ninety

23:11:24

I’m sleepless in Beirut, my feet upon a mound of bedsheets,

and still recovering from being sleepless in between time zones. The lost hours are not lost at all, they just accumulate and grow into a tumor of heavy and laggard until you can do nothing but vanquish it by stamping your face into a pillow.

The empty stretch of bed to my left is where I came to the last inch of my conclusion: this kid needs at least ten more years to feel like a man. Excel was fun, he hardly ever bored me, he was brainy, he had managed to acquire good taste in music over the last few years, he was quirky and he was cute. Seeing him asleep in the morning I only felt slightly sad that something was stunting his growth.

“You want me to be more serious?”

“It’s not a question of being fun or serious, it’s about maturity. You’re so jumpy sometimes, hopping from one idea to the next without letting the other person finish.”

“You know, you’re right, you’re right. I’m so stressed at work that it plays with my mind. It’s probably my medication,” and he went on to explain his mild anxiety disorder.

“How long have you been taking it?”

“For about a year. After that time in Paris…”

He was referring to the weekend he came to visit me. Despite his nervous state, so intense that even I was slightly disturbed, it was one of the best times we spent together.

“Stop fidgeting! I can’t sleep like this!” I had told him off on his first night.

On the last day we went for a long walk along the Seine, into the Marais, through the galleries of Centre Pompidou and the Jardin des Tuilleries. By the time we had two hours left to his departing train, it was like a comedy of love.

We laid on the grass beneath the overcast sky, crows picking at leftover biscuits, his shirt over my naked shoulders and my head on his lap. Looking at the scattered couples around us, for once I felt like I was living the Parisian postcard. In the urgency of the last moment, it was pure and innocent. I even wished he’d miss his train.

But we made it on time to the Gare du Nord, separating in the tunnel that linked it to the Gare de l’Est. I may have been a little sad, but having grown so used to dealing with separation, I only texted him with a wish for a safe return.

Come to think of it, Excel and I only ever lived such moments: a day here, two days there. Yet, sitting here with him in the early hours of the morning I felt like I was less engaged. Perhaps if I hadn’t met Red in Dubai, I would have allowed myself to be seduced by the idea of making it work with this boy with whom I played house with in 4^th grade.

“Do you see us together?” I asked.

“Let’s just say that whenever I’m with another girl, I always see you in the corner with a disapproving look.”

I didn’t need to dig further. He hadn’t answered the question, the ground beneath us was still firm.

An hour later, it was Red standing in the room and I wished instead that it were himself he was watching. I could only imagine how much more ignited and intense everything would be. I closed my eyes and Excel was no more.

seventy-nine

17:24:53

I'm sleepless in Beirut.

"Je crois qu'elle me plait..."

The Nth time I hear him pledge his love to a girl he has just shared the air in the room with.

I met Dot via a dot.com. We chatted briefly, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy and we agreed to meet the following day in front of a bar in the street where I used to live.

I got off the 21st, reliving the sweet taste of an old familiar routine, waited for the light to turn red, crossed the street before the crowd of tourists switched into gear, crossed the second light, but instead of going straight through the huge arcade, I walked around to gather some courage, to calm myself down and to freeze the feeling of nausea that never fails to show up in my stomach whenever I am meeting someone strange.

I saw him leaning against a street pole, casually looking into his phone and observing the surroundings through the blurry mist that lay outside his focal point.

He looked decent, but not as masculine as his photos promised, more retired ballerina than bull-fighter. And he was not the height he claimed to be. As I approached him with my calculative gaze I missed the equations he used to go up all the way to 1.75m. Soooo not his height.

We walked down the winding street, stretched by the setting sun rays and the languid shadows of people strolling, successfully making conversation, that felt genuine yet, still, slightly constructed. At Odeon, every cafe and bar within our view seemed either too full or too touristic or or or...so we settled for something neither of us knew, liked or disliked. A perfect neutral ground for social experimentation.

Dot was interesting. Interesting in the sense that his curiosity was still alive and a-poking. His manner was powder-room soft, his sentences well articulated, perhaps too much, rehearsed...? His best quality to surface within half an hour was his honesty.

