Two Americans in Paris (18 page)

When I finish my library shift, I use one of the computers to search the web. I do a quick search on chemicals released in the body related to love and sex. I want to know why I have such a diminished appetite (I normally eat like a bear) and why I’ve been on such a high despite there not having been any sex. I have had this sort of high before, but only after having had sex with my ex-boyfriend. I would lose so much of my appetite for food I would lose five pounds in a week, when the sex was good. You and I didn’t have sex, though. Your effect on me is so powerful that it is disconcerting. According to my search, my diminished hunger could be attributed to adrenaline, which suppresses appetite. More intriguing, though, is that the brain of a person in love produces the chemicals dopamine, norepinephrine, and phenylethylamine—chemicals the brain also produces in the mind of the truly deranged. I prefer to think of myself as in lust with you, as the implications of love are too weighty, but at least there is an explanation for the abnormal state of my mind and body.

Just as I close the browser, Lady arrives with a big, perky smile on her face. I smile big back at her. We have plans to grab some sushi and work on her internship applications at her place. We’ll talk about you, too, of course. I will be glad to have a fresh perspective on what happened. Or rather, what didn’t happen.

Before Lady and I head out I excuse myself to call you to tell you we’re going to go swimming by Montparnasse at two on Friday. You say you’ll be there. Since you seemed uncomfortable around me earlier, I decide I should say something about last night to put you at ease. Before the conversation ends, I add, “Just one thing. I thought about it, and if you were the kind of guy who cheated on his girlfriend, I wouldn’t want you. Which is frustrating,” I sigh.

“
Really
,” you say, sounding surprised and even a little flattered. “Well, that is admirable of you. But, like I said, I have a girlfriend.”

“I know, trust me,
I know
.” In fact, I can’t forget it, because if it weren’t true, we would probably have started having sex weeks ago. “Well, anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow in class! Bye!”

“See you.”

I hold my phone in my hand, its plastic case warm. I feel better to have talked about last night with you, even if only briefly. Although what I have told you is not entirely true, it feels like the only right thing I could say.

I find Lady in the library lobby. I ask her if we can walk to her apartment, which is just fifteen (well, maybe twenty) minutes away by foot. At first, she insists we take the bus, but I am even more insistent that her apartment is so close. My body has an excess of energy and I must walk. It’s almost like a medical thing, I tell her. I just can’t sit still for too long. She doesn’t understand what I mean by it being “like a medical thing,” but she relents, and we walk.

At the sushi place, we deliberate over the menu. She orders a proper meal’s worth of sushi; I order half as much. Lady expresses concern that I have ordered so little. She knows I usually eat far more, but I assure her I’m not that hungry.

Inside Lady’s cozy, elegant apartment we arrange the sushi on plates and sit on her bed. While we eat, we chat about saving the elephants in Tanzania and our mixed feelings about graduate school. When the subject of boys comes up, I tell her what is going on with you. At first, her advice is, “Just sleep with him. Get it out of your system.” I explain that my attempt to do so has made you uncomfortable around me. I like you too much, now, anyway. Having sex with you while you are still with your girlfriend would likely have disastrous consequences. I would be unable to stop myself from wanting more and you would probably feel guilty about cheating and wouldn’t want to give me any more. Even worse, you might not want to see me at all. It would ruin our friendship. Yet I still want you, naked, so I must be patient. You’ll likely be single at some point. After hearing my explanation, Lady seems to understand. “It’s an investment. Just be careful,” she advises. “He’s immature and an ass. I like assholes too, but it never ends well.” I hear Lady’s warnings, but they don’t sink in. My infatuation overrides them like they’re a virus on my hard drive.

Once we’ve finished eating and chatting, I take her laptop into my lap and help her through her internship application to Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots base in Tanzania.

I part from Lady late into the evening, just as the sun’s rays are coloring the horizon with translucent clementine oranges and hot pinks. I still feel the need to expend the excess of energy built up in my system, so I decide to walk home. At the Pont de l’Alma I rest my forearms on the chilled metal railing and look into the blue-brown water of the Seine. My memory of you talking to your Frame-twin instead of me after class replays in my mind. My insides twist uncomfortably. I care for you much more than I would like to, so knowing I have caused you even the slightest trouble makes me feel awful. Yet, if my inviting you to sleep with me was going to be an issue, you should not have led me on with all the winking at the sangria bar. While we had dinner at the Mexican food restaurant, you shouldn’t have insinuated you would say yes to sleeping with me. You shouldn’t have brushed your fingers against mine at Versailles. I know I should not have tried to seduce you when I knew you had a girlfriend, but you shouldn’t have encouraged me to do so, either.

