I gave him a look that said, Drop it.
“I don’t have plans to see him.”
“But if you’re in Paris, you might see him,” he replied, as if trying to get me to admit, in some roundabout fashion, my intentions.
“Well, we’ll both be in the same city,” I said. “So there’s always the chance I’ll run into him.”
“I don’t want you in Paris if there’s any chance you’re going see this man.”
“Why would it matter if I saw this guy in Paris?” I said finally. “I am an adult. I can see whoever I want.”
“Because that guy clearly wants to fuck you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”
“Pheromones,” he said.
“Excuse me?” This was a new topic, one Nikolai hadn’t brought up before. “Phero-what?”
“Pheromones,” he repeated. “Are you serious?”
He looked at me as if deciding whether he could trust me with this sacred information. “You know what pheromones are, don’t you?”
“I think so,” I said, although I’d never given much thought to the subject before. “They’re hormones, right?”
“Pheromones are chemicals that living things emit and can be detected by other living things. There are fear pheromones and hunger pheromones and sex pheromones. That guy you danced with was giving off intense sexual pheromones around you.”
“You can detect them?” I said, amazed.
“Some people can,” he said, suddenly conspiratorial. “In India I knew people who could read someone’s pheromones like a text.”
“Wow,” I said, so impressed by this information that I momentarily forgot that he was trying to keep me from going to Paris. “I had no idea.”
“Some people give out too much pheromone,” he said. “Like Jett, for example. Overwhelming.”
I stared at him, not quite sure what to say. All this sounded utterly crazy, but for some reason I believed him. “And me?”
“You have very particular pheromones,” he said. “Not too strong, but the type that attracts a certain kind of man.”
I started to laugh but restrained myself. “You’re joking, right?”
“That French guy is the kind of man who is attracted to your type of pheromones,” he said. “And that’s why you’re not going to Paris.”
Soon the very idea of Paris became a point of contention. “Paris” was a code word for trouble. He sulked about Paris. He gave me dark, silent looks that said, Don’t go to Paris. He refused to join the kids and me for meals because I was going to Paris. I would find him sitting in the courtyard, his black hat pulled low over his eyes, anger seething from his skin. He gave me an ultimatum: Go to Paris, and it’s over. But I wasn’t backing down. I had made a decision. I wanted to meet Hadrien again, to look him in the eyes and see if I felt all the overwhelming feelings I’d felt when we’d met. I had believed for so long that I couldn’t feel genuine love again, that some part of me had been crushed under the weight of my marriage, that I had to know the truth.
Although the original impulse had been to verify my feelings for Hadrien, in the course of fighting Nikolai my reasons for going to Paris had changed. Now Paris was my right to choose my fate. Paris was a jailbreak. Paris was power. However wrong I might have been to deceive him—it was wrong, and I knew it was wrong—Paris was freedom. The following weekend I packed some clothes and headed out to my car.
Even as I walked away from La Commanderie, I understood that my decision could have grave consequences. I hoisted my bag over my shoulder, knowing that everything could change once I stepped onto the train platform in Paris. I could lose everything. The stable life I’d created for Alex and Nico, my decade-long marriage, my life in France—everything could be turned upside down. Yet I had to go to Paris, no matter what the cost. It might be my downfall, this reckless quest to understand my heart, but I couldn’t hide from it anymore.
From the train, the sun-scorched buildings of Nîmes transformed into the flat planes of the southern countryside. I leaned back in my seat and sent a text message to Hadrien: ARE YOU FREE TONIGHT FOR A DRINK? He wrote back that he was free after seven. I suggested we meet in the 6th arrondissement, near the studio I’d rented for the weekend. We could go to a café and have a glass of wine and talk. If the drink went well, I would invite him to dinner with Silvia and me. And if that went well, I’d ask him to go dancing at Silencio. I hadn’t thought through what could happen beyond that point.
As the train drew closer to Paris, I created all kinds of justifications for what I was doing. I told myself I had the right to sit in a restaurant with anyone I wanted. There was nothing wrong with a married woman having a glass of wine with a man, I told myself. This wasn’t the thirteenth century, after all. And even if this meeting did turn into something more significant than a glass of wine, then so be it. If I wanted to have an affair, then I would have an affair. Every Frenchwoman worth her salt had a lover or two, Jett had said. Why not me?
