Owning It

by Leah Marie Brown

  The sandwich is, like, crazy good. The pita bread is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. The meat—tastes like pork (but can’t be)—is tender and buttery and slathered in this creamy white sauce.

  “Do you like the sandwich?” Gabriel asks.

  “Are you kidding me?” I moan and roll my eyes. “This is, like, nine point five on the Richter scale of deliciousness. Maybe even better than Munch and Lunch’s Bipolar.”

  “Munch and Lunch?” Gabriel frowns. “Bipolar?”

  “Sorry,” I say, opening my eyes and smiling. “Munch and Lunch is this gallery cum diner back in Boulder. They make a turkey and hot pepper jelly sandwich called the Bipolar.”

  “It is good?”

  “Mythically good. Like, conceived by a genius in an otherworldly place of unicorns, fairies, and rainbows. Just wait until I take you there and—”

  Heat flushes my cheeks. I am talking as if Gabriel and I have serious history, as if we have a serious future.

  He fixes me with his solemn, breath-robbing gaze and smiles with his lips closed, a sly, unnerving smile, the lazy smile of a clever cat who knows he has trapped the mouse.

  “And?”

  And? And, what, Laney? My heart is thump-thump-thumping so fast, so loud, I can’t hear my own thoughts. I have never felt like this around a man. I am all flushy-crushy and cotton candy brained.

  “And, do you still work for Reuters?”

  Gabriel chuckles low in his throat.

  “Non, I work for the European Pressphoto Agency.”

  “What sorts of stories do you cover?”

  “Pfff.” He shrugs. “One month, I might be sent to cover the migrant crisis on the French-Italian border and the next month to Cannes to snap pictures of Hollywood stars posing on the red carpet. Revolutions, ecological summits, bike races, workers’ strikes, soccer matches. Take your pick.”

  I shake my head. “That’s impressive. I can’t believe your family doesn’t take your work seriously.”

  He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he balls up his empty sandwich wrapper in his fist and tosses it into a nearby trash bin. He does the same with mine.

  I remember the bold indigo streak I saw when I first read Gabriel’s aura and realize his independence was born from rejection. I get that. In that respect, we are kindred souls. Gabriel seems like he has mastered the focus thing, though.

  “My Aunt Fantine takes it seriously.”

  “I met your aunt.”

  “Elle est remarquable, est-elle pas?”

  “Oui,” I say, smiling. “She is remarkable. I am pretty sure we were best friends in another life.”

  He laughs. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  I take a sip of my lemonade to stall for time.

  “Truthfully?”

  “That’s the only way we shall ever be, ma fleur.”

  “I don’t know what I believe. Christianity. Judaism. Hinduism. I believe there must be a higher power who keeps order in the universe through the use of karma, or something like that.”

  “Good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds met with misfortune?”

  I shrug. “My father would say it is a spiritual twist on the principle of cause and effect. He’s a physicist, though, and doesn’t believe in things that can’t be seen or proven. I believe in karma because I have seen it in action in my own life.”

  Gabriel smiles at me, and I have to fight the urge to reach out and touch the dimple on his stubbly cheek.

  “I wonder what good deed I did to bring you into my life?”

  He stares at my mouth and leans in close enough for me to catch another whiff of his exotic cologne.

  Chapter 17

  Laney’s Life Playlist

  “Zou Bisous Bisous” by Avalon Jazz Band

  “So, did he kiss you?”

  Rigby was waiting in the courtyard when I returned from my lunch with Gabriel. We are scheduled to have atelier time this afternoon, but we are sitting in the sun-filled courtyard talking about boys.

  “He tried, but I made some stupid comment.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  I flush. “I said, ‘Is this one of those smooth French guy seductive moves American mothers warn their daughters about?’”

  “You did not!”

  “I did.”

  “Oh, Laney! Why?”

  “Because he’s so hot he breaks the Scoville scale.”

  “Uh, hello?” Rigby reaches out and knocks on my forehead with her fist. “We want hot guys to kiss us, not uggos.”

