Hungry Woman in Paris (12 page)

I returned to reality when my name was finally called and I followed a female officer to her station. She made me sit while
she went to get my file. Next to me were an older Frenchman and his ethnic-looking beautiful young wife. I couldn’t tell what
nationality she was—possibly Peruvian. I could hear him arguing with the male officer about his wife. I couldn’t understand
their conversation, but finally the Frenchman started raising his voice and saying,
“Ma femme!”
“My wife!” The officer probably didn’t believe they were a real married couple and was giving them a hard time. He probably
figured this Latina beauty was using him to get her papers, whether the man realized it or not. I felt bad for them, but wondered
if there was a MacArthur Park in Paris where they could go to get a fake
carte de séjour
like we did in Los Angeles. I remembered having to go to MacArthur Park to get a fake Social Security card with my father
back when I was undocumented. I returned for a second time when I was going to do undercover work and needed another identity
to do my stories. I was “Maria Fuentes” and passed myself off as just another Maria while doing a story about human trafficking.

The female officer returned to her station. She quickly grew impatient with me because I didn’t speak French. She spoke in
an annoying, nasal voice; even for the French her voice must have been grating. I presented all my documents and passport
to her, hoping they would do the talking for me.

“You are not really American—where are you from?” she inquired, staring at my face. I’m sure my cheekbones were a dead giveaway
that I wasn’t a typical American. God, here I was again, being an immigrant in yet another country that didn’t want me. After
I’d been sworn in as a U.S. citizen five years ago, I’d been certain I would never have to go through this type of indignity
again. What did I do in my past life to deserve this? Maybe I was a racist white guy and now I have to see how difficult life
is being one of the people I hurt.

“I am an American,” I insisted and slid the passport closer to her for inspection.

Her eyes looked down and she read that I was originally from Mexico.

“Ah, but you are really a Mexican… Hmmm, I like Mexico. Nice people, nice country,” she said with a smile.

“I am going to cooking school because I want to learn French cuisine and open a French restaurant back in Los Angeles so all
my friends can experience France, at least this way. I can’t do that if I don’t get my
carte de séjour
.” I said my lie as sincerely as possible. I could tell it had an effect on her and she nodded, agreeing with me that my goal
was a noble one. She stamped my photo at the edge onto a blue card and told me it was temporary. In a few months I would have
to go take tests and continue the process. I gave her a quick
“Merci”
and got the hell out of there.

As I walked to the metro, an older Frenchman wearing tie-dyed clothes and an African hat approached me. He spoke to me in
French, but I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. Realizing I was a foreigner, he then spoke English.

“You have a woman following you,” he said. I turned around and saw no one behind me. “She is not a person… she is a spirit
… she is around you… I see her following you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, waiting for him to ask me for money or to reveal his scam.

“She needs to tell you something.” He looked to his side, as if talking to someone next to him.

“Who is this woman?” I asked.

“She says she’s your cousin,” he informed me. I stared at him for a second and then I just walked away, holding in my tears.
I ran into the metro and hid from him.

During the third week of classes we were informed that there would be a written exam in a few days. I couldn’t imagine what
to study. We had covered so much material. I couldn’t even keep track of the sauces, much less the fish. After class the last
thing I wanted to do was study. I just wanted to go home, pig out on the food I’d made, and go to sleep. Despite my ravenous
hunger, I was actually losing weight. Being on my feet for many hours each day and sweating up a storm had already made me
drop ten pounds. Who knew going to cooking school would be a great diet? You get to eat all you want and lose the weight;
this was a story worth including in the
National Enquirer
! Maybe I could write about my experience and submit it to a women’s magazine, I considered; but then I quickly remembered
that I didn’t care about being a journalist anymore.

