Seven Letters from Paris

by Samantha Vérant

  And the Night Never Ends

  The “first date” nerves finally settled down.

  I made it through my coq au vin without any embarrassing food catastrophes, not one stray piece of chicken or peppercorn trapped in my teeth. Of course, I’d reminded myself not to inhale my dinner like a starved pig at an overfilled trough and not to speak with a full mouth. But whether I was using the right fork or not, the company at our table overshadowed the meal, and the conversation, along with the new bottle of wine, flowed.

  Eleven thirty rolled around. Closing time. We’d overstayed our welcome at the café. The waiters lifted chairs onto tables, giving us dirty looks. Even though they hadn’t dined with us, Jean-Luc and Patrick paid for our dinner and suggested we head over to the Champs-Élysées for a digestif. I had no clue how we got to Paris’s most illustrious boulevard. For all I knew, we could have teleported. We were with a rocket scientist, after all, and all of a sudden, we were just there.

  The bar they’d chosen had a distant view of the Arc de Triomphe, aglow in a golden hue, the Parisian nightlife twinkling. Patrick and Jean-Luc ordered drinks. Transfixed with Jean-Luc, after glancing at the Arc de Triomphe, I didn’t take in much of anything else. Laughing with my best friend and two charming Frenchmen, I thought, Life, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

  In front of Tracey and Patrick, the waiter placed two glasses filled up a quarter of the way with a golden yellow liquid and one or two ice cubes, which were not quite winning the war with the summer heat. On the side, he placed a small carafe of water. Two small glasses filled with a heady red wine were placed in front of Jean-Luc and me.

  “Usually,” said Patrick, his accent thick, his words slow and purposeful, “pastis is served as an aperitif, mais, it’s also a good drink on hot summer nights.” Patrick poured some water into their drinks, diluting the concoction to a sickly yellow hue.

  “What is it?” asked Tracey.

  “An anise-flavored liqueur,” answered Jean-Luc.

  Tracey smelled her glass and took a hesitant sip. “Mmmm, it’s, um, strong.” I could tell by her expression that she didn’t like it. She held out her glass. “Here, Sam, it’s really good, try it.”

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll stick with the wine. Don’t want to mix.”

  “It’s not wine,” said Jean-Luc. “It’s port. Have you ever tried it?”

  “No. I’m in a sorority. At the fraternities, we’re inducted into Beer Drinking 101.”

  Jean-Luc’s mouth pulled into a grimace. “I don’t really like beer.”

  I took a sip of the port, rich and thick. “Come to think of it, neither do I.”

  Soon, it was two in the morning and closing time for our new haunt. But why stop our Parisian love adventure, right? Tracey and I didn’t want to go back to our youth hostel after having our drinks on the Champs-Élysées, and Patrick had a membership at some private club.

  From what I can remember, the taxi ride was both scintillating and terrifying. We raced through the streets of Paris, the historical stone facades and pedestrians a blur. Wherever it was that we were going, I wanted to make it there alive. Good lord, the way Parisians drove—similar to crazed taxi drivers in New York, but worse—frightened me to death. In the backseat, one hand covered my eyes and the other rested on Jean-Luc’s thigh. His aromatic cologne—citrusy and spicy—floated up to my nostrils. Sophisticated, yet subtle, the attraction to this scent was instantaneous. So very French. Intoxicating. The sexual energy between us was palpable, but besides stroking the top of my hand with his thumb, he hadn’t made his move…yet.

  We finally made it to our destination: La Bas, an exclusive establishment that, as we were told by Patrick, mostly catered to the illustrious fashion crowd and bourgeoisie Parisians. As we walked into the club, the bass of eighties dance music thumped in time to my beating heart. Thump. Thump. Boom. Thump. Thump. Boom. Patrick led us to a bank of leather couches, tucked in a dark corner away from the flashing lights of the disco floor.

  The club was empty, save for one or two other couples. It was dark. The DJ played the popular hit of the day, Kaoma’s “Lambada.” Jean-Luc pulled me in close, his hands on my back, my hands on his shoulders. A little dirty dancing turned into a kiss. Once we started, we didn’t stop. Total PDA, but who cared? This wasn’t your typical college hookup or make-out session. It was an intense, complete, and utter out-of-body experience. I can’t speak for them, but I think Tracey and Patrick were having a good time themselves.