"Je suis marié."

"Comment? Où est ta bague?!"

"Marié mais en train de me divorcer."

It's a funny feeling. So he was someone with whom some girl fell in love with and thought they could have a life together. Wow. But also, he was someone with whom the dream didn't take flight. Daaaang.

But I wasn't looking for a flight. I had two months left in Paris and all I wanted was a sweet ride to take for a spin.

I began feeling increasingly nervous, but I didn't immediately feel the anxiety, instead, I read it in my hands. My fingers were playing with my hairband, contorting it into spectacular shapes. This meant only one thing - I was losing control of the situation and I tried to restore some power to myself by moulding an elastic band. I had to get out of here.

"Je ne me sens pas bien."

"Qu'est ce que t'as."

"Je suis nerveuse..."

"A cause de moi?"

"Je ne sais pas, mais en tout cas, je le sens. Je ne sais pas quoi faire avec mes mains."

"Tu veux qu'on bouge d'ici? On peut aller chez moi, j'ai du fromage, des tomates, de pancetta..."

"Chez toi? Hmmm, je ne sais pas si..."

"Non, non, rien ne va se passer. Je te promet."

And that is how control was back in my deck of cards. I learned that in anxiety-ridden situations the best way to go is to address the anxiety. Most of the time, people are surprised by the claim. 

"You? Nervous?!"

Few people have the X-ray vision that your paranoia invents.

So over to his house we went. As with most Parisian apartments I had lived in or visited, it was on the last floor. He opened up the rooftop window, we climbed out, laid out the plates, cutlery, nibbles and a large globe of light, and suddenly the scene turned all gooey and movie-like. Minus the romance.

The romance was waiting for us lower below, contained by the warmly lit walls. As I sat on the sofa, he inconspicuously moved over to the piano and began playing one of my all-time favourite piano pieces. Smooth criminal.

After a couple of beautifully played pieces, he sat down next to me and it felt like the famous Hamlet quote, but in a naughty context.

It was awkward, I threw my cardigan over my head, in what I will forever remember as the unsmoothest randomest move I ever pulled out of my sleeve, and said that I had to go.

In the corridor, he said, "Embrasses-moi".

He was shorter than me, I knew it wouldn't work, but I leaned forward anyway.

And suddenly life was complicated by a simple desire to make that stupid cliche moment linger, a desire to avoid the greasy metro poles, to forget that I had work tomorrow, to forget that the timing of things mattered.

Finally, I pulled away and out the door.

But the next day, I was back, with my suitcase and all. That is how I moved from dot.com to Dot's in 36hours.

seventy-five

18:18:18

I'm sleepless on Ligne 12.

Crossing Paris from point A to B, to reach an X. I'm calm, yet unsure of his motives. The last time I saw him he was leaving to work, disheveled and in his dorky glasses, and I was leaving to the airport.

I refrained from contacting him while in Beirut, to let him know that I had indeed moved on, and to spitefully put him in the same drawer with all the other Parisian flings.

Ever since I've been back I've been so disinterested by the opposite sex. In one month I had had collected enough to last me all through the summer and more.

I told that to Lucifer. I had to be honest. And it's not only out of empathy, by telling lies to others or by not saying anything at all, you are also lying to yourself. Slowly, the truth you know becomes harder and harder to discern against the background of lies that you have woven for this and that, for him, for her. Being frank also allows you the freedom to concentrate on details that matter rather than the details that serve as decoration.

Lucifer, despite being a "technical" catch was clearly not the guy for me. He has a sadness that is not within my power to dissipate, and I know that somewhere down the line, the smile on his face or the passion in his eyes will prove to have been a temporary reaction.

I exit the underground: I'm in the suburbs but it doesn't look like the other side of the wall, newspapers and news channels built up so many expectations that crossing the peripherique was a near peripeteia. I thought I'd see cows.

"Je suis en route, attends moi à la croissement".

Crisses and crosses, my fingers fiddled with the possibilities that were about to ensue.

I saw him at the red light. I'd finally see the new home I had heard so much about.

