"I need a break for a couple days. It feels like a running a goddamn hostel here in Paris. In servants' quarters. I just need a little solidarity, you know? A little Lili time," she says. Adrian had gotten on the train to the Charles de Gaulle in the mid-morning, and here I was, back to check in not even four hours after Lili's floor space and guest mattress pad have been vacated.
"I hear ya girl," I say with a half-smile and suddenly I notice the pack on my back digging daggers into my shoulders and the weight of this wretched city pulling down like two straps and a heavy load. It's that sinking feeling so that maybe my feet are dragging along the tops of the catacombs as we walk back from Tour Eiffel.
She looks at me sideways as we stroll down Champs de Mars and maybe she sees it in my face, "Not right necessarily now, Bri. Just like a few days this week or something."
Phew. "Oh, ok. Yeah, I can definitely do that. I'll get on it when we get home," and the pack lightens ever so slightly and my feet are on cobblestone again. "So how was the Rapture? Epic?"
"Oh my god! It was incredible!" And she tells me. It sounds incredible. "The venue was this old train terminal," she says all animated, dancing while we walk and kicking at the dirt path. "So we get there and the place is huge, and it's packed, and there's a million neon signs lighting up the front of it."
"Ooo la laa. How long was the set?"
She shrugs. "They only played for an hour or so. It was quick. But it was good."
"Did they play any of their old songs?"
"Yeah. It was super dancey. You would've loved it," she says smiling.
"Oh, gee. Thanks," I say adjusting the pack on my back. "Well, I'm glad you had fun."
She looks me up and down. "I am too. Let's go out tonight."
"Mmm. Yes, please. I could use a good steak." A solid meal. I feel like I'm slowly shriveling, leaning out more as each day passes, and I feel it especially as we're climbing the six sets of stairs to Lili's flat. We play music and dance and drink wine for the rest of the day, and I tell her about my weekend on the floor of the German girl's single servant's quarters, and she tells me about her gallivanting with Adrian.
There's a thick-covered coffee table book on the love seat. "What's this?" I say, taking it's weight in my hands. "A bit heavy ain't it?"
"Oh! And he gave me that!" she says. The cover is a picture of Paul McCartney. It's a collection of photographs by his first wife. Michael Jackson's in it. The Stones are in it. Everyone's in it. I flip through as Lili grabs some glasses.
We get through two bottles of wine, and we jab at each other and hassle and pry until our tummies begin grumbling. "Where do you wanna go?"
"I don't know," she says. "Let's just walk around for a bit and find something."
So we walk. At a slower pace though, not your normal Parisian fast-trot. Down the stairs, across the courtyard and to the door like a soft breeze. I hold it open after she moves her keys by the sensor. "Merci." She says as she whisks out, "What do you feel like?"
"I don't know," I say. "Steak?"
"You always want steak."
"Well, what do you want?"
There's an incredulous look on her face. We're walking side-by-side on the skinny sidewalk. Shoulder-to-shoulder so she's not far at all, and her cheeks are slack as she rolls her eyes at me. With some sass she says, "I don't know..."
I laugh to myself with a smile, and we walk a little more.
In a second she jumps with a start and a "Wait! I got it!" and her index finger's pointing in the air. The nail's still blue from that night at the embassy, but it's chipped a little by the cuticle. "Italian," she says, nodding. Her eyes are far off up the road. She looks happy. "Oui, italien." And we look in at each restaurant and at the menu. Everything looks good. We keep going a while though. Maybe there's something cheaper.
Up Rue de la Comète, a skinny street that ends at Saint-Dominique where we turn right and then quickly left across the street with our hands in our pockets onto Rue Surcouf. My scarf's loose so I duck my chin down into it. These nights are getting colder, and my shoulders give a twitch shake. This knit sweater's going to have to be something more soon. Half-way up the street is a French restaurant with a red overhang and yellow font and grid-paned windows. Le Petit Bordelais. We look inside, and we don't even look at the menu. "Oh, I love it," gasps Lili with an open-mouthed grin. "French it is then." She swings open the door and we shuffle in. It's a wider place with an old worn bar on the left, some tables, and some tables raised up a few steps on the right around old wood railings. There's a group of older folks sitting at a table by the entrance, an American couple and a French couple chatting about business and vacation and New York and things like that. At a raised table by the windows there's a boy and a girl our age. They're either old friends or bad lovers by the looks of it, and they talk about classes and papers. They don't look as bubbly as the older folks do.
I like higher vantage points, and so does Lili, so we take a table up the pair of steps. But we're not really close to anyone, at a table against the wall. The server cuts off her smiling small talk with the bartender and brings us a pair of menus. "Bonjour."
"Bonjour," we say.
She's quick, but she's cordial and friendly. "Vous voulez un verre?"
Lili glances at the wines and orders a rosé, and I say, "Une cruche d'eau, s'il vous plaît?" But I butcher it, and our dear server smiles.
"Some wine and some water. Of course," she says. "I'll be right back."
Lili's smiling too. "Merci."
"Merci." I take a deep breath, and in my mind I'm patting myself on the back. "It smells good in here," I say.
