Sleeping with Paris

by Juliette Sobanet

  I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My mom had always been the passive type who seemed like she would be content with a mediocre marriage for the rest of her life as long as Dad mowed the lawn and paid the bills. That brought me to my next concern. My mom hadn’t worked a full-time job since as long as I could remember. She had held odd, part-time jobs, like working at a flower shop and a bakery, but she had never gone to college and instead had become an expert at spending my dad’s money on making the house perfect. It’s what all the women in her family had done before her, so it’s all she knew, and she did it well. Without my dad’s money to support her, what on earth was she going to do? Plus, Aunt Liza was a wild woman. She had never settled down or had children, she was always dating someone new every time we talked to her, and, for all I knew, she had more sex than I did—which, at this point, since I wasn’t having any sex, wasn’t that difficult to do. My mom had never approved of her lifestyle, so they'd never gotten along too well over the years.

  I tried to calm the frenzied thoughts that were zipping around in my head, but I couldn’t. I felt like a needy little girl at the thought of my parents separating, and as I struggled to think of the right thing to say, I decided I was entitled to ask questions. This was my family too, after all.

  “You’re going to live with Aunt Liza? But you hate her! Are you going to work? How are you going to make money? What does Dad think? Did you tell him you were leaving?”

  “Yes, of course your father knows. It’s been coming for quite some time, you know. I just didn’t have the courage to go before now. And money isn’t an issue; your father and I will split everything equally. You don’t need to worry about me, dear. I’m happier than I’ve been in years!”

  “What about the house? Dad will stay there while you’re gone, right?”

  “Um, not exactly,” she answered hesitantly. “We put it on the market last week.”

  “Where’s Dad going to live?” The thought of losing the house I'd grown up in made me feel frantic. I'd already lost so much this year, I couldn't lose my home and my family too.

  “He’ll be moving in with Joan,” she said in a dry tone.

  “Who the hell is Joan?”

  “Joan is . . . well, she’s Dad’s friend.”

  “Friend? Mom, I’m not five years old anymore. You can tell me. Is Dad already dating someone else?”

  She paused and took a deep breath. “Your dad has been seeing her for quite some time now.”

  “And you knew?”

  “Of course I knew, Charlotte. A woman always knows.”

  “But I didn’t know that Jeff was cheating on me. I had no idea.”

  “Well, I’ve been with your father for over thirty years now, and I just knew. What made me finally realize that it was time for me to leave though was when I read your blog. You gave me the strength to do this, Charlotte. You're such an inspiration.”

  “What? My blog? How did you even know I was writing a blog?”

  “You sent it to me in a mass email with your friends. Don't you remember, dear?”

  I plopped my forehead into my hands. I must've added her to the email by accident. I never wanted my mom to see those posts.

  “You're taking my advice?” I asked.

  “Of course, dear. Why not? You're absolutely right. It's time to throw love out the window and get in the game!”

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “But mom, I'm twenty-five. You're fifty-five. That advice isn't meant for parents! You can't use that as a reason to break up our family.”

  “Charlotte,” my mom's voice came stern over the line. “I am not the one who has broken up this family. Our marriage has been broken for years now. Don't you remember what happened when you were a teenager?”

  I closed my eyes, the memories I'd stifled for so long threatening to burst to the surface. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop them.

  My mom had been out of town visiting her best friend, and I'd come home sick from school one day only to find my father climbing into his car with a tall blond woman, kissing her on the lips, then driving away with her.

  With the secret of my father's infidelity ripping away at my insides, I'd confessed what I'd seen to my mom the next week. After an entire month of knock-em-down screaming fights in our house, and me fearing that my little family would forever be torn apart, Dad finally realized what he needed to do. He sent Mom flowers every day for a month, cooked her dinner, took her to the theater, wrote her love letters. He even flew her to Italy for their anniversary. But after about a year, the grand gestures died down and life returned to normal.

  Except it wasn't normal. It was never the same again. All of the flowers, the dinners, the letters, even the trip, couldn't earn Mom's trust back again. She never looked at Dad with that adoring gaze she'd had before. Dad stopped kissing Mom before he left the house every morning. And once I left for college, they even stopped sleeping in the same bedroom.

  I guess I was naïve to ever have thought a marriage could sustain like that. But their thirty-plus years together had made me believe that they would never separate. That I would always have my quaint little home in Ohio to return to. That even though their love hadn't survived the test of time and infidelity, the appearance of my family would always be there.

  All the while, I was never able to erase the thought that it was all my fault. If only I would've kept my mouth shut, my mom's heart never would've been broken. My family would've stayed intact.

  And now, to find out it was my blog that had spurred my mother to leave. What a disaster.

  “Charlotte?” my mom said, calling me back to the present.

  “Yes, mom. Of course I remember what happened. I should've never told you what I saw that day. Maybe things would be different now.”

  “That's nonsense. None of this is your fault. You did the right thing. But now, I've realized that I want your dad to just go and be with Joan. If she makes him happy, then so be it. The point is that we don’t make each other happy anymore, and we haven’t for years. You know that.”

