by Bebe Wilde
Nevertheless, I would watch the French men and the French women coupling and eventually began to fantasize about that happening between me and a handsome man. My mind would hope for something like that to come along, though it did scare me a little, to be that open, that vulnerable. However, you can hope for something, you can wish, but if it’s not meant to be yours, it won’t ever come your way. And there’s nothing you can do about it. I figured I was just going to be a spectator here and I would enjoy doing that. I was still hurt over my failed marriage and sometimes I just wished it would go away—the pain of loving someone and the pain of watching them leave your life, even though I had helped him walk out the door due to my commitment issues. But right then, I did long for a real man, someone who might suit me better. Someone I wouldn’t want to push away.
The love I’d had was comfortable and nice. It was also monotonous. You get to know someone too well and you become too familiar with each other to ask for what you want. Sometimes you just get tired of pretending, of fantasizing; you want to play for real. Just because you do. You don’t have to explain everything. Not even to yourself. Why waste time on angst? That’s what the couples in the park taught me. Sometimes, you just want to sit on a nice wool blanket and kiss the afternoon away. Being in love had made me forget about all the bad stuff, just as the couples were doing as they kissed. I wanted that back.
Maybe I was too uptight, too wound up. Maybe that would change someday but right then, I was fine with being like that. We are creatures of habit. From my experiences with the bicycle, I was learning that breaking habits came quite naturally to me. I was ready to kiss the sky and say goodbye to all that, to that former self that had held me back and held me down. I was just waiting on the right time and the right man. Luckily for me, neither made me wait very long.
Come Love Me Now
He was rich and he was bored. His name was François. I met him one day at a café while I had a croissant and a coffee.
I’d been reading an American newspaper and wondering what I could do with the rest of the day before I had to get back to the apartment. James wanted to invite some of his new work friends over and he wanted me there to meet them. The apartment also needed to be picked up and cleaned and then I had to do the shopping and then prepare the meal. Several years ago, I’d been a line cook in a really nice restaurant in Atlanta so I could whip something up in no time. But what would his French friends like? Would they respond to fried green tomatoes? I didn’t think so, but you never know.
“Some of them are really good looking,” he said. “I can’t wait for you to meet them.”
So, I had agreed. Now I was at a loss as to what to prepare.
“Bon jour.”
I had been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed when he’d approached me. And I was just about to take a sip of coffee when I heard his voice, which slightly startled me and made my hand shake, almost spilling the coffee. I set the cup down and looked up to see a tall man with a handsome face staring at me. I said, “Bonjour.”
He began to speak French, speaking so fast I had a hard time picking up on any of the words. Normally, I could understand bits and pieces of sentences but with him I was at a loss.
I held my hand up. “I’m sorry. I don’t speak French.”
“Oh, American?” he said with his thick French accent, seemingly surprised.
“Yes,” I said.
“Your face,” he said and touched his face. “Very French looking.”
I nodded. I was somewhat French looking. This had even happened to me in America, French people assuming I was also French. He wasn’t the first person to come up to me and start speaking French. Just the other day, I’d had a mother and daughter, who were obviously from somewhere out in the boondocks, ask me directions to somewhere on the Metro. I had to explain to them as well that I was an American. They became angry because they didn’t believe me and thought I was just making fun of them. People can be so weird.
“Oh,” I said and nodded.
“Mind if I sit with you?” he asked. “All the other seats are taken.”
I looked around at the crowded café and nodded. “Sure.”
He smiled, sat down and lit a cigarette, then offered one to me. “Smoke?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks, I just had one.” Unfortunately, I’d started back once I arrived in Paris. A lot of people smoked. I promised myself that I’d quit again soon.
He nodded and smiled a little. The waiter came up and he ordered, again in French, then the turned to me. “How long are you in Paris?”
“For about a year,” I said.
“Oh, with your husband?” he asked and took a drag from the cigarette.
“No,” I said. “With a friend. I’m not married. Anymore.”
“Me either,” he said, smiling. “Do you like the city?”
I nodded. “Very much so.”
“Good, good,” he said, then took the cup of coffee from the waiter, sipped it, sat it on the table and puffed on his cigarette. “What do you like best here?”
“Oh, I guess the museums,” I said. “They’re absolutely phenomenal. I got lost in the Louvre.”
“Nice but too crowded,” he said. “I like the Musée National d’Art Moderne. They have Matisse, Picasso, of course, Duchamp…”
He said it like a question, as if he didn’t know if I’d ever heard of such artists. I nodded dumbly.
“I can take you sometime, give you a tour,” he said. “You’d like it.”
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“A beautiful woman never bothers a man,” he said.