"I know. It looks good in here," says Lili, craning about before leaning back into the rouge wall cushion with a plomp. "It's been a long weekend."
"It has," I nod. And it had, and in two seconds it flashes before my eyes regrettably. It's okay. I'm with Lili again. And hell, I got some writing done and some pictures pictured. When our server comes back, I feel at home almost. Lili orders a salad with seared tuna. I get the steak. It's a puppy-dog/bone love, and it never gets old. I eat slow to savor it.
Lili remembers things when she's drunk. "Oh! I have to show you the pictures of Adrian's friend's place in the 3rd. Oh, my god. You would've love it."
"Who's this now?"
"Adrian's friend and his wife. They're twenty-five. Or twenty-six, I think. The friend's that came to the Rapture with us. We went to their place first. And it was sick," she says holding the wine glass in the air in front of her. "Très très beau."
It's worth a smirk. "So bigger than yours then?"
"Yes." She's sarcastic. "Bigger than mine. Much bigger. A real flat with rooms and walls and such. And real chairs and tables and couches. And dim lamps and a real kitchen and oh, it was so cute. They were like... adults. With jobs. I want a place like that."
"Sounds nice."
[stop]
The Girl Who Liked to Picture Doors
On the way, on I forget what rue, there is a familiar sight coming towards us. Champs de Mars is in the distance. They're coming from, we're going to, or toward I should say. Our destination's not much further. It's a trio, two that I recognize. There's Anthony, Tony, the gay guy with the long mane from the night before - a guy I don't know, an who else should it be but dear sweet Rachel. It's not a busy street we're on , but even if it had been she'd be hard to miss. From her boots to her waist, she's bright red denim. Cherry red. Plus she's tall, and she walks with the long-stride gait that's reserved for runway models, but for her it's fine and natural and a very beautiful thing to watch walking towards you. There's no rush in her pace to keep up with the boys Red legs. My jaw drops just a little to an open mouth smile, and we each stop in our tracks. Her mouth's open too in a faux gasp.
Lili looks at me silly. "What are you doing?" she says. Her eyesight's shit, and she didn't bring her glasses.
"It's Rachel."
"Where?"
"Right there, straight ahead of us," I say without pointing. Discretion. We're walking towards each other again, and like that she's standing there right before us, her two friends to one side. "Why hello there," I say.
"Well, hello. Fancy seeing you here on this fine not so early morning." It's drawn out and preposterously theatrical in meter. I love the way she talks. Like things are rarely serious, and usually only vaguely interesting.
There's small talk and pleasantries, inquiries of the day and such. Lili tells them she's taking me to Luxembourg Parc. "We're just gonna walk there," she says. "And what are you lady and gents up to today?"
Rachel takes point. She kinda has from the get go. "Today," she says, "we're taking pictures of all the different doors we see." Anthony raises a chic-looking film camera on cue.
"Hmm... How exciting!" I say just trying to break up the staring. "Have you got any good ones yet?"
"Oh! Amazing ones!" Rachel says. "There's some wild doors around here. You should take a day and appreciate them sometime."
"You can bet I will," I say, eyeing a door across the street, and when I turn to Lili she's looking at me with an eye like let's go so, "But right now we're off to Luxembourg, so I'll bid thee adieu," I say with three sincere eye contacts with one stalling for a second, "and have a glorious day."
Lili's pulling me by the hand now, but she still manages to shoot off an "A bientot" over her shoulder.
The echo her in chime, and Rachel says, "A tout a l'heure" with a spirit finger wave. Almost immediately they're lining up a picture of that door across the rue.
Lili turns to me, walking, we're a lost to the park Le Champs de Mars, and I can see the tower. "What's wrong with you?" she asks.
I must look frazzled. Or maybe dazed. or maybe I'm standing on my tippy-toes and I don't know it, I can't feel it because I feel something else. I'm floating. I don't even look at Lili but out across Le Champs at the orange and yellow and in places still light green trees. "Oh my god. I'm in love with that girl."
[stop]
En St. Germaine
I call her. No answer. Oh, well. Voila, Saint Germaine-en-Laye. It's a different feel than the city here. Small-town like. Like Deauville, it reminds me, mais not so touristy and seafoody. More rural. Bourgeois rural. The buildings are fine and pushed together, but not all uniform like Paris proper, and from the metro there's a wide open park to one side with straight rows of top-cropped trees and an ancient bastille, old and simple stone. Not a palace, a fortress. To the other side, the town. Or what looks like the edge of it because there seems to be no end to the flat simple park of open grey-greens, only grass and rowed trees.
I don't know what it is exactly, maybe hunger, that pulls me down the first street into town. It's storefront, storefront, storefront, and I get the feel that all the space above isn't residential, but commercial offices. Most of it anyways. The stores are all ultra-nice. Boutiques. The people here have money. They live in houses and shop for leisure. And have au pairs to watch their children. It's the parisian Bel-Air. Au Claire.