We drove through the narrow winding streets. I was disoriented, had no idea where I was, where we were going, when we would arrive. It felt like a long time. My right hand held my left fist, left thumb trying to calm them both down. He noticed it, but I could not help it.

We drove into the garage. A portrait of his brother hung on the wall.

"C'est ton frère?"

"Non, c'est son ami."

The white living room looked out unto the forest.

"Have you seen Twilight? This room reminds me so much of their house!"

"Non, je ne l'ai pas vu, mais tu n'es pas la première de le dire."

I told him about my holidays in Beirut. I gave him the olive oil soap he had asked for. He talked about his next trip, his dislike for London, politics... I was so focused on his fast French that I had no time to form an opinion. Not that I had any. Global politics I could never retain in that little head of mine. I felt ignorant and noted to myself that I should read more news, for dinner conversation's sake.

We needed to get physical. "Tu sais jouer?"

He handed me the racket and the empty white ball. "A toi de servir."

We hit the ball back and forth, the only extra rule was not to interrupt the eye contact between us. It wasn't so hard, although eventually I lost, 13-21, but it helped to sew back the gap of the few weeks between the last time we had been together and now.

He opened up a wine of Alligote. Same as last time, only better. The hour long match had warmed me up, I had my legs up on the L-shaped sofa tucked under me. My elbow was up on the backrest, my head resting, hair falling on shoulder. Comfort, finally.

Comfort, is worth it. There is nothing better in human relationships. I'm done with formalities, done with power struggles, done with labour, done with stiffness. Why seek mediocre company? Why talk about the weather when it can be warm inside?

["Pas de prise de tête", says the girl beside me into the telephone on the adjacent table at the cafe de trottoir]

Exactly. No heads held high, no writhing hands, no tapping fingers, just comfort.

But with Pope, it was always a final destination. A journey to get there was inevitable. The weekend headlines, the weather report, the future forecast. Slowly, our polarities would begin to change so that we could both become one large magnet pointing to the South.

With cooking dinner out of the question, we moved straight for the dessert. Good ole recipe of home-made fondant au chocolat-like skin, natural, familiar, butter-smooth, equator warm, tantalising, mouth-watering...

Simply divine.

Sometimes, it is the best choice to go for your favourite dish on the menu.


"I didn't think a human voice could be so loud," I later told Flutterby during one of our Skype sessions.

seventy-four

03:10:09

I’m sleepless in Paris.

I came home to an empty apartment. Nobody was home, but things had moved around since I had left that morning. Crayons were spilled on the floor, and there was a leftover omelette on the counter. Hungry, I stole a bite. On the kitchen table, there were photos left on top of the laptop, pictures of her with the father of her baby. He looked too young for him to do what she expected of him: to assume responsibility and become a true father to their child. A photo of him and the boy at some indoor stadium, a photo of the three of them some street in the States. After a few days of over-hearing her conversations with the girl (who’s room I was now living in) and see her cry last night, I really had no hope for her. She had to forget him. 

I placed the photos back as they were. I did not want to be further drawn into her story. I could only care for the little one. He was the best thing she would ever get out of her nightmare of a situation.

I then remembered that I had left my wet clothes to dry in the TV room. Landlord was back in town and I was supposed to be a good tenant.

I knew him from his cups (Prince William and Princess Diana), from his toilet (pages of old 80s ads plastered on the walls), from his living room (giant fish pillow, black and white comic illustration hung above the radiator, Telerama magasines scattered beneath the coffee table), from his spices (dill, thyme, nutmeg), from his closet (tall), from his objects (African statuettes, metal boxes, rusty metal knife), from his books (History of Ancient Greece, travel guides, French exercise books).

His suitcase was near the window, open. The laundry hanger was folded. Shit. I was too late. I wonder what it must feel like to come home and see it occupied by other people’s wet clothes, people you’ve never met.

His suitcase was neatly packed. A polo shirt, trousers… I wondered what he looked like. Was he blond? Dark-haired? There were no photos in the room, just books, CDs and papers. My nostrils flared a little…no smell, no perfume.

I found my underwear hanging in the bathroom, each item, neatly folded over a white metallic rod. I could see his large hands hanging them routinely, as though he was mothering me, “Your delicates go here, on the little one”. He had touched my underwear. He knew me from these tiny blacks and a magenta.

