‘Oh, you’re awake then, sleepyhead!’
Brilliant.
‘I thought we were going to have to leave you on the plane,’ Missus Dave said, giving me a jovial and yet oddly strong punch in the shoulder. ‘So, are you meeting this boyfriend of yours in Paris?’
‘Oh, um, yes,’ I said, trying to apply mascara without poking myself in the eye. Give me some slack, I’d only just learned how to do this on the ground let alone in midair descent.
‘Ahh, that’s nice,’ she said, fastening her seatbelt and settling back with Dave’s arm safely around her. ‘Who knows, maybe he’ll propose.’
It really was an instinctive reaction. I really didn’t mean to shoot my mascara-wand-wielding arm into the face of my Bible-toting seat buddy. And I really didn’t mean to make him throw a scorching cup of coffee down his trousers.
‘Holy Mary Mother of God!’
Oops. And I’d done so well not to offend or maim anyone for so long. I’d seen enough episodes of Friends to know that pawing at his crotch with napkins wouldn’t help, so instead I muttered my apologies, leaned back into my seat and closed my eyes. If that was the worst thing that happened and I’d got all the way to Paris, I would be very happy.
‘What do you mean my bag had to be “destroyed”?’
I stood in the baggage reclaim section of Charles de Gaulle airport, listening to an incredibly boredlooking official type person repeat himself for the fourth time.
‘Madame Clark, as I explained,’ he sighed, ‘your suitcase failed our safety screening and was destroyed. This should have been told to you at JFK. In fact, you should not have been able to travel.’
‘When you say destroyed,’ I rubbed my temples and blinked a few times waiting to wake up, ‘and you know, it’s Mademoiselle.’
‘Pardon, Mademoiselle. Destroyed. It is gone.’
I rifled around in my battered handbag, checking just what I had with me. Sunglasses, lip balm, two lipsticks, phone, camera, wallet, passport, laptop, US Weekly. Well, at least I wouldn’t be stuck for some educational reading material. Thank God.
‘But why?’ I heard my voice start to crack. Apparently, I was starting to grasp the reality of what had happened. ‘Why would it be, oh God, why would it be destroyed?’
‘There are many reasons, Madame, security is very high right now. Possibly you have something forbidden in your suitcase? Something dangerous?’
‘The most dangerous thing in there was a pair of shoes once involved in a case of GBH.’ I pursed my lips together, determined not to cry. There had to be a mistake. ‘Who can I talk to about this?’
‘I am afraid it is me.’ The officer sighed. Again. ‘Perhaps there was something, ah, battery operated?’
‘Battery operated?’
‘Possibly vibrating?’ he expanded discreetly.
‘Vibrating? A vibrator?’ I screeched. Wow, I could really be shrill when I wanted to. And given all the looks I was getting from every other passenger in the airport, vibrator was a word that translated globally. Brilliant.
‘But when you say destroyed?’
‘It has been securely detonated.’
‘Securely…’
‘Yes.’
‘Blown up?’
‘Oui.’
‘I…what?’ I suddenly felt very, very unsteady on my feet.
‘I am sorry Ms Clark. I am able to let you pass through the airport as there is no security alert on you, but your baggage has been destroyed. That is all I can tell you. Would you like me to escort you to a taxi?’
‘But really, how can it—’ I tried once more as the officer took my arm and lead me out of the airport and towards the large double doors.
By the time I got in to the city I’d just about made it through to the third stage of grief. I had ploughed through disbelief by the time the airport official had physically tossed me into the back of a taxi and I powered straight on to anger halfway down the motorway. Once I’d finished swearing vengeance on the firstborn children of every airport worker at JFK and Charles de Gaulle, I moved on to depression. My Louboutins. My beautiful blue Marc Jacobs satchel. All of my clothes. All of them. Oh God, all of the clothes Jenny had sent over. All blown to smithereens by a sweaty man in a short-sleeved shirt at the airport. Who probably had a moustache. They all had short-sleeved shirts and moustaches.
Somewhere inside my brain, a part of me tried to tell me about all the clothes shops and shoe stores and lingerie I would be able to buy on my research trips, but every time I closed my eyes, I just saw my dandelion yellow 3.1 Phillip Lim sundress flying up into the air and scattering into a million pieces while several French security guards stood around wearing berets and guffawing. Armoured berets. And the Lanvin. Dear God, the Lanvin. My fevered imagination preferred to imagine the case had been blown up in France.
According to the last text I’d received from Alex, he had to be at some place called Café Charbon by seven and told me to meet him there. It was way too late to get to the hotel first and besides, what exactly was I planning on changing into? This wasn’t Project Catwalk, I wasn’t going to be able to cobble together a Parisian evening look from the pages of US Weekly and a Lancôme Juicy Tube.
I attempted to explain where I wanted to go to the driver, but was eventually reduced to showing him Alex’s text. He grunted and sped off down some tiny cobbled streets, lined with tiny tables and even tinier girls, all with extraordinarily long hair and pouty, miserable expressions. Vive la France.
Eventually the taxi pulled to a stop and the driver turned to stare at me. Even though I knew I couldn’t be a pretty sight, I stared back. Had he just lost everything he’d ever owned that was shiny, pretty and beautiful? No. No he had not. As rudely as I could manage, I pulled out a fistful of Euros and handed them to him in what I hoped was a vaguely ignorant fashion. Although it probably ruined the effect when I awkwardly thanked him and told him to keep the change.
Attempting to compose myself before I saw Alex, I paused in front of a beautiful glass-fronted café and breathed deeply and slowly. Dozens of people stood outside smoking and laughing and all of them were beautiful. To be fair, I would have been overdressed in Jenny’s Balmain sequined dress, but that didn’t help me feel any less crappy than I did in my travelling clothes. Actually, my only clothes now. All of the girls were wearing blue jeans so tight, I was pretty certain that no matter how badly all the dark-eyed, dark-haired boys that were eyeing them up wanted to give them one, it would be physically impossible. How on earth did they get them on and off without specialized equipment? Standing around nodding and gesticulating with their cigarettes, I noticed that they all had perfectly dishevelled bedhead hairdos, as opposed to frizzy, flat plane hairdon’ts, and instead of mascara-stained cheeks and dark circles hastily covered up with too much Touche Eclat, every single girl looked as though she scoffed at make-up and was in fact, just a fresh-faced beauty. Bitches. And they had to rub in the fact that I wasn’t allowed to drink red wine because I was incapable of drinking a single glass without spilling it all down myself. Or someone else in my immediate vicinity. Basically, there was no way I was going to be mistaken for being a French girl. Homeless French sixteen-year-old boy, maybe, but one of these sophisticated sex bombs? Not so much. Mew.
Eventually, I let out a huge sigh and pushed through the crowds and into the café. I spotted Alex almost immediately. Even in a sea of skinny, dark-haired boys stroking their chins and nodding, he was the first thing I saw. Unfortunately, the second thing