“Someone dropped this,” I say. She takes it from me. A crowd of people starts to move out of the way for a caterer. I walk over to him, replacing my empty wine glass with a full one. I swig it down as Alina wraps her arms around me again, laying her head against my arm. She’ll assume that my behavior is because I’m drunk, which is a better excuse than the truth.
It’s been six years. It was a few days in the middle of summer. I shouldn’t still be thinking about Zandra, but every day, something reminds me of her. Every night, a piece of our time together rewinds in my head, challenging me to pretend that it was meaningless.
I paste on a smile. I take on the challenge.
******
In Alina’s flat, we can see the top of the Eiffel Tower. I’d heard once that it was meant to be a temporary structure, so it’s fitting that it’s visible from one of the places I converge with Alina. When I met Alina, I saw her as another woman to keep my mind distracted from its constant need for stimulation. She was another pastime in a long line of other women to get me to forget about what happened in Paris with Zandra.
But she wasn’t clingy like the other women. She was easy to be with. She didn’t get melodramatic if I didn’t contact her all day and she rarely made demands of me. She wasn’t a doormat. She just had her own life to keep herself busy. We weren’t crutches for each other, just a reliable toy to play with when we were on the same continent.
But whenever I remember Zandra, the memories explode in my head and everything around me appears fraudulent and faded. Or, in the case of mistaking a scarf for a dog, hallucinatory. It’s in those moments that I don’t see Alina as a crutch but as a diversionary tactic. She’s a mirror to a life I once had, right down to convincing her to move to Paris.
“You’re not here,” Alina comments. I glance up at her, temporarily distracted from taking off my shoes. Sitting on the edge of her bed, I’ve barely noticed her pacing in front of me. She rubs her earlobes and sets the chandelier earrings she’d just taken out onto her dresser. “You seem distracted lately. And I know you haven’t been sleeping well. You’ve been more restless than usual. I thought it was just anxiety over the art show, but you’re still acting the same. You should take a few days to recuperate. Don’t go to the States yet. Take a few days to sleep.”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Lina.” I set my shoes on the side of her bed. “I thought I’d be doing better after the show too but going back to the States will help me.”
“You don’t know that,” she says. “Just stay here.”
I look at her. I care about her, but I don’t feel anything beyond that. She’s a postcard of my time with Zandra in Paris, luring me in with its beauty, but it’s just an ideal. It’s the same notion as what Madison said about my art showing the deeper side of Paris—people believe they love it without experiencing anything inside it. That’s not fair to Alina.
“Alina.” I stand up and walk to her. I brush a strand of her hair out of her face, but it quickly swings back in place. “You know I care about you. But I’m not half the man you deserve right now. You need someone who can take care of you and you can take care of them. I’m not in that place right now.”
She tucks her strand of hair behind her ear. It stays. “Are you actually using the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line? If you’re breaking up with me, you should just say it.”
“Not a breakup. A break. Some time apart will allow us to see what we need,” I say, hedging.
She nods. “I agree.”
On occasion, Alina says something that surprises me, triggering a sensation that could be close to love. This is one of those moments.
“I didn’t expect you to be so accommodating,” I say.
“It’s a reasonable decision,” she says. “Especially now when I’m in the middle of the job for Boutroux hotels and it’s going to be a pain in the ass because Manon keeps changing her mind about the theme she wants for the lobby. You’ll be in San Francisco. We’ll barely talk to each other anyway. We might as well let each other do whatever we want without worrying about the other person.”
“That is reasonable,” I agree. “I still expected more of a reaction.”
She cups my face in her hands. “I know you, Mark. You have a tendency to become antsy if things become too familiar. You’re always striving for the next big thing to satisfy you. You just need some time to realize that what you have is great and nothing will ever be good enough if you’re determined to be unsatisfied. I’ll bet that you’ll be ready to get back together by the end of the month. And I’m okay with that. You need space to grow and I’m willing to give it to you. I’m happy to give it to you.”
Her tone borders on condescending, but I can’t disagree with her analysis of me. It’s served me well throughout my life to never be satisfied with monotony or normalcy, but maybe she’s right that it’s why I’ve only felt truly happy in a relationship that lasted three days. It’s easy to stay happy with a fleeting moment.
She may be right, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to take advantage of her sympathy.
“We’ll see if you’re right in a month,” I say. She turns away from me, facing her mirror. She runs her fingers through her hair, rearranging the strands. She is a beautiful woman, but when I look at the two of us through a mirror, I don’t see a work of art. I see two people pretending to be happy.
******
6 years ago
Whenever I glanced over at Zandra—which was often and enjoyable—she radiated in a secret, undeveloped way. She had long, wavy dark hair, which swayed with her movements, and the body of someone who had recently become involved in outdoor sports but hadn’t dedicated her life to it. She was cute, but more than anything, her spirit took me by surprise. She had no problem challenging anything I said, but not in a pretentious way. She carried herself in a way that wasn’t confident but also wasn’t overly consumed in the way people saw her. She laughed easily. She saw beauty or intrigue in all kinds of things I wouldn’t have glanced at twice.
She rolled the rock she’d found on the sidewalk in her palm. “It’s just perfect. A perfect oval and it has all of those tiny minerals making it sparkle. I love it.”
“I didn’t picture you as a geology enthusiast,” I said. “But I also didn’t see you as a protege of Mike Tyson, so you’re full of surprises.”
“Okay, I hit you because I thought you were a crazy person.” She nudged me with her fist, the rock tucked tightly inside it. “You should use your words next time.”
“I could still be a crazy person,” I said. “And you’re joining me for breakfast. That makes you the crazier person.”
