Love at the Capoule

“Tu veux sortir ce soir?”
« D’accord! »
« We’ll meet some of my friends and have a real party tonight. We’ll show you how it’s really done!” 

Toulouse in July. We were staying at my great-grandmother’s house. It was one of those grand old houses that had fallen into disrepair, walls peeling and concrete steps crumbling. It still had the old-fashioned wrought iron gates around it and the grapevine hanging over the porch. The postman had to ring the doorbell from the street in order to bring in the mail. There was even an old-fashioned water pump by the side of the road, out front of her house. You spun the top and water came gushing out into the gutter. As a child, I would play there for hours, making little grape leaf boats and setting them afloat down the stream. When I think of France, I think of this house. My great-grandmother refused to leave it while there was breath in her body. She could not tolerate the idea of living in a home, preferring her home of 80 years. No one could blame her and no one could find a valid reason for her to leave and so she remained.

We met my cousin’s friends at the Capoule, a well-known café in the heart of the town. Well known for being on the edge of the square and being the perfect place for people watching. We were sprawled across four tables, sipping house wine and checking each other out. There was Jacques, who was a schoolmate of Louis’s. He was a stereotypical computer geek: all glasses and polyester pants. There was Arianne, who was studying interior design. She was utterly beautiful: the kind of girl you would expect to find sitting amongst friends in a French café. Dark glasses perched on her head, long bone straight, dark hair and a wonderfully assembled outfit, from the chunky silver jewelry down to the vachette ballerina shoes on her feet. Luc was in medical school and he had a rare evening off, so he was well into his third draft by the time we arrived. He had that tousled, disheveled look of someone who did not get enough sleep but the eyes of a person who was living on adrenaline: flashing and constantly darting about, taking everything in but saying very little. Marie was his girlfriend: she was a hippy chick, searching for her true calling in life. She had tried going to university but hated that, so she worked in a shop but found that unfulfilling and menial. She then had decided to try her hand at working at a charitable foundation: she made virtually no money but as she came from money, she was permitted this indulgence. 

Simon was Louis’s best friend, a young man who was everything my cousin was not: he wore leather, rode a motorcycle. Not a little Italian Vespa but a real motorcycle. He arrived, roaring up to the café, parking illegally right in front of it and swaggered his way to a chair, flipping it around so he could perch coolly on it. I was trying to figure out how this person who was so different from Louis could be his best friend when Christophe arrived. My heard fluttered. It fluttered in the same way that it did at my best friend Alison’s party all those years ago when we were twelve and I had thought Raymond, the cutest boy in our class, was coming over to ask me to dance. It was a wonderful feeling of excitement that I hadn’t felt in years. Glorious anticipation. 

Christophe was beautiful. Perhaps it isn’t fair to call a man “beautiful”, but he was. He had wavy dark blonde hair, thick and wonderful: it cried out to have me run my fingers through it. He had clear green eyes, beautifully tanned skin and a strong but wiry build: the type of body you would see on a world-class cyclist. Strong upper body and narrow hips, tapering to strong but not overly bulky legs. He was everything that Dirk, my boyfriend at home, was not. Christophe was subtly strong, not overtly muscular and this was so overwhelmingly sexy to me that I lost my breath when he sat in the empty chair next to me and introduced himself. He had sauntered into the café, ably weaving between the tables at high speed, yet upsetting not a drop from any of the glasses already there, greeting all of his friends one by one.

He was cool and collected, charming and confident beyond his years, far beyond his friends. He sat down and looked me straight in the eyes while he took my hand, holding it rather than shaking it. 
“And you are?”
“Isabelle. Louis’s cousin. From Canada.” I blubbed a little, caught completely off guard by his gaze.
“Yes. He told me you would be coming this evening. I am Christophe.”

His eyes ran down from my face down to my shoes, slowly and with no pretension of his meaning. It couldn’t have thrilled me more if there had been an actual electric current setting off my every nerve from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. He lingered for a moment on my breasts and I was grateful that I had decided to be a little daring and wear the burgundy body suit top that I had bought that day at the Galleries Lafayette. I had never bought clothes like that before. But then again, until I turned 17, I didn’t have the body for them. The suit top was pulled taut over my breasts. I had thought it was becoming on me with my small waist and newly substantial chest. Clearly, I hadn’t been wrong.

I didn’t answer him, only mustering a nod. 
“I am very pleased to meet you, Isabelle.” He had leaned in to almost whisper this in my ear, his breath tickling my neck and sending shivers down the length of my body.
“Me too. I mean, I am pleased to meet you as well.” I could feel myself blushing an intense shade of red.
“Are you ready for a great evening?”
He said that with the same confidence as everything else, as if there was no other way the evening could turn out, as if it was guaranteed that it would be wonderful because he was there.

He didn’t wait for an answer but turned instead to Louis and greeted him by shaking his hand. I thought it was such a formal thing to do with a friend but then I remembered Louis telling me that he wasn’t really a part of the group of friends. He had latched on to them recently for no reason that anyone was aware of. Louis looked at him in a way that said that he didn’t take Christophe seriously at all. He clearly found him to be affected but I thought he was wonderful: young but mature, beautiful but not snobby. 

I was able to observe him while they spoke and I only ended up being further enchanted. He had a dimple on his left cheek and straight, white teeth. His smile was a lopsided grin that seemed to hide a secret delight. 
I momentarily thought to myself that it would be an amazing thing if I could ever be with someone like Christophe. It was a thought that I quickly dismissed as ridiculous: what would someone like him ever see in someone like myself? I could see Arianne in the background, approaching Christophe for the customary two kiss greeting and like Jane comparing her mirror image with that of Blanche Ingram, my plain face felt all the plainer when I stood watching her.