  I am dying of mortification. My eyes fill with tears, and I look away, at some shadowy corner of the courtyard.

  “Oh my god!” Rigby cries. “Laney, are you a virgin?”

  I nod and a tear slips down my cheek.

  “How is that even possible?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you, Lane,” she says, holding her fingers up as if framing a camera shot. “You’re stunning.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Stuh-ning.”

  I look at her and frown.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Thanks,” I sniffle.

  “How is it possible that nobody has tried to take your V card?”

  “Oh, I’ve had some boyfriends who tried, but . . .”

  “But?”

  I shrug and sniffle again. “I don’t know. It’s never felt right.”

  “Never?”

  I shake my head. “I know what I am about to say is going to set the women’s movement back, like, a trillion years, but I believe in the Disney Princess stories.”

  Rigby smiles and sighs.

  “Remember Sleeping Beauty?”

  She nods. “It’s my fave.”

  “Mine too!” We reach out our hands and touch our wiggling fingertips together. “Twin power.”

  “Activate,” Rigby says.

  “I always wanted to be Princess Aurora, because she is so gentle and loving. Plus, she is raised by three fairies!”

  “Right?” Rigby pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. “She lives in the deep, dark forest surrounded by her woodland creature friends until Prince Phillip, her one true love, rescues her with a kiss.”

  “Exactly. She was sheltered and protected by the fairies, kept pure until a man worthy of her beauty arrived.” My bottom lip trembles. “I’ve never met a man I thought was worthy of my . . . you know.”

  “V card?”

  I nod.

  She laughs. “Oh, Lane. You are the best.”

  “You don’t think I’m a loser?”

  “No way! I think you are rare.”

  “Thanks,” I say, swiping the tears off my cheeks.

  “I think Gabriel thinks you are rare too,” she says. “Do you think Gabriel might be able to fit into Prince Phillip’s boots?”

  “Maybe, but I’ve probably ruined everything with my stupid smooth French guy comment.”

  Rigby jumps up and wraps her arms around me.

  “It’s all good, Lane.”

  “It is?”

  “Heck yeah.” She stops hugging me and sits down again, pulling her chair closer, and lowering her voice to a whisper. “French guys don’t like girls who are open books. They want to learn the plot slowly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Earth to Love-Struck Laney,” she says, laughing. “I am dating a French guy. And, I read the book.”

  “What book?”

  “La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life by Elaine Sciolino.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m not.” She plucks a petal from the potted hydrangea and rubs it between her fingers. “It’s been super helpful in helping me understand the cultural differences between Matthias and me.”

  “Really?”

  She nods enthusiastically. “It’s, like, the American girl’s bible for dating a French guy. I left my copy at home, but I’ll bet you could pick up one at Shakespeare and Company.”<
br />
  Every artist, whether of the written word or painted scene, knows about Shakespeare and Company, the left-bank bookstore opened by Sylvia Beach and visited by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and various expat bohemians.

  “I’ll have to check it out.”

  Rigby stands and holds out her hand. I give her my hand, and she pulls me to my feet.

  “We will both check it out after our atelier session. You need that book, because Gallaney is so happening.”

  * * *

  We spend the remainder of the day in the atelier. I work on my Minority of Souls painting while Rigby works on a brill watercolor of a Paris street scene in shades of purple. By the time we clean our brushes, the sun has slipped behind the mansard roofs, casting the atelier in woolen shades of darkness.

  We grab our sweaters and purses and leave the gallery behind. A vigorous twenty-minutee walk later and we have crossed over the Seine from the Right Bank to the Left Bank.

  Shakespeare and Company takes up two green-and-yellow storefronts in an old, Baron Haussmann–era building a stone’s throw from the river. The shop is practically in the shadow of Notre Dame. We arrive as a poet begins reading aloud from her book, titled Dirty Verse. A crowd has assembled on the sidewalk around her, tourists with iPhones held aloft, a homeless man leading a scruffy terrier by a rope, a few Parisians on their way home from work.

