Free Paris, He Said by Christine Sneed

than the Russian caviar that Laurent wanted her to love too, but its texture was too alien to her unrefined taste buds. She liked the Dom Pérignon, although she awoke with traces of a headache the next day, after drinking only a glass and a half. “My parents knew the vintners at Moët et Chandon, the house that produces Dom Pérignon,” Laurent told her. “They were friendly because, I think, they were not competitors. Not in the sense that they would have been if my parents also made champagne. But pinot noir is our grape too. The best burgundies and champagnes are made with it, including my family’s wines.”
    His parents’ wine was sold under the label Maison Moller, and the collective of vineyards they were a part of produced one of the few grands crus, which he explained was the most sought-after designation for Burgundy vintners.
    “It seems like all French people are expected to drink wine in order to be considered truly French,” she said. “Some parents let their kids drink it, don’t they?”
    “Some do, yes, but with moderation. Anne-Claire and I did not let our children drink until they were older, except on special occasions. Then they could have a very small glass. I think there is probably more drinking in your country. La quantité de bière, mon dieu. We don’t drink nearly as much beer in France.”
    “People do drink a lot of beer in the States,” she said. “It usually starts in high school and gets worse in college. But I was never that interested. I suppose I was afraid of losing control.”
    “Do you still feel that way?” he asked, curious.
    His scrutiny made her hesitate. “I suppose I do,” she said carefully. At the time, they had only been together for a month. She knew that he would remember her answer, that it mattered.
    “I will not get you drunk and take advantage of you.”
    She laughed. “You don’t need to get me drunk to take advantage of me.”
    “There are alcoholics in France too, of course. We have the same problems that you do here. Drugs, poverty, racism. If you go to the periphery of the city, you will see the big, ugly buildings where many immigrants are forced to live.”
    “I’m aware that not everyone in Paris shops on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré,” she said.
    “No, they do not.”
    Some of the patrons of the boutiques on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré were also the people buying art at Vie Bohème. Jayne had noticed that the work in the gallery’s catalog wasn’t political, or in some cases, only obliquely so, though she knew that unless an artist was already famous, art with a radical agenda was usually a hard sell. Good for museums, not so good for attracting private collectors. Few art buyers wanted a painting of a bound and naked man, the contents of his skull leaking onto the side of a road, or a black canvas with the word RAPE slashed across its center in ferocious red capital letters.
    “Look at the name of our gallery,” said Laurent, shaking his head, when she asked if he and André had ever tried to sell angry, edgy work. “This is not Vie de Douleur, or Vie de Tristesse. This is Vie Bohème. Vie de Beauté, de Plaisir.”
    Of course he wasn’t interested in sadness and suffering; beauty and pleasure were so much more profitable. She’d known this about him from the night they’d met: the paintings at the Chelsea opening had all been very sexy.
    “Whether or not anyone wants to admit it,” he said, “most people live to pursue pleasure, one pleasure after another.”
    She smiled. “Yes, and sometimes many pleasures at the same time.”
    He nodded, returning her smile. “Good, so you are already aware of this.”

    Twice more during her first two weeks in Paris, Jayne returned to the art supply store near the École des Beaux-Arts where the boy with the stoplight tattoo worked. She saw him again on her third visit and realized as he rang up her purchases—tubes of cadmium yellow and viridian green, another of alizarin crimson,