Today I drove out to Malibu to sit on Surfrider beach to reflect on today while sipping on my Hollywood guilty pleasure; pink can of Sofia Coppola champagne. Reflecting not because today is the Academy Awards, a day that celebrates and rewards drama but reflecting on my own personal drama that was happening one year ago today.
Picture it. Paris. A year ago today. The beginning of the end.
There was a cold front blasting through Paris, similar to the arctic temperatures we were experiencing a few weeks ago where being outside even for ten minutes was too long. It was one of those days that if you could help staying in, do it because there was no reason to be strolling the streets on the year's most unpleasant day. MF and I had spent the night out at his grandmother's house in the suburbs and as we were packing up the car to head back to Paris, he had asked me to take his brother's Spaniard girlfriend, Valentina to Alliance Française to sign up for classes.
Taking the metro from Oberkampf over to 6th was the last thing that I wanted to do on such a nasty day. My thoughts were also weighed down by a scary letter that I had received from the IRS and a message that my gynecologist had left at my mom's house and was waiting for their offices to open, so I could sort it out. I told MF that while I'd love to take her, it would be best if her and I went the following week where we could make a day out of it and get lunch at the nearby department store, Le Bon Marché. I'm not a "if you say jump, I say how high?" kind of girl. I had things to do that day.
Just to be clear on something, Valentina wasn't exactly pressed to improve her already advanced French. She was like me, spoke well but could use some fine tuning, so she wasn't lost her in the City of Light sans Alliance Française. The difference between us was that she didn't have her life settled in France, with her own friends and a job, so it was obvious that MF and his brother wanted her out of their hair for the day which some reason had become my problem. When I calmly told MF that it would be best if we went the following week, he called me selfish for not helping him out and that I was being dramatic for wanting to call the IRS and my doctor sooner than later. My talent for ignoring red flags had reached impressive heights at this point.
Rule #1 for a healthy relationship is to support your partner. If she has important things to do in regard to her American taxes and her health, Alliance Française can fucking wait.
I brushed off his lack of concern and went ahead and called Valentina myself to feel her out, seeing if she was in dire need to go that day while offering her some refuge from the Brothers Flâneur by inviting her over for lunch. She was more than happy with this arrangement and had to told me that she told MF that she had already registered on-line, so she didn't understand what all the drama was about. Neither did I.
Before she came over, I made the apartment cozy for a chilly winter's day in. I lit scented candles, made a pot of rose tea, found all my DVDs that had Spanish dubbing and laid out my favorite cashmere and mohair throw blankets for her to curl up on our couch while I wrote and made my phone calls in the dining room. As I was passing the Swiffer in the living room, tidying me and MF's home, I received a text message from him calling me selfish, lazy and unhelpful.
Rule #2: Try not to be insulting and verbally abusive to your fiancée who is actually helping you out and has been nothing but supportive, especially right before she is about to call her gynecologist.
Valentina came over, I made a frisée aux lardons salad, we caught up on neighborhood gossip, and she napped in the living room while I worked. After I sorted things out, made follow-up appointments and polished up my French CV, Valentina woke up and we walked over to the Cannibale Café for dinner where she asked me how I handle such a difficult personality like MF. I told her that while he can be handful that I loved him for him and would never demand that he changes. She looked at me in amazement.
As we were getting the check, she received a phone call from Garcon Flâneur saying that him and MF were leaving the restaurant and were heading over to meet us and to expect them around 9. Even though MF was being a little bitch, I was prepared to blow the whole thing off and act as if nothing had happened. I learned to choose my battles - that were becoming more and more often in those days - with him, and to keep the peace.
9 pm came and went while we sat at the Cannibale Café finishing up our pichet of red wine. 10 pm, gone. 11 pm, no news. Neither of them were picking up their phones as we tried to touch base with them, we were getting the roll-to-voicemail brush off. At this point, I was tired, tipsy and was through with sitting in a café like a fucking doormat girlfriend. We walked back to the apartment in irritated silence. Me being the older one out of the two and not wanting to fuel the drama, I wanted to set an example and remained calm.
11:45 pm.
We were sitting on the couch watching The Golden Girls (the only thing that keeps me calm when I'm furious) where we heard the key in the door turn. The two of them walked in, drunk and laughing.
They looked at our stern faces, called us cute and began mocking us. Valentina was pissed, as was I but decided to address it once our company had left in an effort to avoid making a scene. MF fed off of things like this to demonstrate to others how difficult his life is. It wasn't until he told me the reason that he had left us in the café that I got sent me over the edge. His excuse was that he had run into my friends (friends of mine that he only knew because of me), and had drinks with them. He fucking stood me up to hang out with my friends in the Marais. Unacceptable.
I was going to excuse the fact that he left us in a bar waiting for them, but the fact that he was with my friends and didn't feel the need to call me was when my claws came out. Who does that? I had asked him that and his only response to me was; “Arrête”, followed by my favorite, “Arrête ton cinema”. At this point I didn't want to be told to stop my drama, and that my irritation was completely unjust, the fucker blew me off to hang out with my friends. How else was I supposed to react?
He sat there and laughed as I tried to find the logic in his one-track thinking. I said to him that if he told me to “arrête” one more time, that I was going to throw my glass of water that I was sipping in an effort to remain calm in his face. Not taking me seriously, he looked at me with black eyes and said, “ta gueule” with defiance. He just told me to shut the fuck up. For him, this was easier because he simply could not admit that what he did was not only wrong but really mean. This was his stubborn Turkish side coming out.
I don't need to tell you what came next. I walked over to him, calmly with my blue Anthropologie opalescent tumbler in my hand and flung the water in his face. I have never done anything like that – in my entire life. Silence took over the entire apartment as he stared back at me, and Valentina and Garçon stood stiff in shock, only the sound of the water dripping down the wall behind him could be heard. He was slowly turning me into that batshit crazy chick.
Rule #3: Don't underestimate your pissed off Italian fiancée. When she says that she's going to do something, she will.
Even a year later, this particular story pisses me off. Pissed off at how much crap I put up with and blamed myself for his inappropriate behavior. Looking out on to the Pacific Ocean yesterday with my feet buried in the sand, with every bubble that slid down my throat, I realized how far I have come and how everything works out exactly the way it is supposed to...
I'm still waiting for my Oscar nod.
Cannibale Café
93, rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud
Paris 75011
