Lunch in Paris (15 page)

We walked up to the Buttes Chaumont, enjoying the last of the pink-gray light, taking a winding path through the trees. We
stopped in front of the waterfall (extra points for a waterfall, even a fake one), and that’s when he pulled out the ring.

I am an impossible person to surprise, but this was not the first time, or the last, that he managed it. Tucked into a slip
of black velvet was a light blue, almost violet sapphire, surrounded by tiny diamonds. It was old-fashioned and unusual. In
other words, perfect for me. I held the box in my hand like a newborn bird, afraid that I might drop it.

“I want things to be clear,” he said quietly. “I don’t want us to be in a situation later on where we decide to get married
so you can have a work visa or because we buy an apartment. I know what I want. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

There it was, that phrase again.
I know what I want.
How was he always so damn
sure?

As had so often been the case since I arrived in France, my emotions were upside down and backward. Here I was, at one of
the defining moments of my life, and instead of twittering cartoon doves and a crescendo of Tchaikovsky in my head, my whole
life flashed before my eyes, like the scene in a movie a split second before the fatal car crash.

“I just got here,” I managed to stumble out, touched by his words and more than a little impressed with his bravery. “I need
to have a life of my own.”

And then, the dillydallying kiss of death: “I just need a little time.”

I have no idea what we had for dinner; the proposal had obliterated my normally excellent memory for food. Strangely enough,
Gwendal seemed perfectly composed. As we walked out of the restaurant he turned to me. “I know you’re going to say yes. So
you take all the time you need.”

Now it was February. Six months had passed, the ring was stashed on top of a bookshelf in the hall, and I still hadn’t made
a decision.

The apartment that seemed like a charming love nest in July was now more like a giant icebox. The lack of central heating
lost its
La Bohème
appeal when Gwendal wasn’t there to snuggle in bed all day. We had worked out a system for the morning showers: Gwendal took
the space heater from our bedroom to the bathroom when he went to work; by the time I got up the tiles had thawed from deep
freeze to just plain cold.

The winter had taken away much of the pleasure of going to the market; the selection dwindled to onions, potatoes, gnarly
roots, and some unnatural-looking strawberries from Jordan. So now I was stuck, like so many French peasants before me, with
pantry staples: rice, lentils, canned tomatoes, alcohol.

Our two electric burners turned out to be extremely effective for this kind of hearty, slow-cooked food. I started with a
French nursery favorite,
riz au lait,
classic rice pudding. The English recipe said to bake it for three hours in the oven, but lacking the necessary appliance
(and the necessary patience), I decided to make mine a sweet risotto. I stirred and stirred, going around in circles in my
head.

For the record, I’m not an indecisive person, and I’m not a coward. I just have a very detailed imaginary life, and it sometimes
takes precedence over what’s actually happening around me.

When I was seven, my mother let me wear lots of rhinestones and walk up the grand staircase at the Metropolitan Opera. She
had reserved a table at the café for intermission—I still have the card somewhere. I had rum-raisin ice cream; I didn’t like
the taste, but I liked the
idea.
My imaginary life has been getting in the way of reality ever since.

I spent my teens and early twenties dating boys with Waspy last names, a suspicious number of whom came from Westport, Connecticut.
They represented the things I thought I wanted: wealth,
status, security. They were the castles in my head, the done deal, the sure thing. My situation in Paris was pure potential.

Monet once said he wished he’d been born blind and suddenly recovered his sight, so he could see things as they really were,
instead of how they were supposed to be. I needed to see Gwendal with fresh eyes. It was so difficult to peel away all the
layers of cultural expectations and look at what was in front of me. Here was the smartest, kindest, happiest man I’d ever
known. A man who wanted to build something, and he wanted to build it with me.

Holy matrimony. Like everything else, marriage was something I was convinced I had to be
good at.

