3 p.m.
Jake followed Mira through the Latin Quarter's crowded Saint-Michel square, where tourists took turns being photographed in front of the tall rectangular fountain.
"But what about your budget?" called out Jake. Mira ignored him and headed straight for the ATM.
"I may not have a credit card," she said. "But that doesn't mean I need to be so stingy. Like I hadn't even budgeted for eating and drinking as much as I damn well please, and how can you not eat and drink as much as you damn well please when you're in Paris?!" In reality, the loosening of her purse strings had less to do with Paris being the capital of indulgence, and more to do with Jake's casual statement of having zero interest in love; at least not for five or ten years. She remembered how when she was a kid, her older sister would obsessively watch episodes of Sex and the City. The main character, Carrie Bradshaw, would buy five-hundred-dollar shoes for an emotional lift, whereas Mira was opting to indulge in life's simple pleasures; at least Mira's version was cheaper.
Jake leaned against the wall beside the ATM. "So you're a hundred percent sure you won't need that money later?"
She rolled her eyes as she counted out a hundred euros. "If things get really dicey, I can always work extra shifts at the strip club off the New Jersey turnpike."
He took off his sunglasses and raised his eyebrow. "Give me the address of that strip club now."
She stuffed the money into her bag and gave him a long look. "As if you don't already have a loyalty card for every strip club on the east coast." She didn't even wait for his reaction, but instead pushed right past him down the narrow cobblestoned street, the sound of his laughter in the air.
With Jake's long strides, he caught up to Mira in seconds. "Does this mean you're paying for the rest of my meals?" he asked.
She smirked. "Nice try but I'm not drunk anymore. I am however starving since you stole my cheese." She took note of the little restaurants and shops they passed by on their way down the street. "It should be coming up here soon; hold on...what's that smell?" She let her nose lead her right into the narrow entry of a Lebanese shawarma shop. Her face spread out into a grin as Jake scratched his head. "We're here!"
"Shouldn't we be saving this for dinner?" he said.
She rubbed her belly as she entered the shop. "Oh please, I'm gonna eat like ten more times before we're on that plane."
Mira rubbed her hands together with excitement, as the shop attendant rolled out the dough and placed it on a searing hot dome. "Yep...the only place in Paris where you get fresh bread instead of a factory-produced pita; no big deal!" She turned to Jake with a smile as big as the Joker's.
"Nice find," he said. "Now I'm kinda glad you filled up your notebook with research, instead of actually having a social life." He braced himself for her punch or elbow or other aggressive reaction. The truth was now that she knew Jake was nothing more than a man-whore on the prowl, her interest in him had fallen to zero, so she didn't really care how he shot down her ego. Not only that, but another great benefit of no longer being interested in Jake, was the fact that she could order extra garlic hummus and tzatziki for her sandwich. As she did. "You're really going for it," Jake said.
"Oh and onions," Mira said to the attendant, completely ignoring Jake. "Oh and those cute little turnip slices."
Mira was about to have a serious love affair with her stomach at the expense of bad breath, and she'd never been more pleased about a decision in her life...
***
Ten minutes later with their sandwiches paid for and in hand, Mira and Jake made their way around the winding little street of Rue de Seine. The Rue de Seine was aptly named, as it would lead them back to the river, which was Paris's greatest sparkling asset on a sunny summer day.
"Can't we just eat it now?" Jake whined. "It's basically street food."
"Yes, we could technically eat it now on a random street corner, or we could wait to eat in a special spot in Paris we won't have time to get to later." She looked at him expectantly.
He shrugged. "I could just eat it now."
"Oh shut up, we're going to the special spot." She led the way down the narrow sidewalk, excited to cross yet another important item from her list of things to do in Paris.
