“I haven’t seen you for so long.” She waves her cigarette—she’s also one of those girls who lights cigarettes outside cafés but doesn’t actually inhale, just holds them and lets the smoke drift everywhere while she gestures with her pretty little hands. Hot ash lands on my arm. “I remember,” she says, her eyes widening. “It was at that bar in the park . . . August. Mon Dieu, I’ve never seen you like that. You were crazy.” A cute little giggle for weirdo Mimi.
At this moment the music changes. And I can barely believe it but it’s that song. “Heads Will Roll,” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It feels like fate. And suddenly I’m back there.
It was too hot to be inside so I suggested to Camille we go to this bar, Rosa Bonheur, in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. I hadn’t told Camille but knew Ben might be there. He was writing a piece on the bar; I’d heard him talking to his editor through the apartment’s open windows.
Since he lent me that Yeah Yeah Yeahs record I’d Googled the lead singer, Karen O. I’d tried dressing like her and when I did I felt like someone else. I’d spent the afternoon cutting my hair into her short, jagged style. And that evening I put on my Karen O outfit: a thin white tank top, painted my lips red, ringed my eyes in black eyeliner. At the last moment I took off my bra.
“Waouh!” Camille breathed, when I came out. “You look so . . . different. Oh my God . . . I can see your nénés!” She grinned. “Who’s this for?”
“Va te faire foutre.” I told her to fuck off because I was embarrassed. “It’s not for anyone.” And it was hardly anything compared to what she was wearing: a loose-knit gold mesh dress that stopped just below her chatte.
Outside the streets were so hot you could feel the burning pavement through the soles of your shoes and the air was shimmering with dust and exhaust fumes. And then the most horrible coincidence: just as we were leaving through the front gate there was Papa, coming in the other direction. Despite the heat I felt cold all over. I wanted to die. I knew the exact moment when he saw me; his expression shifting dangerously.
“Salut,” Camille said, a little wave. He smiled at her—always a smile for Camille; like every other guy on earth. She was wearing a jacket buttoned over her dress so you couldn’t see that she was pretty much naked beneath. I’ve noticed that she has this way of being exactly what men want her to be. With Papa she has always been so demure, so innocent, all “oui Monsieur” and “non Monsieur” from beneath her lowered eyelashes.
Papa turned from Camille to me. “What are you wearing?” he asked, his eyes glittering.
“I . . .” I stammered. “It’s so hot, I thought . . .”
“Tu ressembles à une petite putain.” That’s what he said. I remember it so clearly because I felt the words like they were being burned into me: I can still feel the sting of them now. You look like a little slut. He’d never spoken to me like that before. “And what have you done to your hair?”
I put my hand up, touched my new Karen O fringe.
“I’m ashamed of you. Do you hear me? Never dress like this again. Go and change.”
His tone scared me. I nodded. “D’accord, Papa.”
We followed him back into the building. But as soon as he had disappeared into the penthouse, Camille grabbed my hand and we ran out of there and along the street to the Metro and I tried to forget about it, tried to be just another carefree nineteen-year-old out for the night.
The park felt like a jungle, not part of the city: steam rising up off the grass, the bushes, the trees. A big crowd around the bar. This buzz, this wild energy. I could feel the beat of the music deep under my rib cage, vibrating through my whole body. There were people wearing way less than me, less than Camille even: girls in tiny bikinis who’d probably spent the day sunbathing on the Paris Plages, those artificial beaches by the river they construct in the summer. The air smelled like sweat and suntan lotion and hot, dry grass and the sticky sweet of cocktails.
I drank my first Aperol Spritz like it was lemonade. I still felt sick about the look on Papa’s face. A little slut. The way he spat out the words. I drank the second one quickly too. Then I didn’t care so much.
The girl at the decks turned the music up and people started dancing. Camille took my hand and dragged me into the crowd. There were some friends of ours—no, hers—from the Sorbonne. There were pills going round from a little plastic baggie. That’s not me. I drink but I never take drugs.
“Allez Mimi,” LouLou said, after she’d placed the tab on her tongue and swallowed it. “Pourquoi pas?” Come on, Mimi. Why not? “Just a half?”
And maybe I really had turned into someone else because I took the little half of the tab she held out to me. I kept it on my tongue for a second, let it dissolve.
After that it got blurry. Suddenly I was dancing and I was right in the middle of the crowd and I just wanted to carry on forever in the middle of all those sweaty bodies, these strangers. It seemed like everyone was smiling at me, love just pouring out of them.
People were dancing on tables. Someone lifted me up onto one. I didn’t care. I was someone different, someone new. Mimi was gone. It was wonderful.
And then the song came on: “Heads Will Roll.” At the same moment I looked over and I saw him. Ben. Down there, in the middle of the crowd. A pale gray T-shirt and jeans, despite the heat. A bottle of beer in his hand. It was like something from a film. I’d spent so much time watching him in his apartment, watching him across the table at dinner, it felt so weird to see him in the real world, surrounded by strangers. I had started to feel like he belonged to me.
And then he turned, like the pressure of my eyes had been enough for him to know I was there, and he raised a hand and smiled. There was a current running through me. I went to step toward him. But suddenly I was falling; I had forgotten about the table, and the ground was rushing up to meet me—
“Mimi. Mimi? Who are you here with?”
I couldn’t see the others. All the faces that had seemed to be smiling before weren’t now. I could see them looking and I could hear laughter and it seemed like I was surrounded by a pack of wild animals, teeth gnashing, eyes staring. But he was there; and I felt like he would keep me safe.
“I think you need some air.” He put out his hand. I grasped hold of it. It was the first time he had touched me. I didn’t want to let go, even after he had pulled me up. I didn’t ever want to let go. He had beautiful hands, the fingers long, elegant. I wanted to put them in my mouth, to taste his skin.
The park was dark, so dark, away from the lights and sounds of the bar. Everything was a million miles away. The farther we went the more it felt like none of the rest of it was real. Just him. The sound of his voice.
We went down to the lake. He made to go and sit on a bench but I saw a tree right next to the water, roots spreading beneath the surface. “Here,” I said. He sat down beside me. I could smell him: clean sweat and citrus.