Authors: Christine Sneed
“We have fairy light in Paris,” said Laurent. “La lumière des fées dans la Ville Lumière.”
Being here with him really did feel as if she had stepped into a story of enchantment. She had no idea how long it would last, but she tried not to dwell on this. For once in her life, she would live in the elusive present.
At a farewell dinner at Liesel’s place, Melissa and Liesel had both asked Jayne what she thought Laurent was getting out of the bargain. Presumably, without much trouble, he could find another pretty girlfriend in Paris, another destitute artist. “You’re beautiful, Jayne, and I know he thinks you look like that French actress, Audrey Tattoo or whatever her name is,” said Liesel, “but think about it, he’ll be supporting you over there. You’re sure he won’t change his mind after a few weeks?”
“Audrey Tautou,” said Jayne. “Not Tattoo.”
“You really do see a future with him?” asked Melissa. Most of the time Jayne could count on her to be more tactful than Liesel. In college Melissa had gotten a degree in social work but after graduation had veered off to enroll in culinary school. She’d dropped out after five months to take a human resources job at Chase, where Liesel also worked as a tax attorney. Melissa had once confessed after three large glasses of wine that she’d only slept with two men besides her husband. Liesel had offered her condolences, but Jayne had told Melissa that she shouldn’t regret it. If Joe, her husband, was good in bed, she wasn’t missing anything. “He is good in bed,” said Melissa, momentarily grave. Then she shrieked with laughter. “On my birthday.”
“I do see a future with Laurent,” Jayne said now. She knew her friends meant well, but she felt as if she were under interrogation. “We’re a real couple, if that’s what you’re asking. As far as I can tell, neither of us is biding our time until someone better comes along.”
Shorty, Liesel’s cat, a fat black male with white-stockinged legs, loped into the kitchen and began meowing imperiously. They’d already opened a second bottle of wine and were eating carryout spaghetti puttanesca—Liesel had made lemon pasta but added too much salt to the sauce and had to order in Italian. The cat tried to jump onto Melissa’s lap, but Liesel shooed him away by threatening him with a spray bottle filled with water.
“You’re so mean,” cried Melissa. “The poor cat probably has nightmares about that bottle.”
“He can handle it,” Liesel said flatly. “Otherwise he’d think he’s the boss. I got up one morning and found him in my handbag, trying to open my wallet.”
“You probably left a doggie bag in there overnight,” said Melissa, snorting. “You’re still mean.”
Jayne looked down at Shorty, who had settled on his haunches next to her feet. He stared up at her, sniffing the air. She had not told Melissa or Liesel about Laurent’s insistence that she not worry where he was or what he was doing when he didn’t come home on time —her friends would doubtless have read even more into this hedge than she had been willing to let herself do. If the situation turned out to be unlivable, she could always return to New York. If she were a different kind of woman too, she later realized, she would probably have felt grateful for the license to run amok in Paris.
“I know you’re a real couple,” said Liesel. “But despite the fact you’re giving up your whole life here to move to Paris with him, I’d say you’re getting more out of the relationship than he is.”
“Is it supposed to be quid pro quo?” asked Jayne. “He’s not keeping a balance sheet of all he’s doing for me, as far as I know. Maybe he is my patron, in a sense—he said he wants me to spend more time making art while I’m there, which is one of the main reasons I’m going—but he’s also my boyfriend.”
“Good,” said Liesel. “Tell the bastard to cough up a show.”
“Liesel,” said Melissa. She glanced at Jayne. “That’s so exciting. I’m really glad he said that.”
“Bernard needs someone like that,” said Liesel.
“What are you talking about?” said Jayne. “Laurent and his partner already represent him.”
“No, no, I mean, he needs someone who’ll pay his bills, so he can spend more time painting and less time doing other jobs.”
“But he teaches at Pratt now, doesn’t he?” asked Melissa. “I thought he was happy about that.”
“He is, but it’s only part-time. He still has to work a few shifts at the frame shop.”
“I thought you weren’t seeing Bernard anymore,” said Jayne. Shorty let out a desperate meow and rubbed his face against her shin. She was still eating but reached down to pet him. He started purring, the sound loud and gravelly.
“Shorty, leave Jayne alone,” said Liesel. “He knows he’s being bad.” She bent down and aimed the spray bottle at him again. Shorty only looked at her and blinked his Halloween green eyes, still purring.
