Paris, My Sweet (2 page)

Although the past two years in New York had been the only time we lived in the same city at the same time since graduating high school, our friendship never skipped a beat. When AJ decided against the job in Italy, I had breathed a sigh of relief. In our midthirties, we were having the time of our lives being single and crazy together in New York City. Brunching and gallery hopping? Dancing all night? Flirting with men? Check, check, and check. She was my soul sister. We were wondertwins. I couldn't imagine life without her sweet smile, steadfast support, or our shared wardrobe. I know we both felt we dodged a bullet when she took herself out of the running for Venice. But now here I was: preparing to leave New York for Paris.

The last of the burnt-orange leaves had just fallen from the trees, and the city air was clearer and crisper than usual. Every time someone opened the door next to us, the warm baking smells—cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg—deliciously danced by our noses. “That's so great, Aim,” she said, changing her tone of voice on the spot. As a leadership management coach, training international C-level executives how to be effective communicators, she was always the best at seeing the positive side to a situation and encouraging others with the right words and genuine support. “You should be so proud of yourself!”

“Yeah, well, there's still a lot of paperwork like the visa application and official stuff like that, so who knows what could still happen? It
is
a luxury brand, after all,” I rambled on. “People aren't exactly spending money on logo handbags these days. Without anything signed, I wouldn't be surprised if the opportunity vanished as suddenly as it appeared.” My lame rationalizing was beginning to take on a guilty undertone. AJ just looked at me, knowing as well as I did that I would soon be leaving.

As tormented as I had been over the months, deliberating between life in two phenomenal cities, I had gradually begun to want nothing more than to escape New York. It still made me sad to think about leaving my friends and family and comfy life. But it was becoming increasingly clear that a change was for the best. I was thirty-six. Most of my friends were already on their second or third kids and buying matching living-room sets, while I was acting like a twenty-five-year-old, trolling bars at which the male-to-female ratio was about one to three on a good night. The economy was tanking, friends were getting laid off, and the refrain that we should be happy just to have jobs was getting old, to say nothing of depressing—especially since I was being given more and more work on every copywriter's biggest nightmare: health care.

If I stayed in New York, one week would bleed into another. Thirty-six would turn into thirty-seven, and suddenly I would be celebrating my fortieth birthday the same way I celebrated my thirtieth: gathering friends for $15 cocktails at some candlelit bar downtown. Everything was beginning to feel like a threat or a joke, including my once-beloved job. And frankly, I was getting too old to dance all night. I guess the thought of leaving it all behind allowed me to see my life with less-kind eyes. It prompted me to think about my needs in a new way. And I couldn't help but ask: was I really as happy as I had thought I was?

“I'll give it a year,” I declared to AJ. “I mean, I can't
not
go; it's like fate or something, right? This opportunity to move to my favorite city in the world—well, besides New York—just walked through my door. I have to try it for at least a year or so.”

“I agree—you'd be crazy to pass it up.” AJ was always so thoughtful and insightful, it forced me to be more so too. “What do you want to get out of your time there?”

“Hmmm, good question.” I paused, letting my reflections from all the months of waiting and planning surface. “It will be great for my portfolio, working on Louis Vuitton, so there's that. And hopefully I'll get to write about some of my travels while I'm there. Because I definitely want to travel. I want to go to Portugal and Greece, and the south of France, and if I can sell some articles about it, awesome.”

“Mmm-hmmm, go on.”

“Well, I want to learn French. Maybe take some cooking classes…” I was beginning to get that dreamy feeling that Paris always sparked in me.
This
is
really
going
to
happen, isn't it?
“I want to explore the city's best sweets and bakeries. And…maybe I'll even fall in love…”

The smile AJ gave me was simultaneously sad and happy. We were entering a new chapter. “Sounds perfect.”

In the end, everything fell into place. After five long months of waiting (there it was, the
escargots'
pace again), the papers were signed and I had a one-way ticket in hand. I shipped eight boxes of clothes and shoes, packed my laptop and a suitcase, and steeled myself for the transatlantic flight with Milo—our first trip together. And then, just like that, I was in Paris.

As on all my previous visits, my senses were jolted awake during my first few hours off the plane. With the limestone architecture and the buzz of scooters, the sound of church bells and the smell of chickens roasting at the
boucheries
, it was an exercise of total indulgence. Alive. I was in Paris, and I felt
alive
!

I ditched my suitcase, unleashed a still-drugged Milo in my dingy hotel room, and started sauntering down the hill in South Pigalle—SoPi as the increasingly hip-to-New-York-acronyms Frenchies called it—wondering how long I could hold out for a warm and melty Nutella street crepe, one of my favorite things to eat in Paris. I was happy to have a cool new neighborhood to explore, seeing as Ogilvy had put me up in a not-so-cool hotel next to the Moulin Rouge. Only four o'clock, and already drunk eighteen-year-olds and retired Japanese tourists spilling out of tour buses like camera-wielding samurais made the neighborhood a minefield.

