quote:

Kassandra stepped off the plane and was immediately greeted by a sheet of rain to the face.
"Lovely, two minutes on European soil and I already hate the weather," she thought bitterly as her long hair became increasingly plastered to the back of her head and she felt the water seep through her peep toes.
She shielded her body as best she could as she carried her now soggy carry on with her into the airport.
It was surprisingly quiet, but seeing as how it was the middle of October and horrible outside she didn't expect there to be much traffic in Charles de Gaul.

Lost in her thoughts she almost collided with a little girl giggling feverishly and running full speed ahead towards the lifts. Her mother looking haggard and worn chased after her, shouting her name all along the tiled floor. Kassandra looked towards the direction from which they came and let out a sympathetic groan. There stood a male, surrounded by children. In one hand he clutched what looked like boarding passes, while around his waist he balanced a little boy who was sobbing quietly. Two more little girls wound their way around his legs. Luggage was scattered around the miserable looking family, and she was positive she heard a cell phone ringing in their general direction. Kass shuddered at the thought of being that miserable couple. Thoughts of children instantly made her think of Jack. He pretty much changed his number the moment she let slip she didn’t want any. Watching them now, as the little boy picked up volume in his sobs she knew she had made the right choice.

Thirty minutes later and she was past the security checkpoints. The procedure this time around wasn’t too painful. Besides having to whip out her passport at least four times and being told by a rough looking woman in her forties to keep her “freakishly impractical” shoes off while going through the metal detectors it wasn’t too humiliating. Kass thought back to her trip to Paris when she was eighteen. The jewelled detail on her panties kept setting off the metal detectors and by the end of the trip she was convinced she was going to be declared a terrorist and carted away. She was still convinced that nobody glared like the French.

Kass rounded the luggage carousel and watched for her one suitcase. Fleeing the country really doesn’t give one time to pack. She had grabbed whatever she could that was clean and looked warm enough for the autumn. With her luck it was probably all bikinis and sheer tights. She sighed as she lugged the suitcase off the carousel almost being thrown sideways by the speed it was turning. Grumbling she made her way towards the sheets of rain pulsing against the nearest sheet of glass. It took her a moment to steel her courage, wrap her coat tightly around herself and step into the rain.

The cab ride was anything but pleasant. The driver kept shouting obscenities as other cars passed him, and shouted even louder as the football match on the radio was drawing to a close and his team was still down. Small talk afterwards consisted mostly of how foul the weather was. He stopped the cab initially a good thirty meters from the address she gave him and refused to get out to get her suitcase claiming an old war injury. In the end he sped off so quickly, after not giving her any change, he practically blew her tights off when accelerating.

Kass ran under the balcony of the second floor and looked down at the mess she was. Her outfit was ruined, big splotches of dirty water covered her from head to toe, there was a run in her new tights, and her shoes were scuffed from when she had stumbled to avoid the little girl in the airport. She looked around her at the street she was on. She had chosen the address because she knew it was tucked away up on a hill in the artist’s district. Few tourists frequented the area, and those who did were mostly young anyways. It had a certain Parisian charm to it but was affordable and homey.

The street was lined with charming little hotels, grocers, delicatessens and restaurants on one side. Near one end a balding man was trying to protect his produce from the rain. At the other end a young woman was changing the sign of a corner café, advertising the new specials. An old man was walking his dog while hobbling on a cane along the cobblestones, practically oblivious to the pulsing rain. It took her back to when she was 15 and was watching her grandfather putter about in the garden during a particularly heavy sun shower. With his cane in hand and his spaniel underfoot he too completely ignored the inclement weather and went on humming Sinatra’s greatest hits as she watched him out the window. Her grandfather had died the year previous and now she felt a certain sadness that she had never bothered to get to know him. She signed yet another time that afternoon and turned to look at the side she was standing on.

To her left was a dead end at the top, framed on either side by a restaurant. Charming two and three storied apartments and a single hotel lined this side in addition to a pub just down the hill a little. Made of old brick and fashioned in true Parisian style the architecture was beautiful even in the pouring rain. She turned in the narrow sidewalk and looked at the building in front of her and double checked the address on the sheet in her hand. The number on the building was correct, and like her sheet said, the 2 in 24 was a little crooked. She smiled fondly at the small imperfection and ran her finger along it, and that’s when she heard it. She looked to the right and saw a delivery truck speeding up the hill towards her. She quickly looked at the huge puddle in front of the narrow bit of sidewalk she was standing on. She stuck her key in the double front doors and quickly spun inside. Before she knew it she and her soaked luggage where running into a wall just as she heard the truck speed by.

Except it wasn’t a wall at all, but rather it was a person, a he as Kass realized once she felt the warm firm body pressed against her. She mentally kicked herself for sexually assaulting one of her new neighbours even before she had a chance to introduce herself and quickly tried shuffling backwards, but not before catching sight of her knotted hair and frightful outfit in the hall mirror behind his head. He steadied her before she went crashing into the bench behind her.

