He says the word like approval should annoy me. It does not. He talks about Paris without sentimentality. He likes the markets before the restaurants, the bakeries that do one thing without apology, the old men who know which stall is lying by smell alone. He hates food trends with a disdain that borders on personal injury. I tell him tomato air should have remained atmosphere, and he laughs hard enough that the bartender looks over.
“You wrote that down, didn’t you?” He asks.
“I did,” I say.
“Good.”
“You approve of cruelty?”
“I approve of precision,” he says.
“Cruelty and precision often travel together.”
“You said that about arrogance and truth this morning.”
“I’m building a theory.”
“A dangerous one,” he says.
“Most useful theories are.”
He looks at me as if I have said something worth keeping. The table fills slowly with small plates we do not properly order. The bartender brings saucisson, then cheese, then a dish of small potatoes in something green and garlicky that he says needs more acid before I taste it. He is right, which irritates me enough to argue the point anyway. He lets me, then asks what I would use instead. I answer. He disagrees. I revise. He watches the revision happen on my face, and his attention is so complete that I feel it like a hand at the back of my neck.
At some point, the first bottle becomes a second glass, then another taste from something the bartender insists we compare. He argues that a certain natural wine has confused flaw with character. I argue that flaw can become character if the rest of the bottle knows how to carry it. He looks horrified enough that I laugh again.
“You cannot mean that,” he says.
“I absolutely mean that,” I say.
“Then you’re more dangerous than you look,” he says.
“Careful,” I say. “You don’t know how dangerous I look.”
His eyes move over my face, then lower, not far, not crudely, just enough to make the air at the table change temperature.
“No,” he says. “I don’t.”
The words are quiet, but the room is not. Still, I hear them as if he has said them against my skin. I look away first because I am beginning to understand that if I don’t, I may forget several things I have been very proud of remembering. Such as restraint and judgment. The fact that strangers in wine bars should remain strangers long enough to become less interesting by morning.This one does not seem likely to cooperate.
By the time the bartender announces last call with the resigned authority of someone who has shepherded too many beautiful mistakes toward the door, I’ve lost track of how longthis devastatingly handsome stranger has been sitting across from me.
Three hours, maybe. Long enough that the room has emptied in stages around us. Long enough that the bartender has stopped pretending not to watch. Long enough that my notebook remains open beside my elbow with only two lines written since he sat down.
One says:He tastes like he listens.
I donotremember writing that.
I close the notebook before he can see it.
Damien notices the movement, but he doesn’t ask.
That may be the most attractive thing he has done all night.
Outside, Saint-Germain is warm and dim, the streetlights throwing gold along the wet-looking pavement even though it has not rained. The air smells like stone, wine, tobacco, and the faint sweetness of the bakery down the block working toward morning. He stands beside me outside the wine bar with his hands in his pockets, the sleeves of his shirt still rolled, the collar open at his throat.
I should say good night.
Heshould say good night.
