by Anna Gavalda
At first, we didn’t see much of her. Every now and then the two of them would invite themselves to dinner, and Kiko would bring the wine. It was always very good. (Just as well, since that’s the only thing he had to do all day long – choose the wine.)
I liked Kiko. He’d give my sister a doleful look and then pour himself some more to drink, shaking his head. Kiko smoked some bizarre shit, and I always had to spray honeysuckle deodoriser the next day to make the smell go away.
Months went by. Myriam came over more and more often, and almost always alone. She and Fanny would shut themselves in the bedroom, and I’d hear them giggling until the small hours. One night when I went in to ask if they wanted some herbal tea or anything, I found them both stretched out on the floor listening to an old Jean-Jacques Goldman cassette: ‘Siiiince you’re leaeaeavviiing … and nyanyanya.’
Pathetic.
Sometimes Myriam went away again. Sometimes not.
There was an extra toothbrush in the Duralex glass in the bathroom, and the sofa bed was often unfolded at night.
And then one day, she said:
‘If it’s Kiko, say I’m not here …’ pointing to the phone.
And then, and then, and then … One morning, she asked me:
‘Would you mind if I crash with you guys for a while? … I’ll chip in toward expenses, of course. …’
I was being careful not to break my biscotti – because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s to break my biscottis. I told her:
‘No problem.’
‘Cool. Thanks.’
‘Just one thing …’
‘What’s that?’
‘Do you think you could go out on the balcony when you smoke? …’
She smiled, got up, and gave me a big artist’s smack.
Of course, my biscotti broke and I said to myself, ‘And so it begins …’, stirring my hot cocoa to retrieve the little pieces. But even so, I was happy.
STILL, IT BOTHERED me all day, and so that night I laid it all out. ‘We’ll share the rent, as much as possible, and we’ll divvy up the shopping, cooking, and cleaning. Okay, girls? Look at the refrigerator door, I’ve posted a rota with our weeks: Fanny, you’re in pink highlighter, Myriam, you’re in blue, and I’m in yellow. … Please let the rest of us know if you’re eating out or if you’re having guests, and speaking of guests, if you bring home guys you plan to sleep with, please work it out between the two of you for who gets the bedroom when. And …’
‘All right, enough … enough. … Don’t get worked up …,’ said Myriam.
‘No kidding …,’ her sister answered.
‘And what about you? When you bring home some little chick, be nice and give us fair warning, too, okay! So we can get rid of our fishnet stockings and our old condoms. …’
And they sniggered even harder.
Damn.
Our little arrangement worked out pretty well, for the most part. I’ll admit I didn’t really think it would, but I was wrong. … When girls want something to work out, it works out. It’s just that simple.
When I look back on it now, I realise just how much it meant to Fanny to have Myriam here.
Fanny’s the total opposite of her sister. She’s romantic and faithful – and sensitive.
She’s always falling in love with some inaccessible guy who lives in Bumblefuck. Ever since she was fifteen, she’s waited impatiently for the post every morning and jumped every time the phone rang.
That’s no way to live.
First there was Fabrice, who lived in Lille. (From Tulle, you can see the difficulty. …) He drowned her under a flood of passionate letters in which he only talked about himself. Four years of frustrated, juvenile love.
Next, there was Paul, who went off to somewhere in Burkina Faso with Médecins Sans Frontières, leaving her with the beginnings of a vocation, the energy to rail against the slowness of the post office, and all her tears to cry. … Five years of frustrated, exotic love.
And now the last straw: I thought I gathered from their late-night conversations and the allusions they made at the dinner table that Fanny was in love with a doctor who was already married.
I could hear them in the bathroom. Myriam, brushing her teeth, said to her:
‘He’sch got kidsch?’
I imagine that Fanny was sitting on the toilet seat cover.
‘No.’
‘That’sch bescht becausche …’ (she spits) ‘… with kids that’d be too much of a drama, you know. In any case, I could never do it.’
Fanny didn’t answer, but I’m sure that she was chewing on her hair and looking at the bath mat or her toes.
