“Do you want to go to Russia?”
“I want to go everywhere,” I say as I stare at the red and gold sunset version of the bridge in front of me.
“You’re a globe-trotter, aren’t you?”
“I’m an aspiring globe-trotter,” I say. “It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I can remember. Pack my bags, see the world, sleep under the stars.”
“We need to get you in these paintings, then.”
I point at the one in front of me. “I could take that bridge to New York. Another to Boston. I bet one of Monet’s bridges is in Tokyo. I’ve always wanted to go there, too, to see how vibrant and bright the city is.”
“Then you’ll go.” She bumps shoulders with me. “If you want something badly enough, you make it happen.”
I have to wonder if that includes someone, too, or if her work, and mine, will stand in the way before I chase my desire to cross all the bridges to everywhere.
17
Joy
* * *
I’m hot for teacher.
Or really, I should say hotter.
Every day I’m hotter for him.
But it’s more than lust that I feel.
Griffin’s not only my closest friend in France, he’s my daily companion. It almost feels like we’re two travelers exploring the world of Paris together. After hours, it’s like we’ve taken a sabbatical from life, and we’re intrepid wanderers, getting lost and found together in the streets, passages, and alleys of the City of Light. Him and me, me and him.
I’ve shared a house with another person, but I never felt like I wanted more time. But that’s what it’s like now. When I say good-bye to Griffin at the end of each night, my heart is a little bit lonelier, and when I wake up, that organ is eager once more, knowing I’ll see him soon at the office.
When I see him in the conference room, I want to grin, to flirt, to give him a thousand private looks that only he’ll understand. Even in the lab, when he translates the names of chemicals, I can hear him in my mind saying other things, like you look beautiful and let me take you out for a glass of wine.
When I leave the office, sometimes we shop, since that’s where I experience the real brunt of knowing or not knowing words.
On a Saturday afternoon, we go to the open-air market on Rue de Grenelle under the Metro bridge, and he urges me to barter for a lamp I want. It’s emerald green with a hanging chain as a switch. It’s so deliciously antique that I can’t resist it.
A stout woman with curly hair runs the stall. I ask her what year it’s from. I ask if she'll take less. I tell her I will return.
Je reviendrai. Griffin wants me to say that because the French have a specific word for come back. They don’t say return, he tells me.
So many words.
So many new ones.
My brain swims with new combinations of the alphabet.
As we wander to the other end of the market, buying walnuts and bread, I say the names of everything I see. And I don’t just say the names. I use them in a sentence.
Then we revenir, and I buy the lamp.
“You’re learning,” he says with a proud smile.
I might have doubted the blonde chocolatier, but I believe him.
I believe him because he makes me buy contact lens solution that evening, and then he kisses me good night, lingering on each cheek. He tells me he’s glad he could be there to help me at the pharmacy this time, but he’s even more glad he could see me do it on my own.
The next week he shows me the coolest Metro entrances, and then we decide to find more sundials, hunting for one engraved by Salvador Dali before we track down a sundial in the courtyard of a hotel frequented by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “Legend has it he was in love with the woman who ran the hotel and professed as much in a letter to her one day,” Griffin muses as we regard Rousseau’s sundial.
“And did she smother him in kisses and say she was madly in love, too?” I ask, hungry for this romantic tale.
He shakes his head, a rueful smile on his face. “No. It was, sadly, unrequited.”
My heart aches the littlest bit when I watch him walk away first. Has there ever been a crueler word than unrequited?
I try my best not to linger on it, telling Griffin I have something to show him. His eyes twinkle with excitement as I play tour guide this time, escorting him across the city to track down an angel three-stories tall serving as a column in the corner of an apartment building from 1860.
He cranes his neck heavenward, checking out the carving. “How did you know of this?”
“After I came across the first two angels, I did some research. There are angel statues and carvings and little hidden angels all over the city. You could add angels to your list of Parisian quirks.”
He turns his eyes to me. “You think I have a list of Parisian quirks?”
I nod. “Yes. Oddities and curiosities. Sundials, clocks, Metro entrances. I think you know the most unusual details about Paris. You’re a student of this city, every nook and cranny.”
He shakes his head, disagreeing. “There’s so much I don’t know.”
I stab my finger against his chest. “That’s my point exactly. Every day you uncover more. You remind me of what Elise said. We should enjoy each day like a fruit and eat it.”
He quirks an eyebrow as we stroll down a quiet street. “You think I eat Paris every day?”
“And you wake up the next day with another appetite and another.”
He wiggles an eyebrow. “That’s not the only thing I want to eat.”
“You say everything like it’s naughty.”
“Everything should be naughty. But especially when you talk of fruit and eating. You give me no choice.” We stop at the corner of the street, and he repeats what he just said in French, reminding me that he does have a choice, at least when it comes to his time and his talents. He chooses to be generous with his time. He gives of himself freely. I know he’s getting something out of these language lessons. I know he’s inching closer and closer to his brother’s goal. But still. It hardly feels equal.