But, there is really no good that could come from assigning blame for the events that have occurred or lingering over them. What has happened is in the past and cannot be changed. As for the present, I have lost your trust. Since I like you a whole lot more than you like me, the task of regaining your trust is mine, a task which will be challenging for me. I must pin all of my giddy love-bug emotions inside me and just be the best friend I can be to you, until you again trust me. Even though you are keeping your distance from me at the moment, I retain a strong reserve of hope that we may still have sex this summer. You did say you would probably give in to me. I fully intend to take advantage of such an opportunity if it arises. I might even again attempt to orchestrate the opportunity.

I lift my forearms from the railing and resume my walk, feeling a little better to have sorted out my thoughts.

Inside my box, I can still feel the sexual tension from last night, but it isn’t as thick as it was, like some of it has dissipated out the window. I sit down on my bed and shut my eyes, retreating from reality. I play the thought of your weighty chest against mine, your stubble rough against my cheek, the pressure of your lips sending tingles down my neck. The memory of seeing you talk to your Frame-twin instead of me stirs in my consciousness, reminding me you aren’t at ease around me right now. We likely won’t be physically intimate anytime soon. Facing this reality arrests further fantasizing. I cannot shake off the upsetting feeling that I have in any way caused you to be uncomfortable around me. In so doing, I have disturbed the beautiful growth of our friendship. I am aware that my reaction to your change in behavior toward me is not entirely rational. After all, you’ve only backed off from me a little. You’ve even agreed to go swimming with Lady and me on Friday. If you were really upset or uncomfortable around me, you would probably not have said you would go. It is as if when you do something very small, like focus your eyes on me, a spasm of electric glee flows through my body. Likewise, when you do not do something very small, like not talk to me directly after class as you had been doing, I am wrought with concern for the future of our friendship. My perception of any situation involving you is skewed. It is important that I am aware my perceptions are skewed. To regain your trust, I must exercise careful control over my behavior while interacting with you. There are few things more distressing to me than the thought of losing you. I want to absolve the damage done to our friendship more than anything.

Although I am not a religious person, I consider myself spiritual. I believe divine help is given when it is asked for and there is genuine need of it. Before falling asleep, I focus all of my energy on a prayer to bless the relations between us. I ask for the strength to keep my romantic emotions inside me so we may remain friends. All I want is for the rest of our time in Paris to be as wonderful as possible. This invocation is so strong and is generated from so deep within me it emanates from the core of my being. I have never felt this sort of energy flowing out of my body before, but I don’t think that much about its newness. It feels pure and good, a soothing transition from consciousness into the loving arms of the cow jumping over the moon.

She is the curator of her own experience

As I get ready for class the following morning, I find myself thinking of Humbert Humbert from Nabokov’s
Lolita
. Of all the characters in literature I have ever encountered, I identify most with Humbert at this moment. Like Humbert’s obsession with Lolita, my obsession with you has become so intense it could be termed insanity, and for moral reasons my desire for you should not be fulfilled. At least, not right now, though cheating doesn’t carry the taboo that pedophilia does. Still, seeing you and not being able to have you is a torment. You are forbidden and captivating, my dearest of all. I can learn from Humbert’s errors. He forced himself on his darling Lolita and made every effort to cage her so as to not lose her. In so doing he hurt her, ended up losing her, and played a significant role in ruining her life. I could never intentionally do anything that would hurt you. I will wait until you are single and want to be more than my friend. This may take years, but I can be patient. My patience is patient.

For now, I decide I should eat breakfast, even though I still have little appetite for food. I force myself to eat a handful of cereal but find it so sickly-sweet I can’t bear to swallow it. I spit it into the sink. The act of bending over induces a little wretch too, but there isn’t enough food in my stomach for me to actually vomit. My emotions, all of which have been delegated to you, are so overwrought that I have made myself sick. In a perverse way, I probably enjoy being made unwell by my obsession with you, or I would not be sick. It’s just that feeling
so much
feels
so great
. I’m addicted to the intensity of my emotions. The promise of ecstasy derived from a positive interaction with you makes the physical discomfort I am experiencing now completely forgettable.

The breeze flowing in from my window is a little cool, so before leaving for class I put on my vintage motorcycle jacket. It’s black, perfectly worn-in, and the industrial zippers clink attractively when I move. Of course, I’m wearing it not just because the weather is a little cooler. I have also chosen to wear it because I’m pretty sure you’ll like it, especially considering you have your own motorcycle. Furthermore, men never look at me with such lascivious desire as when I am wearing this jacket. Whether they are conscious of it or not, I believe they read it as a symbol of sexual dominance and liberation, an aspect of myself I would like to remind you of.

