What If It's Love?: A Contemporary Romance Set in Paris (Bistro La Bohème Book 1) (4 page)

With a sigh Rob admitted to
himself his decision was made. He needed the money, and he was running out of
time and options. The gig stank, all right. But after Googling Boris Shevtsov
in every language he knew, he hadn’t found anything to suggest the guy was
involved in criminal activity. So it would be as he’d said—just a bit of
corporate espionage.

Nothing more.

Rob turned off the shower,
dried himself and got dressed. Then he went to his desk, picked up Boris’s card
and dialed his number.

Boris answered immediately.

“I’ll give it a go,” Rob
said. “But if she’s not interested after a week, I won’t pursue her. You’ll
have to find someone else. Are we agreed?”

“Agreed.
I’ll talk to you in a week.”

* * *

When Lena was eleven, her
parents divorced. They didn’t fight over her custody in court but resolved the
matter amicably after Dad paid off Mom. Lena still remembered every word of
that dreadful conversation shortly after the scandal had erupted and turned
their lives upside down. She could still feel the lump in her throat as her
mother held her by the shoulders and shouted over her wailing. “You can’t come
along. If you do, both of us will starve.” Lena had seen starving children on
television. They had huge bloated bellies and vacant eyes. She didn’t want to
starve.

Then Mom left and Lena stayed
with Dad. She cried for a week. For the next year, she waited for Mom to return
for her. After that, she waited for Dad to mellow and let Mom visit. After
several years, she gave up.

Lena
shook her head to dissipate the memories and forced herself to concentrate on
the e-mail she’d been writing for the past half hour. It had two sentences. She
added a third one, and reread her note.

Hi Mom,

I’m in Paris now, settled
and very happy with my neighborhood and apartment.

I’ll be working on my
thesis over the next month and then will travel to Geneva for the defense. After
that—we’ll see.

Hugs,

L

Lena pressed send and sighed
with relief. It was no small feat to have written such a well-rounded and
informative missive to her mother. Those three short lines summarized hours and
hours of phone calls with Dad.

Just think of all the time
she saved . . .

Rob
arrived at
La Bohème
an hour before his shift was to start. He scanned
the bistro for Lena. To his great relief she was there, sitting at one of the
sidewalk tables with her laptop and a glass of iced tea. He made himself a coffee
and settled at the table next to hers.

The moment she stopped typing
to take a sip from her glass, Rob made his move. “Hi there. I see you like our
little bistro.”

She looked at him,
recognition flickering in her eyes. “Hi. So you’re here as a patron today?”

“Not really. Just getting
sufficiently caffeinated to make it through the evening. Saturday nights are
the waiter’s nightmare.”

“I thought they were the best
in terms of tips,” she said.

“You thought correctly. Which
is why we servers accept to work them without coercion. Have you ever
waitressed?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t. My knowledge
is purely theoretical.” She took another sip of her iced tea and asked, “Are
you a born Parisian? I cannot quite determine from your accent.”

Rob smiled. This conversation
was going well. In fact, much better than he had hoped, given the other day’s
calamity. “I’ve lived here for the past six years, but I come from a small
village in the southeast of France. The region is called Jura.”

“I know Jura. It borders
Switzerland. I even went hiking there on the Swiss side a few times,” she said
quickly.

“So, I take it you come from
Switzerland?” he asked.

She hesitated for a second
and then said, “I’ve lived there for the past seven years.”

“I like Switzerland, but I
don’t think I could live there. It would be like living inside an idyllic
postcard.”

She leaned in, eyes bright
with understanding. “Exactly. Like someone locked you up inside an idyllic
postcard and threw away the key.”

It was Rob’s turn to offer an
insight into Swiss life. “It’s a very reliable country, just like its watches.
The first bus always arrives at your stop at 7:13, as announced on the
schedule. The postman delivers the mail at 7:14, and the ducks land on the pond
at 7:15 sharp, every day.”

“It depends.” She arched her
eyebrows. “Where I lived, they hit the pond at 7:03. Every day.”

He shrugged. “Must be lark
ducks. Hey, here’s another one: the Swiss won’t cross the street at a red light
even if there isn’t a single car in sight. They’ll just stand there and wait.”

“If you try it in Paris,
people will think you’re stoned. Have you ever noticed the big red button
you’re supposed to press in such situations?”

“When you’re stoned?”

The corners of her mouth
twitched upward. “No, when the traffic light is red, but there are no cars.”

“Ah, that one! Yes, I’ve seen
it. We have them in France, too.”

“Well, in Switzerland people
actually use them! They press, and wait, and press again several times, and
wait some more. There are still no cars, but they won’t cross.”

Her eyes were now sparkling
with mirth. “I used to think the button made the light change to green faster.
But then I timed it and realized its sole purpose was to give the law-abiding
citizens some form of release. Like a punching bag for fingers.”

Rob laughed. “Reminds me of
another Swiss quirk. If you inadvertently drop a candy wrapper or a bus ticket,
at least three people will notice and tell you in French, German, and Italian
to please pick it up.”

He held up his index finger
and said with a thick Swiss accent, “Keeping our country clean is everybody’s
business!”

She put her hand over her
mouth. “Oh my God—this actually happened to me once!”

The game is on,
he thought as he listened to her peals
of happy laughter.

I’m glad that you’re in love
with someone else,

I’m glad that I’m enamored with
another,

And I’m content that never will
the Earth

Relax its pull, condemning us to
hover.

With you, I can be funny—or
a mess,

Let down my hair and abandon
caution.

No fierce blushing every time
our hands

Brush
lightly in an unexpected motion.

