“Frederic,” the man said, extending his hand. He seemed more self-conscious than his companion. “And this is Tasha.”
“Please, sit,” Alex said. Some instinct prevented him from giving his own name.
“What are you doing in Paris?” Tasha asked.
“Just, you know, getting away.”
The waiter arrived with the champagne.
Alex requested two more glasses.
“I think we have some friends in common,” Tasha said. “Ethan and Frederique.”
Alex nodded noncommittally.
“I love New York,” Frederic said.
“It’s not what it used to be,” Tasha countered.
“I know what you mean.” Alex wanted to see where this was going.
“Still,” Frederic said, “it’s better than Paris.”
“Well,” Alex said. “Yes and no.”
“ Barcelona,” Frederic said, “is the only hip city in Europe.”
“And Berlin,” said Tasha.
“Not anymore.”
“Do you know Paris well?” Tasha asked.
“Not really.”
“We should show you.”
“It’s shit,” Frederic said.
“There some new places,” she said, “that aren’t too boring.”
“Where are you from?” Alex asked the girl, trying to parse her exotic looks.
“I live in Paris,” she said.
“When she’s not in New York.”
They drank the bottle of champagne and ordered another. Alex was happy for the company. Moreover, he couldn’t help liking himself as whoever they imagined him to be. The idea that they had mistaken him for someone else was tremendously liberating. And he was fascinated by Tasha, who was definitely flirting with him. Several times she grabbed his knee for emphasis and at several points she scratched her left breast. An absentminded gesture, or a deliberately provocative one? Alex tried to determine if her attachment to Frederic was romantic. The signs pointed in both directions. The Frenchman watched her closely and yet he didn’t seem to resent her flirting. At one point she said, “Frederic and I used to go out.” The more Alex looked at her the more enthralled he became. She was a perfect cocktail of racial features, familiar enough to answer an acculturated ideal and exotic enough to startle.
“You Americans are so puritanical,” she said. “All this fuss about your president getting a blow job.”
“It has nothing to do with sex,” Alex answered, conscious of a flush rising on his cheeks. “It’s a right-wing coup.” He’d wanted to sound cool and jaded. Yet somehow it came out defensive.
“Everything has to do with sex,” she said, staring into his eyes.
Thus provoked, the Veuve Clicquot tingling like a brilliant isotope in his veins, he ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, stopping only at the border of her tight short skirt. Holding his gaze, she opened her mouth with her tongue and moistened her lips.
“This is shit,” said Frederic.
Although Alex was certain the other man couldn’t see his hand, the subject of Frederic’s exclamation was worrisomely indeterminate.
“You think everything is shit.”
“That’s because it is.”
“You’re an expert on shit.”
“There’s no more art. Only shit.”
“Now that that’s settled,” said Tasha.
A debate about dinner: Frederic wanted to go to Buddha bar, Tasha wanted to stay. They compromised, ordering caviar and another bottle of champagne. When the check arrived Alex remembered at the last moment not to throw down his credit card. He decided, as a first step toward elucidating the mystery of his new identity, that he was the kind of guy who paid cash. While Alex counted out the bills Frederic gazed studiously into the distance with the air of a man who is practiced in the art of ignoring checks. Alex had a brief, irritated intuition that he was being used. Maybe this was a routine with them, pretending to recognize a stranger with a good table. Before he could develop this notion Tasha had taken his arm and was leading him out into the night. The pressure of her arm, the scent of her skin, were invigorating. He decided to see where this would take him. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.
Frederic’s car, which was parked a few blocks away, did not look operational. The front grille was bashed in; one of the headlights pointed up at a forty-five-degree angle. “Don’t worry,” Tasha said. “Frederic’s an excellent driver. He only crashes when he feels like it.”
“How are you feeling tonight?” Alex asked.
“I feel like dancing,” he said. He began to sing Bowie ’s “Let’s Dance,” drumming his hands on the steering wheel as Alex climbed into the back.
Le Bain Douche was half-empty. The only person they recognized was Bernard Henri Levy. Either they were too early, or a couple of years too late. The conversation had lapsed into French and Alex wasn’t following everything. Tasha was all over him, stroking his arm and, intermittently, her own perfect left breast, and he was a little nervous about Frederic’s reaction. At one point there was a sharp exchange that he didn’t catch. Frederic stood up and walked off.
“Look,” Alex said. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“No trouble,” she said.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“We used to go out. Now we’re just friends.”
She pulled him forward and kissed, slowly exploring the inside of his mouth with her tongue. Suddenly she leaned away and glanced up at a woman in a white leather jacket who was dancing beside an adjoining table.
“I think big tits are beautiful,” she said before kissing him with renewed ardor.
“I think your tits are beautiful,” he said.
“They are, actually,” she said. “But not big.”
When Frederic returned his mood seemed to have lifted. He laid several bills on the table. “Let’s go,” he said.
Alex hadn’t been clubbing in several years. After he and Lydia had moved in together the clubs had lost their appeal. Now he felt the return of the old thrill, the anticipation of the hunt- the sense that the night held secrets that would be unveiled before it was over. Tasha was talking about someone in New York that Alex was supposed to know. “The last time I saw him he just kept banging his head against the wall, and I said to him, Michael, you’ve really got to stop doing these drugs. It’s been fifteen years now.”
First stop was a ballroom in Montmartre. A band was onstage playing an almost credible version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” While they waited at the bar, Frederic played vigorous air guitar and shouted the refrain. “Here we are now, entertain us.” After sucking down their cosmopolitans they drifted out to the dance floor. The din was just loud enough to obviate conversation.
The band launched into “Goddamn the Queers.” Tasha divided her attentions between the two of them, grinding her pelvis into Alex during a particularly bad rendition of “Champagne SuperNova.” Closing his eyes and enveloping her with his arms, he lost track of his spatial coordinates. Were those her breasts, or the cheeks of her ass in his hands? She flicked her tongue in his ear; he pictured a cobra rising from a wicker basket.
When he opened his eyes he saw Frederic and another man conferring and watching him from the edge of the dance floor.
Alex went off to find the men’s room and another beer. When he returned, Tasha and Frederic were slow dancing to a French ballad and making out. He decided to leave and cut his losses. Whatever the game was, he suddenly felt too tired to play it. At that moment Tasha looked across the room and waved to him from the dance floor. She slalomed toward him through the dancers, Frederic following behind her.
“Let’s go,” she shouted.
Out on the sidewalk, Frederic turned obsequious. “Man, you must think Paris is total shit.”