Chapter XI #2
“I guess the point is, Antoine raised me in some ways,” Henri continues.
“I mean, he’s thirteen years older—not a parent figure, exactly.
In some ways, we grew up together.” I process this new understanding of their dynamic silently while Julian grunts softly, signaling his own breed of comprehension.
We return to our working rhythm, plowing steadily through the mass of green in front of us.
“Now my dad’s getting older and his health isn’t great—but we’ve still got this little family, Antoine and me.
He comes out to Lyon for the holidays and stays with me and Charlotte, usually.
He helped me open the bar—and he saw up close how much it sucked to close it. ”
Charlotte. Her name tumbles out of his mouth in italics. “So he’s protective. Older-brother type,” I say, looking up for confirmation, still struggling to meet Henri’s eyes.
“Yeah, something like that. He’s seen me at my most ruined, I guess. My saddest, most hurt, whatever. I think his way of showing love is just to be some kind of barrier between me and anything that might make me feel that way.”
It’s a broad statement, one he makes nonchalantly, but I wonder if it isn’t more pointed. A peace offering or an apology. An explanation at the very least. His own quiet way of unpacking his tendency to go rigid when Antoine is around. Against my will, I can feel myself thawing in response.
Julian and I nod in unison, and all three of us let ourselves fixate quietly on the mounting web of stems. “Some things are worth protecting,” I say to Henri’s hands, hoping he knows that I mean something like forgiveness.
“OK, OK, very tender.” Julian rains another cascade of grapes onto the grate. “Now, perhaps time for something a bit less depressing. Alice, your turn.”
I watch Henri raise an eyebrow in my direction, and I relish a brief bout of prolonged eye contact between us. I notice a certain pleading beneath his lashes.
“OK, hit me, Julian. Do your worst.”
He strokes his chin, leaving a thin film of rose-hued debris. “OK, what’s the deal with your whole can’t-be-loved complex, huh? You dissociate every time we talk about relationships.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m caught off guard. I’d expected a more appropriately surface-level question. The acid bite of the grape stems scrapes against my finger pads. “I . . . well. I’m not sure it’s . . .”
“We want to know,” Henri cuts in. It’s a relief almost, his eager interest.
“You heard the man.” Julian gives the universal gesticulation for “get on with it.” Henri tosses a grape stem in my direction, and there’s a small curve of a smile at the corner of his mouth. The gesture feels like a gift, like something I could unwrap.
“Well, yeah, OK. Almost two years ago, I ended a pretty long relationship. It was the right thing—I mean, I think it was the right thing. But . . . he was my family. His family was my family. And, well, until we broke up, I’d never been alone—I hadn’t known what it felt like to be the sort of person who paid rent, commuted to work, had an email signature, owned a bike, without him.
I’d done so much growing up next to him, and I didn’t know what any of it would feel like on my own.
But, well. Long story short, he proposed, and I said no. ”
Julian winces. “Poor guy.”
“OK, OK, everyone takes his side. But poor me too.”
Henri laughs, and it sounds warm. Not fiery but like something heated low and slow, left to cool. “Why didn’t you tell me that part?”
I shrug, but I know the answer: I hadn’t wanted him to know I could be cruel. I hadn’t wanted him to picture me in that particular position, arched stoically over someone else who was humbled and down on one knee.
“Go on,” he coaxes.
“Fine. The thing was, I watched this boy I loved so much lower himself in front of me, ring in hand, and it just hurt. Saying no—it was embarrassing, obviously. For both of us. I did this unkind, violent thing—even though I knew that the crueler, more violent thing would’ve been saying yes, then changing my mind.
But I was never going to be happy if I stayed—not forever.
” I pause, grinding my teeth. “I believed for a long time that we’d find our way back to each other again once I’d done a bit more living without him .
. . but I think that’s probably just a stupid, comforting thing people tell themselves to mute all the hurt that comes with leaving someone. ”
I round up the grape stems in my palms and deposit them in a crate on the floor.
“Anyway, I thought we’d be friends—that we’d always know each other because how could we not?
We were so large in each other’s lives. But I think he’s still pretty angry at me .
. . which is fair. I’m not faulting him for that.
It’s just tough for me that he hasn’t come around.
It hurts for me too.” I look up at my rapt audience, and I realize I’ve now shared more on this subject with these foreign men in this foreign country than I have with anyone, anywhere in years.
