I was a bit shocked by how much older everyone seems than me. In the morning, when she's in her pajamas watching cartoons, Victoria seems a lot younger than when she’s canoodling with some olive-skinned French boy on a mattress downstairs, or when she’s next to any of her friends, really. This became strikingly apparent when I met Laura, a skinny, pretty, sharp-faced girl in makeup a bit like Victoria’s and a bit of bleached hair on her upper lip. I looked at Victoria and thought, Oh, she looks older than she did last summer. They look quite a bit older than my friends and I. All I could do was sit there on this couch in front of a small, quiet television screen, surrounded by tacky little knickknacks that I couldn’t stop thinking about stealing. I just wanted to steal their shit. I wanted to steal something stupid, like one of the little pillows shaped like cats all lined up next each other.
When we left for the supermarket, Laura mounted the front seat alongside her mother, because in France, you have to be eighteen to drive, so Laura only had her provisional permit. Victoria kept talking to me in English, maybe partly because she could and her friends couldn’t. And at the supermarket, this dusty little place alive with empty plastic bags rolling around like tumbleweed, we grabbed a few bottles of liquor and fucked around, waiting for another one of Victoria’s friends, a guy who I think was named René or Reneau or something.
At first, Reneau seemed a lot older than me as well, and I was like, Fuck, this sure is akward for me. Someone had written in blue ink on his fingernails, which were otherwise neater than mine, well-manicured. His legs were only visible from mid-calf down and were covered in a layer of hair as dark as those on his head, which were cut short and neat. He had this black messenger bag that we filled with our bounty, the alcohol we had bought and did not end up drinking, and which he handed to Victoria at some point between the supermarket and the bus stop.
Victoria was wearing his sunglasses at the bus stop. She had taken them out of his bag while he was talking on the phone, slipped them on her face, and pointed this out to me. « What do you think of him ? » she asked me, and I, who knew perfectly well that she was inquiring about his looks, replied, « I don’t really know him. »
« No, just, ah, his appearance, » she clarified. He was pacing back and fort hand talking on the phone. I was pretending to be distracted by the passing cars. I glanced at him, as if I needed a second look to decide if I thought he was handsome or not. He was, but not in a way that turned me on or anything.
On the bus, Reneau continued to talk on the phone. Victoria leaned in to me, the black strap of his bag digging into her shoulder, and said, « He is talking to his girlfriend. She was on this bus before and she saw me with his bag and now she calls him. »
Big fucking deal, right ? She’s wearing his bag. Ooh, fuck, bad news.
But, alas, I am American, and I lack any social context in which to place these people. For all I know, they are the popular little group at Lycée Cagnes or whatever. Fuck if I know what that looks like, right ? If Victoria is hanging out with your boyfriend, maybe you have just cause to worry. Or, these people are just melodramatic.
They live in a pretty little town, Victoria and her friends. It’s a bit reminiscent of Mill Valley—white houses carved into mountains and valleys. I walked a few paces behind the others, pretending to be occupied with my video camera.
Now here’s a moment I’ll never fucking forget :
I’m standing at one end of the room, hovering over my new Polaroids so that they wouldn’t get crushed by Victoria and Reneau, who are rolling around, hitting each other with pillows, giggling, etc etc. Victoria looks at me, her eyes all bright and shiny, and says ; « Elissa, help me ! Come help me- ! » between blows. I know what she wants me to do—she wants me to join in on the fun. She wants me to let loose and flirt with Reneau as well, but I can’t. I mean, sure, part of me wants to. Why not ? No one here knows that I have no idea how to bullshit the emotions required to flirt with someone I could give zero shits about. But let’s face it : no. Just no. No. So I throw a pillow at them, kind of playfully, and third wheel my ass out of there.
I think Reneau just failed my test. Doesn’t he have a girlfriend ?
Here’s another moment : I’m sitting on a mattress, I think pretending to be absorbed in whatever boring shit that I’ve seen a million times on my computer screen (ie pictures of M.I.A., my friends, and my hometown I’ve rifled through dozens of times, videos taken at parties, setting and resetting the desktop to my computer), and Victoria and Reneau are talking about cutting up the pizza. To get my attention, Reneau, who speaks exactly zero English, waves a knife and barks « Hey ! »
Victoria laughs, not in a mean way, but a bit surprised. « T’es con ! » she tells him, which means « You’re an asshole. » or a dick. or something.
So anyway, we (Victoria, Reneau, Laura, Maureen, and I) were outside a bit later, and Victoria and Reneau went to go like, fucking look at the stars or something. I started walking that way, then realized that I probably did not want to be wherever they were, so I skipped over to Maureen and Laura. We ran out of conversation quickly (because what else do we have to talk about besides Victoria/Reneau, whose conversation had surreptitiously died as well ?), so I asked for Maureen’s phone to write in a text message what I knew was true. Il a une petite amie, n’est-ce pas ? I wrote, which means He has a girlfriend, right?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
She's calling him nonstop right now. His fucking phone keeps vibrating with the all too ironic legend "Ma Chèrie" which is like "My love," kind of. "My dearie" would be a more literal translation. I mean, she doesn't just call him once, either. He's right outside the room, definitely making out with Victoria (I know because I had to walk by and pretend not to see; even when Victoria said hi to me as I passed, I physically could not say anything in return. I think, had I been at home, I would have said something snippy) and she's called him four, five, ten times in a row. And I'm there with Victoria's friends, giggling, and I decide, Fuck, this is the perfect time for my first joke. I grab the French-English dictionary and flip to 'm.' "Monogamy is there, right next to the translation, "monogamie." I snap it shut. "Je peux pas touver le mot 'monogamie,'" I said, emloying my Dry Humor voice. It's fucking lost on them, of course. They look confused, flip through the dictionary, and offer me possible translations.
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