Two Americans in Paris (6 page)

“I’m glad I brought mine from the states!”

“I brought mine too, but I ran out so I had to buy French deodorant. In the stores they have a lot of it, a whole wall. The French do use it, contrary to the stereotype. It just doesn’t work very well.”

As we walk down rue de Grenelle toward Bosquet I admire the flat facades and fine masonry of Paris’ buildings. Walking with you down these streets that I walk down every day gives me a fuller appreciation for them because I perceive you to be as grateful to be here as I am. I am quickly learning that even the most banal experiences I share with you are richer than those I experience alone or even with my other friends.

It occurs to me that despite the intensity of my desire for you, I still know very little about you. I decide to find out more. “So what part of Paris are you living in?”

“On rue Saint-Jacques, in the fifth.”

“Really? I lived right off Saint-Jacques my first year here,” I say with a grin. “I loved it! The fifth is my favorite part of Paris. So many young people live there, intellectuals, students.”

“Where do you live now?” you ask.

“In a box in the seventh by Invalides. It’s closer to AUP.”

“A box?”

“Yes, I call it my box because it’s so small. It’s like nine square meters or so—very small.” I move my hands around me to create an impression of my box’s tininess.

“I live with a roommate,” you say. “I nicknamed him Paddington Bear, Padd for short. He won’t do the dishes. His family is privileged and he’s pretty sheltered. We make a lot of dishes with cheese, noodles that stick to the pan, and he just leaves them in the sink and doesn’t do them. So when I want to eat something, I have to do them.”

“Well, you’ll have to talk to him about it or put up with doing his dishes.”

“Yeah, I guess.” You change the subject. “He’s never been kissed.”

“Never?”

“Never, and he hadn’t ever had a drink before he came here either.”

“Wow. Good he’s got you to corrupt him,” I say with a teasing smile. You smile back, your gaze briefly meeting mine.

We pass the Ferrari dealership, the cars gleaming like sleek black jaguars trapped behind panes of glass, reminding me we’re close to the library. If I want to invite you to do something with me this weekend, I should do so now. “Are you doing anything on Saturday?”

“Yes. I’m going to Vienna. My aunt lives there. One of my cousins is getting married.”

Since you won’t be free on Saturday as I had hoped, I will have to devise a new plan for inviting you to spend time with me. “A wedding. That sounds like
fun
.”

“Yeah, it kinda does. I’m looking for a baby beret to give to my niece. I haven’t seen any yet.”

“There are a ton of touristy shops along rue de Rivoli,” I advise. “They should have baby berets, though I can’t say I’ve ever seen one.”

At the entrance to the library I scan my student card to unlock the door, since you forgot yours at home.

Going about my librarian duties, I gather a large stack of magazines and press them to my chest as I mount the stairs to the periodical section from which I can see the entire ground floor. I take my time putting each one its place on the shelf, periodically scanning the narrow rows of bookshelves, waiting for you to appear. While working my way through a second stack of scholarly journals I begin to wonder if you sat down in the basement and began to read each book, one by one.

After I have placed each magazine in its designated slot I return to the ground floor, carefully guarding each step of my red ballet shoes down the narrow yellow stairs. On my way down I look up and there you are, ascending the basement staircase, always making me wait for you a little longer than I can stand. The strain of carrying the two thick poetry books you have found emphasizes the bold round of your shoulders and curve of your biceps. Just this image was worth waiting for.

“Hey!” I greet you.

“Hey. It’s like a maze down there . . .” You look a little overwhelmed, though you did manage to find what you were looking for.

I slip behind the front desk and quietly address the library lady whose name I can never remember. “Hi. Um, my friend forgot his AUP card at home so I was wondering if it would be alright if he checked out some books with my card.”

“Normally we are not allowed to do that,” she says. My heart thumps like a rabbit foot for fear you might not be able to leave the library with poetry I so dearly wish you to have. “One time we did and this one girl forgot to bring the books back, and it was a mess. I’ll do it
this one time
, but just so you know you are responsible for the books. Just this one time,” she repeats.