With my eyes on the roof-tops (shops are too bourgeois) my steps take me to the center, a square, an old square all in cobblestone and there's nobody there. No Cait. No one young. I scan the sparse crowds, two here, three there together, without stopping. Just spinning, spinning, looking for a face to hold me still between these two skinny streets, two nice french cafes to one side, tiny tables outside and green awnings. To the other, an old lonely post office from some bygone era before the rest of this place, and it's here I find solace. Not inside, still out on the cobblestone, but just the look of it, this old mail station under the grey sky, makes me feel old, and I smile at the thought of what Rachel would think of it's doors. Big old oak. Worn, ornate.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
It's Cait. It rings twice. "Are you at the square?"
"With the post office, yes."
"Green sweater? I see you. Look!"
I look and I see her, waving, red hair, short smile, blue coat. She walks up and it begins to drizzle a little. Drizzle slow.
"Oh my god, hi!" she says. "How are you?" Two kisses on the cheek. "Ew, this rain. Are you hungry? Let's eat."
The little cafe, the green awning. Le croque monsieur pour moi. She gets a salad nicois.
[stop]
A French Picnic
"Ha! I can't believe you're here. In Paris. What are the odds!" She's not so much hands, but eyes and chin when she talks. Blue eyes. Red hair. Inside with her coat off it's hard not to stare at her breasts in that skin-tight blue turtleneck of hers. Misleadingly conservative. Or comfortably seductive, I'm not sure. It's a different hue than the coat, darker. Navy dark and the mind nicks and ticks to a dirty two-step of what maybe could be. What's wrong with me. "So you're writing a book you said, right?"
"Something like that," I say with a shake - no, more of a twitch of the head, quick. It's not the question, it's the sweater. "How long's it been then? Since I so last saw you."
"Oh, what was it... The wine tour. Yes, the wine tour in Santa Cruz. Right? Geez, I don't know... A year ago? Ten months? That's crazy!"
A year ago (or was it ten months...) when I was living in Santa Cruz I had, quite randomly by the way, been commissioned by Cait and her friend to drive them for a day up through the redwood evergreen forest to a number of vineyards by the central coast, just south of San Jose. Commissioned's a strong word really, so formal. It was a Facebook post that I commented on that got me the job. We got high and drove wooded one lane streets through the mountains in spring to go wine tasting. I didn't drink as much as them, oh no, not nearly. But I certainly wasn't sober, and all the time floating on a cloud of spliff smoke, mais quoi, we all were. That's Santa Cruz. I'd known her before that though. In high school.
"God, remember that? That was a good time," she says, looking at me. "So what's you book about?" A slight brow raises. "Paris."
"Not really. Or just a little bit I should say." And I tell her. I tell her the same thing I've told a million times now. I feed her the stale shtick and she takes it, wide-eyed. There's a flash in my mind of me inside, dirty girl. Dirty me I should say. Dirty, oui.
What do you call that?
"A picnic," she says. "We could grab some wine from the market and some croissants... I know this great bakery. And we could go sit right in the middle of the park."
"Oh, the one by the castle? I'd like that. But what if it's wet?" Dirty, dirty.
It's not raining anymore, and it hadn't been hard, but still the cobblestone outside wasn't dry yet. Still as le garcon clears our plates and as I get up to grab my sweater off the back of my chair, a quick look tells me we're the youngest pair in this joint. By a long shot. The old men at the bar watch us go with hunched backs over drinks and words en francais to the barman.
"It'll dry out," she says. "Either way I have a blanket in here," with a pat of her giant shoulder bag, and a flash look at me. "Don't worry. It's gonna be nice."
"Oh, I have no doubt," I say with my hands up. We go to the market. Not Carrefour, something grander like a plush french Target with tons of wine. Wine everywhere.
"It's the Beaujolais Nouveau, that's why," she tells me. "At the end of the harvest, they take the rest of the grapes and mash them into Beaujolalis, it's a mix. It's not bad though. Shall we get one?"
And with a dainty princess touch, she picks one up. They're stacked, box-on-box like goddamn Coke-a-Cola before the Superbowl. The top box is open, waist high, tiny wine islands in the aisle. From every vineyard in France it seems. These aisles go forever.
I look out down the aisle, isle after isle, vineyards on vineyards. No use being picky here. "Sure, why not. This one looks good," I say taking the bottle from her hand. "Good label anyway." I always trust an old-fashioned label, something with a crest for some reason. "Shall we get two?"
She smiles devilish. "I like it." So she grabs another.
Down the road more towards the castle, we stop at a bakery, un boulangerie.
"This is the one," she says. "It's the best." She shoots a quick glance up at me while we walk in. A smell and a warmth inside bring me back, to a home we had both shared, Santa Cruz, we just hadn't shared it together.
We'd shared a city, from different sides, in different ways, through different lives. I'd worked at a bakery there, Kelly's, and here it was just outside Paris. The glass counters, the fresh bread behind, the plump pastries inside, the warm yellow custard interior with white windows. The smell, the smell, the smell. Just a second here, I lose myself to the blank weak knees of nostalgia. Recollection. "This place reminds me of Kelly's," I say, coming back.
She shrugs. "Kinda. What're you gonna get?"
[stop]
