by Rozsa Gaston
But deep in my heart, I knew my performing career did bleed into my personal life. How could it not? It was the crucible on which my identity was now being forged. The larger-than-life artist’s identity I wasn’t feeling one hundred per cent comfortable in. I wasn’t bien dans ma peau when I was on-stage. And that was precisely what Paris had taught me. What it was and how to achieve it. So, where was I now?
I looked over at Arnaud, his eyes flashing, hands gesticulating as he gave the waiter his order. Whatever he did was all show, but it wasn’t inauthentic. It was one hundred per cent Arnaud being himself – his way of being, his way of expressing himself.
Next, I looked at Pierre. Without drawing attention, he gave his order to the waiter. No fuss, a minimum of hand gestures, just a purposeful declaration of what he wanted. Pierre being Pierre, bien dans sa peau.
An epiphany stole over me without warning. The only person at the table who wasn’t authentically being who she really was, was me.
I gulped. Then I ordered a hot chocolate.
The men continued to chatter, catching up since the last time they’d crossed paths, a few years earlier. I wanted to figure out who I was, then be it. That was what coming to Paris had been all about. Paris had taught me what really mattered was to figure out how to be myself, and not someone else – or some aspect of myself I was trying on for size at a given moment. I wanted to be me in a place where I belonged.
Pierre caught my eye as Arnaud made a dramatic point, describing his time in Thailand’s Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Laos, and Thailand meet. I’d heard it was popular with tourists on recreational drug jaunts. Had he told me he was going there on this particular assignment? Non. Did I care? Quite honestly, non. I just cared that he hadn’t thought to let me know. What else hadn’t he let me know?
I returned Pierre’s look. I wanted him to know I belonged to myself alone – not to anyone else sitting at the table. Would he get the message?
“Ava and I were on our way to Buttes-Chaumont,” Pierre said at the next pause in Arnaud’s soliloquy about his trip. “Do you want to join us?”
It was a challenge – un défi. Pierre hadn’t allowed his friend’s presence to change our plans. Feeling like the heroine of a Jane Austen novel, I feigned disinterest, as Arnaud paused before answering.
“Bahh, Ava, que’est-ce que tu desires? What do you want?” Arnaud responded, his eyes flicking across mine, cool, detached. Uncertain, perhaps?
The way the phrase came out in French suggested more than its intent. “What do you desire?” seemed a portentous question. Carefully, I answered.
“Comme tu veux, Arnaud. Viens avec nous, si tu veux. As you wish, Arnaud. Come with us, if you want.” I made sure Pierre heard the us in my response.
“Bon. D’accord,” Arnaud agreed. His eyes glinted as he swung around and gave me a first full gaze since his return.
I returned it levelly, a cool, self-possessed American girl who knew her way around Paris as well as a man like Arnaud de Saint Cyr.
He seemed alerted for the first time to the us in our conversation. I watched as his psychic antennae waved in the air around him. I should have been overjoyed at our reunion, rushing to reunite with him privately, dumping Pierre curbside along the way, but instead I wanted to extend my time with slow, unexciting Pierre, who made me feel comfortable, safe. I was in no rush to be back in Arnaud’s arms where, after initial elation again I’d feel insecure, anxious to always appear clever, scintillating, and attractive at every moment. How were those feelings consistent in any way with feeling bien dans ma peau? Comfortable in my own skin? It was time to make it happen.
We set off toward Parc des Buttes Chaumont, two blocks north of the café. As we walked, visions of Pauline at the Beach danced through my head. I’d seen the 1983 Eric Rohmer film in New York a few years back and had been awestruck by the way the beautiful, young blonde heroine had played with the affections of her two male admirers at the beach in the south of France. Adrienne Dombasle in the 1983 film had been gorgeous – blonde, lithe, and utterly sure of herself.
Sandwiched between two attractive men, part of me wanted to emulate Pauline and hone the skills my time in Paris had taught me. But the other part wanted to break away and run to the nearest metro stop. Who was I kidding? I was no Pauline. On the other hand, I hadn’t felt like a Yalie the summer before freshman year, one decade earlier. But by the time I graduated, I did. “Fake it till you make it,” I reminded myself. Or “fake it till you’re not faking it anymore.” I could do this. Pauline at the Beach move over. Ava on Her Way to the Park is here.
