The other day, Gala and I had to leave the house at six in the morning to get to a photo studio. Edith’s friend had a makeup line and needed models for a shoot. They were looking for a pair of friends, one of whom had to be Diverse. When Edith showed them a picture of me, they said I’d be adequate. Gala, of course, was a classic choice. The studio was on West Fifteenth near the highway. It was contemporary, with floor-to-ceiling windows that didn’t open; a kind of dead air circulated. It’s funny when you look to the street and know it’s so hot out, but inside it’s chilly. Being high up in a building, watching cars move up and down the street like glittering bugs and not being able to hear honking makes me feel deaf. Very unnatural, but I suppose some people like to get as far away from the street as possible.
Edith stopped by while we were getting our hair done. Because my hair is down to my ribs and thick, it took the hairstylist two and a half hours to finish. The added weight of the rollers was giving me neck pain. Edith was so excited. “You two are going to look amazing. I’m so happy you could do it!” I told her what had happened the day before, and she said, “Noel Christie? Oh, I know him, really tall and sometimes sad. You ran into him, so what?” Gala answered for me—her hair was covered in foil around the roots—“He rebuffed her once.” Edith rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s always seemed stupid.”
Gala had a coughing fit but had enough breath to say, “You love dummies.” That is one thing Gala is accurate about. “And only half the time good looking.” Edith picked up a makeup brush from a kit and took sweeping strokes of powder to her face. As she applied lip balm in the mirror, she said, “Take it from me, all men who ignore you are handsome. That’s what makes them good looking.” To defend myself I said, “It’s not so simple. We have a textured history.” Gala says I have a history with everyone.
Men always like Noel. To them, his brand of masculinity is the Objective. Rugged, even. It’s rare to find that in New York. He seems misplaced, looking like he’d prefer anywhere else. He uses phrases like “hit the sack” and “come outta the woodwork.” He’s spry and proper, or at least as much as any barfly can be. He moves curbside, as boys are told to when walking with a girl, likely by mothers hoping their sons don’t turn into brutes, which they usually do anyway.
I don’t know why I’ve always liked brutes. They drink too much for lack of the right language to express themselves. Sometimes they’re too scared to express anything at all, but it’s never obvious. They appear coarse, aloof, absolutely taciturn. They have always been my weakness. I really yearn for it. The mind reels with all the possibilities of what they might feel or think about you. Usually it is nothing like what you expect and much less complex than the thoughts you generously assign to them.
As we were waiting around for our hair to set, I told Gala and Edith the story of how I was first introduced to the French 75. Noel reminded me of someone I had known in Paris, and maybe that’s why I was stuck on the idea of him. There was this American bartender at one of those clubs where everyone ends up going late into the night. In Paris, there are only ever five good bars at a time. He was beautiful enough to be an actor (the kind who would be famous for looking conventional). A bit like a young Robert Redford, he had these swaths of blond American hair. He’s lucky because even French girls dream of things like that. In reality, he was between countries because he had no papers to live in France and he couldn’t go back to America. Stateless. His family cut him off after he quit the local varsity crew team. He dropped out of school and decided to move to Paris because his heart was set on painting. He always had girlfriends—wealthy, long-term, live-in girlfriends. I knew exactly what he saw in them—steady meals and warm apartments. That was a survival tactic. It’s a familiar story. I try to avoid that type now. They always have Pasts, and those can never be reconciled.
At the time, I was susceptible to his charms. Two summers ago, Paris was hot in the afternoon and cool in the evening. People love Paris, but they forget it smells like a urinal. Being there is like paying someone to be rude to you and deciding to like it. I was only in the city for a couple of days, staying on the floor of a famous photographer’s apartment with ten other people. I’d been invited to sit for a group portrait, and the photographer used this as an excuse to show off his subjects. We were being shuttled from events to dinners to parties. I felt stifled because the photographer made me check in to say where I was going if I ever decided to stray.
One night, I ended up alone at this subterranean club with an unmarked door. There were low-hanging chandeliers, and all the bartenders were broad shouldered and wore white T-shirts rolled at the sleeves and grey trousers. For some reason, whenever I ordered a gin and tonic, they served it with a lemon wedge, and I kept saying, “Non! Citron vert!” The third time around, the bartender was curt and said in plain American English, “Listen, I’d have to go upstairs to get a lime. Take what I give you.” I was furious because the drinks were eighteen euros, frankly extortionate for something that wasn’t correctly served. I handed him a bill. He leaned over the bar to take it from me and said, “You’re dancing by yourself.” I frowned because obviously I was aware of that. “Oh, I know. It’s okay, I prefer it.” He smirked and handed me my change. Before I left, I gave him my number in a rolled-up napkin. In the morning I realized I had never asked his name.
