Page 95 of You + Me – Against the World

He grins at me, and I don’t feel reassured.

“You did bring pajamas, didn’t you?”

“Boxers and a T-shirt, Will that do?”

“Vadim Arcadi, what am I going to do with you?”

“If I’m naked, absolutely anything you want,” he whispers in my ear.

“Stop that. If my mother hears you, you’ll end up in the tiny attic room on the sixth floor, under the roof. We call it the chambre de bonne—the maid’s room. Mom, we’re going for a walk!”

“Alright, but drop Lily off at her friend Jeanne’s on the way. It’s only two blocks from here. And be back for dinner!”

“I promise!”

“Au revoir, Madame Lancaster,” Vadim attempts in French.

“Oui, à tout à l’heure!”

“L’heure? Isn’t that something to do with time? Why does she want to know if I have the time?” he asks me in a low, panicked voice.

“It just means ‘see you later.’ Come on!” I say, giggling.

After dropping off my sleep-deprived but overexcited little sister, Vadim and I head underground and onto the Parisian metro, zipping off toward the lively Saint-Lazare district. Too busy kissing, we miss our stop, and Vadim teases me relentlessly.

We take the metro back in the other direction and get into a car filled with music. An older man, beret pulled down over his head and eyes half closed, is playing Bob Marley tunes on the guitar and trying to get the passengers to sing along, though they are all too indifferent or too shy to join in. Vadim, on the other hand, seems enthralled. When the singer stops and moves down the aisle, his beret held out toward the passengers’ averted faces, Vadim slips a crumpled five-dollar bill into it.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do with that here, but it was sweet of you,” I whisper to him.

“Why isn’t anyone giving him anything? I thought people were rich in this neighborhood. What’s up with these cheapskates?”

“Vadim,” I giggle, “people do understand English, you know.”

“Parisians, you are… not nice!” he exclaims in broken French.

I burst out laughing and sink into my coat, looking away to pretend I don’t know him. Then I realize it’s time to get off the metro, so I grab him by the arm, just as the warning signal sounds. We run like crazy along the platform, laughing all the way, and then step back out into the open air.

We slowly stroll down Boulevard Haussmann, lost among a throng of commuters, tourists, and street vendors. Vadim takes my hand, something he rarely does in LA.

That’s the magic of Paris. It can make anyone romantic.

“Are we gonna go to the movies?” he asks me, pointing at a poster. “I want to see a movie while we’re here.”

“Okay, but not until we’ve seen this!”

Vadim soon discovers the beauty and magic of the department stores’ Christmas window displays. For someone who hates the holidays, he spends a lot of time marveling at it all, like a child who didn’t grow up too fast. I slip my hand into the pocket of his puffer jacket, and together we walk through the doors of the Galeries Lafayette. Beneath the magnificent dome, we take in the unique, expensive watches and jewelry, and test a billion perfumes until we can’t smell anything else anymore. Then, I try on faux-fur coats to make him laugh. He cries out when he sees a leather biker jacket that looks exactly like his own, then puts it back the moment he sees the price, as if it were burning his hands. I lose him among the aisles, until he comes back to surprise me, wearing a top hat on his head and a blazer worthy of Basile. We smile, we giggle, we stroll, we kiss some more. Light. Carefree. In love.

We don’t buy anything, of course, and eventually end up at H&M, where he agrees to let me pick out a black turtleneck sweater, three pairs of thick socks, and a slightly dressy shirt to impress my mother. I admire his strong body, remembering the silkiness of its skin. In the fitting room, he feels my eyes on him and pulls me against him, whispering to me to stop staring and “participate.” I rise onto my tiptoes, press my mouth to his, kiss him, nibble him, mess up his hair, and run away before I lose control.

Near the cash registers, we find matching pom-pom hats, gray for him, white for me, which we put on as soon as we leave the store. We look a bit silly, but we keep them on our heads, not even taking them off in the movie theater.

The fresh air whips our cheeks when we walk out, our heads full of images. We stop to drink hot chocolate and eat a crepe in a café. Vadim doesn’t invent lives for the people walking by. He’s too busy listening to conversations, observing the different characters that surround us, soaking up the warm and intimate atmosphere, recording every moment in his brilliant mind.

He gets lost in the beauty all around us; I get lost in his beauty.

I shiver at the thought.

He blows on my hands to warm them, and I have a hard time believing this guy loves me as much as I love him.