French Lessons

and trembling.

She waited for a long time. Stay with me, Josie thought.

When he pulled out of her he looked at her and smiled-a sweet, exhausted grin.

His breath slowed. He ran his fingers over her stomach, her hips.

“Look at you,” he said. His voice sounded sad and lost.

His fingers moved to her breasts, massaging them and then teasing her nipples.

“You’re so young,” he said. “So impossibly young.”

Josie reached out and touched his face, ran her finger along his jaw.

“Don’t get all old man on me,” she teased.

“I can forget about youth,” Simon said, his voice quiet and serious. “I mean, I see it all the time-in movies, in ads, young men and women and their firm bodies, their smooth skin. But my own youth slips away, not noticeably, not enough to terrify me, until one day I end up in bed with a beautiful young woman. And then all at once, I’m an old man.”

They looked at each other, their faces close together on the bed, their hands both resting on each other’s hips.

“Is that it-your age? That’s what’s upsetting you?” she asked.

He winced, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked terribly sad.

“I’m a good man,” he said.

“I know that.”

“I never meant to do this to my wife.”

“Did she-”

“No, she doesn’t suspect. She wouldn’t suspect.”

He stopped and she waited for him to finish. She brushed his hair back from his forehead.

“It’s not an affair,” he said.

“What is it?”

“I’m too old to start over.”

“I’m not asking you to start over.”

“But I can’t give myself to you.”

“You give yourself to me every time we’re together.”

He touched her lips with his fingers.

“No, it’s not that,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s that I can no longer give myself to her.”

He looked close to tears. He looked like someone else, like someone she’d never seen before.

“You’re so fucking young,” he said.

“Why does that matter?” she asked.

“My wife. Now, every time I look at her, I see-”

“No, don’t. I don’t want to blame myself for that.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Don’t compare us. That’s not fair.”

“I can’t leave you behind. You’re with me all the time.”

He pulled her to him and they held each other.

“How long does it take for hair to grow?” Nico asks. He looks like a frightened boy.

“Oh, don’t be foolish. This is great. This is just what I wanted if only I had known what I wanted. I needed a lesbian to unleash me.”

“Turn around,” he says.

He spins Josie around, in the middle of the sidewalk, and a few people stop to stare. They all smile, as if they too are pleased with the tousled hair, the shy smile, the adoring young man.

“Bon,” Nico says decisively. “I still love you.”

“Don’t talk about love,” Josie says. “You’re not in love with me.”

Nico leans over and kisses Josie on the mouth. She steps back, her mouth open in a small O of surprise. Nico smiles and turns away from her.

“Follow me,” he says.

She stays where she is. People pass her on the street. She watches Nico walk jauntily ahead. She remembers the last time she saw Simon. “Wait for me,” he had said. He had kissed her, standing on her porch, more daring in the light of day than he’d ever been. She had watched him walk away, down the long, sun-drenched street toward his car. His body disappeared into the harsh glare of sunlight until her eyes burned with the strain of keeping him in sight. He was gone. Still she stood there, feeling his mouth on hers. Wait for me.

“Are you coming?” Nico calls from the corner.

She shakes her head. She watches him walk back toward her.

“Don’t be mad,” he says sweetly. “I had to do it.”

“He’s gone,” Josie says.

“Your lover?”

“I can’t show him my new haircut.”

Nico waits quietly for the rest.

“I can’t say goodbye.”

Nico puts his hand on her arm. “You are saying goodbye.”

Josie shakes her head and her hair tousles, then settles again. “You know what he taught me? He taught me to feel more. He taught me to give myself over to feelings. And now that’s all I have. I’m swamped by them. I can’t breathe because I feel so damn much.”

Nico takes her arm and leads her down the street. They walk for a long time. Finally they come to the end of a small street and ahead of them is an open stretch of lawn.

“I know where we are,” Josie says.

She looks down the stretch of grass and there sits the Eiffel Tower. It’s grand, majestic. It doesn’t matter how many times Josie has seen it, each time it takes her breath away.

“Let’s go,” Nico says, and Josie knows exactly what he has in mind.

Brady knocked on Josie’s office door even though it was open.

“Hey, you,” Josie said.

She stretched out a hand, offering him a seat across from her. She was reading a contemporary French novel that she had thought she might teach next semester. She wanted something new, something the kids would relate to. She already knew that the story was too adult for her kids, too racy and full of sex scenes that they would undoubtedly love, and that would get her into a ton of trouble, but she kept reading.

“Am I disturbing you?” Brady asked.

“No, not at all.” She put the book on her desk, cover down, as if she had been doing something illicit. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering…” Brady looked around the room, at the photos on her wall-photos she had taken of the creek behind her cottage-at the stack of books on the floor, and out the window where the rest of the students were piling into cars and heading home.

In the silence she watched him. He had Simon’s startling green eyes, Simon’s thick, wavy hair, Simon’s height. In the small room she realized that he smelled like Simon and she pushed the thought away. Of course, she thought. They use the same soap.

“My dad wants me to do the regular college thing. You know, liberal arts. Like everyone else in the world. That’s what I always thought I’d do. I mean, I never really thought about it, but now, I’m like a junior and I have to think about these things.”

It all came out in a breathless rush, as if he couldn’t stop himself.

“What do you want, Brady?” Josie asked.

“Well, that’s it. That’s what I was wondering. I mean, this is completely crazy, but I really loved doing the play. It’s like I was someone else up there and I get it. I really get how actors inhabit other people, like they give themselves up and they live in someone else’s body for a while. And this is the wild part, the part that I never would have figured out except it happened to me. When the play is over and you go back to being you again, you’re like a different you. You’re changed. It’s like you’re not the guy you played onstage, but you take a little bit of him