“It’s complicated with all families,” Sophie said.
“Yes,” Alex said with a sanguine laugh, “that is very true, my dear.”
I looked hard at Sophie; was she affected by Alex in the way that I was? Maybe he wasn’t her type. At school, she had dated jocks, and mostly blond, but was that what she liked or just what California offered? I resolved to ask her later. Looking around at Véronique’s friends confirmed what I had already seen of French men and how they stacked up to Americans. As with the women, the men were smaller and more delicate than Americans; even their features seemed finer, more carefully crafted. The French had a fierce elegance to them, something sleek and tightly coiled. My gaze wandered over to Thomas, who was now talking to a petite girl with a scarf wrapped many times around her neck. He stole frequent looks in our direction—in Sophie’s direction.
“Your poor grandmother,” Véronique said, “quel dommage.”
“Oh, well,” Alex said, “at least she’s not in any distress at the moment. She’s moved past the period where she was so panicked. Now”—he made a shoop sound and slid his hand up and away—“she’s off down the rabbit hole.”
The three of us laughed politely, self-consciously.
“The problem with my mother is that she just cannot take any kind of intellectual distance from all of this. She’s upset that Mamie is starting to forget who people are so much of the time. She doesn’t understand that what my grandmother requires right now is for people to come and meet her in her world, a world that’s of the moment. Which isn’t such a bad thing.”
He paused and patted his chest pocket for a packet of cigarettes, then extracted one and lit it. “In fact”—he relaxed into a deep drag—“I like her better this way. She is much gentler—she could be quite judgmental when she was lucid.”
“Oh, Alex,” Véronique said, “what a thing to say. Now what will our new friends think?”
“Ladies, I beg your pardon.” Alex now looked directly at me. Suddenly overcome with the urge to touch his face and hair, I shot him a quick smile and looked away until the feeling passed, which it wouldn’t no matter how long I examined the lacquer hutch as though it were the most fascinating thing in the room. It felt as though my blood were running backward through my veins. Had I ever felt like this before? I hadn’t with Regan. That was a slow burn, a growing affection. This was a shot between the eyes.
“Alors, Alex, I have not seen you since June! How was the summer with Marie-Catherine?” Véronique asked.
Ah, I thought. There’s a girlfriend. Of course there’s a girlfriend. My mind conjured her against my will, and to my dismay, the image was a French facsimile of Sophie: golden, glistening skin shimmering in the Mediterranean sun, a chic two-piece in a subdued hue covering only the necessary body parts, sea-salt waves of hair under a wide-brimmed straw hat. I was annoyed at the way Sophie intruded upon this masochistic fantasy. She was now the most immediate image in my mental gallery of the beautiful girl I could never be. But I didn’t want to feel these petty longings; I wanted ours to be the kind of perfect friendship I still imagined was possible.
“Well”—Alex made a pained face, leaning in so as to be heard better through the din—“it was mostly wonderful and very relaxing. We took many day trips that were productive for my work. And MC worked quite a lot on her boat series. She is a painter,” Alex explained to us as an aside.
Of course she was a painter! I stole a look at Sophie, and indeed, upon hearing this she smiled. One of her own, I thought, a visually perfect visual artist.
“We ate our breakfasts at the Brasserie Galloise every morning, and we saw quite a lot of Paolo and Stephanie, who were getting along well for once.”
“Mon Dieu, you sound like my parents talking about their visit to the farm in Provence,” Véronique said. “You are going to bore our amies américaines to death with this story, Alex!”
No, no, Sophie and I protested, we were fine! I for one was glad he was leaving out the romance, as my own images of this girl were enough to make me crazy.
“I know you prefer photographs, but you can tell a story better than this. There is no juice in this list of lovely things you did with MC. I know you, les deux, where are the dramatics? Did MC break all your mother’s dishes? Cut your clothes up with scissors? Give us something! You see, girls,” Véronique continued, turning to Sophie and me, “Alex’s Marie-Catherine has quite a flair for the dramatics when she feels she is not being paid enough attention. In fact, before she was a painter she was an actress, which I think suited her.”
