His To Shatter (10 page)

After seemingly endless security lines and
some crappy airport food, we finally boarded our plane to Paris.
Snatches of conversation caught my ear as I settled into my seat.
The French language still sent little chills up my spine every time
I heard it. The words flowed so beautifully, it was like every
syllable was wrapped in silk. I couldn’t wait to be immersed in
those beautiful, harmonious rhythms. I spoke hardly a word of
French, but maybe three months abroad would change that!

I grabbed onto Dara and Ashlee’s hands as the
plane roared down the runway. I’d only ever been on a plane once in
my life, to visit New Mexico for my grandmother’s funeral. And the
fact that we would be over the ocean for most of the trip certainly
didn’t put me at ease. I knew, realistically, that our plane was
not likely to go down over the Atlantic, but I still couldn’t quite
relax. I didn’t even have the will to enjoy my complementary
peanuts.

“Here,” Ashlee said, producing a little vial
from her pocket. “Have some of this.”

“Breath mints?” I asked.

“Dramamine,” Ashlee answered. “It’ll knock
you right out for the flight.”

“Oh...That’s OK,” I said, waving her away. I
wasn’t any more keen on drugs than I was on booze, those days.

“It’s just to help you sleep,” she insisted,
dropping a pill into my hand. “I promise.”

I looked at the thing suspiciously. Ashlee
had this talent for talking me into things that I didn’t always
know how to account for. Still, my persistent flight anxiety was
quickly becoming too much for me to handle. I popped the little
tablet into my mouth and waited for it to take hold. And take hold
it did—before I knew it I had fallen off into a deep slumber, and
we were touching down once more. We finally made it, after months
of waiting, to Paris! I could hardly contain myself as we stepped
off the plane and made our way through the airport. My ears were
full of the beautiful language, and I felt a deep, hot anticipation
begin to build within me. This trip was going to be very important
to me, I could tell. I wondered what adventures Paris had in
store.

* * * * *

Chapter Eight

* * * * *

As we stepped out into the open air, it felt
as though we had touched down on another planet. It wasn’t that the
city was so incredibly different from New York, or any other city
in America. It was the small differences that made my new
surroundings so exciting. So foreign. The layout of the long
boulevards, the logos on everyday items in the shops, the slight
differences in how people were dressed, all came together to create
an effect of things being just slightly new, slightly different
than what I’d always known. Dara hailed a taxi with ease, being
fluent in French after a long career at private school certainly
helped. As we sped along through the streets of Paris, my eyes grew
wider and wider. I couldn’t believe all of the gorgeous sights that
were spread throughout the sprawling metropolis. We whizzed past
one architectural wonder after another, each more breathtaking than
the last. And the craziest thing to me was that everyone was
walking past these historical treasures like it was nothing!

Of course, for the locals, it was totally
commonplace to pass the Arc de Triomphe on the way to work, but for
me it was unbelievable. I knew that I hadn’t been so star stuck
when I’d arrived in New York. There were landmarks in the Big
Apple, to be sure, but here, the old and the new blended so well to
create a seamless tapestry of culture and beauty. I’d been looking
forward to taking in the sights, but what I realized upon landing
was that Paris itself was one huge sight, one living and breathing
organism just like New York. For some reason, that idea was so much
more overwhelming to take in.

Our car finally came to a halt, and I stepped
out onto the sidewalk feeling drunk on the city already. I peered
up at the apartment building before us and, sure enough, the number
over the door matched my housing assignment. I looked at Dara and
Ashlee, who were looking at the building across the street.

“Are you serious?” I said. “You guys found a
sublet in the building directly across from mine?”

“We sure did,” Ashlee smiled, hoisting her
backpack onto her shoulders.

“What can we say?” Dara said. “It would be
too painful to be that far away from you for long.”

