Love in a Strange Place

ou never realize how beautiful your boyfriend is until he’s on an airplane, surrounded by the ridiculously ordinary population. It made him sparkle. He seemed to melt into his seat, with his black sweater and unseasonably tan skin. Most people said we passed for brother and sister – I’d never figured out whether or not that was a good thing.

I leaned across the aisle to kiss him just as one of the British flight attendants began charging down the row, informing us of our position on the runway.

I looked at the empty seat next to R. We’d requested seats next to each other, but instead got two across the aisle. We hadn’t switched, despite the empty seat.

There’s nothing more cliché than an American couple spending Valentine’s Day in Paris. I’d been already, like every East Coast preppy girl, weened on Audrey Hepburn’s style, elementary school French classes, and two parents so hopelessly in love that romance was the family’s clumsy second language. R, on the other hand, grew up in New Jersey without even a sister to uphold Paris’ myth of love and adventure.

We were both spending a semester abroad in London, and since this was our first diversion, we’d packed too much. R wound up carrying most of our luggage up and down the hills of Montmartre.

“Oh my god there is so much dog shit everywhere. I can’t even see where I’m stepping.”

“Yeah well maybe try walking in the street or something.”

“No, all those scooter guys are speeding by everywhere.”

R tried to imitate one of them, but all the bags got in his way.

“Well I don’t know what to tell you. Dogs go to the bathroom, and no one has to pick it up. Would you pick it up if you didn’t have to?”

The last time I was in Paris, I thought the mixture of freshly baked bread and dog ‘merdre’ was somehow fragrant in this city of love. Funny how romantic ideals are only emphatic when there isn’t any romance. Now it just smelled awful.