I thank you from the heart for
being kind,

For loving me so sweetly, so
benignly,

For cherishing me, for my
peaceful nights,

For the non-kissing in a moonlit
alley,

For the non-dates, no passion to
confess,

For happily behaving like a
brother,

For being charmed—alas!—by
someone else,

While I’m—alas!—enamored
with another.

Marina Tsvetaeva

Two weeks after her arrival in Paris, Lena had become a regular at
La
Bohème
. She went there every morning for a breakfast of coffee, croissants,
and orange juice. After that she either headed to the library or stayed at the
bistro typing away on her laptop and refueling on the barista’s
delicious-smelling brews. On most days, she cleared the premises by noon, when
the shop assistants, builders, and white collars working in the neighborhood
arrived for lunch. She often returned in the late afternoon for dinner.

Before giving the monopoly over her nourishment to
La Bohème
, Lena
had made sure to check out the available alternatives. But her forays into the
neighboring eateries turned out to be disappointing.

At the first place across the street, she was served green beans
overcooked to a sickly shade of gray. She ordered a medium steak at a more
expensive restaurant a few blocks further down the street. The steak was served
raw, and then reluctantly taken back to the kitchen to be returned a good half
hour later, thoroughly burned.

The last place she tried had decent food and the wait wasn’t too long.
But as she ate, she became witness to a heart-wrenching scene. An ostensibly
pregnant woman had walked in and pleaded with the maître d’.

“I’m sorry, monsieur. May I use your bathroom?”

“Are you a customer?”

“No, but—”

“The bathroom is reserved for our patrons.”

The maître d’ swirled and walked away, leaving the woman stranded by the
entrance. She shifted from one foot to another, her face contorting in
discomfort as she scanned the room for a more sympathetic waiter. Lena rushed
to the counter and got a token—the open sesame to the toilet door.

“I’m transferring my bathroom entitlement to her,” she told the glaring
maître d’ and handed the token to the woman.

Lena resolved there and then that the establishment didn’t deserve her
business.

La Bohème
, on the other hand, was free of such nonsense. Its food
was delicious and its service quick. Its proprietor and staff were friendly for
Parisian standards. Better still, they provided a constant stream of
entertainment.

There was the Adonis, of course. Lena still didn’t know his name—he
never introduced himself, and he never asked her name, either. So, she
continued to identify him as Adonis, even though the moniker was beginning to
sound ridiculous. He had gotten into the habit of stopping by her table to
exchange a few words about this and that, which made her feel like a valued
patron. At least this was her official explanation of why she enjoyed those
little conversations so much.

After a few days, they’d established they were both finishing grad school
and writing their theses. Adonis told Lena he was almost done and shared a few
time management tricks.

Yesterday afternoon when he threw her a friendly “how’s that thesis
coming along”, she replied with pride she’d written more than half.

“Well done!” he cheered, and Lena felt her cheeks warm with pleasure.

If I were a cat, the entire café would hear me purr
,
she thought.

He placed a cup smelling of coffee and chocolate on her table. “This
cappuccino is on me. You deserve it.”

She shook her head, “No, please, you shouldn’t do this. I’m happy enough
with your verbal encouragements.”

“Oh, but it’s nothing. If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll rephrase it.
This cappuccino is on the house—more precisely, on Pierre, the owner of
the bistro.”

He winked and added, “Pierre has no clue he just extended his generosity
to you, but I can guarantee when he finds out, he won’t mind. He values
education highly.”

“Well . . . I suppose it would be rude of me to refuse a
drink offered by the proprietor.”

“He would be scandalized.”

She raised the cup. “Here’s to Pierre—the champion of education, a
generous boss, and an all-round good man.”

“Amen,” he said.

Then, there was the blue-haired waitress. Most of the other regulars
called her Jeanne, and she knew their names as well. She’d greet the old lady
who came for her daily espresso with a “Mme Blanchard, how is that knee today?”
and actually stop to listen to the answer. She’d inquire of the gray-suited
office rat
,
“Did your
business trip go well?” She seemed to know about the patrons’ families, their
work (or the lack thereof), and health. She certainly knew their culinary
preferences, which made her order taking remarkably efficient.

Lena couldn’t wait for the day Jeanne would greet her with a “Hi, Lena!
The usual?”

She had also spotted a goofy fellow who had his dinner at
La Bohème
every day. His wild curls and huge thick eyeglasses—the kind ugly
ducklings wore in movies before their transformation—hid most of his
face. On top of this, the guy was extremely thin. His T-shirt hung from his
wide but bony shoulders in a two-dimensional way, like a shirt on a clothes
hanger, with no noticeable relief anywhere along its length. His arms were so
skinny that were he a woman, Lena would have bet he had anorexia.

Did men suffer from anorexia?

Mr. Clothes Hanger appeared to be Rob’s buddy. He also seemed to be
carrying a torch for Jeanne—if his lingering looks and repeated clumsy
attempts to strike a conversation with her were any indication. Unfortunately
for him, Jeanne didn’t take the slightest interest in his person, except how he
liked his coffee and his steaks.

The third waiter Lena liked to watch was a black-haired Spanish guy,
Pepe. He had the body of a matador—elegant and compact. It was a shame,
really, that his shapely frame was too small for today’s male beauty standards.
He had a goatee, beautiful obsidian eyes, and a charming accent. He flirted
desperately with every fair-haired girl who passed through the café, even
though the girls didn’t flirt back with him.

Once Lena heard him ask three German girls having beers next to her
table, “What are your names, lovelies?”

“Brunhilde,” one of them said with a sweet smile.

“Irmtraud,” the second said with an even sweeter smile.

“Hildegard,” the third said, her smile so big Lena worried the corners of
her mouth would tear.

Pepe looked from one girl to the next, lips moving as he tried to
memorize their unlikely names. This sent the girls into a prolonged fit of the
giggles that finally drove him away.