"Wow," Helen said, squeezing his hand nervously. "I've... well... never said that to anyone before. Not... you know... truthfully."
"It's just three little words," Jake said. "It wasn't so hard, was it?"
"Just three little words," she chuckled. "Did you... mean it when you said it to me?"
"What do you think?"
She smiled at him again. "I think you did."
"You think correctly."
They ate their desert and drank their cognac. They then returned to the gaming tables and lost some more money. Finally, they retired to their suite and spent a considerable amount of time showing each other their newly declared love out on the balcony.
The next day, they flew back to Saint-Tropez and reunited with the rest of the band.
The day after that, they flew to London and the grueling schedule of the Great Britain portion of the tour began.
Chapter 11b
Paris, France
March 22, 1989
The limousine crawled along in the dense afternoon traffic as it headed from Charles de Gaulle International Airport to the luxury hotel on Champ de Mars. The weather was overcast with occasional drizzles — typical continental spring conditions. Inside the limo were the members of Intemperance, Helen, and Sharon. The band had finished their last Great Britain date the night before and were now embarking upon a two-day off period while their equipment was being shipped across the English Channel.
"Isn't Paris beautiful?" asked Sharon as she goggled at the sights outside.
"Yes," agreed Helen, who was goggling just as hard. "I never thought I'd ever get to see it. Now I'm arriving by limousine." She turned to Jake. "Can we go see the Eiffel Tower today? It's in walking distance from our hotel."
"Sure," said Jake with a shrug. Unlike Coop, Charlie, and Matt, he was well-rested and not hungover. "I don't see why we can't go check it out. What about you and Sharon, Nerdly?"
"I can't wait," Sharon said excitedly, clapping her hands together in excitement. "And after that, maybe we could..."
"Uh... actually," Nerdly interrupted, "I thought maybe we could hold off on the Eiffel Tower for a bit."
"Hold off?" Sharon said. "It's less than half a mile from our hotel. Why would you want to hold off?"
"I'm a little tired from the traveling," he said.
"Tired?" Jake asked, raising his eyebrows a little. "It was a two hour flight, Nerdly."
"And you went to bed at nine o'clock last night," Sharon said with a pout.
"It's also raining and windy," Nerdly said. "I'd rather wait for better weather."
Nerdly was acting decidedly strange but Jake shrugged it off. "Okay," he said. "Is it okay if Helen and I go check it out without you then?"
"Of course," Nerdly said. "Be our guest."
"Sure," Sharon said, obviously a little dejected. "Be sure to get pictures."
"What about you, Matt?" Jake asked the guitar player, who was sipping from a rum and coke he'd made. "What are you doing after we get checked in? Wanna check out the tower with us?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm gonna crash out for a couple of hours and then go find me some Parisian bitch with hairy armpits to fuck."
"I'm just gonna crash out," Coop said. "I shoulda never had those last four pints of beer last night."
Jake looked at Charlie for a moment but didn't bother asking him. With his germ phobia he would never go near a structure that was visited by six million people every year.
"It looks like it's just you and me," Jake told Helen.
She smiled, taking his arm. "All alone on the Eiffel Tower. How romantic."
"Romantic," Matt spat with a roll of his eyes and a jerk-off motion. "You people make me wanna puke."
They finally arrived at their hotel just past three o'clock. The check-in procedure went smoothly and by half past the hour, Jake and Helen had unpacked all of their clothes and put everything away. They spent a few minutes admiring the view from their window — it overlooked Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower itself — and then headed out for their excursion to France's most famous landmark.
Even though it was a drizzly weekday in the off-season, they still had to wait in line for more than an hour to board one of the elevators — or lifts as they were called here — to go up to the first level. They were squeezed in with fifteen other people into a rickety, dank, and frightening booth that jerked and groaned its way upward for almost two hundred feet before disgorging them on the broadest of the three platforms.
They spent twenty or thirty minutes exploring the shops and the post office on the first level, before deciding to take the stairs up to the second level of the tower to avoid the line and the terrifying elevator. This turned out to be quite a climb; almost fifteen stories worth of steps, but both of them were in good shape and were hardly winded when they came out on the second level. They explored up here for a little bit as well, spending most of their time utilizing the coin operated telescopes that lined the railing.
"I can't believe I'm looking at a boat on the River Seine," Helen said as she put her eye to the viewfinder.
"Don't tell Matt or Coop about these things," Jake said. "They'll be up here all day trying to look into hotel windows."
Tourists were not allowed to take the stairs from the second level to the top of the tower so they had to wait in another line for one of the lifts. This took the better part of twenty minutes but finally they were crammed in with another fifteen people and the jerking and groaning began once again.
The top platform was small and crowded but the panoramic view of the city was nothing short of spectacular. They snapped pictures of each other with the various views of the city in the background and then had an elderly Japanese couple snap pictures of them together. Once the photography was done they found a spot overlooking the River Seine and just stood there with their arms around each other, looking out at the view.
To this point, Jake's bulky jacket and baseball cap had kept anyone from recognizing him — or at least anyone who cared to make mention of the recognition. It was when he leaned in to kiss Helen that this suddenly changed.
"Excuse me," a voice said in English with a heavy southern accent. "Ain't you Jake Kingsley?"
Jake looked up to see an overweight man in his early twenties. He had a thick, unkempt mustache and a NASCAR cap upon his head. A skinny brown-haired woman with bad teeth was holding his hand. He debated denying that he was Jake Kingsley but past experience had taught him that such a ruse rarely worked. Instead, he put a smile on his face and acknowledged that, yes indeed, he was Jake Kingsley.
"Well, hole-ee shit!" the man exclaimed. "My name's Frank Peterson, Jake. Me and my wife here is visiting from Jackson, Mississippi. Fancy meetin' you here in Paris."
"It's very nice to meet you," Jake said, shaking hands with the man and nearly getting his fingers broken in the process.
"I tried to catch your show the last time you was in Jackson," Peterson told him. "But it was all sold out and them scalpers was asking for like three hundred bucks for a ticket. What you doin' here, Jake? You on tour? I heard you was doin' a tour in Europe."
"Yes," Jake said. "We've been on tour for the last few months. We're doing three shows here in Paris this week and then heading on to Marseille and then Zurich. Helen and I were just doing a little sightseeing."
"Well god-damn," Peterson told him, not acknowledging Jake's mention of Helen in any way. "I don't suppose you have any extra tickets to any of them Paris shows, do you? Me and Jessie is gonna be here another five days and we'd love to se y'all in concert."
"Unfortunately, no," Jake said apologetically. "They don't let us give out tickets. It's one of those contract things."
"Well that's too damn bad," Peterson said sadly. "Do you think that maybe you could give us your autograph though?"