I didn’t have time to linger over that thought however because the others were getting up to head to the restaurant. I quickly snapped back the rest of my white wine. Christophe watched me do that and winked when I looked at him, embarrassed to have been caught in this most unsophisticated gesture.

The restaurant was a couple of blocks away and we all wandered slowly along the streets in little groups of two’s and three’s. It was wonderful to not be in a hurry but instead to savour the moment, looking in the shop windows, soaking up the warm air perfumed by the flowers hanging from baskets in the windows of apartments over our heads. Windows flung open to the warm, summer breeze, and sounds of families dining. The clink of forks and knives on plates, the pattering of youngsters running around on old hardwood floors and adults sipping their wine, chatting about the day’s events or arguing about the latest political gaffe or union strike. You couldn’t hear what they were all saying exactly. It was an indistinct hum but it was a sound that felt comforting and homey. I felt like I could walk into any of those homes and be welcome among strangers. 

When we arrived, the owner came out to greet the group: his son was usually one of their numbers although he wasn’t with us that evening. He was doing his military service at the time and wouldn’t be home for many months. Monsieur Chong was happy to have this group of his son’s friends in his restaurant. It was like old times for him, when they would all come over and hang out for an hour between classes, have a little something to eat, and tell him about what they were doing on campus, what they were studying. It kept him young to be around these people and he loved being young.

Louis introduced me to M. Chong and he bowed slightly. I didn’t know what to do and in characteristic style, I turned bright red. Arianne twittered, but Christophe threw her a look that stopped her from saying whatever it was she had thought of saying about me. They had all been very kind to me but they did have a tendency to forget that I spoke fluent French and that I could understand anything they said to or about me. 

He pulled out my chair for me and I hoped that he would sit next to me. Instead, he went around the table and sat directly opposite me, next to Marie. I was a little disappointed but brushed it off: after all, there was nothing between myself and him and I had no reason to expect anything. Louis sat to my right and Simon sat to my left: the two of them made it their mission to keep me laughing throughout dinner and I did indeed have a wonderful time. Simon kept asking me the names of things in English. He laughed good-naturedly at my accent and I laughed at his, when he tried to copy my words. He had been taught English like most French schoolboys: on the basis of songs and rhymes. So his speaking cadence had a bounce to it that you wouldn’t find in someone who was fluent. It was endearing and I was fully enjoying trying to teach him some new words. He wanted to know something naughty to say to an exchange student from Texas that was in one of his classes. I didn’t know what to tell him, getting tongue tied by the thought of saying something rude out loud in front of these people that I hardly knew. I blushed profusely again and looked down at my lap. I glanced up quickly, hoping nobody had noticed but Christophe was watching me intently. The very person I didn’t want to notice the deepening crimson on my cheeks had seen the whole thing and was looking at me with a bemused expression.

He returned his attention to Marie and Arianne and I felt myself blushing even more. I had been a fool to think that he would even look at me in the way I was seeing him. His earlier attention had been curiosity: the amusing little Canadian with the near flawless French accent. How funny!

I didn’t want to ruin my evening by thinking about this or him, or the feeling that I had in the pit of my stomach. That feeling of excitement that you get when you want something in that most primal way. I hadn’t felt that in a very long time. Sex to me had become a chore. Something I did for Dirk’s benefit but rarely for mine. I had learned how to fake orgasm expertly and he was none the wiser when I turned away, tears falling on my pillow from frustration. 

“Tell me ‘ow to zay ‘embrassez moi’ in eengleesh”, Simon asked. His tone was quite low, trying to make it such that only I heard what I asked. I wondered if he was hitting on me a little or if it was the wine talking.
“Kiss me”, I replied, looking at Christophe. He didn’t look at me but I know he heard me. His head turned slightly away from Marie so that he could hear us but still be in tune with the conversation she and he were having. I tried to make my voice a little huskier, a little sexier so that he would think I was responding to what Simon said with interest. 

“Are you going to say that to the Texan girl?” I asked Simon, quietly and to the side so that it appeared to anyone watching that we were having a little tete-a tete that we wanted no one else to overhear. 
“Peut-etre. Tu crois que ca marcherais?” 
« Maybe. Maybe not. She might think you’re a schmuck”
“Smuuck? What eez zis?”
“It means… well, it means… I don’t really know how to explain this.” I turned to Louis to see if he would know a word in French that might correspond to the concept of schmuck but he was deep in conversation with Jacques on the other side. I looked up to find that Christophe was once again watching me and a wave of sexual energy flowed over my body. I actually shivered and he grinned in this lopsided way: he knew what effect he was having. He had me. Without laying a hand on me and from across the table, he had me. I arched my back a little, aware of the small ache forming from the uncomfortable chair and rolled my neck from side to side. Simon jumped up to give me a neck massage. I moaned and closed my eyes briefly, imagining that it was Christophe touching my shoulders, kneading them so as to relax the tension in them from holding my back straight throughout dinner. 

Simon’s touch was too strong, too willful but I ignored that and pursued my fantasy briefly. When I felt his hand run down my arm, fingers brushing my left breast slightly, I snapped out of my fantasy world and back to reality. I first looked at Simon and he had a leer on his face that I had seen before. It was the same look Dirk got when he fancied himself quite sexy, aided by several rum and cokes.