by Jessica Pan
“It’s so hard to talk in front of so many people,” she said. “And everyone knows that professor’s a bitch. Take the Tuesday section instead. I’m Marie, by the way.”
And that is how I dropped my first French class—and made my first French friend. We go to the Tuesday section together and have coffee afterward. Because she is in her second year, she tells me gossip about all of the students in her year: who’s an idiot, who is secretly smart, whom to avoid. And I mostly understand her: I’m much better one-on-one than in an enormous group.
I have to confess, though: She is my only friend in Paris. It’s strange to walk around all day and then come home to an empty apartment. No respite from myself. How did you make friends in Beijing?
Your image of women in Paris is partially on target. I know you think Frenchwomen wear scarves everywhere, but only the old women do this. French girls our age wear close-fitting jeans with worn old beautiful sweaters or simple short dresses that flare at the thigh, with heels. They also put on very little makeup—maybe just a trace of eyeliner.
Taking a cue from them, I’ve started to wear heels everywhere, even in the face of treacherous cobblestones. It’s a performance. I want to feel like I’m contributing something to the beauty of the city, rather than detracting from it in ugly old flip-flops.
Today, I went to the Tuileries Gardens to read and look out at the tourists, the couples walking hand-in-hand, and the groups of students sitting and laughing. The Tuileries are formal and manicured, but if you go down any side path, you reach squares of green grass surrounded by couples kissing on every other bench. I sit alone and when some sleazy man inevitably approaches me, this is what I do: just say “non” to whatever he asks and stare straight ahead until he goes away. Also, cover my purse.
Love,
Rach
SEPTEMBER 25
Jess to Rachel
Okay, the simplest way to make friends is to send out a mass e-mail to all of your friends back home titled, “You Can Stay in My Apartment in Paris If You Set Me Up with Friends Here.” I guarantee everyone will reply and you’ll get responses from people you haven’t heard from in YEARS.
Well, I think I may be dating Ray, but I actually have no idea. He always keeps me guessing. A few days after our drunken encounter, we met up for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and it felt strange to sit across from each other completely sober. A silence fell over both of us after the waitress took our order and I could feel us both sizing each other up and thinking, “What are we doing here?”
At dinner, there were distinct differences between dating him and the other guys I’ve been with. He kept refilling my glass and he was very concerned that I liked the food. He kept asking if I was cold or not.
Boys just don’t do this. All of this felt brand-new to me, but I kept wondering about how many first dates Ray has had. How many times has he told another woman about his past life as an unsatisfied lawyer? Is this empty Japanese restaurant his go-to place? That joke he just told—has he used the same exact one on other women? Or is he tailoring it to make it age-appropriate for me?
So in this relationship, I’m the incredibly insecure one. He’s forty-one; I’m almost twenty-four. I moved here over a year ago and I already feel like I’m ten times smarter than I was when I first arrived. But he’s nearly twenty years older than me, so what does he know? I won’t know for another twenty years! I’m never going to catch up with him.
He paid for me, and I didn’t protest because I’d ordered less than he had and I didn’t know if that’s just how he does things. And then, despite his being forty-one, we made out like high schoolers outside the bar. I guess some things don’t change. I know if I could see myself from afar, I wouldn’t understand the situation. What am I doing with him? I don’t know, but of course he can charm me! Because he has been doing it since 1979.
I feel at once really young and really old. I leave work feeling secure and authoritative in my new role and then I revert into a shy version of myself with an older man who seems to want me to take on this role.
He casually dropped in how women lose their shit when it comes to him and that’s why he’s still single. Although older British men don’t really say “lose their shit.” It was probably “go mad about him.” He offhandedly mentions that so many women become obsessed with him and he’d love to get married and settle down, if he could just find one with a stable head on her shoulders. If someone our age said something this outlandish, I would challenge them. But I didn’t fight him on it. Because...I don’t want to be one of those women.
Thoughts:
He might be too old for me.
George is funnier, but Ray is far sexier.
He must be damaged, right? A forty-one-year-old good-looking straight man who’s never been married?
Or is he just a commitment-phobe?
Gray pubic hair?
We had a second date a few days later and conversation seemed to flow better because he got to talk about his work and I got to sit enraptured, both of us playing our roles perfectly. He’s lived in Beijing for four years and he’s one of the foreign correspondents for a UK national broadsheet. The last article he wrote was about the fight against AIDS in China and the importance of sex education in this country. I did not tell him that I just wrote about the fifty most kid-friendly restaurants in Beijing.
Ray goes to lots of fancy journalist parties and seems annoyed at the reporters who get more attention than him. I made some joke about how I imagine him trying to catch the eyes of passersby and they brush him aside to reach the New York Times correspondent instead. At this, he broke his charismatic demeanor and seemed irrationally mad. He breathed heavily through his nose and poured more sake. I reverted back to Shy Polite Amazed Girl and in a few minutes, he reassumed his preferred role of Worldly Seducer.
