Tag Archives: romance

April in Paris

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Here’s another essay I wrote while living in Paris in the 1980’s.  The Men of Paris was the first.

April is the cruelest month
Breeding lilacs out of the dead land
Mixing memory and desire
Stirring dull roots with spring rain

So begins The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.   My theory is that he was inspired by an April spent alone in Paris.

For one beautiful, radiant week in an otherwise dreary April I walked the boulevards and strolled through the parks of a city superbly designed for love.  I was alone.

Alan and I drifted off to sleep Sunday night in a city caught in the final throes of winter, with a cold rain pounding against the bricks of our courtyard and a northern wind rattling the wooden shutters closed tight over our windows.  Early the next morning as I waved from the balcony as the taxi took him to the airport I saw that, voila, the amazing yearly miracle had happened over night.

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Express Delivery

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My front doorbell rang late in the afternoon.  An uncommon occurrence when unexpected, as this was.  I almost didn’t answer.  No one drops by unannounced these days, especially on Saturday afternoon.  I figured, probably some kid selling candy bars for the school trip or members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints hoping to save my vixen soul.

But I did go to the door, to find  Liz, my dependable representative from the United States Postal Service, package in one hand, pen in the other.

“Hi, Georgia.  Got a package you need to sign for,” she said.

“Wonder what it is,” I said as I signed.

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Toying

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He smiles at me, shrugs his shoulders and says, “Ah, even when we were in college she was buttoned down.  My best buddy said, ‘Your girlfriend makes my old grannie look wild.’  That’s what she was then, and that’s sure what my wife is now.’”

That’s what makes me do it, makes me break my rule.  Never be provocative, never flirt, never cross that boundary.  He’s married, I’m not.  My rule is to absolutely ignore the chemistry between us.

But he’s laid down a challenge.  I can’t help myself.  His wife is conventional, unadventurous.  I’m anything but.  He just doesn’t know it.  Yet.

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Ted Turner

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My friend, Marlys, sets down her latte, turns her most penetrating gaze on me and asks, “What do you think of Jerome Simmons?”

“Never met the man.  Why do you ask?”  I’ve heard of him, for sure; patron of the arts, successful entrepreneur, etc.  Just never met him.”

“ I sat next to him at a dinner party last weekend.  I gather he’s lonely.  His wife died four years ago.  He implied he’s getting weary of going out on his own.”

“Hum,” I say.  “How old is Mr. Simmons?”

“Oh, he might be around 70.  But a young 70.  Tall, slim and straight, silver hair.  Think Ted Turner.”

“Hum,” I think.  “I could see being the younger girlfriend to a Ted Turner,” I think.

Ted Turner

Are you reading my mind?

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Breaking up Is Hard to Do

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Breaking up on the telephoneAnother unexpected first in my mature middle age:  Telling a suitor that I don’t want to see him again.

I’m such a coward.  I told Chet over the phone. (You last read about him in How Not to Impress a Woman.)

I had the best intentions to do it in person.  Truly I did.  I set off to meet him for brunch Sunday morning fully intending to tell him that he was wasting his time with me.

 

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How Not to Impress a Woman

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Take lessons from Chet,  my suitor.  (Remember him from Addled by a Drug and The Poetry of Seduction?)  He’s mastered the art of how not to impress me.

His problem?  He allows one  false premise guide him during our courtship; that he needs to impress me. Who wants to be impressed?  Not me.

Why did he tell me that he got a perfect score on his SATs?  At our age, who cares?  Who even remembers their score?  Maybe if mine had been perfect I’d remember.  But still, all these years later that’s hardly something I’d be chatting about.

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Ecstasy in Paris

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Note to self:  Never try a mind-altering substance while boarding public transit.

Good advice, don’t you think?

I wrote that note to myself 26 years ago because I foolishly swallowed a bit of Ecstasy right before climbing on a crowded bus on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Paris.

I recently found it in the side pocket of an old handbag I was about to throw out.  The note was slipped between a few used metro tickets and a business card from a restaurant.  I’d forgotten about that afternoon until chancing upon this yellowed slip of paper.

I blame Alan for what happened.  What good are ex-husbands if you can’t blame them for your follies?  His Swiss friend supplied us with the chemically pure formulation.  His knowledge of chemistry convinced me I wouldn’t hurt my mind or body with this pill.

We each popped one and then hopped onto the bus headed for Les Trois Quartiers, a chic department store  surrounded by the best food shops in Paris;  Hédiard, Fauchon, and Marquise de Sévigné.  None of these were places Alan had ever visited.  What better idea than to explore them on a sunny afternoon in September?

Les Trois Quartiers in Paris

Les Trois Quartiers to the left, the church of the Madeleine to the right, our bus pulling up right in the middle.

 

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A Touch of Velvet

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When Alan loved me, his love wrapped around me like velvet; tender, caressing, sensual.  I moved through the world as if I were always enfolded in the black velvet cape he gave me for my 50th birthday.

He remained infatuated with me at the time of this birthday.  After knowing each other for 20 years, he still beamed like a boy as I pushed aside the white tissue paper and unfolded the long, hooded cape from its box.  He knew me well, knew I’d be delighted with this gift.  Still, I could see in his eyes that bit of doubt.  “Maybe she won’t like it, maybe it’s all wrong,” he was thinking.

I threw it over my shoulders, pulled the hood over my head, admired myself in the mirror as I stroked the soft fabric, then twirled to enjoy the feel of it billowing out around me.  I looked at him, at the happiness in his eyes now that he was sure of my pleasure at his gift.

Perfection.  My 50th birthday was perfect.

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New Man in Town

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Not only in the age of Jane Austen was it universally acknowledged that a single man possessed of a good position is in need of a wife.  In this age and this city, the belief still holds strong.

New Concertmaster in TownSince our orchestra hired as its concertmaster a divorced man, serious note has been taken.  Society matrons sit transfixed in their seats, watching the passion of his playing, the way he sways as his bow caresses and plucks the strings of his violin, the way his gray locks fall over his brow.

The unmarried among us fantasize about what those strong strokes and practiced technique would be like applied to us.  The married women sublimate by plotting matchmaking strategies for their single friends.

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And the Winner Is……….

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Coco Chanel said, “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.”

As of this Valentine’s Day, at least one American woman can be guaranteed a future, because she’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day wearing Ubar, the perfume from Oman.

I know this because I started my Friday off early by knocking on the door of my friend Peter’s home.  Remember Peter from Ah Have Always Depended Upon…..?   He’s the man who carried my 9-foot-tall Norfolk Island Pine up three flights of stairs as if he were carrying a tea cup.

Drawing the winner of the bottle of exotic perfumeThis morning he turned all that strength to the delicate task of tenderly picking one heart out of a bowl filled to the brim with pink and red hearts.  Each heart represented one new subscriber to The Diary of the Vixen Divorcee, or one previous subscriber who had recruited a new subscriber.

I wish I had the resources to give a bottle of perfume to everyone who qualified for the

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