“We are now ready for the Basic Cuisine photograph. All the girls please sit in the front row and all the tall people in the back.”
“Hmm, what to do, what to do,” joked Becky and got up and positioned herself in the back at the center. I sat on the sidelines next to Bassie. Since I was wearing black chef shoes, they asked me to sit in the center to harmonize with the black-and-white shoe pattern they were striving to achieve in the photograph.
Sélange thanked us for our cooperation and we were dismissed early so we could rest and then go to the pub later and get to know our classmates.
“Why don’t we go to a pub now?” suggested Rick. In seconds there was group agreement and all the American students ended up at C’est Ma Vie. Janeira tagged along to complain about the chefs or anything that reminded her of her French ex-husbands. Rick translated for us, and Jérôme recommended a red wine from Bordeaux and gave us a two-minute history of the wine.
As we commiserated about our first week in cooking boot camp and compared knife and burn wounds, everyone took turns confessing, as only Americans can, why they were spending so much money to learn French cuisine.
“I made a lot of money, but I was miserable, so I quit,” said Francis, the lady originally from Hong Kong. “This is my reward for putting up with assholes for many years. I guess I’m in transition.” Everyone had their individual stories, but they were all the same story. Everyone had graduated from college or business school or law school and wanted to do something fun and pleasurable before they sold their soul to corporate America or to a law firm. The single guys were interested in earning points with dates by being able to slip in the fact that they’d studied cuisine at Le Coq Rouge. One named Roger was actually there to be a head chef. He had come from Boston and was determined to be a chef. He was not satisfied being a short-order cook at a diner.
I considered going home after two glasses of wine, but realized that by the time I got home I would have thirty minutes to rest before I had to get up and go to the pub. I decided to hang out around the Fifteenth and look for a cheap restaurant. Nothing is cheap in Paris except the baguettes, so I treated myself to a nice meal. I ordered a chicken with sauce suprême, and I smiled to myself, knowing that I could actually make that sauce, if I wanted to.
I took several metros to get to St.-Michel and walked around looking for the English pub. Although it was freezing and it threatened to snow, people were out wearing their designer coats and scarves. I was forced to buy a scarf and mittens to function in that weather. I was never this stylish back in L.A. It’s so hard to look BCBG—bon chic, bon genre, so cool—in hot places.
The pub was hidden away in an alley. A couple French-kissed —or should I say kissed, since they were French—under a streetlight, and watching them got me horny. I hate it when that happens. Especially when I enter a bar. I swear men can smell it on a woman, so I tried not to be too obvious. I entered and I was one of the few Le Coq Rouge students already there. There was a group of female pastry students in the back room comparing the horrors of yeast; they sounded like they were in a gynecologist’s reception room, anxiously waiting for their friends.
I smiled at them and killed time by making conversation with a woman from Portugal. She was an American who had come to Paris to study French and ended up falling in love with a Portuguese man and moving there. This was a very common story. It seemed Paris was the place single women came to find love or have a midlife or quarter-life crisis. I was not original calling off my wedding and coming here alone to find myself, but I was unique in one way: I wasn’t looking for love. Maybe I would be like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina and return from Paris all “ladylike” and unrecognizable. Maybe Paris was a finishing school for wild women like me.
Bassie walked in with a Band-Aid on her forehead. She had tripped and fallen at home and almost set her apartment on fire, but she was happy to socialize with her peers. She kept talking about her dysfunctional relationship and how many boyfriends just didn’t understand her. I was listening sympathetically when I noticed Henry out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to him and we shared a glance, which then turned into a long stare. I wanted to look away and hide from any male attention, but because I was almost drunk I just stared right back and, using my feminine superpowers, hooked him like a savage swordfish. Henry, a couple of drinks already in him too, approached me. “You look so beautiful with your hair down. It’s always in a bun, hun,” he said, and I could tell he was fishing for a way into my panties. Normally when a guy came up to me with a line that came from horny desperation, I would give him one cold look to freeze his action, but the nights in Paris had been cold and lonely, and if it snowed that night I wanted the extra heat.
