the striped deck chairs and faded umbrellas, the distinct sense that this place used to be chic, but that was a world war ago, maybe two. There’s always charm to faded glory, but also the melancholy of a moment past, a perfection irretrievably lost.
He occasionally realizes that he’s grinning, that he looks silly, smiling to himself like a simpleton. But he can’t help it, his mind keeps darting back to that arched eyebrow, those smiling dimples, that delicious kiss. How did this happen? So quickly?
The last time Will felt this way was after his first evening with Chloe, whom he’d known for years but only vaguely until their proper first date, a magical night. The next day he was walking back from a tedious lunch with someone who was frustratingly non-Chloe, beaming there on West Forty-third Street, when through his self-involved fog he heard, “What the hell are you so giddy about?” It was his old friend Dean, blocking the sidewalk.
“A girl,” Will had said, unnecessarily. There’s only one reason that men walk around looking like that. This was a half-decade ago.
Will returns to his hotel room overlooking the pool that hangs over the cliff. He lies in bed with the laptop in his lap, and works up his notes from yesterday and last night. His narrative arrives, inevitably, at the detail he’s been saving for last, another delayed pleasure.
He Googles Elle Hardwick, first for images, a handful of smiling-for-the-camera snapshots, all local to Australia, including a blood-rushing bikini pose on a beach, sunglasses, cleavage, a tanned tight tummy, hip cocked. Oh good God.
He takes a bracing dip in the cool pool, then tries to call his wife.
—
After a nearly perfect dinner—oysters, sea bass, Meursault, galette—in a nearly perfect dining room with a view of the sun sinking into the Atlantic, Will returns to his nearly perfect room. He hammers out the remainder of his notes, then starts turning slapdash sketches into grammatically complete sentences, into complete paragraphs, into a full story about food and wine and springtime in southern France.
But his mind keeps returning to Elle. He fights the urge to search for her again, to text her, to call her, to get on a goddamned plane and find her. Because in that impossible universe where he can live other realities, he’d like the other one to be here, in this other place, with this other woman.
PYRÉNÉES-ATLANTIQUES
The little Fiat whines on the steep ascent, climbing away from the coastline into the sere ragged mountains, sun-bleached and forbidding. He spends an hour visiting with a retired French pilot at his farm, being introduced to each goat by name. He has lunch with a Basque nationalist in a lively partisan bar, a loud game of pelota on the wall outside, soccer on the television. Conversation isn’t easy through an ad hoc interpreter from the Basque into Spanish, a language in which Will is far from fluent. He’s not sure how much he has understood.
Will continues driving into the mountains, the signs of civilization increasingly sparse, quiet little villages where everyone is somewhere else except the dogs and old people. He listens to the reassuring progress reports from the GPS that he’d unpacked from Inez’s nylon case, a label-maker’s strip glued to the backside, PROPERTY OF TRAVELERS. RETURN TO LOCAL BUREAU .
He turns off the main road, bumps along a narrow rutted lane that follows the banks of a stream, curving and climbing, potholes filled with puddles from an earlier downpour, weather he missed down at sea level. The going is slow.
“Arriving at. Destination.”
The hamlet is tiny, a dozen structures, none commercial, clustered near an oxbow in the stream.
He walks to a pump on the side of the street, pistons the handle, eliciting a gush of water. He cups his hand and takes a sip, cold and clear and perfect. He snaps a picture of the pump, painted an incongruous shade of pink, recently.
Will walks to the stream, wide and
He occasionally realizes that he’s grinning, that he looks silly, smiling to himself like a simpleton. But he can’t help it, his mind keeps darting back to that arched eyebrow, those smiling dimples, that delicious kiss. How did this happen? So quickly?
The last time Will felt this way was after his first evening with Chloe, whom he’d known for years but only vaguely until their proper first date, a magical night. The next day he was walking back from a tedious lunch with someone who was frustratingly non-Chloe, beaming there on West Forty-third Street, when through his self-involved fog he heard, “What the hell are you so giddy about?” It was his old friend Dean, blocking the sidewalk.
“A girl,” Will had said, unnecessarily. There’s only one reason that men walk around looking like that. This was a half-decade ago.
Will returns to his hotel room overlooking the pool that hangs over the cliff. He lies in bed with the laptop in his lap, and works up his notes from yesterday and last night. His narrative arrives, inevitably, at the detail he’s been saving for last, another delayed pleasure.
He Googles Elle Hardwick, first for images, a handful of smiling-for-the-camera snapshots, all local to Australia, including a blood-rushing bikini pose on a beach, sunglasses, cleavage, a tanned tight tummy, hip cocked. Oh good God.
He takes a bracing dip in the cool pool, then tries to call his wife.
—
After a nearly perfect dinner—oysters, sea bass, Meursault, galette—in a nearly perfect dining room with a view of the sun sinking into the Atlantic, Will returns to his nearly perfect room. He hammers out the remainder of his notes, then starts turning slapdash sketches into grammatically complete sentences, into complete paragraphs, into a full story about food and wine and springtime in southern France.
But his mind keeps returning to Elle. He fights the urge to search for her again, to text her, to call her, to get on a goddamned plane and find her. Because in that impossible universe where he can live other realities, he’d like the other one to be here, in this other place, with this other woman.
PYRÉNÉES-ATLANTIQUES
The little Fiat whines on the steep ascent, climbing away from the coastline into the sere ragged mountains, sun-bleached and forbidding. He spends an hour visiting with a retired French pilot at his farm, being introduced to each goat by name. He has lunch with a Basque nationalist in a lively partisan bar, a loud game of pelota on the wall outside, soccer on the television. Conversation isn’t easy through an ad hoc interpreter from the Basque into Spanish, a language in which Will is far from fluent. He’s not sure how much he has understood.
Will continues driving into the mountains, the signs of civilization increasingly sparse, quiet little villages where everyone is somewhere else except the dogs and old people. He listens to the reassuring progress reports from the GPS that he’d unpacked from Inez’s nylon case, a label-maker’s strip glued to the backside, PROPERTY OF TRAVELERS. RETURN TO LOCAL BUREAU .
He turns off the main road, bumps along a narrow rutted lane that follows the banks of a stream, curving and climbing, potholes filled with puddles from an earlier downpour, weather he missed down at sea level. The going is slow.
“Arriving at. Destination.”
The hamlet is tiny, a dozen structures, none commercial, clustered near an oxbow in the stream.
He walks to a pump on the side of the street, pistons the handle, eliciting a gush of water. He cups his hand and takes a sip, cold and clear and perfect. He snaps a picture of the pump, painted an incongruous shade of pink, recently.
Will walks to the stream, wide and
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