by Lois Cahall
Despite this being the city of lights I feel as though every bulb has burned dim. So maybe an assignment is coming in from Simone’s friend. If I don’t get about five more, really soon, I’ll be setting up my box shack right next to his!
We spend our entire lives wondering where we belong, and somehow I don’t feel like I belong here. Or anywhere. Or so my ATM receipt is telling me.
But do I belong with Ben? Is all the other stuff - the baggage he comes with - really important? Truth is, unlike that bum on the cardboard bed, I’ve been well-fed and well-cared for, I’ve had heat to keep me warm and a roof over my head. I remember what Grandma Vi defined as her idea of perfect happiness. All it took was an electric clothes drier, a color television set, and fresh mint leaves from the Armenian produce store to put in her iced tea. For her, Plan A would have been plan enough.
The longest relationship we have in life is with ourselves. I guess I could learn to be alone, right? But I’m not. I have company. The gypsy boy is back, seemingly from out of nowhere, tapping me on the shoulder and presenting a silver ring in the palm of his hand. My heart lights up as I examine it closer. It is my ring! I grab it from his sweating palm, not even thinking to reprimand him, and slip it over my left ring finger’s dampened knuckle until it’s snugly back where it belongs. I clasp my hand to my chest and then extend it before me, turning my hand left and right as the diamond catches the lights from the street lamp. Reaching into my purse, I hand the gypsy twenty euros, but he bolts from my side and disappears before inquiring if I want any change.
*
I slump into the banquette. I can’t believe I fell for that Etienne. And his infamous line: “Here is ze slipper. And not one, but two balls.” Well, it would be a good story to tell all my girlfriends over a bottle of wine… “And there I was, standing in front of his statue-of-David physique, my mouth agape, fighting the temptation to look down at his giant, um, knob…”
Amazing how fast the booze wears off when you’re put in an odd situation. Amazing how fast I was capable of bolting out the door and down the hallway to the elevator. The hallway that never seemed to end. It hadn’t been a walk of shame, it had been a walk of shock. I don’t recall whether I glanced back over my shoulder to see if Etienne was watching. Luckily - and let’s face it, this never happens - the elevator dinged almost immediately when I hit the button.
The doors slid shut. Exhale. Safety. Exhale. Going down. Okay. At least I’d left before anything really happened. Tiny clock hand hitting lobby. Ding. Lobby entrance. Ding. I hadn’t even looked down at his…Ding. Light bulb. Ding dong. The shoes!
I was barefoot. How could I leave without the shoes? Panic set in faster than my mind could process what I knew would have to happen next. They were Kitty’s expensive shoes, and Kitty would kill me if I didn’t return them. I had to go back.
With my wits a bit more about me than just five minutes ago, I held my head high and entered the elevator with a woman who was too busy staring at my feet to say “good evening.” I hit the button to Etienne’s floor. Silence riding up. When the doors opened I proceeded to the right, strutting down the hall. Would I knock gently or ring his buzzer? Would he show up at the door naked, or would he now be wearing his robe?
Neither one, as it turned out. Because there he was - Etienne in the tanned flesh – standing completely naked in the hallway, Kitty’s shoes dangling from his left hand.
He smiled slyly at me and said, “I knew ze Princess would return.”
“For the shoes,” I said, snatching them out of his hand.
And I turned around and was gone.
*
I rearrange my dignity in the banquet as though the people at the next table can read the escapades inside my mind. But I know they can’t, so I turn my thoughts to what really matters. Ben. How many times had I snuggled up to Ben’s bicep right in this very spot. If he were just here to have a conversation with, I’d so love to listen to him speak - so rich with information, so challenging, so complex, and so entertaining. Ben is like a big book worth buying the entire coffee table for.
Thinking of him makes me long to fall in love with him all over again but I can’t allow it. Granted I can’t be screwing around with every Tom, Dick and Prince Etienne either, but I have to remember Ben might never be. Fiddling with the coaster in front of me, the white one with a blue etching of a man’s profile, I’m startled when a real man slides into my booth. It’s him - the man on the coaster - the café manager.
