“No matter,” she said, glancing away. “I really need the help for the next four weeks, believe me.”
We lingered over the apple crumble while a jazz trio began to play inside. The smells, the sounds, the feel of everything here was so different from what I was used to. I could almost forget that somewhere, thousands of miles away, Brett even existed.
I fell right asleep that night, thanks to my jet lag. When Poppy gently shook me awake the next morning at eight thirty, I felt disoriented, and it took me a moment to remember where I was.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she said softly, smiling down at me as I blinked at her with bleary eyes. “It’s Monday morning! Time to get up for work.”
I groaned. “It’s too early!” I moaned. After all, with the time difference, my body was telling me it was two thirty in the morning.
“Sorry,” Poppy apologized. “But you’re on the French clock now. Rise and shine!”
I dragged myself out of bed, muttering words that Poppy wisely ignored. By the time I had showered, put on a suit and some makeup, and appeared in the tiny kitchen forty minutes later, she had a flaky apple tart and a mug of cappuccino waiting for me.
“Eat up,” she said, nodding at the pastry. “I popped by the patisserie on the corner while you were in the shower. You’re going to have a full day, and you’ll need the energy.”
“Thanks,” I said, my eyes widening as I sunk my teeth into the flaky tart. “This is incredible.”
“Yes, well, be careful with them or you’ll gain ten pounds in a month,” Poppy said. She smiled sheepishly and patted her stomach. “Yes, I confess, I speak from personal experience.”
I laughed.
“Er, Emma?” Poppy asked tentatively. “Would you be insulted if I offered a suggestion on your outfit?”
“Um, no?” I responded hesitantly. I glanced down at my outfit—a charcoal skirt suit with a crisp pink blouse—and wondered what was wrong with it.
Poppy nodded, gazing at my clothes. “Your suit?” She shook her head. “Much too New York–boardroom. This is a city that dresses up—but the women here do it much more subtly, and in a much more feminine way.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling suddenly foolish. This outfit had made me feel powerful and successful in Orlando. Did I not look feminine? I thought the slender cut accentuated my hips. “But what am I supposed to wear, then?”
“Give me a moment,” Poppy said with a smile.
In ten minutes, she had re-outfitted me in a pair of slender black pants I hadn’t had a chance to unpack yet as well as a pale pink blouse with a lacy collar from her own closet. She also loaned me a slim black tortoiseshell headband, which I used to pull back my somewhat unruly blond hair.
“Voilà!” she said, standing back to admire her work. “Now we just need to tone down your eyeshadow and make your lips and cheeks a little rosier, and you’ll have transformed into a Parisian woman before our very eyes!”
Poppy’s finishing touch was a slender scarf, which she tied expertly around my neck beneath the collar of the shirt. I had to admit that when I looked in the mirror, even I was surprised at the image looking back at me.
“I do look kind of French,” I said in surprise.
“You look lovely.” Poppy beamed at her handiwork. “Shall we go?”
Poppy’s office was located in an old building that looked as though it could have been a series of upscale apartments a century ago. It was directly in back of the Musée d’Orsay, an impressionist museum she promised I’d like more than the enormous Louvre once we had a chance to go. Even from the outside, the museum was impressive. Poppy, reveling in her role as impromptu tour guide, explained that it had been a train station until right around World War II. I could indeed imagine Parisians a century ago bustling in and out of the long, ornate building that stretched for several blocks along the Seine. Two giant glass clocks glowed the hour, casting pale pools of light onto the sidewalk below.
“Here we are,” Poppy said as we entered the old office building behind the museum. We walked down a narrow hallway and stopped at a broad, gold-leafed door halfway down. She inserted a key in the lock, jiggled it a few times, and pushed. I followed her into the office as she flicked on the lights.
“Oh,” I said in surprise as the room lit up. I guess I’d assumed that if Poppy owned a PR firm that handled someone as big as Guillaume Riche, she’d have a bigger office. Instead the room we’d just entered had barely enough space to contain the two big desks that faced each other. One, clearly Poppy’s, was overflowing with paperwork, photographs, and a few self-help books.
The other desk was a bit smaller and had a hard-backed stationary chair instead of a plush rolling one. There was an eight-by-ten black-and-white Eiffel Tower photograph pinned to a corkboard beside it, and a computer monitor sat on the desk, but other than that, it was empty.