Cinderella Part Deux
La Vendeuse was very excitable--her plane was leaving at 7:00 the next morning for Cairo, and she hadn't even packed her bags yet. I handed her the money for the bike, and she yelped, "I'm rich!"
She invited me to join her friends for dinner. I told her I didn't want to intrude on her going away dinner, but she insisted. I understood--she had been moving around so much that her going away parties were more like solstices.
Once again, I was nervous. It was crowded and they'd have to make room for me. I suspected her friends would be speaking French, and it's extremely difficult to understand French over crowd noise. At Saturday's relatively quiet dinner party, I had considered asking someone to switch seats with me because I was sitting next to the speakers and couldn't understand what people were saying.
The second I walked in, my glasses fogged up. Cold and damp outside, warm inside. I wiped them off, and they fogged right back up. I tried again. It was like blowing out a trick candle. I took off my glasses and the room became blurry. And since I had my winter coat on, and it was too crowded to take it off, I started sweating.
The proprietor walked over to accommodate his new guest, and La Vendeuse stood up on her seat. She climbed across the table and squeezed into the booth, and I took her seat. I felt like an ass. I tried putting my glasses back on (this is one of my defense mechanisms; I do it if I want people at a big meeting to think I'm smart, or if I'm playing music and want to have anything, anything, between myself and the people who are staring at me, or if my eyes are red from, say, an allergy attack), but they were still foggy. She introduced me to her friends, and I squinted at each one and said, "Enchantée."
---
"So how did you like living Baltimore?"
"Oh, I love it!"
"Reeeeally? Why?"
I know I'm not the only Baltimoron who has encountered that sentiment. And like most Baltimorons, I thought, "Because you don't live there." It was a bad start. And the rest of her friends were speaking in French, so I couldn't really turn away. And I didn't have a drink. I reached for my glasses. Clear!
Everyone was picking with toothpicks at a plate of hors d'oeuvres in front of us, and La Vendeuse offered me some. But I didn't have a toothpick. She said, "Oh, they must have brought four since the reservation was for four."
So I watched them eat.
Then our aperitifs came, and we all lit up cigarettes. And her friends started asking me questions in English. Turns out they speak it pretty well. Then the fondue came, and someone took a picture with a camera phone. "Oh, j'apporte un camera digital." "Oh, good!" They passed the camera around and people took pictures of each other.
Another one of the proprietors came over and served our wine...in big baby bottles. He was such a funny man that his humor transcended the language barrier and caused me to laugh hysterically. He had long gray hair in a ponytail and a thick, perfectly trimmed moustache, and his eyes were such that he always looked like he was on the verge of telling a slightly bawdy joke. He looked like a mix between Captain Kangaroo and David Crosby, in Neil Young's clothes. That, or maybe a raccoon.
I sucked on the nipple (that ought to get some interesting google traffic) and took in a gulp of white wine. It was a little off-putting; but it was the only way to get to my wine, and everyone else was doing it, so I continued, uh, nursing for the rest of the night without embarrassment.
The rest of the night was fun. La Vendeuse's friend, it turns out, is doing a master's in foreign language and is studying anthropology, with a focus on educational systems. We talked a good bit of shop. The crowd got livelier and lost any inhibitions about climbing over the table. I put my camera on the table, turned the flash off, nonchalantly rested my hand on it, and took pictures of people while they were talking to me without their noticing.
Later in the night, I walked back to the bathroom. Captain Crosby said, "Parlez-vous italien?" I said, "Non," and wondered what the hell that had to do with going to the bathroom. I then grabbed the handle and jiggled it. I couldn't tell if it was locked or not, so I jiggled it again, then left it alone. A couple minutes later, a beautiful Italian woman walked out, and I heard Captain Crosby cackling as she passed.
After the fondue, we drank coffee and shared our desserts: fruit salad, chocolate cake, and lemon glace. All the food was good. Not great, but good. It became great when I found out that everything--aperitif, hors d'oeuvres, fondue, wine, and dessert--came on a prix fixe menu of 15 euros.
I collected e-mails (so I could send them the pictures), struggled to put my coat back on, wished La Vendeuse bon voyage, and walked out to my new beat-up bike.