  “Pussy,” says the poet, in a loud, defiant voice. “Come, come lose yourself in the forest of my femininity, where darkened thatches conceal a feline ready to devour your masculinity . . .”

  My cheeks flush with heat.

  “I’m going to look for that book,” I whisper to Rigby.

  “Cool, I’ll see you inside in a bit.”

  I work my way through the titillated crowd and into the dimly lit bookstore. The scent of musty pages greets me. Wooden shelves from floor to ceiling strain under the weight of countless books, some classics, some completely forgotten by everyone save the authors who wrote them.

  I climb a red staircase to the second floor. The first room I come to has a small wooden table situated beneath a window overlooking the street. An old Olympus typewriter sits upon the table. I wander through the rooms until I come to a bookcase filled with books about art. I see many familiar titles—In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art by Sue Roe, Shocking Paris by Stanley Meisler, The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King—and several that make me wish I could bust my meager budget—The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece by Anne-Marie O’Connor and Creative Madness: Radical and Totally Mental Artists by Madeleine Magdelene.

  “Can I help you find a book?”

  I turn to find a pretty girl with shoulder-length dark-blonde hair, wide blue-gray eyes, and impossibly deep dimples standing beside me holding a small stack of paperbacks. She’s wearing a pair of distressed boyfriend jeans and an Oakland Raiders tee.

  “Yes, I am looking for the book La Seduction by”—I scrunch my nose and snap my fingers—“Ellen . . . Sicilian?”

  “Close,” she laughs. “Elaine Sciolino.”

  “Right.”

  “If you follow me, I will show you where to find it.”

  I follow her to another room. Without hesitating, she walks to the back wall and pulls a book off the second shelf from the bottom.

  “Here ya go,” she says, handing it to me.

  I look at the price tag and grimace.

  “Ouch! Twenty-four euros will totally pummel my budget.” I hand it back to her. “I’m going to have to wait until I sell a painting.”

  “Are you an artist?”

  I nod my head. “I’m interning at the Cadré Gallery, in the Marais.”

  “That’s awesome.” She takes the book from my hand and slides it back on the shelf. “Internship? So you’re a starving artist, then?”

  “Totes. My bank account is scary malnourished.”

  “But you’re chasing the dream.”

  “I am.”

  “My name’s Rachelle, by the way.”

  “I’m Laney.”

  “Nice to meet you, Laney.”

  “Likewise.” I smile. “So, how did a Raiders fan end up working in a bookstore in Paris?”

  “I’m a tumbleweed.”

  I frown. “What’s a tumbleweed?”

  “George Whitman, the man who owned this shop, started allowing aspiring writers to sleep among these shelves way back in the fifties. He called them his tumbleweeds, because they would tumble in, write, and tumble out again.” She takes a book from her stack and wedges it onto a crowded shelf. “Since then, thousands of writers have lived and created within these walls, tumbling in and out.”

  I look around. “Where do you sleep?”

  She motions for me to follow her. We walk to a room in the back of the store filled with bookshelves and threadbare sofas.

  “Bienvenue à l’Hôtel Tumbleweed!” she says, holding out her arms. “This is the library. It’s where a lot of the tumbleweeds crash. I’ve got an alcove one floor down, though. It has curtains that close and is super cozy. I fall asleep with the scent of old books in my nose and wake to the sound of the bells of Notre Dame ringing in my ears.”

  “That’s amaze!”

  “Right?”

  I nod. “So you just get to live here for free?”

  “We are required to work in the store and write a one-page biography.” She takes another book from her pile and slides it on a shelf wedged between a battered leather sofa and a worn velvet sofa. “I work part-time at a souvenir shop across the river just to earn my bread money. So, I dig you when you say you’re starving for your art.”

  “I’m glad you feel my pain.”

  “Oh, I feel you.”

  We laugh.

  “Where are you from?”

  “California. What about you?”