Beautiful woman? I almost blushed. Almost. I knew was pretty, but beautiful? It was nice to hear but my insecurity would never allow me to believe it. I did get looks from men and I knew I looked good. My hair was light brown and I usually pulled it into a high ponytail, which made me look younger than I was. My skin was slightly freckled, but not too much, and clear thanks to the simple beauty routine I’d started when I was younger. And I was never without my red lipstick, which made my full lips appear even fuller.
“What is your name?” he asked, cutting into my rambling thoughts.
“Nina,” I said. “Yours?”
“François,” he said and held out his hand. “Very nice to meet you.”
I shook his hand and felt very nervous.
“Want to come?” he asked and took another drag of the cigarette. “I can take you today.”
“Oh, no,” I said and pointed at my bike. “I have to get back home soon. We’re having a party tonight.”
“But I thought you said you weren’t married,” he said.
“I’m not,” I said quickly. “It’s for my roommate, James.” I stared at him. He was confused. “He’s not my boyfriend or anything. He’s gay. We’re just… I don’t how to explain it. He’s working and I’m just visiting. He didn’t want to come alone. I agreed to come with him, you know, to keep him company and stuff.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” he said, nodding and putting his cigarette out. “I have a car, over there. We can drive.”
He was being very pushy. I didn’t like it. I glanced over at his car, a sleek black Mercedes sedan. Nice. But, no.
“Really, that’s fine,” I said. “I have to go.”
He watched me stand up and nervously sort through my wallet for money to pay the tab. When I tried to set it down, he grabbed my hand and said, “I’ll get it.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
“I insist.”
I stared at him and nodded. “Thanks.”
“Merci,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Merci is what we say instead of ‘thanks,’” he said, smiling. “So you say ‘merci’ in Paris. In French.”
I knew that already. But the way he said it, the way it rolled off his tongue, gave me pause. It was like he was saying thank you to something else entir
ely.
“Oh, okay,” I said, shaking myself slightly. “Then, merci.”
“You’re very welcome,” he replied.
I nodded and started off, then felt bad. He wasn’t a creep and I didn’t have to jump up and run away like some backwoods idiot. I turned back around and said, “Would you like to walk to the museum with me?”
He grinned. And he grinned because he knew he had me. He jumped up and said, “Très bien. I would like that very much.”
* * * * *
François knew a lot about art and he knew how to make me feel comfortable. As we strolled the halls of the museum, I began to relax and wonder why I’d been so nervous before. So afraid.
That was the real problem, my cowardice. I was afraid to do anything outside my comfort level. This was because I didn’t want to get hurt. I was afraid of giving myself over completely, to anything. François, however, didn’t have this problem. He was not afraid to fully engage. He wasn’t afraid to get overly involved.
“If you stop looking for reasoning, for a reason why the artist did what they did,” he said and waved his hand at a Braque. “Then you can see it as just what the artist intended it to be. There is no reason to art. It’s just art. Putting meaning into it is a waste of time. Americans always do that, instead of just enjoying the work.”
My face flushed. I looked away from him quickly, then started walking quickly, wanting to get away from him. I hated the way everyone always had to make fun of Americans. It was just so typical. I got that a lot in Paris. It made me feel unwelcome and unwanted. I was sick of it, too.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, catching up with me.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Sorry, did I do something?” he asked and then started yammering away in French. I shook my head at him and he said, “Oh, I get it. You’re American. I see.”
You’re American. I see. I saw, too. That didn’t set well with me. I refrained from smacking the side of his smug face. Instead, I turned on my heel and made my way out.
He ran up behind me and grabbed my arm, stopping me. “I apologize, Nina.”
I jerked my arm away and said, “You know what pisses me off? Everyone in the world wants Americans to respect their cultures but no one respects Americans.”
He sighed heavily as if trying to understand me, then said, “That’s not true.”
“It’s is,” I replied. “And it’s so hypocritical. America is a great place and we’ve done great things but everyone feels they have to criticize or make some sort of condescending comment about everything. Why?”
“No one is condescending,” he said.
He was right. I was just feeling out of my element again. It was him making me feel this way. He was just so smug. Did he really think I cared what he thought? Well, I didn’t. I didn’t even know him.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize that comment would upset you.”
“Well, it did,” I hissed and turned on my heel and headed out the door. Once I got outside, I looked up and down the street. Which way was the apartment? I always got so confused. But I didn’t want to go to the apartment; I wanted to go home, to Atlanta. I wanted to go home so bad I ached. It wasn’t lost on me that as soon as I started getting comfortable in Paris, something happened to screw it up. Maybe it was just my overwhelming insecurity.
I turned in the direction I thought was the right one and started to run. I felt like such a fool but couldn’t help myself. I ran, then tripped and fell right on my face. I let out a cry and suddenly he was there, bent down, examining my face with concern.
“I’ll take you home,” he said, staring into my eyes. “And I’ll help you.”
