At seven p.m. on the dot, as it does every hour, the tower bursts
into sparkles. The kids stop to admire the spectacle, like the
world's most impressive pixie dust.
Afterward, we walk down the winding, cobbled streets, flooded with
warm lamplight, toward dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant. The
Harrisons have become regulars at a handful of restaurants in the
area, like the
Cafe du Trocadero, the only restaurant on the square
with a view of the
Eiffel Tower, and Scossa in Victor Hugo Circle,
where Chris goes if he feels a hankering for American fare, like a
chicken Caesar salad. Tonight we're headed to a mostly-locals
spot called Fra'Diavolo, where the English-speaking maître d'
generally takes their order. This time, however, he's not around,
and when Chris asks the waitress for a wine recommendation in his
halting French, the woman simply goes to the wine cellar and
reappears with a bottle.
"It's …
tres bon?" Chris asks, hopefully.
She nods, expressionless, uncorking the bottle and pouring us each
a glass.
"Well," he says to us, after she leaves, "with that kind of shining
recommendation, how could I refuse?"
Despite his dampened demeanor on
The Bachelor, Harrison is
something of a cutup. "Whenever people meet me, they always say, 'I
thought you'd be so serious!'?" he says. But the solemnity is a
mask, part of the show's endless building of tension, all leading
up to … the final rose. "The final rose" is the climax of each
episode, the moment in which the audience learns who is staying for
the next episode and who may end up in tears back in the van.
Harrison hasn't always been a fan of the phrase.
"Like, do I really have to do the math for America?" he asks. But
it has proven a good way to heighten drama, and it has become the
show's catchphrase. Now, Harrison gets asked to repeat it all the
time. Guys will pull out their cell phones and ask, "Hey, will you
call my girlfriend? Will you tell her this is the final rose?"