Life, Only Better

  “Oh! Really! I didn’t recognize it. Well, um . . . so, goodbye, and thanks again.”

  I stuck out my hand. The problem was that he wouldn’t give it back.

  “Uh . . . I . . . I mean, uh . . . I’d like to see you again.”

  I laughed loudly, to make sure I’d get rid of him for good, and then said: “Something tells me you’ve got my number already.”

  But even as I was saying the words, I was thinking how fake it sounded, my bitchy little laugh.

  “N—no,” he stammered, looking at my arm.

  He’d suddenly gone pale.

  Pale, serious, helpless, and sad. His face looked ten years older. He looked up and, for the first time, I had the feeling that he was seeing me.

  “I had it all, of course, but I . . . I’ve got nothing now, because I . . . I gave you everything.”

  Ooo-kay. I wondered if he was about to break out his violin. He seemed sincere, but come on, he was laying it on a bit thick, right?

  Panic kicked in in my head: Oh Christ, do not give him your number. He’s obviously completely out of his mind. Yes, he is! Look. Look at him! Look at his face; he’s like Jack the Ripper’s country cousin! And besides, you may not have noticed, but he’s missing the tip of a finger. And he’s fat, too. And I mean, fine, he’s honest, I’m not saying he isn’t, but he’s seriously ugly. You tend to attract nothing but pains in the ass, which you know all too well. You’ve already given out your number a million times. Come on, Mathilde, lie. Yes, you can! Just lie about the last digit, then. It won’t be the first time or the last.

  I know, but . . . he’s been really classy about this whole thing.

  What the hell do you know about him, idiot? You haven’t even opened your fucking bag!

  Maybe not, but at least I have it. I’m not off crying for my mother at the police station right now.

  I could always give it to him and not answer when he calls . . .

  Fine, do whatever you want, but really, you’re asking for it, you know?

  It’s true that I’d had my share of sad stories recently. I don’t know if it was some old dispute between Cupid and me, but how much damage could he do to me with this chubby four-eyes? Never mind, go on. I’d give him my number for one reason, and one only: I was afraid he might have kept my father’s number and would call him out of desperation. If it came down to a choice between the old head case and this new one, I’d rather deal with the latter.

  “Um . . . could you let my hand go for a second?”

  He had squeezed it so hard that the redness of his big fingers had rubbed off on mine.

  I wrote my number down on a metro ticket. He looked at it for a long time, as if reassuring himself that it was valid, then slid it into the depths of his wallet, which he tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. He gazed at me one last time, nodded, and took off in the opposite direction.

  Phew.

  I took three steps before turning around; I was confused, truthfully, about all the bad thoughts that had been swirling around in my head.

  “Hey . . . uh . . . Jean-Baptiste!”

  He turned.

  “Thank you!”

  Last look, last smile—much more tight-lipped than the others. Last shrug of the shoulders, which could mean “It was nothing,” “Shut the hell up,” or “Piss off,” and he was off again.

  I watched him in the distance, crossing the Avenue de Friedland with his deerskin-covered back slightly hunched over, his huge knives in one hand and his bunch of peonies in the other, and I was . . . disturbed.

  The proof of that? I waited until I was at home before opening my bag and finally counting my cash.

  16.

  It was all there. So was the money in my wallet. For some reason I neither understood nor liked, I found myself a bit disappointed.

  I changed into jeans, added my five thousand bucks to the damned envelope, left it on the kitchen table with a little note that basically said: “Here you go, and now leave me alone about your fucking remodeling,” and then I was out the door.

  My precious little princesses would be back any minute, and that was more than I could handle. Marion too. All of it. Everything had become more than I could handle.

  I still felt like crying, so I went to the movies and saw a romantic comedy.

  ACT TWO

  1.

  The end credits had barely started—I wasn’t going to tell this part, but what the hell, at this point it’s probably not worth it to try to make myself look good—when I took out my phone, hoping he’d called.

  Hoping he had called. Jean-Baptiste the Warrior.

  Of course, at the time, I would have sworn up and down that that wasn’t true, no, really, blah blah blah, but if I look back honestly at the dishonest girl walking back up the Rue Caulaincourt on that April night, pulling her shabby old duffle coat more closely around her, I can tell you—and you can put it in writing, Madam Court Reporter—that it wasn’t the six o’clock movie occupying her thoughts.

  It was his face she couldn’t stop thinking about. Their conversation (unforgettable) playing in a loop in her head. His sugar lumps she counted again and again while clutching the silent piece of plastic in her pocket.

  * * *

  And then? Then, life went back to normal.

  That’s what people say when nothing happens, right?

  When you forget your New Year’s resolutions, when you abandon your dreams of freedom (why leave when my room was just repainted?) and greatness (why resume my studies when my computer’s raking in money for me like a one-armed bandit?), and when you drink like a fish and run around making up comedies that aren’t romantic at all.

  Taking Paul’s clothes off and putting Pierre’s clothes back on and finally ending up naked in Jacques’s arms.

  Yeah, that’s what they say.

