myself.
“My, my,” he said with a devilish grin, “yet another chance to show your compatriots how devious we Frogs were, collaborating with the Nazis and sending those poor innocent families to their deaths. Little Miss Nahant bares the truth! What are you going to do, amour, rub our noses in it? Nobody cares anymore. Nobody remembers. Write about something else. Something funny, something cute. You know how to do that. Tell Joshua the Vel’ d’Hiv’ is a mistake. No one will read it. They’ll yawn and turn to the next column.”
I got up, exasperated.
“I think you’re wrong,” I seethed. “I think people don’t know enough about it. Even Christophe didn’t know much about it, and he’s French.”
Bertrand snorted.
“Oh, Christophe can hardly read! The only words he deciphers are Gucci and Prada.”
I left the room in silence, went into the bathroom, and ran a bath. Why hadn’t I told him to go to hell? Why did I put up with him, again and again? Because you’re crazy about him, right? Ever since you met him, even if he’s bossy, rude, and selfish? He’s clever, he’s handsome, he can be so funny, he’s such a wonderful lover, isn’t he? Memories of endless, sensual nights, kisses and caresses, crumpled sheets, his beautiful body, warm mouth, impish smile. Bertrand. So charming. So irresistible. So arduous. That’s why you put up with him. Isn’t it? But for how long? A recent conversation with Isabelle came back to me. Julia, do you put up with Bertrand because you’re afraid of losing him? We were sitting in a small café by the Salle Pleyel, while our daughters were attending ballet class, and Isabelle had lit up her umpteenth cigarette and looked me straight in the eye. No, I had said. I love him. I really love him. I love the way he is. She had whistled, impressed, but unconvinced. Well, lucky him then. But for God’s sake, when he goes too far, tell him. Just tell him.
Lying in the bath, I remembered the first time I met Bertrand. In some quaint discothèque in Courchevel. He was with a group of loud, tipsy friends. I was with my then-boyfriend, Henry, whom I’d met a couple of months earlier at the TV network I worked for. We had a casual, easygoing relationship. Neither of us was deeply in love with the other. We were just two fellow Americans living it up in France.
Bertrand had asked me to dance. It hadn’t seemed to bother him at all that I was sitting with another man. Galled, I had refused. He had been very insistent. “Just one dance, miss. Only one dance. But such a wonderful dance, I promise you.” I had glanced at Henry. Henry had shrugged. “Go ahead,” he had said, winking. So I got up and danced with the audacious Frenchman.
I was rather stunning at twenty-seven. And yes, I had been Miss Nahant when I was seventeen. I still had my rhinestone tiara tucked away somewhere. Zoë used to like playing with it when she was little. I’ve never been vain about my looks. But I had noticed that living in Paris, I got much more attention than on the other side of the Atlantic. I did also discover that French men were more daring, more overt, when it came to flirting. And I also understood that despite the fact I had nothing of the sophisticated Parisian—too tall, too blond, too toothy—my New England allure appeared to be just the flavor of the day. In my first months in Paris, I had been amazed at the way French men—and women—stare overtly at each other. Sizing each other up, constantly. Checking out figures, clothes, accessories. I remembered my first spring in Paris and walking down the boulevard Saint-Michel with Susannah from Oregon and Jan from Virginia. We weren’t even dressed up to go out, we were wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops. But we were, all three of us, tall, athletic, blond, and definitely American-looking. Men came up to us constantly. “Bonjour, Mesdemoiselles, vous êtes américaines, Mesdemoiselles?” Young men, mature men, students,
“My, my,” he said with a devilish grin, “yet another chance to show your compatriots how devious we Frogs were, collaborating with the Nazis and sending those poor innocent families to their deaths. Little Miss Nahant bares the truth! What are you going to do, amour, rub our noses in it? Nobody cares anymore. Nobody remembers. Write about something else. Something funny, something cute. You know how to do that. Tell Joshua the Vel’ d’Hiv’ is a mistake. No one will read it. They’ll yawn and turn to the next column.”
I got up, exasperated.
“I think you’re wrong,” I seethed. “I think people don’t know enough about it. Even Christophe didn’t know much about it, and he’s French.”
Bertrand snorted.
“Oh, Christophe can hardly read! The only words he deciphers are Gucci and Prada.”
I left the room in silence, went into the bathroom, and ran a bath. Why hadn’t I told him to go to hell? Why did I put up with him, again and again? Because you’re crazy about him, right? Ever since you met him, even if he’s bossy, rude, and selfish? He’s clever, he’s handsome, he can be so funny, he’s such a wonderful lover, isn’t he? Memories of endless, sensual nights, kisses and caresses, crumpled sheets, his beautiful body, warm mouth, impish smile. Bertrand. So charming. So irresistible. So arduous. That’s why you put up with him. Isn’t it? But for how long? A recent conversation with Isabelle came back to me. Julia, do you put up with Bertrand because you’re afraid of losing him? We were sitting in a small café by the Salle Pleyel, while our daughters were attending ballet class, and Isabelle had lit up her umpteenth cigarette and looked me straight in the eye. No, I had said. I love him. I really love him. I love the way he is. She had whistled, impressed, but unconvinced. Well, lucky him then. But for God’s sake, when he goes too far, tell him. Just tell him.
Lying in the bath, I remembered the first time I met Bertrand. In some quaint discothèque in Courchevel. He was with a group of loud, tipsy friends. I was with my then-boyfriend, Henry, whom I’d met a couple of months earlier at the TV network I worked for. We had a casual, easygoing relationship. Neither of us was deeply in love with the other. We were just two fellow Americans living it up in France.
Bertrand had asked me to dance. It hadn’t seemed to bother him at all that I was sitting with another man. Galled, I had refused. He had been very insistent. “Just one dance, miss. Only one dance. But such a wonderful dance, I promise you.” I had glanced at Henry. Henry had shrugged. “Go ahead,” he had said, winking. So I got up and danced with the audacious Frenchman.
I was rather stunning at twenty-seven. And yes, I had been Miss Nahant when I was seventeen. I still had my rhinestone tiara tucked away somewhere. Zoë used to like playing with it when she was little. I’ve never been vain about my looks. But I had noticed that living in Paris, I got much more attention than on the other side of the Atlantic. I did also discover that French men were more daring, more overt, when it came to flirting. And I also understood that despite the fact I had nothing of the sophisticated Parisian—too tall, too blond, too toothy—my New England allure appeared to be just the flavor of the day. In my first months in Paris, I had been amazed at the way French men—and women—stare overtly at each other. Sizing each other up, constantly. Checking out figures, clothes, accessories. I remembered my first spring in Paris and walking down the boulevard Saint-Michel with Susannah from Oregon and Jan from Virginia. We weren’t even dressed up to go out, we were wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops. But we were, all three of us, tall, athletic, blond, and definitely American-looking. Men came up to us constantly. “Bonjour, Mesdemoiselles, vous êtes américaines, Mesdemoiselles?” Young men, mature men, students,
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