That’s why I do my best to make sure the explorer in him is happy. I research places to go that are off the beaten path.
Like the next week when I take him to see antique signs scattered around the city. I snap photos of him under them and make up silly stories, and I show him more angels that I uncover, including an unusually sensual one, clearly female, that almost looks like a precursor to the Victoria’s Secret angels.
“My turn to play photographer. Your turn to pose,” he says, shooing me under the angel.
I give him my best pout, and he shakes his head. “Just be yourself.”
“Fine,” I say and flash a smile.
“Yes. That. Now post it to your feed and use the hashtag sexyasanangel.”
“Please,” I scoff.
He shrugs. “Just send it to me, then.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re sexy as fuck, and I want to look at it tonight.”
A shooting star ignites in my chest. “You do?” My throat is dry.
His eyes seem to blaze with heat as he looks at me. “Yeah, but tug down the neckline just a bit, right? We’ll shoot another.”
I roll my eyes. “Stop it.”
“I’m not joking.”
I guess I’m not, either. I do as he asks, and I send it to him later. I’m not sure what he’s going to do with it. I learn when he texts me at midnight.
* * *
Griffin: THANK YOU for the picture. It made my night.
* * *
That’s all I need.
Inside my flat, with the light from the moon filtering through my windows, the sounds of the city flitting into my home, my hand finds its way inside my panties, where I ache for him.
Already, with one touch, I’m soft and wet and needy. My knees fall open, and my mind paints the most delicious images.
Griffin over me, licking me, kissing me, sucking me.
<
br /> His hands traveling everywhere. His tongue painting a trail down my skin. His words whispering across my body.
My mind races. Speeds up. Slips back in time, too, to five, ten minutes ago in a flat across the city. There, a gorgeous Englishman stands in a tiny kitchen, opens his texts, and finds my photo from earlier that day. He hardens and groans looking at me tugging at my neckline. No time to waste, he unzips his jeans, wraps his hand around his cock, and strokes.
I moan out loud. It sounds obscene to my ears. It feels that way as I imagine him.
He doesn’t even go to the couch, or the bed. He’s too turned on. Too aroused. He shoves his jeans to his hips, tightens his grip, his fist tunneling up and down his hard length. He’s never been this aroused. Never wanted someone so much. He fucks his hand harder, and faster, wishing it were my mouth, my hand, me.
He craves the wetness in me, wants to thrust into the aching center of my body, to take me, fuck me, have me, own me.
His thighs tighten, and he groans, a loud, feral sound. A wish for me. My name on his lips. Husky, dirty, filthy. He growls it. It’s not the first time he’s come thinking of me. It won’t be the last.
And as I picture him climaxing in the dark, in his hand, my image blazing before his eyes, I do the same, pleasure blurring my brain.
His name is on my lips.
It’s not the first time I come saying his name.
I don’t think it’ll be the last.
I bend my face to a huge bouquet of pink hyacinths, closing my eyes as I inhale.
“Your turn,” I say when I open them.
He does as I instruct, here at the flower market in front of Palais de Tokyo. “Smells like flowers.”
I swat him. I’ve been doing a lot of that. I can’t seem to resist touching him.
We wander to the next stall, where I snap photos of purple irises, peach tulips, lavender hydrangea, and sunflowers six feet tall. He stands next to one. “Still taller,” he says with a wink.
“Just a little.”
He sniffs the sunflower, crinkling his nose. “This stinks.”
“Sunflowers are not known for their smell.”
“Which is your favorite? To smell?”
“Honeysuckle. But they don’t have that here.”
“Which is your favorite that’s here?” He gestures to the vast display of petals and stems.
I nibble on the corner of my lips and spin, checking out stall after stall, all teeming with flowers, bursting with bouquets that light up my senses.
I point to several buckets with soft purple flowers. “Lilacs,” I say, and we head to the nearest lilac stall, where Griffin guides me through what he wants me to say to the florist.
He makes me ask question after question, likely driving the florist bananas. This isn’t Berlitz with Griffin. This isn’t someone teaching me travel phrases, like Can you recommend a good restaurant?
It’s trial by fire. It’s immersion.
But the language isn’t the only thing I’m becoming immersed in. I’m becoming immersed in him. I want to ask him more about his bucket list. I want to know what else is on it, to know what matters to him. But that feels too personal, too tender, like touching a wound that’s still bruised and hurting.
After he’s exhausted me, he gives me one more thing to ask for. “One bouquet of lilacs to take home. And you’ll want that one,” he says, pointing to the most perfect one.
When the florist gives me the price, I root around in my purse for bills and coins. But once I look up, Griffin is handing the bearded man the euros, and then my teacher gives me the bouquet. “For you.”
“Really?” My heart squeezes.
“Yes, really.”
I hold them to his nose. “What do they smell like?”
