed at her beer and sat down across from him.
“How was your day?”

“Thrilling.”
He paused for effect. “I processed a huge pile of insurance claims. How was
yours?”

She flashed
him a dazzling smile. “Challenging. At lunchtime, I was flanked by a greenhorn
who was supposed to help me.”

“Did he have a
meltdown?”

“He tried his
best to keep up, I’ll grant him that. But he failed miserably.”

“Poor chap.” A
playful smile danced on Fred’s handsome face.

Natalie
gasped. She hadn’t seen that smile in months. It used to make her weak in the
knees, but now it made her sick with sadness and jealousy.

“Poor
me
. Not only was he not much help, he
generated a lot of extra work during the busiest hour at the bistro,” the
waitress said.

“Lunchtime?”
he asked.

“You know how
it is here between one and two. I really didn’t need broken plates and mixed-up
orders on top of the usual craziness.”

The waitress
took a gulp of her beer. They fell silent for a while. Natalie sat still,
trying to rein in her emotions. She didn’t dare peek from behind her paper,
afraid that Fred would turn in her direction. When she finally did look, he had
already left.

And so had the
waitress.

***

What if there
was a perfectly logical and innocent explanation to Fred’s behavior? Natalie
had pondered this question for a good part of the night, unable to find sleep.
Maybe he had enrolled in an evening class at
Le Louvre
, and the waitress was his classmate. Or maybe he was
envisaging a complete change of career, like becoming a chef or a café owner
and didn’t want to tell her yet because it was such a long shot.

That thought
had cheered her up a bit before falling asleep. Even though Fred had clearly
kept a secret from her, perhaps it wasn’t what she thought. Anyone in her place
would have thought that. She could, of course, just ask him.
Only . . .she wasn’t ready for his answer. What if his secret
wasn’t about a career change or self-improvement, but good old two-timing? She
needed to be sure before confronting him.

She finally
dozed off just before dawn and woke up a couple of hours later to a dark and
chilly morning. At least it wasn’t raining.

Fred was
already awake.

“Are you
working again this weekend?” she asked.

“I’m afraid
so,” Fred said with an apologetic smile. “And in the evening, I’m having drinks
with an old friend. He’s in Paris for only two days.”

“Do I know
him?”

“No, it’s a
classmate from Valence.” He began to fumble for his slippers. “You’ve never met
him.”

“Maybe I could
join you?”

“You’d be
bored silly with our reminiscences.”

“I rather
enjoy—”

“Listen, why
don’t you and Marie go to the movies? With me out of your hair, you can see any
dumb romantic comedy you like.”

Of course.
That’s exactly what she’d do.

“Good idea.”
She turned to look out the window. “It’s a perfect day for a dumb romantic
comedy.”

Fred left at
midday, saying he had a brainstorming lunch with his colleagues before the work
session. As soon as he was out the door, Natalie donned the Uma Thurman wig and
shoved a newspaper into her handbag. Thirty minutes later, she entered the
bistro and went straight to
her
side
of the room
.

She looked
around furtively. There he was, saying something to the blue-haired waitress.
She said something back, making him smile, and went away. The bistro was full,
and Natalie couldn’t make out their words. But it didn’t matter. She was going
to tail them when they left and get answers.

Fred wasn’t
going anywhere though, at least not yet. The waitress returned to his table,
carrying a tray with sliced bread, a pitcher, an appetizer, and a glass of
wine. This could only mean he was going to have a full meal. He probably had to
wait for the waitress to finish her shift.

Very well. I have time to kill this
afternoon
.

Natalie moved
to the other side of her table and opened the menu. This was a perfect
spot—she could see Fred in her peripheral vision, but he could only see
her back. In this way, she’d be able to eat without having to hold the
newspaper in front of her face.

When a waiter
asked her for her order, she picked grilled fish.

“I recommend
Chardonnay with it,” the waiter said.

Anything to make me feel better.
“I’ll have a glass, please.”

She folded the
menu and looked around. The baggy sweater guy from the other day sat at a table
placed so close to hers they could have been having lunch together. He smiled
at her and opened his mouth as if to say something, but then didn’t.

The waiter
brought her grilled fish a few minutes after Fred got his main course.

Impeccable timing
.

“You must have
moved into this neighborhood recently. Am I guessing correctly?”

The baggy
sweater had finally made up his mind and spoke.

“Not exactly,”
she said with a polite smile.

“So much for
my attempt to play Sherlock Holmes. I was actually quite proud of my power of
deduction,” he said.

“How so?”

“You see, I
live nearby, and this bistro is a favorite haunt. I’m sure I haven’t seen you
here before Thursday. And now it’s the second time within a week. Hence my
deduction.”

“Nothing’s
wrong with the deduction,” she said, pleased to be distracted from her misery.
“I’d have concluded the same thing in your place.”

“How do you
like the food?” he asked after a short silence.

“It’s pretty
good for a neighborhood bistro.”

“Don’t let its
casual air fool you. This place is known from the Grand Rex all the way up to
Montmartre.”

Natalie found
the exchange entertaining. Or at least educational. “Owing to what, may I
inquire?”

“Several
reasons. Number one is the chef’s cooking. Claude is legend. If it weren’t for
his occasional bouts of depression, he could have been a chef at one of the
finest restaurants in this city.”

