I wander the flat as Harlow’s phone rings thousands of miles away through the line. In the kitchen, I see Ansel has left me breakfast: a fresh baguette, butter, jam, and fruit. A carafe of coffee sits on the stove. He is a saint and deserves some kind of ridiculous award for the past few days. Maybe just a constant offering of blowjobs and beer. He’s apologizing for working, when I really should be apologizing that he had to clean up my vomit and go buy me tampons.
The lingering memory is so horrifying that I’m pretty sure I can never let him see me nak*d again without wanting to throw up.
The phone rings and rings. I do a blurry calculation, knowing only that when it’s mid-morning here, it must be really late there. Finally, Harlow answers with only a groan.
“I have the most embarrassing story in the history of embarrassing stories,” I tell her.
“It’s middle-of-the-night-thirty here, Mia.”
“Do you or do you not want to hear the greatest humiliation of my life?”
I hear her sit up, clear her throat. “Just realizing you’re still married?”
I pause, the weight of that panic settling in a little more each minute. “It’s worse.”
“And you flew to Paris to be this guy’s sex toy all summer?”
I laugh. If only. “Yes, we’ll discuss the insanity of all of this, but first, I need to tell you about the trip here. It’s so bad, I want someone to drug my coffee so I’ll forget.”
“You could just have some gin,” she quips, and I laugh before my stomach turns with nausea.
“I got my period on the plane,” I whisper.
“Oh no!” she says, sarcastically. “Not that.”
“But I had nothing with me, Harlow. And I was wearing white jeans. Any other time I’d be like, ‘Yep, I menstruate.’ But this? We just met and I can think of about fifteen hundred conversations I’d rather have with a hot semi-stranger other than ‘I just started my period and I’m an idiot so let me just tie my sweatshirt around my waist to be really obvious about what’s going on. Also, you being a dude, I realize it’s unlikely but do you happen to have a spare tampon?’”
This seems to sink in because she falls quiet for a beat before saying a quiet, “Oh.”
I nod, my stomach twisting as I reel through the remaining memories. “And layered all throughout that, I was barfing on just about everything thanks to the stomach flu.”
“Lola has it, too,” she says through a yawn.
“That explains a few things,” I say. “I threw up on the plane. Getting off the plane. In the terminal . . .”
“Are you okay?” The concern rises in her voice, and I can tell she’s about five minutes from booking a flight and coming to me.
“I’m fine now,” I reassure her. “But we got back to his apartment after this cab ride that was . . .” I close my eyes when the floor weaves in front of me at the memory. “I swear crazy Broc as a toddler would be a better driver. And as soon as we got here I threw up in Ansel’s umbrella bucket.”
She seems to miss the most important piece of information here when she asks, “He keeps a bucket for his umbrella? Men do that?”
“Maybe he put it there for guests to puke in,” I suggest. “And I’ve been sick since Tuesday night and I’m pretty sure he’s seen me throw up about seven hundred times. He had to help me shower. Twice. And not the sexy kind, either.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah.”
“By the way, you can thank me for covering for you with your dad,” she says, and I can practically hear the venom in her voice. “He called, and I confirmed everything from your little story while I plucked each and every hair from my Dave Holland voodoo doll. You’re in Paris working as an intern for one of my dad’s movie-finance colleagues. But play dumb when you come home to your father’s sudden male pattern baldness.”
“Ugh, sorry about that.” The idea of talking to my father right now makes me feel sick all over again. “He talked to Ansel, too. Actually, ‘screamed’ would be a more accurate description. It didn’t even seem to faze Ansel, though.”
She laughs, and at the familiar sound I miss her so it squeezes my ribs together painfully. “Mia, you’re going to need to really up your game in order to bring sexy back.”
“I know. I can’t imagine he’ll ever want to touch me again. I don’t want to touch me again. Even that enormous battery-powered rabbit sex toy you got me for my twenty-first birthday probably won’t ever want to touch me again.”
But the humor evaporates and my fear returns, roaring through my veins, heart pounding and limbs shaking. I haven’t just tipped my world. I’ve propelled myself into a completely new orbit. “Harlow? What am I doing here? Was this a horrible mistake?”
It’s a long time before she answers, and I pray she hasn’t fallen asleep on the other end of the line. When she does speak, though, her voice is more awake, stronger and thoughtful . . . just the way I need her. “It’s funny you’re asking me this now, Mia. And what’s even funnier, is you’re wondering if it’s a mistake, and I’m over here mentally high-fiving you all over the place.”
“What?” I ask, sliding down onto the couch.
“When you didn’t want to annul the stupid f**king marriage, I was pissed. When you got all schmoopy over Ansel, I thought you’d lost your mind and would be better off just banging the dimples off him for a couple of nights. But then you took off to Paris for the summer. You don’t do crazy things, Mia, so I just have to assume you found some wild oats, and you’re sowing them.” She pauses, adding, “I assume you have fun with him.”
“I do,” I admit. “Or, I did. Before the bleeding on planes and vomiting in buckets.”
“You’ve found your adventure, and are going to chase it,” she says, and I hear sheets rustling in the background, the familiar sounds of Harlow curling onto her side on her bed. “And why not? I’m super proud of you, and I hope you have the time of your life out there.”
“I’m terrified,” I admit in a small voice.
She reminds me I have savings, she reminds me I’m twenty-three. She reminds me there is nothing I have to be doing here other than enjoying myself, for the first time in . . . ever.