This was getting intimate.

seventy-three

19:28:24

I'm sleepless at Gate 72C.

The restaurant I wanted to take Pope to was closing. It was one of those cozy hipster hangouts that transported me straight to Shoreditch, minus the jolly chop chop of British conversations.

He was unfamiliar with the area, which I found quite surprising, since it was one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Paris. We climbed on top of one of the arched-cat bridges to see both sides of the Canal. It was a hot, uncomfortably sticky evening, we were still odd with one another: it had to be a quiet terrace. After a few minutes walk, we spotted a hive of people on the corner of a street and decided to stick with it. Better to stuff our mouths than to continue babbling emptily about what we did that weekend.

It took over a year to get here, but that's how it works. It took us miles and months to walk a few hundred metres in fifteen minutes to sit down and touch knees. It took us space and time. And now it was effortless, like a ball rolling downhill.

But most importantly, it took a few words of honesty.

We bumped into each other the night I met Lucifer. I saw Pope in the crowd, at one point, we were even back to back, but we avoided contact. And then I saw Brooklyn and the friend whose swank party we had debauched and I turned to Laydi and told her I wished I could disappear. I met Brooklyn back in Beirut when he was visiting Pope. I had only met him briefly, both times at the airport, but enough to have given the two room to discuss our relationship, they were close, so close in fact that if you threw them into a closet, they could stay there for days, happy. I always had the feeling that he did not like me...much...and he had somehow helped the disintegration of the relationship.

Our eyes met. Brooklyn's face lit up with suspicious over-enthusiasm.

"Salut! T'es à Paris? Putain, ça fait longtemps!"

Earth, swallow me now. I was certain that small talk would follow and I would not find a graceful distraction to save me in time...

...and then Pope appeared. Brief hello. Insignificant news. Dispenser details. A leaf is falling somewhere, would you look at that.

"C'est quand ton Big Day?"

"Fin de Septembre."

"Oh, je serai sur Paris, je viendrai te féliciter."

"Ah bon. On s'est pas vu pendant toute la durée de ton séjour, et là t'as envie de me voir..."

"Come on, I still care..."

"Même si on n'est pas sur, comme tu m'as dit, same wavelength?"

"C'est vrai qu'on se comprend jamais. Faute de mélange de langues, surtout quand on envoie des textos!"

"Tu veux me dire que pendant tout les trois mois qu'on est sorti ensemble on s'est jamais compris?!"

"Bein, presque. Je me souviens bien des moments où j'étais tellement frustrée car je ne comprennais pas ce que tu me disais par téléphone, ou quand tu ne lisais pas entre les lignes de mes messages..."

And we did not stop talking.

The misunderstanding beneath my house.

"I thought you knew where I lived...and then you told me "je ne suis pas comme ça", I wasn't sure what you meant by that...and all of you were laughing in the street, looking at my messages on your phone..."

"J'avais vraiment envie de te voir, si non, je n'aurais pas t'envoyé un message...on était bourré, on rigolait du fait que j'étais en bas de toi, mon ex..."

The short fling between me and Sobriquet.

"Dites-moi que vous étiez amoureux, mais c'était juste pour baiser quoi. T'as voulu me chercher. C'est mon ami quand même..."

"I didn't think he'd tell you. What an asshole. For what it's worth, I regret it. It was pointless."

The never-calling him back after his friend's party.

"I was embarrassed..."

"Il faut que tu restes un peu en France! T'avais honte? De quoi? Tu n'as pas encore vu comment les gens boivent ici?"

"...and besides, you were being mean to me the whole evening. About my hair, my shoes. You even told me, "Personne ne te regarde". That wasn't really nice."

"Moi je t'ai dis ça? C'était pour te dire que tu peux te détendre, que voilà, sois à l'aise."

The break-up.

"Je n'ai jamais voulu te faire mal"

"Tu te souviens de la dernière fois qu'on s'est vu? On n'avait rien à dire! C'était l'horreur...après les trois mois de tout ce qu'on a eu, de n'avoir rien à dire...ça m'a marqué ce soir là...je ne te trouvais plus le même..."

