The Best Women's Travel Writing 2007 - True Stories from Around the World

Sample Chapter: Flirting in Paris

by Kayla Allen

She found the ultimate cure for existential despair.

Rain shrouds the Bastille Farmers Market in Paris and I’m flirting with a tall, chain-smoking ruffian who looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. He broods over asparagus while making smoldering eye contact. Even though he’s a stranger, his glances imply intimacy. Something along the lines of “I have a magnifying glass into your soul. I wish to nibble your ear.”

His rumpled profile appeals to me. I telegraph my thoughts to him while considering cauliflower. “We share a beautiful, tortured existence. I’ll trifle with your arm hair.”

I’m not a brazen hussy, just an average Sunday shopper enjoying the frisson of flirtation. The art of coquetry is integral to everyday life in France. In fact, flirting is as much a part of the culture as eating stinky cheese after dinner.

My late twenties brought a meltdown of cosmic proportions. Despondency pervaded every corner of my being. Occasional acting gigs in my adopted hometown of Hollywood worsened my despair. I was too old to be a starlet and too cynical to lie about my age.

In a supposedly near-breakthrough role, I played a stewardess with a speech impediment opposite Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. My part consisted of one word. “Peanuts?” I said, dropping the “t” and lisping the “s” as I offered the snack. I booked a ticket to Paris the day the royalty payment arrived.

I traded Los Angeles strip malls for the esthetic pleasure of the Place Saint Sulpice. Strolling aimlessly along the Seine, I struggled to recover my identity. I lingered at cafes and strayed deeper into nothingness. Poodle adoption became a consideration. Albert Camus’s quote perfectly illustrated my state of mind: “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

Normalcy in Paris would mean learning the language. I enrolled in a free French course at the Sorbonne. On day one, a handsome, affable guy, Jean David, introduced himself as my teacher. The program used cultural references, rather than traditional grammar lessons, as tools. Jean David would screen an extract from a Truffaut film, then have the class interpret the dialogue. In the darkened room his attention turned to me. He shot playful looks that said, “There are many vineyards in my family. I have homes scattered across France, Switzerland, and Spain. I could have done anything I wanted in life, but I chose to enlighten others. I want to make love to you on this desk.”

After a few days I warmed to the game. Feeling genuinely coquettish, I reciprocated Jean David’s gazes: “I have angel’s breath and a willing mouth. I cook a mean shrimp gumbo. You are a naughty boy and I like it.”

Immersion in Parisian life helped erase the humiliating auditions that were the fabric of my former existence. The promise of connection fueled my bicycle rides to class. Jean David and I flirted every day for six weeks. I naturally expected he would ask me on a date when the course ended. For our class party, I prepared an apricot tart, hoping to impress him with my culinary skills.

The fête was in full swing when a beautiful curly-haired girl appeared and Jean David presented her as “ma petite amie, Isabelle.” My French was honed enough to understand this meant girlfriend. I was dismayed. How could he have led me on? Did he lead me on? He’d only provoked me with his eyes.

As he left, he offered me a long, expressive stare, one that said, “It is such a pity we won’t make love, but I will always long for you.” Meantime, Isabelle threw me a look that said, “I am skinnier than you and wear much nicer underwear.” I slunk out of the party, empty tart pan in tow.

The secret glances that Jean David and I shared flashed before me as I lugubriously pedaled away from the Sorbonne. Something illusory, yet very real, had happened. Our ocular encounters weren’t meaningless, they roused and inspired. I rode by a baguette-toting businessman who was exiting a boulangerie. With utmost formality, he electrified me with a sincere “I’d like to be a bicycle seat in my next life” look. My face reddened as I biked on. Then a cultural epiphany struck. American men flirt as a means to an end: to get laid. The French flirt because it is part of “la vie,” a chance to transform an ordinary moment into a profound acknowledgment of elusive potential. Wow. Being anonymously objectified could be fun.

Armed with my new understanding, I cultivated the thrill of locking eyes across the sidewalk with a stranger and wallowing in the unknown. Such communication suited me more than one-sided conversations with preening, wannabe actors.

An unexpected exchange occurred at a hospital emergency room where I’d accompanied a friend with a broken ankle. As she waited to receive treatment, a disheveled paramedic entered, wheeling a bloodied body on a gurney. He turned to me and slowed his pace. His drawn out look said, “I am worn, battered, and need attention. Love me.”

I returned with “I want to give you a warm bath and a foot massage. I get your needs. I’m wearing pink lacy culottes.” The healing power of random connection outweighed my nihilistic tendencies and I actually started to feel happy. But I feared relinquishing my mask of angst, worried I might not attract as much flirt potential.

On an overcast afternoon when the Parisian clouds hung dramatically low, I hopped a bus along the Boulevard Saint Germain. The sandy-haired driver established eye contact with a frisky ogle in his rear-view mirror. One that said, “My Ile St. Louis apartment is lined with books by obscure architects.”

Clinging to my damaged persona, I demurely responded with “the Ile St. Louis is too touristy.” But he was persistent. He penetrated me with “my place is next to Bertillon and the view, magnificent.” Always a sucker for good ice cream and a stunning panorama, I cracked a smile and sent a “chocolate is my flavor, what’s yours?” look. I decided to flirt with abandon. My stop was next: I’d never see him again.

His return grin sent me reeling with such intensity that my internal dialogue was hushed. Of the many memories I have of Paris, this one remains in the forefront. As I descended the bus, I whirled around and for that moment, enjoyed the sheer connection: the two of us strangers, radiating intangible delight in the other.

As the doors closed I was tempted to write down his bus number, or run ahead to the next stop and board again. But the actress Anouk Aimee’s words were a reminder to love and lose: “It’s so much better to desire than to have.” I felt immense joy as he drove away, marveling at how my mediocre day changed into one of pure elation.

Kayla Allen, a PEN USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow, lives with her family in Nice, France and Shreveport, Louisiana. She is at work on her first novel, Rapture Dummy, a fictional account of her years as a child evangelist ventriloquist.



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