Paris Adieu

by Rozsa Gaston

  “That was then, and this is now.” I took off my black and white turban and tossed it in the trash.

  “But what do you mean? You’re a performer. It’s your destiny to be a star.”

  “While you were away, I realized I don’t want to be a star. I want to be a songwriter.”

  “Eh voilà. I’m a journalist, and you’re a songwriter. Two writers who don’t compete with each other. Parfait.”

  “Not parfait, Arnaud. I’m going back to New York.”

  “But – then what about Pierre?”

  “I told you this has nothing to do with Pierre,” I yelled. I needed to get back to where I belonged, that was all.

  “What has nothing to do with me?” a voice chimed in.

  Sacré bleu! I looked around to see Pierre standing under the streetlamp, his brown eyes trained on mine with remarkable focus.

  “My decision,” I said calmly, although I felt anything but calm inside.

  “What decision?” Pierre asked.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Arnaud and I are no longer seeing each other,” I said, not daring to look at my former love.

  I’d made more life-changing statements in the past five minutes than I had in the past five months. I was scared, but it was a good kind of scared. I had stood up for myself, for what I wanted out of life.

  Pierre’s eyes swiveled to Arnaud. Mine too.

  “Is that your wish, then?” Arnaud asked, looking directly at me.

  I nodded. No sound came out. There was no point to say anything more.

  “Bon. C’est ça. Then we’re done.” Without so much as a glance at Pierre, he turned and walked away, his back straight, his stride jaunty.

  It didn’t fool me. He’d probably walked out of the life of the woman called Mélanie like that once upon a time. Then, he’d carried a torch for her forever after. Now, he could carry another one for me.

  Pierre looked steadily at me. “I came to ask you something.”

  “Why I ran away – “ I began. “I needed to – “

  “Non. Not that.” He cut me off, searching my face.

  “Then what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Do you mean, what’s – “

  “I mean, what’s between us.”

  I nodded. Of course that’s what he meant.

  “What is between us?” I asked, wanting to hear him put words to what we already felt.

  His hand slipped into mine as naturally as our feelings for each other had slipped into each other’s hearts – without fanfare.

  “Something, non?” he said, his face serious.

  We stood there looking at each other a long moment. It was true, there was something between us. But now, there was something I needed to do for myself. Go where you want to be and the right man will follow. Don’t follow a man, follow your dream. If whatever was between us had any legs, it would take us somewhere, down the road. Not now.

  “Come on.” I smiled to let him know his answer had been well-received. “Let’s go upstairs.” Arnaud had never bothered to visit my place. We had always gone to his.

  Inside my flat, I poured Pierre a drink.

  When he put it down, I picked up his hand with both of mine and looked at it carefully. It was strongly-built with squared off fingers and hairy knuckles. Unlike Arnaud’s artistic hands, it looked down-to-earth, no-nonsense. Not much like a mathematician’s hands either. But definitely hands that might belong to a French military officer. Or someone’s husband or father.

  Our embrace was warm and sweet, free from past hurts, firm from the solid friendship we had built over the past few weeks. And then we kissed.

  It was dazzling, but I’d been dazzled before. What I hadn’t been before, was grown up. Now, I was. If Pierre wanted to pursue me, I’d be receptive. But he’d have to follow me, because I now knew where I was going. And I was going to need some time to get over Arnaud.

  “So tell me about going back to New York,” he said, when we stopped kissing. We sat side by side, his hand covering both of mine, clasped in my lap.

  “I need to be where I belong,” I told him.

  “Are you sure you don’t belong here?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m sure. Paris is beautiful, but it will never be my home.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  “I know the feeling.”

  “You do?” I was surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re French. How could you understand how it feels to be a foreigner here? Always learning new things, but always at a disadvantage to whoever I’m learning from.”

  “I know the feeling well.”

  “How could you?”

  “I’m not from Paris. I’m from the provinces.”

  “But so many French people come here to live from the provinces.”

  “They do, don’t they?” His smile was rueful.

  “Like Arnaud.” And Jean-Michel before him.

  “Yes. They make their peace with the city.”

  I thought of both Arnaud and Jean-Michel. They led isolated, single lives in tiny studio apartments. It was a big-city lifestyle, not dissimilar to the way thousands of people lived back in Manhattan. But I belonged in Manhattan. And there were plenty of people who met each other and made lives together there. Not as foreigners, but as New Yorkers. Paris was different. If you weren’t Parisian to begin with, you never were.

  “And wouldn’t you make your peace with the city?” I asked.

  “If that’s what I wanted.”

  We kissed again, this time more passionately.

  “So what do you want then?” I continued.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But it’s not living in a certain place I most want. It’s being with the right person.”

  “The right woman?” It was a bold question, but the friendship we had built gave me the confidence to ask it.

  “Exactly.”

  “And you?” What is it you most want?” He tucked me into his side, then stroked my chin, affectionately, like a father.

  “I want to be bien dans ma peau. In a place where I belong. Where I won’t be a foreigner forever.”

  “You’re smart, Ava.”