“You know, most people wear a suit when they go swimming.”

Kass barely heard him; she was too busy looking up at the most amazing blue eyes she had ever seen, now steadfastly focused on her. In her mind she catalogued every shade of blue she had ever come across looking for the perfect way to describe his eyes and coming up short. She slowly began to focus and finally began to see the rest of the face in front of her. He was gorgeous. His straight chestnut hair was in disarray and hung slightly down over one eye brushing against long dark lashes. She focused on his perfectly straight nose and envied its perfect shape and then moved to his full lips, a dark cherry colour. She could see a hint of a five o’clock shadow along his angular jaw, and she could see the tense definition as he looked at her quizzically. She realized with a jolt that he was still holding her and she was only inches away as she felt the warm from his hands radiate through her wet clothing.

“Kass,” she blurted out and instantly blushed, “I mean hi, I’m Kass, and I think we’re neighbours.”

She clutched the carry on between them even tighter and could feel her knuckles begin to hurt from the tension. He looked at her in an odd way, as if in disbelief, cocking one eyebrow and smirking crookedly. He still hadn’t let go of her, and she was practically drooling as the warmth was making its way to her skin. It was at that moment that she realized she not only hadn’t worn waterproof mascara today, but she was also missing her right shoe.

She was bolting up the stairs in one shoe before he even realized she had moved.
“It was nice meeting you….” She hadn’t even found out his name.
“Christian,” he shouted after her up the winding staircase.
“Yeah, that.” He heard the click of her door shutting behind her.
Christian looked down and saw that his shirt had soaked through from the bag being clutched between them. He turned to the front door and pulled the antique handle. He checked the mailbox and grabbed the paper and something caught his attention, he looked down. That’s how he saw it, a high heel, a black satin peep toe that somehow looked remarkably untouched by the weather which had turned miraculously into a sun shower. And that’s why when the grocer came to uncover his produce he found Christian standing on the sidewalk clutching his sides and laughing.

Kass leaned against her door listening to the front door open and close and open again. She listened to his footsteps below and began catching her breath. The jog up the stairs with her bags had been a daunting task for a girl that normally refused to even run for a bus. She caught her breath as she hunched over and dripped all over the carpet. She could hear Christian coming up the stairs, so she did what any self respecting young woman would do, she stared out her peep hole. She watched as he started down the hall towards her door while removing his wet black t-shirt.

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Kass opened her eyes slowly and began taking in the surroundings of the room she found herself in. It was amazing, like something out of a furniture store’s fall catalogue. The room was spacious and warm. The walls were a warm pumpkin colour and one was brick, she noticed it first on her right side. The living room was also on her right nestled in a cove divided from the rest of the room, the brick wall running around it. It was fully furnished with an overstuffed tweed sofa in a chocolate brown; a leather love seat that looked a little rumpled and very loved in the same colour, and a beige corduroy chair. Blankets were thrown haphazardly over the furniture. The sofas were arranged on an area rug, the same colour as the walls, covering the hardwood and facing towards her. They were arranged around a dark wooden coffee table in the center, with two other little tables standing beside the sofas. In the corner to her right stood a remarkably large and high tech looking television. Above it hung a water colour in the same shades as the rest of the room. The brick wall surrounding this cove was covered in what looked like professional photographs of all sizes, most beautiful landscape shots, but many also of people. Books of all shape and sizes, hard cover and paperback, as well as magazines were strewn over the tables and sometimes on the floor.

She looked at the dining room right across from her next. The wall opposite was practically all window, a foot from the ground, up to the ceiling, and from wall to wall. A window seat ran beneath it covered in more books and another blanket. Gauzy curtains in a beautiful cream colour blew gently in the breeze from the open windows. The table in front of the windows was wooden and dark, mahogany perhaps, darker than the hardwood on which it stood, with matching chairs for four surrounding it. It was covered in a deep red tablecloth and a vase of sunflowers stood in the center. To the right was what looked like a hallway leading to the bedrooms she assumed.

The kitchen was on her left, divided from the dining room by only a short wall. The cabinets were wooden, dark like the dining room table. The counter was also a warm shade of orange, slightly darker than the walls covered in letters or perhaps bills. The tiles along the wall between upper and lower cabinets were tiny, configured like diamonds, and a shade of red comparable to the tablecloth. The handles of the cabinets and drawers were glass and antique looking. All sorts of high tech looking kitchen equipment lined the countertops.