Suddenly my phone buzzed. It was a text message from Nikolai.
—YOU FORGOT YOUR SCARF AT HOME.
I texted back right away: DARN! IT WILL BE CHILLY IN PARIS….
—BUY A NEW ONE. I DON’T WANT YOU TO GET A COLD. YOU ALWAYS GET SICK WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A SCARF.
—HOW ARE THE KIDS?
—THEY MISS YOU. THEY KEEP ASKING WHEN YOU’RE COMING HOME. WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME?
—I JUST LEFT!! I’LL BE BACK WITH ANDY TOMORROW NIGHT. MAKE SURE THEY BRUSH THEIR TEETH.
—OKAY. LOVE YOU.
—ME TOO.
Suddenly the tower of self-justification I’d cultivated began to crumble. Who but Nikolai knew that I always took a scarf with me when I traveled? Who else knew that small, intimate detail about me? Not my mother, not my children, not my friends. No one. My relationship with Nikolai was the most intimate one I’d ever had. And there I was, ready to throw it away over some sexy young Frenchman who liked to dance. What was wrong with me? Had I gone mad? Maybe everything—the trip to Paris and the desire I felt for this man—was a big mistake.
I glanced over the text messages again. I couldn’t have known that this exchange about a scarf would be the last warm communication between Nikolai and me, our final kind gesture as man and wife, a sort of parting gift. It was strange that he’d texted LOVE YOU and even stranger that I’d replied ME TOO, when we both knew that I was doing everything I could to escape him.
—
I STOOD BEHIND the door watching Hadrien for a long time. It was an elaborate Parisian door from another century, with an arabesque of old ironwork scrolling over the glass. I pressed my hands against the pane and looked harder, trying to understand, to intuit, what I should do. Hadrien stood across the street on the rue Saint-André-des-Arts, reading Le Monde, his hair swept aside, his bearing elegant. He turned the page of the newspaper; he ran his fingers through his hair; he folded the newspaper under his arm. Maybe he was wondering what was taking so long—I was supposed to have met him outside the apartment building ten minutes earlier—because he pulled out his phone, checked to see if I’d sent a message, and then slid it into his pocket again.
I’d intended to make a good impression. I’d intended to sweep out into the street with pretty clothes and high heels and le brushing I’d had at the corner coiffeur. Instead I’d frozen. I couldn’t leave the entrance. All I could do was stare through the dusty glass and wonder what I should do. All of my future and all of my past seemed to collect in that glass. I had two choices. I could walk up the stairs to the studio, grab my bag, and take the evening train home to my family. Or I could walk out the door to Hadrien. I couldn’t have both. I couldn’t divide myself in two, one half living in a loveless marriage and the other half falling in love with Hadrien, any more than I could cut my body in two, my head going one way and my heart the other. I would have to make a decision, and that decision would change my life.
There he stood, across the street, reading Le Mond
e under a streetlight.
Then, suddenly, something came over me, and I knew I couldn’t go back. I knew what I felt, and I knew what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to be afraid to act. I would open my arms to this, wherever it might lead. I would give myself permission to fall in love.
I pushed open the door, the squeak of the hinges catching Hadrien’s attention. He glanced up and smiled, and I felt a rush of recognition. It was as if no time had passed, and we were standing together laughing in his apartment, laughing for no reason but the silly pleasure of it. In that instant I knew I was making the right decision. And without a second thought, I walked up to him, put my arms around his neck, and kissed him full on the lips.
—
IT WAS A warm spring evening, and I didn’t need a scarf after all. We found a café around the corner, on the boulevard Saint-Germain, taking a table on the sidewalk. I ordered a glass of white burgundy, and he ordered a beer. While the openness of our first meeting had not completely disappeared—we’d been writing messages back and forth for the past weeks—this was only the second time we’d met in person. We were strangers sitting at a marble-topped café table, unsure of how to begin.