“Madame Libby! Bonjour!” he says, looking around to see if Ben might be in the vicinity.
“Oh, bonjour!” I say. “Je suis seule.” I am alone.
“Oh, so sad,” he says, in his French hairball accent. He rises up, grabs a bottle of white wine from the bar, and pours me a glass. He places it in front of me and I’m about to say “I don’t drink in the daytime” but why the hell not? Maybe Kitty was right. Picking up the goblet I raise the goblet to him, and he smiles and heads over to the center of the room, where a band is setting up for this evening’s performance.
My mind instantly digs back to one of those silly little things Ben taught me. “With white, you never hold the goblet, because your body heat will warm its contents. You grasp the stem. Like so.” Somehow when he said that over a candlelit dinner and I was a wee bit drunk it always sounded so much more intelligent. He knew he had my attention, and he’d continue on with his wine lesson. He would lift the buttery liquid to the candle’s flame, our gazes and glasses would meet over the flicker, and then he’d say very smoothly, “Now with cognac….” and he’d make me giggle… “You cradle the glass like this.” I’d watch him swirling the glass in the crook of his hand, all the while staring longingly at me, his eyes slipping to my breast with a stare that was both naughty and desirous. Once I heard him whisper, “la belle poitrine” – French for beautiful bosom.
The band has finished setting up and they decide to practice a song, motioning to me to see if it’s okay, since I’m the only one in the café. “D’accord!” I say, with a warm smile, and the piano player begins. But seconds later I recognize the notes. It’s “Unconditional Love” – a song Ben wrote especially for me. Oh God, I think to myself, scanning the table for silverware. But there isn’t any. Too bad. I really need to stick a fork in my neck to end this misery.
A cell phone rings, and I realize it’s mine. Okay, I lied. Remember when I promised that I’d left that outgoing message that said, “Call back later, Mommy’s in Paris?” Well, I did, but that was on my American phone. This is my French cell phone – the one I’m renting, “in case of emergency.” Its outgoing message is some computer-generated monstrosity. The Caller ID tells me that it’s Ben. But, I don’t answer it. I can’t. Not because I don’t want to but because I honestly don’t know how to. There’s a manual back at my apartment. In French.
Just as well, I say, slipping the phone back into my purse. Better to play “hard to get,” even though some part of me is itching to tell Ben how I met Rosemary’s first ex, Jean-Francois, at a trendy French party. But as it rings and rings, the screen lit from within my purse, I feel farther away from America than ever.
Finally it stops. Then a second later it rings again. As I attempt to silence it, I hit a button and I hear somebody saying “Hello?”
“Hello?” I say, bringing the phone to my ear.
“Are you sipping coffee?” says Bebe.
“Bebe? Oh, my Bebe!” I say, putting a finger in my other ear so I can hear her voice over the rehearsing band. “Bebe, it’s so good to hear your voice. I miss you!”
“I miss you, too, but if you’re sipping coffee, put the cup down right now. I don’t want you to spray it across the room or stain whatever pretty dress you’re wearing.”
“Its down” I say, staring guiltily at my empty wine glass.
“Okay,” Bebe exhales deeply. “I’m coming to see you. In Paris! I’m bringing Tamara. And most importantly, I’ve dumped Bernie.”
“Oh, there is a
God!”
“Oh Libby, you’re funny. You’re sounding like Kitty.”
“Well that’s not good.”
“No, it’s all good. I thought about what you said. Life is short. Time to take risks. And you want to know the truth?”
“I thought so until recently,” I say.
I can hear her smiling through the phone. “I don’t know a lot of things, but I know I don’t want Bernie in my life. I don’t want any man in my life right now.”
Now there’s a smart woman. I always had her pegged for a few fries short a Happy Meal. But Bebe may just have pulled herself together. “I want Tamara on my own terms,” she continues. “Just us girls. Mother and daughter.”
