Two Americans in Paris (14 page)

“Where are you going?” You look to me expectantly, perhaps hoping we are going to the same place.

Having learned your habits, I know where you’re going. Although the nearby Musée de la Marine is currently having an exhibition on sailor fashion that I would love to see, I know you are apathetic about fashion. In any case, there is a limited amount of time before I’m scheduled to be at the library. I can’t help myself. Even if I could squeeze in a museum visit, the thought of five more minutes with you is irresistible. I can always go back to the museum later. “The métro,” I answer.

“Samesies!” You smile and a beam of childlike, playful joy runns through you.  

We take line six, which runs on a viaduct for more than half its length, so within a few stops we’re looking out over the winding streets. We make small talk, discussing our plans for the day. In no time at all, the train is rolling into La Motte Piquet-Grenelle, where I’m getting off.

We say goodbye to each other and the métro doors slide shut behind me. As I walk away, I carry within me the joy I find in your company and think forward to the even greater joys I may find with you tomorrow.

She is set naked on your kingdom, seizing your mind with the danger of desire

My hot, dapper dear, I feel it is my duty to ensure we share a wonderful day together tomorrow, and if all goes well, an even more wonderful evening. I perch my laptop on the windowsill in order to catch an internet signal and prepare myself for writing a short message to you that details tomorrow’s plans. There is, however, a complication. My insides are overflowing with warm, mushy feelings for you, but I have no wish to reveal them to you at the moment. They, on the other hand, are eager for my patience to be done away with so they may wrap around your beating chest. I do my best to lock my feelings inside me, but they refuse to stay put. The wild, overexcited state of my feelings causes me to ramble on about meeting at Opéra to buy tickets for the ballet, heading off to Versailles to see Marie Antoinette’s domain for the afternoon, and then having Indian food at my place. The message is far too long and I’m not sure it even makes sense, but I cannot determine how to shorten it or clarify my meaning. My nervous excitement for the possible outcomes of our day together tomorrow has rendered me incapable of concision and coherence.

You respond with the following message:

ok, that was a lot to take in. Just to clarify, I think all of the above sounds amazing and i'm excited to experience all you have listed. Just to clear some things up: are we doing opera and versaille tomorrow or just versaille. If you could send me another message (I know you wrote a lot all ready, sorry) to clarify the day and time that would be perfect. Don't worry about me being unable to attend, because I have absolutely nothing planned for the entire week; just want to make sure i meet you on time to everything. So, with that said, write me back and hopefully we can put an end to my obliviousness.

Oh, and I love Indian food!

By the time I have finished reading your message, I am bubbling over with so much giddiness I feel it flowing out of me like an overexcited chemical reaction in a flask. Even despite my message having caused you to be confused, you are
excited
to do all I have listed and you want to be on-time, too! The nervousness I felt while writing my former message has been replaced by confidence. My response is as short and clear as I had wanted my former message to be. I direct you to meet me at Opéra Garnier at one
p.m
. where we may buy ballet tickets for some future date, while the rest of the afternoon will be for Versailles. In the evening, we’ll have a warm meal
chez moi
.

The following morning, I choose my outfit with sex appeal in mind. I want to look elegant, too, though. It’s all about the tease, the suggestion of the nudity that lies beneath my clothes. My deep blue wrap-around top has so deep a neckline that tiny slivers of my black bra peek up from the edges of my top when I move, highlighting the pale flesh of my breasts. To match my top, my skirt is also deep blue and lies flat against my waist, its hidden darts blooming into a full circle. The lining swishes between my thighs like a knowing lover’s nimble fingers, gloved in sateen.

I glance at my watch, realizing I’m running a little late for meeting you. I dash out the door.

As I emerge from métro Opéra, golden mid-morning sunlight threads through the ornate lampposts that run down Avenue de l’Opéra toward Le Louvre. I turn around to face the Palais Garnier. Its exquisite Beaux-Arts architecture looks to me like a giant, opulent jewelry box. Its facade of pale stone is compartmentalized with an arcade at its base and above it is a grand colonnade with intricately carved Corinthian capitals. On top is a robin’s egg blue cap topped with a gilded statue group of Apollo flanked by poetry and music personified. The almost excessive details and gold highlights carefully arranged on the Palais are nearly gaudy. Yet the lines of the building are so graceful and the opulence is balanced by such perfect symmetry that my breath is whisked from my chest as I cross the street.

