You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [28]
“Salut,” Mia called down.
They waved at us. We watched them holding hands, their footsteps echoing in the courtyard. Mia returned to the kitchen and I went to let them in.
The three of us drank wine and watched as Mia dredged pieces of sole through flour while butter melted in an iron skillet.
We ate at a small table in the living room. Mia insisted that we all sit before she would serve us and then one by one, she delivered plates of sole meunière and small bowls full of roasted potatoes. Séb, who worked for a wine distributor, opened one of the three bottles of chablis grand crus he’d brought.
“To new friends,” Mia said and raised her glass. Her face was flushed from the kitchen heat, those wisps of hair falling around her face.
“To new friends,” we all repeated and touched glasses.
After we’d eaten, after the requisite jokes were made about the rarity of Americans who could cook, and Parisians who could smile, after we talked about Chirac’s noble defiance of George Bush, Mia asked how Séb and Pauline had met.
“It was the simplest thing,” Pauline said. “We were in a café. Both of us alone at the bar having our coffee. Both of us reading our papers. Séb smiled at me. I smiled back. He said, bonjour, and that was it. We’ve been together since.”
She touched the back of his neck and moved her fingers through his hair.
“She smiled at me,” Séb said, “but everything else is true.”
Pauline looked at Mia and rolled her eyes.
“How long has it been?” I asked.
“Nearly eight years,” Pauline said. “I’d just finished law school.”
“And you?” Sèb asked. “How did you two meet?”
“Oh, we’re not—” Mia began.
“We’re not together,” I said.
They both laughed.
“You’re serious?” Pauline looked amazed.
“Friends,” I said.
“I don’t believe you,” Séb said.
“Moi non plus.” Pauline smiled.
“No, it’s true.” Mia looked up and when Pauline saw her eyes, she stopped laughing.
“We just assumed.”
“Oh, you’re not the first,” I said.
Mia began to clear and Pauline followed. When they were in the kitchen talking, Séb put his arms on the table and leaned forward.
“Mais pourquoi?” He asked, like I was a lunatic.
“C’est ma faute,” I said. “Je sais pas.”
He looked at me for a long moment and then shook his head.
* * *
After they’d gone, I washed the dishes while Mia sat at the bar finishing the second bottle of wine. Then I felt her behind me. My hands were in the warm water. She wrapped her arms around my waist. She pulled me harder against her and kissed my neck.
“Mia.”
She turned her head to the side and pressed it against my back. We stood like that, her arms around my waist, my hands in the water.
* * *
As I walked home, there was the familiar crush of isolation, that bodily loneliness that swept through me every winter. It was as if I’d been injected with something cold and viscous. I could feel it spreading through me, falling heavy in the center of my chest, pooling there. It was bitter and it was devastating and it frightened me.
* * *
From time to time I’d pass Marie in the hallway and she’d give me a knowing look. In those early days of the school year, passing her in the halls, I’d meet her eyes and feel a slight surge of desire. There was nothing more. I didn’t think about her and wasn’t much tempted. She pouted, flipped her hair and led with her breasts. She took on the mannerisms of an older, more confident woman, and none of it appealed to me.
* * *
The morning of October fourth I stood at the Odéon métro waiting for my train.
It was just before eight. People milled around, reading their papers, looking at their watches.
I’d been there maybe ten minutes already when a man my age arrived. The trains were slow that day.
“Pardon,” he said. “Excusez-moi, ça fait longtemps que vous attendez?”
Taller than me, he was wearing a suit, a black overcoat, a gray scarf wrapped twice around his neck. I was struck by him. Everything in place. Everything considered. It was a quality that I had, before moving to Paris, associated