Cult Classic(68)

“It’s a shame you’re so taken,” he said, “because you have my baby.”

He smirked and pointed at my lapel. I, too, had baby Pierre pinned to my chest.

“Why do I sense you’re trying to get me to kiss you?” I asked.

I wanted to make him uncomfortable right back, to bend the tenor of the conversation. Pierre raised an eyebrow, roused by my directness.

“How do you do that?”

“Kiss women on balconies?”

“No, the one eyebrow thing.”

“It’s muscle memory,” he said. “You must take control of your face.”

“You’re not going to kiss me on a balcony,” I decided. “It’s a cliché.”

“You’re pronouncing that wrong.”

“Oh, who cares?” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I care. It’s my birthday.”

Then he pulled me away from the door and into a breezeless dark corner, sheltered from view. Sheltered from relevant view. The people in the apartment complex across the way could make up any story they liked about us, just like we could make up any story we liked about each other. Was this not the point of living in New York? He tugged at my lip, pulling my back toward his waist with each audible exhale. We broke away at the same time, cutting the mood with laughter. It’s impossible to kiss someone if you’re both grinning. Like sneezing with your eyes open.

“Je m’appelle Lola.”

“You don’t speak French, Lola. But you do have a charming name. Now, shall we go back inside and begin our lives?”

I leaned back and turned my neck as far as it would go until I could see the party, wall to wall. Pierre’s girlfriend was dancing, arms in the air, nails grazing the low ceiling, hips pivoting. Boots, meanwhile, had returned with a bag of ice in each fist, choking each one by its neck. I felt my whole body warm upon seeing him. He was talking to people with whom he’d not yet caught up because he’d devoted the first half of his evening to me. Now he was sneaking glances around the living room, searching for me the way Jonathan and I used to do in college. By the time he saw me, Pierre and I had gone our separate ways, into separate pods of conversation. How enchanting it was, to be the transparent source of someone else’s relief, of their unmarked joy. Go back inside and begin our lives. Why not? Really, why not?

Now I was engaged and Pierre was married.

I approached him slowly, observing his mannerisms. Our conversation and corresponding kiss had meant something to him too. Clearly, it had. When I got within a few feet of him, close enough to see the gray in his stubble, he looked up at me with those massive brown eyes that I’d noticed in the shadows of the balcony. The same nose I’d pressed with mine, gently boxing his cartilage.

But something was off. Pierre’s expression was different than all the others. He looked neither mystified nor nervous nor happy to see me. He looked … relieved. He held his book to his side, kissed me on both cheeks, and said:

“What took you so long, chérie?”

I felt as though the air were being sucked downward, as if the ground itself was gasping through its grates. The street went silent.

“I knew I would see you today,” he went on. “I’ve been feeling it ever since we landed. My wife, she was invited to a theater festival here and so, last minute, I came too. I have always been a little bit psychique.”

He grinned, his teeth buttery yellow from smoke. I found myself unable to look at him, not unlike the way one holds up one’s fingers to block the sun in order to look at the sun.

“And so I went for a walk,” he continued, “and I thought to myself, I will sit here and I will wait and if Lola From My Party does not appear before it gets dark, I will go. But here you are! Phenomenal. Tell me, are you still in love with the tall man?”

“He is tall, isn’t he?” I asked, laughing a disproportionately long time.

When I was through, I held Pierre’s face lightly in my hands. Then I kissed him on the mouth. Is this how I tasted after I smoked only half a cigarette, even after I’d brushed my teeth? Boots never said a word about it. Pierre kissed me back, but the reality of his situation put a stop to it. He pinched his bottom lip, folding it.

“Okay,” he said, resuming smiling. “Well, okay. I suppose this is what we do. We have a perfect record!”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s nothing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as I hugged him as tightly as I could. He was the wrong one to hug. This relative stranger who thought I was crazy, whose body mass was utterly alien to me. I’d spent more time with Barry the barista. Pierre and I had shared only one moment, albeit a significant one. But it was as if I were hugging everyone I’d seen, as if they’d been freeze-dried into a big pill and Pierre had swallowed it.

“Are you okay?”

I could hear the international tone of “how do I leave this interaction?” I shook my head and rubbed my thumb against my unobstructed ring finger. Pierre patted my back, tentative but soothing pats. I either had to go or explain myself, but I couldn’t remain like this, a mad American in his midst. I fought the urge to apologize a third time. It’s the guilt, I thought, exiting my body.

“I’ve just been thinking a lot lately of how we lose people.”