The conversation continued in French, peppered with regional words and phrases I couldn’t understand. It was all I could do to process the knowledge that I was the object of interest for both men present. Two caveats kept me above water, just barely treading – the first was to hold onto my sangfroid, the second to remain fully present in the moment and not worry about anything else. I was young, relatively good-looking, and sought after by two single, attractive Frenchmen. Why was I uncomfortable?
Despite my resolve, thoughts, plans, and speculations escaped in all directions, like steam pouring out the sides of a lid on a pot of boiling water. If I left Arnaud for Pierre, Pierre would forever remember we’d begun our relationship when I was with another man. Not a good start. But didn’t people do that all the time, especially in France?
If I stayed with Arnaud, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about Pierre and what it might be like to be in a conventional, committed relationship – one that didn’t involve months-long business trips away and the constant stopping and starting a long-distance relationship entailed.
I came up lightly behind the men, catching the tail-end of their conversation. They were talking about someone they both knew. Their hushed tones told me it was a woman.
“You saw her recently?” Arnaud asked, his voice for once not booming out, dominating the conversation.
“She passed through Chavignol about a month ago,” Pierre said.
“Did she ask about me?” Arnaud’s tone was serious, almost reverential.
Quiet as a mouse, I tiptoed behind the men.
“I can’t remember,” Pierre replied.
“You can’t remember what Mélanie said to you? I don’t believe it,” Arnaud said.
“We were at the boulangerie. It was crowded – we spoke in passing.” Pierre looked around, spotting me then clearing his throat.
I walked quickly ahead, pretending not to have heard anything. My blood boiled to think of how vulnerable Arnaud’s voice had sounded when he’d asked if whoever Mélanie was had asked about him. I’d never heard Arnaud utter a single word to me in a similar tone, not even when he’d said je t’adore.
Suddenly, I didn’t adore him back at all. My feelings for him crumbled, as the scales fell from my eyes. He was carrying a torch for someone named Mélanie. And whoever she was, she wasn’t me.
“Always maintain straight posture at critical moments,” my grandmother’s voice rang out inside. I straightened up, flicking my ponytail back to ward off the gnat of insecurity now buzzing behind me. Then it hit me – Mélanie was the name of the woman in the photo at Arnaud’s country house.
Something tugged at my hair. I ignored it. Again, I tried to catch their conversation.
Arnaud had realized I was within earshot. Changing course, he began to describe a herd of elephants he’d seen in Cambodia.
I felt another tug. This time, I turned my face to the left, where Pierre’s eyes caught mine. I lowered my own quickly, my pulse racing. He had been the one pulling my ponytail. Meanwhile, Arnaud droned on about yet another fascinating, obscure thing that had happened to him in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Pierre lowered his eyes back at me and made an inaudible ‘shhh’ with his mouth.
My smile was discreet, unnoticed by Arnaud, who was now waxing rhapsodic about how baby elephants call for their mothers. Whatever.
It occurred to me things that happ
en to us don’t really matter as much when they are not shared. If Arnaud had been watching baby elephants bawl for their mothers with me, for example, we would have shared the memory of such a charming scene forever, woven into the fabric of our relationship, however long it lasted.
Instead, it would be Arnaud telling his baby elephant story to others throughout the years, regaling strangers in bars with tales of wondrous exploits he underwent alone. So what? It all seemed like a big nothing to me.
“And then the female elephants all form a circle around the babies and bellow at the male elephants who try to charge the watering hole before the babies have had their drink. Yak, yak, yak, blah blah …” Arnaud was now completely caught up in his anecdote, oblivious to Pierre’s eyes flickering over mine, engaged, attentive, and fully present in the moment. “Be here now” was what Arnaud had preached to me.
But Pierre practiced it.