***
Fifteen minutes of navigating through Paris later, Jake and Mira found themselves in a decidedly special spot. The majority of people would miss this little gem, which was located in the middle of the bridge Pont Neuf, on the island of Ile de Cité. The majority of people would miss it because it wasn't next to the bridge, it was below the bridge. This spot could only be found by taking a set of stone steps, through a narrow tunnel whose ceiling threatened to hit most adults in the head. Moments later you'd emerge into the sunlight, and you'd find yourself on the same level as the river. The remarkable thing was that here, surrounded by water, was a tiny sliver of a park. Fenced in and full of lush greenery, there were only four benches for those lucky enough to stumble upon this hideaway. Mira and Jake were sitting on one of these benches, chowing down like it was their last meal on earth.
"Oh my god," said Jake in between bites.
"Shut up I'm eating," said Mira in a muffled voice.
Jake took a long swig of Coke and sighed. "I need to take a breather; like it's that good."
Mira looked at him quizzically as she wiped her mouth. "You still have half yours left? I'm already done." She stared out at the water and smiled, as he looked at her in amazement.
"I know you're not a stripper," he said.
She turned to him with a mixture of a smile and a scowl. "Uhh...thanks for knowing that I was obviously joking?"
"It's not that," he said. "I a hundred percent know you're not a stripper, because I also know that you work at Magnolia on Bleecker Street."
She gave him a sharp look. "Did you Google me or something? Are there pictures of me serving up cupcakes at Magnolia? Cause if there are, I want them taken down immediately." She couldn't figure out how else he could know, as he hadn't even known she existed before this trip...or had he?
"No I haven't seen any photos," he said laughing. "But I was there once and you served me. Don't you remember?"
Swarms of tourists had been making pilgrimages to Magnolia ever since it'd been popularized by Sex and the City; as a result, she found it difficult to keep track of all the cupcake-eating masses. "Wait a minute..." she said. "What were you doing buying cupcakes? Were they for your mom, or are you secretly an emotional eater addicted to frosting?"
For the first time all day he seemed a little embarrassed. "I was there because I was...on a date."
Mira raised an eyebrow. "Oh I see; give a girl a sugar high and then boom: she'll sugar crash right into your arms."
He looked sheepish. "She was just really craving a red velvet cupcake so I took her there."
Mira rolled her eyes. "Oh my god; as if she picks the most common cupcake flavour in the world. Good thing you dropped her ass."
Jake looked out over the water. "Your attitude now makes sense, because I remember you were kinda rude to her when she ordered it."
"I was not! And how do you remember such specific details?"
He turned and leaned towards her. "I'm observant."
"And yet you assumed that Rachel and I were lesbians." She smirked.
"I actually didn't," he said. "I just don't think things through when I'm hungover and grumpy. Plus I'd just been punched."
She couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, getting punched must suck. I don't actually know anyone who's been punched, at least not before today. Well actually...not exactly," she rambled on. "Like this girl I knew once got punched in the uterus by some other girl at a party. She could barely walk for a week, but she'd hooked up with that girl's boyfriend so I guess she had it coming." Her rambling was on another level now; it was the sort of thing she did when she was nervous, like right now, when Jake and Mira's knees were touching. Why did a stupid thing like knee-on-knee contact make her so nervous? Maybe she needed to be more like Jake and hook up with anything that walked by to calm the nerves. Maybe not.
"So what cupcake flavour would you actually approve of?" he said.
"Oh, are we still on the cupcakes?" she said. "I actually prefer banana bread." She shrugged. She could see him smiling out of the corner of her eye, but she chose not to look at him directly; the knee-on-knee contact was plenty for now.
"There's turnip in your hair," he said.
"Huh?" She suddenly emerged from her over-analytical haze.
"A piece of turnip," he said. "It's caught in your hair. At least I think it is. Let me see." Before she could stop him, his fingers were running through her hair. She froze. "Hmm..." he said, still delicately searching through her hair. When his fingers brushed against her scalp, she almost melted through the bench and right into the Seine River. She was aware of very little in this moment, except for the fact that he was taking pretty damn long to pull out a piece of turnip, given the fact that it's not like she had a perm or anything.
He pulled out the piece of turnip and showed it to her, their faces now inches apart. "See?"