“It doesn’t really have to be about f**king Ansel all summer,” she says. “I mean it totally could but there’s more to do than worry about what he’s thinking. Get out of the house. Eat some macarons. Drink some wine—just not yet because you are officially banned from barfing until September. Go stock up on experiences.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I admit, looking out the window. Beyond our narrow street the world outside is an almost blinding intrusion of greens and blues. I can see for miles: a cathedral, a hill, the top of a building I know I’ve seen in pictures. Rooftops are tile and copper, gilded golden and stone. Even from the window of Ansel’s little flat, I’m convinced I’ve just stepped into the most beautiful city in the world.
“Today?” she says, thinking. “It’s Saturday in June, so the crowds will be ridiculous; skip the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Hit Luxembourg Gardens.” She yawns loudly. “Report in tomorrow. I’m going back to sleep.”
She hangs up.
NOTHING IS MORE surreal than this, I swear it. I eat at the window, staring out at the view, and then move into the small, tiled shower, where I shave and wash and shampoo until I feel like every inch of me has been sufficiently scrubbed. When I step out, the steam begins to clear and in a rush, it hits me that I can’t just go home and grab the things I forgot to pack. I have no blow-dryer, no flatiron. I can’t meet up with the girls tonight to tell them everything. Ansel is gone for the day and I have no idea when he’ll be back. I’m alone, and for the first time in five years I’m going to have to dip into the savings account I’ve watched grow with pride. Every one of my paychecks from the coffee shop I worked in throughout college went directly into that account; Mom insisted on it. And now, it’s going to allow me to have a summer in France.
A summer. In France.
My reflection in the mirror whispers, What the f**k are you doing? I blink my eyes closed, pushing myself into autopilot mode.
I find my clothes; he’s made room for my things in his dresser and closet.
You’re married.
I brush my hair. My toiletries are unpacked, tucked into one of the drawers in the bathroom.
You’re living with your husband in Paris.
I start to lock up the apartment using the spare key Ansel left for me right next to a small bundle of euros.
I find myself staring down at the unfamiliar paper bills, unable to quell the unease I feel at Ansel having left me money. It’s such a visceral reaction, the way my stomach tightens at the thought of living off someone else—someone other than my parents, I guess—that I have to push it aside until he’s home and we can have a conversation that doesn’t involve me with my head in the toilet.
In Las Vegas, and then in San Diego, we were on even footing. At least, it felt more even than it does now. We were both on vacation, carefree. After, I was headed to school, he was headed back here to his job, and life, and well-decorated flat. Now I’m the post-college squatter with no plans, the girl who needs directions to the métro, and snack money left by the door.
I leave the money where it is and cross the narrow hall to the elevator. It’s tiny, and with barely more than two feet on either side of me, I reach out and press the button marked with a star and the number one. The lift groans and shudders as it makes its descent, wheels and gears whirring above me until it lands with a thunk on the ground floor.
Outside the apartment it’s loud and windy, hot and chaotic. The streets are narrow, the sidewalks made of pavers and cobblestone. I start walking, stopping at the corner where the narrow road opens up into what must be a wider, main street.
There are crosswalks, but no clear pedestrian rules. People step off the curb without looking. Cars use their horns as frequently as I take a breath but they don’t seem the slightest bit annoyed. They honk, they move on. There don’t really seem to be lanes, just a steady stream of cars that stop and go and yield in a pattern I don’t understand. Street vendors offer pastries and bottles of bright, sparkling sodas, and people in suits and dresses, jeans and track pants rush past me as if I’m a stone in a river. The language is lyrical and fast . . . and completely incomprehensible to me.
It’s as if the city is spread lusciously before me, prepared to pull me fully into its intricate heart, into mischief. I’m instantly, deeply enamored. How could I not be? Everywhere I turn the streets look like the most beautiful sets I’ve ever imagined, as if the entire world here is a stage, waiting to see my story unfold. I haven’t felt this kind of buzz since I was dancing, lost in it, living for it.
I use my phone to find the métro station at Abbesses, only a few blocks from Ansel’s apartment, manage to locate the line I need to take, and then I’m left waiting for the train, struggling to take in my surroundings. I send Harlow and Lola pictures of everything I see: the French posters for a book we all loved, six-inch heels on a woman who would already be taller than most men on the platform, the train as it blows into the station, carrying hot summer air and the smell of brake dust.
It’s a short ride to the sixth arrondissement, where Luxembourg Gardens are located, and I follow a group of chattering tourists who seem to have the same destination in mind. I was prepared for a park—grass and flowers and benches—but I wasn’t prepared to find such huge stretches of open space nestled in the center of this busy, cramped city. I wasn’t expecting the wide lanes lined with perfectly manicured trees. There are flowers everywhere: row after row of seasonal blooms, cottage beds and wildflowers, hedges and lacy blossoms of every imaginable color. Fountains and statues of French queens offer contrast to the foliage, and the tops of buildings I’ve seen only in movies or pictures loom in the distance. Sunbathers stretch out on metal chairs or benches under the sun, and children push small boats across the water while Luxembourg Palace watches over it all.
I find an empty bench and take a seat, breathing in the fresh air and the scent of summer. My stomach growls at the smell of bread from a nearby cart but I ignore it, waiting to see how it handles breakfast first.
It’s then that I realize again that I’m in Paris. Five thousand miles from everything I know. This is the last chance I’ll have to relax, soak it in, create my own adventure, before I begin school and the regimented march from student to professional.
I walk every inch of the park, throw pennies into the fountain, and finish the paperback I had tucked in the bottom of my bag. For the span of an afternoon, Boston, my father, and school don’t even exist.