Free A Nearly Perfect Copy by Allison Amend Page A

the market, sold things,” he said. “My father played the guitar. He died when I was young.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. She shook her arm; a tinkling cascade of bracelets fell to her wrist. “How, if you don’t mind me asking?”
    “No,” he said. “It was strange. He died of mushroom poisoning.”
    “Seriously?” Colette asked.
    Gabriel nodded, though his father had died of a heart attack. But he liked this story better. “He was very passionate about mushrooms, and he was never wrong when identifying them. I think someone tried to poison him.”
    “You’re lying to me,” Colette said, hitting his forearm.
    The waiter deposited the appetizers in front of them. When Gabriel motioned that she should serve herself, Colette reached over and took exactly half of each.
    She hummed approval. “This is delicious. Is this really what the food is like?”
    “Sort of,” Gabriel said. “I can’t really explain it. It’s all the same ingredients. It just has a taste that is different. Tomatoes taste different in Spain. So do beets.”
    “It’s like going to a French restaurant in America,” Colette said. “The food there is totally inedible. Have you spent much time in New York?”
    “No,” Gabriel admitted. “I don’t travel much.” In fact, he had never left Europe.
    “I go for Tinsley’s quite often,” Colette said.
    Before Gabriel could comment, the paella arrived and the waiter presented it to them before scraping the contents of the pan onto two plates, including the burned-crisp bottom layer of rice that Gabriel loved.
    They ordered another bottle of wine. Colette’s eyes grew glassy and her lips a tad floppy, stained from her drink. He wondered if she might go home with him, or he with her. A wave of longing overtook him that was so acute he nearly choked, and took a large swallow of wine to hide the frisson. A silence fell while they ate. He wanted to keep her here, at this table, buzzed with liquor, in a sort of suspended animation. He knew the spell would be broken, even as the waiter reappeared to take their plates, and so he ate slowly, excruciatingly slowly, as if he could somehow stall time and extend the moment.
    He watched as she put down her fork to light another cigarette. She waved the smoke away from their table. Maybe it was the wine, but now he didn’t find the silence uncomfortable. He wondered if she did. Should he say something? No, he decided. He was not going to make conversation for conversation’s sake. That was what
bobos
did. Artists didn’t have to conform to those conventions. It was one of the few perks.
    She tapped her ash in the clever ashtray.
    “I’m done,” she announced, and pushed the half-full plate closer toward Gabriel. “Too much food for me!”
    Gabriel finished his plate. Then he ate the rest of hers. No sense in letting it go to waste, and he was hungry. In fact, he felt empty.
    When he finally set down his fork, she stubbed out her cigarette and, by lifting her head, summoned the waiter.
    She demanded the check in the typical French way, which had the trappings of
politesse
—the conditional verb, the
s’il vous plaît
, the honorific
monsieur
that dripped of condescension. There were parts of French culture that he would never master. Spaniards asked for the check in full recognition that the waiter’s job was to bring it, which implied neither servitude nor gratitude. No class wars were played out in restaurants.
    Gabriel counted out the bills slowly, attempting to hide them under the table. It was easily the most expensive meal he’d ever eaten. Colette didn’t offer to split it.
    “We’ll have coffee at my place,” she said. “I don’t live far.”
    They walked back along the Avenue de New York. When Colette slipped on a stone, tottering on her heels, Gabriel grabbed her arm and felt the give of her flesh. When you touched someone you were attracted to, why was it different from touching a stranger on the street? Was the