All Paths Lead to Paris

By Sabrina Fedel

A Paris influencer's fake relationship with a rising music star starts to feel all too real when she falls for someone else and discovers that love can't be curated in this romance in the City of Light!

Paris is always a good idea. Fake dating, not so much . . .

Seventeen-year-old Aurie McGinley seems to have it all: a glamorous life as a fashion influencer in Paris, a best friend who’s a rising music star, and a whirlwind of followers hanging on her every post. But behind the scenes, her life is a carefully crafted illusion. Fake dating Remy St. Julien, the heartthrob musician, is just part of the act.

When a chance encounter with Kylian, a down-to-earth guy her family would approve of, throws her into a real romance, Aurie’s double life becomes even more complicated. Torn between her public persona and her private desires, she juggles secret dates and live video diaries. But when a staged kiss with Remy ignites real feelings, Aurie’s world is turned upside down.

One

Remy grabs my hand and tows me through the crowd to the marks. The black-and-white Christian Dior step-and-repeat backdrop will pop against the emerald of my dress and his midnight-blue suit. My black Doc Martens and Hermès foulard keep the green alive.

“Smile,” he reminds me.

I look at him before I do. A tiny rebellion in a long day. Then I turn to the cameras as they whir and flash with the precision of an orchestra, and I smile. Radiant. I let the word cascade to every part of me like a waterfall. It’s a mantra our manager, Lille, taught me, and it works every time. At least, it always has. Today it feels off, as if I’m only going through the motions. One more day spent trying to be what everyone expects me to be. But maybe that’s just the cramps I’m having as the ibuprofen wears off.

When we step away from the photos, a flock of reporters from Teen Vogue and Seventeen surround us.

A blond reporter jabs a thumb-sized microphone to my lips. “Aurélie, how are you enjoying Paris Fashion Week?” I search my brain for her name. Sarah, I think. She’s from the States. Remy squeezes my hand over this delay.

“It’s magical, as it always is.” The same thing I say every time I’m asked, said in a different way. I’m about to add how fresh this season’s show is when it hits me that my tampon has sprung a leak.

“You’re stanning Dior today, but you smell like Chanel,” she says.

“Well, no one will ever be as classic in perfume as Chanel. But I love the new Dior line. It’s unironically sophisticated and yet still really playful for autumn.”

“But the rest of your outfit is . . . ?”

I recite my accessories, including the short charcoal trench by Givenchy I thrifted. I don’t mention the vintage rose-gold necklace I’m wearing that belonged to my dad’s mom. The one she gave me before she forgot who I was.

“No head-to-toe Prada for you, then?” Sarah asks with a laugh. She’s referencing my first Fashion Week three years ago, when I was fourteen and made that mistake, although it was Valentino.

I rub my gran’s necklace between my fingers before I return her laugh as if it’s funny. “Not until I have some yachts in the water, Sarah.” She has a Southern accent, so I’m betting she chose the Prada dig because of the country song about a girl wishing she could turn her ex’s lies and her memories of him into dimes to afford the iconic brand. It’s a risk, but the fashion world is always high-stakes. The reporter laughs in truce and turns to Remy to ask him what he thinks about being here with the world’s favorite teen fashion influencer, now that we’re officially “out” as a couple, and whose clothes he’s wearing and whether I chose them. I scratch my pinkie nail against his palm to tell him to hurry up, but he just squeezes my hand in reply. My other hand searches my coat pocket. The extra tampons I set aside must be sitting on my dresser, where I’d meant to grab them.

Another reporter is waiting, and we go through the same routine, like I’m an athlete in a postgame interview. At least this one doesn’t backhand-serve me. She asks Remy a slew of questions about us as she tries to drag romantic details from him while he fidgets his fingers in mine as if he’s playing chords. This reporter asks in French, so I don’t have to translate for him.

When we finish the interview, Remy gazes over my head at a group of people across from us. “There’s that lady from Rolling Stone,” he says. He steps forward and tugs me along.

I stop, and our arms pull out like taffy until he turns. “Remy, I have to go to a pharmacy.”

“Now?” His dark hair shifts and settles like he’s in a shampoo commercial. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he raises his back in confusion. A mention in Rolling Stone would be huge for him, with his second EP dropping next month.

