My Stool

I’m standing there thinking it's my bar and you’re sitting in my place. I know I can’t command the prime position on every visit, but if I must be left to stand at the bar, I'd much prefer that our stools be inhabited by regulars.

She is a pretend blond and overly eye-shadowed, talking in unnecessary decibels and flailing her hands around. Everyone in the bar is trying not to listen in on her banal conversation, the one about the complicated itinerary of her next trip and how she'll have too much time at the airport on the way back from New York – understandably frustrating to her but frankly, inconsequential to the rest of us. Her recurrent use of the word “like” is not enhancing her credibility with anyone standing beside me. I’m thinking, honey, could you please, like, lower your voice?

I’m chatting up the barman – quietly – while offering a knowing smile to the older man across the bar. We would roll our eyes at each other but for the mirrors on every wall, so we just flirt instead. We have a common nemesis, the loud one speaking English proclaiming her frequent flyer status for the whole bar to hear.

She is with a young guy with a two-day old beard. They are now both on their phones, both leaning over almost on top of me, stretching to see out the front windows, trying to assess the address, presumably to tell whomever they've called precisely where they are.

“I can’t see any number,” she says, loud and very close to my ear.

“Thirty,” I say, in a dulcet but mono tone.

They look at me like I have spoken in Greek.

“It’s number thirty,” I say, “The address. Here.”

“Oh." She did not expect me to speak English. “Yeah, thanks.”

They resume their conversation, with lower voices.

That worked.

Later she asks the barman about the toilet. He points to the back. I smile, but it’s a devious one. I know the toilet here, a chrome sided, Star Trek styled Turkish toilet, if you can imagine, built for a superhero like Iron Man. I never use it. I’m capable of squatting, but why bother? Half the bars on this street are owned by the same guy, all the barmen know me, at least by sight. Usually I walk next door or across the street where I can sit like a civilized woman.

She slides off the stool – my stool – and walks around the horseshoe shaped bar toward the restroom.  I mutter, under my breath so her English-listening French boyfriend won’t hear, “Good luck with that.”

In her absence he takes out his iPhone and dials nimbly, chatting away in a rough French accent, peppered with slang. I wonder if she hears this in his French. Has she been here long enough to detect the subtleties of the language, or is she still in the just-lucky-to-barely-understand stage?  (I've been there.)  The fact is, she may not listen to him enough to hear it; she was rather adept at talking and they'd been conversing in her language, not his.

The clock ticks forward, that pumpkin-hour-when-I-must-be-home approaches. My little factures are assembled, change waits on the counter. She returns, walking around the bar, tugging at her clothing, the way women should before they leave the restroom but inevitably we’re still checking that everything’s falling correctly on our way out.

“How’d that go for you?” I said aloud, emboldened by the last, fast sip of my second Leffe.

She looked at me, uncertain. “Huh?”

I tilted my head the direction of the toilet.

“Oh, yeah.  It was fine.”

I looked down at her shoes, medium-high heels with a leopard-pattern. They were splashed with water, or something. I tried not to smile, but I couldn't hold it back. She tucked her feet under the bar stool, my stool, drawing them in and out of sight.

A Quick Gallopin

These days my office stops are much less frequent than I'd like. I've had way too many responsibilities, forcing a wave of respectability that really should be uncharacteristic for me but is becoming tiresomely prevalent. And let's face it, without Dee-Dee Sue around, I'm not as suggestible. Oh sure, I stop off for a café-crème or an espresso whenever I pass the office. But I haven't had the time - or the companionship - to put my behind on that bar stool for an entire afternoon or evening, like in the good ol' days.

Companionship isn't a requirement, as inevitably I know someone in the café. And if not, the U-shape of the bar lends itself to playful (or flirtatious) smiles and head-nods (or eye-rolls) and ultimately full-on conversations. New friends are easily made. Everyone standing around the bar is part of the community. Part of the clan. And there's always the barman.

The other night I was thirsty. Thirsty for a cold beer. Thirsty for the companionship of that very same café clan. Thirsty for a break from all this undesired respectability. Yet it clamored: Small creatures to be fed, bathed and indoctrinated with French grammar. There wasn't much time for a stop, not a real stop.

But there was time for a gallopin.

The standard size of a beer in France is the demi, or 50 centiliters (cl). It's more or less a pint of beer. I say more or less, because a US pint is 47.3 cl, and a UK pint is 56.8 cl. Has anyone a clue why the British pints are more voluminous than American ones?

But the gallopin is about 20 cl, the size of a juice-glass, or the content of a medium-sized wine-glass. It was invented its namesake, Gustav Gallopin, who opened up a brasserie near the Bourse and catered to financiers and journalists. Nobody seems to be able to explain why, but he had the idea to offer up this smaller sip of beer. And now you can go to any café or bar in Paris (or most of France) and order a gallopin and get just enough beer to wet your whistle. Which sometimes, is all you need.

.

Afternoons are Hard

So it's 4:00 in the afternoon. I stop by the office, and there's that dilemma again. Coffee or....? A beer? A glass of wine? A kir? Is it late enough in the day for a cocktail? (Is it ever too early?) Or will a little caffeine power me through the witching hour of the evening and leave me with all my wits and a clear head tomorrow morning? In the summer it's an easier choice, somehow. What would you do?

The Office

I don't think either one of us could work in an office, it would be far too respectable. But actually, I can imagine dee dee sue's office cubicle: plastered with pictures of bulls and bullfighters, a tiny shrine to San Fermin, empty agave bottles used as paper-weights, tall stacks of books on the floor, most of them read and ready to be given to me for consumption. Of course, if it really was her cubicle, or for that matter, even her corner executive suite, it wouldn't be hers unless she wasn't there. But that's another story.

Here's the quick and dirty on the office: It's a café bar that we've both frequented for at least 20 years (longer for her, even). In the beginning, I went in the mornings, taking my place on the corner stool, chatting up the barman, ordering more than one café-crème and spending a few hours scribbling in my journal. She was more of a night-time patron, drinking things stronger than coffee, but also chatting up the barman. And always with her eye on the same prize: the corner stool.

But we'd never been there together.

While all this was going on, a mutual friend, mother theresa, kept trying to introduce us - we were neighbors after all - and when she finally succeeded (it took 7 years) we realized we had a lot in common, including this little café.

It was about the same time that I rented my own writing studio, so I didn't need to go to the café every morning. And about that same time, I started having babies, so what I really needed was that late afternoon Leffe-break, or the coveted kitchen pass for an extended girls night out. My hours started to coincide with dee dee sue's.

Need I say more? We've spent a lot of time on those corner stools. Once, she counted how many hours she'd been there during the course of a week: 35 hours, the length of the official French work-week. Therefore, that made it official, this must be the office.