Beyond the main boulevard were an astounding number of XXX bars that finally gave way to indie music shops and cafés, where, despite the damp March air, people sat on terraces, smoking and talking in small groups. From across the street, I was drawn to a maroon awning: A l'Étoile d'Or.
Hmmm,
I wondered,
qu'est-ce que c'est?
Guidebook stickers plastered the door—badges of legitimacy displayed at restaurants and boutiques around town—so I knew it must be a popular place. But I didn't know I was about to encounter a legend.

I stepped through the door into a little shop of wonders. The tile floor looked like it had been there for centuries, glass shelves were jammed with colorful tins, and walnut moldings gave a cozy and inviting feel: it was the perfect old-school candy parlor. Best of all, there was chocolate—chocolate everywhere! In the center of the room stood a display case, jammed with petite trays of bonbons. Next to it was a table of stacked bars—Bernachon
tablettes
. Come to find out, this is
très
rare, as hardly anyone outside the Lyonnais bean-to-bar chocolatier, Maurice Bernachon, has the privilege of selling them. There were glass jars flaunting mountains of caramels, suckers, pralined nuts, licorice, and more exquisitely wrapped bars and boxes everywhere I looked. “Bonjour!” a husky voice boomed out of nowhere.

I looked up and saw a woman magically appear from the back room.
Oh
my
.

The name Denise Acabo doesn't mean much to 99 percent of the world's population. But that other one percent is fanatical about her. She's one of the greatest connoisseurs of French chocolate, after all.

It took me a moment to recover, looking at this dame in a tartan plaid skirt and blue vest, with long blonde braids and bifocals and—wait, was that? yes, it was!—the scent of Chanel No. 5. I would later discover Acabo is a cult character in Paris. But that day, she was my secret discovery. For more than her signature look, or even her choco-knowledge, it's her irresistible charm and infectious enthusiasm that reels people in.

Everyone who walks through the doors of her boutique is treated like the most important person in the world. She grabs you by the arm and gushes about her candies: that they're the best of the best and that she's the exclusive carrier in the city. She'll tell you how the cab drivers come in and clean her out of Le Roux caramels and that Japanese tourists fax her magazine articles in which she's appeared. She talks a mile a minute and is as much an entertainer and
theatrice
as a chocolate connoisseur. She could prattle on about
pralinés
for hours—and she will, if you're not careful. I looked at my watch when she paused for a breath and was shocked to see that thirty minutes had passed. It's a shame I could understand only a fraction of what she was saying.

Beyond the language barrier, my head was beginning to spin with all the choices. At the Bernachon table, I stared at all the amazing flavors—espresso, orange, hazelnut, rum raisin—wondering how to choose. But it was simple: I let Denise do it. (And thank goodness. When I unwrapped my
pâte d'amande pistache
chocolate bar back at the hotel, it was like inhaling vats of molten cocoa in a chocolate factory. Delicious without even taking a bite. Between the richness of the 62 percent cacao and the sweet grittiness of Sicilian pistachio paste, I thought I had ascended to chocolate heaven.)

When it came time to selecting bonbons, Denise was equally strong-willed. After careful consideration, I chose six from the case, but she shot two of them down. “Eh,” she started with a look of disdain. It was an expression I would get used to in Paris. “Non, non,” she wagged her finger and pointed to another tray instead. “
Celui-ci
?
Ça, c'est le mieux
.” She wanted to make sure I had the best of the best, so I wound up with a selection from all over the country—Gevrey-Chambertin, Bourges, Lorraine—and from many masters, including Henri Le Roux (salted caramel), Bernard Dufoux (balsamic vinegar truffle), and more from Bernachon (a praline noisette). Even with my impressive haul, there were so many exquisite sweets that I didn't get, including the famed Breton caramels. She's a smart woman, giving you reason to come back.

All of this, six hours into my first day. Walking back up SoPi's hill from A l'Étoile d'Or, this time oblivious to the peepshow bars and pools of tourists, I was glowing from within. I'd have to email Rachel and tell her I was already sampling bonbons. That I'd had my first lesson in Paris—from a fast-talking, kilt-wearing, kooky chocophile. That it looked like my life in Paris was going to be a most delicious learning experience.

What can I say about my first weeks in Paris? They. Were. Heaven. I knew such euphoria wasn't sustainable—thirty-six years of experience had taught me that you can always count on a startling crash after the delicious sugar high. So I relished every second of it.