“You look sexy out of your translator’s uniform,” I whispered in his ear.
“You look very nice without yours on… I bet you look beautiful with nothing on.”
“I do,” I said and walked away to another part of the pub, hoping he would follow like a little puppy. He did. We went to the end of the bar and I asked for a margarita; dumb place to ask for a margarita, but the little scenario about to unfold required tequila.
As the night went on, all the students in my group slowly said their good-byes. Around closing time Henry and I were some of the last people there. I debated whether I should take him home or go home with him. We walked out of the pub and he kissed me under the same streetlight where the other couple had kissed. I kissed him back and we smelled like drunks.
The taxi dropped us off at Henry’s building on rue du Seine, a street full of galleries. Since there was no elevator, Henry helped me up the stairs by carrying my breasts. We kissed on the staircase and disrobed each other. He was so white he glowed in the dark. I followed this ghost of a man and pretended he was whipped cream when I buried my face in his hairless chest.
“You are so… so…” I was about to say “white” when he interrupted me.
“Don’t believe all the rumors about me… Okay, they’re all true, but you haven’t heard my side of the story.” I didn’t know how to respond to that, but I followed him into his tiny apartment. I could smell all the women who had been there before me, but I got closer to his mouth and his beer breath silenced all my inquiries about him. I told myself, don’t try to psychoanalyze them, just fuck them.
We gave each other sloppy kisses until he pushed me onto his bed and I felt the toughness of his hard mattress.
“Oh, I love your round face. You’ve got amazing luscious lips.” He showered me with compliments like only a drunk, horny man could.
He licked my nipples and I began to giggle. Never giggle when a man is making love to you, I told myself. It really makes them self-conscious. He was too drunk to care about my giggling. He giggled with me and we went under the covers. I wanted him to turn on the heater, but I figured things would be getting hot enough soon. I took his penis in my mouth. My fingers smelled like onions and garlic. That smell was so hard to get rid of with just soap and water. I held my breath and took him in all the way. My coordination was off and I took him in too far. So far I had to gag.
I ran from the bed and vomited into his kitchen sink. I was sure he’d be so disgusted by this, he would not want to continue.
“Hurry back, love!” he shouted.
I rinsed out my mouth with tap water. It tasted dirty, so I opened his refrigerator and looked for bottled water. Searching for a napkin, I opened all his drawers. In one drawer there were many small silver cans with no labels. I finally found a roll of paper towels on the floor.
I drank from the water bottle and brought it back with me to the bed. I continued with the fellatio and he purred when my cold mouth touched his penis. He begged me to do it again. I drank more cold water each time I licked him and he would let out a moan. I drank some more water and I spat the water at his chest. He moaned harder. I finally just threw the whole bottle of water on him. He grabbed me and poured the remaining water on me. It was so cold it instantly made my nipples and c
litoris hard. We wrestled for the bottle and flapped like fish out of water on the wet bed. We continued wrestling and fell off the bed. He kissed me, but my buzz was wearing off and his breath was stinky. I slipped away from him and ran to the refrigerator to get ice. I put an ice cube in my mouth and we kissed. He grabbed some ice and slid it down my body to my vaginal lips. I moaned. He put an ice cube inside me and I yelled and moaned. He licked the ice wedged in my vagina. I melted and came all over his face. He pushed me onto the bed again and shoved the tiny melting ice inside my vagina with his penis. Each time he humped me I could feel the ice getting smaller and smaller, until it became water. Minutes later he fell over to the side. After we caught our breath he grabbed my hand and we decided to make the carpet our bed. He pulled a throw blanket from his sofa and covered our naked bodies with it.
“With American women you have to beg them to show you their titties or to do anything… But you’re different. You don’t tease or play stupid; you just get to the meat of things.” We both laughed.