“That’s okay, I know.” I look up at you. “I trust you! I know approximately where you live.” I make a circular motion with my hand. “I see you in class every day . . .”

The library lady checks out your books on my card. I have no qualms about allowing you to borrow books under my name. The books you chose will be read and appreciated far more than if they sat unread here.

You tuck the books into your backpack. I stand upright, picturing myself as your perfect book-lender. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” I say with a bright smile.

“Bye!”

The glass door clinks shut behind you.

She is a bolt of power blue silk

Professor warned us on the first day of class that if we were to arrive late to the Louvre we would never find the class. “The museum is just too big,” he said. I took it as a challenge, not making special plans to be late one day but knowing I would be. As it happens, I spent five minutes longer than usual perfecting my eyeliner and lipstick, which I don’t usually wear. No one from our class is around our meeting place, the information desk. I set off to hunt for my classmates in the wings of Neoclassical art, armed with my memory of the Louvre map.

The rooms of Rococo art are empty of our class gathered around Professor, as are the wings of Neoclassical art, which is the subject of today’s class. I head to the enormous murals by Charles Le Brun, whose work foreshadows Neoclassical art, and find our class seated on long benches between them. I sit on the edge of one of the benches and twist my torso around to look for you among our peers. A bloom of happiness unfurls inside me when I see your chestnut-haired head and slender, compact form clothed in soft cotton. While Professor lectures, I keep the thought of you behind me at the forefront of my mind, envisioning the broad curve of your back sloped over as you move your gaze between your notepad and the paintings around us.

“These are about masculinity reasserting itself.” Professor gestures to the paintings of men waving swords at each other in the heat of battle. “How can we see that?”

“The palette is darker,” I say. The war scenes are filled with dark bay horses, deep crimson capes, and gold-scaled armor.

“The scale is huge, too,” Sloppy Sandals says.

Professor commends our answers and, as an aside, points out that Le Brun’s paintings are not very good. They’re kind of messy looking, like Le Brun never bothered to plan out the composition.

We head downstairs to the Grand Gallerie, which displays the work of Neoclassical masters, mainly that of Jacques-Louis David and Ingres, against a rich burgundy wall. While we walk around the gallery you run your fingers over your auburn mustache and down the corners of your lips into the groomed facial hair on your chin. It’s a habit of yours. I noticed you doing it yesterday, too. I find your habit endearing, for it is unique to you and my knowledge of it makes me feel a little closer to you.

Professor lectures about David’s
The Oath of the Horatii
and then leads us down the hall to show us to Delacroix’s
Death of Sardanapalus
and
Massacre at Chios
. Delacroix is a master of color. He tints the clouds with soft russets and pale oranges in
Massacre at Chios
and in
Death of Sardanapalus
there is a wash of azure along the forehead of an alarmed horse and a flush of aqua along the arm of a supple female nude. “Delacroix creates space and action and emotional intensity,” Professor says. “His specialty is sexualized violence.
Death of Sardanapalus
was seen as a little much, so he tones it down with his Algerian women painting.”

The richness of color and high drama of Delacroix’s work makes looking at his paintings like looking through the lens of a mind calibrated for exotic, sumptuous beauty. I imagine seeing you through Delacroix’s eyes. My hands wet with paint, I rim your inner ears with sheer plum. Press my fingers to your lips with raspberry pink. Trace the edge of my fingernail along the branches of your thick veins with pale turquoise and teal. Arc my thumbs over the swooping curve of your shoulder blades with almond white. Shadow the strong girth of your thighs with brick red. Just before I’m finished, you lean into me and I can’t resist ruining my work. All the colors blend mercilessly.

Professor turns away from the art and advises us on what he expects from us on tomorrow’s midterm. “The exam is open-note, but I want you to use that to your advantage. Master the material and cite it confidently.” He holds his hand before him as if clutching a globe. “Know your pieces, make your points. Have a good argument that is fully supported. You should be acting as young art historians, making convincing, well-supported arguments about art history.”