“No,” I said. “No, I—”
He ignored me and snapped his fingers and a man dressed in a black suit came up and helped him help me into his car, the black Mercedes I’d noticed earlier. What the hell? Then I realized someone else had driven his car to the museum. And it was this man, who just happened to be dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform. Well, that made sense. François had a chauffeur. Not only was he handsome, he was unbelievably rich and knowing this made me feel like some stupid country bumpkin, though I was from one of the largest cities in America. I almost wanted to cry. I couldn’t win. I could never, ever win. Why didn’t I just give up and go home already?
“My bicycle,” I said out of nowhere, almost panicking at the thought of leaving it. Why I was so concerned at that moment for it would be anyone’s guess.
“I’ll send Pierre back for it,” he said.
So, that was the chauffer’s name. After we were in the car, Pierre took the wheel and we were pulling away before I could blink. I almost panicked but then the side of my face throbbed. Ouch. It hurt.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when the car drove out of the city limits and into the country then pulled up to a Château just outside Paris. It was breathtaking and so French. It looked a little rundown, as if he hadn’t bothered to keep it up. It was beautiful but it looked like was on its way down if someone didn’t interfere. Yet, it was slightly decadent, something one might see in an old movie with subtitles.
He didn’t seem to mind or even notice the way it looked, the slight decay. He just lived there, I could tell. It was just a house to him. To me, a foreigner, it was symbolic of all things French.
Inside looked about like the outside. The plaster on the ceiling was cracking and the once lovely wood floors were dull. The French provincial furniture was old and scratched and a little worn. Inside the huge living area was a small flat screen TV which looked totally out of place with the atmosphere and furniture and was much too small for the room. This made sense, though, because he didn’t seem like a guy who watched a lot of TV. François excused himself and left me to marvel at the space.
“Are you rich?” I asked when he returned.
“My father was,” he said, smiling. “But he never gave me anything but knowledge. Instead, I learned the business and made my own money. Now my father and I don’t speak.”
I stared at him.
“It might have something to do with my stepmother,” he said and pressed an ice pack to my face. “But what does it matter?”
I guess it didn’t. I looked around the room again, still not over the grandeur of the place. François watched me, noticing my awe.
“I inherited this from my grandfather,” he said, waving his hand around the room.
Must be nice… My roots were firmly planted in a working class background. His, obviously, were planted somewhere else. We were so different. So, what was I doing here? I didn’t know but I couldn’t think of a reason to leave.
“Why did you divorce your husband?” he asked suddenly.
Did he just ask that? That made me a little uncomfortable, so I ignored him and looked away. I held the ice pack to my face, then went to a mirror to check myself. Phew! I had an ugly red scrape and a big bruise. How I’d fallen on my face like that was beyond me.
“Umm?” he asked
“Why did you divorce your wife?” I asked, turning around.
“Couldn’t get along with her,” he said. “She was little, how do you say… Hot-headed? A bit like you.”
I wanted to smack him.
“So what happened to your husband?” he asked.
“Why are you so interested?” I shot back. If there’s one thing that annoyed me was people who pried. I hated that.
“Did you cheat?” he asked, not letting it go.
“It’s none of your business,” I said. “But no, he cheated.” However, I didn’t confess, I pretty much wanted him to. I didn’t say that I drove him away so that I could cheat, even though I never did. But I had wanted to. I wanted to feel the touch of another man, yet I never allowed myself that sort of freedom. I honored my vows not because of loyalty but because of default.
“Men are like that,” he said, nodding, almost smiling.
“Is that what you did?”
He shrugged. “I had lovers when I was married but I don’t count them as cheating.”
“They didn’t count?”
“No,” he said. “They were just…flings. They meant nothing to me. My ex-wife, nonetheless, did cheat. She had a real lover, someone she loved very much. Which was fine. I no longer loved her.”
“Why not?”
“I realized that she wasn’t my type,” he said.
His type? So that was the problem? Had that been my problem, my ex just wasn’t my type? Did I have a type? I didn’t know, but he was striking a cord, like he knew all about me and where I wanted to go. He was also insinuating that he could take me there. But I didn’t know if I could handle going, so I turned on him, pushing him away and putting him in his place. It was a bitch thing to do but the thought of letting anyone close to me, even though I craved it, scared the hell out of me.
“You know something, François?” I said. “You’re an asshole.”
“Is that the name for it?” he asked. “I always wondered.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Why don’t you like me, Nina?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I just don’t.”
“You will someday,” he said.
“No, I won’t.”
He nodded. “Yes, you will. You will like me very much. We will be lovers.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you know they say that French men are the best lovers in the world?” he asked.
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked. “Other French men?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Good one. But no, women say it. And they’re right.”
“I’d never let you touch me,” I said and put the ice pack down.
“Oh, yes, you will.”