That day he called me and said, “Meet me at Harry’s Bar at three.” I walked from where I was staying, near Rue Saint-Sébastien. It was a mistake to do this; I didn’t expect it would take forty minutes, and I was quite late. When I got there, he was smoking outside. I apologized and he said, “I thought I’d be the late one. I usually am.” Only an American with varsity lineage would make me meet him at a place with dozens of sport pennants tacked to the walls. We sat at a table downstairs. The place was shabby yet golden and filled with people who were not so close to my age. We looked at the menu; drinking cocktails in Paris is an easy way to lose money. He said, “Hemingway used to come here,” and I said, “That’s too bad.” He asked me if I could speak any French. I had only known a couple of phrases at this time and told him: “I know ‘Je m’en fous’ and ‘C’est quoi ce bordel?’” He laughed. “That’s about all I know too. That’s all you need to know, especially.” He told me I should get a French 75 because he was certain I’d like it, and “be sure to get a splash of absinthe.” He said, “I think about going home sometimes, but there’s nothing for me there.” My drink was served in a champagne coupe. Before taking my first sip I asked, “But what exactly is for you here?” He smiled with his eyes downcast. “Nothing of note. The economy treats me well.” What he really meant was women. He asked what was keeping me in London. I tried to think of something but came up blank. I said, “Nothing of note.” He laughed, “I’m sure wherever you go you’ll be fine. La petite délurée!” He ruffled my hair with his hand. It all seemed platonic. We even split the cheque.
“You split the cheque?” Gala interrupted me and whistled. “You must’ve really felt sorry for him.” Edith had pulled a chair over. “Go on.”
I wasn’t interested in him because we were cut from the same cloth. There’s a line I once heard in a movie that works well here: “There’s a little bit of larceny in everyone.” But after those drinks, something about the situation became important. I had never met a man who understood things and was practical in the way I was. He could never judge me. He was eight years older and had worked his angle, from what I could tell, for years. There was something in his practised charm that comforted me. I had not yet been in the company of someone so used to being watched. When he came into a room, people eyed him. He carried the air of being on display. People looked at him, and in their minds they were already calculating what they could offer. Shelter! Food! Favours! Friendship! This kind of effect is rare for a man; men are used to watching. He said whenever he came home from work and emptied his trouser pockets, he would find receipts with names and phone numbers scrawled on the back.
Later that night I went to his work and waited for him to finish up. We took a cab together. It was around four in the morning. The sun would be rising soon, and we were both quiet. The moon was still out and lit up the inside of the car. He slowly wrapped his hand around mine. We sat like that for a while, and right before we drove onto my rue, “Cet air-là” came on the radio. The whole moment suddenly swelled with meaning, and we kissed. So awfully cliché we both started laughing. It made my head light.
Gala whispered to Edith, “Isa’s always kissing someone in the back of a cab.” The makeup artists finally came over to do our foundation. While they smeared concealer under our eyes, I told the girls, “We couldn’t offer each other anything, and that’s why it was a Romance.”
Anyway, we got to my place and as we left the cab, the driver said, “Isn’t it wonderful to be young, beautiful, and carefree!” We hugged goodbye. We lingered for a while, and I knew it was because we were both tired, and not in the sense of wanting to sleep. We sat on the steps outside the door to my apartment and held each other. He said, “It’s hard, isn’t it?”
The next day, I returned to London. There was a feeling of unfinished business I couldn’t brush off. London felt soggy, lonesome, and boring in comparison. I longed for his company—that’s something I would never confess—so I booked a trip back to Paris. For me, having to spend money on a train because I had an Infatuation was not ideal. But when I came back, it was too close to August for the same crowds to be there. From the jardins to the quais, everywhere was sparse, less lively. One night I stayed at his club late. The doors had shut, but the party went on. Smoke rose to the ceiling with the only light coming from the large neon sign with the club’s name. I had been waiting for him to finish work and sat with a beautiful red-haired American named Jordan. She was like a forties film star, with pincurls and everything. She was seeing the round Turkish club owner, who apparently had mysterious ties to crime. While he counted the night’s earnings in his office, he let her tango with the elegant Senegalese DJ. I watched them move across the floor with precision. It was enchanting for me because I never knew people actually tangoed, and they were both equally lithe. Her red hair glowed in the light.