My mind wandered back to George Berkeley, the eighteenth-century empiricist who’d said “to be is to be perceived.” He was one of my favorite philosophers. In my college philosophy classes, he’d been one of the few I’d fully wrapped my brain around, along with Hegel and his three-part dialectic. As a songwriter I could really get behind the concept of three – verse, chorus, bridge were the three components of just about every pop song ever created. It was inarguably a pleasing number, both to the mind and to the senses. No wonder God had chosen it to represent Himself.
But back to Berkeley’s way of thinking – let’s just say that Arnaud hadn’t really seen those baby elephants, or heard them crying for their mothers, or seen the ladies get huffy with the males who tried to drink before the babies had their fill. Who would ever know? Since Arnaud witnessed this whole scene by himself, then who was to say it actually happened?
That’s what Berkeley would ask and that was what I was asking now. If Arnaud chose to live his life in a way largely unshared by anyone who remained constant in it, then was there meaning in what he experienced? Frankly – who cared?
My body twitched, my conscience lashing out for the meanness of my thoughts. Still, they kept coming, like a refreshing shower washing away Arnaud’s American girlfriend in Paris and leaving a new, stand-alone, self-possessed woman. I was beginning to see his reality was not available to be shared by me or by anyone else, for that matter. Despite being annoyed to hear him ask Pierre about Mélanie, I couldn’t feel jealous. Méelanie probably hadn’t asked about Arnaud, because she’d left him behind in the dust a long time ago when she’d realized how completely wrapped up in himself he was.
Pierre lightly brushed my left shoulder. Airily, I returned the touch. It was just the tiniest wisp of an interaction. Unlike watching big, dramatic elephants crossing our paths, we’d shared a small, simple interaction, no doubt to be remembered sweetly by us both. That’s what I wanted for my future. I didn’t want to view elephants in jungles all by myself. I wanted to take walks in homey, familiar places with someone I loved, who loved me back. That was all.
The park looked wilder than other Parisian parks I’d visited. Tall, bushy trees created a dense forest, above which a rocky cliff loomed, perhaps a hundred feet in the air. At the top stood a Grecian-style temple: cute, incongruous and not very French-looking. The setting reminded me of Belvedere Castle in Central Park, back in New York. An unexpected pang of homesickness twinged in my stomach.
Whatever Pauline might have done in a situation like this, I needed to do what was right for myself. Pauline enjoyed playing with the feelings of two men – both present, both interested in her. I didn’t.
I turned and fled.
Running through the park, I quickly found my way to the gateway on Avenue Jacques de Linières. Behind me Arnaud’s voice rang out, calling my name. The sound of it was sad, as if he already knew he’d lost something.
Once on the avenue, I turned down Rue Fessart, passing the café where we’d sat earlier. Not daring to stop or look behind, I ran all the way back to my apartment above Teddy’s, dashing up the stairs then slamming the door, and bolting it shut the second I got inside.
To calm down, I took a shower, then tried to focus on my performance that night. Impossible. My mind awhirl, my thoughts confused, all I could think of was one thing. I wanted to go back to New York.
At Teddy’s that night, I cringed every time a new customer came in. Inevitably, Arnaud or Pierre or both would show up. Then I would have to choose. As much as my feelings had changed for Arnaud, I didn’t yet know what I felt for Pierre. And there was no way I was going to take up with a new man the moment I broke it off with another.
What would my grandmother have done?
To channel her, I played Fascination, the tune made famous by Hoagy Carmichael. It had been one of her favorites, along with Liebestraum. The classical piece wouldn’t be suitable for a nightclub setting. And besides – if I played Liebestraum, I’d choke up at the thought of her sitting quietly in the living room armchair next to the piano at which my eleven-year-old self tried as hard as I could to ease her unhappiness. She’d smoke one of perhaps five Kent cigarettes she enjoyed per year and hum along while I played Franz Liszt’s ode to love’s dream. Inside, my heart would swell with joy. For a few brief moments, my grandmother would be at peace. And I was the one responsible.
As I finished up Fascination I felt her presence in the air. “Do what your heart tells you, Ava. Don’t make my mistakes. Go where you want to be and the right man will follow. Don’t follow a man, follow your dream. And for God’s sake, get a real job.”