I smiled at my remarkable best friends, and
we parted ways for a moment to explore our new accommodations. I
trudged up the stairs of my new home, smiling at the fact that even
in Paris I was living in a third story walkup. But every snarky
thought left my mind as I pushed open the front door of my loft and
took in the space. It was a bright, airy studio apartment, with a
small bed pushed against the far wall, a stove top and sink on the
other, and two huge glass doors that led out to a tiny balcony.

I dropped my bags and made for the bed,
flopping down onto the little springy mattress like it was a king
sized featherbed. The afternoon sunlight sent a dappled glow
dancing against the hardwood floor, and the billowing curtains blew
slightly in the breeze coming in from the balcony. The kitchen was
charmingly antiquated, and I could see a claw-legged bathtub in the
tiny bathroom that I was already aching to soak in. Looking around,
it was hard to believe that I really got to live in such a
wonderful space for a summer. I pulled myself off the bed and
opened the doors to the balcony, stepping out into the early summer
air.

Looking down across the sweeping streets of
Paris, I could only imagine what my younger self would have
thought, had she been able to see me then. As a teenager, I’d felt
completely oppressed by my hometown of West Chester, by the cruelty
of my father and the weakness of my mother. But still, even then I
had sworn to break free of all that held me back. I had never given
myself the option of not living up to my fullest potential. Now
that I was here, I wasn’t going to let anything slow me down. This
trip was not just some frivolous jaunt for me, it was a serious
step in my career. It was one more thing that I didn’t share with
my family, one more experience separating me from my past.

My parents had been predictably disappointing
in their reaction to the news of my internship. I had called them
to let them know I would be out of the country for the summer. That
was the first we’d spoken since Christmas, but they didn’t seem to
have noticed.

“Paris?” my father had snorted. “What are the
French going to teach you about getting anything done? They’re just
a bunch of lazy weaklings.”

“Have you ever met anyone from France?” I’d
asked.

“Hell no,” He’d said, “What would I want to
associate with those cowardly assholes for?”

Takes one to know one
, I’d thought. My
mother wasn’t any more helpful. “Be careful while you’re there.
European men can be very aggressive. You should dress more
conservatively, so no one thinks that you’re a loose American
girl.”

I had started to explain the concept of
victim blaming to her at that point, but quickly realized that it
would be a fruitless endeavor. My mother was the ultimate victim,
and had no interest in thinking of herself or any other woman
differently. They really were a perfect match, my parents—they each
let the other wallow in their shortcomings and never challenged
each other to grow or change. Good for them, but I had better
things to do with my life than wither away in West Chester.

I shook all thoughts of my parents from my
mind and breathed in the Parisian air. They couldn’t touch me here.
Nothing about my past was packed in my suitcase. I could be whoever
I wanted to be, in Paris. And from that first day, I starting
looking for who, exactly, that might be.

The summer took me completely by storm, and
Ashlee and Dara were swept up, too. I began my internship
immediately after landing in the city, and was blown away by the
amount of information I was expected to swallow. Sitting through a
year of graduate courses in marketing had been one thing, but being
fully immersed in the world of it was quite another. For the first
week or so, I felt utterly out of my depth. I was convinced that
there was no way I’d be able to learn everything I needed to in
order to do a good job. But slowly, I began to see the edges of the
vast amount of information.

Things began to make intuitive sense. I got
to know the people I was working for at Corelli, and even ran into
Mr. Corelli a couple of times when he came to Paris. His warm smile
and easy confidence in me got me through a few pretty challenging
moments. By the time June had drawn to a close, I knew that job
inside out and backwards.

Ashlee spent her days studying classical
drama with her ensemble, and would come home every day with
incredible stories about the work they were doing. For her part,
Dara made an effort to completely immerse herself in French
culture. She challenged us to speak the language as best we could,
and surprised me by doing a lot more with her time than chasing
men. Dara was an incredibly smart girl, and had ambition in her
that I knew would be put to good use when she found something she
was passionate about. When that happened, look out world, I
said.