I take the métro to Le Marais and navigate the rough-hewn cobblestone streets, heading toward the Musée Picasso. I’m running a little late because of my near-vomit this morning and spending too much time putting my outfit together. Being late has become a bad habit of mine, but I’m not too concerned about it. Although the air is a little cooler than usual, the sun is warm and falls over the pale-hued, elegantly decrepit buildings with a clear, brilliant light. The beauty of my dear, beloved Paris makes me forget, for a few precious moments, about you. How could anything be less than wonderful when the city I am in is so aesthetically perfect?

Inside the Musée Picasso, I search for our class through the maze of rooms. There are hundreds of Picasso’s paintings and sculpture on display. The sheer magnitude of the collection is impressive.

After a circuitous and fruitless search, I follow a stairwell I had previously passed by. When I reach the top of the steps I am greeted by the distinctive sound of Professor’s voice.

As I join our classmates, Professor furrows his brows, silently admonishing me. If I weren’t in such an addled state of mind, I would crumble with guilt and instantly put all my efforts into getting to class on-time in the future, but I hardly notice.

You turn your toward me and your eyes scan twice over my leather jacket. Seeing you after having reflected on the situation I have put myself in causes a flood of unhappy emotions. I am hurt, pissed, and angry. I try to keep my emotions zipped inside me, but my body language betrays them. I’m flustered and grimacing as though I was recently bullied by a stranger. You notice, and quietly ask me if I got here okay. I nod and curtly whisper, “Yes.” Although I am unhappy with you, knowing you care enough to ask me if I got here alright soothes me. This situation is probably not as bad as I have made it out to be.

We follow Professor into the next room, which holds Picasso’s Cubist paintings.

“This is from the High Analytic period. It’s of a woman with a guitar.” Professor gestures to a painting in which it isn’t obvious that a woman is holding a guitar. The line of her jaw, an outline of her hand, and the curve of her instrument are barely discernable. Picasso’s Cubism encourages the viewer to engage with the canvas and recreate the woman with her guitar in their imagination. I take the painting’s pieces in my mind and build a glinting multidimensional figure who is smooth along the arc of her arm, the apple of her cheek, but formidably sharp in the point of her elbow, the tip of her nose. The process of observing the painting blurs the line between painting and sculpture. “Picasso painted a lot of women with guitars, playing with the metaphor of women as guitars—there is a pleasure in watching them play around,” Professor says. “It’s harmonic and warm. He places color with tones of brown and gray. He makes signs for things: man with mandolin, chair caning. He breaks forms down and explores them.”

I decide there is something very sadistic about Cubism. I could chop you into a hundred pieces to illustrate how you were once whole, and call it a Cubist work. The only recognizable bits of you would be a thick curve for your torso and a handful of your toes arranged along your jaw.

While Professor lectures about Picasso’s other Cubist paintings and his post-World War II work, I do my best to block out thoughts of you. I focus on the art, but in so doing, I forget to answer Professor’s questions like I usually do. I’m losing myself in the fortresses I’m creating in an attempt to prevent myself from thinking about you too much. In the end, it’s a fruitless effort.

Professor goes off on a tangent about Duchamp, one of Picasso’s contemporaries. “Duchamp asks ‘why do we need to paint?’” Professor says. “There’s always cool stuff going on. An artist just chooses an industrial form which is as beautiful a form as you’re ever going to make. Just pick a ready-made—remix it and rearrange it,” he says, moving his hands around as if mixing and rearranging objects.

Inspired by Professor’s lecture, I think of how I might follow Duchamp’s model. A thought I have been avoiding forces its way to the forefront of my mind: I am going to write about our summer in Paris. I have already begun to write it. My choice to write out my overwhelming stream of thoughts after you left my room a couple nights ago was deliberate and more meaningful than I was initially aware. I look at you and allow myself to enjoy the warm, effervescent swell of my affections deep inside my core. Until we may be more than friends, I need an outlet for my affections. To prevent myself from smothering you, I will write out my feelings. The story of our summer in the City of Love will be rearranged and remixed from life so it becomes the most beautiful and true version of itself. Duchamp, I think, would approve.

Professor finishes off his tangent on Duchamp and leads us to a room that displays
Guitare
. The canvas is composed of burlap, rope, newsprint, and dirty, bent nails that together form the vague shape of a guitar. “Picasso has driven nails through it. It’s not pretty,” Professor says. “It’s confrontational so it looks as though it’s attacking you. He used dirty, low-end materials to create a high-end look.” He looks at
Guitare
fondly.

