A Texas Girl in Paris

by Lauren Coe (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown France

My flight to Paris was in three hours, and I sat curled on the floor watching the dust flit in and out of a dull afternoon sun. I hadn’t moved for thirty minutes. Next to a half-packed suitcase my dad looked on, and I was a child once again in a 28 year-old body. Nerves prickled through my gut, the sickness was electric in its force. Books and empty journals splayed out on either side of me, and the poet inside with dreams of a wine dark city was silent. “When I left Dallas for the ranch,” my dad said, “I was sicker than a dog.” I watched as he fell back through a tunnel of years and on to the flaxen prairies of his youth. He told me again the story of leaving his upper-class lifestyle under his father’s watch as a strapping young fraternity man at SMU. The silky peach skies of West Texas called to him, and he sailed on a bus to capture those callused dreams of being a cowboy. The books on my shelf, leather bound saints I called to for guidance…Plath, Rossetti, Oliver…please… I did get off the floor. I did get on the plane. Fueled by cheap white wine and one pill from an old prescription bottle, I would do it. I would move to Paris. My head heavy with travel I pulled two large suitcases up a six-story walkup in the third arrondissement. The sky was like lemon meringue pie, whipped solid white and uncomfortably close. It was New Year’s Eve, and in my heavy coat I was all sweat and flushed cheeks but continued to tell the plump landlady who spoke little English, I’m fine…ça va… Inside the small apartment, I stared from the porthole window afloat on a sea of tiled roofs and small chimneys. When I emptied my bag, I stared at the dead screen of my cellphone, then my computer, and felt the bitter ache of five thousand miles between myself and home. Clumsily I worked my adaptor in to the wall, but it was broken. No communication, and no stores open on New Years Eve. I poured a glass of water and fell against the freshly made bed with a vaulted ceiling so close I could touch it. The Herculean force of sleep overtook me and the I melted away. When I finally woke, it was night. Streetlights glittered over the inky streets below, and people strolled by cooly. The melodic hum of jazz wafted in, and laughter tinkled in waves. In the mirror I examined my red eyes and matted hair. A shower, I can at least take a shower, I narrated to myself straining to make my reflection the type of woman who wasn’t afraid of this city. Who wasn’t afraid to wander, and speak broken French. Armed with a pen and pad, I stepped from the large blue door of the courtyard and onto the cobbles. Left on Rue Chapon, I thought, and wrote it on the pad as I walked. When I met the end of the street, a group tumbled past with arms around each other. Right on Rue de Temple, I scribbled letting the sobering winter air fill me up. Dressed in black, but with a bright red coat, I felt the vulnerability of a bird caught in bare branches. I approached a couple outside of a bar and started to ask, “Bon soir…est-ce que” – “Non,” the woman said bluntly. “C’est une fête privée.” “Ah, merci.” Private party. The shrill honking of bagpipes lured me around the corner to a pub. Happy to see an empty seat at the bar, I took it quickly and ordered the first beer I saw – “Hoegarden, s’il vous plâit.” I didn’t know, but the charismatic Swedish girl now handing me a beer would become my good friend. The young Scottish woman across the bar with bright eyes would ask me to me be in her wedding. Next to me, the charming English man with dark hair would kiss me at midnight and one day we would share a home, and a cat. I wrote on my pad, Bar: The Thistle, and sipped my beer.