French Lessons

“So. You got a girlfriend?” she asks. There was no sign of a female touch in that lovely abode she visited earlier, but who knows? The girl could be a beer hog.

“Elle s’appelle Riley,” Philippe says.

“Got that wrong,” she tells him.

“Pourquoi pas?”

“Parce que I’ve got this load of love in my lap and the other running in circles over there.”

“It is not the same kind of love.”

“We’re talking love?”

“We do not need to talk. We need to love.”

“You’re talking about s-e-x.”

“Faire l’amour. To make love.”

“In our country-”

“You are not in your country.”

“And in your country love and s-e-x are the same thing?”

“Perhaps.”

“Un-fucking-believable. I love this city.”

“C’est vrai?”

“Today. Right now. This second. I heart Paris.”

With that the waiter pours their wine and they clink glasses.

The sky darkens; thick black clouds have moved in again. Riley puts her monster shades up on her head.

“I used to think that every time I had s-e-x I loved the guy,” she tells Philippe. “Now I know. It’s s-e-x that I love.”

“But it is the man. It is always the man.”

“What’s always the man?”

“You have loved him. You have loved me.”

“Sorry, Charlie.”

Philippe looks confused.

“It’s an expression. I know your name.”

“Bon.” Philippe looks unhappy, as if she called him the wrong name in the heat of passion.

“I think you’re wrong,” Riley says. “You’re just a ride.”

“Je ne comprends pas.”

“You made me feel good today. Thanks. But it ain’t love.”

“We need each other. All of us. We cannot be alone.”

Riley looks around. Philippe must be talking some kind of Parisian truth, at least in this cafe. Not a solitary soul in sight. The make-out couple looks ready to tear up some bedsheets.

“Anyway, c’est fini. I’m not heading your way tomorrow for an afternoon delight. If you know what I mean.”

“Pourquoi pas? A few hours ago you were very, how you say, with passion.”

“But I’m not with passion now. I’m with kids now.”

The littler of those kids starts to squirm in her Snugli.

“I don’t want to breast-feed her in the middle of the cafe,” Riley mutters, fishing for a pacifier in her backpack.

“I will be very happy to see you breast-feed.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“Americans believe in groups,” Philippe says. “You have all your expat groups and your maman groups and your book club groups. Do your groups make you not lonely?”

Riley shakes her head. She is most acutely aware of how lonely she is every time she enters someone’s apartment for one of her many group meetings and hears the clamor of so many voices and sees the spread of food and tries to find a place for herself in the middle of it all.

Riley tried to befriend someone at the last expat meeting. While most women boasted about their husbands’ positions as CEO of World Bank or editor in chief of Newsweek Europe or head of Apple’s international division, a shy bohemian woman introduced herself by saying, “I have to be here while my husband plays in Paris.” Riley assumed the woman was mocking the guy. But no, he was the new lead violinist of the Paris Symphony Orchestra.

“Want to get together one day?” Riley had boldly asked the woman. “I don’t know many people here.”

“Sorry,” she had said, “but I’m immersing myself in French life while I’m here.”

Riley felt like a fifth-grade misfit. She wanted to kick the woman’s shins. Instead, she wandered back to the smoked salmon canapes on the dining room table and drank a fast glass of cheap white wine.

“Here in Paris we believe in two people,” Philippe says. “It is only two people who can faire l’amour.”

“Let’s start walking,” Riley says, standing quickly. “I want to settle the baby down.”

She rocks the baby, standing in place. Philippe finishes his wine in a gulp and tosses some money on the table.

“Do not be angry,” he says sweetly as they walk out to the courtyard.

“I’m not angry,” Riley says. “I’m confused.”

Cole leaves the group of kids and races to Riley’s side. He looks up in her face.

“It’s okay, Maman,” he says, taking her hand.

What goes on in that complicated little mind of his?

“I love you, sweetheart,” Riley says. “Let’s take a walk to the river, okay?”

“The river,” Cole says happily. And off they go, the four of them. Sleep with a guy and voila! You’ve got yourself a spanking new family. Would Vic notice if he slid between the sheets tonight and bumped up against Philippe? Again, that penis waves jubilantly in Riley’s mind, and she shakes the image away.

“What happens if it rains when they’re filming?” she asks.

“On verra,” he says.

She doesn’t ask what that means. Whatever it is, it sounds better in French.

The crowd is enormous at the quai du Louvre. As far as Riley can see, people are lined up at the side of the promenade, staring out toward the river.

“I didn’t know the French were starstruck like this,” Riley says to Philippe. They’re pressed together at the street corner, waiting for the light to change. Everyone seems to be headed for the same place, and when the light changes they shuffle along with the crowd.

“We love the cinema. We love art. We appreciate the work of our great directors.”

“Face it, Philippe. You’re all star-fuckers.”

“I would fuck the star, yes.”

“She’s a middle-aged woman,” Riley says.

“In our country, we love all women.”

“Love, love, love. If the French do so much loving all the time, why is everyone so angry?”

Philippe leans over and kisses Riley, missing her lips and brushing against her cheek.

“Arrete,” Riley says. She looks at Cole, who is singing to himself, ignoring his mother and her tutor.

“Je suis mechant,” Philippe whispers.

Riley knows that expression-another common playground phrase. Bad boy. Man, is he ever.

They cross the street, step over the low fence that is supposed to keep pedestrians from walking on the grass but is apparently ignored by everyone at times of international crisis like filming in progress, and they gather with the hordes of people near the river.

She wiggles through the crowd-a hard thing to do with a baby on her double-D chest, Cole in front of her,