Two Americans in Paris (22 page)

As I walk home, marveling at the beauty I find in the softly lit streets, a sense of complete contentment pervades my being. I feel uplifted and absolutely, perfectly happy. I have both Paris, one of the greatest loves of my life, and you, too. As a child dreaming of France and all I might do here as an adult, never did I think I would be so lucky as to meet someone I adore so completely as you. At this moment, I feel as though the future may hold all sorts of wonders I could never have dreamed-up, although whether or not these wonders involve you is unknown to me. I know only that the world is open and growing wider. The doors of possibility are before me and I look forward to opening them with bright eyes.

She would move mountains pebble by pebble across the ocean for you

Every molecule of my body is abuzz with a patriotic fever for France. I know it is absurd for me to be so excited about Bastille Day, but I am an unabashed Francophile. To add to my fervor, nearly all of your time will be spent in my company today. We’ll have lunch at your place and spend all day on the Champ de Mars, drinking and hanging out until fireworks explode around the Eiffel Tower. Only your roommate will see more of you.

Part of the allure of all the time we will share today is that there may be an opportunity for me to seduce you. My box is a five-minute walk from the Champ and, especially if we are both drunk, it would be so easy for me to invite you to come home with me tonight. Sober, I do not believe this is a conceivable option, and have not cleaned my room, made my bed, or performed any other tasks in preparation for having you over. However, along with the groceries I have bought for lunch, I have bought three bottles of both beer and wine. It’s enough for Padd to eat and drink with us too, though he usually does not drink much, if at all.

The 82 bus drops me off by the Jardin du Luxembourg.

At your door I call you to let you know I’m here. You come plodding down the stairs and unlock the door. We greet each other and without even a glance at my heavy bag of groceries you start back up the stairs. Although I’m bursting to ask you to take my bag, as you should have done without my asking, I’m too exhausted to deal with your possible indignation about being asked to be polite. It isn’t my responsibility to teach you how to be a considerate person. You will have to learn this on your own. You may never learn it.

To distract myself from your lack of manners, I admire the outline of your sturdy thighs and firm hockey rump beneath your gold gym shorts. A closer inspection of your clothes reveals that your shirt is old and loose and your shorts are fraying and spotted with holes. You’re wearing your pajamas. While I was awake and dressed hours ago so I could cross Paris with a heavy bag of groceries for us, you have slept in. The rational part of me would be unhappy you have done so little to contribute, but your presence has an instant calming effect on me. I foolishly feel only the pleasure I find in being close to you.

Inside your apartment, we set about preparing lunch. Without even discussing it, I set about boiling the water for the hot dogs and you wash the dishes. The distribution of tasks between us could easily be overlooked, but in my romantic imagination I see us as a couple so familiar with each other that we share domestic duties under the comfortable force of habit.

While we work, we chat. As you scrub a pot clean, you tell me cheese sticks to everything. “But I love cheese,” you say. “It’s better than sex.”

“Better than sex?” I ask, incredulous. “Sex is my favorite activity. Horseback riding would be my second.”

“Activity?” you ask, your tone disdainful.

“Yes. What kind of sex have you been having if you think cheese is better than sex?” I know better than to pry into your sex life, but I can’t resist asking.

You give me a sly side glance. “What you really should be asking me is what kind of cheese I’ve had.”

I’m impressed you’re suave enough to smoothly deflect my inappropriate question. “What’s your favorite kind of cheese?”

“Havarti. It’s similar to American. You can find it in most grocery stores in the US.”

As I have done with nearly everything else you like, I make a mental note to find Havarti cheese when I’m back in the States. While I eat the cheese I will think of you and how much more satisfying having sex with you would be than a piece of cheese.

My thoughts return to the food we are about to eat. “I bought enough food for Padd to eat with us if he wants. And three bottles of both beer and wine.”

Padd is in the bedroom, so you call to him to ask him if he wants to eat with us. He says to eat without him. “It was nice of you to buy enough for him too,” you say.

I nod, silently glad my gesture appears kind and generous while concealing my motive of having enough alcohol to get us sloshed.

