I don't know it yet, but I'm going to fill a whole book with them; all girls, every kind. It's funny to me presently later, because I came here to - well, in part to write, but in another part to try and get away from them, those lucid sirens of LA, and all the distractions and trouble they cause and all the worry they're worth. The trouble being that they're so many times worth the worry to some beholder. And that's distracting, and with distractions I can't write. Not to the volume that I require anyways. This writing isn't something that just flows out and splatters on the page like a Johnny cum quickly. Unfortunately, no. It's painstaking. It's focus-draining, and I wasn't gifted that much (focus, that is) in the first place. I can handle two things at a time, easy. It's around the third one that everything always seems to fall apart. I can't play and sing. The drums are a tearful mystery. I'm not a juggler. But when I tried, writing was always the last ball (if I were say, juggling balls).
So I'm in Paris to try and get away, and somehow I wind up drowning in a sea of them. Women, the most distracting are the ones you find living in this city. What waste for a restless eye, but yes, I get some writing done too. It's what came first, foremostly, and I guess that makes all the difference.
A nice man lets me into the building right off Rue Didot and I take the stairs three floors to the landing, to knock a couple times at the door. No answer. Not having a phone sucks. The landing's a bit long, but not so long, with Marie's door at one end and a low, tall window at the other, and I almost pass out sitting on the old wood, leaning against my bags, my legs wrapped in my arms. It's quiet, and the air moves in softly from the window, a cold-in-the-day-sun foreign air that chills my hands. There's a wet sweat on my back though from lugging the backpack and that stupid Samsonite shoulder luggage, and when I close my eyes to breathe deep of the French city air, each time, breeze from the windows whispers past my face just a little more subtler, and my head lolls back because it feels so nice. A click, and the door opens and there's Marie.
She starts at my presence. "Brian?"
"Marie! Hi," I say, getting to my feet. "Sorry, I don't have a phone. And I knocked a few times, but I guess it wasn't loud enough."
"Oh, no! I was just in the bathroom getting ready. I didn't hear a thing. How long were you waiting here?"
"Not long at all. A nice man let me in, and I've just been sitting here a few minutes, I think. After knocking, of course."
She looks at my bags, then back at me. "Well, get your stuff in here. You can use the bed under mine. Oh, and here's the key," she says fiddling with her key ring until a key comes free. "Here. I have to go, but I'll be back in the evening sometime. Julian, my roommate, should be home before then though."
I can't imagine what the look on my face must be other than one of complete relief and gratitude. Whatever it is, it strikes her funny and she almost laughs handing me the key. "Thank you, Marie. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So very very much." I have to hug her. "Thank you. Now don't let me keep you. And have a glorious day!" I say as she whisks down the spiral stairs out of sight. The front door goes straight to the bedroom, a small space with room for a raised bunk and a mattress underneath and a bookshelf and not much else. It's cozy. A delirious sense of familiarity from being here before muddles my brain into feeling like it's home again.
Paris veritable. This is the city I remembered. This is the same flat. These are the same streets, the same cafes, the same metro stop. Familiarity is a strong feeling, and it melts the bags from my shoulders and lays my head gently on the pillow. The mattress is divine, and it's not ten minutes before I'm knocked out cold in a musing French dream.
[stop]
The door shuts, and I startle. "Good evening," she says coming in. She's rarely not moving, and when she talks she moves too so that our conversation is a flurry of clothes before my eyes, and she's in nothing but her underwear, tight grey lace, still going on about the day, about school, some guy on the metro, the brisk air, and all the little stresses. She grabs a towel quick on command from over a wide beam on the side of the bunk and pulls it up under her arms and behind her back and ties it in the front like so, and then puts both hands through her hair and out with a short shake. "I need to shower." It's abrupt, almost mid-sentence but no, she caps the last one off first on a mashed high note all on the same breath. It's a gift of the French. Their English always sounds like a song.
"What time is it?"
"Just past ten," she calls over her bare shoulder as she turns the corner towards the bathroom. It's a tiny place to say the least, but it's cozy. It's actually bigger than Lili's place, but just barely. The other door in the bedroom leads to a living room of about the same size that consists of shelves, a four cornered table, four chairs, a tiny twin-sized daybed, and a fireplace all mashed together. The roommate's room has a door to the landing as well, with another door leading to the what's technically considered the kitchen I believe. These other doors, Marie's and her roommates, stand directly next to each other, with about a foot of wall making Marie's door deeper. Once around the corner from the bedroom, it's three steps through the kitchen to the bathroom. An old brick bar with a high wood counter-top separate the kitchen and the living room which is painted a faded lemon meringue yellow, but yellower. Mustard yellow actually. It's a faded mustard yellow.
[stop]
