FRENCH FRIES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

BRIELLE

After I signed my last CD, Piaf drove us home. I could tell it was driving her insane not to ask me what had happened backstage. I decided she could afford to go crazy for pimping me out to Levi in the first place. I get changed into my pyjamas, snuggle my cat, and sit on the couch with my feet up. All I can think about is him. All I see is how pink and alive his skin was, and how I wanted to pull him close in that corridor, and never let him go. But thinking that way is dangerous.

My mother picks up the hotel key card from the coffee table and turns it over in her hands. “What is this?”

“It’s a hotel key.”

“The Shangri-La Hotel, Paris ...” Her shrewd gaze pins me to my seat. “Whose hotel key is this?”

“It’s Levi’s.”

She sits down beside me, and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut against the tears that threaten to spill over. God, I’m so sick of crying all the time. “Oh ma fille. Why are you punishing yourself?”

“I’m not punishing myself.”

“Aren’t you?”

I fold my arms over my chest, and Monsieur Chat springs away with an agitated meow. “I’m punishing him.”

“Which in turn hurts you.”

“It’s not as simple as that. He is chaos, Maman. I cannot afford chaos now. I do not want chaos. I want a man who will stand by me when life is hard, not drown himself in a bathtub with liquor and pills.”

“Brielle, do you think living with your père was always easy?”

“No, of course not.”

“There was a lot of pressure on that man for a long time. I practically had to schedule time to make love in order to conceive you, but strong and stubborn as he was, I realised he needed someone stronger. He needed me to be his rock.”

“Levi is not mon père.”

“No, but are you trying to tell me he isn’t the love of your life?”

“It doesn’t matter if I love him. I cannot be with him wondering if he’s going to take a long bath that he never wakes up from if I’m not there.”

“Then you need to tell him, you at least owe him that.”

“I do not owe him anything.”

“Brielle Kagawa, you owe him that, and a little bit more, I imagine.” Maman gives me a stern look that tells me not to mess with her, and I sigh and snatch the key card from her hands.

***

I’m bone weary. I should not be here, and yet, my mother was right, I at least owe him an explanation for why we can no longer be together. I raise my hand and knock quietly. There is no answer, no noise from the other side of the door. I knock louder, worried I have the wrong room, but I try the key and the mechanism beeps, the light flashes green as the lock flicks back. I rest my hand on the knob and turn, half afraid I’ll find him indisposed or worse, naked with another woman, but when I push inside the room, all the breath leaves my lungs in a rush. Levi is on the bed, shirt off, dress pants slung low across his hips, his eyes softly closed, and the TV blaring Plus belle la vie—the French soap opera Margaux used to watch.

I don’t want to wake him, a part of me wants to leave and never have to talk to him again, but another part wants to curl up next to him, and that is a very dangerous idea.

I don’t realise I’ve moved closer to the bed until I’m standing right beside him. He looks so young in sleep, off guard, and childlike. My heart gives a painful tug, and I pull the covers up over his chest. The remote is clutched tightly in his hand. I reach for it and slide it from his grasp, only to have my wrist caught in his long fingers. I gasp. He tugs me closer, and I lose my footing and wind up sprawled on top of him.

He takes my face in his hands and stares into my eyes. “You came.”

“To talk,” I whisper. “Only to talk.”

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His voice is thick with desire, and gravelled from sleep. The words are a knife in my gut.

My face crumples and the tears come. “You cannot say things like that to me.”

“Why?”

“Because it hurts too much.”

“What should I say that will make you stay?” he whispers, searching my gaze.

“You can’t say anything.”

He frowns. “Then why did you come?”

“I don’t know. Because I had to.”

“Why?”

I steel my nerves. “Because I wanted to see what excuse you could possibly have for trying to kill yourself.”

“I don’t have any excuse. It was stupid, so fucking stupid, and I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I hurt me.”

“Are you?”

He smiles, and I have no clue what there is to be happy about. “I am. And I’m working on making it better.”

“How?”

“I gave up drinking, drugs, even weed.” He sighs. “Basically, everything fun.”

“And now you’re all better?”

“No, babe. I don’t know if I’ll ever be all better, but it helped me realise what I’ve been trying to mask for years. I’ve been fucked up for a long time, and too goddam wasted to see it.”

I can’t stop the tears from coming as I bury my head against his hard chest. “You ruined me, you broke my heart—”

“I know,” he says as he wraps me in his arms. At first, I stiffen. I don’t want the anger to melt like ice against his warmth. Not when he’s the reason I turned glacial in the first place, but it does melt, and I sob. “I didn’t think. I fucked up, Brie. I lost the best thing that ever happened to me. And I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know if I can ever trust you again.”

