Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer

answering machine. She only noticed the blinking red light later, when Jean-Paul rang. As soon as she hung up she played back Alex’s message, twice, trying, second time around, to assess the coded intent behind its abbreviated form: ‘Hi Sara, it’s Alex. I would love to bump into you one night, if you’re free. Give me a call if you can. Bye. Oh, my number is . . .’ The crude innuendo of ‘bump into you’ was probably accidental, the tone might have been matter-of-fact, but this – especially, coming as it did, three days after she had given him her number – was certainly a romantically loaded call, one of the few, in recent months, she was pleased to receive. She called back immediately. He was about to go out – as he had been for the last hour – but resisted the temptation to snatch up the phone on the first ring. If I pick it up now, he reasoned, it will be my mum. If I wait one more ring . . . it’ll still be my mum.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘Is that Alex?’ It was her !
    ‘ Yes?’
    ‘It’s Sara. I got your message.’
    ‘Oh hi! How you doing?’
    ‘Hi. How are you?’
    ‘I’m fine. How are you?’
    ‘I’m fine.’ There was a pause. Then Sara said, ‘We can have another round of that if you like.’
    ‘No, no,’ laughed Alex. ‘I think I’m ready to move on to the next phase of our conversation . . . Well, um, would you like to go out one night?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    Alex had devoted considerable thought to the issue to be addressed next, namely which night. Friday and Saturday were too charged: if she did have a boyfriend they would be ruled out, and even if she didn’t have a boyfriend and was free there was no point squandering these nights on a first date. Sunday and Monday had no charge at all: they were non-nights: they would both be preoccupied with thoughts of bringing the evening to an end and going home, separately, and watching an hour of TV before sleeping. With any luck she would be free on Wednesday or Thursday.
    ‘What about Wednesday?’
    ‘Wednesday is no good.’
    ‘You don’t have a dance class by any chance do you?’
    ‘No. Why?’
    ‘Oh nothing,’ he said, adapting what Luke had repeated to him. ‘It’s just that, like all men, I’ve spent a lot of my life meeting women after classes. Dance, Spanish, Self-defence . . .’
    ‘So you spend your life meeting women?’
    ‘Well, trying to. But they’re always in classes. I sometimes think it would be nice if someone could meet me after something.’
    ‘It will happen.’
    ‘Really? Could it even happen after work on Thursday?’
    ‘It certainly could. What would you like to do?’
    ‘Shall we meet at the Petit Centre?’
    ‘Oh let’s not meet there. What about the Café Pause on rue de Charonne? Do you know that?’ She was sounding impatient, eager to get off the phone. Alex wondered if he’d irritated her.
    ‘Yes. Let’s meet there. Then we can have dinner. OK?’
    ‘At what time?’
    ‘Eight?
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Ciao.’
    ‘Ciao.’
    Alex was waiting for Sara when she arrived: more handsome than she remembered, hair even shorter (he’d had it cut the day before), sitting at the bar. She was wearing a black polo neck, check slacks and the boots she had bought when they had met on rue de la Roquette. She angled her cheek for him to kiss. It was chilly outside, her face felt cold. He had on the shirt he had been wearing at Steve’s dinner and a black jacket.
    ‘I have a present for you,’ he said and handed over a rolled-up poster, battered slightly at the corners.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Have a look.’
    She unrolled the poster. It was huge, for a film: Shadows by Cassavetes.
    ‘Do you like it?’
    ‘Very much. Thank you.’
    He asked what she wanted to drink. She said red wine and began rolling up the poster. Here we are, she thought, as he went up to the bar, here we are on the boring outskirts, the suburbs – the parts that are always the same – of . . . Of what? Seduction? Incompatibility?