The Art of French Kissing (11 page)

Ten minutes later, the cab drew to a halt in front of the Eiffel Tower.

“You will love it!” the driver said, turning around to me with a smile. Obviously he’d mistaken me for a carefree tourist. “It eez ze best tourist sight in Paris. You must go up to ze top.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, counting out his fare with trembling hands. I could feel sweat beading at my brow.

“Oh, no, do not be nervous!” he exclaimed. “I see you are transpiring.” I guessed he meant
perspiring.
“But do not worry,” he went on encouragingly. “There are guardrails. It eez completely safe.”

“Merci beaucoup
,
”
I mumbled, pressing a handful of bills into his hand. “Keep the change.”

“Just take ze deep breaths and you will be fine,
mademoiselle
!” the cabdriver shouted behind me as I slammed the door and began my dash across the courtyard to the entrance. “It eez nothing to panic about!”

Unfortunately, before I reached the tower, I had to pass a horde of journalists clustered near the base of its west pillar. Gabriel was the only one who spotted me as I tried to sneak by.

“Emma!” he shouted out. The other reporters, snapped to attention by his voice, spun to face me, too. Suddenly I was in the center of a storm of questions that were being hurled toward me far faster than I could respond to them.

“Is it true that Guillaume Riche is in custody inside the Eiffel Tower?”

“Was he drunk?”

“Has he been taken to jail?”

“Will this delay his album launch?”

“Does KMG have an official statement?”

“No,” I muttered, trying to make my way past them.

“What about the allegation that he was trapped in the tower overnight?” Gabriel’s oddly American-sounding voice rose above the others. “Are you denying it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was hardly room to move as I elbowed through the crowd. I quickly explained who I was to one of the guards, who thankfully spoke enough English to understand. He radioed someone, and in a moment he reluctantly ushered me through and pointed me toward the south pillar.

“What about the allegation that he’s naked?” Gabriel yelled after me as I began to stride away, trying to stop myself from panicking.

“Not true.” I stopped and glared at Gabriel. Who did he think he was anyhow?

“Then what are you doing here if there’s nothing going on?” Gabriel asked smugly. His deep green eyes sparkled triumphantly behind his thin-rimmed glasses. He grinned at me, and I was disappointed to realize that his dimples were just as charming, even when he was annoying the heck out of me. Which was unfortunate, because I really wanted to dislike Gabriel Francoeur.

“Er . . . we’re doing a promotional thing for his new album,
Riche
, which will have its launch party two weeks from Saturday,” I said, thinking quickly. I glanced at Gabriel and then at the other journalists. “I’m sorry you all appear to have been misinformed again. But I hope you’re looking forward to the album release as much as I am.”

With that, I began striding toward the entrance.

“If there’s nothing wrong,” I could hear Gabriel shouting behind me, “then bring Guillaume out to talk to us when you’re done inside!”

I ignored him and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I clutched the Celio bag tighter. How could I bring him out past the media horde if he was in custody? I was in serious trouble here. I had no idea how I would talk the security guards out of having Guillaume arrested.

After a quick consultation with a security manager outside the tower, I was escorted sixty yards up to the first level by elevator. I hardly had time to marvel at the fact that, for the first time in years, I was once again inside one of my favorite buildings in the world. I barely noticed the intricate, crisscrossing geometric ironwork of the tower as we were whisked quickly up toward what I suspected would be a much crazier scene than the Hôtel Jeremie last week.

My escort led me down a series of hallways on the first floor and into a small office behind the Eiffel Tower’s post office, where I was introduced to two of the security guards who had Guillaume in custody.

“Where is he?” I asked wearily. Smirking, one of the guards gestured toward a closed door in the back.

“Bonne chance, mademoiselle
,
”
he said. Good luck, miss.

The guard opened the door for me, and for a moment I just stood there, staring.

Inside the small, mostly bare room, Guillaume was sitting in a plastic chair, naked but for a pair of faded Hanes briefs, which were red with a thick white band around the waist. He had one leg crossed casually over the other and was reading a tattered copy of
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
And as if things couldn’t get any stranger, he was wearing a black top hat. A black cane with a white tip was propped against the chair.

