“I didn’t know if you’d do that. Maybe that’s why my lips were green. Maybe if I’d known you’d hug me right away, they’d have been red as pomegranates!”
Still holding her, I said into her hair, “You came. You goddamned came! It’ll be great. I promise you we’ll have a ball.”
She pushed a little away and looked me sternly in the eye. “I don’t need France, Max. And I don’t need a good time. I’ve got lots to do at home. I came because of you. I came because you asked an impossible thing that might end up meaning the world. Where are we staying?”
“St.-Paul-de-Vence. It’s about half an hour from here.”
“That’s where the Colombe d’Or is. Gus said I had to bamboozle you into taking me there for dinner.”
“Done. Who is Lincoln with?”
“Ibrahim and Gus till the weekend, then Foof and Ky. He’s in heaven—spoiled rotten for six days. Foof and Ky are taking him to a Vietnamese wedding.”
“You won’t be worried about him?”
“Sure I’ll be worried, but I gotta get used to it. He’s ten now. God, ten years old. Do you know what he said before I left? ‘Are you going to make love with him, Mom?’ My son’s now asking who I’m having sex with.”
I laughed. More because of her lips—since I last looked they had turned a pale pink-red.
“You think that’s funny?”
“I think your lips are funny. They’ve finally changed color.”
She touched a finger to them and inspected it. “Don’t you want to hear what I said to Lincoln?”
“That’s a dangerous question.”
“You know you’re dying to know. I told him yes, I’d be sleeping with you after you’ve had an AIDS test. Lincoln’s very paranoid about me getting AIDS. He watches too much TV.”
I put a hand on her elbow. “I already did. I had a test when I was in the hospital.”
“Me too. I did it there one day when we visited you.”
Five steps ahead of me, she turned. I’d stayed planted, stopped both by the revelation and by the coolness of her answer. Her jaw dropped open comically and she shrugged. “Hey, you can’t have a romantic week without sex. I knew you’d get a test. You’re that kind of person. That’s one of the reasons why I agreed to come. You’re interesting, but you’re not nuts. I don’t need any more nuts in my life. Let’s go. The only other time I was in France, I got hepatitis and had to go to the hospital.”
People take it for granted that most famous beautiful places are ruined because of today’s tourism, pollution, greed, land developers… but I disagree. If you know beforehand what to expect, they can still be splendid and fulfilling. What our cynical minds ignore is the fact that these spots are famous because of their beauty. Certainly some have been ruined over time, but many others are hearty and resilient and stubborn—they don’t take kindly to change and resist quite nicely the cheap Day-Glo cosmetics of our age.
After we’d checked in at the hotel I did something I’d rarely done with a woman: as soon as we got to the room and were alone, I took Lily in my arms and brought her to bed. She was willing.
The first time with anyone is often only so-so, even if the relationship later develops into wonder. The newness and nervousness, the will-I/will-she-be-good? worries make it more of an experiment than an experience. But even considering that, Lily made love so ardently and interestingly our first time that when it was over, I looked at her and said, “Zowie.” She was all opposites—hard and soft, fast and slow, tender then mean. She kept me off balance most of the time, which enhanced the whole experience incredibly. A kiss was suddenly a bite, then a lick, a nip, a long soft kiss. Her mouth pulled abruptly away, came back in for more, pulled away into a slow erotic smile. She made noise but it was quiet and low, noise meant only for us and no one else. I found myself watching her hands. They twisted and curled, became fists or lay helplessly open. They told the whole story. I was mad for those hands and kept putting my face on them or pulling them to me so I could feel their strength and warmth and smell everything on them. Both of us were on them and our smells were sweat and funk and Kouros cologne that had no chance against the other aromas.
Much later, when we were finished, she went into the bathroom and started the shower. I got up quickly and, going in there, reached around her and turned it off. She dropped her eyebrows and stuck out her bottom lip. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t shower yet. I love the idea of your walking around out there with our smells on you. That’s one of the best parts, don’t you think? World’s rarest perfume.”
“Okay. That’s interesting. Most men I know leap for the bath afterward. It’s nice hearing you like the smells, Max. I do too, but I’ve been sort of brainwashed out of it over the years. You and another man are the only ones I’ve ever been with who were like that. I think most guys love pussy so long as it’s used properly. Take it beyond that and a lot of them get real nervous.”
“Who was the other man?”
“My ex-huzz, Rick.”
“Rick the Prick?”
“The very same. You have a good memory.”
“Will you tell me about him?”
“If you want. But it stings, so I can only do it in little bits.”
One of those bits came while we were eating. Looking at a slice of cucumber, she wiggled it on her fork and smiled. “You want to hear a Rick Aaron story? I’ll tell you one about cucumbers. It just came to me this minute. I haven’t thought about it in years. After Rick and I had moved in together—this was in college—we decided it was time I met his parents. He’d warned me about them for months but I thought he was only being careful—you know, didn’t want to build up my expectations. They lived a few hours from school, so one Sunday we drove over there, all dressed up, looking like Barbie and Ken dolls. I was supposed to ask his father about their garden first chance I got because Dad was gonzo about gardening. We arrived and I was introduced. The family gave me the big once-over, then it was time for Sunday dinner. They put me next to Mr. Aaron, and halfway through soup, I said sweetly, T hear you have a beautiful garden, Mr. Aaron. Can I see it after we eat?’”
“He says, ‘Wellll, I don’t know. Are you having your period?’ I was twenty years old, Max. I’d never met this jerk before, but the first thing he asked was that. I was speechless. I looked across the table at Rick for help but my hero over there was staring into his soup. But the rest of his family were looking at me how-do-you-do and waiting for my answer! ‘What does that have to do with your garden, Mr. Aaron?’ ‘Hah! Pretty darn obvious you don’t know much about gardening! Only thing I can tell you is when a menstruating woman gets near cucumber plants it is pure death to the cukes. That’s all there is to it.’ ”
The trees were moving yellow around us. There was a glass of milky-white Pernod on the table next to my black eyeglasses. Plates with crisp salad and soft cheeses. My wallet was full of those marvelously large hundred-franc notes they hand you by the bundle in a bank with a small pin in one corner to hold them together. Soon we’d go back to the room and bathe, then get ready for dinner. What would she wear? No matter what, I knew now what she was like beneath her clothes. I knew I would be there again soon and she seemed as eager as I about it. I believe both of us were so happy that first day that it could have been repeated again and again until it was time for us to leave France and we would still have been fully content.
It was the perfect land in which to begin our relationship, because the South of France is one long caress to the senses. Much of what you experience there can fuel a fundamental part of the spirit. For it is the earth, physical life, at its absolute best. That is what the beginning of love is too if you are lucky. I told Lily both “places” are where all the greatest ingredients in the world are found.