"C'est toujours délicat ce temps après. Comment réagir? Comment garder des bonnes relations? Je ne voulais pas te faire plus de mal..."

"And from my side, I didn't want you to think that I wasn't over you, but if I was trying to prove it to you, it would look like me trying to prove something that is false, and if I didn't get in touch with you, you would think that I was getting over you...ahhh..."

That we should see each other more often. Hang out. Dance. Talk. Eat.

Our knees were touching. He excused himself. I didn't budge. It's only boney knees, slimy cartilage.

He ordered my wine for me, a glass of Alligote, arranged for a change to a better table once the other couple was ready to leave, called the waiter by his name, joked around, called me Mademoiselle, and halfway through my ratatouille I remembered why I once liked this guy and why I was glad to be able to like him again.

With the elephant out of the room, conversation was flowing, forks in mid air, neatly cut up parcels of food cooling down, plates half finished, wine order, encore, "Jacques, deux verres, s'il te plait", santé, a nod here, a nod there, mirroring, smiling, preening, point of emphasis, a hand, a finger, pokes to emphasise the point of the anecdote on the upper arm, shoulder, slap on the thigh, touching, and coming to realise that we were  flirting, measuring the distance, offsetting the limits inch by inch.

"Ils sont là tes amis?"

"Oui, je crois, on a dit vers 23:00...tu veux rester avec nous?"

"Je ne suis pas venu pour les voir."

"Ok, comme tu veux"

One of the guys was already waiting for me, sitting on the bank of the canal, hunched over his sketchbook, headphones blocking out the world, pencil lines deliberate...

We sat down for two beers and a glass of wine, quelque chose un peu plus sucré pour Mademoiselle. We sat at the edge of the row of tables, beneath a street light, they spoke in French, one faster, the other with pronounced last letters, and I listened to the calm patting of peaceful hands building a sand castle for the sake of raising up a white flag high enough to announce a safe place...

The other two were two hours late. Drunk, lost and shirtless, and still eager for adventure seconds. I had to go home, finish packing, and for once, I'd choose the easy way to go home. No walking, no Velib, no running after cabs, no skidding through the tunnels to catch the last fish about to slip through the labyrinth... Paris looks different through the windshield. It shrinks to half its size, especially at night, when you drive beneath the surface of oily tungsten yellow, its clingy film hiding the upper floors from your sight, the unknowns multiply, the streets divide amongst themselves until there are four: the dark, the lit, the full, the empty.

"Regardes, il y a même un espace pour stationner..."

He squeezed his car in front of the large archway that led to my house.

"Bon, I had a wonderful evening, I'm glad we're back to normal, on se vera quand je revienne..."

I kissed his two cheeks.

"Ne m'embrasse pas comme ça..."

"Ciao"

I was tempted to let the night unroll, like a wallpaper of beautiful, golden, intricate motifs repetitive in a continuous crimson sea. But it wouldn't be one of those nights were we'd spend the hours talking until we'd both fall asleep one next to the other, someone's head on someone's lap or shoulder. It would be one of those nights we could possibly regret, one of those decisions we'd wish we didn't take. Were it inevitable, it would have happened, but at this exact moment it felt too...scripted.

Nights like this should come easily.


I kicked off my shoes and the phone buzzed.


"Putain, il y a plein des flics..."


"Alors t'as peur des flics!?"


"Il avait l'air méchant"


"Fais pas un accident"


"Mais bon je suis passé à travers. Moi je suis cool c'est eux les salope"


"Ouais, ouais, t'es toujours...cool. C'est un don ;)"


"Et t'as l'air de l'apprécier de plus en plus"


"Tu n'as pas perdu ton charme. Ca te dérange si je l'apprécie? Je crois pas!"


"Non, continue"


"Il y avait vraiment des flics? Dimanche soir?"


"Oh que oui et plein ils arrêtaient tout le monde"


"Je pensais que t'étais créatif..."


"Si je suis toujours la c'est que je le suis..."


"Là où exactement?"


"Dans ma voiture à t'écrire"


"Mais tu conduis pas, j'espère..."


