He stifled a laugh. “Right, kudos on the dramatic transformation.”

Jake thought back to those times he’d encountered Mira, and he didn’t recall her ever having a dump-truck ass. He certainly would’ve remembered a physical trait like that, which made it clear she was lying but he didn’t know why, and he wasn’t sure why he was curious.

Jake didn’t have the energy to solve the dump-truck puzzle, so he settled for changing the subject. “Now where’s this place we just have to try?”

She instantly relaxed. “It’s just around the corner; c’mon.”

#

Mira and Jake sat across from each other at a worn wooden table in a tiny restaurant, with paintings of waterfront sceneries lining the walls, and sunlight pouring in through the windows. There were only two other people in the dining room, which gave the place a familial and homey quality. He didn’t mind it.

“This is probably the only place in Paris that has house-made cider,” Mira said. “Which is cool, you know? Because it’s not what you’d typically expect.”

“And they also have the famous crêpes you were talking about, right?” He rubbed his stomach. “I could definitely use some of those.”

“What’s even cooler,” she went on, “is that the best crêpes in Paris are somehow here, at the top of Paris, when the famous street of crêpe restaurants is literally at the bottom of the city.”

“Famous street of crêpe restaurants? Is that a thing?”

“You better believe it’s a thing.”

“How did that even come about? A bunch of people just said ‘yup, this is where we’re making crêpes?’”

She did a double take. “That’s exactly what happened. How did you know? Have you read the blog about the origin of crêpes?”

“Can’t say I have,” he confessed, getting a sense of how Mira spent her time.

“It’s kind of amazing how it all unfolded.” She leaned in like she was about to share some intriguing culinary secret. Even though it was apparently detailed on a public blog. “The 14th arrondissement is where you’ll find the famous street of crêpes, but why that particular location, you ask?”

“Yes Mira, why?” he said, finding himself eager to play along.

“Because the 14th is also where you’ll find the Montparnasse train station, which is also where you’ll find the trains coming in from Brittany, which is also where this famous style of crêpe was invented.” She took a sip of water and shifted her attention to the view outside the restaurant window.

“Don’t stop now,” he said. “I want to hear more.”

“Oh, the rest of it was obvious. Like in conclusion: it was destiny.” She finished with a simple shrug.

Jake took a moment to marvel at this strange conversation.

He leaned back. “I have to say, you are so . . .”

As much as Jake was used to being the life of the party in every room, he didn’t quite know how to finish that sentence. And he certainly didn’t have a frame of reference for these kinds of conversations.