“Allons-y
,
”
the officer urged. Let’s go. I gulped and stepped inside. The officer slammed the door behind me with a definitive bang, and Guillaume looked up. He stared at me for a moment as if trying to place me, then blinked a few times and grinned.

“Ah,
bonjour
, Emma!” he said brightly, as if I had just dropped in on him in his penthouse as opposed to a security cell in the Eiffel Tower. He snapped his book shut and set it down. “You are looking lovely this morning.”

I tried to control my impulse to blush—and also my impulse to stare at his mostly naked body. “Guillaume, what on earth are you doing?”

“It’s not my fault, Emma,” he said with a casual shrug. He tipped his top hat to me and stood up lazily. I blinked a few times and looked away. After all, it was irrelevant that his was the nicest body I’d ever laid eyes on, right?

“I’m sure you’re totally innocent, once again,” I said drily. I thrust the Celio bag at him. “Please get dressed, Guillaume,” I said, still trying not to look too closely.

He looked at me for a moment then took the bag from me. He peered inside and his face lit up. “Emma!” he exclaimed. “You brought me clothes! How nice! And I didn’t get you anything! How rude of me!”

I glanced back at him. He was smiling happily, as if there were nothing in the world wrong with the present situation.

“Yeah, I’m a real angel,” I muttered. I looked him up and down. “What exactly were you doing, anyhow?”

Guillaume regarded me blankly. “I was doing a dance number, Emma,” he said.

“A
dance
number?”

He nodded. “Want to see?”

“Not particularly,” I said.

Guillaume smiled and shook his head. “Oh, Emma, where is your sense of adventure?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Where are your clothes?”

He ignored me. “I was just seeing what it was like to be Fred Astaire. You’re American. You should appreciate that, right?”

With that, he stood, dropped the bagful of clothing on the ground, and picked up the cane.

“Guillaume—”

He held up a hand. “Do not interrupt the artistic process, Emma.”

He closed his eyes, breathed in and out, and whispered, “Zen.” Then, wearing just his red briefs and top hat, he began to do a little barefoot tap dance.

“Have you seen the well-to-do
,
”
Guillaume began to sing loudly in a booming voice, waving his cane grandly around.

I stared in horrified awe as he pranced back and forth in the little cell, swinging his cane, tipping his hat, kicking his legs up and dancing around me until he concluded with,
“Puttin’ on the Ritz!”

There was a moment of silence after Guillaume finished the song, on his knees, the top hat in one hand and the cane in the other. He looked at me hopefully, and I sensed that I was supposed to applaud.

Instead, I shook my head slowly. “You are seriously insane,” I said.

Guillaume pouted, dropping his hat and cane dejectedly to the floor. “Aw, Emma, I’m just having a little fun.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Okay, Guillaume, wonderful,” I said. “Seriously, would you put some clothes on and let me deal with this? Otherwise you’re going to be performing your next dance routine at the local jail.”

“I was going to suggest you join me,” Guillaume sulked. “You’d be great dancing with me to ‘Cheek to Cheek.’ It’s my favorite Astaire number, you know.”

“Maybe some other time,” I said. “Now please? Get dressed!”

Guillaume looked a bit disappointed, but he picked up the Celio bag, pulled out the shirt, and shrugged. “Whatever you say, Emma,” he said sadly as he began to pull the shirt over his head. I lingered a second longer than I needed to (hey, it’s not every day you get to see the world’s most handsome man in his underwear, okay?), then made my way back out to the main office, where I asked who was in charge. The Eiffel Tower security chief offered me a seat and called over the two other guards who were standing in the room.

“I’m so sorry about this,” I said after introducing myself and apologizing for my lack of French proficiency. “What happened?”

In broken English, the security manager described how a guard who’d just started his morning shift had found the nearly naked Guillaume fast asleep in a room near the tower’s south pillar. They couldn’t imagine how he had snuck in, as security at the tower had been tight since 2001. It had taken the guard several minutes to wake the snoring Guillaume; he had then alerted his superior and escorted the singer to the security office. That’s when Guillaume began doing his little tap-dance routine.