Whenever I burnt anything in practical, the smell always took me back in time to either the smell of burning corpses coming
from the Evergreen Cemetery when I was a teenager growing up in the ’hood or the burning rubber of a car taking off after
a drive-by. Not that I would burn a lot of food; it’s just that working on an electrical stove takes time getting used to.
I had to remember to take things off the stove or they would continue to cook and would burn. My brain was also burning; I
could smell the smoke coming from it. Although I would follow each step as best as I could, I still could not keep from making
a mess and getting distracted by other people’s work. I would try to focus on something, but then I would see someone else
doing something and want to do that instead, and I’d end up burning something or overcooking it or forgetting to add salt
and pepper. I was so exhausted; I didn’t care anymore. It was just food!!! I had never worked so hard to end up being so mediocre.
I felt like such a loser.

At the end of the week I got on the metro with my many bags of food. Everyone in my group was either going out because it
was Friday night and they didn’t want to be burdened with their food or they had simply not wanted their monkfish. That poor
fish has a face only a mother monkfish could love. When I arrived at my stop at Charles de Gaulle–Étoile I collected all my
bags and walked out of the metro. Ten seconds later I turned around, realizing that my purse was back on the floor of the
metro. I ran back, but the doors closed on me. I looked around for my purse, but it was gone. Then some French ghetto wannabe
rappers in their twenties started laughing at me. I ignored them and peered into the metro car to see who had it. These boys
kept laughing as though it was the funniest thing they’d seen in their lives. My suffering was just so amusing to them. The
metro took off. What a wonderful way to end this day: I felt like a loser and I’d lost my purse—how poetic and pathetic. That
purse contained everything, except my passport, thank God. I went to the ticket vendor’s window and explained in my horrible
French that I’d left my purse on the metro. She tried cheering me up and said that people were very good about returning purses.
She handed me a small piece of paper and instructed me to call in two days to see if anyone had turned it in; if not, then
maybe I could check the Paris lost and found.

I felt as lost as a child waiting to be found by her parents after being separated from them in a crowd. That there was nobody
in Paris who cared if my purse was lost or found hurt worse than actually losing it.

I walked toward my building and saw police cars blocking the entrance to my street. A policeman informed me and an old woman
walking her poodle that we had to wait because a package had been found in front of the Iraqi consulate and the bomb squad
was studying it to determine whether it was a bomb. I secretly hoped that some kind soul had found my purse and left it at
the consulate door instead of my building. I waited fifteen minutes with my leaking plastic bags of smelly monkfish before
I decided to sit on the sidewalk. I couldn’t wait to go to my bed and cry. After half an hour it began to rain, and I let
my tears bathe in the rain. Another fifteen minutes later, the package turned out to be nothing more than magazines in a box
someone had forgotten, and the police allowed us to enter the street. I took the servants’ elevator, hoping not to run into
anyone, but when I reached the top I saw a Muslim woman with a tattoo of a cross on her forehead waiting there. I automatically
smiled, but she didn’t acknowledge me. I realized again that smiling was such an American thing to do and people here frowned
upon it because it was inauthentic. Fine, I won’t smile anymore unless I mean it, I told myself.

I took a shower and sat on my bed. I had lost my cell phone too and couldn’t call anyone. I debated whether to use my last
minutes on my international calling card in a public phone to call the credit card company and my bank to cancel my cards
and get a replacement immediately. I didn’t want to do it right away because I held on to the hope that someone would find
and return my purse. But after a few hours hope gave way to reason, and I called my credit card company and found out that
the bag was now officially stolen. The thief had gone to Hugo Boss on the Champs-Élysées and bought himself a new wardrobe.
Maybe now this thug could get a real job.

I cried, wondering how I was going to make it without money for almost two weeks, until my ATM and credit card arrived. I
could eat just the food I made at cooking school and walk to school, but I couldn’t do much else. Classes would end in a week,
so what would I do for the seven days before Intermediate Cuisine began? How would I survive?

I unpacked my food and saw that my notebook containing my recipes was soiled with sauce. I cleaned the plastic sleeves protecting
my recipes and saw Henry’s phone number written on one of them. How had he gotten it on my recipe without me noticing? He
must have written it down when I slipped out to go to the bathroom.

Since misery loves company, I called Henry, hoping that at least one night of satisfying sex would make him remember me and
care that my purse had been stolen. When he answered I heard a woman laughing in the background. I wanted to hang up, since
he apparently already had booty for the night.

“Hello,” he said in his cute British accent.

