“No. I work nearby. I’m a photographer. I’m actually studying with someone. Man Ray. He comes here sometimes.”
“Ah! Of course.” The bartender’s demeanor changes. “We all know him. Lillet with a slice of orange.”
“I guess so.”
“But he is photographing you, no?”
“No, I’m his assistant.”
The woman laughs. “And what does Kiki think of that?” she says.
“Kiki?” Lee asks, but even as she says the name aloud she knows who it is: the K of the ledger.
The bartender laughs again, louder, and then shouts something to the kitchen behind her in French too rapid for Lee to understand. A shout comes back, and then a loud rendition of a chanson.
“Who is Kiki?” the bartender asks. “How can you know Man Ray and not know Kiki?”
Lee doesn’t respond. The woman has made her feel embarrassed, as if here again, even in this one small slice of Paris she has fit herself into, she doesn’t quite belong.
The man who has been in the kitchen comes out, and they begin singing the chanson together, adding some sort of bawdy dance. The bartender shakes her shoulders and shimmies back and forth, and the man sticks out his tongue and leers at her until they both fall against the bar, laughing loudly.
The man turns to Lee, holding up his arms and saying, “You can catch our next show at the Jockey on Saturday night. Hortense and Pierre of Montparnasse!,” and then he returns to the kitchen, still chuckling.
The bartender says, “Don’t mind us—we just saw Kiki perform a few nights ago.”
“She’s a dancer?” Lee remembers the tailor fees, the milliner.
“You really don’t know her? She’s a dancer, a muse, a singer. She’s everything. Some say she’s the most beautiful woman in Paris. She’s been with Man Ray for years now. Treats him horribly from what we hear. But she can treat people however she wants—that’s just how it is.”
Lee nods, picks up her Pernod, and goes over to a table in the corner where she can look down at the street below. She has left midconversation but she doesn’t care if she is being rude.
So this is the mysterious K. Some sort of beautiful chantey singer. And with Man, for years. Lee wonders if Kiki modeled for him, wonders if things would have gone differently if she, Lee, agreed to be his model the one time he asked her. He hasn’t mentioned it again, and all of a sudden Lee wants him to notice her, to want her. His hands on hers, his body behind her in the dark. What if she turned around in the darkroom, put her lips near his? Would he have kissed her?
Lee orders another drink, and then another, sipping each so slowly that a few hours pass before she is done. As she sits there, staring out at the street below, the bar fills up around her. Each time someone new comes up the stairs a part of her expects it to be Man. Instead, more and more strangers. Women with rolled stockings and Eton crops. Men in jackets with wide lapels and homburgs cocked just so. They come in pairs, in groups, they sit close to one another at tables so their shoulders touch, and they do not notice anything beyond their own circles.
Just then a man ascends the spiral stairs and walks straight for the bar. He has a thin mustache, a gray tweed suit. He sets his hat crown side down on the counter, and as he looks around the room he spins it with his fingers, like a top. His hair is slicked down so perfectly it reflects the line of lights from across the room. Lee thinks he is American from his tie, wide with orange and red checks. A Parisian man would never wear something that loud. She makes eye contact with him, not dropping her gaze until he does so first. He turns to the bar and speaks to the bartender, but as soon as he has ordered, his gaze is back on Lee, who tilts her head at the empty chair next to her and cocks her eyebrow up at him. He smiles, nods, walks over after getting his drink.
“These seats are much more comfortable than the bar,” she says to him in English.
“They do appear so. Are you waiting for someone?” She was right—he is not Parisian. But his accent is British, not American, and up close he has that apologetic half smile she has always found so attractive in Englishmen.
“I’m waiting for you,” she says, brass bold.
“I doubt that very much.” He pulls out a chair, waits for her to speak again before he sits down.
“Oh, no, really I am. None of these Frenchmen will talk to me.” Lee gives him a flirty pout.
“I think they might be intimidated by you.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. You’re the best-looking girl I’ve seen since… well, maybe ever.”
Lee laughs. She feels her good mood, the mood she was in when she developed her photos, come back over her.
She leans toward him. “I used to be a model.”
“I’m not surprised. What are you now?”
“I’m a girl who hasn’t had a glass of champagne since I left New York.”
He throws back his head and laughs so she can see the fillings in his molars. With one quick tip of his hand he finishes his drink and lifts his finger in the air to signal the bartender, who comes over and gives the two of them a sharp look.
“Jouët split,” he says, but when Lee looks disappointed, he says, “Full bottle, please.”
The bottle comes in a nice silver stand that sits next to their table, and the champagne bubbles are like kisses tickling Lee’s throat on the way down. The man’s name is George, he is from Dorset, and he is in Paris for three days on business. He is a financier, which means nothing to Lee, and she lets him prattle on about his work as she used to let men do night after night in New York City. He has green eyes and a tender-looking mouth, and if she charmed him when he was sober she charms him much more the drunker he gets. Soon the sun has set and they are both sitting with their arms on the table, their elbows touching.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks him, stifling a small burp from all the champagne.
“Anything.”
“I haven’t kissed anyone since I got to Paris.”
“Isn’t that a crime of some sort?”
“I think so. City of Love and all.”
“Is that what they call it? I thought it was the City of Light.”
“Maybe it is. But that doesn’t change the fact that no one’s kissing me.”
George clumsily picks up their latest champagne bottle and fills both their glasses again, spilling just a little on her arm. He says quietly, “I come here every few months or so, and for me this has been more like the City of Sadness. I’m always walking about all by myself, mooning around and wishing I had someone to share it with.”
“The City of Sadness—that’s how I feel too.” They stare at each other and he gives her a small smile and she feels a rush of power. She licks her lips, lightly, and takes a sip of champagne.
“I’m tired of mooning about,” George says, and Lee leans toward him as she wishes she had done with Man, and finds his lips with hers, and they are so warm, and they are kissing in the bar, across the small table, their tongues hot and wet against each other, until they bump the table and the champagne flutes fall to the ground with a spectacular smash. They both gasp at the same time and look toward the bartender like two children caught stealing from the candy jar. George puts a wad of bills on the table and they leave as fast as they can, their arms around each other, and he holds her hand as she goes down the spiral staircase, as if they are executing some sort of quick and elegant dance.
George is staying at the Saint James Albany, and it has been so long since Lee has been on a bed this comfortable, with fat pillows three deep against the upholstered headboard and little round bolster cushions she sweeps to the floor with one fist. She lolls on the bed while he removes his tie, letting her legs fall open so he can see her garter belt and up her thighs to her underwear—her good ones, thank God, blue with lace rosettes along the edge. He stands above her and struggles with the buttons of his shirt, his suspenders, his belt. She can tell he is already hard. She doesn’t help him undress, but she moves down the bed and puts her foot on his leg and wiggles it up until it is touching him as he unbuttons his fly and pushes his pants down. Once he is undressed he leans over her and says, between kisses as he helps her out of her dress, “You… are the most… perfect… woman… I have ever met.”