  “Colorado.”

  Rachelle tells me she was born and raised in a small town outside Sacramento, attended UCLA majoring in English, and earned her PhD from Columbia University.

  “You’re really a doctor?”

  She smiles and nods.

  “You’re so young.”

  “I’m thirty.”

  “You’re only thirty years old and you have a doctorate in philosophy?”

  She nods again.

  “I am impressed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You earned it.”

  “Hey,” she says, lowering her voice, “I have an idea. I own a copy of the book you want. Why don’t we make a barter?”

  “What were you thinking?”

  Rachelle shrugs. “Let me tag along with you when you paint. I want to absorb as much of the expat culture as I can for a novel I am thinking of writing.”

  “Okay, but only if I can call you Dr. Phil.”

  She laughs. “It’s a deal.”

  I follow her down one floor and over to a curtained alcove, tucked beneath the stairs, like Harry Potter’s cubby in the Dursley’s house.

  “Here you go,” she says, handing me a copy of La Seduction. “I hope it helps net you a sexy guy.”

  My cheeks flush.

  “She’s already netted a sexy guy,” Rigby says, joining us. “Monsieur Tall, Dark, and Hot.”

  “Sweet,” Rachelle says. “Bon chance avec Monsieur Tall, Dark, and Hot. Fall in love, have a mad affair, and then tell me all about it so I have authentic material when I write the next great American novel.”

  “Well,” I say, sighing heavily, “I guess I could help you out. I mean, if it’s in the name of art . . .”

  We all laugh.

  “Rigby, this is Dr. Phil,” I say, gesturing to my new friend. “She’s a brainiac writer from California. She lives and works in the store. Dr. Phil, this is my friend, Rigby. She’s a talented glassblower and watercolorist.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Rachelle says.

  “Nice to meet you,” Rigby responds.

 
“Hey, Laney,” Rachelle says, “I just thought of another book you might want to check out.”

  She crosses the room, pulls a slender paperback with a white cover from a shelf, and hands it to me. I take the book and stare at the illustration on the front cover. It’s a cartoon drawing of a couple embracing beneath the Eiffel Tower.

  “French Women Don’t Sleep Alone: Pleasurable Secrets to Finding Love,” I say, reading the title.

  “Look, I better get back to work. Stop by the front desk before you leave, and I will give you my contact information.”

  “Okay.” I hold up the book. “Thanks.”

  Rachelle hurries back down the stairs.

  “She seemed cool,” Rigby says.

  “Totes.”

  “Are you going to get the book she recommended?”

  I shrug.

  Rigby takes the book from me, turns it over, and reads the back-cover blurb aloud.

  “‘Did you know that French women don’t date?’” She waggles her eyebrows. “‘French women don’t worry about the care and feeding of their boyfriend. And they certainly don’t travel to Mars to communicate with men. On the contrary, French women’s love lives are romantic, sensual, playful, and intense. They conduct their relationships with the same unique sense of originality and artfulness with which they choose their clothes and accessories . . .’”

  What am I doing? Who comes to the City of Love and signs up for a crash course on L’art de la Séduction? Sadly unprepared virgins, that’s who! I wish I were more like Fanny, calm, cool, and completely confident in my ability to catch a man. Her designer boots had barely hit Alaskan ground and she’d already snagged herself a hot lumbersexual.

  Or I wish I could be more like Vivia. Fanny’s beautiful, audacious best friend lied about her virginity and was dumped by her fiancé when he discovered the truth. She went on the honeymoon anyway and met Jean-Luc, a super sexy bike guide and literature professor. A year later, they were engaged and planning the most romantic wedding in his family’s château in the south of France.

  “So, what do you think?” Rigby holds the book close to her face and bats her thick, fringy eyelashes. “Are you ready to take ‘a guided tour through the corridors of French love’?”

  Fanny wouldn’t need a book on how to seduce, care for, and feed a man, and Vivia would probably write the book! But you’re not Fanny or Vivia.