I find
Guitare
hideous, but Professor’s appreciation of it encourages me to try to think otherwise. I reach deep within myself and open myself up to the possibility that there may be beauty in
Guitare
. In doing so, I discover the care Picasso has taken in the composition has a certain appeal. The varied textures are grotesquely beautiful, especially the menacing, spiky nails against the rough burlap and smooth newsprint. With myself opened up for the purpose of better appreciating art, I also feel something unexpected. I sense behind me an energy, like the specific presence of another person. It has a vigor, warmth, and intensity I find difficult to translate into language. It feels wonderful, as though by engaging the deepest part of myself, I am sensing the spirit of another person, the deepest part of their self. My first instinct is that the energy I am feeling is you. Before I can turn around to look to see if you are behind me, I feel the energy moving. You appear at my side, having moved forward to get a closer look at the artwork.

I find the sight of you so enormously gratifying, but I know the happiness I find in looking at you is, at least in part, a delusory happiness. So my second instinct is to wonder if I have made-up sensing your presence in my head, like hearing the buzz of electricity and seeing all those colors yesterday. I am not sure how I
could
have made it up, though. I felt a distinct energy, and as I felt it move, you appeared, the energy’s clear source. Yet I am reticent about believing completely that what I have felt is real in order to carefully consider whether it is part of my delusions or not. I decide the most intelligent thing to do is to keep an open mind about what I have felt—to neither outright discount it nor accept it unquestioningly.

We end class in a room displaying the work Picasso did late in his career. “By now Picasso is closing in on seventy. He’s less important and less good. He’s into goats at this point.” Professor looks up at a large, craggy bronze sculpture of a skinny, elderly man holding out a goat-like animal that appears to be hollering in pain. “This is the Picasso of Southern France. He’s just skating on being Picasso.”

Being again confronted by an artwork I find ugly, I open myself up to possibility that there is beauty in it. I am unable to find much, except perhaps in the craggy texture of the bronze, which reminds me of the cragginess I love in Rodin’s bronzes. With the deepest levels of myself engaged, I again sense behind me the same energy I felt a few rooms ago. This time, though, I don’t wait for it to move. I turn my head in the direction of where I feel its source to be and see you. Now that I have felt it twice, and both times determined its source to be you, I doubt I made it up in my head. It must be genuine, though I have never felt anything like it before. Nor do I know what it could mean. It is very tempting to conclude that being able to sense your presence means we’re destined to become romantically involved. This conclusion isn’t very logical, though, and is based predominantly on how I
want
to interpret this new sensation. I decide I will ask my mom about it tonight. She has studied religion and spirituality extensively, so she may have an answer, or at least an idea for where to look for one.

After a few final quips about Picasso having been claimed by France as a great French artist, Professor tells us we’re free to go. Our class instantly begins to chatter. You tell Professor about your after-class plan to have falafel with your Frame-twin. You know I can hear you, but you don’t invite me, making me feel shunned and rejected, like we aren’t really friends at all.

Our class pours out into the warm streets. A thought pops into my head of how I could get you to invite me to have falafel with you. I catch up to you and your Frame-twin, feeling desperate and needy as I do so. I can’t help myself. It’s like a force within me is driving me to have as much contact with you as possible, regardless of how pathetic I might seem in the process.

“Hey!” I say. You and your Frame-twin stop and turn toward me, waiting expectantly. “Do you know when you’ll be able to go to Giverny?” I ask.

“No.” You bring your arm forward, your palm turned upward as if offering me something small, as you continue to speak. “I haven’t checked my schedule yet. I’ll check it tonight.”

“Okay. Where are you guys going?”

“We’re going to go have falafel,” you say. You tilt your chin upward slightly so that a beam of sunlight highlights your forehead. The way you hold your head suggests you are very aware of the power you have. Like a king granting a faithful, if over-dedicated citizen her wish, you ask, “Would you like to come with us?”

“Sure!” I skip over to you.

You lead the way through Le Marais to the cobblestone street of rue des Rosiers, where the falafel stands are. At the busiest falafel stand, L’As du Falafel, we wait in line among a mix of foreigners and Parisian youths. Each of us order a falafel sandwich stuffed with freshly fried falafel balls, tahini sauce, radish, lettuce, cucumber, and a dash of hot sauce. We eat them as we walk. Absolutely ravenous, I open my mouth beastly wide and close my lips around it, savoring the first warm meal I’ve eaten since I invited you to stay the night in my box. As I eat, orange-red oil runs through my fingers, into the creases of my palm, and down my wrist, but I hardly care about the mess. The falafel is incredibly delicious and I am so glad you are here.

I quietly savor my falafel while you and Frame-twin gossip about friends from your study abroad program. After a natural pause in your conversation, you turn to me and say, “You’re quiet.”

“I am.” I shrug, “I’m eating.”

You nod to my sandwich. “Do you like it?”

My lips are clenched around a bite of the sandwich, so I only nod slowly, looking up at you with animalistic hunger in my eyes and thinking of my desire to stuff all of you into my mouth. You look away from my hungry gaze.