I search for you among the many people scattered across Garnier’s front steps and quickly pick you out by the chestnut hair covering your perfectly round head.

I come up to you on the steps and ask you if you waited here long, concerned my slight tardiness may have caused you discomfort.

“No, I just got here.” You stand up, your navy backpack moving across your back until you are fully upright. The sound your backpack makes against your soft cotton clothes as you stand up is so beautiful to me, for it signifies the moment that we are together again.

I lead the wa
y
to the side entrance, where tickets are sold. “The ballet playing this summer is
La Fille mal gardée
,
which roughly translates to
The Badly Guarded Daughter
.” I am thrilled the ballet’s title implies youth, sex, and deception—all of which apply to us, although our story has only begun. 

“Ah. Scandalous.”

We pass through a pair of doors that slide open automatically upon our approach. I do the talking with the ticket lady to purchase our tickets. It’s just easier for me to speak in French. She tells me there will be other seats in front of ours. At ten euros each, it’s no problem, I tell her. Once I have collected our tickets, I give yours to you and we make our way out.

“It’s so nice that you can speak French. All I have to do is wait and collect the tickets,” you say.

“I’m happy to do it.” I grin. “Speaking in French is one of favorite things. I waited most of life to be able to do it every day. Also, just to warn you, we’ll have seats, but they’re behind two rows of other people. When I went with my dad I found it difficult to see. My dad is really tall, so he was okay, but I had some trouble.”

“Crap, I’m mad short!”

“Maybe we can get you a dictionary or a pillow to sit on?” As soon as I have said this, I realize you will probably find it insulting.

You say nothing but swiftly jerk your head and give me a look of indignation. Of course, my dear, come the evening of the ballet, you may even sit on my lap, if you like. But if you do, do not be surprised if you find my lips seamed to the nook beneath your shoulder blade while the dancers plié and pas de deux.

We head into the métro and take line eight. From inside the métro car I can see everything reflected in the window. I gaze at you while you aren’t looking, praying you won’t look up and find my eyes staring back. I also observe how my breasts bounce to the rhythm of the train’s joggle, reminding me I’ve yet to catch you looking at them. This doesn’t mean you haven’t looked, of course. You are a guy, after all. It just means you are discreet, which I find admirable.

At the Invalides stop we switch to RER C. We look out the train window onto blue-brown water of the Seine.

A sly, mischievous look crosses your face as you look from the Seine to me. “If you had to either kiss Pig Face or drink from the Seine, which would you choose?”

I respond without needing to give it a second’s thought. “Kiss Pig Face!”

“Really?”

“Yes! Drinking from the Seine would probably kill me, but I doubt there’s anything fatal about kissing Pig Face,” I explain. Feeling sly and mischievous myself, I turn the same question on you, modified for my own enjoyment. “If you had to choose, would you drink from the Seine or kiss Professor?” I feel naughty just asking the question, even though I find the image of two of the most brilliant men I know kissing just as funny as I find it attractive.

“Does he have that scruffy beard?”

“Yes.”

“Is his wife going to find out?”

“No.”

“Does he have those glasses?” you ask.

“Yes. He is just as he normally is.” I wave my hands through the air as if outlining Professor’s form.

You draw the corners of your lips down and look up in thoughtful consideration of the options. “Probably kiss Professor.”

I smile, fantasizing about you and Professor lip-locked. Distracting me, a man with a tattoo like a painted bruise passes by our seats. “Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” I ask.

“Yeah. I don’t know what I would get, though,” you say. “Do you have any tattoos?”

I shake my head, “No. I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never been able to choose an image I would want forever. You know, though, if you get a tattoo, and it’s someone’s name, and then you break up with them . . . tattoos are hard to get rid of.”