After three weeks in the crummy Pigalle hotel, which skeeved me out to the point where I wouldn't let the blankets touch my face or my bare feet come in contact with the carpeting, I was happy to finally be settling into my new apartment, my new routine, my new life. I was luckier than most. Not only had I come to Paris to live my dream, but somebody else was navigating the nuances of French bureaucracy and footing the bill on my behalf. Ogilvy set me up with a real estate agent who was as tenacious as any New York broker, orchestrating a single marathon day in which we viewed eleven apartments.

“Operation Dream Pad!” I chirped, driving along the traffic-choked quay overlooking the Seine, on our way from the third apartment in the ninth arrondissement—one of those “up and coming” neighborhoods that was slowly being infiltrated by trendy restaurants and young families—to our next appointment across town in the coveted sixth arrondissement, Paris's Upper East Side, if you will.

I knew the neighborhood profiles thanks mostly to Michael, one of my two friends in Paris. I had met him at a party in New York, one week prior to my Tour du Chocolat vacation. Chatting in a giant Chelsea apartment, The Strokes and Hot Chip thumping so loudly it jiggled my skat, I leaned in toward this River Phoenix–lookalike telling me he lived in Paris. When he went on to specify that he lived in Canal Saint-Martin, I made him promise to show me around the neighborhood, then unknown to me, the next week.

Sure enough, eight days later, I was staring at his back as he took me on my first Vélib' ride, guiding me past the canal's peaked iron bridges and enchanting locks—where Amélie had skipped stones, I excitedly pointed out—to the flat and sprawling Parc de la Villette for a picnic. It was the ultimate romantic summer evening in Paris. Eight o'clock, but the sun still hung in the sky. We had a bottle of rosé, a perfectly crunchy baguette, and a big, stinking hunk of Camembert.

Except there was no romancing.

Not even five minutes into our bike ride, Michael started launching into his exploits of and escapades with Gallic women—code for
Don't get any ideas, missy, I have more sophisticated conquests than you
. Biking home that night, alone, I was disappointed that this storybook rendezvous was wasted on a platonic encounter. But it turns out a friend, not a fling, was the perfect outcome.

All those months when Ogilvy took forever with the contract and I was wavering about moving to Paris, it was Michael whom I emailed, and Michael who responded right away with plenty of Paris persuasion, plus encyclopedic knowledge of expat living. The second, tenth, and eleventh arrondissements were the hippest places to live, he reported. I would have to set aside my own tax fund since France didn't deduct taxes like they do in the States. Do not bring an American DVD player, but buy one in France, with the correct voltage and compatible technology. All the insights and tips he had shared helped me feel more confident in situations like this, driving around with a foreign broker, trying to find the perfect home. And sure enough, by the end of the day, I had narrowed the eleven apartment options down to three contenders, and I got my top choice: a sixth-floor walk-up in the second arrondissement.

Paris is a city of villages, each
quartier
, or neighborhood, its own little universe. The pedestrian Montorgueil quartier I now lived in was, as far as I could tell, one of the city's best—dynamic, central, and young. And with my new apartment's lofty ceilings, exposed wood beams, and views of the Centre Pompidou to the south, Sacré-Coeur to the north, and hundreds of zinc rooftops peppered with terra-cotta chimneys in between, it was like my own little tree house in the city. It suited me and Milo just fine.

The Ogilvy office elicited the same schoolgirl titters from me. A classic
hôtel particulier
right on the Champs-Élysées, I sat overlooking the famed boulevard, beneath sixteen-foot-tall ceilings painted with frescoes of chubby cherubs and fair maidens and dripping with crystal chandeliers. When my boss showed me the rooftop terrace (yes, a
rooftop
terrace
, on the
Champs-Élysées
; this was my new
workplace
), I thought I was going to bump my nose against the Eiffel Tower, it was so close.

Remembering how efficient—and fun!—the Vélib's had been the previous summer on my chocolate tour, I relied on them instead of the Métro to get to work every morning. This public bike sharing system has over twenty thousand industrial-looking road bikes stationed at kiosks around the city that are yours to take, so long as you have a daily, weekly, or annual subscription. The bikes have three speeds, little bells for warning heedless pedestrians that you're coming their way, and wire baskets for carrying your bags—or, if you're a super-chic Frenchie, your adorable Jack Russell terrier.

I'd hop on a bike around the corner from my tree house, wind around the delivery trucks in Japantown's narrow streets, and join the cacophony of revving scooters and gushing fountains in Place de la Concorde, where King Louis XVI had been guillotined over two hundred years ago.