“Do you love me?”

I lift my head. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just answer it.”

“Of course I love you. It’s because I love you, that I hate you.”

He searches my face, sliding his palm up to cup my cheek. “I love you, Brielle. I’m a fucking idiot.”

I laugh. “Oui.”

“I can’t promise loving me will be easy. I can’t promise you won’t want to stab me in my sleep. I’m selfish and prone to bouts of stupidity, and sometimes I hate myself so much that the only way to dull those feelings is to reach for a bottle, and I don’t know how to find other ways to distract me now that booze is no longer an option, but whatever it is, I’ll find it, and I’ll do it, for you.”

I must be the world’s biggest fool because I believe him, or at the very least I believe he will try, but what if I’m not enough? What if the lure of his drugs and booze and life on the road are greater than his self-control and his ability to say no ... for me.

You need to tell him, you at least owe him that. My mother’s words echo in my head. My gut twists, and nausea roils inside me. You owe him that, and a little bit more.

“And what about for a bébé?”

His brow creases, and he searches my gaze, no doubt thinking that whatever I said was just lost in translation. “What?”

I take a deep breath and dive in. I won’t know for sure until I take a leap. “I’m pregnant.”

He laughs, as if I’m joking, but then he studies my now seriously pissed off face. I can see him playing our exchange tonight in his head. He cannot see my stomach because it is pushed against his, but it is still relatively flat, and looks as though I just had a large serving of bread for supper.

“We’re having a baby?” He is not mad or disappointed like I expected him to be, like I feared, but there is wonder in this voice, and hope. I nod. “A real baby?”

He rolls us so that he is hovering over me with his arms outstretched, and his hands splayed either side of my head. I laugh, despite myself. “Oui. A real bébé.”

“Holy shit, Brie, are you sure?” He glances down between us and skims one large hand over my abdomen. My insides quicken. “You don’t look—”

“Oui, je suis sûre.”

“I don’t speak French.”

“Then I suggest you learn, because I’m not leaving France, and our bébé will speak his native tongue, and English too, I guess. If you choose to be involved in his life.”

“His?”

I slide my hand across my stomach protectively. “It is too early to tell, but I know the child I carry is a boy, and he is as stubborn as his père.”

His mouth twists into a grimace. “Wait, why would you think I wouldn’t want to be involved in his life?”

“I do not know what you want, Levi. Sometimes I wonder if even you know that.”

“I want you.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “Always you, and I want this baby.”

“Five minutes ago, you didn’t know about this baby.”

“And now that I do, I’ve never wanted anything more.” He lowers his body over mine, careful to rest his weight on his elbows rather than risk crushing me. He cups my face in his hands. “I love you, Brie.”

“Merde, je t'aime aussi. I don’t want to, but I love you too.”

He peppers my face with kisses, hard and fast and then slow and sweet before capturing my mouth with his and kissing me so deeply I forget where I begin and he ends.

He stares into my eyes as he hovers over my body. I open my legs, letting him fall into the hollow between them. His long erection is pressed against my stomach, but he doesn’t rock his hips the way he usually would. In fact, he doesn’t do anything to suggest he wants to make love, other than kiss me so deeply I cannot breathe.

When we come up for air, Levi smiles. “I missed you so fucking much. Tell me you missed me. Tell me it’s been just as hard for you as it has for me.”

“In France we have a saying: tu me manques. We do not merely say, ‘I miss you’ but instead say, ‘you are missing from me’.”

“That makes sense.”

I smile, though my throat is aching, and tears sting my eyes. He lifts my shirt over my head and throws it on the floor. Though I am barely showing, my once small breasts are more than a handful, and it looks like Levi appreciates the sheer lingerie I have on. Shame the panties do not match the bra, but something tells me he won’t be too worried. He slides his fingertips over my sides, and my nipples form two hard peaks. He takes one in his mouth and sucks gently. I moan and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He makes love to me as if all of the hurt and angry words, betrayal and sadness had never come between us.

***

Levi nuzzles my breast. He’s been laying in the middle of the bed with his head on my stomach for the last hour, talking to our bébé about all of the adventures they’re going to have.

“You hungry?”

I puff out my cheeks and sigh like a horse. “I’m pregnant. I’m always hungry.”

“What do you want?”

“An ice-cream sundae,” I declare with gusto. Levi laughs.

“Fuck, I love you.”