  Hey, if Risky Business had taught us anything, it was that every now and then you have to say what the…French kiss—at least until the club closes. Which, of course, it did. At six in the morning, we were booted out of the boîte, the blinding sun already in its place on the horizon, Parisians bustling down the cobbled alleyways, making their way to work and starting their days. Not leaving us to walk alone, Jean-Luc and Patrick escorted Tracey and me back to our youth hostel.

  The hostel was a beautiful vine-covered building, complete with a cream-colored stone facade, located in the fourth arrondissement, right in the heart of the Saint-Gervais district—an area known for its narrow streets, private mansions, and townhouses. We couldn’t beat the location—in walking distance to Notre-Dame, the Seine, and, of course, Le Centre Pompidou, where we’d met Jean-Luc and Patrick. Our room may have been bare bones minimum, nothing but two sets of bunk beds, but it was clean and it was cheap. The only downside was having to share our quarters with two perky blue-eyed, blond-haired girls from South Africa.

  Jean-Luc smiled. “This is one of my favorite streets in Paris. I come here to escape. I love the history here.”

  In silence, we took in our surroundings. A cobbled brick path led up to the beautiful Église Saint-Gervais, which was the oldest church on the right bank of the Seine. Traditional iron street lamps hung off the sides of the buildings. Bicycles with wicker baskets were parked in front of the local café, its facade painted blue. The four of us stood in front of the carved wooden doors to the hostel, right under the Juliet-style wrought-iron balconies with our very own French Romeos. Parting, indeed, was such sweet sorrow. But the romance couldn’t end. Not now! We still had fourteen hours left in the city of love! Patrick pulled Jean-Luc aside. Tracey and I leaned against the wall, talking in hushed whispers.

  “Do I look disgusting?” I asked. “Like a Parisian sewer rat?”

  “Your hair is a bit funky, but you’re fine.” She paused. “What about me?”

  “You never look bad.”

  A group of girls bounded out of the youth hostel and stopped midtrack. They gazed at our two handsome Frenchmen and then caught sight of Tracey and me. Daggers of jealousy shot out of their eyes.

  “Did you see those girls checking out Jean-Luc and Patrick?” I asked.

  “Do you blame them?”

  Not one bit.

  Jean-Luc and Patrick turned to face us. “Patrick and I both have days of vacation we’re able to use. With no sleep, neither of us can go to work. So we’ll collect you in a couple of hours, show you some of Paris.” He paused. “If that’s okay with you.”

  Was he kidding? Both Tracey and I beamed.

  “Dors bien, ma belle,” said Jean-Luc. “We’ll pick you up at noon.”

  Jean-Luc and I shared one last kiss and then he and Patrick twisted around the corner and they were gone. Tracey and I staggered up the steps to our room and flopped down together onto the lower bunk, goofy smiles stretched across our faces.

  “Oh my god,” said Tracey. “I think I’m in love.”

  I propped myself up on my elbows. Love? She couldn’t be falling in love. More to the point, I couldn’t be falling in love. It was just lust, that first chemical reaction sparking both the brain and the body. Right? I was still in school in upstate New York. Jean-Luc lived here, in Paris. It would never work out. But my God, if I’d had a list for everything I’d ever d
reamt for in a perfect man, Jean-Luc would have had a check in every box.

  I huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We just met them.”

  “Sam, didn’t Auntie Mame teach you anything? ‘Live! Life’s a banquet and—’”

  “‘Most poor suckers are starving to death!’”

  We broke out into giddy laughter as I finished the quote from Tracey’s all-time favorite movie.

  “What did you and Patrick talk about, anyway?”

  “Music, the Beatles, American culture, stuff like that.”

  “So you could understand one another?”

  “There was some confusion, but we managed.” She yawned, making no attempt to cover her mouth. “Sam, I’m so tired, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. My heart is still racing.”

  “Well, we should try.”

  I crawled up the wooden ladder to the top bunk. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, I thought, No. No way in hell could I be falling in love. No, not me. There was no way I was falling in love.