"I don't know how that got there," she said, slightly embarrassed. "I mean I know I was excited, but I don't think I was eating like the Tasmanian Devil or anything. Was I?" She smoothed her hair back into place, and a moment later she noticed his hazel eyes staring right into hers. She'd never noticed his eyes before, but now that she was seeing them clearly, she couldn't deny the warmth and kindness she saw in them. For someone who seemed so cocky at times, none of that was in his eyes; maybe he stored all his cocky mojo in his hair. Either way, she wasn't in any rush to look away.
"Your hair's really soft," he said.
Mira would've smirked, but she was too distracted by his eyes. "Yeah...well I told you I use that peach and pomegranate conditioner."
He smiled and as he did, his face inched a little bit closer to hers. A few more inches were all that remained between her and him and a kiss. Wait...she thought. A kiss? When she currently had the worst breath in the history of the world? On the other hand, he also currently had the worst breath in the world. But wouldn't that make for the worst kiss ever? And why was she thinking about kissing the guy who went through female conquests like disposable razors? Or maybe the better question was: why was she so worried about finding love, when a day like this in Paris with this gorgeous guy would probably never come again? As she grappled with this inner debate, her face never moved an inch; she was too caught up in the hypnosis of his eyes.
Just as she started to wonder if maybe she should make the first move, Jake's eyes went wide. He turned away a split second later. "What the hell?!" he cried.
From Mira's perspective, the scene unfolded in slow motion; first there was Jake freaking out about something, then Jake staring at the bottom of his sandwich and resting it on the bench, then Jake pulling out a napkin, then Jake furiously rubbing the napkin on his pant leg...she finally caught up to the speed of everything that was happening.
"No!" she cried. "You can't rub it in! You have to pat it!" By the time Jake switched over to patting the napkin on the pant leg of his jeans, the whole surface of his thigh was covered in a mixture of extra garlic hummus and tzatziki.
"At least it's drying up," he said.
Mira snorted. "You're screwed."
"What?" he said, continuing to pat away at the enormous stain.
"Do you even know how powerful garlic is? Why do you think it hurts vampires? Allegedly." He gave her a weird look. "Seriously that garlic smell is baked in now." She shook her head. "You're gonna smell ripe until the plane ride home."
His eyes expanded in horror. "Are you kidding me?! I can't smell like this for the rest of the day!"
Mira pointed at his tissue-filled nostrils. "Why do you care?" she said. "You can't even smell anything in general."
"But you can!"
"You care what I think about how you smell?" Mira smiled, as she quite liked the thought of his anxiety.
"I meant people around me! Like in general." Mira rolled her eyes; the ego-preserving Jake was back.
"I need new pants," he said. "I need new pants now."
"So...you wanna go back to the airport and get another pair from your bag?"
Jake looked at her, incredulous. "Are you crazy? That'll waste like two and a half hours of Paris time!"
Mira tried her best to look serious, since on the inside she was smiling wide. Jake was enjoying their day in Paris...wow; her notebook of Parisian research was winning him over...wow.
"Hello?" Jake said. "Are you listening?"
Mira emerged from her ego-stroking thoughts. "What'd you say?"
"I said take me to the nearest store where I can buy new jeans," he said firmly.
"New jeans? And then what? You're just gonna throw these away?" She couldn't believe it; that's not how her Indian fiscally-conservative parents had raised her. On the other hand, she'd just taken a hundred euros out of her bank account so she wouldn't run out of alcohol money. Desperate times.
"Look I don't even care what it costs," he said. "Just take me to the nearest place, 'cause I can't stand having 'garlic leg" any longer."
She laughed. "So you don't want me to take you to H&M, which is definitely the cheapest but kind of out of the way?"
He shook his head. "No; we need to get somewhere fast."
Mira suddenly had an idea; an idea about something she'd really been meaning to check off her list. "Well the Pont Neuf métro station is literally two minutes away, and after literally four minutes of riding on the métro...we'll be there."
"Then let's go," he said, hopping up from the bench. Mira grabbed her wrapper off the bench and followed him, smiling at the thought of taking Jake shopping in the fashion capital of the world...