‘It’s as though you go looking for them. …’
‘…’
‘We’ve had it up to here with your star-crossed lovers. Plus, doctors are all utter bores. Later he’ll take up golf, and then he’ll always be stuck in meetings at the Club Med in Marrakech or wherever, and you’ll still be all alone. …’
‘…’
‘Plus, let me tell you. … Maybe it’ll work out – it’s possible – but what makes you think it will? … Because the Other Woman, do you really think she’s going to let go of her guy just like that? ’Cause she likes getting a tan in Marrakech, so she can be one-up on the dentist’s wife from the Rotary Club.’
Fanny must be smiling – you can hear it in her voice. She murmurs:
‘I’m sure you’re right. …’
‘Of course I’m right!’
Six months of frustrated, adulterous love. (Maybe.)
‘So come with me to the Galerie Delaunay on Saturday night. For one thing, I know the guy who’s doing the catering, and it won’t be bad. I’m sure Marc will be there. … I absolutely have to introduce you two! You’ll see – he’s a great guy! Plus he’s got a fabulous butt.’
‘Pfff, whatever. … What kind of show is it?’
‘I don’t remember. Hey, could you hand me the towel?’
Myriam often improved upon the ordinary by bringing home little dishes from Fauchon’s and fine wines. I have to admit, she’d hit again on an outrageous scheme. For several weeks, she’d pored over books and magazines on Lady Di – you couldn’t cross the living room without stepping on the deceased – and practised drawing her. Now, every weekend, she planted her gear on the pont de l’Alma and sketched the weepy-eyed from around the world next to their idol.
For a ludicrous amount of money (‘stupidity has its price’), a Japanese tourist on one of those big group tours could ask my sister to draw her next to a laughing Diana (at a party at Harry’s school) or a crying Diana (with Belfast AIDS patients) or a Diana showing sympathy (with the Liverpool AIDS patients) or a Diana sulking (at the fiftieth anniversary of the Normandy Landings).
I salute the artist and take charge of bringing the bottles to room temperature.
Yes, our arrangement was working out well. Fanny and I didn’t talk much more than before, but we laughed more. Myriam didn’t settle down at all, but she painted. To my sisters, I seemed like the perfect guy – although not the one they’d have wanted to marry.
I didn’t give it much thought. I just shrugged my shoulders and kept an eye on the oven door.
SO IT TOOK a fistful of lingerie to bowl a ten-pin strike.
It would mean the end of the evenings seated at the foot of the couch, watching my sisters and sighing. The end of Fanny’s made-to-order cocktails, which unsettle your stomach and remind you of all kinds of salacious stories. The end of the squabbles:
‘Well, think of it! Shit! It’s important – was his name Lorian or Tristan?’
‘I don’t know. He doesn’t articulate very well, this guy of yours. …’
‘You’re impossible! Are you doing this on purpose, or what? Try to remember!’
‘‘Hello, may I speak to Myriam? It’s Ltfrgzqan.’ That better?’
And she disappeared into the kitchen.
‘Please don’t slam the refrigerator door. …’
Bang.
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‘… Maybe you could give him the name of a good speech therapist. …’
‘Chmmchmpoordjit.’
‘Hey, you know, it wouldn’t do you any harm, either.’
Bang.
The end of making up over my famous chicken Boursin. (‘Well? … Don’t you think you’re better off here with us than off with Ltfrgzqan at some cheesy idiot fest?’)
The end of the highlighted rotas, the end of Saturday-morning shopping trips, the end of the Gala magazines sitting in the bathroom open to the horoscope pages, the end of the artists of all kinds trying to get us to understand Boltanski’s rags, the end of the all-nighters, the end of helping Fanny memorise her revision sheets, the end of stress on the days results were posted, the end of the black looks for the woman who lived downstairs, the end of the Jeff Buckley songs, the end of Sundays stretched out on the carpet reading the comics, the end of the Liquorice Allsorts orgies in front of the TV, watching celebrity chat shows, the end of toothpaste tubes with the caps never on, drying out and driving me crazy.