The square's grandeur and beauty shocked me anew every day: the scale of the gold-tipped monument, the magnificent dome of Les Invalides in the distance, and, further still, peeking over the sculpted trees, the Eiffel Tower. It was like being part of a moving orchestra—my beating heart and pumping legs trying to match the rhythm of the trucks, buses, taxis, cars, scooters, and pedestrians swooshing through the motorway.

Then I'd peel off to Avenue Gabriel and give my silent respects while pedaling by the U.S. embassy and President Sarkozy's residence, admire the grand dames strolling the sidewalks in the tony eighth arrondissement, and then finish my ride. I parked the Vélib' in the closest kiosk to the office, which just so happened to be outside the grand and historical tea salon with some of the best cakes and macarons in the city: Ladurée.

Two mornings a week, I went to the office early to meet Josephine, my French tutor, arranged by Ogilvy. With her perpetually perspiring brow, rosy cheeks, and powdery perfume smell, she reminded me of my third-grade teacher, Miss Dickus. Or maybe it was just because I felt like a schoolgirl, taking lessons again. The office was always quiet at 8:30 a.m., save for the cleaning crew's vacuums, giving us ninety minutes of conversational and grammatical lessons—well, less the fifteen minutes that Josephine always reserved for complaining about the weather, the Métro, being overworked, or a combination of all three.

As keen as I was to learn French, always completing my homework and paying close attention to Josephine's perfectly planned lessons, I soon learned that language is not my strong suit. But still, I did what I could and started a list of handy slang, picked up from colleagues and fashion websites, that was almost more essential than the
passé composé
and “er,” “ir,” and “re” verbs. I learned words and expressions like
ça marche
(that works, or, okay) and
ça craint
(that sucks);
talons hauts
(high heels) and
baskets
(trendy sneakers);
malin
(wicked smart or cool) and
putain
(literally, a whore, but used as an expression of frustration, anger, or awe). I learned that the French like to
manger
les
mots
, creating shorthand like
bon app
for
bon appétit
,
d'acc
instead of
d'accord
, and
resto
rather than
restaurant
. After years of being on cruise control, there was now something new to learn every day.

It was almost stupid how picture-perfect my new life was. The whole thing felt like a cliché, even to me. There I was, in the fashion capital of the world, working on one of the most recognizable and successful luxury brands. One day, as I wandered around the Louis Vuitton flagship store on the Champs-Élysées—part of my
professional
obligation
, for God's sake—I literally pinched myself. Was this for real? Why was I there? How was I suddenly living in Paris, among the
2,000 evening dresses and 98 percent dark chocolate bars? Was it fate? I didn't have the answers, but I smiled with giddiness, hopelessly in love with the entire world.

As smiley as I was, my enthusiasm was not infectious.

“Avez-vous du pain complét ce soir?” I asked, waltzing into “my”
boulangerie
one evening for some whole wheat bread. Surely, the squat, bespectacled madam behind the counter recognized me by now? I had been coming in for weeks, demonstrating not only my loyalty to her business, but also my appreciation for French culture. Each visit, I requested a different kind of bread: a round and rustic
boule
au
levain
;
pain
bûcheron
, kneaded and roasted to crunchy perfection; the
baguette
aux
céréales
with its delightful mix of sesame, sunflower, millet, and poppy seeds. It was my duty to understand France's abundance of deliciousness.

“Non, madame.” Blank face. She wasn't budging. So what if I ate whole wheat? I was still
une
étrangère
in her eyes, not a Frenchie. I felt a momentary pang of defeat from her indifference. With other recent roadblocks due to my inability to decipher the deposit forms at the bank, the milk labels at the grocery store, the processes (or lack thereof) at the office, and, generally, just what the hell everyone was saying to me, being unceremoniously shut down was a feeling that was beginning to edge in on my bliss more and more often. It was after seven o'clock and the shelves were nearly depleted.

I had a new bread addiction for which I needed a fix,
tout
de
suite
. Suddenly, as if my guardian angel and Houdini had been conspiring in the kitchen, a young man dusted in flour appeared from behind a curtain with a cylindrical basket of fresh baguettes. My smile returned. “Pas grave,” I declared. “Une demi-baguette, s'il vous plaît!”

The woman pulled one of the golden specimens from the basket—the man sauntering back behind the curtain from where he magically came—deftly sliced it in two, and slipped one half in a paper sack—
une demi-baguette,
perfect for the single girl. “Avec ceci?” she asked in that French sing-song way, drawing out the “ce” and especially the “ci,” peering over her wire-rims. The French were always pushing a little more on you.

“Non, c'est tout,” I replied, happy for this little exchange that made me—almost—feel like I belonged here. I grabbed the change she plunked on the counter and turned on my heel. “Merci, madame!” I bellowed, careful to enunciate each syllable like the good French student I was.