This time, I listened. All the other zillion trillion times she’d advised me to get a real job, I’d covered my ears and immediately begun planning trips to Japan to teach English, or treks through India, seeing how many countries I could visit and for how long, armed with a Eurail Youthpass and a hundred dollars.
I’d smashed into oblivion my grandmother’s dreams for me by becoming a singer/pianist/songwriter. But now, there was no more need to do that. My grandmother was no longer around, nagging, hounding, dictating what I should do with my life.
For the first time, I realized I might be ready to listen to some of the advice she’d given me. Because she’d known what would make me happy. Not a dramatic, over-the-top lifestyle like being a performer. And not at the side of a dramatic, over-the-top man such as Arnaud.
The burgundy velvet curtain rustled, announcing a new customer. My stomach lurched as I looked up. D-Day had arrived.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Being Where I Belong
“Ava, why did you run off like that? Was it something I did?”
“I wanted to be by myself. I’m sorry, Arnaud.” We stood around the corner from Teddy’s, outside the entrance to my apartment building. He’d waited out the duration of my performance at the bar at Teddy’s then followed me outside. It was time to have it out.
“What do you mean, you’re sorry?” His eyes searched mine. For once, I had his full attention.
“I mean – we aren’t right for each other.”
I’d said it. Thank God, I’d gotten what I needed to tell him out on the table before our conversation moved any further along.
“You mean you are seeing Pierre? That con bastard. I can’t believe you’d fall for someone like him.” Arnaud seethed, his face a mask of disgust. “He’s dull, Ava. Conventional. Boring. Not like you at all.”
“No. I’m not seeing Pierre. I just don’t see myself with you anymore. It has nothing to do with Pierre.” Okay, I lied a teeny bit. Realizing Arnaud wasn’t right for me had a little something to do with Pierre entering the picture. But I wasn’t about to jump into his friend’s arms. Neither was I about to reconnect with Arnaud. I needed to reconnect with myself. But that was harder to explain.
“Of course it has everything to do with Pierre. We were fine before he showed up.”
“No, we weren’t fine. You were in Vietnam, or Thailand, or wherever, and I was here. You have no idea if I was fine or not while you were gone. That’s the point.�
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“That’s not the point. You know what my job is. I’ve gone on trips before and you were always okay with it. What’s changed this time?”
“I’ve changed.” I wasn’t going to compete with anyone for Arnaud’s affections - neither some woman from his past named Mélanie nor some turbo-charged version of myself I no longer wished to be.
“Well – what – how – what do you mean, you’ve changed?” he sputtered. I’d never seen him at a loss for words before.
“It doesn’t matter. It just matters that I’m no longer someone who’s meant to be with you.” Actually, I couldn’t think of anyone who might be meant to be with Arnaud. There was no other woman I could imagine being jealous of as Arnaud’s girlfriend, now I knew what being with him was really like. If I continued seeing him, there’d be more loneliness. More long periods of separation. More je t’adore declarations diluted by see you when I get back ones. My heart shriveled at the thought. Whoever Mélanie was, the fact that she hadn’t asked about Arnaud when she’d bumped into Pierre told me she wasn’t in the market to be his girlfriend. Maybe she already knew it was an impossible job.
“Of course, you’re meant to be with me, Ava. You and I are alike.” He paused, apparently trying to think of some ways in which we were.
“Are we?” I didn’t think so anymore. It had taken Pierre coming along to make me realize I didn’t want to have to work so hard at being someone I wasn’t. I just wanted to be appreciated for being not-so-clever, not-so flashy me.
“You’re a performer, a star. I’m a peacock. See what I mean?”
He undoubtedly got the second half of that statement right.
“You are a peacock, but I’m not a pea hen. I’m a performer now, but I’m not sure I want to keep on being one. I ‘m not star material.” There. I’d breathed life into the thought that had been nagging at me for so many months. I wasn’t Madonna, and I was never going to be her or anyone like her. It just wasn’t me.
“Of course you are. That’s what drew me to you in the first place.” His eyes lit up at the thought of whatever glittering image he had of me when we first met.