to buy:
coffee filters
orange juice
toilet paper
Paris held much more glamor in the
movies than it did in my experience so far. The landlord, an aging man with a
stained wife beater and a tendency to yawn often, handed me the keys to my new
miniscule apartment when I arrived in the old building on the east side of the
city. This, I realized, was the product of the money I’d been saving since my
freshman year of high school. The dated wallpaper, splotched with yellow, hung separate
from the wall in the corners. I slid a hand across the wobbly table, coughing
at the dust clouds it sent flying into the air. No chairs, I noticed, but
thankfully there was a large collection of chipped mugs.
Through an open doorway to my right there
was a bathroom. The claustrophobic room was ill lit, with nothing but a dim
bulb hanging above the cloudy mirror. The decrepit claw foot tub was squeezed
into the corner between the sink and the toilet. I turned the knob of the
faucet. A dribble of lukewarm water sputtered out from the showerhead and
sprayed almost everywhere except into the tub. No shower curtain hung on the
rod.
But none of that mattered, because I was young and full of
energy. I was independent and self-supporting, just like I assured my fretful
mother when I first left. Just like I swore to James when he’d thrown me out on
my own last week.
“You could stay here until you manage to get a ticket back
home,” James had said, his voice dripping in something I was supposed to
believe was sympathy. But I had no intention of leaving the place I’d worked so
hard to get to, even if my original reasons were impractical. That was back in
my starry-eyed days, when, in my mind, Paris was the City of Love.
But I didn’t need the asshole to hold my hand, I thought.
It’s just like I said. I was independent, and I could survive without something
as trivial as a silly shower curtain.
to buy:
bleach
chairs
shower curtain
I tried to walk as if I had a purpose, like someone who knew
what she was doing. That was the trick wasn’t it? No judgmental Frenchman would
stare at me as long as I played the part. It was so difficult, though, to
pretend as if I was accustomed to walking in between the ornate buildings so
tightly clustered together, like they had squeezed every one they could into
each tiny street. I couldn’t keep myself from admiring the fluffy, pink cherry
blossom trees that lined the River Seine. How did any of the Parisians tire of
seeing the tip of the majestic Eiffel Tower poking above the rooftops in the
distance?
But more practically,
did the French not find it frustrating to have five different shops for
groceries, when America simply offered one large supermarket? Strange words on
price tags blurred and merged together. All of those years of French classes
hadn’t prepared me for navigating these markets. Even after living with James
for the past seven months, I still didn’t know what was where within the
multitude of street side shops. Even after seven months, harsh glares still met
my choppy, awkward sentences.
Coffee filters. Orange juice. Toilet
paper. Easy enough. Those had been expected. Chairs? A shower curtain? But I
supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. Inexpensive living arrangements were
prime traps for underpaid romantics. Especially the desperate kind.
“Excusez moi?” I asked.
The worker slowly swiveled her eyes
towards me, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared into frizzy bangs.
“S’il vous plait?” I added
pitifully.
As if those eyebrows couldn’t have
gone any higher. For God’s sake speak English lady, I could practically hear
her complaining.
I pushed my list towards her. “Could
you help...please?”
She chuckled and returned to
stacking cans.
“Merci beaucoup,” I muttered under
my breath.
-
I admit that I cried when James told me that he was ending
it. It was just so abrupt. “You’re too naïve Annie,” he’d said. “And we were so
young back in college.” He talked about college like years had passed since we
graduated. Did it matter whose idea it had been to scamper off to Paris
together? I wondered. But I supposed he was right. What else besides incredible
naivety would bring a person to leave everything behind, and all for one boy?
Last
night I managed to get one of the four stove burners working, but I overestimated
the amount of spaghetti I could eat all by myself. And when I accidentally set
the table for two, I blushed before remembering that I was alone.
-
Out on the streets, thin winding
sidewalks packed with people made walking difficult, as I was already
struggling to keep my brown paper bags, which lacked proper handles, from
splitting open. The walkers in business suits didn’t stop for anyone. And the
tourists were worse. Sorry ma’am. I’m sure there is nothing more important than
a posed family photo, but no, I cannot take the damn picture for you. Did she
expect me drop all bags to rush to her aid? The nerve. On top of that, the bike
riders swung around corners so sharply they could take your head off. Refer to
this for the reason that my bag of canned goods ended up making vegetable soup
on the cobblestones.
to buy:
reusable bags
batteries
dish soap
I let out a shriek of frustration when the ice-cold
droplets, as sharp as shards of glass, pierced my skin. I leapt over the lip of
the claw foot tub, nearly slipping on the greying tile. To top off the bitter
experience, water lay in puddles across the entirety of the bathroom floor.
Shivering at the thought of being forced to shower again in the open air, I
gritted my teeth. Shower curtains were as impossible to find in France as a
good Kinder Surprise was nonexistent in the States. James was obsessed with
those things, and despite his efforts to hide them from me, I was well aware of
the secret stash he’d kept hidden in his desk drawer.
Last night I’d tossed and turned for hours trying to fall
asleep. The bed had been too spacious and cold, but I blamed my inability to
close my eyes on the thin, rock-hard mattress. So maybe it was the lack of
sleep that finally sent me over the edge, but I’d had it that morning with the
damn shower curtain.
The hallway outside of my apartment was cramped and
enclosed. A chandelier with cheap, plastic diamonds hung over a dusty carpet
faded with age. My socked feet pattered along the rug, which ran along the
length of the hallway. Behind the furthermost door lived the landlord. I was
rapping on the knocker before I could give my courage the opportunity to fail
me. Ferocious barking greeted me, but I held on to my resolve, crossing my arms
over my fluffy white bathrobe. Monsieur Lebeau pulled open the door and, after
shoving the dog away from him with his foot, gazed at me sleepily. “Êtes-vous
ici pour payer le loyer?” he asked in rapid French.
“I’m not paying the rent until you
fix my God-awful apartment!” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “You want to
live here, no?”
“These aren’t livable conditions!” I
cried.
The landlord scratched his unshaven chin and gazed at me
blankly. His hair was long and unwashed, and he constantly flicked his head to
the side to keep it from mingling with his eyelashes. A smell of stale beer and
wet dog drifted through the open doorway.
I stomped my foot. “That apartment is a piece of merde!”
This time his eyebrows narrowed.
“What is it you need?”
I ticked them off on my fingers. “Some
chairs? Maybe a stove with more than one functioning burner? What about a
mattress where I can’t feel the springs? Oh, and a shower curtain would be
pretty damn useful!”
For a brief second, Monsieur Lebeau
stared at me. With a sudden, “Ah-ha!” his face brightened, and he held up a
finger. “Une seconde.”
I threw my hands up in the air.
“Finally!”
He returned to the doorway a moment
later. “A shower curtain, you asked?” he said with an eager smile, holding out
a white bed sheet.
to buy:
duct tape
broom
a new landlord
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