City of Lights — pt. 1
City of Lights — pt. 1
Could this be the night their love goes dark?
Fiction
Could this be the night their love goes dark?
It was their last night in Paris.
They both had been marginally sidelined all week with a bacterial infection. This meant they could never stray too far from a toilet, making one of the world’s most romantic cities a little romantically challenging.
Bacterial battles aside, they were going to make their last night count. And since she did have a propensity for control, spoke a bit of French, and was a bit of a foodie, the reservation at the swanky Parisian bistro was in her name.
The hostess greeted them and spoke in French. And since she had a cursory understanding of the language, she did most of the talking. He would have been happy with a burger and beer, but he’d learned to make certain sacrifices with his culinary demands.
Where he was prone to sensitivity, she was more of an emotional bull in a china shop.
He was a thinker.
She was not.
He was quiet.
She was not.
He was an introvert.
She was not.
His greatest fear was that he was not the Windsor knot-wearing, trust fund dolt he thought she wanted. All of this thinking was causing his stomach even more consternation than the bacterial infection when they sat down for dinner.
Seated in the private room seemingly reserved for American tourists. A group that, by the looks of it, appeared to be the demographic that turned mediocrity into America’s greatest export.
But despite his sour mood and stomach, he’d promised to make the best of the situation.
As he pretended to read the menu, he reflected on their first breakup. He was thinking of how much he hurt when she said things like:
“I don’t want to be with you anymore.”
“You’re too old for kids.”
“What if there is someone better for me?”
Perhaps the most biting being: “You’ll never be what I want.”
He glanced at her over his menu and thought that might have been the only time she was ever candid with him.
Friends asked him why he even wanted to get back together, and all he could say was: “The heart wants what the heart wants.”
With her nose buried in the ridiculously oversized menu, she asked: “Do you want to order escargot?”
“Snails?”
She playfully peaked over the top of the menu: “Yes, snails.”
“No.”
Taking a stab at flirting, she asked: “You always said you would try anything once.”
“Yes, yes I did. I don’t want snails tonight.”
She opened the wine list and asked if he wanted wine, “No, I want a martini. Stomach be damned, I have earned the right to an ice-cold martini.”
The waiter came over, and she ordered a glass of Pinot Noir and listened in horror as he fumbled out what could only be described as pig-French.
The drinks arrived, and they silently touched glasses without making a toast to signify their last night in Paris.
“What are you having?” she asked.
“Steak.”
“They have tuna.”
“Yes. I saw. What are you having?” He asked.
“Well, I was hoping we could split our entre’s.”
Oh, God, how he hated splitting food. When they had gotten back together, she had adopted two of his biggest hates, eating outdoors and sharing food. To keep the peace, he did it now and again.
One of his attributes is he was easy to read.
Conversely, one of his detriments was he was easy to read.
Overall, he couldn’t mask his emotions too well.
“Like what? What did you want to split?”
“Well, I want the cow’s heart. We could split that and the salmon.”
“Yes, I suppose we could. Provided I had any desire to have either of those things.”
“You never want to try anything new.”
“So you’ve said.” He took a sip of his drink, swallowed, and shook his head: “Not true, though.”
She turned from him. They sat in silence until the waiter came back. She ordered her snails and bovine heart, and he ordered his steak.
Rare.
As the waiter walked away, he stared out the window and began thinking. He thought about why he seemed to care less and less about why she was pulling away. Was it his increasing emotional retreat and lack of communication?
Was she that busy?
Was it their growing lack of interest in one another?
As they sat there, one looking over their left shoulder, one looking over their right, the cold bite of the vodka was making its way into him, firing up his mettle.
Her snails arrived as he downed his last bit of vodka and ordered a beer.
“You sure you don’t want to try any?” she asked.
“Yea, I’m pretty sure.”
She grabbed the tiny fork and dug in. “I got an email from Ian today.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
She continued: “He’s home from Utah.”
“Oh.”
“He had been away on some ski thing.”
“Does he even have a job?” he asked, trying to hide his contempt.
She took a sip of wine, placed her glass down, and slid her eyes down to her appetizer: “Yes. Ian has the time and money to do as he wishes.”
“Ah. Well, it must be nice.”
Silence.
“Okay, let’s have it,” she said without looking up from her plate.
“What?”
“What your problem is.”
“I don’t think now is the time or the place.”
She leaned back in her chair and calmly said: “No, no. I want to hear what you have to say.”
“Trust me. You don’t.”
She hissed, leaning into him: “Trust me, I do.”
He sighed and spoke about Ian, her over-privileged and wildly rudderless trust-funded cousin. He said as few expletives as possible but still enough to warrant the once-monthly, now weekly, “You swear too much” comment. He finished his thoughts as he finished his beer.
She took it all in, then asked: “How long have you been holding that in?”
“I dunno. A while, I guess.”
“Yes, seems so. Well, you’re entitled to your point of view. I don’t have to agree with you.”
“Mm. I wouldn’t expect you would.”
Calling the waiter over, he ordered another glass of wine for her and another beer. He went on the offensive: “Well, at least I’m not living my life with blinders on.”
“And you think I am?”
He shrugged: “Couldn’t say, your life, not mine.”
“Bullshit, you wouldn’t have said that unless you wanted to make a point.”
He sat for a moment and thought about whether he wanted to own it. He did. He stated flatly: “Yea, I do think that.”
“Let’s hear it then.”
“No.” He took a sip of water.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
She gritted her teeth: “FUCK you and your feelings. You already put the knife in; turn it.”
Her eyes began to mist. The waiter returned with the fresh drinks, and the busboy picked up the escargot plate.
He asked again: “Are you sure? I don’t think it is a good idea.”
She took a sip of water, gathered herself, making little attempt to mask her contempt, and said: “I don’t give a shit what you think.”
He spent the next ten minutes laying out everything he felt was wrong in her. They stared at one another with an intensity they hadn’t shared since their early months of lovemaking. Except now, the passion was replaced by animus.
Tears began alternately running down her cheek.
Stopping to look out the window, he turned back to her: “Let’s just stop.”
She motioned with her hand to keep going.
He sighed and shook his head as he said in her quest to appease everyone, she would miss out satisfying the only one who mattered, herself.
She dabbed her eyes with her napkin.
He owned his faults and ticked them off one by one as she nodded along. She took a stuttered breath when he said: “I love you, and I always thought it would be enough. But it’s not.”
He let the statement sit with her for a moment and then caught her eye. He pointed to the good-looking grey-haired couple laughing in the corner: “I want to be them, with you.”
She turned to look at them and smiled: “You’ve almost got the hair right.”
The moment of levity briefly lifted the heaviness that surrounded their table. At least for a moment.
She gathered herself and asked: “What makes you think you’re so perfect?”
“I’m not. But I also haven’t changed. If you think about it, I am the same man you met five years ago.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
“Maybe. But you’ve never asked me to change. You just wanted me to.”