She zonked out in minutes. I couldn’t sleep.
I loved this woman. What was I dragging her into?
If that toothpaste incident had escalated one more notch, Katherine’s behavior might have branded us as troublemakers, but my carry-on bag would absolutely have landed us both in jail.
What was I thinking? What had I gotten her involved in? Was I crazy? The questions were bouncing around in my brain like a beach ball at a rock concert.
Somewhere along the way I fell asleep, and I didn’t wake up till we were on our final approach to Orly airport. Looking out the window, we could see the lush vineyards and tiny red-roofed farmhouses that dotted the French countryside.
“I can’t believe you’re actually taking me to Paris,” Katherine said, still snuggled up against me.
“Believe it,” I said. Then I kissed her.
She pulled away fast. “Matt, no. I have horrible morning breath.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Your breath smells Wicked Fresh.”
She punched me in the shoulder. “Matthew! You are so totally lying.” God, I loved this woman.
The plane parked on the tarmac, and one of those big mobile lounges off-loaded the passengers and drove us to the terminal. All around me people were speaking French. The signs, the sounds, even the music piping through the PA, were French.
I took off my sunglasses and my beret. I was thousands of miles away from New York, where my picture was being flashed on a TV screen every ten minutes. I felt safe. Nobody would be looking for me here.
Chapter 40
THE ARTIST KNOWN as Leonard Karns had a nearly pathological crush on Katherine Sanborne, and that was just one of the reasons he hated that muscle-bound, no-talent Matthew Bannon. Bannon and the professor were an item. No doubt about that. But now Karns had a way to get back at both of them.
God, he despised Bannon and Sanborne. For one thing, they were into Realism, even into portraits. Karns hated portraits. “If that’s all you’re going to do,” he said one day in his Group Critique class, “you might as well work at a carnival.” One girl left the room in tears.
Karns was a Big Bang! artist. Big Bang! was the new, hip abstract painting for the twenty-first century. Big Bang! surged with energy and exploded with color. The imagery emanated from computer technology, quantum physics, genetics, and other complex contemporary issues. That, as far as Leonard Karns was concerned, was art.
Losers like Matthew Bannon were stuck in time, painting variations on pictures that had been done years ago and sucked even back then.
Karns was sitting in his pathetic apartment, thinking about Bannon, when his picture suddenly flashed on his TV, and the announcer said he was wanted for robbery.
And there was a reward.
He dialed the number on the TV screen and got a recording. A Detective Rice told him to leave his information and said that his call would be returned as soon as possible.
“I know the guy you’re looking for,” Karns said into the machine. “The robbery suspect. I saw his picture on TV. He goes to art school with me. I also know where he lives. Call me.”
Karns gave his name and phone number. He was about to hang up when he had to add a delicious afterthought. “Plus, the guy is a total fraud as an artist.”
Chapter 41
SOONER OR LATER I figured Katherine would ask the one question I was hoping to avoid. It turned out to be sooner. We were still in the airport, and I had stopped at a currency-exchange window to trade dollars for euros. Katherine handed me some cash from her wallet.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I got it.”
She laughed. “What do you mean you got it? You’re not paying for both of us. Absolutely not. No way, Matthew.”
“Sure I am,” I said. “I invited you to join me in Paris. My treat.”
“Hey, Matt, I invited you to join me at Parsons,” she said. “I don’t remember springing for your tuition.”
“This is different. It’s a date. Happens to be in Paris. Guy pays.”
“Not if he’s a struggling artist.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, trying not to make this a macho thing, which it wasn’t. Well, maybe it was. “I recently came into some money.”
“Oh, Matt, I hope you’re not spending the money you got for your paintings,” she said.
“No,” I said, keeping it playful. “This is different. Trust me, okay?”
“You came into some money?” she said. “How come you never mentioned it before? What money is this?”
“It’s too crazy,” I said. “I figured you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” she said.
I shrugged. “Okay. I found a big bag of diamonds in a train station.”
“And I’m having tea with the queen of England,” she said.
“Hey, if you invite me along, I’ll pay.”
She wrapped both arms around me. “You are the most generous, lovable, adorable man I ever met,” she said. “But you’re a terrible liar. If you found a bag of diamonds, you’d give it back.”
She kissed me long and hard, and the subject of how I could afford the vacation was dropped. At least for now.
We breezed through customs — I guess the French don’t have diamond-sniffing dogs. We were both too tired to even think of hopping on a bus and saving money, so we headed for the taxi rank and got into a sleek, comfortable black Peugeot.
The driver was a robust man with a gray beard and a broad smile. “You are going to where?” he said.
“The Hotel Bac Saint-Germain,” I said. “You know where it is?”
“Oui, monsieur,” he said. “You are very in luck. It is the only hotel in all of Paris I know where to find.”
Katherine and I both laughed.
“You speak English, and you’re funny,” I said.
“English is not so necessary. But to drive a taxi you must have big sense of humor,” he said as he guided the car toward a ramp that said A106.
“Where are we staying?” Katherine asked me.
“It’s a little hotel I found online. It’s on the Left Bank, in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which is the hippest, coolest section in all of Paris.”
“And about to get hipper and cooler,” she said.
The driver laughed. “You two cool hipsters are art lovers?” he said.
“Oui,” Katherine said.
“The district where you are staying, there are art galleries on every street corner,” he said. “And many cafés, and beautiful shops, and crazy, wonderful people.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “We heard you had room for two more crazies.”
“You like Aznavour?” he asked, sliding a CD into the sound system.
“Who doesn’t?” I said.
And then the seductive voice of Charles Aznavour filled the cab.
If you’re not in love when you get to Paris, you will be when you leave. If you’re already in love, it only gets better.
Katherine curled up in my arms, with her head on my chest, and for the rest of the ride, we were serenaded by the sexiest tenor in all of France, possibly in the world.
“Are your eyes open or closed?” Katherine whispered to me at one point.
“Open.”
“Mine, too,” she said.
Why would anyone close his eyes in Paris? I thought. Wherever you look, everything is just so incredibly romantic. Even being stuck in traffic. With a woman like Katherine.