And even so, I still like him so much—he’s intelligent and sharp and I feel like he keeps me sharp. And he’s handsome. Intense gray eyes and black hair.
And because all we’ve done is kiss, I feel like I’m being courted.
Doubts still creep in, though. He feels unattainable, because he won’t commit to plans more than a day in advance. It’s beginning to make me feel insecure, just like all the other women who have loved Ray and then “gone mad.”
Work, at least, is one place where I finally feel in control. I never knew how different it would be to be the boss of the magazine. I cared about my job before, but if things went wrong, I still felt like the blame always fell on Victoria. And now, I suddenly care so much about every single thing. I lie awake thinking about what would make this the best magazine ever and in the shower I find myself reeling off a hundred headlines for the cover feature and then fretting about the perfect one.
I ended up hiring our intern as my replacement. Isla is a really enthusiastic waif-thin Australian who is equal parts hyper and wise. She’s tall with short white-blond hair and I’m short with long dark hair—I’m trying to ward off comparisons that she is a bowling pin and I am the bowling ball. Despite towering over me, she’s younger than I am, so I feel free to have very outward freak-outs in front of her. Before leading my first editorial meeting, I confided, “Isla, I don’t even know what I’m doing!” And she’s like, “Nobody does! We’re all bluffing!” Great advice.
We sit next to each other and the rest of the office calls us, collectively, “The Kids,” because we are the youngest team in the office and we’re also writing about children a lot. Sometimes when we are being too loud, we’ll hear a cranky Scottish guy yelling across the room, “Shut up, Kids!”
Because I am adjusting to my new responsibilities and because we are understaffed, Isla and I spend nearly every waking minute together, sometimes coming in on weekends. She has a tendency to bang her head on the desk when we clash with our bosses, and I love her for this audacity. She’s brave i
n a way that I aspire to be. But I’ll never tell her that, especially because sometimes when we argue about our editorial vision, I want to shout, “I AM THE BOSS OF YOU!”
The power has gone to my head.
Ohhhhh God, Ray text. “I know it’s improper to text the day after, but I’m looking forward to kissing you again. And again. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
You see? I am helpless in the face of this honed charisma. I wonder if this is an auto-reply to every woman he goes on a date with.
Love,
Boss
OCTOBER 2
Rachel to Jess
To understand Ray, I think I should tell you about what my former colleague Sally told me about older men dating younger women. It’s not just about sex. They like to feel superior. As in, “Why not be with someone hotter than you AND who looks up to you?”
I know that I would be so seduced by Ray as well, but he’s had so much longer than you to practice his craft. The fact that he thinks girls go crazy on him is a big warning sign to me. This may be his veiled way of telling you, “I am going to make you crazy.”
It feels like all of a sudden you are being expected to grow up really fast. You’re running a magazine and dating a real man. Like, maybe you should be in your forties now. Which is weird, because usually I am the one you say is acting old for my age (I still read mystery novels and I just knitted a hat, so you might still have me there).
I do feel more adult now that I’m living alone. I love it so much that it makes me worry about getting married or moving in with somebody because I love waking up and not having to confront aggressive questions about how I slept (all questions seem aggressive to me in the morning). I love having the bathroom available whenever I want and not having to worry about what previously went on in the shower and what is still okay to touch.
However, living alone does have its problems. The neighbors next door played loud music until four in the morning and I had an 8 A.M. class (it was a Wednesday), and I found myself alone, banging on the wall with a broom. It’s actually funny to go through this stuff with a friend, but alone, it’s a little sad. Also, there’s no Rosabelle to steal food from or remind me when my rent is due.
I’ve been seeing my friend from class, Marie, a lot. She knows all the good bars in my area, where she also lives. She’s very direct and says the things I think about Paris but had no one to tell. When we were chatting, I felt tension release from my shoulders. I cannot explain how relieved I am to have met this kind of friend this early on. They’re like gold dust.
And also, she helps me with my homework.
I still have downtime right now. French schoolwork isn’t spread evenly over the year. Each class has either one final paper or one final exam. So while I’m coasting now, January and June are going to be a frantic effort to study and write. But for now, I’m devoting myself to writing in cafés (a secret pastime I hide from Marie, because it is so embarrassing to be an American writing in a Parisian café). My story has officially inflated into a novel, which is at once overwhelming and exciting.
I don’t know if it’s any good because I haven’t shown it to anyone except my dad. I wrote to him asking him if he’d read it, but his feedback is so opaque and sometimes just frustrating. Last week, as a response to my chapter 3, he wrote: “Have you read Shane? Go read Shane. It’s incredibly well plotted.”
Shane is a 1950s Western.
He put me in contact with a good friend of his from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has a fancy literary agent and has been on Oprah discussing his book. I e-mailed him because, as Claudia loved to remind me, nothing was ever accomplished by someone who sits in their apartment alone waiting for life to begin.