After coming off the dance floor, she sat quite close to me in a booth. “Anything you want, we’ll drink!” She ordered amaretto on ice with a lemon slice to squeeze. She’d say things like “Oh, the boy you like, he’s quite popular with women. He has a girl every week, every night, one at the house, and another across town. But you’re different. You have no home for either of you to go to.” She threw her head back and laughed. “I can tell that you are much smarter than him.” I felt I could trust someone so alluring. “Do you really think so?” She repeated, “Yes, Isa, of course you’re much smarter than him.” And it was strange because I had never measured myself against someone in that way. It had never even occurred to me to think that. From then on, I could never unlearn what she had said. It changed everything.
After the bar, we all went to a house in Montmartre belonging to one of his friends. He gave me a glass of water with some ecstasy sprinkled in. For about ten minutes I felt jubilant, and then, all of a sudden, the joy went away, drying out like hot laundry in the sun. I felt a sense of clarity—but it was worse than that; it was the feeling of being intensely sober. Everyone’s faces were clearer than I had ever seen them. Their eyes were red, bloated, and puffy, framed by lines like deep ridges. I pitied them. I found them pathetic.
Gala said, “Ecstasy? You would never do that with me. You’re always more fun abroad!” I rolled my eyes. “I hate that stuff. I become the worst version of myself, really cruel.” Running around aching to hurt someone—it’s awful. The best time to take ecstasy is when you’re at home with a friend, when all you want to do is dance and dress up in the clothes you bought on the condition of needing them One Day. Gala looked at me in disbelief. “Well, sometimes you’re too nice, anyway.” Edith laughed. “What, you think Isa is a sweetheart? A little sweetie? I thought you two were the best of friends. Do you even know each other?”
The American bartender had a streak of the unscrupulous. In the end, he was looking for another girl with an apartment. I was looking for a distraction, but he reminded me too much of myself. Sometimes I long for anything that might be frivolous. I go between feeling much too young and much too old for my age. I crave nothing serious, but when I pursue it, I am the one to drag a dark cloud overhead. It’s much easier to seem silly and light than to be the sum of your experiences. If only I could exist as perfect lightness, always laughing with my mouth open. I would float through life with ease, believing in my own unserious personality. It takes no effort to convince people you are in fact just that. They start to expect that of you, and nothing more.
Gala was scraping dirt from under her nails. “You’ve really philosophized the story, haven’t you? That guy was just a regular guy, Nothing Special. But don’t worry, Isa. I’d read about it. I want to know more about Paris: did you smoke joints at Place des Vosges too?” Edith interrupted, touching my knee lightly. “What a marvellous story, like Jean Rhys and the gigolo!” She sighed. “So Romantic.” Gala said that deep down, if I weren’t so practical, I’d end up with a bartender. And I said, “It’s unlikely. I’m a morning person.” I told them, “You know, a couple of years ago, instead of getting my fortune told, I asked a valet what I should do about my life. He told me, ‘You’re making a mistake going to London; the rich men are in New York.’”
The photographer was ready for me. He gave me a onceover as I sat on a stool in front of a pink backdrop. He definitely looked a little seedy, the type people would ask me to pose for when I was sixteen or seventeen. They would say, “Don’t be so prudish. It makes you seem young!” He was only shooting my face, of course, as I’m far too short for any normal kind of modelling. The photographer shouted over the music, “You have wonderful structure!” I tried to stay in pose and said, “They say I’ve grown into my features.” He periodically shouted instructions like “Mouth open!” “Head up!” “Chin down!” “Look at my hand!” It went on like that for another half hour till my eyes were out of focus from the flash. Gala came in for her photos as I switched into another look. Gala says the only good that comes out of shoots is having more photos of herself.
After we changed into our normal clothes, they paid us $150 each and said, “But don’t worry. It’ll be really good for Exposure. We’re going to put your full names in print!” Gala was still scrubbing foundation off her face with a tissue and said, “Exposure for what?” We took the elevator down in silence and walked out into sweltering July.