"Pas devant chez toi, et si je conduis"


"C'est dangereux."


"Je vais te texter après. Me fait pas des bisous comme cela, pour me dire on se voit quand tu rentre..."


"Tu veux dire?"


"C'est cruel"


"Hahaha, me taquine pas, c'est cruel vu que t'es vers Alésia"


"C'est toi qui me taquine. Presque chez moi"


"Ah oui, c'est loin..."


"A 10 min"


"De moi? De toi?"


"De nous"


I made sure he was home and in bed. Only then would the night come easily if he made the effort to go all the way back to see me.


Goodnight Paris, with fire, the works, and all.

seventy-two

12:09:13

I’m still chained to my bed in Paris.

His “precautionary read” was The Economist. Serious. I was seriously hoping it was going to be a novel, a classic, but perhaps he has already devoured them all.

I arrived five minutes later than 18:20. I got out of the metro, moths in my light stomach. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. I cajoled myself into rounding the corner. I noticed him immediately. He looked like the photo, perhaps slightly better. Definitely older. The moths in my belly batted their wings against the glass globe. I took a deep breath to cool them down.

He was drinking Schweppes. I was reminded of Uma Thurman lusciously mouthing, “I want to have Schweppes with you” and hoped that it wasn’t a discrete message he was sending me.

He didn’t stand up. I sat next to him. At first, it felt like a casual business meeting. His whole look was business. Except for his jeans. They must have been as old as I was. Light blue and soft. A no hit and miss.

He told me his story. He was indeed a Yale alumni, with a degree in literature, who then went on to do something great in one of the world’s largest corporations. Sooner than later, he realized that “great” and “corporation” don’t walk hand in hand. Bad things are planned seated around large tables in the shadow of the public eye, the rumours that we hear are true, he confirmed. He is married, but separated, and a father. His manner of speech was calm and contained, I was almost entranced. Now it was my turn.

My story. My story was not as long or as fascinating, but we discovered that we did indeed have things in common. Not credentials, not experience, but a certain espoir en tête and a certain disenchantment with the way things were currently going. It’s the ability to balance the two, to struggle with the sway between naïve hope and total abandonment that kept us going. At least that, we had in common.

Was I attracted to him? He had nice hands and a soothing voice, but that was as far as I could go. I was more enthralled by his overall character, an acquired calmness. I sat there looking out unto the buildings bathed in orange sunlight, smiling inwardly at the circumstances of this afternoon. Perhaps I’m too easily impressed by titles and such, but I don’t blame myself too much about it. For some, meeting Ke$ha would do it, for others, a war hero. It is the company of great minds (great and mind being relative) that stimulates us to aspire to something, even if that something is a second cup of coffee or Schweppes.

We said goodbye, that we’d keep in touch, that September was just around the corner, that it would not hurt to meet again. It had been a pleasant afternoon, cooler and more contained than the rush through the streets with Lucifer, and I was willing to leave it all to the future, once more.

As he disappeared into the distance, I sat down in the nearby square to let it all sink in. I was early for my next rendez-vous.

“C’est bon, je suis a l’heure, je prendrai le metro. Le resto n’est pas loin de Chez Prune, on peut se rencontrer devant.”

“Ca marche. Je pars de chez moi. Bisous”

I clicked my heels (I didn’t), and descended into the mouth of the metro.

seventy-one

10:32:15

I’m chained to my bed in Paris.

It’s winter again. I call it winter, they call it fresh air, but I miss the sun already. I shouldn’t complain though, the memory of the smell of sweaty June in the metro still makes me turn my head towards the open window. Better the cool of wine cellar than the oasis illusion of a saj oven.

Sunday. Hot sticky no escape Sunday. My suitcases were packed and I was ready to exit the steamy womb of my soon to be ex-home.

I met Lucifer in front of the fountain. We were going to have some dripping gelato.

Lucifer was a mutual friend. I’d hear of him from hims and hers and just a few days ago, we had finally met.