“I can understand that,” I say. “So when do you arrive? Oh my God, wait until I tell Kitty.”
“Well, first we’re going skiing in Gstaad…”
“For real then? Cool.”
“Come, Libby. We have a big chalet. We’ll be there for Christmas and then we’ll be in Paris for New Years with you, our Auntie Heylib.”
“No, I’m staying put. But listen, we’re having a big dinner party at Jacques’s – some famous chef Kitty knows, blah, blah, blah. He lives upstairs from my apartment.”
So how is Paris? Tell me everything…”
“No,” I say, “You go first.”
Always the question one should never ask Bebe, and I always regret it the second the words come from my mouth. One thing about Bebe…ask her what’s she’s doing and she really tells you. Right down to the type of omelette she just had for lunch. There’s nobody as busy as a person who has nothing to do.
“Well, if you must know,” she begins. “We got Tamara fitted for ski boots today. Had to go to seven stores because the first two didn’t have her size. Took her forever to squeeze a foot into one and then I couldn’t figure out how to attach the clasps….”
I make the sign to my waiter for my check or the “addition,” as they call it in Paris. He waves under his chin to say, “No charge.” I smile.
“Then her tummy was a bit upset so I went to find some Pepto Bismol,” says Bebe. “I had six emails to write and returned two business calls…”
Chapter Thirty-one
Another day, another arrondissement, another café – God, this is getting old. Especially since my French lessons aren’t quite paying off. The CD taught me to order a piece of chocolate cake but I don’t want “un morceau de gateau!” Instead I grab for a healthy “Scoop.” I’m on the last chapter of his classic novel about journalistic shenanigans in early 20th century England. I take a sip from my coffee and then flip the page. So much caffeine, so little booze, so much spare time.
And still no emails from Ben, so I left my computer back home, alone, where it belongs. Every time my mailbox fills on my Outlook Express, my heart leaps with anticipation. Even the contract I received to write about a restaurant in the charming hamlet of Barbizon isn’t thrilling me. Not without Ben to share the news. Not without Ben to share the town. We used to go there. Together.
When is my wild and crazy Plan C going to kick in? I’ve smoked a few cigarettes, had a few drinks, had one too many hangovers, went to several too many parties, but even here the French call it a night early because they have to work the next day. And the lonely nights feel too long. I used frequent flier miles for this?
Two men sit at a table next to mine, but they’re a little too handsome for my taste. I like a guy who’s a bit of a nerd; about a third of a nerd, but not more. Too much more and he’s not sexy; any less and he’s boring. I like the kind of a guy who couldn’t quite get the girl. The kind of a guy that when he gets me, he thinks he’s with some movie star, even though he’s usually the one with some level of star quality. And I want to look better than he does even when I’m at my worst. I like a guy with an edge, a bit of naughty, but alot of goofball. A pedigree isn’t bad either. But not man-overboard royalty like Prince Charles. More blue collar with a hint of diamond-studded collar. Underdog is where it’s at. The losers…who are quietly winners.
I size these two up from perfectly-coiffed head to their Prada shoes. They’re GQ types – much more Bebe bait than Libby lust. One of my table neighbors catches me staring, and he winks. I smile. Still not my type. Kitty wouldn’t find them her type either. She needs more of a wild, eccentric and unavailable “artiste.”
Then a handsome man with that blend of nerd and sexy pulls up a chair at the next table, smiling and nodding at me, loosening the woolen scarf from his neck, and draping it carefully over his coat. Okay, this one could work. As he sits, I straighten my posture, put my shoulders back the way my mother always taught me to when she’d run her hand inside my shoulder blades, fluff my hair and suck in my stomach. My belly’s a little larger than usual from too much “fromage.” French for cheese. And weakness.
But keep your wits about you, Libby. Just imagine what stunt he might pull, naked, with a shoe suspended from his cock.
