Free Plum Blossoms in Paris by Sarah Hina

hand-wringing across America during the last decade, whenever anyone sprinkles talking-point words like
Ivy League
and
East Coast intellectualism
throughout a tiresome tirade. The French have a reputation for spawning philosophers with the startling frequency that we manufacture business moguls. Words,
French
words, and not the pan-Union euros, are the real currency of this country, maintaining her solvency, while in America, money serves that purpose more than satisfactorily, thank you very much and come again, sir.
    I have watched the Sunday talk shows here in France, and while I cannot decipher what the panelists are saying, I knowthis: it’s kind of like cable news, but without the bitch slapping. It makes me uncomfortable to witness such embarrassing displays of mutual respect. There is something preternaturally competitive in the American spirit that fashions discourse as blood sport. The French seem to regard the political and philosophical (which have a manner of colluding here more than anywhere else) the way some Americans practice religion: with strict devotion and spiritual reverence. We common-sense Yanks don’t like to feel inferior to a group of people suspected to be smarter than us and, worse, uppity about it. Americans, in spite of Jesus’ counsel, don’t do modest, and we certainly aren’t beholden to pipsqueak, past-their-prime countries whom we—and they really oughtn’t forget this!—helped liberate and resurrect with the Marshall Plan.
    So we come to France (after England, before Italy), expecting them to roll out the red carpet, receiving us in perfect English, and with the same frantic smiles on their faces that greet us at Red Lobster back home. If they don’t, we revolt. And when we get back home, we grouse to sympathetic friends, “I don’t know why they think they’re so
above
everything … the food’s not
that
great.” And the legend of the Rude French as some monolithic whole (like the Hot-blooded Italian, the Pragmatic German) endures. I am not immune: see Chapter 3 .
    But Mathieu is looking at me, and it is plain that I am not paying him proper attention. Or he cannot decipher what
homoerotic
means, which is a shame because I was on a roll.
    “Anyway.” I smile apologetically. “Where are we going today?”
    He leans in and kisses me. His lips are soft and gentle, yet could easily break me. I hesitate, then kiss him back. Our mouths are the only flesh of our bodies to touch, like leggy chromosomes meeting at their spindle. My eyes open, and he is looking at me. Into me. Flustered, I pull away. But my lips still tingle. He has revived them, and they’re shuddering spectacularly, like two wings of a hummingbird.
    He smiles and murmurs, “You were a million miles away. I wanted you to return to me.”
    I shuffle, looking down at my Keds. I didn’t kiss Andy until our third date. By then, I knew his position on the junior varsity basketball team, that he almost died in a neighbor’s swimming pool at the age of three, and that his favorite movie was
The Godfather
. Parts one and two, of course.
    “What’s your last name, Mathieu?” I ask.
    He laughs harshly, twisting away to stare down the street. After a moment, he looks back at me. “Does it matter?”
    I consider this. What do I know of Mathieu? That he likes his baguettes—a lot. That his mother just died. That he has a romantic streak in him as fiery and limbic as Andy’s ambition. That he likes to surprise me.
    That my mouth, awakened, is busy protesting the absence of his lips.
    Bewildered, I take his hand in my own, looking down at the snarl of fingers inventing new, complex attachments. He has long, elegant hands, which an obtuse observer might call effeminate. They are simply well cared for. His nails almost look polished, half moons forming at the bases. Mine are jagged and irregular. He doesn’t notice the nails, too occupied with caressing the shiver of skin over my pulse point with his thumb. The little