Having prepped us for our exam, Professor releases us. I approach you, secretly irritated that I always have to initiate conversation. By now it’s clear to me I am far more invested in our friendship than you. Although I would not admit it, I enjoy the challenge involved in arranging to spend time with you, especially the sense of accomplishment when I am successful.

“Hey! What are you doing on Friday?” I ask you. “That’s when we go horseback riding.”

“I’m going to Vienna, like I told you earlier,” you say. “I would, but . . .”

“Oh. I didn’t realize you were leaving so soon. We’ll go some other time.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m worried about what time my train is getting back on Monday. It’s an all-night train and it should get back by nine
a.m.
, but you never know. I want to be sure I get back on time for the midterm. I need to tell Professor, just so he knows.”

I quicken my pace to yours as you catch up to Professor. We hurry down long, stone steps and along the hall of Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures of perfectly proportioned, exquisitely beautiful human bodies. To admire them is ameliorating and uplifting, but my eyes are on you. Although these sculptures are attractive, they are cold and unchanging. You are so warm and full of life.

You step into stride with Professor and greet him with a casual “Hey.” As you talk to him about your weekend trip, I sense you are grateful to have an excuse to talk to him. Perhaps you look up to him and see him, as I do, as the model for the kind of man you would like to become.

We say goodbye to Professor and turn toward the métro. Inside the station you split from my side to take line one
direction Château de Vincennes. I’m off to the library so will be taking line one as well but in the opposite direction.

“Have fun in Vienna!” I wave.

“Thanks! Bye!” You wave back.

I watch for you to emerge on the other side of the tracks. Your train comes first, and you vanish.

She will hold onto you as if you were are a bundle of artichokes strapped to her heart

Lady is my only friend to have met you, making her the closest potential confidante of my budding romantic feelings for you. I have yet to speak of my affections for you to anyone.

This evening, after an all-in-good-fun viewing of
Hannah Montana: The Movie
, Lady has cajoled me into having drinks with her and her communications professor from last summer. He is awesome, brilliant, she insists.

On our way to the bar Lady spots a Subway. “Oh, I want Subway!” she says.

“Seriously? You want Subway? Now?” I ask.

“Yes, yes! Let’s go in. Just for a minute.”

We sit in cold, hard chairs with our commoditized sandwiches spread out on the table. While we eat all I can think about is how attracted to you I am. Nearly every thought that passes through my mind is imprinted with your image. After not even a week of knowing you I am hotly infatuated. Since I haven’t yet shared these new patterns of thought with anyone I’m bursting with them. I don’t want to become the girl who talks only of her romantic interest, though, so before saying anything about you I draw the conversation around to a potential romance of Lady’s.

“Do you like that guy, the one who carries the tennis racket?” I ask her.

“I could like him, I think,” she says.

“Is it infatuation?”

“No, no, I think it’s just an attraction.”

I squirm, afraid to admit my desire for you aloud. I make myself spit it out. “I think I like him. Remember? I invited him to hang out with us last week.”

“Him? Really?” she asks. I nod. “Awe. You can do better,” she says.

“Yeah, I can do so much better!” I say, hoping to convince myself that there are potential partners I might like more than you. “But he’s so intelligent. I think he’s cute too.”

“He is cute, he’s just not my type!”

“Hah, I know, I know.”

I am relieved that Lady now knows of my attraction to you. She will help me through the process of becoming close to you, even though you have a girlfriend, as I have helped her with similar situations of her own.

Despite my attempts to persuade myself otherwise, whether or not I could do better than you or not is at this point inconsequential. A truck of naked firemen with Ph.D.s in Literature could walk into Subway and while they might inspire some lascivious staring, I wouldn’t want anything to do with them. Your image has taken root in my mind and is the permanent object of my desires.