While we eat, you tell me you were talking to your dad earlier this morning.

“Last semester I wanted to drop out of school, but my dad sat me down and made me stay.” Your voice is as level and calm as I imagine your father’s was while dealing with your rebellion. “He told me that I’m already half-way through and to just get through it.”

I’m grateful for your father’s insistence. “It was good of him to do that.” At best, it would be difficult for you to continue to teach without a Bachelor’s degree.

“I don’t see why I can’t just take my books and read, write on my own. There are a lot of other ways to learn—get out and experience the world. School isn’t necessarily the best place for learning.” You raise one eyebrow and shake your head, the angle of your head highlighting your cheekbones and the rugged knots lining your nose.

Your reticence about school illustrates your
On the Road-
esque desire to adventure through life, gaining raw experience informed by self-taught knowledge. While I agree that there is great value in the sort of experiences the beat generation sought out, I believe there is also great value in learning from teachers at school, too. “No, but it does serve a purpose. Haven’t you learned things from Professor you never could have from some book?”

You pause, thinking over the value of Professor’s class. “Yeah.” You nod lightly, your thoughts glimmering in the dark apple butter color of your irises.

Finished with lunch, we tidy the kitchen. As you stack dishes in the sink, I discreetly study the curve of your biceps extending from the sleeves of your soft cotton t-shirt. I reluctantly admit to myself that your arms are slimmer than I typically find attractive, but my attraction to you isn’t lessened.

We head into your bedroom. Padd is sitting on his bed, absorbed in a video game on his laptop. You need to shower so you gather your clothes and scamper off to the bathroom, leaving me alone with Padd. We chat about mostly small-talk things. I hardly listen, preferring to focus on the thought of you, naked, a dozen feet away from me.

You return to the room gleaming with moisture, fresh in your cotton clothes, your head raised with confidence and self-possession like the king of your lion pride. Your body still damp, you smell like spring soil after three days of rain. The scent is a powerful aphrodisiac and I cannot withstand staying here with you in your apartment. The quarters are too close. My hot longing for you is nearly splitting me open. I ask you if you’re ready to go. You nod.

While you gather your things you say to me, “Let’s take wine glasses! Add some class to the drinking!” I warn you the glasses will probably break, but you don’t listen. You grab three glasses from the cupboard and wrap them in towels.

Before we leave, you stop to check your appearance in the bathroom mirror. You look into your reflection and smooth your fingers over your hairs, adjusting them so they lay on your head just so. Probably you do this to ensure your receding hairline is as unnoticeable as possible. I would prefer to ignore that you are prematurely balding because it makes you less physically attractive. Even so, seeing you check your appearance in the mirror like a vain but pretty woman is endearing.

I follow you down the wooden staircase with Padd following behind.

We take the 82 bus by Luxembourg, which will drop us right by the Champ de Mars. We sit side by side in the balmy heat of the bus, silently watching the narrow streets slide by.

The bus soon stops at the head of the Champ and we descend from the bus. People have already started sitting on the lawn, but it’s mostly empty. The sun beams golden from behind the sublime height of the Eiffel Tower and sheds honeysuckle light across the emerald lawn. I ask you and Padd where you would like to sit.

“I don’t know.” You look across the lawn. “I’m a pretty indecisive guy.”

“You
are
,” I tease. You are so go-with-the-flow and I find it adorable. I amuse myself with the thought that, just like people in love, I adore your idiosyncrasies.

“Doesn’t matter to me where we sit,” Padd says.

The decision of where to sit is mine, so I choose a spot close to La Tour Eiffel to give us a prime view of the fireworks.

We lay out our blankets and sit. The Champ is rapidly filling with people. We arrived at just the right time, a stroke of good fortune I attribute to our being together.

“Shall we have some wine?” I ask in a tone of mock-formality to offset the classlessness of the large amounts of alcohol we are about to consume. “I have Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Côte du Rhône.”

“I love Chardonnay,” you say. “Also, I love that you organized everything—wine, food, place to sit, time to get here. All I have to do is enjoy it.”