“I didn’t know Englishmen could be so nasty and rough,” I confessed. “I always saw you guys as so polite and with no penis.”
“May I fuck you again, please,” he said in an overly exaggerated, polite British accent, making fun of me.
“You may, mate,” I said, imitating him.
An alarm went off and I saw my naked butt by Henry’s hand. He slapped it and told me we had to go.
“Aren’t you in Group B?” he asked me.
“Ah… Yes… I think so… ,” I answered, trying to hide my morning breath.
“You have a demonstration in forty-five minutes,” he said in a serious tone.
“Oh, I can’t go, I’m so tired. I probably can’t make it,” I whined.
“Yeah, you can. If I can make it, you can make it. I’m supposed to be the translator for that class. Come on, mate, get up.” Henry said, pulling me up from the carpet. He threw me my dress and I got my clothes on in a second. Thank God for polyester dresses that don’t wrinkle. I was freezing as I tried to get my coat on, and I wondered if the ice inside me had completely melted or had turned into a Popsicle.
“Do you have your knickers on?” asked Henry. I looked down and realized I had forgotten my panties. He threw them at me and I slipped them on over my tights.
We jumped on the metro, then off, and I followed him. As we approached the school he told me to cross the street so we wouldn’t be seen coming in together and have people make the connection. I wanted to ask him why, but figured either the administration had warned him not to mess with the students or maybe he was messing around with too many female students and he didn’t want to make them jealous. Whatever the reason, it was none of my business; I didn’t care. This was just a one-time-thing fling.
I changed quickly in the locker room, then ran into the demonstration room, arranged my tie, and sat in the front row. Henry passed a hand through his hair, combing it down. He called names on the roster and I said, “Oui,” looking down, so as not to make eye contact. Ten minutes into the demonstration my mind began to wander. Chef Chocon was carving and boiling artichokes that would soon contain hollandaise sauce, like tiny saucers. Being hungover and about to catch a cold made it impossible to concentrate. I felt like a sundae melting in the sun.
“Is everyone sleeping all right?” the chef called loudly in French to wake me up. I did everything I could to write the steps down, but I couldn’t keep up. I just wanted to survive the class. I felt bad for Henry, who not only had to translate but put up with Chef Chocon’s mediocre jokes.
Before practical I drank a caffè latte from the vending machine. It woke me up and I told myself I would just have to follow Francis or Ale, but an hour of trying to follow Ale and Francis just got me lost. I looked at the recipe for hollandaise sauce and didn’t remember the demonstration. I figured that I would just mix in all the ingredients and it would magically turn into hollandaise sauce. I poured the water into the eggs and Chef Papillon, a giant of a man who looked like Popeye, stopped right in front of me and asked in French, “Were you paying attention in class?” I wanted to tell him “NO! I want to go home” and cry in his arms like a baby, but I just stayed quiet. He mumbled things in French. At least I didn’t hear him call me an “idiot.”
He commanded me to follow him and said, in his limited English, “Look me,” and pointed to his eye. I watched closely as he set up a bain-marie, a metal bowl over boiling water, to whip my eggs over it. He told me to whip for six minutes nonstop, then to add the melted butter slowly. Then, finally, salt and pepper and cayenne.
“God, this is like jacking off a guy,” complained Becky as she took a little break from whipping her eggs. “Why don’t they just let us use a blender? They come out just as good.”
Despite my horrible experience with hollandaise sauce, I managed to finish second. Chef Papillon gave me a good note for my filet mignon and boiled artichokes and then gave me a hug. I was embarrassed by the attention, but maybe he felt bad about losing his temper with me.
Thankfully, the next morning was Sunday, our day off, because I couldn’t wake up. I felt so tired I just wanted to sleep and rest. I wasn’t looking forward to school the next day; I was tired of screwing up recipes and feeling like a loser. If this was only the first week, how was I going to make it to the end?
CHAPTER 8
Pardon My French
I tried not to look at Henry. When no one was watching he would slip me a dirty look—an invitation to his apartment for another night of wine and roses… or at least wine.