“Before that she was a dancer and before that a poet. What suits her is novelty. She’s completely ridiculous,” Alex said.
Véronique let out a mock-horrified, secretly thrilled little gasp. “Such harsh words for your petite amie.”
“Ex.” Ix.
The word sent a tiny frisson of happiness rushing up my spine.
“Mais oui, Véronique. If you had any patience at all, I was just arriving at that part in the story.”
“Poor Alex, tell us everything!” she said.
Alex laughed. “Arrête, Véronique, I know you never liked her.”
Véronique pouted to show she was being unfairly judged.
“Mon chou, I’m not saying this as a criticism, I am saying that you showed better judgment about her than I did,” Alex said.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Alex. It is easy for me to have a clear head about MC. I’m immune to the charms of her legendary foufoune.”
A look of confusion must have passed across my face. Sophie was smiling, which I presumed meant she’d understood.
Alex caught my eye and looked deeply amused. “Chérie, I think perhaps they haven’t taught you this word yet in your classes at the American institute.” He reached out and put his fingertips lightly on my knee.
“Alex would be more than happy to help you expand your vocabulary in this area now that he is an ix,” Véronique added innocently.
Alex shot her an exasperated look. “Try to be a grown-up, Véronique.” He turned back to me, ostensibly to explain the matter at hand in an adult manner. “How do we say this word in English? Foufoune. Ah. ‘Cunt’?”
I cringed.
“Ah, non, that is a harsh word, there is a better word for it. ‘Pussy’?”
“Oui, oui, c’est plutôt ça,” Véronique confirmed, a tiny, enigmatic smile playing on her lips. Something about her made you feel as though you were in on the joke one minute and the subject of it the next.
“Oh,” I said, trying in vain to keep my cheeks from blazing, wanting desperately not to be on either side of the slutty or prudish dichotomy of American girls. Yet it wasn’t the language that caused my mind to race and my cheeks to flame. It was the words upon his lips, which made me picture his lips upon the thing itself. I wished to hear him say the two words over and over. That, and to be alone in the room with him.
“Anyway, it’s done. Poor me with a broken heart, I have come back to my hometown to nurse it.”
Véronique laughed.
“You see this, Brooke and Sophie? You see how she laughs at my suffering?” He placed a hand on my leg and I hoped he didn’t sense how my heart rate elevated at his touch. I avoided looking him straight in the face at such close range, imagining my lust and longing would be readily apparent. Instead, I averted my eyes to the top buttons of his shirt, which also proved treacherous, as it revealed just enough of the smooth, brown skin of his chest to make me want to put my lips to it, and seeing the buttons held by their buttonholes made me want nothing more than to separate them from each other.
“Arrête. Surely any suffering done in this situation is by poor MC,” Véronique said.
Sure enough, his voice indicated no suffering; a play for some sympathy maybe. “Listen to her,” he said as he removed his hand from my knee to gesture in exasperation at Véronique. “All of a sudden she and MC are sisters. You always band together as long as men are on the opposing side.”
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br /> “You are beasts, every one of you. Les hommes français. American men are better, less devious.”
Alex pantomimed having been stabbed in the heart, and Sophie and I stereoed incredulous laughter.
“Now I have to stop you there, Véronique,” a previously silent Sophie said. “American men cannot possibly be better.”
“Which is to say French men could not possibly be worse,” I added.
“Oh, vraiment, girls? Please go on!” Alex looked directly at Sophie, and before she spoke again, she paused, and it seemed a private glance was exchanged between her and Alex. Had I missed something?
“At least French men can be romantic,” Sophie said.
“Bah!” said Véronique. “French men are bullshit artists, is what they are. They meet you and they are blinded by your beauty, your grace, you are like no other woman they have ever met. Until they walk one block from your door and are blinded by some other woman. Infidelity is our national pastime. But you so much as look at another man, and they are furious. No one stands for it in America.”