“You’re a shameless beggar,” Jayne scolded softly. He meowed again, more plaintive.
“I don’t want to see Bernard anymore,” said Liesel, setting the spray bottle next to her wineglass. “But it’s not like lots of other men are calling.”
“Robby Ortiz, the cute guy down the hall from me you’re always giving the eye, asked about you last week,” said Melissa. “I told you that.”
Liesel shook her head. “He makes a lot less money than I do. Eventually he’d resent me for it. I don’t need another Bernard situation.”
“Robby would never resent you,” said Melissa. “He’s so nice.”
“He’s also twenty-four.”
“So? He likes older women.”
“He’d hate me for being an old bag after a while too.”
“Liesel, you’re not an old bag,” said Jayne, laughing in a shrill burst. “You’re so cynical.”
Her friend glanced at her, her expression sheepish. “Actually, I was wondering about Laurent’s business partner. Is he single?”
“He was dating someone, but I’m not sure if they’re still together,” said Jayne. “He also lives in Paris.”
“So does your boyfriend. I could move over there too.” Liesel glanced at Melissa. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“You’d leave me here by myself?” said Melissa.
“No, you, Joe, and Josh could move to Paris with me.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Melissa, morose. “Probably not until Josh grows up. We have our dog to worry about too.”
Jayne thought about the little she was taking with her to France: only clothes, a few sketchbooks and brushes, some of her books. Her three plants, an aloe, a cactus, and a persnickety orchid that Laurent had given her not long after they started seeing each other, she was leaving with her roommate, who promised to water and talk to them.
“No one’s going anywhere but you,” said Liesel. “Good for you, but you still suck for leaving us.”
Vie Bohème in Paris had one large showroom that overlooked rue du Louvre, a wide north-south street that led to the Seine and the museum with which it shared its name. The gallery looked much like its black-and-white counterpart in New York, but the floors were hardwood instead of glazed cement, and its showroom had more windows and square footage. It also had a back office with three desks, two black walnut, one black Formica—the two in wood for Laurent and his partner André, the smaller Formica-topped one for the bookkeeper who came in once or twice a week. This was the desk that Jayne used, too.
The gallery also housed a slightly dank WC —she had yet to encounter a French toilet, including the one at Laurent’s apartment, that did not have a hint of the swamp about it—and a storeroom to which Laurent, on her inaugural after-hours visit to Vie Bohème, had led her. Without preamble he’d pulled up her skirt and pressed himself upon her with an urgency that reminded her of the first few times of her life, her senior-year high school boyfriend showing the same ardor, barely more than a virgin himself. When it was over, she’d rested her cheek against Laurent’s chest and inhaled his earthy smell; she could feel his body’s damp heat through the silky cotton of his shirt and pulled him closer.
“Tu es merveilleuse,” he whispered, tilting her chin up to kiss her.
She smiled up at his shadowy face in the dim light leaking in through the gap between the door and its gently warped frame. After that day, each time she went back to the storeroom to look for a file or a roll of paper towels, the fusty smell of woolen coats and cardboard boxes would remind her of what she and Laurent had done on her first visit. “I’ve never had a new employee orientation anything like this one.”
“I am thinking that you will do many things here that you have not done before,” he said, his smile sly.
“Really,” she said. “I await your instruction.”
That evening after dinner, she spoke with Liesel on Skype and told her that Laurent had given her a very thorough orientation at Vie Bohème that afternoon. Liesel grasped immediately what Jayne meant. “Degenerates!” she cried. “I’m calling the French morality police as soon as we hang up.”
“There’s no such thing,” said Jayne, laughing. “Not from what I can tell.”
“In that case, I’m booking my ticket as soon as we hang up,” said Liesel. “And one for my new underage boyfriend. He’s fifteen, and he adores me.”
Jayne laughed again. “Sounds like an improvement over Bernard.”
“Well, yes, but that’s not saying much,” said Liesel.
Not long after they began dating, Laurent had told her that he planned to turn her into a sensualist. She’d admitted that despite her job at the SoHo shoe boutique and frequent proximity to pricey goods, she did not have the means to treat herself to fancy clothes and pricey baubles, nor to culinary delicacies. “No caviar, ever?” he asked, surprised. “No
terrine de canard
? Not even the occasional bottle of Dom Pérignon?”
