21 Steps To Happiness

I nod. Oui, oui!

“You seem to know a lot about wine.”

That’s right. Compliment him till he bursts.

“Oh, not really. But it’s one of my hobbies. Food…restaurants…wine. You are very lucky in New York. So many good restaurants. Famous chefs. Amazing bars.”

Oh, no, don’t start asking me stuff about New York. I moved to Connecticut with Dad years ago. All I ever do when I go to New York is spend time locked up in Jodie’s amazing apartment, glued to her giant-screen TV. Ask me about cable and I can talk forever.

“I love going to New York just for the restaurant scene,” he continues. “What’s your favorite restaurant, Lynn?”

“Restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“In New York?”

“Yes.”

“I…wouldn’t know. I am not very interested in…food,” I say. “Que me nourrit me detruit.”

“That’s…the…anorexic motto,” he says and smiles cautiously.

Was that humor? Like…Curvy me…anorexic? Ha ha! Damn that French subtlety.

Another embarrassing silence. He smiles but I can tell that I’m making him pretty uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry, I am so tired.” I blame everything on the jetlag again. Oh, God. He must think I’m so dull.

“Your goat’s cheese toast on eggplant salad,” the maître d’ says as he places the plate in front of me.

I can’t stand goat’s cheese and I hate eggplant.

“Votre filet mignon,” he says to Nicolas and places what looks like a delicious piece of beef rolled up in a thin slice of yummy bacon in front of him.

He nods approvingly. Angels are meat eaters, apparently.

As for my salad, I just stare at it as if it were trying to speak Greek to me.

“You’re not eating?”

I’m so hungry, I could faint.

“Oh, I’m not hungry anymore.”

“I see,” he says. “Do you mind if I…” He points at his steak.

“Go for it, I don’t mind you eating.”

“You know, this place, this restaurant…” He shows me around with the tip of his steak knife. “It’s one of the hottest places in Paris right now, and you would hardly get better vegetarian food anywhere else.”

“I don’t doubt it, Nicolas. But I am perfectly fine.”

Come on. Make an effort!

I fork a little piece of goat’s cheese and delicately lift it to my lips. I start to chew and the very taste I don’t like about goat’s cheese explodes in my mouth.

I want to spit it out and scream but I manage to articulate, “Excuse me’, stand and walk to the maître d’.

“Toilet!” I bark, trying to keep the cheese in a corner of my mouth and not spit it out on his lovely dark purple tie. He points downstairs.

I walk fast and make it to the toilets. I run into a cubicle and spit out the piece of cheese. I am so pathetic. I’m tired. I haven’t slept for the last twenty-four hours. My nerves are about to snap. I’m having lunch with the cutest man I’ve ever met, and I’m a freak show.

I sit, lock the door and go for it. I just cry. It’s a good thing to cry. Men can’t stand it when women cry. They think something’s wrong. It’s quite the opposite sometimes. Like now. It’s just a way to release pressure and move on.

When I walk back to the table, Nicolas has finished his steak. He must have hurried while I was away.

The maître d’ comes to our table and asks if we have finished.

“Yes, I am finished, thank you,” I say.

He exchanges one of those looks with Nicolas. Those American women, all nuts, they seem to agree.

“Any dessert?”

“Just coffee,” Nicolas says.

“A trim latte, no foam,” I ask, and by the dirty look I get from the maître d’ it’s like I just ordered the murder of his family.

“Trim latte, no foam,” Nicolas repeats and smiles.

Oh, look at that smile. I can spend my life ordering foamless lattes if it has this effect on him.

Then I wonder. What if I was to order a decaf non-steamed soy milk macchiato?

We’re back on his scooter.

Only this time I squeeze my arms around his chest. I close my eyes. I feel him breathing. In, out. Can’t we just drive like this forever?

“You can let go now.”

I open my eyes. We’re back at the hotel.

“Oh, sorry…. I was a bit…gone.” I let go of him and his scooter.

“See you tomorrow morning at the office, then,” he says. “I’ll send a cab. Is eight-thirty too early?”

“I never sleep,” I hear myself say, because that’s exactly what Jodie always tells everybody, even though I’ve never heard someone snoring louder than her. “Too many things to do! I’ll sleep in my next life!”