“Henry, it’s Canela,” I announced, trying my best to sound cheerful and sexy. He hushed the laughing woman and took on a flirtatious
tone.

“My purse was stolen. I have no money,” I confessed, almost embarrassed to reveal too much. He remained quiet for a second
and then told me to get ready.

In a few minutes, he came over in a taxi and picked me up. I knew this evening would probably end up in sex, but I didn’t
care. I just didn’t want to be alone. I have always been afraid of being alone. I don’t trust myself when I am alone. Sometimes
food substitutes as company, but the monkfish was not creamy enough to keep the thoughts of suicide away. Until now, whenever
I was not busy doing a thousand things under the guise of saving the world and I ended up alone with my suicidal thoughts,
I would call Luna. Every time I would have a major life crisis—which happened often since, according to my family, I’m a drama
queen—I would call Luna and she would listen or go meet me at the weirdest locations and oddest hours…

Wait a minute: she never called me, and now that I really think about it, I was always doing the calling. I never stopped
to ask, “How is life with you?” since I already knew it was fucked up, but I’d assumed Luna was strong enough to take it.
On so many occasions I’d told Luna to leave and be my roommate, but she wouldn’t leave him, so I’d stopped asking. And then
I’d stopped calling… Oh, God, I’m a self-centered bitch! Why hadn’t I called her? Why hadn’t I saved her? Why hadn’t
I been a good friend? I missed Luna. I started to cry and wanted to die… Henry would have to be my Luna to keep me from
thinking of death.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked. He pulled my hand and led the way past the Algerian teenagers and black rapper wannabes
hanging out by a French burger joint on one of the corners of Place de Clichy, and past the rowdy crowds of tourists and locals
with mischief on their minds.

“I’m going to educate you, Ms. Canela. I’m going to give you a cultural experience and then some,” he said with a devilish
grin.

“Yes, educate me, teach me the ways, O great pale one,” I joked.

We arrived at the museum of erotica and he paid my admission. We walked up the stairs, admiring every form of erotic and sexual
expression on paper, oil, photograph, and papier-mâché. He rubbed his hand on my butt when no one was looking. Other times
he would rub up against me when there was another couple looking. They smiled at us wickedly, but we just kept moving up the
stairs. Henry knew his way around the museum. This was not a tour for him; this was foreplay. I stared at the photographs
of women posing in front of their brothels in Montmartre. Brothels had been outlawed in 1946, and there were black-and-white
photographs of brothels closing and prostitutes being “rehabilitated.” There were ledgers showing how much straight intercourse
cost in the 1900s… Henry translated for me, wishing he could have been around back then when life was simple and all
a man had to do was pay instead of pretending he loved women and put up with their drama.

“Let’s go get a drink,” he said, pulling my hand. I followed him like the black sheep that I am to my family; as long as he
was paying, I was along for the ride. Wow, so this is how it felt to be a woman on a typical date: the guy pays, and he gets
sex at the end. I never really dated. I was always running around chasing stories and didn’t waste my time dating. Armando
was the only man who’d been patient enough to chase after me. After he had caught me, he’d done what every man loves to do
when he has found the woman of his dreams: take her for granted.

Henry pulled me into the Sexodrome mega-sex toyshop, all the way back into a private dance room. Two African-French immigrant
women came onto the stage and started undressing each other. Henry kept looking for a waitress, but the tiny room in the giant
porno shop did not serve drinks. The tall, skinny woman coughed and whispered something. The poor woman had a cold, but she
had to pretend she was so turned on by the other woman, whose teddy was a little too tight on her chunky body. In whispers,
even I could tell, they commiserated about how shitty this work was. Nobody was fooled by their passionless acts of foreplay.
I felt sorry for them and wanted to interview them instead of fantasize about them. Henry took my hand and we walked out.
The cashier at the door told us to wait, saying there would be male-female couples coming up, but I shrugged my shoulders
and smiled as we left. Henry and I walked around Pigalle looking for a bar. Pigalle was the red-light district where Le Moulin
Rouge and the Black Cat resided. It was the closest thing to Vegas in France.