“Salut! Comment ca va?” he says, rubbing his hands together and blowing on his very large fingers.
“Tres bien, merci.” “Et vu?” And you? My mouth hits the rim of the glass and I size him up. Technically I’m not really fine with my phoney “Tres bien, merci” - but what am I supposed to do? Pour my heart out to the handsome stranger who would prove impossible to talk to anyway? I can speak conversational French but I’m truly incapable of “I don’t want to be with a man that I have to fight with just because of his spoiled ex-wife.” Instead I do the sensible thing, sip my café crème and check him out. Good hair, good teeth, good shoes and who knows what else. Bebe would so far approve.
“This smoking ban is proved to be such an annoyance,” he says in perfect English, which tells me that technically I could pour my heart out to him, though I refrain. He continues, now tossing a frustrated hand in the air. “People are drinking less, smoking less, spending less…” He has a point. I glance around at the many empty tables and chairs.
“But they’re French!” I say. “It can’t be like this!”
“It is. Best enjoy that wine you’re sipping. It could be your last.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wine makers in Bordeaux and Burgundy are filing bankruptcy.”
“Oh that’s horrible,” I say. And it is. This can’t be true, not now, not when I’m finally here living the French café life I’ve always dreamed of.
“Yes, the French are not acting like the French. They are no longer eating and drinking like the French.” he says, again the arms going up like he’s fly swatting. “Look at this,” he says, picking up a baguette from his bread basket. “Soggy inside, stale on zee outside.” “We have become like the Americans. It’s over. The cafe is dead.”
“What do you mean the café is dead? No, don’t say that. Stop it right now…” I say pushing away my coffee cup. Who is this jerk-off?
“Do you know when I was a boy in the 1960s, there were over 200,000 cafes. Now, it’s down to just 40,000. Things have changed.”
“Surely you’re mistaken.”
“Grab a sandwich to go, grab lunch to go. The young drink to get wasted, not to savor the leisure moments.”
“No, stop!” I say.
“They even use paper cups…”
“Paper cups!? Oh, that’s just wrong.” Except for when an American needs a coffee to go, of course. Then it’s okay.
And then as though I can’t imagine it could get any worse…
My dreams are shattered by the sight of a woman clearing the only busy table just a few misplaced chairs away. She looks like Kitty. I lean in for a closer look, squinting my eyes to be sure. It can’t be Kitty. It’s surely her double. A second look and…
“Kitty?” I call out, with a tone of feeling stunned and at the same time sorry for the discovery. The French guy looks over his shoulder to see who Kitty is while I want to hide under my table to spare her the embarrassment. But just as I’m about to do so, she spins around as she shoves change into her apron po
cket.
“Libby?” she says, calmly, gathering the empty glasses and napkins. I’m speechless, waiting for some explanation. “Don’t ask, all right?” says Kitty clanking glasses together. “It’s only temporary. I have to. It’s for my niece.”
“The pregnant one? Your fisherman brother’s daughter? That niece?” This was my lame attempt to conceal my devastation, but at the same time reassure myself more than reassure her.
“Yes,” says Kitty, turning to the patrons at another table. “C’mon finish up your crepe I have dishes to clear. Shove that bite down, let’s move it!”
“But this is a Paris!” says the chubby American tourist. “We’re supposed to be able to sit all day. And besides, this place is empty.”
Kitty swings back to me. “Look, Lib, these are hard times. I saw Anna Wintour taking the Metro last week.”
“I don’t know what to say…”
“Nothing to say,” says Kitty. “It’s only temporary.”
“Oh? I mean oh. Of course.” There’s a moment of dark realization that bounces between us like a solider nursing his bunkmate in a foxhole all the while knowing he’s about to bleed to death. “Listen, Kitty. You don’t have to explain. I mean, look at me. The moment I go back to the States I’ll probably be filling out applications for jobs right alongside my daughter, Madeline. It’s okay. Really. I mean, CEOs of major companies are working retail now, you know?”