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He stops then. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out and there’s a lump in my throat and for one small second, I’m scared I’m going to cry.
Because I’d hoped for baubles, trinkets, fizzy things: You have a nice smile. You have pretty legs. You’re sexy.
But what he said . . . I did once turn in forty dollars I found at the food court to mall security. I have cried in every single Jason Bourne movie. As for the last thing he said, I don’t know if it’s true. But I hope more than anything that it is.
“We should get going,” I say, clearing my throat. “If we want to get to the Louvre. How far is it from here?”
“Maybe a few kilometers. But it’s fast by bike.”
“You want me to wave one down?” I joke.
“No, we’ll just get a Vélib’.” Willem looks around and walks toward a stand of gray bicycles. “Have you ever heard of the White Bicycle?” he asks.
I shake my head, and Willem starts explaining how for a brief time in Amsterdam in the 1960s, there used to be white bicycles, and they were free and everywhere. When you wanted a bike, you grabbed one, and when you were done, you left it. But it didn’t work because there weren’t enough bikes, and people stole them. “In Paris, you can borrow a bike for free for a half hour, but you have to lock it back up, or you get charged.”
“Oh, I think I just read they started something like this back home. So, it’s free?”
“All you need is a credit card for the deposit.”
I don’t have a credit card—well, not one that doesn’t link back to my parents’ account, but Willem has his bank card, though he says he isn’t sure if there’s enough. When he runs it through the little keypad, one of the bikes unlocks, but when he tries it again for a second bike, the card is declined. I’m not entirely disappointed. Cycling around Paris, sans helmet, seems vaguely suicidal.
But Willem’s not replacing the bike. He’s wheeling it over to where I’m standing and raising the seat. He looks at me. Then pats the saddle.
“Wait, you want me to ride the bike?”
He nods.
“And you’ll what? Run alongside me?”
“No. I’ll ride you.” His eyebrows shoot up, and I feel myself blush. “On the bike,” he clarifies.
I climb onto the wide seat. Willem steps in front of me. “Where exactly are you going to go?” I ask
“Don’t worry about that. You just get comfortable,” he says, as if it’s possible in the current situation, with his back inches from my face, so close I can feel the heat radiating off of him, so close I can smell the new-clothes aroma of his T-shirt mingling with the light musk of his sweat. He puts one foot on one of the pedals. Then he turns around, an impish grin on his face. “Warn me if you see police. This isn’t quite legal.”
“Wait, what’s not legal?”
But he’s already pushed off. I shut my eyes. This is insane. We’re going to die. And then my parents really will kill me.
A block later, we’re still alive. I squint an eye open. Willem is leaning all the way forward over handlebars, effortlessly standing on the pedals, while I lean back, my legs dangling alongside the rear wheel. I open my other eye, release my clammy grip on the hem of his T-shirt. The marina is well behind us, and we are on a regular street, in a bike lane, cruising along with all the other gray bicycles.
We turn onto a choked street full of construction, half the avenue blocked by scaffolding and blockades, and I’m looking at all the graffiti; the SOS, just like on the T-shirt for that band Sous ou Sur is scrawled there. I’m about to point it out to Willem, but then I turn in the other direction and there’s the Seine. And there’s Paris. Postcard Paris! Paris from French Kiss and from Midnight in Paris and from Charade and every other Paris film I’ve ever seen. I gape at the Seine, which is rippling in the breeze and glimmering in the early-evening sun. Down the expanse of it, I can see a series of arched bridges, draped like expensive bracelets over an elegant wrist. Willem points out Notre Dame Cathedral, just towering there, in the middle of an island in the middle of a river, like it’s nothing. Like it’s any other day, and it’s not the freaking Notre Dame! We pass by another building, a wedding-cake confection that looks like it might house royalty. But, no, it’s just City Hall.
It’s funny how on the tour, we often saw sights like this as we whizzed by on a bus. Ms. Foley would stand at the front of the coach, microphone in hand, and tell us facts about this cathedral or that opera house. Sometimes, we’d stop and go in, but with one or two days per city, most of the time, we drove on by.
I’m driving by them now too. But somehow, it feels different. Like, being here, outside, on the back of this bike, with the wind in my hair and the sounds singing in my ears and the centuries-old cobblestones rattling beneath my butt, I’m not missing anything. On the contrary, I’m inhaling it, consuming it, becoming it.
I’m not sure how to account for the change, for all the changes today. Is it Paris? Is it Lulu? Or is it Willem? Is it his nearness that makes the city so intoxicating or the city that makes his nearness so irresistible?
A loud whistle cuts through my reverie, and the bike comes to an abrupt halt.
“Ride’s over,” Willem says. I hop off, and Willem starts wheeling the bicycle down the street.
A policeman with a thin mustache and a constipated expression comes chasing after us. He starts yelling at Willem, gesticulating, wagging a finger at me. His face is turning a bright red, and when he pulls out his little book and starts pointing to me and Willem, I get nervous. I thought Willem had been joking about the illegal thing.
Then Willem says something to the cop that stops the tirade cold.
The cop starts nattering on, and I don’t understand a word, except I’m pretty sure he says “Shakespeare!” while holding a finger up in an aha motion. Willem nods, and the cop’s tone softens. He still wagging his finger at us, but the little book goes back into his satchel. With a tip of his funny little hat, he walks away.
