Monday, February 28, 2011

the meal

“It’s true what they say about us. When we were boys, we tried to smoke everything we could get our hands on. We grew up in the countryside, so imagine—tea leaves, hay, corn husks from the field…once I rolled a fake cigarette with a page I had torn out of the bible, I was so curious, maybe even a little desperate," said Guillaume.


They were all laughing at this. Lily, sitting inside the Café Charbon on the Lower East Side, felt strangely enough like the immigrant at the table. It had been nearly five years since she had returned to New York City, and fifteen years since she had moved out of the country at the age of eight with her family. Coming back was like trying to remember how to swim or skip—you never quite pick it up again the way they say you're supposed to. When the beautiful waitress had come by with her pen and notepad, everyone had ordered in French. Perhaps a joke had been made about the wine selection, the year or the region, who knows. “Mademoiselle?” the waitress had turned to face her. Afraid of making a mistake, Lily had chosen the easiest thing she knew how to pronounce on the menu: "I'll have the steak frites. Thanks."


“The American accent can be so charming, really. It would go straight to a man’s heart if you were in France and walked up to him and asked a question.” Guillaume reached across the table and patted Lily’s hand amicably with his bear-like palms. “Now repeat after me, 'Pardonnez moi monsieur, dans quelle direction est le musée?'."


"Pardonnez moi monsieur, dans quelle direction est le musée?"


"Ah, you see. Straight to my heart."


Lily blushed only slightly, and then smiled at Antoine sitting next to her whom she had been dating for some time now. Guillaume was an old friend of his visiting the city. She had heard this name mentioned several times before in conversations about Antoine’s hometown, and then college life in the south of France. Guillaume turned out to be a short and plump man with a deep, infectious laugh. He wore a mustard color turtleneck which Lily thought was a rather peculiar choice, and yet not entirely unpleasing. His girlfriend, Lucie, was petite and smooth like a madeleine cookie you could dip in your coffee. Lily found it hard not to stare at her perfect face; the carefully painted red lips which would remain magically unaltered throughout the course of the entire meal.


It is always interesting to learn how one's lover grew up with his childhood friend in a foreign country, and yet tonight, Lily felt like Robinson Crusoe, not the original rendition but the one described in Bishop's poem, who had escaped his island only to return to a different one back home. "Home-made, home-made," she thought as the others chattered about her. In the ocean of silence that ensued after Antoine got up to use the bathroom, Lily asked, "And what were the girls like?" She felt bolder. Or perhaps it was the third glass of Côtes du Rhône which she was now unconsciously gripping with two hands like a child afraid to spill a bowl of milk.


“Complicated!” said Guillaume, throwing his hands up in the air. “Sophisticated, but fucking complicated. Now American girls are much less so…” He winked at Lily, and she remembered the first time Antoine had done the same to her, and she had not been able to tell if he was patronizing her or simply expressing goodwill; later she thought it was maybe just a way for him to remain silent without seeming aloof.


Lily was about to interject to clarify which she was less so of, sophisticated or complicated, when Lucie jumped in before she could and the conversation picked up life again. When they had first arrived at the restaurant, Lily had tried to lean forward to kiss Lucie on the cheek, startling the poor woman who had apparently been expecting an old-fashioned American handshake and stepped backwards instead. This in turn had made Lily feel somewhat like a lost baby elephant that had wandered out of the zoo.


Antoine returned to the table, and Lily realized she had already lost the thread of the debate which had been going on for a good few minutes. Pausing for a moment to switch back to French, Antoine chimed in with a detail that could only be expressed in his native tongue. Lily wanted to throw her hands up in the air as well. She smiled when the other three laughed at the punch line and asked, “So is it true that the two of you used to act in plays at school?”


“Yes, it was improvisational theater. Antoine here is the funniest guy I know. His impersonations are priceless,” said Guillaume.


Lily rearranged her face to hide her disappointment at having not discovered this coveted fact on her own. She thought of the one time in college when she had finally noticed the tiny white scar above a boyfriend's lip, and had been embarrassed by the fact that it had taken her so long to see something she'd kissed at least a hundred times before. “Oh-la-la,” she replied, putting her glass down a little too hastily so that it threatened to tip over but didn't, “What types of impersonations?” she asked.

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