The end of my youth.
WE’D PLANNED A dinner to celebrate the end of Fanny’s exams. She was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. …
‘Whew! Only ten more years …,’ she said, smiling.
Around the coffee table were her intern (without his wedding ring, the coward – future golfer in Marrakech, I still say) and her girlfriends from the hospital, including the famous Laura. My sisters had cooked up an incalculable number of plans for the two of us, each more inane than the next, under the pretext that she’d spoken about me one day with a tremor in her voice. (Like the time they had me go to her house for a surprise birthday party and I found myself alone all evening with this fury, hunting for contacts in the goat-hair carpet while trying to protect my backside. …)
Marc was there, too. (I took advantage to see what ‘a fabulous butt’ is … so-so. …)
There were also some friends of Myriam’s that I’d never seen before.
I wondered where she dug up such freaks – guys tattooed from head to toe and girls with legs up to here that you wouldn’t believe, laughing at everything and shaking whatever it was they had instead of hair.
My sisters had said:
‘Bring your friends from work if you want. … You know, you never introduce us to anyone. …’
And for good reason, I thought later, admiring the flora and the fauna eating my peanuts, sprawled out on the state-of-the-art couch that Mum gave me when I got my accountancy diploma. And for good reason. …
It was already pretty late, and we were all good and wasted, when Myriam – who’d gone to look for a scented candle in my room – came back gobbling like a turkey in heat, with Sarah Briot’s bra between her thumb and forefinger.
Holy shit.
Now I was in for it.
‘Hey, but what’s this?! Wait, Olivier, do you know you’ve got sex-shop props in your room? … Something to make every guy in Paris pitch a tent! Don’t tell us you didn’t know!?’
And off she goes putting on a whole damn show, out of control.
She wiggles her hips, mimes a striptease, sniffs the panties, grips the halogen lamp, and falls over backwards.
Out of control.
Everyone else is dying of laughter. Even the golf champion.
‘Okay. That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Give me that.’
‘Who’s it for? First you have to tell us who it’s for … doesn’t he, guys?’
So all those jackasses start whistling with their fingers, clicking their teeth against their glasses, and worst of all messing up my living room!
‘Plus, did you see the boobs she’s got! Look, that’s gotta be at least a thirty-six!’ yells this moron Laura.
‘You won’t get bored, huh …,’ Fanny whispered, her mouth twisting bizarrely.
I got up. I took my keys and jacket and slammed the door.
Bang.
I slept at the Ibis hotel at La Porte de Versailles.
No, I didn’t sleep. I thought.
I spent a good part of the night standing at the window, my forehead pressed against the glass, looking at the Parc des Expositions.
How ugly.
By morning, my mind was made up. I wasn’t even hungover, and I put away a huge breakfast.
I WENT TO the flea market.
I hardly ever take time for myself.
I was like a tourist in Paris. I had my hands in my pockets and I smelled good: Nina Ricci’s aftershave for men, found in all the Ibis hotels around the world. I’d have loved to run into my colleague at a bend in the path:
‘Oh, Olivier!’
‘Oh, Sarah!’
‘Oh, Olivier, you smell so good. …’
‘Oh, Sarah!’
I sat on the terrace at the Café des Amis, a beer in front of me, drinking in the sun.
It was June 16, about noon. It was a gorgeous day and my life was beautiful.
I bought an over-ornate birdcage with lots of wrought-iron flourishes.
The guy who sold it to me assured me that it dated from the nineteenth century and that it had belonged to a very highly esteemed family, since it had been found in a private mansion, still in one piece, and so on and so forth and how are you paying?
I felt like saying, Don’t wear yourself out, old man, I couldn’t care less.
When I got back home, it smelled like Mr. Clean from the ground floor up.
The apartment was spotless. Not a speck of dust. There was even a bouquet on the kitchen table with a little note: ‘We’re at the Jardin des Plantes – see you tonight. XOXO.’
I took off my watch and set it down on my bedside table. The Christian Dior package was right there next to it, as if nothing had happened.