I grin. “Glad you’re enjoying yourself.” I grab the wine and corkscrew. Remembering how you teased me for having trouble opening the wine the other evening I ask, “Are you going to judge me on whether or not I can use this thing?”

“I am.” Your eyes sparkle with the mischievous joy you find in teasing me.

If I were better at flirting, I would play along and pretend to be unable to open the wine, bashfully asking you to help me. Instead, I avoid your promised judgment and drive the corkscrew deep into the bottle and extract the cork.

I pour each of us a glass, releasing the wine’s redolent bouquet of grapefruit, orange, and a hint of pomegranate. We clink the glasses. You say “Cheers—” and I add, “to Bastille Day.” The wine is fruity and pleasantly dry. We drink it liberally, expectant of the two other bottles we have to drink.

With the afternoon full before us, we share my iPod, one earbud in each of our ears. I offer to share my earbud with Padd but he declines it.

You spin through my songs, playing one song and then another according to your whims. Most of my songs are love-themed, and as each song plays in our ears—your first two choices are Regina Spektor’s “Better” and The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You”—I imagine the two of us as the song’s pair of lovers. The whole universe of my growing affections for you could be contained in love songs. They are a consistent outpouring of a narrator’s feelings for their loved one—always an “I” addressing a “you,” a pattern of thinking my mind now follows.

I fidget, wanting it to be a natural part of our relations for me to caress the fine turn of your forearm, the inner knob of your knee, the dip in your side. “I wish Lady was here,” I say. She’s always fun and she would distract me from my insatiable desires.

“Text her,” you advise.

I engross myself in the composition of a text to Lady. I’ve already had several glasses of wine, so the screen appears blurry and my fingers are on a split-moment delay from the actions my brain sends to them, but I am careful to ensure the text is coherent. She quickly responds, saying she has to study for a test and would rather not see you. “She can’t come,” I tell you. “Pooh, pooh,” I pout. I’m disappointed she can’t make it, but devise a way to take advantage of her absence. “I can touch her flirtatiously and she never knows a thing,” I tell you. “Like this.” I tenderly match my palm to the round of your shoulder. A wave of pleasure runs through my arm just as I realize how my invention of a scenario in which I could innocently touch you does not appear innocent to you at all. You have no outward reaction, so I do nothing more.

The Champ is now packed tightly with people, filling the lawn with the scent of wine and revelry. You inhale deeply, puffing out your mighty lungs, exhilarated by the odor. “Weed. I smell weed!” you exclaim. A friend of yours calls Padd on the phone. “Tell her she can only come if she brings weed,” you instruct him. Padd laughs and follows your instructions, but your friend isn’t coming.

In my desire to please you, I imagine how I could procure pot for you. I know a number of people who sell pot or smoke a lot, but they’re all busy celebrating today. Besides, the wine is enough, in my opinion. A pleasant wooziness pervades my body and my lips are numb, my fingers tingly. Padd has had one glass and stopped drinking. The rest is for us and the first bottle is already gone. We’re plunging into the Pinot Noir, a plum-dark red, the color of the Greek sea in Odysseus’ epic journey. I fantasize that, one day, we’ll set sail on our own Odyssian sea, gazing into the salty, maroon water, your pupils gleaming like liquid amber encapsulating ruby light, our arms twisted like a thick muscle of rope.

Returning to reality, I cast my gaze around me, appreciating how my drunkenness makes colors appear more vivid but the outlines blurry. Puffy, dazzlingly white clouds float behind the matte iron of the Eiffel Tower. Your cheeks and the rims of your ears are flushed a pale pink and the warm auburn of your hair is tinted with gold and red.

In front of us, a group of French youths are eating chips and laughing as they play cards. One of the girls in the group in front of us has bronzed, fine-boned features. She has my attention as well as the attention of all her male companions. Her aviator sunglasses shine sterling as she laughs with her cupid-bow lips wide open, enticing her suitors. I wonder if you find her expectable beauty appealing. “She’s pretty.” I point to her.

“She’s alright. Now her, she’s reading
Moby Dick
.” You nod to a young girl lying on her towel, her head immersed in a book.