“And frites,” I add, and roll my eyes when I remember that his not speaking French is going to be a problem I will have to endure forever. “Fries.”

He shrugs. “Then why not just say French fries?”

Good god. I will likely strangle the life out of this man before we can make it to the delivery room, let alone forever.

He rings for room service and tells them he’ll pay extra to have it here in ten minutes. It comes in five. We eat, and with my belly full of overpriced processed foods, my eyes grow heavy and I settle into sleep. But it appears Levi is wide awake. He picks up his phone and dials a number. I yawn. “What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Margaux.”

“Why?”

“To tell her to call in a construction crew to fix up the house. The baby needs a room.” He puts the phone on speaker so I can hear it ringing.

“It is the middle of the night, and the baby has a room at my parents’ apartment.”

He nods. “That he will use when we come to visit.”

“I am not leaving Paris.” I frown and let out an exasperated sigh.

“You want our kid growing up around paparazzi?”

“This is France, Levi, not Hollywood.”

“Yeah, and they’re vultures,” he says, growing more and more agitated. “They go where I go.”

I sit up and glare at him. “And that will be different at the chateau how?”

“For one, we have a big fuck-off fence.”

“That you crashed your car into.”

“That I will get fixed.” He holds a finger up as if to tell me to wait. I grit my teeth. We are together five minutes and already I want to kill him. I guess it must really be true love.

“Bonjour,” Levi says, once again hacking my native tongue to pieces with his terrible pronunciation.

“Who is this?” a man yells in French from the other line.

I hold my hand out. “Give me the phone.”

“Who the hell is this?” Levi says, ignoring me.

“C'est Gaétan, qui est à l'appareil?”

“Where is Margaux? Put Margaux on.”

“Je vais pas tarder à te mettre mon poing dans la gueule, mon garçon. Margaux, il y a un idiot au téléphone pour toi.”

It takes Margaux a beat to answer, and when she does, her voice is muddled with confusion and sleep. “Levi?”

“Who the hell was that?”

“That,” she chuckles, “was a true gentleman.”

“Chair guy from the flea market?”

“Oui.”

“Get the fuck out.” Levi slaps my arse in his enthusiasm, and I glare daggers. “You saucy little minx, Margaux.”

“Not that it isn’t nice to hear from you in the middle of the night, monsieur, but whatever could be so urgent that it could not wait until morning?”

“Brie and I are back together.”

“We are?” I demand of him, but all I get in return is that cocky grin.

“Congratulations, monsieur.”

“And we’re having a baby.”

I bury my face in my hands, so I won’t use them to strangle him.

“A bébé. Oh, this is wonderful news, monsieur.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

“Congratulations, it is cause for much celebration, non?”

“It is, but listen, we’re gonna need to fix up the house. So, I might need you to call in a crew and help me with that.”

“I have just the man in mind.”

“Excellent,” he crows. “Brie and I will be there tomorrow night. Can you arrange a car from the airport?”

“I can’t fly to the country. I have three more concerts to perform in Paris.”

“Then we’ll be there Monday.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Levi,” I demand, but apparently, he has selective hearing.

“Adiós, Margaux.”

“Au revoir, monsieur.”

I groan. “Levi. I cannot pick up everything and move to your chateau.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s absurd!” 

“You love Paris. I get it. We’ll visit. Or we can buy a new place and we’ll go there as often as you want. Once a week, if that’s what you want, but I have a house. I have a yard, and a pool and a place where our baby can grow. Where we can grow, away from the paparazzi, and fans, and everyone else.” He kisses my neck and wraps his arms tightly around my waist. I lean into his embrace. Though I am still angry, he has a way of melting my resolve. “Your mum can even move in with us, if that’s what you want. We have the room, and—”

“My mother is not moving in with us,” I warn.

“Okay, but we’ll do up a room anyway, because I’m sure she’s going to want to come visit her grandson once in a while.”

“Okay.” I nod. “But do not mention her moving in, ever again.”

“Fine.” He laughs. “Just you, me, and our baby. And Margaux, furniture guy, and Dog.”

“And Monsieur Chat.”

He screws up his nose. “And Monsieur Chat.”

“Then maybe when we’re settled, and our little dude is a few months old, I can put another baby in your belly.” I give him a look that says he must be crazy, and he holds up his hands to ward away my ire. “We’ll talk about the other three kids we’re having later. We have time.”

I shake my head, pull him down on top of me, and kiss him stupid. He tastes like ice cream and fudge, but most of all, he tastes like happiness.

My happiness.