Page 35 of Across Time

I lean my head against the window. "God, you're such a dick.”

"Dick?"

I cast him a withering look. "It means penis. And before you start in again about my unladylike mouth, let me ask you: Why should I be held to a different standard of behavior than you? Why is it okay for you to go to a bar and tell dirty jokes with your friends, while the women must stay home, making sure their voices are hushed and all their words are appropriate?"

He shrugs. "Because it’s how we were created. A woman’s gentler nature is what inspires man to move beyond his basest instincts, makes him want to protect and care for something other than himself. It’s an exchange, beneficial for both genders.”

There’s a certain sweetness to the idea, but mostly it just strikes me as naïve, and I don’t love the implication that a woman would also need a man to care for her like a child. "In the future, life is safer. A woman no longer needs a cave man to protect her from wild animals and war."

"No?" he asks, smirking again. "Is that not the appeal of your rich boyfriend—the protection he offers?”

“Of course not,” I snap.

“I’ve just never heard you provide a single other reason you’re with him,” he says.

Before I can react to this, he changes the topic. “What would you like to see first?”

I’m so irritated by his last comment about Mark I can barely focus on his question. All I know is that the things I’m dying to see—the Louvre, the Orsay—I don’t want to experience with him. Not when he’s there nattering on about my relationship and other things about which he knows absolutely nothing. I’ll wait until I’m back in my own time so I can truly focus on them. I’d rather see them with Mark anyway.

“I don’t know. The Eiffel Tower?”

He actually sneers. "With all the amazing architecture in this city, it's a monstrosity that excites you?"

"It's kind of...the emblem of Paris. Maybe even the whole country. In my time."

"Dieu," he says with an unhappy laugh. "Keep your television and your microwaves. I don't care to live in any world where the Eiffel Tower is the emblem of Paris and women's studies is actually a course at university."

“Fine,” I sigh. “You decide.”

He weaves through the city while I gawk at pedestrians. Everyone is so nicely dressed, and the roads are not clogged with cars the way they would be in my time, but it doesn’t feel entirely real. I can’t shake the sensation that I’m in some kind of 1930’s-themed Disney attraction instead of a real place.

Eventually he parks in a neighborhood just off the Seine. “Put on the gloves,” he says. “And the hat.”

The hat with the small veil in front, pressed into my hands by Marie just before I left. "Is this really necessary?" I ask. "I feel like a widow."

His eyes flicker over my face for the space of a heartbeat. "Yes, time traveler. It is.”

With a sigh, I open the door, slapping the hat on my head as I do it.

"Amelie, for God's sake," he says, rolling his eyes, jumping from the driver’s seat. "Wait. You’re not supposed to get your own door."

I ignore him. I’m not going to sit here like a child waiting for her father’s permission to exit the car. "Why can’t I?" I ask, climbing out and shutting the door with a satisfying thud.

He looks appalled, rather than amused. "It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you shouldn't have to.”

He gets the crutches from the trunk and hands them to me. "You certainly don't treat me like a fragile little flower when you're criticizing me, or when you were watching me sweat my ass off doing laundry last week, so let's not pretend you suddenly believe I need you to open my door.”

He releases a small groan. "Do all women where you're from object to everything the way you do? It's quite tedious."

"Not at all,” I reply. “I just didn't realize I needed so much protection. I hope this means you’ll be escorting me every time I go out to milk the cows?”

His mouth edges up. "I probably should, given how poorly you do it.”

Before I can reply, I see the awning on the corner and stumble to a halt. We’re standing feet from Les Deux Magots, one of the most famous restaurants in history. "Oh my God.” The words emerge wispy and high.

His brow furrows. "You've heard of it?"

"Of course!" I say with an excited little jump on the crutches. He fixes my hat, knocked slightly askew by the jumping. "It's where Hemingway wrote! And Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir! Everyone was here."