pas.”
“Fuck you, Serge,” he says amiably, and Danni’s unstoppable blurt of laughter sets us all off. I sense Serge’s humiliation and realize the relationship with Preston is changing fast: the truculent deference has gone; the dislike is overt, almost a challenge.
After Danni has left, Preston tells me about his latest money problems. His bar bill at the Club now stands at over four hundred dollars and the management is insisting it be settled. His father won’t return his calls or acknowledge telegrams and Preston has no credit cards. He is contemplating pawning his watch in order to pay something into the account and defer suspicion. I buy it off him for five hundred francs.
I look around my class counting the girls I know. I know most of them by now, well enough to talk to. Both Ingrid and Danni have been back to the Club and have enthused about their afternoons there, and I realize that to my fellow students I have become an object of some curiosity as a result of my unexpected ability to dispense these small doses of luxury and decadence: the exclusive address, the privacy of the Club, the pool on the roof, the endless flow of free drinks …
Preston decided to abandon his French classes a while ago and I am now his sole link with the Centre. It is with some mixed emotions—I feel vaguely pimplike, oddly smirched—that I realize how simple it is to attract girls to the Club Les Anges.
Annique Cambrai is the youngest of the Cambrai daughters and the closest to me in age. She is only two years older than me but seems considerably more than that. I was, I confess, oddly daunted by her mature good looks, dark with a lean attractive face, and because of this at first I think she found me rather aloof, but now, after many Monday dinners, we have become more relaxed and friendly. She is studying law at the University of Nice and speaks good English with a marked American accent. When I comment on this she explains that most French universities now offer you a choice of accents when you study English and, like 90 percent of students, she has chosen American.
I see my opportunity and take it immediately: would she, I diffidently inquire, like to come to the Résidence Les Anges to meet an American friend of mine and perhaps try her new accent out on him?
The next morning, on my way down the rue de France to the Centre, I see Preston standing outside a pharmacy reading the
Herald Tribune
. I call his name and cross the road to tell him the excellent news about Annique.
“You won’t believe this,” I say, “but I finally got a real French girl.”
Preston’s face looks odd: half a smile, half a morose grimace of disappointment.
“That’s great,” he says dully, “wonderful.”
A tall, slim girl steps out of the pharmacy and hands him a plastic bag.
“This is Lois,” he says. We shake hands.
I know who Lois is, Preston has often spoken of her: my damn-near fiancée, he calls her. It transpires that Lois has flown over spontaneously and unannounced to visit him.
“And, boy, are my mom and dad mad as hell,” she says, laughing.
Lois is a pretty girl, with a round, innocent face quite free of makeup. She is tall—even in her sneakers she is as tall as me—with a head of incredibly thick, dense brown hair which, for some reason, I associate particularly with American girls. I feel sure also, though as yet I have no evidence, that she is a very clean person—physically clean, I mean to say—someone who showers and washes regularly, smelling of soap and the lingering farinaceous odor of talcum powder.
I stroll back with them to the Résidence. Lois’s arrival has temporarily solved Preston’s money problems: they have cashed in her return ticket and paid off the bar bill and the next quarter’s rent that had come due. Preston feels rich enough to buy back his watch from me.
Annique looks less mature and daunting in her swimsuit, I’m pleased to say, though I was disappointed that she
“Fuck you, Serge,” he says amiably, and Danni’s unstoppable blurt of laughter sets us all off. I sense Serge’s humiliation and realize the relationship with Preston is changing fast: the truculent deference has gone; the dislike is overt, almost a challenge.
After Danni has left, Preston tells me about his latest money problems. His bar bill at the Club now stands at over four hundred dollars and the management is insisting it be settled. His father won’t return his calls or acknowledge telegrams and Preston has no credit cards. He is contemplating pawning his watch in order to pay something into the account and defer suspicion. I buy it off him for five hundred francs.
I look around my class counting the girls I know. I know most of them by now, well enough to talk to. Both Ingrid and Danni have been back to the Club and have enthused about their afternoons there, and I realize that to my fellow students I have become an object of some curiosity as a result of my unexpected ability to dispense these small doses of luxury and decadence: the exclusive address, the privacy of the Club, the pool on the roof, the endless flow of free drinks …
Preston decided to abandon his French classes a while ago and I am now his sole link with the Centre. It is with some mixed emotions—I feel vaguely pimplike, oddly smirched—that I realize how simple it is to attract girls to the Club Les Anges.
Annique Cambrai is the youngest of the Cambrai daughters and the closest to me in age. She is only two years older than me but seems considerably more than that. I was, I confess, oddly daunted by her mature good looks, dark with a lean attractive face, and because of this at first I think she found me rather aloof, but now, after many Monday dinners, we have become more relaxed and friendly. She is studying law at the University of Nice and speaks good English with a marked American accent. When I comment on this she explains that most French universities now offer you a choice of accents when you study English and, like 90 percent of students, she has chosen American.
I see my opportunity and take it immediately: would she, I diffidently inquire, like to come to the Résidence Les Anges to meet an American friend of mine and perhaps try her new accent out on him?
The next morning, on my way down the rue de France to the Centre, I see Preston standing outside a pharmacy reading the
Herald Tribune
. I call his name and cross the road to tell him the excellent news about Annique.
“You won’t believe this,” I say, “but I finally got a real French girl.”
Preston’s face looks odd: half a smile, half a morose grimace of disappointment.
“That’s great,” he says dully, “wonderful.”
A tall, slim girl steps out of the pharmacy and hands him a plastic bag.
“This is Lois,” he says. We shake hands.
I know who Lois is, Preston has often spoken of her: my damn-near fiancée, he calls her. It transpires that Lois has flown over spontaneously and unannounced to visit him.
“And, boy, are my mom and dad mad as hell,” she says, laughing.
Lois is a pretty girl, with a round, innocent face quite free of makeup. She is tall—even in her sneakers she is as tall as me—with a head of incredibly thick, dense brown hair which, for some reason, I associate particularly with American girls. I feel sure also, though as yet I have no evidence, that she is a very clean person—physically clean, I mean to say—someone who showers and washes regularly, smelling of soap and the lingering farinaceous odor of talcum powder.
I stroll back with them to the Résidence. Lois’s arrival has temporarily solved Preston’s money problems: they have cashed in her return ticket and paid off the bar bill and the next quarter’s rent that had come due. Preston feels rich enough to buy back his watch from me.
Annique looks less mature and daunting in her swimsuit, I’m pleased to say, though I was disappointed that she
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