He inhales, then steps closer, bringing his mouth to my ear. “Like this woman I’ve been spending all my time with and am dying to kiss.”
I melt from head to toe, my bones dissolving. I’m burning for him, aching to touch him, longing to be kissed.
As I watch him walk the other way, looking back at me once with such heat in his eyes that I’m sure he’s waging the same internal battle I am, I know that this is the scent I want to bottle. I want to remember this day. I want to open the top of the perfume, close my eyes, let the scent drift into my mind, and remember what it feels like to fall in love.
But more than that, I want to remember what it feels like to fall in love and no longer have the will to stop it, to throw all the reasons out the window and let it happen, come what may.
18
Griffin
* * *
The days unfold like this. At dawn I run, then I help Joy at work in the morning. In the afternoon, I focus on written translations. In the early evening, I meet her, and we walk and we talk. I make her tell me about her day, and I ask her questions. As we wander through St. Germain des Pres, over the Pont Neuf, and along the Seine, stopping for a chocolate éclair, a café noisette, or a glass of wine, she makes strides, each day sounding better, gaining confidence. We stroll through the markets, we dart into shops, and we meander past the bouquinistes, where one day Joy chats with Julien, finding the words to buy a dozen sepia-tinted postcards of Paris.
“You’ve never brought a woman by before,” Julien remarks to me, his voice low, his words so quick I’m sure she won’t understand.
“Ah, that must mean I really like you,” I tease.
He grunts. “It means you like her.”
I wave a hand dismissively. “It means you have good postcards, mate.”
He grumbles a thank you then hands the cards to Joy.
As we pass other stalls peddling old books, vintage posters, and Life magazines from decades ago, Joy asks what we talked about. “I heard the word like,” she says, an inquisitive note to her voice.
“Good ears. He said you really liked his postcards,” I say with a smirk.
“I think you’re lying.”
“What do you think he asked me, then?”
“Something else,” she says.
“Something like what?”
“Something you don’t want to tell me.”
But I do want to tell her. “He thinks I like you.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nod. “Crazy old man.”
“Insane, clearly.”
“Absolutely batty.” I point to the pack of cards in her hand. “What are you going to do with those?”
“I’ll send them to my sister.”
“In the post?”
She laughs. “No. I’ll do it the modern way. By snapping cell phone photos and sending them immediately. Instant gratification.”
“Gratification instantanée.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Maybe you should teach me how to say delayed gratification, too.”
That’s what I’m living every day. But then, delayed means the gratification with her will eventually come. I have no idea if it’ll always be out of reach.
We take lunch together on a Wednesday, and after we finish, we turn a corner onto a narrow cobblestoned street as the sky rumbles.
She gasps. “I’ve been waiting for it to rain.”
“It’s rained a few times in the two months we’ve worked together.”
She shakes her head. “Not enough. I want the rain that makes me scurry under an awning. I want the rain that filmmakers can only wish for.”
I arch a brow. “What’s that?”
“Rain that drenches the streets. That makes them look like jewels.”
Images of wet, sparkling roads unfurl before my eyes. “That’s what filmmakers want?”
“They often hire crews to spray water on streets. Because the best shot in all of film is a street after a rain. It sparkles. I want that kind of rain.”
“Do you really want that kind of rain, or do you just want the aftereffects?”
“I’ll take the rain to get the diamonds,” she says, then reaches into her bag and fishes around for something. She extracts an
umbrella, a tiny little thing. But when she opens it, it wilts. The spokes don’t work.
“Merde,” she says, and I laugh.
“Such a good student.”
“My umbrella is broken,” she says in French.
“Even better.”
“No. What’s even better is shopping.” She points to a store down the street where the window displays an umbrella with black and white polka dots. It’s like a homing beacon for Joy, and she marches to the shop through the drizzle. She pushes on the door, and I follow her inside.
But she stops in her tracks and brings her hand to her mouth.
“The polka-dot one? The price is bonkers, right?”
She shakes her head and speaks in a reverent whisper. “No. Look.” A ruby-red umbrella is perched in a metal stand, its carved wooden handle poking out the top. Running a hand lovingly along the fabric, Joy looks as if she’s stroking a cat. “I’ll take it.”
She grabs the umbrella, heads to the counter, and buys the new one, disposing of the old.
When we step outside, big thick drops fall from the sky, and Joy opens the jewel-colored umbrella. She twirls it above her head, smiling under the cherry-red canopy she’s given herself. “Join me under my umbrella?”
I don’t know how she does it, but she makes everything sound like an invitation to travel to the place I most want to be right now. I take the umbrella in one hand, hold it above us, and wrap the other one around her shoulder.
She loops her arm around my waist, and we walk in the rain. She’s not due back at the office for twenty minutes, and she makes no move in that direction.
She looks at me, her expression serious. “What else is on the bucket list?”
I tense as the second item blasts like a neon sign in the night. Sleep with all the French girls. I don’t want to get into that one. “A number of things.”
Wanderlust Page 15