  “And?” Sam had told me the same thing. Maybe it was time to believe them both.

  “And I like smart women.”

  “I think you already told me that,” I said, remembering our feather-light conversation on the grounds of the officers’ club a few weeks earlier.

  “Non. I told you I liked your smart questions.”

  “Oh.”

  “And that I like you.”

  “Oh.”

  “So go back to New York, smart girl. Take what you learned here and make it work for you where you belong.”

  “Pierre, you’re a mind reader. That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

  “Then may I help you with your plans?”

  I looked at him surprised. Suddenly, we were having a very grown up sort of conversation.

  “But how would you do that?”

  “I’d come visit you in New York, for a start.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. I would. And then we would see what the next plan is.”

  The smile on my face sprang directly from my heart.

  “I would love that,” I said without thinking, meaning it as naturally as the words tumbled out of my mouth. It was easy to talk with Pierre about anything, everything – even the future.

  “I would, too,” Pierre said. “And now, I’m going to leave so you can get some sleep and be fresh to make more plans tomorrow.”

  “Where are you staying?” It didn’t seem likely he’d remain at Arnaud’s.

  “I got a room at the officers’ club this afternoon.”

  “And when are you leaving Paris?”

  “Hopefully around the same time you leave for New York.”

  “Let’s make that happen,” I said, laughingly. I didn’t need to know where he was going back
to. It was enough to know I would see him again soon – in New York.

  The next day, I went to Rue Scribe near Place de l’Opera, where the principal airline offices were located, and booked my return flight to New York.

  John, the Englishman whose apartment I’d been staying in, was returning shortly after Christmas, to resume both his gig at Teddy’s and teaching English to the aeronautical school students. I tidied up his small place, and by late afternoon, met Pierre again.

  “So when are you leaving?” he asked, kissing me four times on the cheek and then once on the mouth.

  “This Friday.” It was still early enough in December for me to have caught a seat before the Christmas travel season began. “How about you?”

  “This Friday, too. Right after I say goodbye to you at the airport.”

  The man knew how to make a plan.

  We spent the next two days taking long walks, deep in conversation and not noticing the gray chill of a Paris December in the least. Then it was time to go.

  On Friday morning, Pierre picked me up by cab at my flat, and we nestled next to each other on the long ride out to Charles De Gaulle airport. I wasn’t sad. Looking into his steady brown eyes, I knew we would see each other again soon. Meanwhile, I had plans to plant myself again in New York, this time in a non-performing capacity. I’d heard from a regular at Teddy’s that the United Nations hired scores of administrative workers for each of its annual General Assemblies. I would go there the following Monday to fill out a job application. If Albert Einstein had been able to come up with his theory of relativity while working in a sleepy Swiss patent office, then I could pursue a career as a songwriter while holding down a job as an international civil servant. An administrative position at the U.N. would be predictable and unexciting. I could hardly wait.

  At the airport, I quietly leaned into Pierre’s chest as we stood in front of the international departures gate.

  “Remember, Ava. Take what you learned here and make it work for you where you belong.”

  “I will.” It was nice to feel understood. I looked forward to getting to know this man who liked my songs and liked me. But in my own time, on my own turf. I kissed him hard, then walked through the gate without looking back.

  Twelve hours later, I was out on the sidewalk, blinking in the crystal blue brilliance of a cloudless December day in New York. I had said adieu to Paris but the lessons I’d learned there would stay with me forever.

  I stepped off the curb and raised my hand to hail a cab.

  Glossary of French Terms

  arrondissement - an-administrative district in Paris or neighborhood as in “a good one” or “a not so good one.” Parisians know instantly where to place each other on the socio-economic ladder by which of Paris’s twenty arrondissements they live in, a fact which can be instantly determined by an address’s postal code. 75005 means the fifth arrondissement, a good neighborhood. 75020 means the twentieth arrondissement – not so good.

  au pair - baby sitter, usually in her late teens to early twenties, who lives with a family in a foreign country, does some babysitting and light housekeeping and spends as much time as possible soaking up experiences, preferably with the opposite sex.

  bien dans sa peau - comfortable in one’s skin. An expression used widely in France and not used widely enough in the United States.

  bien élevé - well raised, brought up properly, conversant in the art of social graces.

  de bonne famille - well born, from a family of high social standing.

  bordel de merde - dammit, literally “shitty screw-up.”

  boulevardier (also see draguer, flâneur) - a man who strolls along the street or sits at outdoor cafés attempting to pick up women through the use of idiotic, time-tested phrases that occasionally work (see au pair). Endemic not only to French culture, this type of male can be found in most Latin countries.

  c’est pas normal - actually “ce n’est pas normal,” an overused expression in France, meaning “it’s not the way things are done.”