  “I know. But what about you? You’re going to Florida and then what?”

  “Well, Aunt Liza has a few people she’s going to introduce me to down there, and I’m going to start a whole new life. An exciting one! There’s no time to waste!”

  “Well, I . . . I’m happy for you then,” I said, trying to sound supportive even though I was totally lying. I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going home for Christmas. The thought of visiting my mom at crazy Aunt Liza’s house or going to Ohio to see my dad and his new girlfriend made me feel sick to my stomach. Neither option involved going to my house, having Christmas Eve dinner with my parents, or drinking hot chocolate and opening presents on Christmas morning like we had done every year since I was born. Instead, I’d be spending Christmas with weird people I barely knew, so it wasn’t an option at this point. My mom was disappointed, but too bad, I was disappointed too. This whole situation just confirmed my feelings about marriage.

  As an institution, it was a total disaster.

  Not wanting to hear another word, I hastily got off the phone. I tore the giant rock off of my finger and buried it back in the depths of my jewelry box. As I kicked around at the empty wine bottles littered all over my floor, I knew I had to get out of there. If I stayed in my room another minute, my life was certain to take the plunge from depressing to hopeless. Plus, even though I’d been buying cheap wine, I’d bought a lot of it and I’d managed to deplete a nice portion of my bank account. So, I dialed Marc’s number, told him my flu was gone, and he agreed to meet me at a café across the street in fifteen minutes for a lesson. It was time to work on divorce vocabulary.

  Marc was sipping a cup of espresso at a tiny table in the back corner of the café when I arrived.

  “Hey, Marc” I said, taking a seat across from him.

  “Hi Charlotte, how’s it going?” he said as he chuckled to himself. During our first lesson, I had instr
ucted him to use phrases like “How’s it going?” and “What’s up?” instead of always saying “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” I lied. “How about you?”

  “Pretty good. I . . . I just have a question for you though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Were you really sick for the past three weeks?”

  Shit.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I know I told you I wasn’t going to get in the middle of things with you and my mother, but after you and I worked everything out last time and had our lesson, I had a really great time. Even though I was offended by the way you described her, I thought about it, and I can see now how she could seem kind of mean to someone who doesn’t know her like I do.”

  Kind of mean?

  I cringed on the inside as Marc continued.

  “I think you’re an excellent English teacher, so I thought that if I told my mom about working with you, she might be a little nicer and actually help you get your teaching position. After all, I know she is very picky about who she recommends.”

  “So how did it go when you told her you knew me?”

  Marc stirred a sugar cube into his espresso and for the first time in our conversation, avoided my gaze.

  “Not so good,” he finally answered.

  I buried my head in my hands. This was the last thing I needed right now.

  “She said you have not been attending your classes this month, and so I told her you were ill. She did not believe me though, so that is why I asked you.”

  I considered telling Marc the truth because I just didn’t have the energy to lie anymore, but what if he told his mom? I’d be more screwed than I already was. And, in a sense, I did have an illness of sorts—an emotional one. And that was exactly the kind that Madame Rousseau would never understand.

  “I haven’t been to class because I’ve been really sick,” I snapped.

  Marc’s expression darkened. “I see. Then I am sorry if I put you in a worse position. I tried my best to tell her to give you a second chance, but she was still very angry.”

  I immediately felt bad for snapping at Marc. Here he was going up against his monster of a mother to help me out after I’d completely trashed her during our first lesson. What guy would do that?

  I softened my voice. “No, Marc, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for saying all of those horrible things last time. I can’t even believe you still want to work with me. And I’m sorry for disappearing these past few weeks. I’m going to be more available to work with you from now on, and I’ll try to do better in school so hopefully your mom will form a better opinion of me on her own. It’s not your job to fix it for me, but I really appreciate you trying, after everything.”

  Exasperated, I let out a long sigh. My life was in shambles. I stared out the window at the Parisians all bundled up in their long coats and scarves. I wondered what it would be like to jump into another person’s skin, to be someone else for the day. My mom always used to tell me that I would never trade my problems for someone else’s, but I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  I wasn’t sure if I could get through any of this. My parents’ divorce. Losing Jeff to another woman. Facing them at the wedding in the spring. Finishing my semester in Paris. Even having this lesson with Marc. It was all too much.

  “Are you okay?” Marc asked.

  Something about the concern in his eyes made me just spit it out. “My parents are getting a divorce.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry. Did you just hear?”

  “Yeah, I talked to my mom about an hour ago. She’s leaving my dad and moving to Florida for a little while, and my dad is moving in with his girlfriend.” I shook my head in disgust. “It’s just so weird, you know?”

  “Yes, I know. My parents are also divorced.”

  I thought of Madame Rousseau and instantly understood. How could anyone have stayed married to her?

  “They got divorced two years ago. It was really difficult,” he continued. “I completely understand how you feel.”

  A wave of sadness swept over me as I realized that this was real. That I was never going to have holidays or even simple weekends at home with both of my parents in the same room. A knot caught in my throat as I stared down at the table in silence. Marc reached over and gently placed his hand on my shoulder.