Aaahhh!! My dears. …
For dinner, I’m going to make a chicken Boursin that will be un-for-get-ta-ble.
Okay, first I’ve got to choose the wine … and put out a tablecloth, of course.
And for dessert, a semolina cake with lots of rum. Fanny loves that.
I’m not saying we threw our arms around each other, squeezing each other tight and shaking our heads, the way Americans do. They just gave me a little smile as they came in, and I saw all the little flowers of the Jardin des Plantes in their faces.
For once, we weren’t in any rush to clear the table. After the debauchery of the night before, no one had any plans to go out, and Mimi served us mint tea at the kitchen table.
‘What’s with the cage?’ asked Fanny.
‘I bought it at the flea market this morning from this guy who doesn’t sell anything but antique cages. … Do you like it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, it’s for the two of you.’
‘Really! Thank you. What’s the occasion – because we’re so full of tact and sensitivity?’ joked Myriam, heading for the balcony with her pack of Cravens.
‘As a souvenir of me. You have only to say that the bird has flown his cage. …’
‘Why are you saying that?!’
‘I’m leaving, girls.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to go live somewhere else.’
‘With who?’
‘On my own.’
‘But why? It’s because of last night. … Listen, I am so sorry – you know I had too much to drink, and …’
‘No, no, don’t worry about it. It’s got nothing to do with you.’
*
Fanny seemed really stunned, and I had a hard time looking her in the face.
‘You’re tired of us?’
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘But why, then?’ You could tell the tears were coming to her eyes.
Myriam stood rooted between the table and the window, her cigarette hanging sadly from her lips.
‘Olivier, hey – what’s going on?’
‘I’m in love.’
You couldn’t just say so right away, you jerk.
And why haven’t you introd
uced us? What! You’re afraid we’ll scare her off. You don’t know us very well. … Oh? You do know us well. … Ah?
What’s her name?
Is she pretty? Yes? Oh, shit. …
What? You’ve barely even spoken to her? Are you an idiot, or what? Yes, you are an idiot?
No, you’re not.
You’ve barely even spoken to her, and you’re moving out because of her? Don’t you think you’re putting the cart before the horse? You put the cart where you can. … Well, if you look at it that way, of course. …
When are you going to talk to her? Someday. Okay, I see the problem. … Does she have a good sense of humour? Ah, good, good.
You really love her? You don’t want to answer that?
Are we annoying you?
All you have to do is say so.
You’ll invite us to the wedding? Only if we promise to be good?
Who’s going to make me feel better the next time my heart turns to mush?
And me? Who’s going to make me study for my anatomy class?
Who’s going to pamper us now?
Just how pretty is she?
Are you going to make her your chicken Boursin?
We’re going to miss you, you know.
I WAS SURPRISED that I had so few things to take with me. I’d rented a small van from Kiloutou’s, and one trip was enough.
I didn’t know if I should take that in a good way, as in, Well, that just proves you’re not too attached to the things of this world, my friend, or really badly, as in, Look, friend: you’re almost thirty, and eleven boxes for everything you’ve got. … Doesn’t amount to much, does it?
Before I left, I sat down one last time in the kitchen.
THE FIRST COUPLE of weeks, I slept on a mattress right on the floor. I’d read in a magazine that it’s very good for your back.
After seventeen days, I went to Ikea. My back was hurting too much.
God knows I’d considered the problem from every possible angle. I even drew out floor plans on graph paper.
The saleswoman thought the same thing I did: In an apartment so modest and so poorly laid out (you’d have thought I’d rented three little hallways …), a sofa bed was the way to go.
And the least expensive kind is the Clic-Clac.
A Clic-Clac it is.
I also bought a kitchen set (sixty-five pieces for sixty euros, salad spinner and cheese grater included), some candles (you never know …), a throw (I don’t know, I thought it would be chic to buy a throw), a lamp (whatever), a doormat (thinking ahead), some shelves (predictably), a green plant (we’ll see …), and a thousand other little things. (That’s how the store wants it.)
