I should laugh. Really, I should. Because that’s the truest thing he’s ever uttered.
And yet, I can’t hear him over the sound of my dream trip circling the toilet.
3
Joy
In Texas, everything is big. For the last three years, I lived in a sprawling-ass house. I believe that is actually the official definition. When I spotted it on Zillow, the listing said something like that—big-ass home for sale.
Fine, I kid.
But it was three bedrooms and a truckload of square feet. The yard played hostess to many a barbecue—yes, my yard was female—and the two-car garage could have held a pair of fat trucks. Most of the time, it housed my Prius.
The square footage tipped close to two thousand, and the cost for all that space was way more than manageable. Such is real estate life in the outskirts of Austin.
The human resources director at L’Artisan Cosmetique, the newly acquired French division of the cosmetics giant I work for, warned me of the size disparity between Texas homes and Parisian ones.
“I must make you aware that the flats we are sending over for your consideration are not terribly large,” Marisol, the human resources director, wrote tactfully in her email to me a few weeks ago. “I hope we do not disappoint you.”
I promptly assured her there was no way I would ever be disappointed, even with a cupboard-size flat in Paris. She could house me in a windowless studio, in a room missing a kitchen, in a closet even. Whatever size she found, it would possess the most important feature an abode could claim—just me.
After living in too close quarters for far too long, I didn’t need space so much as I needed not another person.
All that square footage hardly mattered when I shared it with someone who Svengali’d everyone around him. I learned what’s truly valuable in real estate is how many people you let have a key.
I button my blouse while gazing out the window of my hotel room overlooking Notre Dame, enjoying the view.
Enjoying, too, that I’m the only person who has a key to this room.
As I slide the last button in, my phone buzzes from my back pocket. There’s a note from Stephen, the apartment manager at Paris Perfect Places, confirming that tomorrow morning he’ll give me the key to my furnished rental flat, 2B in a cute little building in the 5th arrondissement.
By “little” I mean less than four hundred square feet, which in French real estate is evidently considered a “luminous” thirty-eight square meters. That’s precisely how the flat was advertised.
Except . . . something seems off as I reread the message. The address for the flat looks odd. I was pretty sure I rented something on the third floor, not the second.
I tap out a reply. You mean 3B?
Stephen’s response is swift. Yes, 2B!
Okay, something is clearly lost in translation, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sort it out right now. I fire off a typical I can’t wait response, translating it into French, but then I stop myself. What if “I can’t wait” in French turns out to mean “I want to rub my lady parts against you?”
Instead, I cycle back to what my seatmate on the plane taught me, and I use one of her replies then hit send.
My stomach growls. It’s nearly nine, but my jet lag woke me up at five, so my stomach is basically saying I hate you, bitch, feed me now. My appointment with Marisol and the translator isn’t for another hour, but since I’m wide awake, I decide to take off for a stroll toward Notre Dame. Because I can, and because no one’s here to stop me.
Stepping away from the window, I toss a light green scarf around my neck, wrapping it jauntily and pressing it to my nose. The smell of silk and cedar drifts into my nostrils. As I let the fabric fall, I catch the faint whiff of honeysuckle, too. That’s my favorite scent in my favorite perfume that I can finally wear again. It transports me instantly to a hammock under the sun and to long summer days as a teenager when I started to daydream of boys. I spritzed some on this morning when I dressed, since I brought my budding collection of little perfumes with me on the plane in my carry-on. All less than three ounces, of course.
I grab my shades and leave the hotel room, saying bonjour to a maid on my floor, the concierge in the lobby, and the doorman by the exit. I’m like Belle in the opening sequence of Beauty and the Beast. Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour.
This city will be everything I imagined. It will be more than wonderful. Paris is my great escape, and it begins today.
The doorman holds open the door, and I step outside. Cue the music video. Paris, here I come. Just try to wipe the grin from my face. It’s impossible because everything around me is so very French.
Like the looming sky-blue wooden door of the building next to the hotel. A knocker that looks like a cherub holds center court. What a funny little decoration for what appears to be an office building, and the very architecture suggests that the structure is a few centuries older than my home state.
I chuckle as I rub the bronze cherub’s hair, then I snap a cell phone shot. I send the picture to my sister, Allison.
On the other side of the hotel is a café. My heart skips a little faster because it’s everything the photos promised me. Small chairs with round wicker seats and tall, black backs spill onto the sidewalk. There’s barely an inch of room between each little circular red table, but no one cares. Parisians sip their coffees from teeny cups while reading the newspaper, or brooding, or talking to a companion.