  “I know it is difficult, but you have to let them live their lives and you have to live your life here in Paris. They will be okay, and you must take care of yourself.”

  I glanced up and managed a smile. Marc was so sweet. How could he be so nice to me after I’d started off our relationship by being so offensive?

  “Let’s go into the city and have a drink,” he said as he squeezed my shoulder. “You need to forget about all of this mess and have fun.” I noticed then that Marc must’ve been working on perfecting his “th” sound during our three-week break.

  “Really, you’re not busy tonight?” I asked him.

  “No, I was going to study, but I can do that tomorrow. It’s a yes?”

  A drink, or maybe ten, sounded wonderful right about now. “That sounds great, let’s go.”

  Marc paid for his coffee, and we headed down the chilly, student-filled boulevard Jourdan toward the RER station.

  “Charlotte!”

  I turned around to find Luc walking right behind us and smiling his huge grin. But when Luc met eyes with Marc, his smile faded.

  “Hey, Luc. Haven’t seen you around in a while.” I wondered if he could detect the sarcasm in my voice.

  “I know, I am sorry. I have been out of town for the month. I had to see family and take care of some things. I knocked on your door yesterday, but you did not answer.”

  So, that’s why I hadn’t seen him around—if he was even telling the truth. I thought he was just avoiding me after the run-in with Frédéric. Not that I would’ve wanted to see him anyway in my pathetic state.

  Luc glanced over at Marc and then back at me, until I realized that I should probably introduce them. “Luc, this is Marc, my English student. And Marc, this is my friend Luc. He lives in my building.”

  The tension in Luc’s face faded, and he reached out to shake Marc’s hand.

  “You are walking to the RER?” Luc asked us.

  “Yeah, where are you headed?”

  “I am going to take a drink with Benoît. Do you want to join me?” he aimed the question at me and didn’t seem to be including Marc in the invitation.

  “Well, Marc and I were in the middle of our lesson and were going to go grab a drink in the city while we continued, so . . . I’m not really sure,” I replied, looking to Marc to see if he would be opposed to the idea.

  “Oh,” Luc said as his shoulders hunched just the slightest bit. “The two of you can come, that is no problem. And we will speak English for the whole night. No?”

  Not sure what to do, a “yes” popped out of my mouth, and the three of us were off. We piled onto the RER together, which thankfully was becoming more pleasant to ride as the weather cooled down. Luc and Marc made awkward small talk, which made me feel even more uncomfortable, so I pulled out my phone and sent Lexi and Fiona a desperate text message:

  On way to Rhubarb with Luc, Marc and Benoît. Awkward! Please come!

  As Marc, Luc and I climbed the stairs at the Luxembourg stop, we emerged to a moonlit Latin Quarter where groups of friends, every age, strolled down the narrow sidewalks, skimming over the fallen leaves in their euro sneakers and walking with an extra skip in their step as the night air chilled around them.

  As I wrapped my thin red jacket tighter around my waist, I noticed all of the hardcore Parisians sitting outdoors at the cafés, not fazed in the slightest by the sudden drop in temperature. And each time we passed by a group of hormonally-charged French guys, bopping around in their skin-tight jeans and white Reebok high-tops, they didn’t toss any of their immature remarks my way.

  I would have to bring Marc and Luc into the city with me more often.

  The girls show
ed up at Rhubarb, a hole-in-the-wall bar in the 5th arrondissement, no more than ten minutes after Luc, Marc and I had arrived to meet Benoît. Lexi strutted in and planted a big one on Benoît right in front of everyone. I had thought that Lexi wasn’t all that into him since she hooked up with tons of other guys every time we went out, but she attached herself to him the minute she got there. Fiona made a more modest entrance and, after greeting all of the guys, came over to chat with me.

  “I’m so glad you invited me out. Is everything okay? I haven’t heard from you in a few weeks, and I haven’t seen you in class.”

  “I’m really sorry. I’ve just been having a hard time lately.” I filled Fiona in on the wedding, my new-found drinking habit and my parents’ divorce.

  “I’m so sorry you’re going through all of that. Next time, you can call me though. You don’t have to hide in your room, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. That was really shitty of me.”

  “It’s okay. I do understand—I didn’t leave my flat for practically six months after Andrew left me. At least call me next time so I know you’re alive, okay?”

  “I promise I will.”

  “Speaking of Andrew, he called me today and tried to stir things up again, so I needed to get out and get my mind off of him.”

  Underneath the dim lights of the bar, I noticed then that Fiona’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy like she’d been crying.

  “Does he want to get back together?”

  “No . . . yes . . . I don’t know. He’s still with that other girl, but he told me he misses me.” She shook her head and dropped her eyes to the floor. “I’m so confused.”

  After having the divorce talk with my mom earlier, I was even more convinced that all relationships were doomed to fail. “Don’t fall for it, Fiona. Your life is here now, and he’s still with that other girl. You need to have a few drinks and forget about that bastard.”

  Fiona laughed. She always giggled like a little girl whenever I called guys rotten names. “So, who’s Marc?” she asked as she gave him the once over.