“Well, we’re going to be on the train for a while, so we have time for a long story.” Before you have even begun to speak, I can tell by the wistful nostalgia in your expression that whatever you are about to say, I am not going to enjoy hearing it. You take a deep breath before beginning. “She was my first love—the only time I’ve ever been in love.” Your cheeks flush slightly at the memory. “She was my childhood friend. Years later I saw her and just fell in love with her. I charged thirteen hundred dollars in long-distance calls talking to her on the phone. Still haven’t paid my parents back. Every once in a while my dad asks me about it. ‘Oh, you know, I will,’ I tell him.” You smile with a mischievous twinkle in your eyes. “I visited her every weekend. It was a long drive—lots of gas money. I stopped seeing my friends, stopped playing hockey. Hockey was my life. I was kind of a jock,” you explain. “After a year she ended the relationship.”

The butterflies of my feelings for you twist and wriggle painfully in my abdomen at hearing of your love for another, however long ago. “Were you okay with that?”

“No. I wanted nothing of it. I bent down and pleaded to God for help. Didn’t receive an answer.” You shake your head, indignant. “Eventually she got a new boyfriend. She caught him kissing another girl at a party. She was drunk and got in her car to speed away. And she always drove like an asshole. She hit a pole and wrapped around it. He was chasing after her. Her body was torn apart. She had a lot of broken bones, one of her eyes was hanging out of its socket.” You cup your hand as if holding her dislocated eyeball. “The stupid
ass
of her boyfriend picked her up and rushed her to the hospital in his car. I mean you’re not supposed to touch someone when they’re like that.” You look to me to confirm your statement. I nod. “The emergency room doctor said that if he could save her, she would be the person in the worst condition he ever saved.” You shift slightly in your seat. “My dad called me at an unusual time—I knew something was amiss. When he told me what happened I immediately got on my motorcycle and sped through the cold to be with her. It was the middle of winter and was snowing—there’s a romance to that.” You look to me, waiting for my reaction.

I nod, picturing you clutching your white knuckles around the handlebars, speeding to her mangled body, a bullet in a snowstorm.

“It was a four hour drive. She had amnesia and could hardly remember anyone. She didn’t remember me. She remembered her boyfriend, though.” To answer the question you must know I have been wondering about, you say with a nod, “She lived. So her boyfriend saved her life.” You frown. Your expression brightens, though, at the thought of your own value in her life. “Her parents agreed that I was better—I wouldn’t have kissed another girl.”

“Was she okay?”

You nod, “Yeah. She had been a great runner. Months later she was able to run again, but not as well. Her memory came back too, but sometimes she’ll forget words. One time we were in the car and we passed some cows and she couldn’t remember the word for ‘cow’ so I had to tell her the word.” You grin. “Anyway, her boyfriend got her name tattooed in large letters across his chest.” You arc your hand over your chest to illustrate the size of his tattoo. “They broke up a few months ago,” you say, sounding glad of it, even though you have a girlfriend. “So that’s the story about tattoos.”

Despite the emotional distress I have experienced, I am glad you have told me this story. It is the first time you have shared with me something of deep personal significance. It means you are becoming more comfortable with me. Our bond is growing stronger.

“There’s nothing like young love,” you say. “There’s such a sense of freedom—just letting go and loving completely, entirely, not caring about anything else.”

“When I was in love I didn’t feel that way,” I say.

“Well, you were older.”

“Just eighteen. I don’t think loving that way is limited by age.”

“I think it is.”

I don’t argue with you because you are clearly convinced that all-consuming love is relegated to the young. I believe this type of love is for those fated to be drawn to one another. It shouldn’t matter at what age the two lovers meet. I consider telling you about my ex-boyfriend, but decide not to. I still have feelings for him and I’d rather you not see that.

Like yours, my ex was also a childhood friend. We went to different high schools, though, and didn’t reconnect until our first year of college—I was in Paris, he in Connecticut. We spent countless hours chatting on the internet. We were perfect opposites. He occupied his time with binge drinking, oral sex, and a strict avoidance of homework. I drank occasionally, had only ever kissed, and spent most of my time with schoolwork. These strong differences between us were like aphrodisiacs. There seemed to be no shortage of mushy things to say to each other. I decided to leave Paris for a year to move to New York City so I could study fashion at Parsons during the week and take the train to see him in Connecticut on weekends.