When I first moved to New York City I was still getting mail addressed to Katharine Small who used to live in my apartment. I read her monthly subscription to Vogue and propped the rest of her letters on top of the radiator in the hall. Katharine’s ex-boyfriend, Oliver, sent her postcards once in a while: How are you, K? The French are impossible to talk to. They don’t even give you a chance…Thinking of you, mon petit canard (that means my little duck). People say Paris is a woman with a big mouth. Sometimes I think it’s true, the way the city laughs at me when I walk its streets or slip into dark cafés, alone. Scratch me a note? I thought Katharine was being rather callous, cutting off Oliver this way. The least she could do was tell him she had moved so he could save on international postage. Now the postcards come almost weekly: K, why won’t you send me a line? You never answer your phone. I know I know I know – DISTANCE. Well, we got an ocean of distance now…Listen, I’ve decided I’m going to keep writing you even if you never respond. Some days I have entire conversations with you that take place inside my head. Wasn’t it Henry Miller who wrote while he was still in France, “Then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal?” Sometimes I’m up all night thinking about the things I would say to Oliver if we knew one another: Do you think you ever get over the feeling of being a stranger in a strange country, like one day you wake up and you’re miraculously French!—and nobody can tell the difference? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Whenever I feel that way I buy myself those mini bottles of wine and a Ritter Sport Chocolate Bar and watch old Woody Allen movies. Then it’s not so bad. This goes on for another few months, until one day Oliver says he’s coming back to the States. He’s quit his job and he never quite mastered the language anyway. I’m nervous, experiencing proverbial butterflies in my gut. According to Vogue, lipstick on a woman makes a statement, so I pick a shade that I think says: I’ve missed you too, but let’s take it slow. I buy a new dress and clean the apartment. There are two wine glasses on the table, and fresh cut flowers (tulips, so he’ll make a mental note that they’re my favorite). I want him to see me as he had remembered and be more beautiful than that. It’s time to patch things up and begin anew with Oliver.