“I mean, to actually answer your question, I think I just started to feel like I was some kind of bad, poison thing, romantically. Like . . . noble rot.”
“But noble rot—it’s not bad, not always,” Henri says with a tenderness that makes me blush.
He’s right, I know. It’s an infestation in vineyards—gray mold, essentially—that can be harnessed for good.
It can even be cultivated with the intention of concentrating sugar in grapes. It’s a benevolent attack of sorts.
“Eh, I’m not a fan of sweet wines.” Julian unleashes another load of fruit. “Noble rot is just rot to me.”
“Ouch,” I say with a laugh, wincing.
“It wasn’t a metaphor! I was just speaking literally!” Julian is adamant, but he bites back a smile. “Anyway, surely your ex is just as responsible as you are.”
“Maybe. But all along, I knew I had it in me to hurt him. And when you have power like that, dormant or not, it still feels malicious. It’s like carrying a concealed weapon. Even if you don’t intend to use it, the fact that it’s there at all still means something.”
“When did you know it was over? That you wouldn’t end up with him?” Henri asks as he discards a cocoon of stems.
I pretend to think, furrow my brow in a posture of contemplation.
It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times, and in truth, I know the answer, though I’ve never opted to share it.
I look directly at Henri and run my gaze across the plane of his face before I respond.
“I have this wildly distinct memory of seeing him on the sand in the Rockaways—that’s a public beach in New York. ”
“Like the Ramones song!” He grins.
“Exactly. Like the Ramones song,” I affirm.
“So, I was swimming, and he was on land helping this woman with her umbrella. He’d always been helpful that way, had the kind of face that made people stop him on the sidewalk to ask for directions.
She was small and blonde, and while I watched, I couldn’t help but think they looked oddly beautiful together.
” Henri tilts his head, but his expression remains static.
“And you know, he was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. But right then, looking at him on the shore, I had this strange feeling: I was hoping he’d happen to someone else. ”
I remember, that day, searching my body for symptoms of jealousy, scanning my sternum and pelvis for tightness. But there was nothing there.
“Woah.” Henri exhales, and I do too, somewhat awed that I’ve managed to speak that particular anecdote aloud. That I’ve made it to the end.
“That is extremely specific,” Julian adds. “I can’t imagine having that feeling about anyone.”
“I . . . yeah, woah,” Henri repeats. “Did that make it easier? To leave?”
“Maybe.” I chew on my bottom lip. “But I guess what I didn’t know then is that a person can keep on happening to you after they’ve left.
” I don’t tell Henri that when I stopped loving Max, the shift felt violently small, like some mistaken swallow of ocean water.
It had tasted like salt, like fruit gone bad, like New York in July.
“Can people happen to you in English? Grammar doesn’t work that way in German,” Julian says.
“Technically, no . . . but that’s what I mean.”
“That’s what it was like after my mom left.” Henri moves his hair off his forehead with his forearm. “En fait, it’s probably still going for me too. The her-ness. Maybe even a comforting thought. Makes a person less gone.”
“Exactly.”
“Fine, I’ll admit it: That is kind of nice,” Julian confesses.
“Wait. En fait . . . ?” I ask. I’ve never heard the phrase before, can’t decipher it.
“‘In fact’ . . . or ‘actually.’”
“I’ve been saying actuellement . . . is that wrong?”
“Faux amis,” the two shoot back in unison. They’re so in sync it feels rehearsed. The x pronounced as a z: foe-za-mee.
There is a certain relief in returning to talk of language. I want Henri alone, want to speak for however-many more hours on the subject of Max, his mom, ocean water, so many things. But for now, the three of us at work, discussing the nuances of vocabulary, is plenty soothing.
“‘Fake friends,’ faux amis—they’re what you call false cognates in English,” Julian explains. “Words that are similar enough to convince you that they’re like terms. But actuellement is kind of like saying ‘right now, in this moment.’”
“Ah, I see.” I grin. “Faux amis, I love that. So much more charming than false cognates.”
“False cognates,” Julian imitates my American accent in a flat, nasal drone.
“What are others?”
“Hmm, coin means ‘corner,’ prétendre means ‘to claim,’” he lists.
“That’s a good one.” I bite into the springy flesh of a grape and spit the seed from between my teeth into the pile of stems beside me. “Librairie means ‘bookshop.’”
Henri spreads a new bin of fruit among us. “Déception means ‘disappointment.’”