Méfiez-Vous de Paris

[mrs_persson]

Who: Una Persson, O'Brien, Bertie Wooster, and anyone else who wants to encounter Ms P. in Paris.
What: What to do with O'Brien, an accidental proposal, and open threads.
Where: A student café, somewhere in Montparnasse, and other places.
When: Day 1 of the port, an evening, and other times.
Warnings: Unlikely, honestly.

[I'm putting in a couple

Comments

O'Brien

[mrs_persson]

After she'd gotten them settled at the hotel, Una was determined to at least try and see that O'Brien experienced something of Paris.

It wasn't going well.

By now, they'd reached a neighbourhood rich with bookstores, student cafés, and all the other sorts of things one finds near an urban university, and Una was beginning to wonder if there was anything O'Brien could find halfway amusing in Paris. Tired of Paris, tired of life? Or was it London? She couldn't remember.

"Look, let's stop for some coffee at least, all right? I'm hungry."

Re: O'Brien

[mrs_persson]

She turned with some relief into the first café she saw that had an empty table. She ordered coffee, and noticed with some amusement that the half-dozen students at the next table all seemed to be studying politics and philosophy, judging by the books on the table and the tenor of their conversation. They were a polyglot bunch too, switching gears from English to French frequently, with a smattering of German.

Bertie

[mrs_persson]

Late in the evening, a more-tipsy-than-she-looked Una was strolling cheerfully down the streets of Montparnasse, smiling at the passersby and greeting them in a mix of fluent boarding-school French and an apache slang that had gone out of fashion at least seventy years ago. In between she was singing, incongruously, Jacques Brel's "Jacky", freely mixing up the French and English.*

*English lyrics.

Bertie

[helpmejeeves]

Bertie strode down the pavement in full evening dress, top hat and all, ready for a night about town, when he saw a familiar lovely profile singing a jaunty tune.

"What-ho, Una!" he tipped his hat to her. "Where are you off to?"

Re: Bertie

[mrs_persson]

"Bertie, darling!" She beamed. "I've just been to the most marvellous little club, brilliant selection of absinthe and this singer ... I'd take you, but to be honest, I'm not entirely certain of where it is now. You're looking smashing, if I may say so."

Bertie

[helpmejeeves]

"Thank you." He straightened his tailcoat in self-conscious preening. "You're quite a fetching sight yourself."

He held out his arm to her. "Let's say we find this club of yours, or someplace equally topping. I used to know a nice little place 'round this vicinity, but it seems to have up and vanished since the last time I was in Paris."

Morning, sidewalk café

[mrs_persson]

Una was sat at a small round table at a sidewalk café, a coffee and half-eaten croissant in front of her. She was smoking (thank god they still allowed that) and idly reading the International Herald Tribune, to find out what was going on in 2020.

Shakespeare & Company Bookstore

[mrs_persson]

If you're a certain kind of person, you don't go to Paris without browsing Shakespeare & Company, so naturally Una could be found there.

[mrs_persson]

[Choose your own...]