“I don’t know about that.” I could hear the lack of conviction in my voice. If only she knew that was why I was really here: infidelity and the female American rage that followed it. I felt a sudden flash of desire to blurt it out just to shock them, but I bit my tongue.
“Over there it is a cause for fury, divorce. Here it is met with . . .” Véronique made an apathetic frown and brought her shoulders to her ears, a Gallic shrug.
“But American men,” Sophie said, her words tumbling out as though the idea were gaining momentum, “they just want to be let off the hook. The only time you would ever catch them rhapsodizing is when they are trying to get you naked. Even the way they ask for dates”—here, to my amazement, Sophie boldly switched to English, either assuming that Alex could keep up or meaning to leave him behind—“ ‘Do you want to like maybe hang out sometime or whatever? You know, something casual. Or whatever.’ ”
Véronique howled with laughter, recognizing the lilting California-boy voice.
“Et puis”—Sophie returned seamlessly to her perfect French—“they want you to come over and watch a movie, drink some beer, and they think that should be enough to get you on la bite.”
Without anyone else noticing, Alex leaned over and quickly whispered, “This is our word for ‘cock,’ chérie,” his lips grazing my earlobe. I was glad that Alex had taken it upon himself to translate, even though this time it was unnecessary.
“No, I knew that one,” I said breathlessly.
“Oh, yes?” Véronique asked, amused.
I recounted the story of Madame Rochet and our introduction dinner, the beet salads, and the vivid image of thirty American students all innocently chirping this obscene word.
Véronique and Alex were in stitches. “Oh la la,” Alex said, “can you imagine? C’est délicieux, cette salade verte avec la bite.” This green salad with cock is delicious.
“And it’s difficult to avoid,” Sophie said. “You do love your beets here.”
“C’est vrai?” Alex asked. “You think so? Anyway, Véronique was just going to tell us all about la bite française versus la bite américaine. Weren’t you, chérie?”
“Merci, Alex,” Véronique said, giving him a little glare, “en fait, our dear Sophie has made some excellent points, and I too was subjected to this plot of night phone calls and movie watching. And you are right that Americans can be lazy and charmless.”
Were we only speaking of the men still?
“But they have a certain innocence to them all the same. American men always believe themselves to be good inside, or at least capable of redemption. Here the men just revel in their own filth. Tant pis. Ça n’a pas d’importance,” she said, giving the shrug again.
“And the women?” Alex asked.
“The women hold themselves to a higher standard, as it is everywhere. Has always been, will always be.”
“I won’t go near that one. Not while I am here behind enemy lines.” Alex smiled as though he secretly knew he could win the argument and so, by letting it go, was, in his way, winning just the same. “And with such beautiful enemies,” he added, grinning at Sophie, who rolled her eyes but could surely not be so superhuman as not to be flattered. “Speaking of enemies, Véronique, you have not said a word all night about Grégoire. Which is he this week, friend or foe?”
“Foe.”
“But he’s over there in the corner. I thought this meant he was surely your friend again and peut-être un petit peu plus.”
“Never again,” she scoffed. “He’s here? He must have come with François. Excuse me, les filles. Alex, behave yourself.” Véronique stood up and her small figure disappeared into the crowd, her black mane of hair swishing furiously behind her.
Alex moved to where she’d been sitting so as to face Sophie and me. The side of me that he’d been touching suddenly felt exposed and cold. I wished Véronique had not gotten up to leave, not only because I missed the warmth of Alex by my side, but because while she had been here it seemed as if we were the only people in the room, and now that she had gone, it felt as though our group was vulnerable to intrusion. I knew I should try to meet other people at the party, that this was what Sophie probably wanted to do, but I was certain there could not be anyone here more worth knowing than Véronique and Alex.
“Who is Grégoire?” Sophie asked, leaning forward and whispering conspiratorially, resting an elbow on my knee.