  à chacun son goût - to each his own, to each his own taste.

  con - idiot, jerk (noun), stupid (adj.)

  crétin - idiot, from French dialectic for deformed and mentally retarded person found in certain Alpine valleys.

  doucement - gently or “easy does it.”

  draguer - a man who tries to pick up women on the street. Literally he tries to drag her home with him or at least somewhere dark. Sometimes works (see au pair).

  fils de pute - son of a whore.

  flâneur - a man who strolls the streets aimlessly, making comments to women and trying to pick them up. From flâner - to stroll.

  fromage maigre - a creamy, white cheese with zero percent fat used by Frenchwomen to lose weight. Surprisingly tasty, especially when it comes in flavors such as strawberry.

  gagner la vie - to make a living, literally “to win the life.”

  je m’en fous - I could care less, a frequently used expression, as well as mentality, based on the Frenchman’s sense of entitlement supported by generous government social services.

  jolie laide - literally a pretty-ugly woman, meaning an attractive woman who is not beautiful in a conventional sense, but who is perceived as beautiful because of the confident way she carries herself.

  lardon - cubed or diced bacon or pork fat used by the French in salads (lardon frisée) as well as many traditional dishes such as spaghetti carbonara, quiche Lorraine, and coq au vin (chicken in wine sauce). Similar to pancetta.

  lardon frisée - a classic French bistro salad served with French chicory (frisée) and warm lardons (French cubed bacon or pork fat bits).

  louche - sleazy, dubious, of questionable taste, perhaps indecent. Almost always it connotes something exciting or forbidden.

  minou or minouche - literally means “to caress” but used as a term of endearment meaning something like little cat or little darling.

  morceau de merde - piece of shit.

  moue - A pouting expression used to convey disdain or distaste.

  porte-documents - (literally a “carry-documents”) the French version of a briefcase, preferably sleek, supple and leather without handles and always carried under the arm.

  sacré bleu - an ancient French oath that is actually never used by real French people. Refers to the color (literally “sacred blue”) associated with the Virgin Mary. Frequently found in nineteenth century writer Victor Hugo’s novels.

  salope de putain - bitch of a slut.

  sangfroid - literally “cold blood” (sang - blood, froid - cold), meaning coolness, composure, especially in trying circumstances.

  savoire-faire - know-how, or knowing the correct way to do things, as in how to arrange a cheese plate, how to tie a scarf, how to open a champagne bottle, or how to make an entrance.

  sturm und drang (German) - literally “storm and stress,” meaning something that’s a big deal.

  Paris Adieu

  BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Is Ava’s character believable? Can you relate to her? In what ways does she remind you of yourself or someone you know?

  2. Ava’s first French boyfriend Jean-Michel advises her to be comfortable in her skin - bien dans sa peau. What does this mean? How does it differ from self-love?

  3. How does Ava’s character evolve from beginning to end of the story? Which events were turning points for her?

  4. What does Ava’s motto “fake it till you make it” mean for you? How is this consistent with her quest for authenticity, and if so, how?

  5. What is your take on the French concept of jolie laide, i.e., a woman who is not a beauty by conventional standards but comes across as one (Chapter Three)? Do you buy it? Was there ever anyone in your life who struck you as a jolie laide? What celebrity or historical figure most represents a jolie laide?

  6. How does the French ideal of female beauty differ from the American one?

  7. In Chapter Three, Ava’s French boyfriend Jean-Michel says �
�Men don’t fall in love with a woman who is perfect. They fall in love with a woman who is specific. A woman who is comfortable with herself can be herself specifically. She is free to explore who she is, because she is not comparing herself to other women all the time, trying to be someone she’s not.” True or not? Discuss.

  8. Ava arrives in Paris addicted to junk food. Her appetite is regulated not by how full her stomach is but how raging her desire for sweets is. By the end of three extended stays in Paris, she is no longer a slave to sugar and fat. What changed? How did Ava make food choices at the end of the story that differed from the way she made them at the start?

  9. In Chapter Seven, Pascal hands Ava a hard-boiled egg to eat for breakfast at the counter of a workman’s cafe. It’s a watershed moment for Ava. Why?

  10. “The whole point of having sex appeal wasn’t really about making men happy. It was about making myself happy. Who knew?” (Chapter Eight). Do you agree? Which popular culture icons do you think have true sex appeal? Which historical figures do you think had true sex appeal? Why?

  11. “Being here now never seemed quite enough in New York. In Paris, it did.”(Chapter Ten). Do you agree? How does Ava’s time in Paris help her learn how to live in the present moment?

  12. “Have you ever been in love with someone who didn’t love you back?” Sam asks Ava. (Chapter Thirteen). Have you? If so, what did you do about it?

  13. Sam describes Paris as the Queen of Diamonds (Chapter Thirteen). What does he mean? Do you agree?

  14. “ ‘Be here now’ was what Arnaud preached to Ava. But Pierre practiced it” (Chapter Fifteen). What’s the difference between the two men? Which one, if either, is right for Ava? Which one, if either, would be right for you?

  15. Which actress do you see playing the role of Ava?

  ROZSA GASTON is an author who writes serious books on playful matters. She studied European intellectual history at Yale, and then received her master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia. In between Rozsa worked as a singer/pianist all over the world. She currently lives in Connecticut with her family.