  I awoke to the sound of somebody pounding on the door to our room. I looked at my watch. Twenty past eleven. Twenty minutes past check-out time. Forty minutes until Jean-Luc and Patrick’s arrival. We hadn’t packed, hadn’t showered. I scurried down the ladder, opened the door, and yelled to Tracey, “Wake up!” She didn’t budge, just kept snoring. A stout woman with a tight bun pursed her lips and put one hand on her hip. Her other hand held a mop.

  “Please, s’il vous plaît,” I said. “Can we have fifteen minutes—quinze minutes? We overslept.” I pointed to our still-unpacked suitcases and then brought my hands to prayer position, in case there was any confusion. “Quinze minutes? S’il vous plaît?”

  The woman frowned. Surely, she was going to say no. So she surprised me when she didn’t. “Quinze minutes. Pas plus.”

  She turned on a flat heel, making her way down the hall.

  “Merci,” I called out before running over to Tracey and shaking her awake. “Get. The. Hell. Up. We overslept. We have five minutes to shower. I’m going in first. Start packing.”

  Tracey sat upright. “Shit.”

  I bolted to the bathroom. Soon, we were two wet Tasmanian devils whirling around in an explosion of clothes, makeup, and shoes. Not quite the backpacking types, both of us had small suitcases with wheels. And not wanting to risk bed bugs or other strange creatures that may bite in the night, we’d even brought along our own blankets. Our suitcases barely closed.

  “Sit on it,” I said. “And I’ll pull the zipper.”

  Twenty minutes later, out of breath, Tracey handed our room key to an aloof male student type behind the counter. He didn’t look up from his magazine, just kept reading. We made our way downstairs to put our luggage in the basement’s storage area. With a bounce in our step, exactly at noon, we headed down to the lobby expecting to see our Romeos waiting for us. They weren’t there. Five minutes turned into fifteen minutes. Giddiness turned into sadness. Fifteen minutes turned into forty-five minutes. We paced the lobby of the hostel, feeling like the figure in Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream—pure agony, trembling with anxiety.

  It felt like high school all over again—waiting for the call that never came, the feelings of utter rejection, the humiliation. Less than eight hours after meeting me, Jean-Luc had managed to shatter my heart into tiny little pieces. I didn’t blame him. He had nothing to gain from getting to know me. Tracey and I were leaving that night.

  “I can’t believe they blew us off,” said Tracey.

  I looked at my watch. They were now over an hour late. There was no way they were going to show up. “Let’s just go grab a coffee.”

  “Does it come with a side car?”

  “Oh, does Auntie need fuel?”

  But now, not even quoting Auntie Mame could make us smile.

  The Train Leaves the Station

  “Tracey!”

  “Samantha!”

  We heard their shouts the moment we were about to head toward the small dining hall. Our heads twisted around so fast I’m surprised Tracey and I didn’t get whiplash. There, at the bottom of the landing, Jean-Luc and Patrick stood with sheepish grins on their faces. Both Tracey and I smiled even bigger. Our Frenchmen bounded up the steps and swung us around in their muscular arms.

  “Sorry we’re late. The traffic was horrible.”

  “On y va?”

  “It’s time to see Paris.”

  Heads spinning, we headed for Patrick’s car, the anger and humiliation melting away. Jean-Luc opened the car door. He wore nice slacks and a button-down white shirt, complete with a black tie. And here I was in a candy-pink T-shirt, high-waisted jean shorts, and white Keds.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Montmartre,” said Jean-Luc.

  “Am I dressed okay?”

  “You’re fine.” He smiled. “Just fine. It’s me who is overdressed.”

  Was he trying to impress me?

  On the car ride, once again, I tried speaking to Jean-Luc in my mangled French. Unfortunately, in high school they’d taught us expressions, not actual conversational skills. Really, how many times could I have said, “Je sais ce que c’est, mais je ne sais pas comment le dire en français”? (I know what it is, but I don’t know how to say it in French.) Jean-Luc told me my accent was very good, although I was pretty sure he was just being polite. He still insisted on “practicing” his English.

  “Are you hungry?”