I took your advice and sent out a mass e-mail to our friends seeking out their French connections. Platonic Nick wrote back, putting me in touch with his old roommate Jacques, a filmmaker. Finally—a night out with a real French person. I can’t seem to force hot Frenchmen to have drinks with me any other way, it seems. I know that I live in the capital of Hot French Men, but it seems impossible to actually be a part of their world. Waiters who are expecting a tip and professors who grade your papers don’t really count.
In the end, I stalked Jacques online (obviously) and he’s drop-dead gorgeous, but the Internet told me that he also has a hot girlfriend. However, boys lead to boys who beget boys, as a wise roofied girl once told me.
Not to worry—a million Maries shall not replace you.
Love,
Rach
OCTOBER 9
Jess to Rachel
Oh, Rach, you are literally a little old lady now. “Eh, what’s that? TURN YOUR MUSIC DOWN.” Bangs broom on wall. “Fucking kids,” you mutter as you kick off your slippers and slather on your night cream.
Anyway, beware of Jacques and all good-looking men—Ray just stood me up. HE STOOD ME UP. Second time this week. Stand me up once, shame on you. Stand me up twice, I fucking hate you. I canceled plans to meet Isla and her friends for karaoke and now I’m writing to you while wearing lipstick, which just feels wrong to me. I cleaned my entire apartment thinking tonight could be the night. And now what am I going to do with this clean apartment? Total waste.
I had two more semidates with Ray, dates that I had to completely bend over backward for and orchestrate on my own. It’s like he hooked me and now I’m chasing him. I’m making all the effort: running out of work to catch him in time before he had a flight to Hong Kong, staying out late one night because he could only meet at 10 P.M. So far, there’s still been nothing but kissing. Old-school rules?
Oh God, do you think this is how George justified my odd behavior?
Wait, that doesn’t make sense. George and I are the same age. Discuss.
J
OCTOBER 10
Rachel to Jess
Old-school rules? Jess. Ray was born in the 1960s. Not the 1800s. People have been having premarital sex this entire century and probably, in fact, for long before that. I think he’s playing a game. I don’t know how you can win it, though. What can you possibly win?
OCTOBER 11
Jess to Rachel
I win the sex with Daniel Craig? Except that I haven’t. He always cancels. “I’m on deadline. Maybe we’ll meet up later this week.”
I can’t live like this!!! The uncertainty is killing me!
Remember that Master List we supposedly sent the universe? The universe couldn’t find everything in one man, so it sent me two. George had about 80 percent of the qualities and Ray has the remaining 20 percent (sexy, manly, fixes things, more worldly).
Telling detail: While George sent me one hundred e-mails a day, Ray will only send me one per day. Never more.
OCTOBER 11
Later that day
Jess to Rachel
Oh! Oh! Ray text. He wants to meet up tomorrow. Feels serious. Romantic restaurant.
Do you think I have to get a bikini wax? I don’t want to....Do I have to? Don’t want to.
Maybe he is used to old-fashioned ways.
Maybe, in fact, a bikini wax would freak him out and he’d be shocked by the lack of body hair?
OCTOBER 11
Later that day
Rachel to Jess
He’s forty-one. He’s seen porn. I think he knows about waxing.
OCTOBER 12
Jess to Rachel
He canceled again.
OCTOBER 12
Later that day
Rachel to Jess
I’m starting to think that he is the worst.
And you are the best, so something’s not adding up.
OCTOBER 29
Jess to Rachel
I tried calling your Paris phone, but you aren’t there. You’re probably eating a baguette or discussing Foucault with French film students or being Parisian by showing up late somewhere. It’s very c
omforting to think of you in the sunlight in Paris, when it is dark over in Beijing. Especially on a night like tonight.
How do I begin to explain what happened next with Ray? After the numerous cancellations, he called me up and told me how sorry he was and how much he wanted to see me. He made a joke about how he hadn’t called earlier because he was trying to figure out the perfect place to take me. I knew this was a lie, but I wanted to believe it. It could have been true, right?
We met the next day at eight for dinner in a tiny Chinese restaurant. And we got along so well. The initial awkwardness and all of the doubts that I had before were gone. I wasn’t worried about other women he’s been with, about seeming young and shy, about teasing him. I felt totally at ease and he seemed to laugh at all my jokes. And at the end he told me how much he liked me.
We walked to a nearby bar, where we sat close together in a booth and he stared into my eyes. Again, he told me how much he likes me. He told me he was leaving for Hong Kong for two weeks, but I said, “Well, you have to see me Saturday, before you go.” He said, “Of course. I have to see you before I go.”
And I believed him.
We went back to his place, kissing as we walked. I tripped in his bathroom and broke his shower curtain. We laughed a lot about it, though. We laugh a lot.
We start making out on his bed. Clothes come off. (Note: There seem to be no discernible differences between a forty-one-year-old body and a twentysomething body. Maybe a tad softer.) Everything was going great. We’re kissing, he’s stroking my neck, and he’s running his hands over my body.
This is the moment where one of us should have reached for a condom. I thought we’d continue kissing and at least discuss the next step, but instead Ray made the decision for us and just went for it, no condom.
WHAT? RAY! WHAT?