She shook her head. “My parents didn’t buy those things when I was growing up. I never got used to having them. It’s not like my friends were eating that stuff either. You’ve seen what most Americans eat—hamburgers, pizza, and potatoes.”
“And something called a Cheeto,” he said dryly. “Pauvre fille. We’ll taste them together. You will love them too.”
“I don’t know,” she said, wary. “I love to eat, but I’ve never been particularly adventurous.”
“You will see,” he said. “The flavors are so magnificent. Even better than a slice of pepperoni with a side of Funyuns.”
He was partly right: the duck terrine she sampled was rich and smoky, much more agreeable than the Russian caviar that Laurent wanted her to love too, but its texture was too alien to her unrefined taste buds. She liked the Dom Pérignon, although she awoke with traces of a headache the next day, after drinking only a glass and a half. “My parents knew the vintners at Moët et Chandon, the house that produces Dom Pérignon,” Laurent told her. “They were friendly because, I think, they were not competitors. Not in the sense that they would have been if my parents also made champagne. But pinot noir is our grape too. The best burgundies and champagnes are made with it, including my family’s wines.”
His parents’ wine was sold under the label Maison Moller, and the collective of vineyards they were a part of produced one of the few grands crus, which he explained was the most sought-after designation for Burgundy vintners.
“It seems like all French people are expected to drink wine in order to be considered truly French,” she said. “Some parents let their kids drink it, don’t they?”
“Some do, yes, but with moderation. Anne-Claire and I did not let our children drink until they were older, except on special occasions. Then they could have a very small glass. I think there is probably more drinking in your country. La quantité de bière, mon dieu. We don’t drink nearly as much beer in France.”
“People do drink a lot of beer in the States,” she said. “It usually starts in high school and gets worse in college. But I was never that interested. I suppose I was afraid of losing control.”
“Do you still feel that way?” he asked, curious.
His scrutiny made her hesitate. “I suppose I do,” she said carefully. At the time, they had only been together for a month. She knew that he would remember her answer, that it mattered.
“I will not get you drunk and take advantage of you.”
She laughed. “You don’t need to get me drunk to take advantage of me.”
“There are alcoholics in France too, of course. We have the same problems that you do here. Drugs, poverty, racism. If you go to the periphery of the city, you will see the big, ugly buildings where many immigrants are forced to live.”
“I’m aware that not everyone in Paris shops on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré,” she said.
“No, they do not.”
Some of the patrons of the boutiques on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré were also the people buying art at Vie Bohème. Jayne had noticed that the work in the gallery’s catalog wasn’t political, or in some cases, only obliquely so, though she knew that unless an artist was already famous, art with a radical agenda was usually a hard sell. Good for museums, not so good for attracting private collectors. Few art buyers wanted a painting of a bound and naked man, the contents of his skull leaking onto the side of a road, or a black canvas with the word
RAPE
slashed across its center in ferocious red capital letters.
“Look at the name of our gallery,” said Laurent, shaking his head, when she asked if he and André had ever tried to sell angry, edgy work. “This is not Vie de Douleur, or Vie de Tristesse. This is Vie Bohème. Vie de Beauté, de Plaisir.”
Of course he wasn’t interested in sadness and suffering; beauty and pleasure were so much more profitable. She’d known this about him from the night they’d met: the paintings at the Chelsea opening had all been very sexy.
“Whether or not anyone wants to admit it,” he said, “most people live to pursue pleasure, one pleasure after another.”
She smiled. “Yes, and sometimes many pleasures at the same time.”
He nodded, returning her smile. “Good, so you are already aware of this.”
Twice more during her first two weeks in Paris, Jayne returned to the art supply store near the École des Beaux-Arts where the boy with the stoplight tattoo worked. She saw him again on her third visit and realized as he rang up her purchases—tubes of cadmium yellow and viridian green, another of alizarin crimson, and three featherweight boar’s-hair brushes for detail work—that despite the painted fingernails and black leather jewelry, he looked a little like Colin. She had not yet told her ex-boyfriend she’d moved to Paris, in part because he had stopped calling at the end of February, when she’d admitted that she was seeing someone else and had been for a while. With no detectable malice or sincerity, Colin had said he was happy for her. He had also all but stopped e-mailing her by the time she packed her suitcases and left her roommate behind with her plants, a stained caramel-colored ottoman, a forest-green area rug, and the heavy-drinking MBAs upstairs.