“You go ahead. I’ll find you after.”

“What could you possibly need so badly right now?” His green eyes remind me of fresh mint in summer.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, even though each passing minute is adding to my conviction that I’m teetering on the verge of disaster. “I’ll be back before it’s over.”

Remy droops his head to one side. “Aurie.”

“I will,” I say with more conviction than I know is fair. “You should do this on your own anyway, so the focus is on you. You’ll smash it.” I smile my confidence at him.

“What if I need a translator?” His fingers are still interlaced with mine.

I laugh. “It’s music talk. They could ask you questions in Navajo and you’d understand.”

He bites his bottom lip as he returns my laugh. “D’accord,” he says, and pulls me in. We make la bise, kissing each other’s cheeks, since there are cameras poised to capture everything we do. He tells me to be careful, even though I won’t be in any danger, because he’s so used to looking out for me.

Then he strides off. Heads turn to follow him the way the Greeks must have watched Apollo walk by. They don’t know how his mamie yells at him to take out the trash, shaking a wooden spoon when he doesn’t get off the sofa the first time she asks. Or that he’ll duck rather than take one of her stinging swats. I think she usually misses on purpose, though. She loves Remy the way everyone loves him. Without guardrails.

I scan the crowd for someone who could help, but there isn’t anyone I know well enough to ask. Rays of late-afternoon sunlight stream down from the great glass dome of the Grand Palais as I weave through the pulsing throng of models and celebrity fashionistas. People grab me for a quick la bise as I pass, or call and wave to me, so close and yet impossibly divided by the swarm. The hall rings with thousands of voices competing to be heard. Photographers jump in front of me. “Smile!” they command, as if I’m a sea lion performing tricks at the zoo. When I finally emerge through the gauntlet of security, the noise inside fades, replaced by the constant hum of traffic. My phone says the nearest pharmacy is only a few blocks away, so I run down the steps to the bustling avenue. The map points me away from the river and the chilly wind.

When I reach Avenue Montaigne, the map says the shop is around the corner and five stores down. I turn and see a crowd of people right in front of the pharmacy. It’s a school strike for climate, with signs on recycled cardboard. An oil and gas company logo crowns the building. Twenty kids or so, all about my age, are milling about and trying to engage every passerby, even the cars going along the street.

“Pardon,” I say as I dodge between them.

“Were you at Fashion Week?” a tall girl asks. I nod. I wish I were better at lying, because I definitely should have lied based on the scowl she throws me.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” she says. “Your consumerism is destroying the only planet we have!” She’s ginger-haired and pretty and somehow reminds me of a powerful show horse.

“Reine’s right. It’s people like you who are the problem!” another girl says.

“Sorry,” I say, and keep moving as the Reine girl calls me a name. Some of them boo me.

I try to sidestep a guy obstructing the door. He’s tall, too, and he matches my step to block my way. He’s so close, I have to tilt my head up to see his face.

“Look,” I say, “I’m not trying to disrupt your protest— in fact, go for it—but I need to get to the pharmacy.”

He shakes wavy auburn hair from his eyes, which are strikingly blue. “You don’t look like you support school strike.” He has on a plain blue T-shirt and a canvas jacket that makes me think he hikes a lot. He belongs in a Patagonia catalog.

“And you don’t look like someone who would keep a girl from getting into a pharmacy when she’s desperate.”

He scans my face. “Your mascara isn’t running,” he says with a short laugh.

I harden my jaw, staring him down. Lille calls it “the model chill,” and she’s trained me in it relentlessly. His smile droops away. He steps aside and pulls the door open in mock gallantry that doesn’t deserve a thank-you. I sweep past him. The pharmacy is small, and I spot what I need almost immediately. There’s a middle-aged man behind the counter, but he’s used to looking away discreetly as people get their creams and other unmentionables to bring to him so they can be rung up. There are no secrets from pharmacists and mail carriers. Still, I wish he were a lady pharmacist.

I place the package on the counter, along with a small packet of panty liners and some ibuprofen. My morning dose has definitely worn off. The boy who opened the door is outside, but he sees my stash, and then he catches me seeing him see. Behind him, Reine watches him. I turn my head.