During the evenings and weekends, when I was
off from my internship, and Ashlee had finished rehearsal, and Dara
wasn’t out growing more French by the minute, we did everything
together. Saturdays that summer were some of the best days I’d ever
known. The three of us would head out in the morning with a handful
of destinations in mind, and spend the day exploring the city’s
every inch. Museums, landmarks, scenery, everything—we drank in all
that we could. Even if we spent a good chunk of the day simply
lounging by the Seine, gazing up at the Eiffel Tower with a
delicious baguette and more brie than three people should ever be
able to consume, we were content. I’d never been so happy in my
life, never felt like my life had more direction and purpose.

Once the sun would set over the city, the
second leg of our adventures could begin. Dara, Ashlee and I
scarcely let a night go by without hitting some club or other,
dancing night after night away. I’d been reluctant to go with them
at first, given what had happened back in the Spring after too many
drinks, but it hadn’t taken much for them to convince me. I was
determined to be a new woman in Paris, and that meant that I needed
to reclaim some aspects of my life.

It wasn’t fair, I reasoned, that my father’s
alcoholism should continue to hang over me like a dark cloud. It
wasn’t fair that my parent’s pathetic relationship or the insidious
verbal abuse of my college boyfriend should keep me from exploring
my sexuality and discovering what I wanted from a relationship
myself. I resolved to be my own woman in Paris, whatever that
meant. If I wanted to go out dancing every free night, then I
should be allowed to. If I wanted to make eyes at a cute Frenchman
across a crowded cafe, I should be allowed to.

I had started slowly on this new journey
toward freedom from guilt and shame. I didn’t want to jump in too
fast and scare myself, or let something like what had happened back
in New York occur again. There were so many layers of shame and
distaste separating me from the rest of the world. Years of living
in fear of my father, in resentment of my mother, had created a
barrier that was shielding me from some of the most exciting
aspects of life. It would take a lot of coaxing to bring those
walls down.

So, I started challenging myself little by
little. When we were out to dinner, I started accepting first a
half glass, then a full glass of wine. I learned how to let alcohol
be a part of my life without being overwhelmed by it. Soon, it was
commonplace for me to share a bottle with the girls after a long
work week, camped out on my wood floor, trading anecdotes about our
travels and experiences so far. With so many new things happening
all around me, it was exciting to fold in this new element to my
life.

It took a little more self-encouragement to
start considering men along with my wine. I had very little
experience with sex, and less with casual flirtation. The only
casual sexual experience I’d ever had had ended very badly. I had
had an orgasm, sure, but waking up with a disgusting hangover and
crippling sense of shame was not exactly the best post-coital
experience. This time around, I wanted to discover the joy in
flirtation, the fun that could be had with a member of the opposite
sex.

Dara and Ashlee were with me every step of
the way, as wonderful friends and excellent wingmen. I would point
out men that caught my eye during our trips around the city, and
they would help me find excuses to engage them in conversation.
Soon, I was doing this all on my own. When we went out to the
clubs, I would dance with men, accept their drinks sometimes, and
then part ways at the end of the evening without panicking. I
didn’t go home with any of them, or bring any home. That would have
been too much, too soon—like downing a whole bottle of wine when a
glass would suffice.

The summer flew by, and soon August was
drawing to a close. I couldn’t believe how much I’d learned, how
much I’d grown since arriving in Paris. I truly didn’t want the
summer to end. But nothing gold can stay, as they say, and I had to
face the fact that soon I would be on my way back to the states.
Not that New York was a shoddy replacement for Paris, but The City
of Lights would always have a special place in my heart.

* * * * *

Chapter Nine

* * * * *

During our final two weeks in Paris, the
three of us girls wrung every drop of excitement and experience
that we could out of the city. Ashlee's ensemble performed a
beautiful collection of one acts, I was commended at my internship
for the excellent work I had done, and Dara was speaking flawless,
beautiful French. To celebrate our successes, we planned an evening
out at the insanely popular nightclub, la Passerelle. It was a
gigantic space that had just opened up at the heart of the city,
and we’d been dying to check it out since we first heard of it.