ast Tuesday, my friend Zac called. In addition to being my go-to guy for all things Elvis Costello and Saved by the Bell, Zac is also an editor at a prominent in-flight magazine, a job which is more interesting and lucrative than it might sound. Especially, apparently, for me.
“I was wondering,” he began, “would you like to go to Paris this weekend?”
Let me check my schedule. Let me sit on that for a minute. Let me dunk my head in hot deer blood, stab myself in the eyeball with a fork, and get back to you. “Hmm.” I fiddled with the bedsheets, to keep myself from flying out the window. “I could do that.”
“Stuff like this never happens to me,” my friend Julie said when I called to tell her. Julie is a rural legal aid lawyer in South Texas. With the possible exception of my parents, she is the most ethical and good-hearted person I know.
“Hey, you might not get flown to Paris,” I said. “But you’re gonna go to heaven.”
“Screw heaven,” she said. “I wanna go to Paris!”
Who could blame her? Two days later, I was on a plane.
***
I’ve been to Paris once before. For my millennium New Year’s, I left American Y2K fever behind to meet some English friends in the South of France. It was as great, and expensive, as it sounds. My memories of that week are warm and hazy, afternoons of ruddy cheeks and red wine, excursions to cities painted by Van Gogh. Bookending that trip, however, I spent two days in Paris by myself, my first adult experience abroad. I had hoped it would be grand and romantic; it was, in fact, cold and wet and lonely. I didn’t visit the monuments so much as cry in their vicinity. My hotel was a glorified closet with a sagging foam mattress. Even then, it rankled me: How could I screw up Paris? I have always itched to go back--with a boyfriend or a better coat. Hey, one out of two ain’t bad.
***
Before I left this time, everyone asked about the riots. Would I be safe? Would travel be difficult? As it turns out, the riots were as remote as the language I could never quite get my tongue around. (“Si,” I kept accidentally telling the taxi cab drivers, as if I were in Mexico. Can you imagine having a customer who kept adamantly answering your questions with the word “if”?) The riots occurred on the outskirts of town, out of my line of vision. They held no sway on the cover of newspapers or magazines at the kiosks. It’s funny how cars can be set aflame in a city you’re visiting, and you’d really never know it.
I spent only two days in Paris. It was long enough to walk around the Eiffel Tower, tool around on the Metro, gorge on chocolate crepes, eat escargot, drink red wine less expensive than a cup of coffee, and get lost in Montmartre. Any hope of escaping the tourists’ bubble was mostly abandoned. I was too lazy, and too English-speaking, to do much more than enjoy the sights endorsed by even the most basic Parisian textbook. Which is fine. There is something liberating about being a shameless tourist in a city like Paris. Because, when you’re not busy crying, everything’s pretty goddamn gorgeous.
I wish I could tell you more specifics, but I didn’t keep notes. That’s usually what happens when I’m having a good time. When you’re alone, and afraid, and lonely, it seems like every minute detail registers in your mind. When you’re having fun, it’s a warm, ruddy blur. So that’s what I have to report. Except this: Thanks, Zac. I owe you one.