“Le ix,” Alex said, as though he were telling us something naughty, “although some nights he’s not so much of an ix.”
“You have such complicated relationships, all of you,” Sophie exclaimed, leaning back far enough to take a sip of her wine. “So French.”
“And you don’t? You seem like a girl who has a few liaisons compliquées to your name as well. No? Tell me, Brooke. She does, doesn’t she?”
I smiled an empty smile. I wanted to tell him nothing about Sophie.
“No,” she said, “not me.”
Again I thought of Regan. But would that story even shock Alex or would I simply receive a shrug?
“Allez, not even an ix?” Alex pressed her.
“There was a tout petit ix from the summer. But he’s hardly worth mentioning,” she said.
“Cruel woman,” he said, his voice delighted.
“And you, Brooke? A tout petit ix? Or someone still at home who you will send postcards of the Île de la Cité to?”
“No,” I said, “sorry to be disappointing. Pas de ix.”
Suddenly, a hand appeared on Alex’s shoulder and the squeal of a female voice shattered the intimate circle of our little conversation. A thin girl in a white T-shirt with long waves of pale hair tumbling over her shoulders threw herself into Alex’s lap, a jumble of spindly limbs. She spoke too quickly, not taking us into account, and I could only pick up a few words of what she was saying. All I could gather was that she had not seen him in a long time and was excited that he was here.
Sophie raised her eyebrows at me.
“Sophie?” someone called out behind us.
It was Thomas. I was shocked that it had taken him this long to come back and hunt her down. But the circle had been broken when Véronique left, and now he had his chance.
All at once, I felt exhausted. After a few moments of polite conversation with Thomas, it seemed Sophie had either reached her limit as well or had read my mind.
“Brooke, are you ready to go? We have our first round of traduction early tomorrow,” she said, reminding me of the difficult day ahead.
“Oui.”
We stood up and kissed Thomas on the cheek. The girl remained in Alex’s lap.
“You’re leaving so soon?” Alex asked. He gave the girl a beseeching look and she sighed and slowly removed herself, still clinging to his side as they both stood up. He didn’t bother to introduce her to us. Whether this meant that she didn’t matter or that we didn’t, I couldn’t tell.
“Well
, it was lovely to have made your acquaintance,” he said, kissing Sophie first. “I’m sure we will all see each other again soon.” He smiled, his face close to mine now. He kissed my cheeks. I might have lingered longer if it hadn’t been for the girl, who was hovering.
As we made our way back toward the bedroom to find Véronique, I felt disappointment flooding in. No plans had been made to see each other again, no numbers exchanged. What if we never saw Alex again?
I had expected to find Véronique in a heated discussion with her ix, but instead she was speaking cheerfully to a boyish-looking guy with his hands dug deep in his pockets. She introduced us to her companion, who was neither Grégoire nor François, and I immediately forgot his name.
Véronique hugged first me and then Sophie, another thing she must have picked up in the States. Then to my great relief, she made sure we all had one another’s number.
“Where is Alex?” she asked.
Sophie gestured to where he stood by the couch, the blonde still not giving him an inch of space.
“Ah, salope,” Véronique said, “my friend. But never mind.”
What a strange and delicious little tribe they were with their liaisons compliquées. My eyes lingered on Alex again. He was so beautiful; my eyes clung to his lips, hanging off them helplessly, devastated by the idea of never seeing him again. But then I remembered that he would be here with his sick grandmother and felt a little guilty that the thought cheered me.
“You must come over again,” Véronique said. “I’m so glad that you could meet my friends. See you soon, yes?”
We nodded.
“Good,” she said.
Sophie and I said nothing as we rode down the creaking elevator together, only smiled at each other and shook our heads a little as if to say, Can you believe this night? Can you believe these people?
Being back out on the street again felt surreal.
“That was an interesting evening,” I said finally when we were at last at enough of a distance that no one from the party might happen to be walking along behind us.
“I like them,” Sophie said a little dreamily.
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