“You speak English well,” I said, to break the silence.
“I went to stay in Ireland as a child,” he said. “I learned English there. I loved it, but I complained to my parents the entire time. I called and asked to come home. I didn’t really want to leave Ireland. I was only hoping my parents would miss me.”
“Did it work?” I asked. “Did they let you come home?”
“No, with my parents that kind of thing never worked,” Hadrien said, leaning back in his chair. He took a sip of beer. “You came to Paris alone this time?”
Just then my phone buzzed. Nikolai had been sending text messages in a steady stream all afternoon, messages like WHERE IS THE CAN OPENER? Or NICO CAN’T FIND HER HAIRBRUSH, questions that Sveti could have answered, but now the tone of the messages changed. They became more direct, aggressive, and they began to arrive every few minutes. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT TIME ARE YOU MEETING SILVIA? When I didn’t answer these questions, he sent texts about the kids, knowing I couldn’t ignore them. CALL ME. NICO WANTS TO TALK TO YOU.
I pushed my phone to the bottom of my bag. “You should join me for dinner. I’m meeting Silvia and Pierre at a place called the Hôtel du Nord,” I told Hadrien.
“That’s near the Canal Saint-Martin,” he said. He was a native Parisian and knew every street and alley. “What time?”
“Eight-thirty,” I said, taking a long sip of white wine.
“Will you be dragged away by your husband this time?”
“I hope not,” I said.
Hadrien brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. “He looked like he was going to kill someone. Is he always like that?”
“I found out last year that he’s been going through my e-mail messages. I suspect that he’s been doing so for a long time, maybe even from the beginning.”
“Did he find something?”
“Yes, he found something in my phone.”
“And now he’s trying to hold on to you?”
“It’s complicated. We’ve been together a long time.”
“And you have children.”
“A girl and a boy.” I suddenly felt self-conscious about my age. Thirty-eight years old with two children.
“They must be adorable.”
“Let’s have another drink,” I said, trying to avoid the subject. I could hardly bear to think about how my actions would affect Alex and Nico. And so I didn’t.
We ordered another round, and I asked him questions about his work and his life in Paris and his past and his family. He didn’t ask me about Nikolai, and I didn’t tell him, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the dead cypress tree back at home. The trunk might stand, the branches might reach for the sky, but in the first strong gale the whole thing would topple to the ground. The center of my marriage was long dead. The wind had begun to blow.
—
WE MET SILVIA and Pierre at the Hôtel du Nord, a dimly lit bar with marble floors and black-and-white photos of hotel guests taken in the twenties and thirties, when artists and writers spent time drinking near the Canal Saint-Martin. Silvia and Pierre were having a drink at the bar, waiting for us. Silvia was perfectly put together, her blond hair bobbed and flipped, her dress short and pretty, and her legs long.
“Hello, darling,” Silvia said, kissing me. “How are you? Good? Perfect! We’ve started without you.” Leaning close to my ear, she whispered, “Nikolai has been calling me for an hour. I’m not answering.”
“Thanks,” I whispered back, biting my lip and looking at my phone. There were five missed calls from Nikolai.
We’d just settled at the bar and were ordering drinks when my phone began to buzz again. I knew that there was no emergency at the house, and I wanted to ignore him, but I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to be myself without him for one night, the connection was too strong. I felt beholden to him, responsible. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, where I checked my phone. There were a series of text messages from Nikolai that went something like this:
Nikolai: TRIED CALLING. CALL ME BACK.
Nikolai: WHAT TIME ARE YOU MEETING SILVIA?
Nikolai: THE KIDS WANT TO CALL YOU.
Nikolai: IS PETRO GOING TO BE THERE?
Nikolai: CALL ME. I’M STARTING TO WORRY.
Nikolai: TRIED CALLING AGAIN. WHY AREN’T YOU PICKING UP? ARE YOU OK?!
Nikolai: SILVIA ISN’T PICKING UP HER PHONE. ARE YOU SURE SHE’S MEETING YOU TONIGHT?
Nikolai: WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE RESTAURANT?
Nikolai: CALL ME. IT’S URGENT.
