“Don’t make that face,” he says, lips pouting out the quiet words and then curling into a panty-dropping smile. “Once you ride with me, you’ll never get in a car again.”
I’ve never been on a motorcycle in my life—never wanted to—and I’ve sworn off two-wheeled vehicles forever in general. But something about the way he says it, the way he comfortably tucks the helmet under his arm and hitches his bag over his shoulder, makes me think maybe he’s right. With a wink, he turns and leaves. The door closes with a quiet, perfunctory click.
And that’s it. I’ve been in a haze of stomach flu for days, and now that I’m better, Ansel is gone and it’s not even eight in the morning.
Outside the bedroom the apartment spreads before me with a continuous kitchen, living room, and dining room. Everything feels so European. The furniture is sparse—a black leather couch, two armless, modern red chairs, a low coffee table. On the other side of the room is a dining room table with four matching seats. The walls bear an eclectic mix of framed photographs and colorful paintings. For a bachelor pad, the apartment is impressive.
The space is open, but not very big, and the same slanted ceiling is present here. But instead of French doors, the far wall is lined with windows. I walk to the one closest to me, press my hands to the glass, and look down. On the street, I watch Ansel climb onto a shiny black bike, put on his helmet, kick the bike into gear, and pull away from the curb. Even from this vantage, he looks ridiculously hot. I wait until I can no longer see him in the blur of traffic before looking away.
My breath catches and I close my eyes, weaving a little. It isn’t the residual memory of the gripping nausea or even the hunger that makes me a tiny bit dizzy. It’s the fact that I’m here, and I can’t just walk a few blocks and get home. I can’t just pick up the phone and make everything okay with a quick call to my family. I can’t find an apartment or a job in Boston while I’m living in Paris.
I can’t call my best friends.
I find my purse across the room and frantically dig around in it for my phone. Stuck to the screen is a sticky note with Ansel’s neat script telling me he’s set me up on his international cellular plan. It actually makes me laugh—maybe a little maniacally in my relief—because that really was the thought that sent my heart hammering into near-panic mode: How will I call my girls from France? I mean, it’s so indicative of my absurd priorities. Who cares if I don’t speak French, I’m married, I’m going to have to dip into my savings, and my stranger-husband seems to work constantly? At least I won’t get charged my firstborn child in AT&T minutes.
I wander the flat as Harlow’s phone rings thousands of miles away through the line. In the kitchen, I see Ansel has left me breakfast: a fresh baguette, butter, jam, and fruit. A carafe of coffee sits on the stove. He is a saint and deserves some kind of ridiculous award for the past few days. Maybe just a constant offering of blowjobs and beer. He’s apologizing for working, when I really should be apologizing that he had to clean up my vomit and go buy me tampons.
The lingering memory is so horrifying that I’m pretty sure I can never let him see me naked again without wanting to throw up.
The phone rings and rings. I do a blurry calculation, knowing only that when it’s mid-morning here, it must be really late there. Finally, Harlow answers with only a groan.
“I have the most embarrassing story in the history of embarrassing stories,” I tell her.
“It’s middle-of-the-night-thirty here, Mia.”
“Do you or do you not want to hear the greatest humiliation of my life?”
I hear her sit up, clear her throat. “Just realizing you’re still married?”
I pause, the weight of that panic settling in a little more each minute. “It’s worse.”
“And you flew to Paris to be this guy’s sex toy all summer?”
I laugh. If only. “Yes, we’ll discuss the insanity of all of this, but first, I need to tell you about the trip here. It’s so bad, I want someone to drug my coffee so I’ll forget.”
“You could just have some gin,” she quips, and I laugh before my stomach turns with nausea.
“I got my period on the plane,” I whisper.
“Oh no!” she says, sarcastically. “Not that.”
“But I had nothing with me, Harlow. And I was wearing white jeans. Any other time I’d be like, ‘Yep, I menstruate.’ But this? We just met and I can think of about fifteen hundred conversations I’d rather have with a hot semi-stranger other than ‘I just started my period and I’m an idiot so let me just tie my sweatshirt around my waist to be really obvious about what’s going on. Also, you being a dude, I realize it’s unlikely but do you happen to have a spare tampon?’”