He was an interesting looking type. Short and skinny, a few couple years my senior, black hair peppered with white, Italian. He had an interesting way of looking at things and of talking. We’d chat, silence would present itself, we’d turn to someone else, he’d reappear, we’d chat again and so on. Never empty words, and I liked that.

As we walked towards the ice-cream shop we’d never find, we talked about everything. I remember my mom would ask me what I talked about with people I’d see.

I’d say “Everything”.

“But specifically?”

“Everything.”

Well, mainly about everything about ourselves. Random things on every subject.

The heat reflecting off the stone walls, the asphalt, the pavement, the metal poles, the people, off each other was becoming unbearable. And with the ice-cream shop nowhere within our sight, Lucifer took us by the leash and to Café George on the roof of Centre Pompidou.

I had never been there for drinks and welcomed the idea of filling a checkbox on the Wallpaper* list (pure speculation here).

He ordered a beer and I had a flashback to some lazy day on the beach back home and ordered some pineapple mix cocktail. We sat there and sweated. The conversation escapes me now, but I was certainly much more absorbed by it than I was with Nice (boy for nice girl).

But then Lucifer, being the Italian devil that he was, touched my nose.

I lost my balance. Was this a date?! Or was this Italian for “You smell nice?”. I’m not trying to compliment Le Grand Nez of the perfume I was wearing that day, but a few minutes later he leaned forwards to smell my neck.

Let me rewind a little. Earlier on, I had commented, innocently, promise, on his perfume. It wasn’t his. It was Botticelli’s. I love that scent and I often find myself singling it out on the street. There is always someone wearing it…

So here I was being touched and smelled. How do I get myself in these situations? I did not have an ounce of hidden intention behind the gelato invitation, I smiled not to flirt but to facilitate social interaction, to show my interest and agreement in what he had to say, to show my pleasure in his company.

I’ve been told I smile too much. Too much. But then they try to correct it by saying it’s a good thing. It’s not a good thing. It gets my nose touched and my neck smelled.

I always arrive at the question: how can a woman be friendly to a man without giving him false signals? I’d sincerely appreciate a clear and direct answer. But I guess there isn’t any.

I didn’t speak Italian, I didn’t touch his nose back. But I might have over-complimented his hair. It really was the coolest hair I had ever seen. Maybe that’s Italian, though probably Mediterranean, for “I’m into you”.

We had lost track of time, I had to go home or else I’d be late to meet with Ambassador.

We decided to see each other on Sunday rather than September. Why wait to find out if we were really centuries apart? Ambassador had called earlier that day to confirm our date at 18:00 at “Les Esplanades”. I knew from the sound of his voice that it was going to be a my-kind-of-a-date.

Hence, I had to rush my time with Lucifer. He insisted on inviting me, I eventually obliged. Having no change didn’t help either.

We took the lift back to the world below. And as we were walking towards the main hall, we got caught up in a crowd, I turned towards him, he looked at me and we kissed. Visitors and parents with kids walked by us while we acted out a scene fit for none other than a commercial for “Find your true love in Paris”. It was so bad a cliché that it was good, as good as a performance piece meters away from the famous piazza that attracts thousands of artists yearly.

But we weren’t artists, we were Ceasars of the moment.

For his size, he was quite strong. He kept on highlighting this strength, perhaps to compensate for his short stature, either by lifting me up in the air or by squeezing all the air out of me. It had its charm.

We walked/ran all the way back to mine, with intermittent pauses to catch our breaths and hydrate one another. By the time we reached, we could smell beyond our perfumes. Pure pheromones and sun juice.

“When do you return?”

“In a couple of weeks.”

“Will I see you again?”

“We’ll keep in touch.”

Even though I had carelessly welcomed this break from lipstinence, I wasn’t sure I would welcome it again. I thought I’d leave it to the future.

We said goodbye and I ran upstairs to freshen up for official date one, unofficial date two.

“Looks like I’ll be a little late, will try and be there 18:20”

“I took along precautionary reading material. Reflex of experience. A.”

seventy

21:00:05

I'm sleepless in Paris.

One of the main reasons why I was so looking forward to coming to Paris was the facility with which I could leave my past behind. Here, I'd be nobody and anybody.

Wrong.