“He continued to say he was Fred Astaire,” said one of the guards, scratching his head. “And he began to sing a song about tomatoes, tomahtoes, potatoes, and potahtoes.”

“That is when I realized that it wasn’t just some bum,” the security manager interrupted, leaning forward conspiratorially. “It was Guillaume Riche! One of the most famous celebrities in France!”

I sighed. “Yes. That’s why an incident like this could really be a problem for his image, you understand.”

The manager exchanged glances with his two deputies.

“I thought so,” he said with a nod, looking back at me. He lowered his voice. “That’s why we’re prepared to . . . negotiate.”

I looked at him blankly. “Negotiate?”

His eyes darted from side to side then settled on me.
“Oui
,
”
he said. “We can do a little, how you say, exchange? And we can forget that this happened. We have not called the police yet.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, not quite understanding what he meant by an
exchange.
“But the police obviously know there’s something going on, right? I mean, there are dozens of reporters outside.”

“Oui
,
”
the security chief said. “But we are willing to say that this was all a misunderstanding. We can say that Guillaume Riche had our permission to be here.”

“You would do that?” I asked.

“Oui
,
”
he said. “If we can reach an agreement.” He rubbed his hands together and winked at me.

“And if he promises to put his pants on,” one of the guards muttered.

“And not to dance anymore,” said the other. All three men nodded vigorously.

Suddenly I understood.

“Are you talking about a bribe?” I asked incredulously.

The three men exchanged looks.

“A bribe?” the security chief asked. “What does this mean? I do not know this word.”

Okay, so obviously he was going to play dumb. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Let me see what I can do,” I said. “I need to talk to Guillaume, okay? I’m sure we can work this out.”

“Oui, mademoiselle
,
”
the manager said, still looking confused.

I asked them to hold on for a moment. I knocked on Guillaume’s door. “Are you dressed?”

“Do you want me naked?” he shouted back. I rolled my eyes and opened the door. Thankfully, he had managed to find his way into the T-shirt and pants. He had one of the flip-flops on his feet; he was holding the other one in his hands, examining it as if it were the key to the universe. “It’s amazing how they put these things together,” he said, gazing at the flip-flop in awe. Inexplicably, he was also still wearing the top hat.

I shook my head. There was seriously something wrong with the guy. “Guillaume, I think the security guards are asking for a bribe to let you out of this,” I said. I felt a little ill; I couldn’t believe that I was about to resort to bribery to extract my insane client from a potentially disastrous situation. I wondered vaguely what the penalties were in France for such an offense. I sighed. “Do you have any money on you?”

I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth what a ridiculous question it was. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t have any clothes on until I’d brought him the Celio garb. Where would he keep his money?

But clearly I had underestimated Guillaume Riche.

“Of course,” he responded with a shrug. “I always keep some cash in my underwear.”

“You . . . you do?” I had no idea whether he was kidding.

“Of course,” Guillaume said. He reached down the front of his pants, felt around for a moment, and pulled out a thick fold of bills. “Do you want to borrow some?” he asked pleasantly, holding up the bills. I stared. “To buy a souvenir or something?”

“Um, no, not a souvenir.”

Guillaume shrugged and tossed the fold to me. I caught it reluctantly, trying not to think about the fact that it had spent the night down his briefs. I tried to remember that desperate times called for desperate measures, and if being responsible for a naked, top-hatted rock star trapped in a major monument wasn’t a desperate time, I didn’t know what was.

“I don’t know how much is there.” He shrugged. “Take what you want. I don’t care.”

While he returned his attention to his apparently intriguing flip-flop, I looked down at the bills in my hands. My eyes widened when I realized that the bill on top was a hundred. I quickly counted the rest.

“Guillaume, you keep twenty-eight hundred euros in your underwear?” I asked after a moment, looking up at him in confusion.

He shrugged. “So what?” he asked. “You never know what you might need a little cash for.”