  That waiting room called youth.

  What had my sleepy nutcase become? A joke, an anecdote, a funny story to tell at dinner. It was a hit; I gave him one less finger and one more knife every time I told it. After a while it was like Lord of War in a Calcutta leper colony.

  I thought about him, in the beginning. There were things about him that still bothered me: the way he’d said, “Are you coming?” in such an authoritative voice; the precise way he’d memorized me from head to toe; how sad he’d seemed when he talked about seeing me again, and the fact that he hadn’t had to fumble around so much, when he could have gotten the number from my phone all by himself. And then I saw his white socks again in my head, and turned back to my brother-in-law’s webcoms feeling freshly inspired.

  My trusty GPS was right: dead end, straight ahead.

  * * *

  Three times over the next few days, someone tried to call me in the middle of the night but didn’t leave a message. The first time I thought it was a mistake; the second, I had my doubts, and the last time I knew it was him. I recognized his silence.

  It was two o’clock in the morning but I was still awake; I tried to call him back but the number was a landline somewhere in Île-de-France, and the rings died away in the distance.

  That was when something started to come unhinged inside me. I went against one of my few principles (both moral and “health-related,” if you know what I mean) and slept with my phone turned on next to my pillow. Too bad about the radiation, too bad about cancer, and too bad about my pride and my getting any sleep; I needed to be sure. Who was calling me so furtively, as if they were trying to make sure I wouldn’t pick up? Who? And if it was him, why? What did he want from me, really? At the time I didn’t think at all about the . . . I don’t know . . . the significance of an act like that, and yet . . . what better way to insinuate yourself into someone else’s private life than by interfering with their sleep?

  From then on, every night, I turned up my ringer to its maximum volume and shared my bed
with a phantom.

  I went out less. Yeah, it kills me to admit it, and I had a thousand reasons ready for anyone who might act curious about it, but the simple fact was that I went out less. Ten days—or rather, ten nights—had passed without a hitch, and I’d decided to turn off my mobile phone because I wasn’t sleeping well. I woke up from time to time to see if the little “missed call” signal was blinking, or to make sure my telephone hadn’t been suffocated by the duvet.

  And I was angry at him. And angry at myself, really angry, for having become such a flake. I was so angry at both of us that I remember going to bed that night promising myself it would be the last time. His last chance to come back to haunt me.

  He could go right to hell with his chains and his knives and his sneaky calls. I was tired of this crap.

  Phones, text messages, screens, chats, and e-mails . . . I didn’t want these imaginary borders on my map of Tendre anymore.

  I’d given; I’d suffered; I’d paid for my share of all these half-assed, absurd, naïve plans imposed on us by love in the digital age.

  Yes. I was tired. Even worse, I felt worn down, emptied out, disembodied by loving so many times without really loving. Now I wanted real experiences with real people who had real flesh on their bones. Otherwise, I’d prefer to skip my turn.

  And because he’s very strong, and when it comes to fat he’s right there, you know; that night, he called back.

  2.

  He must have called earlier than the other times, because I was in the middle of that first deep sleep, and at first I couldn’t figure out if it was in a dream or reality that I stuck out an arm and felt some smooth, hard, slightly warm object against my ear.

  Nothing happened. It was a dream.

  “Jean-Baptiste?” I murmured groggily.

  “ . . . ”

  “Is it you?”

  “Yes.”

  “The other times, too?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Why are you doing that? Why aren’t you talking?”

  “ . . . ”

  I was curled around the phone in my hand. A long time went by. Much too long. I fell asleep waiting for him to answer.

  I don’t know how many minutes went by. In the morning my call log would say that our conversation lasted two hours and thirty-four minutes, but I think I must not have hung up correctly. Finally I heard:

  “Mmmffrffmmteet.”

  I opened my eyes, and this time it was my turn to be silent.

  “Are you still there?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m . . . I’m a chef, you see.”

  “ . . . ”

  “ . . . and I’d like to have you over for something to eat.”

  Ohh. Okay. I’d thought he was saying something about fixing his heat. I mean, what bizarre parallel dimension had we fallen into? A weird, inhibited, insomniac chef calling me at twelve-fifteen in the morning to read me his menu? Go back to sleep, kiddies! Everything’s under control! Don’t let the bedbugs bite!

  “Would you like to?”

  “Now??”

  “No.” His voice sounded happier. “I have to prepare!”

  “When?”

  “I’ll let you know. I need to get organized. Can you write down a phone number and call me back tomorrow night at the same time?”

  What a practical schedule.

  “Go ahead; I’m listening.”

  I grabbed a book at random from my bedside table. Still half-asleep, by the light of my phone’s screen, I wrote down the string of numbers he dictated. After that, I don’t know. I heard my first name one or two more times, but I’ll never know if it was his voice or its echo in my sleep-fogged mind.

  3.

  In the morning I knew it hadn’t been a dream, because a telephone number was scribbled on the inside cover page—oh, irony—of Michael Connelly’s The Scarecrow.