My past was here and too frequently in my vicinity. I'd often cross paths with The Pope. Now technically that wouldn't have been problematic, but we had had a few misunderstandings, unresolved issues and a slip of tongue in the first weeks of my being here, that by now we avoided each other and we both knew it. It was for our peace of mind.

Wrong.

Those issues needed to be sorted out. I hated feeling negatively towards him and I wanted him to know why I was avoiding him: not because I could not stand the sight of him, but because I thought he couldn't. Besides, if I were to bring up all our issues out of the blue, he would undoubtedly call it my "cinèma".

True story.

Our last and final misunderstanding was the direct result of bad translation and insecurity.

“Tu es chez toi?? Je suis en bas…”

Was this message for me? We hadn’t spoken for a month after the unfortunate night at his friend’s swank house party. I say swank because I had never seen a Parisian home this cool: right on the street in the 1er, ground floor, jazz band playing for the guests and passers-by. It looked more like a cozy bar than a house. I had brought along two friends and we let loose. I recall the punch bowl with forest berries that I kept revisiting, the buonissimo cheese platter I could have called my own, the stumbling, the bumping into people, the spinning room, the iPhone videos of other people, the loud laughter, the obnoxious poses for the camera. Let’s just say it was one of the most fun nights I had had in a long time, minus the social decorum. The next morning, I woke up not with a hangover, but a perpetual blush, a blush you’d wear if you were caught looking through a key-hole.

His message was definitely a surprise.

“Yes, what are you up to?”

“Je bois un verre”

Indeed, when I looked out the window to the street below, there he was with his friends standing outside the bar.

“Je bosse un peu, tu veux passer?”

“Pourquoi pas”

“Dernier etage 829b”

10 minutes later.

“Tu veux que je passes??”

“Si l’absence d’un ascenseur ne vas pas t’etouffer, oui, passes”

“Alors??”

Why was he repeating himself? Something was off…

“Je suis pas comme ca enfin Sleepless…”

Je suis pas comme ca. What? What was that supposed to mean? I am not like that. Like what? Like I don’t go up to my ex-girlfriend’s house?

I was home with a friend, not with rose petals on the bed.

“Enfin, je crois que tu m’as mal compris.”

“Mal compris explique moi.. C est quoi ton adresse etage et code??”

“Ca veut dire quoi “je ne suis pas comme ca”?”

“Allo??”

I started ignoring him. I could hear their laughter echo all along the street. Drunk and on the crawl for tonight’s headline. I’ll pass.

“Ba tu me propose de passer alors je viens…tu veux pas? En plus j ai un cadeau”

A gift? His friend was holding a rose wrapped in plastic. With my sense of humour leeched out of me, I thought it best to continue ignoring him.

“Sleepless tu me laisses, dans mon coin… Tu me donne l etage, le code mais pas le numero…Apres tu fais ton Cinema. Je te propose de te voir. Je ne pense uniquement a coucher avec toi!! Mais si tu veux pas que je passe dit le moi au lieu de me faire attendre. Merci”

Only the next day, did I come to realize that he never actually knew where I lived. He had dropped me home once, at the end of the street and I walked the rest.

“Pope, bonne nuit et bon spectacle a toi et tes amis”

“C’est toi qui as le spectacle vu d’en haut…”

Shit. Did he see me? No, that was impossible. I had to deny it.

“I wish, would’ve been interesting.”

“Ca reste un spectacle, apparament tu interpretes mal…”

“C’etait et ca sera toujours un malentendu entre nous. It’s a pity really that we speak on different wavelengths.”

It went on for a little longer, we were talking in circles.

“On peut oublier cet episode? Sans rancune”

“Je n’ai aucune rancune, mais toi oui pour reagir comme cela…”

He was right, but I couldn’t be wrong.

“Quoi dire, j’adore le cinema…mais franchement, aucune rancune”

“Et bien parfait alors la prochaine fois tu m’invitera chez toi simplement…”

And that was that. We never spoke again. We would avoid looking in each other’s direction. We tried to be friends and failed.

But the more I’d avoid him, the more reason I had to want to leave Paris. It was likely that after that, I’d never see him again.

Wrong.