In fact, I didn’t know very much about marriage at all. I didn’t grow up around happily married people, and I wasn’t sure
what they looked like. I knew that my mother, in the opinion of her family, had “married down.” My father was many wonderful
things—funny, creative, charming, handsome—but he was not well educated, not well off, and perhaps this was the fatal one—not
as intelligent as my mother. She loved him, but she also wanted to change him. And it didn’t work. My father’s very real struggle
with mental illness aside, their marriage had set him up to fail. I didn’t know a lot, but I knew this: what you see is what
you get. People grow, but they don’t change.

All those boys from Westport were so reassuring, like a kit with all the pieces numbered and the small screws sealed in tiny
plastic bags. I knew they weren’t going to turn out like my father. I didn’t know how Gwendal was going to turn out. Neither
did he.

There were many things he wanted to do, many things we could do together. But I felt deep down that if I wasn’t prepared to
spend the rest of my life with the man in front of me
right now
—the poorly paid French civil servant with no tie, an unheated bathroom, and a principled grudge against the Coca-Cola Corporation—I
had no business marrying him at all.

And then there was Paris—beautiful, slightly inaccessible Paris, like the girl who lures you close with her ruffles and her
scent, then leaves you in the doorway, cold and alone, with the barest hint of a good-night kiss. I felt like I was standing
on the doorstep of a culture, and I wasn’t sure if anyone was ever going to let me in. I couldn’t just say yes to Gwendal.
I had to say yes to Paris too.

The spoon made a milky path through the rice; with each stir the path disappeared, the mix felt a bit more solid. The settling
aroma of vanilla filled the room. I’d been brave enough to get on the plane. What was stopping me from landing? I could still
taste the sharpness of the rum-raisin ice cream melting on my tongue. I kept stirring and stirring.

O
NE ICY SUNDAY
morning, Gwendal and I went for a walk in the neighborhood. The winter had put me in some kind of fashion Big Chill; it was
simply too cold to be chic. I pulled on a fraying turtleneck sweater, jeans, and a pair of bulbous white Nikes that, because
of my aversion to exercise, had survived from high school gym class. We walked down to the rue Oberkampf, stopping into a
few
brocantes,
bric-a-brac shops selling old shaving mirrors, fifties furniture, and martini glasses.

We were standing in the middle of the street. “What do you want to do now?” I said, glancing briefly at the cover of
Paris Match
on a nearby newsstand.

“I want to marry you,” he answered, cool and regular as if he were saying, “I want to go to the movies” or “I want to grab
a coffee.”

Somehow at that moment, the wonderful inevitability of it hit me. My imaginary life was through, and my new life, my real
life, was standing in front of me on the Paris sidewalk. I stepped up and looked happiness in the face for the first time.

“I want to marry you too,” I said.

Nobody decides her whole life in a single moment. But you
can
decide what you are unwilling to do without, and it was impossible for me to give up on this happiness. I wasn’t sure I understood
it, or was even capable of it. But I wanted it.

If Gwendal loved me in part for my sense of entitlement, for the arrogant optimism that said the world was mine for the taking,
I loved him for his smile, his core, his sense that he was right with the world. I wanted every day for the rest of my life
to grow from that first weekend in Paris—tender, alive, and
free
.

Turns out, I did want to be happy when I grew up.

“Let’s go home and get the ring.”

When we got back to the apartment Gwendal took the ring down from its hiding place and slipped it on my finger. “I cheated,
you know,” I said sheepishly. “I tried it on every day, right after you left for work. Didn’t you notice there was no dust
on the box?”

It was just getting dark as we pushed open the door to the Bistro Sainte Marthe. The place was empty; the staff were wiping
down tables and chopping vegetables for dinner. I showed the barman my hand and said, in my best French accent: “
Champagne, s’il vous plaît.
”

We spent the rest of the evening on the phone—parents, grandparents, and friends. When I spoke to my friend Betsy in Boston,
she sounded happy, but incredulous.

“You were wearing those sneakers?” she said.

“Yup.”

“Wow, he must really love you.”