  The problem was that I must have really been out of it, because I couldn’t read my own handwriting. Was that a 7, or a 3, or a 1? And was that a 2, a 3, or a 5?

  Fine, I’d try them all.

  I was useless at math and even worse at calculating probabilities, but I could already tell that this little puzzle was going to take a while to solve.

  The other problem was there was no reasonable way I could wait until midnight to try a whole bunch of possible wrong numbers. I’d wake up all kinds of nice people and possibly get lynched in the process. So I started dialing at around ten o’clock, and good thing, because two hours later I still hadn’t gotten my guy.

  The voices answering the phone got less and less friendly, and I started to lose track of my combinations. I couldn’t remember which ones I’d already tried. I just kept asking for Jean-Baptiste and saying, “Oh, excuse me,” and apologizing and wreaking havoc in every household in Île-de-France with a telephone number starting with 01.42, 01.43, or 01.45. And finally, well, fuck. I gave up.

  This whole thing was messing with my head. He’d call me back.

  Obsessives can never let anything go.

  I was as on-edge as a person can possibly be. My paperback was covered with crossed-out numbers and my mobile phone was on the verge of imploding.

  I went out.

  I went to get some air with other, more talkative insomniacs.

  I swear, this guy was really starting to make me lose my mind, the head case! He could go fuck himself. He could go cook his crappy food for girls who were in his own league! Besides, I’m no foodie. I don’t give a shit about French gastronomy, any more than I do about what I ate as a baby. Give me a crouton and I’m happy.

  God, I was a bitch. He’d been obsessed with me even before he started cooking, the asshole.

  My nerves were in shreds and my mouth tasted like bile. I needed to hang up, to let go of the prize, to forget all this crap and get on my bike.

  Yes, that’s what I needed. To go out and dance, and drink, and forget him.

  And I pedaled, and pedaled, and pedaled, and went further and further off the rails.

  I yelled at the stars.

  I said to them: “Why does this shit always happen to me, huh? Yeah, you, Grandpa, up there, I’m talking to you! Why do you only send nutjobs my way? I mean, fuck, it’s your job! Well, it’s fine. You’ve already done quite enough for me. Please, God; please, I’m begging you—abandon me.”

  4.

  He never called back.

  Not that night, or the ones that followed.

  Still, I tortured myself for a few more nights by leaving my phone on—but no. I’d fucked up where he was concerned. He wasn’t that crazy.

  Or maybe he was a lot crazier. Or less keen than I’d thought.

  He’d been a pain in the ass from beginning to end, the tub of lard.

  And life—how did I put it again?—“went back to normal.”

  There you have it.

  Shit.

  5.

  I got over it, of course. I’d been through worse things than that, as they say. It was springtime. Springtime in Paris; the springtime of Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald. Terraces and promises and the days stretched out in front of me; I was alive and in good health; I had other advantages and more than one trick to pull out of my sleeve.

  I’m serious. I’d forgotten him. And then, one morning, I emptied out my bag, because I wanted to switch to a different one. Because I was going to a wedding and I needed something cuter. And that day, chef’s surprise: bombe glacée and chicken in mustard sauce.

  My chef popped up without warning, and I was caught unawares at the buffet.

  Sticky patch ahead. Very sticky.

  ASIDE

  1.

  If I had an archenemy and wanted to inflict the worst torture on her, the gentlest, the slowest, the cruelest and most disfiguring, I’d push her into the arms of a writer
; I’d wait for her to fall in love, the purest love, and then I’d watch her suffer as I flipped carelessly through an old issue of Vogue.

  I was barely nineteen when that catastrophe happened to me. Nineteen. A child. And an orphan, on top of that. Good times. Like a bird falling from its empty nest with its big sad eyes and its bald head. With such soft flesh. Straight into a novel. A first novel. Hell of a beautiful thing, and a fucking fantastic subject too, right?

  Okay, I’ll stop. He’s made a name for himself since then. I brought him luck, or maybe my circumstances did, and he doesn’t need any publicity. He’s done very well in that department all by himself. Someday, when I’m really old, someone might ask me a question or two for a footnote, but in the meantime I’d rather stay silent.

  Peace.

  Peace to artists.

  Peace to myths.

  Just one last thing, though. The passing of this guy, this man, this thief through my life had only one real effect in the end: to remind me, and comfort me in the certainty that my mother’s long illness and suffering had given me, a few years earlier, that the expression “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” is complete crap. That which doesn’t kill you, doesn’t kill you. Period.

  (That was a really complicated and probably grammatically incorrect sentence, which I can easily simplify as follows: that bastard fucked me up, big time.)

  My turn, Master Boileau.

  * * *

  He was my first love. It wasn’t the first time I’d slept with a man, but it was the first time I’d made love, and it was . . . well, I said I’d stop, and I will. I’m no writer, and I certainly don’t need to torture myself with the past, or put my emotions in test tubes and refine what I went through into crystalline form to make stones I can throw . . . so keep it brief, Mathilde, keep it brief. Don’t ruin the last tiny shred of dignity he was kind enough (or negligent enough) to leave you with, please.