She stopped
chewing her fish, closed her eyes, and resumed much more slowly. “You should’ve
told me earlier. I’d have enjoyed my food in an entirely different way.”

He smiled.
“The second reason is that the owner, Pierre, encourages his staff to be
friendly to the customers.”

“No kidding?”
She raised her wine glass. “I’ll drink to that. I never thought I’d live to see
a proprietor who didn’t encourage rudeness. You know, to uphold the age-old
Parisian tradition.”

He raised his
glass of sparkling water. “Cheers.”

She took a
closer look at him while he was drinking. His friendly face was rather easy on
the eyes, notwithstanding the tousled hair. It wasn’t a fashionably styled
tousle, but an artless one of a person who didn’t think looks were important.
He appeared to have broad shoulders, but the rest of him was fully camouflaged
by his enormous sweater and the table. He could have been any size and shape.
Well, outside the extremes.

“Is there a
third reason?” she asked.

“Yep, and a
good one, too.”

“Do tell.”

He beckoned,
as if about to tell her a big secret. “They let you stay for hours without
asking every ten minutes if you’d like to order something else.”

“Really? So
you spend hours here with one espresso?”

“Well, no. I
do have some decency. I’m happy to reorder . . .I just don’t
like being interrupted.”

She narrowed
her eyes. “Precisely what is it that you do with your laptop? I saw you the
other day. You mostly stared at the screen and then touched the mouse pad once
in a while. I was mystified.”

He held his
chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Hmm. Should I tell you, or hold on to
my mysteriousness?”

“Your choice.
But know that if you decide not to tell, I’ll think the worst.”

“I was playing
chess with my computer,” he said.

She quirked
her mouth into a half smile. “Who won?”

“The
computer.”

“Will you get
over it?” she asked with exaggerated concern.

“Oh, I think
you misunderstand. I
let
it win. I
always do. Otherwise it will sulk for weeks and freeze at the most inconvenient
times.”

Natalie
chuckled before catching herself. Oh God, what if Fred could hear her? What if
he looked this way and recognized her? She turned carefully to ascertain if she
was safe. An old man sat studying the menu where Fred had been.

There was no trace of him in the bistro.

***

What just happened?

Adrien
frowned, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. One moment she was laughing
and the next, looking around in panic. When she turned back to him,
disappointment was written all over her heart-shaped face. He had the
impression she was blaming him for something.

“Are you OK?”
he asked.

She blinked.
“I’m fine. Never mind me. I do weird things sometimes.”

“Who doesn’t?
The world would be incredibly boring if everyone behaved rationally at all
times.”

She smoothed
her hair and looked down at her plate. “This fish is delicious but takes a hell
of long a time to eat.”

“Are you in a
hurry?” he asked.

“Not
particularly. Just making a point.”

“Because if
you aren’t, you should absolutely order today’s special for dessert. It’s a
lemon cheesecake. I’ve tried it—unforgettable.”

“I’ll think
about it when I’m done with the fish,” she said and waved at the nearest
server. “Can I have another glass of Chardonnay, please?”

Adrien ordered
another bottle of mineral water. It was tempting to keep her company with some
wine, but he needed a clear head for his afternoon practice.

“There’s one
more thing that mystifies me about you,” she said.

“Fire away. I
live to clear up mysteries.”

“Where do
your . . .unique sweaters come from? If I’m not mistaken, the
one you wore on Thursday was red with a green pattern, right?”

He nodded,
trying to keep a straight face.

“Whereas this
one is distinctly yellow. And yet it has the
same . . .configuration and pattern as the other one. Are they a
special order from a hippy Inuit collective in Northern Canada?”

“You overestimate
my connections. They are French made.”

“Seriously?
Which brand? I
must
know.”

“I’ll tell you
over dessert,” he said.

She gave him a
strange look. “I wasn’t planning on having any.”

He shrugged,
feigning nonchalance. “Then you’ll never know about the sweaters.”

Christ, this is immature,
but . . .a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do
.

She didn’t
answer, concentrating on removing the bones from her fish. Adrien began to
panic. Had he been too forward? Did he scare her off? He really sucked at flirting.
His ex had been a friend for a long while before they started dating. Before
her, he’d gone out with a chess player he’d known through his club. And before
the chess player . . .well, not much had happened before the
chess player.

And let’s not even mention the Louise
episode
.

He pushed the
remaining food around his plate. How long before the pretty brunette asked for
her check and walked out the door, never to return? He didn’t know much about
this girl except she was fun to talk to and lovely to look at. She appeared to
be his age, and . . .lonely. That was what had given him the
courage to address her in the first place. He’d watched her turn the pages of
her newspaper, her eyes unseeing and her mouth turned downward. She didn’t look
like a person who was happy to be by herself. She looked like someone who was
miserable in her solitude, who needed companionship and comfort.

Adrien’s mood
grew darker with every passing minute. He’d only seen this girl twice in his
life, and yet thinking he may never see her again felt like a loss.

One of the
servers approached her. “Will you be ordering dessert?”

“I’d like
today’s special, please,” she said and threw Adrien a sideways look from under
her lashes.

The server
turned to him. “Have you finished your main course, monsieur?”

Adrien ordered
the cheesecake and a glass of Chablis. There were more important things in life
than keeping a clear head for afternoon practice.