French Lessons

changed.

The waiter arrives and places their coffee cups on the table.

“Du sucre,” Philippe says. The waiter always forgets to bring sugar.

“Will you come?” Chantal asks Philippe when the waiter leaves.

“Tonight? Who knows. By this evening you will have run off with your American,” Philippe says.

“Enough,” Chantal says, quietly dismissing him with a slight wave of her hand.

The waiter slides a bowl of sugar cubes onto the table as he hurries by. Philippe drops three into his cup. They all sip their coffee. Nico looks at the young couple at the next table; they are now kissing.

Finally Chantal looks up at Nico and says, “Champagne would be nice.”

“Seven P.M., then.”

“I’ll be there,” Philippe says, and he slams his empty espresso cup on the table.

Nico looks at Chantal. She gives him a smile that is filled with secrets. For him? He doesn’t know her despite a night of lovemaking that has sent him into each day yearning for more. Does he yearn for more of her? He doesn’t even know that. He is a fraud, a poet with no understanding of his own desires. Does he just long for desire? No, it’s love he wants, he assures himself.

“I’m tired of Paris,” Chantal says.

“Why?” he asks.

“There’s too much noise. It’s too gray. Sometimes I feel like I can’t get enough air.”

Nico looks around. Along the rue de Paradis he can see a tabac, a papeterie, and a plombier tucked in among the apartment buildings. It’s a street like almost any street in Paris, and yet he loves the way the new sunlight hits the tall windows of the nineteenth-century buildings, the way the cafe spills into the street, the way the pedestrians rush past, all of them hurried and impatient. Paris has entranced him ever since he left Normandy at eighteen. He even likes the relentless rain. Today, though the skies are clear, he expects another onslaught of storms. The rain suits him-it keeps him inside on his days off, writing and listening to jazz. But of course Chantal would hate this weather. She is meant for sunshine.

“I’m going to London,” Philippe says. “In September.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Chantal says quietly.

“We’ve got a gig-I don’t know, I might stay. We can record a demo tape there. My drummer has a friend who can get us into a studio.”

“That’s great,” Nico tells him.

Philippe glares at him.

Nico reaches into his pocket for a couple of euros to pay for his coffee.

Chantal looks at her watch. While she reaches into her bag for money, she says, “I would move somewhere warm. Somewhere very green.”

Philippe drops coins on the table and charges off, his messenger bag banging against his back. He doesn’t say goodbye.

“Why did you tell him?” Nico asks Chantal.

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought it was between the two of us.”

“It never is.”

“Why not?” He tries to see her eyes but she bows her head and swirls the last bit of espresso in her cup.

“We all bring so many people to bed with us. We’re never alone.”

“He’s furious.”

“Because I changed the rules. I’m not supposed to play the same game that he plays.”

“And now? What game are you playing?”

Chantal looks up. She reaches out and touches his cheek. “I don’t know. Philippe has made me into someone else. I would like to believe in love again.”

They had talked for a long time in bed after making love that night. When Nico told her about his high school girlfriend, how they would sneak out of their houses in the middle of the night and sleep in the hayloft in the barn, Chantal had said to him, “Young love teaches you how to love. You’re so lucky. Most of us spend years trying to learn the ways of love.” Nico knows that Chantal believes in love. But she was drunk that night, she was cheating on her boyfriend, and she wants to forget what they did.

She stands up and gathers her things. With her purse over her shoulder, she starts off toward the metro station. She looks back.

“I am done with all this,” she says. “I’m ready for whatever the day might bring.” She offers a dazzling smile, something full of hope for something else, someone else.

Nico watches her leave. He tries to hold her in his view as long as he can. The sun ducks behind a cloud and then reappears, bathing the street in new light. Chantal disappears into the entrance of the metro. Nico pulls the paper out of his back pocket and opens it. Josie Felton. He looks at his watch. It is time.

Josie and Nico

***

***

Josie is surprised that her tutor is a man, that he is young, and that he is startlingly handsome. She considers walking back into the office of that horrible modern building and telling the waif behind the desk that she’s made a mistake, that she doesn’t want a tutor for the day, that she wants to go back to her hotel room and drink Orangina and vodka.

The tutor shakes her hand, and she’s surprised by the heat of his skin-she has been cold for so many days. She pulls her hand away as if she’s been scorched.

“So you’re a French teacher,” he says to her in French.

“Oui,” she answers. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken French to anyone but American teenagers.”

She doesn’t say: It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken at all.

She decided to hire a tutor only yesterday when she realized that after three days in Paris she hadn’t said more than a few words-when ordering a croissant or a glass of wine or asking the hotel maid for an extra towel. Suddenly the prospect of a day of conversation terrifies her. She doesn’t feel capable of conversation.

“Are you here in Paris for business or pleasure?”

It’s a trick question. She has no business and she has no pleasure. She quit her job three weeks ago. The man she loved died three weeks ago.

“I’m here to buy shoes,” she finally answers.

He looks at her feet. She’s wearing red Converse sneakers, the same shoes she always wears. Her students loved her shoes. Her old boyfriends, slackers one and all, loved her shoes. But Simon wanted her to buy grown-up shoes, pumps with three-inch heels, strappy sandals, red stilettos. And so he bought them tickets to fly to Paris.

“We’ll go shopping,” the tutor says.

“No, I was-”

“No reason to sit in a classroom,” he tells her. “Paris is our classroom.”