Kass sighed contently instantly approving of her surrounding. She loved the colours and the layout of her new home, but she loved most of all the personal touches, like the photographs in every size, or the piles of books and magazines strewn on all surfaces, it reminded her of her own room. The only last obstacle she had to face was seeing her roommate. She checked the sheet she had stuffed in her pocket, beneath the address there was only one other thing hastily scrawled in her own writing, Emily Stouffield. She rose slowly from her sitting position and bent to pick up her two bags, slinging the carry on over a shoulder. She kicked off her remaining peep toe in the direction of the other pair of heals by the sofa nearest her. Gathering her courage for a second time that afternoon she took a deep breath and called out.
“Emily..? Anyone home?”
“Come in, come in, I’m in my room,” was the reply in a beautiful musical voice.

Slowly she began making her way towards the hallway. She walked between the kitchen to her left and sofas to her right heading towards the hallway. The first thing she noticed was that it was the same shade as the other walls just much darker from lack of light. She walked on the hardwood to the first door she encountered peaking in hesitantly. The sight that greeted her was definitely unexpected. Emily sat on an area rug a beautiful blue shade, cross legged, her long red hair hung over her face as she studied a book open in her lap. Classical music drifted from a stereo on the windowsill. The sun was finally streaming through the window and pooling in the spot she was sitting, sending shafts of light reflecting off her beautiful hair. Her room was covered in reading materials, pages, books, magazines; the wall on Kass’ right was built in bookshelves from side to side filled with books. Her room was huge and a beautiful dark ocean blue colour. Her wrought iron bed stood in one corner near the large window, covered by gauzy netting hanging from the ceiling. The rest of her furniture was wooden and white, contrasting beautifully with the wall colour. Her window seat was open and had fabrics of every colour spilling out of it. Her antique looking dresser’s counter was covered in all kinds of makeup, the mirror attached to it covered in post-its. The night tables on either side of her bed were the only surface not covered. Kass couldn’t help but stare as she came more fully into the room.

As soon as she saw her, Emily was bounding across the room to embrace Kass. She grabbed her in a surprisingly strong hug for someone of her petite frame, and released her several seconds later. Kass thought back to when she was seventeen and had met Emily for the first time while on vacation in Spain. They had both needed the ladies room and found themselves in a sketchy club toilet with only one stall. Kass had let Emily go ahead of her and they had made small talk, had found out they were staying at the same place, and that each was out alone that night since their traveling buddies had both gotten ill from the food. Emily was easy going and lovely and Kass had enjoyed their chat. It seemed the feeling was mutual since Emily invited Kass to be her buddy that evening and they had danced away the night together and with multitudes of men before calling it a night and sharing a cab right to their hotel. Emily and her friend were departing the next day but the two had exchanged information and kept in touch over the years becoming the closest friends. Emily had visited Kass in New York once previously when they were 18 and stayed with her for a week while Kass lived in residence at New York University. Since then Emily had been living in Paris for the past two years and once Kassandra let slip that she couldn’t wait to leave any longer and needed to get out, Emily offered her the second bedroom in her own apartment.

“What gives, you know to call me Em, I hate Emmilleeeee.”

She made a face and rolled her eyes to show her displeasure.

“God Kass, did someone shove you into the river?”

Emily’s eyes widened as she took in Kass’ appearance in front of her for the first time.
She skipped over to her in that dancer’s step she had and examined her properly, picking up a damp strand of hair. Kass shoved her playfully and picked up her bags again after taking one final look around the room appreciatively.

Emily led her back out into the hall and into the room right across from hers. Kassandra let out a content sigh as soon as she stepped into her room. She dropped her bags without even thinking and ran over to her bed. Her room was only slightly smaller than Emily’s but still quite spacious. It was darker than Em’s and done in a completely different style. Unlike Em’s room that had the appearance of a seaside villa, hers was darker, done in the same style as the rest of the apartment. The walls were the palest cocoa brown. Her furniture was wooden, and dark.

The pieces didn’t all quite match, but all the pieces worked beautifully. In one corner near the window sat a four poster bed, the sheets and duvet the crispest white she had ever seen. Her window, like the rest of the house ran the entire wall. The curtains were also white, a gauzy fabric, blowing gently in the breeze. Her window seat was down though, and upholstered in deep red velvet. On either side of her bed stood two end tables in the same shade of wood as the bed. Her expansive dresser was pushed against one wall and the mirror swung perched on top of it. A bookshelf stood in the corner nearest the door on her left and a desk stood in the far corner on the same side near the bed with a swivel chair facing the window. In the center on the hardwood floor laid an area rug in a magnificent red colour. It was perfectly suited to her tastes.

Then she noticed the dark door between the desk and bookshelf. She opened it tentatively and gasped. It was a closet, but it was huge. She had always wanted a walk in. She walked inside and breathed in. It smelt like fresh laundry. She looked down at the outlet and noticed the air freshener plugged in. She stepped back out and looked twards Em with a huge smile plastered across her face. She loved everything she saw.