  We hadn’t eaten anything since dinner. “Actually, I am.”

  “I know just the place.”

  We parked the car and traversed the cobbled streets of Montmartre, passing art galleries with scenic oil paintings and watercolors displayed on the sidewalk in waves of colorful bursts, and made our way to a small café for crêpes—which aren’t technically crêpes when filled with meats and cheeses, but a saltier pancake called a galette. They weren’t quite the two-dollar bargain of a baguette with a slab of pâté, the lunch Tracey and I had the day before. In fact, the prices on the menu were a bit over the top.

  “You’re being tourists for us,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. It’s my pleasure.” Jean-Luc shrugged. “You know there’s more to the French people and our food than just Paris.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “La Ciotat—a small town on the Mediterranean Sea in the South—close to Marseilles.” He laughed, a twinkle lighting his eyes. “I’m just a boy from the beaches of Provence. My father worked at the shipyards. Maybe one day I’ll be able to take you there, show you a different side of France.”

  “That would be nice.” Much as I wanted to believe in the idea of seeing him again, something deep in my gut told me it would never happen. It was now past three o’clock; my time with Jean-Luc was ticking down. “Tracey and I are headed for Nice tomorrow. I’m excited to see more of France.”

  Jean-Luc’s smile turned into a frown. “Couldn’t you stay in Paris a few more days?”

  My eyes shot from Tracey’s, which pleaded, to Jean-Luc and Patrick’s, which looked hopeful. Tracey and I couldn’t just deviate from the plan because of two guys, could we? Guys we’d only met the night before? I liked Jean-Luc, really liked him, but I couldn’t fathom throwing away my one and only opportunity to see Europe.

  Tracey piped up. “Sam, maybe we could. Maybe just one more night?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not possible. We’ve booked one-way nonrefundable tickets, not an open-ended Eurail pass.” It wasn’t just our train tickets that were a bit pricey; the most expensive part of our trip was flying back from Athens to London. Sighing, I looked at Tracey. “I’d love to, but if something happens and we don’t make it to Greece, we’re totally screwed.”

  Tracey’s face was so illuminated with happiness, an actual light bulb may have popped up over her head. “Maybe
they could come with us? To Nice? We’ll be there for three days.”

  We all looked to the rocket scientist for the answer.

  Jean-Luc rubbed his temples. “It’s summer in Paris. The trains to the South are definitely booked. And I have an important project I have to finish up tomorrow. My thesis.”

  The table went quiet, everybody deep in thought. The clock was tick, tick, ticking down. It was three-thirty. Our train left in five and a half hours. We threw a few more ideas around but couldn’t find a solution to our dilemma.

  Putting doom and gloom aside, the four of us walked over to Sacré-Coeur, its glorious white-domed basilica reaching high into the cornflower blue and cloudless summer sky. The towering white church reminded me of a fluffy wedding cake, layered not with icing but intricate Romano-Byzantine designs—each glorious detail more intricate than the next. In awe, I took in my surroundings, which included a sweeping view of Paris. Apparently it was mandatory to take your picture on the steps of Sacré-Coeur. So we did just that. A souvenir of the moment.

  “Sacré-Coeur is the highest point in the city. But that’s not the reason I wanted to bring you here.” Jean-Luc pointed to the esplanade filled with artists behind easels with paintings tourists could purchase displayed at their side. “I know you enjoy art. I wanted you to see this. All the artists you love—the impressionists, the surrealists, the cubists—used to come here. They probably even ate at the very café where we ate.”

  The names of my favorite painters ran through my head—Monet, Dali, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pissarro, Lautrec, to name a few. To think they probably stood at the exact spot where I was right now was mind blowing. To think some of the artists painting before us could follow in the steps of master painters was inspirational. To think Jean-Luc actually remembered everything we had talked about the previous evening made my heart beat just a little bit faster.

  “The area,” Jean-Luc continued, “has quite a crazy history. In the early 1900s, none of the bourgeois Parisians would dare come here at night for fear of being mugged by a gang that called themselves the Apache. However, artists, poets, and writers all settled here, choosing the low rent and bohemian lifestyle—painting by day, drinking by night.”