Paris
Last night after dinner, David and I returned to the H?tel Costes to have a drink in the lobby. He’s writing about the fashion shows and thought it might be a good idea to listen in on a few conversations. The bar, or series of bars, encircles the courtyard restaurant, and passing from one area to the next, I realized that I’d never seen such a good-looking group of people in my life. There were no exceptions. As David said, the place made the recent Prada and Gucci ads seem like documentary footage. This was a gene-pool convention, an ark of beauty. I felt ugly and uncomfortable, so we ran over to the Tuileries and shot pellet rifles, pretending the balloons were our own physical flaws. I won a dart gun and a deck of cards. David won a model airplane and then we walked around for a while. I got to come home, but David had to return to the hotel and pass through the lobby.
July 13, 2000
Paris
All week David’s been imitating an Englishwoman who’s one of the editors of Harper’s Bazaar. I haven’t met her, but it’s a moneyed, self-satisfied accent that sounds pretty good to me. Every day he memorizes another perfect bit of dialogue that I force him to do over and over. Yesterday’s went something like this: “‘So of course again last year Yves offered me something from the collection. He thought I might like the wedding dress, but I much preferred the smoking, which was brilliant. I mean, the line! It was like this!’ She holds out her hands and moves them up and down as though she were running them along the sides of my office trash can. ‘And I remember saying to Jean Paul—whom I adore because my husband’s name is Jean Paul—I said, “A cut like this could support an army, couldn’t it?”’”
What makes the stories so funny is that they lead to nothing. The cut “could support an army.” What does that even mean?
July 14, 2000
Paris
Yesterday afternoon Rakoff and I had lunch at Le Petit Saint Benoit. It was his first time, and my last. Once, with Steven, they were nice, but on every other occasion I’ve felt rushed and bullied by the staff. Yesterday we were waited on by a black-haired woman in her thirties who blamed Rakoff when the table she was yanking caught on the edge of her shoe. We were seated against the wall, meaning that when we eventually left, we had to inconvenience a total of seven other people. They really pack them in there and when the place is full you feel as if you’re eating on a plane. The bill came to 185 francs, and when Rakoff placed 205 francs on the tray, the waitress had a fit, insisting that he’d overpaid.
“The extra,” he said, “the extra is…well, it’s for you.” He had to apologize for leaving a tip and basically beg to be forgiven.
August 9, 2000
La Bagotière
I called Dad last night and he said, “If you’re riding a bike I’m hoping it has a big, wide seat, otherwise you’ll get testicular cancer like that Lance Armstrong.” I said I wouldn’t be riding a hundred miles a day for the next twenty years, and he told me it didn’t matter. “I want you to go out tomorrow and get yourself a nice big seat, damn it, and while you’re at it, you should have your prostate checked.”
He said it as if the bike shop employed a full-time oncologist. We talked for about forty minutes and toward the end he launched into his Vote Republican speech. “Don’t pull a fast one and pretend that you know anything, because you don’t. You don’t have a clue about what’s going on in this country, so just do me a favor and vote for Bush.”
Dad says Al Gore will tax his estate 55 percent and leave us with nothing. He refuses to die during a Democratic administration. It’s a point of principle. He asked about this and that and when I told him my book had been number two on the New York Times list he said, “Well, it’s nowhere near that now. I think on the Wall Street Journal list it’s either a nine or a ten.”
I think I hurt his feelings with this book. Every time it’s mentioned he changes the subject and talks about the Republicans.
August 10, 2000
La Bagotière
I started on the new play, knowing that what I’ve written will probably be thrown out by next week. Whenever I have nothing to say, I wind up with two characters talking over one another. Last night I was thinking about how I’ve always liked the supportive dialogue in Death of a Salesman. Biff says he’ll go into the sporting-goods business and his father interrupts and says, “Sporting goods! You’ll knock ’em dead,” or something along those lines. Every time Biff starts a sentence, his father interrupts to encourage him, and the effect is pathetic.
August 12, 2000
La Bagotière
It’s scary, but when riding my bike I tend to think of all the people who are too lazy to exercise. I’ve become the exact sort of person I hate. The least amount of effort makes me self-righteous and I decide that everyone else should suffer just as I do. I’d probably be a monster if I ever quit smoking.
August 14, 2000
La Bagotière
Hugh went to Ségrie-Fontaine to see Jocelyn, who heard a rumor that I am retarded. It’s being spread by a woman in the village of Taillebois who’s seen me “looking at pictures and talking to myself.” “Il n’est pas normal,” she says.
What she thinks are pictures are actually my index cards, and I’m testing myself on French vocabulary words, not having arguments with the little demons perched on my shoulders. The woman said that I’m not dangerous, which I guess is good. Apparently I’m one of those retarded people who can wander off for a few hours but still manage to find their way back home. “He always says hello,” the woman reported. “But still, he isn’t normal.”
I’ve been dieting for two weeks now, and while my stomach feels a bit smaller, I seem to have lost the most amount of weight in my forehead. It’s tight as can be. I’m guessing the loss is due to the constant mental strain of thinking about food. Yesterday I rode my bike for two hours, winding up a few miles beyond La Forêt-Auvray. They have a nice square in front of the church and I sat down to have a cigarette. A group of English people had just left the restaurant and I listened to them make plans for the following morning. One woman seemed to know her way around better than the others and advised everyone that a trip to Caen would definitely cut into their day. She must have said the phrase “cut into the day” at least a dozen times. It was one of those occasions when it’s automatically assumed that you are French, so you can eavesdrop all you want without the speakers growing self-conscious. While on my ride I was passed by numerous cyclists and none of them returned my hello. This is sort of a relief, as it means I won’t have to say it anymore.
August 19, 2000