The admissions counselor walked in and dropped a letter in front of me. I quickly opened it and could make out an appointment for my carte de séjour. I had to bring a lot of documents, including proof that I had enough money to stay in Paris for a year. My appointment was tomorrow morning, and I could not miss it.
I got up very early the next day and presented myself at the police precinct. I approached the African-French receptionist and told her I was there for my appointment. She didn’t know a word of English and had no patience for my lame attempt at forming a sentence in French. She pointed to a chair and ordered me to wait for my name to be called. I sat there looking at the many foreigners, all equally mistreated by the receptionist.
As I waited, my mind wandered off to the time when I had to wait many hours in line just to get an appointment to come back another day. Thousands of Latino immigrants waiting like cattle to be allowed into Plaza del Sol Immigration Center for a chance at the American dream. When I finally got to the front a woman not in line wanted to ask a question, and the white security guard ordered her to go to the back of the line. He didn’t speak Spanish so he assumed she was trying to cut in, and when she tried explaining he couldn’t care less about her sad story. I shook my head at him for being an asshole and he threatened to kick me out of the line too. I kept quiet and felt sorry for him. Here he was, the powerful, big man among all these helpless undocumented immigrants, but I bet he would go home to his boring apartment to wallow in his mediocre existence—to a life not worth documenting. I’d always found it peculiar that the immigration officers at the INS I encountered had thicker accents than I did and had been in the United States for less time than I had, and yet I was the one who had to prove my existence in the United States, my qualifications to become a resident, and my English-language ability to eventually become a U.S. citizen.
I returned to reality when my name was finally called and I followed a female officer to her station. She made me sit while she went to get my file. Next to me were an older Frenchman and his ethnic-looking beautiful young wife. I couldn’t tell what nationality she was—possibly Peruvian. I could hear him arguing with the male officer about his wife. I couldn’t understand their conversation, but finally the Frenchman started raising his voice and saying, “Ma femme!” “My wife!” The officer probably didn’t believe they were a real married couple and was giving them a hard time. He probably figured this Latina beauty was using him
to get her papers, whether the man realized it or not. I felt bad for them, but wondered if there was a MacArthur Park in Paris where they could go to get a fake carte de séjour like we did in Los Angeles. I remembered having to go to MacArthur Park to get a fake Social Security card with my father back when I was undocumented. I returned for a second time when I was going to do undercover work and needed another identity to do my stories. I was “Maria Fuentes” and passed myself off as just another Maria while doing a story about human trafficking.
The female officer returned to her station. She quickly grew impatient with me because I didn’t speak French. She spoke in an annoying, nasal voice; even for the French her voice must have been grating. I presented all my documents and passport to her, hoping they would do the talking for me.
“You are not really American—where are you from?” she inquired, staring at my face. I’m sure my cheekbones were a dead giveaway that I wasn’t a typical American. God, here I was again, being an immigrant in yet another country that didn’t want me. After I’d been sworn in as a U.S. citizen five years ago, I’d been certain I would never have to go through this type of indignity again. What did I do in my past life to deserve this? Maybe I was a racist white guy and now I have to see how difficult life is being one of the people I hurt.
“I am an American,” I insisted and slid the passport closer to her for inspection.
Her eyes looked down and she read that I was originally from Mexico.
“Ah, but you are really a Mexican… Hmmm, I like Mexico. Nice people, nice country,” she said with a smile.
“I am going to cooking school because I want to learn French cuisine and open a French restaurant back in Los Angeles so all my friends can experience France, at least this way. I can’t do that if I don’t get my carte de séjour.” I said my lie as sincerely as possible. I could tell it had an effect on her and she nodded, agreeing with me that my goal was a noble one. She stamped my photo at the edge onto a blue card and told me it was temporary. In a few months I would have to go take tests and continue the process. I gave her a quick “Merci” and got the hell out of there.
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