What struck me as strange, other than the sheer abundance of text messages and missed calls, was that he already knew where and when I was meeting Silvia. I had told him exactly where we were going and when I would arrive. But he wasn’t really calling because the kids wanted me or because he was curious about the restaurant. He was calling because I was slipping from his grasp.
I typed: AM HAVING DINNER AT HOTEL DU NORD. NO TIME TO CALL YOU! EVERYTHING IS FINE. HUG THE KIDS FOR ME. WILL CALL LATER.
Nikolai: CALL NOW. I WANT TO TALK TO YOU.
Me: I CAN’T TALK NOW. I’M ABOUT TO HAVE DINNER!
Then a message came from a French number: ÇA VA? WE ARE ORDERING ANOTHER DRINK.
It was Hadrien, texting me from the restaurant bar. I quickly wrote back: ÇA VA. BE RIGHT BACK!
Hadrien: DO YOU WANT A DRINK?
Nikolai: I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU NOW. I’M CALLING. YOU BETTER PICK UP.
Me: CHAMPAGNE.
Nikolai: CHAMPAGNE?
I had accidentally sent Nikolai the text with my drink order. I quickly sent the message to Hadrien and wrote back to Nikolai: SORRY. AUTOCORRECT. REALLY CANNOT TALK NOW. CALL YOU LATER? XOXO
The addition of “xoxo” was meant to reassure him, to bring him down from what had become a full-blown freakout. I couldn’t blame him. He was imagining the worst, and he wasn’t wrong to be angry. I had lied to him. I had met Hadrien. And he knew it. Going to Paris was selfish, and it was hurting him, but at that point I was so unhappy, and so ready for change, that I didn’t care anymore. I’d reached a reckless point where I no longer cared about what was going to happen. And yet for some reason I couldn’t turn off my phone either. I had taken all the steps to come to Paris, I was out with another man, and yet I was still deeply tied to my husband.
When my phone rang, I answered.
But it wasn’t Nikolai on the line. It was Nico. “Hi, Mama,” she said.
“Hi, baby,” I replied. Nikolai was using his best weapon: our daughter. “Everything okay?”
“Not good,” she said, her voice a pout.
“Why not?” I asked, imagining her father sitting there at her side, listening.
“Because Alex is upstairs playing video games still, and he won’t let me play for even five minutes!”
“Where’s your dad?”
“Right here,” she said.
“Well, why isn’t he helping you?”
“He told me to call you.”
“Go tell Alex to let you play,” I said. “Tell him I told you it’s okay. Tell your dad I said he needs to help you. Tell Alex to listen to your dad.”
“Okay, Mama,” she said, her voice brightening slightly, as if she had just a little more hope of dislodging her brother than she’d had before she called.
Nikolai took the phone. “Hi,” he said, his voice calm, as if none of the recent text exchanges had happened. “Where are you?”
“You know where I am,” I said.
“You’re at the Hôtel du Nord?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just like I told you.”
“Seems kind of quiet.”
“I’m in the bathroom,” I said. I opened the door and stuck the phone out into the cacophony of the restaurant. “Better?”
“Who is there with you?” he asked, as if we hadn’t covered all this many times. I felt my anger spike: Who? Where? What? When? Why? He was asking the same questions over and over again.
“Nikolai, you know who is here with me!”
“But I want to hear you say it,” he said.
“I am at the Hôtel du Nord with Silvia,” I said.
“And Pierre,” he added. “Pierre is there, too, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is, and we’re having drinks. In fact, they’re waiting for me now.”
“How do I know Silvia is really there?”
“Because I just told you she’s here.”
“What if I don’t believe you?”
“Do you want me to prove that Silvia is here?” I asked. “Do you want to say hello to her?” I was getting so worked up, so annoyed by the questioning, that I stepped out of the bathroom and walked to the bar, where Silvia, Pierre, and Hadrien were finishing their drinks. I was so ready to prove that Silvia was there that I went right up to the bar and gave her my phone. “Nikolai would like to say hello.”
Hadrien pushed a flute of champagne to me as Silvia took my phone, a confused look on her face.
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