She invited me to join her friends for dinner. I told her I didn't want to intrude on her going away dinner, but she insisted. I understood--she had been moving around so much that her going away parties were more like solstices.
Once again, I was nervous. It was crowded and they'd have to make room for me. I suspected her friends would be speaking French, and it's extremely difficult to understand French over crowd noise. At Saturday's relatively quiet dinner party, I had considered asking someone to switch seats with me because I was sitting next to the speakers and couldn't understand what people were saying.
The second I walked in, my glasses fogged up. Cold and damp outside, warm inside. I wiped them off, and they fogged right back up. I tried again. It was like blowing out a trick candle. I took off my glasses and the room became blurry. And since I had my winter coat on, and it was too crowded to take it off, I started sweating.
The proprietor walked over to accommodate his new guest, and La Vendeuse stood up on her seat. She climbed across the table and squeezed into the booth, and I took her seat. I felt like an ass. I tried putting my glasses back on (this is one of my defense mechanisms; I do it if I want people at a big meeting to think I'm smart, or if I'm playing music and want to have anything, anything, between myself and the people who are staring at me, or if my eyes are red from, say, an allergy attack), but they were still foggy. She introduced me to her friends, and I squinted at each one and said, "Enchantée."
---
"So how did you like living Baltimore?"
"Oh, I love it!"
"Reeeeally? Why?"
I know I'm not the only Baltimoron who has encountered that sentiment. And like most Baltimorons, I thought, "Because you don't live there." It was a bad start. And the rest of her friends were speaking in French, so I couldn't really turn away. And I didn't have a drink. I reached for my glasses. Clear!
Everyone was picking with toothpicks at a plate of hors d'oeuvres in front of us, and La Vendeuse offered me some. But I didn't have a toothpick. She said, "Oh, they must have brought four since the reservation was for four."
So I watched them eat.
Then our aperitifs came, and we all lit up cigarettes. And her friends started asking me questions in English. Turns out they speak it pretty well. Then the fondue came, and someone took a picture with a camera phone. "Oh, j'apporte un camera digital." "Oh, good!" They passed the camera around and people took pictures of each other.
Another one of the proprietors came over and served our wine...in big baby bottles. He was such a funny man that his humor transcended the language barrier and caused me to laugh hysterically. He had long gray hair in a ponytail and a thick, perfectly trimmed moustache, and his eyes were such that he always looked like he was on the verge of telling a slightly bawdy joke. He looked like a mix between Captain Kangaroo and David Crosby, in Neil Young's clothes. That, or maybe a raccoon.
I sucked on the nipple (that ought to get some interesting google traffic) and took in a gulp of white wine. It was a little off-putting; but it was the only way to get to my wine, and everyone else was doing it, so I continued, uh, nursing for the rest of the night without embarrassment.
The rest of the night was fun. La Vendeuse's friend, it turns out, is doing a master's in foreign language and is studying anthropology, with a focus on educational systems. We talked a good bit of shop. The crowd got livelier and lost any inhibitions about climbing over the table. I put my camera on the table, turned the flash off, nonchalantly rested my hand on it, and took pictures of people while they were talking to me without their noticing.
Later in the night, I walked back to the bathroom. Captain Crosby said, "Parlez-vous italien?" I said, "Non," and wondered what the hell that had to do with going to the bathroom. I then grabbed the handle and jiggled it. I couldn't tell if it was locked or not, so I jiggled it again, then left it alone. A couple minutes later, a beautiful Italian woman walked out, and I heard Captain Crosby cackling as she passed.
After the fondue, we drank coffee and shared our desserts: fruit salad, chocolate cake, and lemon glace. All the food was good. Not great, but good. It became great when I found out that everything--aperitif, hors d'oeuvres, fondue, wine, and dessert--came on a prix fixe menu of 15 euros.
I collected e-mails (so I could send them the pictures), struggled to put my coat back on, wished La Vendeuse bon voyage, and walked out to my new beat-up bike.
posted by disappearingink at 2:43 PM
1 Comments:
I think it was Refuge Des Fondues on Rue de Trois Freres.
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