4 Rhys
4
Rhys
That was the problem—I couldn’t stop looking at her.
I couldn’t, and I knew that soon I’d have to. And weird as it seems, I think that was what I liked the most. How ephemeral the moment was, Ginger and me under the moon, which cast a reflection on the gleaming water, showered by the glimmering lights of the city. Talking. Getting to know each other. Observing each other. Touching without touching.
I’d never met anyone who shared so much with me and was so transparent, so ready to open up to me without expecting anything in return. And it made me want to know her better. I looked at her from the corner of my eye as she took the last sip of her beer. The wind was tossing the strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. Her eyes were still swollen. She must have cried the whole flight. I asked myself what she’d be doing in a few days. What I’d be doing. What we’d be doing.
“Is this your favorite place in Paris?”
“No. I like Montmartre. But I wanted this to be the image you held on to, I don’t know why. It’s simple. A memory. You can’t ask for more with less than twenty-four hours in the city. Or wait—I’m trying to think of how to make it better.”
“I doubt that’s possible.”
“You’ll see.”
I finished my beer and put my bottle down next to hers before looking for a song on my phone and turning up the volume. I set it down on the wall as the first chords of “Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus” began to play.
I reached out toward her. “Here, dance with me.”
“Are you crazy?” She looked around. I didn’t know if her cheeks were red from the wind or from embarrassment, but she looked unsettled. A couple passed us, and some tourists who didn’t pay us any mind.
“Even if someone notices us acting stupid, they’ll forget it five minutes later, but you’ll remember it for the rest of your life. And just think, you’ll never see me again.”
She looked wary as she stepped forward and took my hand. Her fingers were soft and cold. I squeezed them and pulled her close to me, resting my hand on her waist. She looked at me and laughed shyly as we started dancing, enveloped in the voices of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin.
“Why’d you choose this song?”
“I can’t tell you. I’d scare you off.”
“Rhys…” I liked how she said my name, the way the final s slipped through her lips, which puckered as she heard the moaning of the melody.
“Because this song is like making love.”
Now she really was blushing, but she didn’t look away. Her eyelashes were long and dark; her eyes were staring straight into mine. Like embers. I pulled her closer. I had no idea what I was doing. When I decided to put the song on, I disconnected. All I knew was that I wanted the memory of those notes to belong to this stranger named Ginger, and maybe in ten or fifteen years, I could look back and remember the moment with joy. Tell someone else about it, maybe. I met this girl who was lost one time in Paris, and on the spur of the moment, we danced together. One of those incidents you collect in the course of your life.
But it wouldn’t be like that. Even if I didn’t know it yet.
Ginger wouldn’t be just another story.
I hummed to the tune of the song.
“I don’t understand. What does it mean?” she asks.
I leaned closer until I touched her ear with my lips. Ginger shuddered when I translated a few sentences for her. The words floated around us: hips, wave, naked island, I love you, you come and go…
I went on whispering the lyrics. Maybe because it was one of the most sensual songs ever written. Or because it was romantic. Special. Or just for her, for that girl. She was different. Unique. I guess that’s why the moment felt more intimate than so many other nights I had spent in bed caressing another person’s body, another person’s skin. I didn’t need to touch Ginger to feel her on my fingertips, as if we were reaching through each other’s clothes, through each other’s skin. Turning the present to a memory.
When the song ended, we parted slowly, but her hands remained around my neck, her lips a few inches from mine.
“How many girls have you done this with?”
“You want me to tell you that you’re the only one?”
“Yeah. That’s what I want.”
“Just with you.”
“I changed my mind. Tell me the truth.”
“Just with you,” I repeated.
“I don’t know you.”
“Ginger, Ginger…” I laughed, reached behind my neck to grab her hands, and held them as we studied each other in silence. Then I cocked my head to one side. “I think I know what your problem is. You think too much. You think all the fucking time. You’re doing it now, aren’t you? I can see the smoke coming out of your ears.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Wait. Let’s try something.”
Before she could put up a fight, I told her to turn toward the Eiffel Tower and just look at it without thinking. I stood behind her. I surrounded her petite body with my arms and rested my hands atop hers on the low wall.
“Just look. Are you doing it? Are you looking at the lights, the way the moon reflects off the water like a mirror, the way the cold makes your skin swell? Do you feel the breeze on your skin? Do you feel me? Enjoy it all. The crisp sounds of the wind. My chest against your back. The mist escaping your lips. You can even touch it if you like.” She laughed and reached out into the nothing. Then she turned.
We were together then, me in front of her. And I wanted to kiss her. Ginger. Her lips were flushed from the cold.
“I was right. You wouldn’t answer, but I hit the nail on the head. You’re a one-night stand kind of guy. Fess up. You’re too good at this.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“The thing is…”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” I was being serious.
“Okay.”
“Okay then.”
“You up for a walk?”
I nodded, smiled, and stepped away, heading down the street the opposite way we’d come. We walked. And talked. And went on walking. And kept talking and had no idea where we were going. Our destination didn’t matter, even if we did cross a few bridges and Ginger stopped on them, needing to think. She chatted away, looked all around, and told me more details about her relationship with Dean, the years they’d spent together and the plans that no longer existed.
“What will you miss most about him?”
“Mmm…our routine?” She bit her lower lip, reticent. “Yeah, that, I guess. Our everyday lives. Him just being there every step of the way, from early morning until sundown.”
I leaned back against the wall of the bridge and crossed my arms, grinning and watching her, I don’t know for how long. “How is it possible he doesn’t miss listening to you?”
“Are you sucking up to me?” She scowled. Angry. Or cautious?
“No. I’m being serious.”
“You’re not funny, Rhys.”
“Good. I wasn’t trying to be.”
She sighed. Confused. As if she couldn’t believe what I was saying was true. But it was. It was the first thing I thought when she told me her story, that if I’d gone out with her for five years, with the girl who made me smile every time she spoke, I’d miss her voice, its soft, firm presence that never went away. I’d never met a person who had so much to say and whom I wanted so much to listen to.
“Where are we? We got off track.”
I shook my head and looked up. “I live there. In that gray building. On the corner.”