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.
He passed me an Evian bottle. Suddenly I was thirsty, so thirsty. “Not too much,” he said. “Steady on—that’s enough.” He took the bottle away from me. We sat there for a while in silence. “How do you feel? Want to go back and find your friends?”
No. I shook my head. I didn’t want that. I wanted to stay here in the dark with the hot breeze moving the tall trees above us and the lapping of the lake water against the banks.
“They’re not my friends.”
He took out a cigarette. “You want one? I suppose it might help . . .”
I took one, put it between my lips. He went to pass me the lighter. “You do it,” I said.
I loved watching his fingers working the lighter, like he was casting some spell. The tip lit, glowed. I sucked in the smoke.
“Merci,” I said.
Suddenly the shadows under the next tree along seemed to move. There was someone there. No . . . two people. Tangled together. I heard a moan. Then a whisper: “Je suis ta petite pute.” I’m your little whore.
Normally I would have looked away. I would have been so embarrassed. But I couldn’t take my eyes off them. The pill, the darkness, him sitting so close—that most of all—it loosened something inside me. Loosened my tongue.
“I’ve never had that,” I whispered, looking toward the couple under the tree. And I found myself telling him my most embarrassing secret. That while Camille brought back different guys every week—sometimes girls, too—I’d never actually had sex with anyone. Except right then I didn’t feel embarrassed; it felt like I could say anything.
“Papa’s so strict,” I said. I thought of how he had looked at me earlier. A little slut. “He said this horrible thing this evening . . . about how I looked. And sometimes I get this feeling, like he’s ashamed, like he doesn’t really like me that much. He looks at me, talks to me, like I’m an . . . an imposter, or something.” I didn’t think I was explaining very well. I’d never said any of this to anyone. But Ben was listening and nodding and, for the first time, I felt heard.
Then he spoke. “You’re not a little girl any longer, Mimi. You’re a grown woman. Your father can’t control you anymore. And what you just described? The way he makes you feel? Use it, to drive yourself. Use it for inspiration in your art. All true artists are outsiders.” I looked at him. He’d spoken so fiercely. It felt like he was talking from experience. “I’m adopted,” he said then. “In my opinion, families are overrated.”
I looked toward him, sitting so close in the darkness. It made sense. It was part of that connection between us, the one I’d felt since the first time I saw him. We were both outsiders.
“And you know what?” he said—and his voice was still different than usual. More raw. More urgent. “It’s not about where you came from. What kind of shit might have happened to you in the past. It’s about who you are. What you do with the opportunities life presents to you.”
And then he put his hand gently on my arm. The lightest touch. The pads of his fingertips were hot against my skin. The feeling seemed to travel straight from my arm right to the very center of me. He could have done anything to me right there in the dark and I’d have been his.
And then he smiled. “It looks good, by the way.”
“Quoi?”
“Your hair.”
I put my hand up to touch it. I could feel where the hair was sticking to my forehead with sweat.
He smiled at me. “It suits you.”
And that was the moment. I leaned over and I grabbed hold of his face in both hands and kissed him. I wanted more. I half-clambered on top of him, tried to straddle him.
“Hey,” he laughed, pulling back, pushing me gently away, wiping his mouth. “Hey, Mimi. I like you too much for that.”
I got it, then. Not here; not like this: not for the first time. The first time between us had to be special. Perfect.
Maybe you could say it was the pill. But that was the moment I felt myself fall in love with him. I thought I had been in love once before but it didn’t work out. Now I knew how false the other time had been. Now I understood. I’d been waiting for Ben.