“Of course I do, but it takes so much energy. If you felt newlove the entire time you were married to someone, what a waste of a life. Obsession takes up all the time. When would you ever write your novel? Or paint your masterpiece or…” He looks over at Vin with pursed lips. “What do you do again?”
“He’s an electrician,” I answer for him, because he’s got his quiet face on.
St. Michel rolls his eyes without actually moving them. “Yeah, I can’t make anything from that.”
Vin and I both laugh and St. Michel tumbles on. “I just mean that life is work, work is life. We are nothing when we’re not working. Bored and depressed and asking existential questions that don’t need to be asked, because who cares? Stay busy. Eat when you’re hungry, fuck each other, work hard, and rest when you die. This is the key. You’ll get happy again someday. Just stay busy.”
Vin’s eyebrows are up. Either he’s completely skeptical or he’s kinda buying it. I seriously do hate his beard.
“Besides,” St. Michel says. “There is no hell for you to burn in. If your marriage isn’t working, restructure it. What you do in your marriage is between the two of you and whoever else you invite in. It’s fine if it’s not conventional. This is how we make these things work.”
“St. Michel,” Vin says, leaning forward on his elbows, eyebrows down, finally breaking his long silence. “Are you trying to find a way to fuck my wife?”
“Vin!” I screech, mortified beyond—
“If she comes knocking at my door, I won’t turn her away,” St. Michel says coolly.
Well, shit!
“There will be no knocking! What the hell?”
St. Michel holds his Euro-bored expression for about two more seconds and then it unfolds into a smile. “Life is long. I enjoy an interesting woman.”
The aforementioned mortification is still incinerating me.
Vin, however, is smiling, eyes on me. I get the distinct feeling I’m being teased. By both of them.
St. Michel reaches over and pings a fingernail against Vin’s wineglass. “You never came back to pick up your frame.”
“Well, you called her instead.” Vin is glowering at him and it’s suddenly clear to me that they know each other, maybe even well.
“What did you have framed?” Another thing I apparently know nothing about.
Vin waves a hand. “Nothing. Not important.”
“Not important?” St. Michel’s all eyebrows. “At this rate she really might come knocking at my door.”
“Not importantright now.” Vin cuts his eyes to me. “Important later.”
“Are you two having an affair?” I demand right as the server is returning with two plates of tartines. One tartine ends up in my lap. I’ve just spoken into existence the porn of a lifetime.
St. Michel is smiling at me like a cat. “Fate has not been so kind to me. But—” He’s ticking his finger back and forth at me. “If he comes knocking at my door…”
Vin and I laugh. “Yeah, yeah,” I grumble. “I get it. Use it or lose it.”
We finish the bottle of wine and the tartines, which I dissect with a fork and a (metaphorical) magnifying glass in an attempt to reverse-engineer the recipe. Tartines are hard because you need—
Vin’s hand touches the back of my neck. “She’s going into her work world,” he explains to St. Michel.
“It’s not attractive,” St. Michel says affectionately, motioning toward the pile of tartine I’ve deconstructed. I scoop it up with a spoon and clean my plate.
St. Michel is leaning back in his chair, turning his face toward the breeze that curls across our table and makes the napkins dance. “Children,” he says to us, eyes closed. “Return home.”
I try to get him to return to his home as well (he lives in an impossibly stylish and tiny studio apartment above his framing shop) but he insists he’s got more wine to drink and jazz to go see.
I look at the time. “You’re going to a showlater?” I ask, mildly scandalized. On a normal night I would have been in bed an hour ago.
This gets him to finally crack his eyes at me. “You are aware you live in New York City, yes?”
