Foreign Tongue by Vanina Marsot Read Free Book Online Page B

Cameroon,” he said, wistful. “Shall I take you home?” he asked. I nodded. It was a short drive. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and went inside.
    I got morose in the elevator. Was this what my life was going to be like? Being taken to sex clubs by kinky, aging lawyers? I wasn’t that sort of person; in fact, I was actually kind of prudish, even though I didn’t like to admit it…and…and…somehow, this was all Timothy’s fault. Yes, I was going to go down that path. I was going to sit in the dark and contemplate my sorry life.
    The dress saved me. Inside the apartment, I caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror. The dress still looked good, and it wanted to party. It was barely past one-thirty, early for Paris. Before I couldchange my mind, I called Pascal. Sure enough, he was at a nightclub with a bunch of fashionisti and invited me along. I changed into a pair of lower heels and caught a taxi.
     
    Castel was an old-fashioned yet perpetually chic private club crowded with hipsters, a smattering of aristos and intellos, and just enough local color to keep it from becoming boring. A brass slat in the door slid open, and a pair of eyes scrutinized my appearance before letting me in. I found Pascal holding court with a few friends. My dress perked up.
    “Darling!” he shouted and got up to kiss me. “En robe du soir! Quelle surprise!”
    I grinned and kissed him back. I sat next to Céline, an old friend of Pascal’s and a booker at a modeling agency.
    “Where have you been?” she asked. All the other women were wearing jeans, tank tops, and high heels, just like everyone in L.A. She handed me a glass of champagne.
    “Out to dinner with a lawyer,” I said. “He took me to a club libertin. ”
    “ Tu plaisantes! Really?” she asked. I nodded. “I’ve always wanted to know what really goes on in those places,” she mused.
    “I know, that’s why I went,” I said. Three women leaned in to hear more.
    “What really goes on where?” asked Pascal.
    “Des clubs échangistes,” Céline said.
    “People fucking,” he said drily. They all looked at me. I nodded in agreement. “ On y go?” he asked. We trooped downstairs to the small dance floor. I hadn’t danced in a long time. Only teenagers go dancing in L.A. I danced to music I didn’t recognize, sweating through my dress and not caring. In the mirrored column, I could see my makeup had melted away and my hair, loosened from its tight bun, hung in limp, gel-soaked rattails, but it felt good to dance in a crowd, with music too loud to think.
    At four, we went to a bar in the Tenth with purple leather poufs to drink mint cocktails, smoke water pipes, and listen to Arab lounge music. I left sometime after five.
    The rue de Paradis was empty. Not a taxi in sight, which was just as well: I needed to walk off the alcohol. I tallied up my intake: champagne and wine with dinner, vodka at the sex club, more champagne at Castel, and mint cocktails at Le Sultan.
    Drunk off my ass, I concluded scientifically. My heels clattered on the pavement, and I veered to avoid a long smear of dog shit. It was quiet. My dress was damp against my back. My footsteps rang out, echoing against the buildings. I debated whether walking home drunk was stupid or reasonable. A homeless man sat on the sidewalk, burping loudly and waving his hands in the air like a conductor. He looked a little scary, muttering to himself in a gravelly baritone, but crossing the street to avoid him seemed unnecessary and rude.
    As I passed him, he asked for a light. I kept walking. He shouted, “L’amour n’est pas une pomme de terre!” Love is not a potato. I doubled back and gave him a purple matchbox from the lounge place. He looked at me with rheumy, clever eyes.
    “Merci, chérie,” he said.
    “Bonne nuit,” I said.
    As I wove through narrow streets, I saw lights on in a few apartments, illuminating beamed ceilings, crystal chandeliers, marble mantels, and the spiky shadows of potted