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“I’ll do my best,” I say, and reach into my purse and feel around. Phone, check. Passport, check. Debit card, check. Money…oh shit.
“What’s the matter,” Chris asks. I guess I said the latter out loud.
“I’m realizing right now I am a belle bienfaitrice,” I say to myself, although I can’t help but smile. I guess I really made that busker’s day. I inadvertently threw about fifty euros—all my cash— into his accordion case. Good luck, my man, I think, coming to terms with my cashless situation and appreciating the kid’s good luck.
“I’m not following,” Chris says, looking at me oddly.
“I wouldn’t expect you would,” I say back. “It turns out I don’t have any cash on me. I assume this thing takes cards, right?” I ask, handing mine over.
He slides my debit card into the kiosk, and it spits it back out with an obnoxious noise. Carte refusée.
“That means this card isn’t working,” he says.
“Thanks. I figured that out all on my own.”
I shove the card back in, ever so gently, hoping for a different result the second time around if I’m exceedingly nice. No dice. I remember I’d meant to alert my bank that I was travelling internationally. Unfortunately I hadn’t actually remembered to alert them.
I’m going over options in my head. I figure I can walk the few miles to my studio if I can’t buy a metro ticket. It won’t be easy, but what other choice do I have? The hardest part will be making my way back up those stairs.
“Let me help you, Weaver,” Chris says, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a creamy worn leather wallet. He hands me a twenty-euro bill.
“No way, I can’t take money from you, I don’t know you from Adam,” I say. “It’s really not a problem. Once I get to my place I can call my bank and clear this up. I think it’s just a quick walk.”
“This may seem a little forward, asking an attractive woman I’ve just met where she’s staying, but I promise you, my intentions are mostly innocent,” he says.
“Mostly?”
“Yes, mostly because if you insist on walking, I’ll be obliged to help you lug these suitcases back upstairs and well…I don’t know you well but I do know you don’t pack light.”
“I’m staying near Place des Vosges,” I say, and I realize our eyes are locked on each other. The circumstances suck, but this is feeling playful and fun and I really don’t mind this hiccup.
“For a woman like you, in pretty good shape if I may say,” he says, his eyes doing an assessing sweep up and down my body, “that should take a little under an hour. But those suitcases, Weaver…don’t be stubborn. Take the money, it’s really not a big deal to me.”
Ooooh, he said it, the words that always make me dig in to whatever position I’ve be holding on to, no matter how foolish. “Stubborn?” I laugh at him. “What’s so stubborn about not accepting money from a stranger in a foreign city?”
“I take it back. I take “stubborn” back. How about “foolhardy,” will that work?” he says with a conciliatory smile. And then he does something that makes me catch my breath. He reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear. Forward, but I like it. Hold that thought. He draws his hand back from my hair and between his fingers is a cigarette butt. “You had a little something left over from your fall,” he says.
Hello mortification my old friend.
“Souvenir?” he jokes, laughing and chucking the butt to the ground.
I sigh. What else can I do? I take the twenty from his hand. “I owe you one, Chris, and I always repay my debts,” I say, sliding the twenty into the kiosk and waiting for it to print my ticket.
He quirks up an eyebrow at that. “Well then it sounds like I just made a pretty good investment.”
While I try to think of some flirtatious retort, his phone chimes indicating a text is coming in, and he looks at it briefly.
“Let me help you to the turnstile,” he says, suddenly sounding like he’s in a rush.
“I can’t thank you enough, Chris,” I say, as way of goodbye or to extend the conversation, I can’t say. I’m eager to get on my way and settle into my temporary Paris accommodations, but Chris has an appealing quality to him that makes me want to stay. He’s dressed casually, but you can tell he put thought into his appearance: not too stuffy, but stylish none the less. He also smells amazing, his cologne a mix of blackcurrant, cedar, and an underlying musk that I imagine is all him.
“It’s been my pleasure, Weaver,” he says. “It’s not every day I get to come to the rescue of a beautiful woman. And I won’t forget what you said: You owe me one. And I have a feeling you’re a woman who always pays up.”
