Unfortunately, the taxi driver seemed to be lost. She didn’t know this at first; but she got the picture when he pulled off the highway, cruised over to the side of the road, and got out, leaving her alone in the car. He walked to the sidewalk and started conversing loudly with what looked like a homeless man on the corner, since he was buried under a Hefty bag to get out of the rain. They were pointing in all different directions like traffic cops. Then the homeless guy got a cigarette for his efforts, which the driver lit for him. Finally, the driver got back into the car and muttered something in French. Probably a curse word.

“Is everything all right?” she asked him, leaning forward. She leaned back when she realized he smelled as much of body odor as he did of cigarette smoke.

He didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure if he could speak English.

She shrunk into the seat, a bit annoyed, when something caught her eye in the distance. “Oh! That’s the Eiffel Tower!” she cried, nearly pressing her nose up against the window. She fumbled for her phone and took a terrible picture of only the left side of the structure, another car’s hood in the way.

He drove a little more, and this time, she looked out the window, camera at the ready, expecting to get a better look. Unfortunately, the next time she saw it . . . it was farther away.

She leaned in between the seats. “Are we sure we’re going the right—” she stopped when something rose up on the right side of her. “That’s the Seine, isn’t it? And oh! It’s Notre Dame!”

More terrible pictures. This time, she was close enough to get most of it, but she also got the reflection of the window’s glass and all the raindrops too. She tried powering down the window, but it appeared to be stuck. As they rode along, she frowned as they passed an overflowing garbage can. In fact, there was a lot of trash in the street. Homeless people meandered along the street. One of them appeared to be peeing in the gutter. It was nothing like the photographs she’d gazed on online.

When they drove down another street, she saw the small café she’d planned to eat at. Her itinerary was on her lap, practically screaming at her. In it, she was supposed to be eating there in fifteen minutes, anyway. Her marketing director side took over. “You know what?” she said to him quickly. “Pull over here. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

He seemed all too glad to be rid of her. He cruised to the curb and let her off, disappearing almost the second she swiped her credit card and stepped out to find her bag . . . waiting for her on the curb in a puddle.

She wheeled it toward the café with its striped awning dripping all over the fenced-in eating area. All the umbrellas were closed and the metal tables, wet. It looked depressing.