A Nice Fling is Hard to Find

11:00 p.m.

Dear TJ,

Joanna is about to turn off the lights, and I’m beyond exhausted, but I want to tell you what happened today. Funny that I say you, as though you are a person and not simply me reading this when I get home, if ever. Although maybe you are my future daughter reading about my magical vacation in France! Hello sweetie, I love you! Maybe I’ve married Pierre and he and I have had French-American love children!

Not. That is the whole point of a fling. A fling is a man you never see again. That’s what makes it exciting. Harmless. Stringless. No one gets hurt if there are no strings attached, right? You kiss, and maybe go to second and/or third base before saying goodbye forever. Perhaps you send perfumed wish-you-were-here postcards in the months that follow but that’s as far as it goes.

Anyway, it’s starting to occur to me that I may have no chance with Pierre. After our trip to Versailles (all green landscaped gardens, statues of angels, and a dizzying Hall of Mirrors), we took a late afternoon/sunset cruise on the river Seine. Tommy was snapping artsy-type photos of the Paris skyline and the grand cathedral of Notre Dame, while Max and Kristin and the rest of the group were busy taking photos of the half-naked people on the quasi-beach. It’s actually a man made strip of sand on the banks of the Seine. And I say half-naked because some of the women were topless. And some of the men were wearing . . . G-string Speedos. Who knew they even made those?

The Pennies thought it was hilarious and kept pointing and ogling.

“What’s the big deal?” Tommy asked, laughing, his camera dangling around his neck.

“Those girls are so immature,” Becca said, wrinkling her forehead in disgust. Earlier today she had spotted them twirling their pigtails in Tommy’s direction. Ever since then she had taken to eyeing them with suspicion.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “He deserves a fling too, no?”

“Those girls are not worthy of my brother.”

Becca has some major big sister issues. The fact that she’s only four minutes older than Tommy doesn’t faze her. When Janna Jacobs broke up with him last year, Becca accidentally-on-purpose spilled her coke all over Janna’s white linen capris. Tommy was not amused.

So I wasn’t surprised when her next move on the boat was to call Tommy over to us and away from the Pennies.

After the cruise is when things got interesting. Becca and Harold went for “a walk,” and Tommy and I regrouped in the hostel’s courtyard, which is insanely pretty. It has three iron benches, small round tables, and moss growing between the cobblestones. Everything in Paris is so old and charming. I can picture what it was like to live here centuries ago.

Anyway, guess who was in the courtyard? The Swiss/Austrians. Except they aren’t actually Swiss/Austrians, turns out they’re Russians. Whoospies. I would never have had the guts to talk to them on my own, but Tommy plunked himself down in the bench right beside them and began asking them all these questions. There were two of them: Vladimir and Mick. Vlad (that’s what he told us to call him) is the hot one. He has blond hair and ridiculous cheekbones. If I had spotted him in an Abercrombie & Fitchad, instead of in the courtyard of Les Quatre Saisons, I would not have been surprised. Although Abercrombie & Fitchis pretty American. Maybe a Beneton ad? He and Mick were smoking clove cigarettes and laughing, and they told us about living in Moscow. And then Vlad showed me how to write my name in Russian: Линдсй. Or something like that. Apparently Ruskies have a totally different alphabet. Who knew?

An hour or so later, Becca and Harold joined us and the Russians said goodnight, but the way Vlad held my gaze longer than necessary made me decide that he would be an attainable fling for me to focus on.

“Want to come with us to the Bastille Day parade tomorrow night?” I blurted out.

“Sure,” Vlad said. “We’ll meet you here. To pre-celebrate. At seven.”

After we waved goodbye, Becca started jumping up and down on the bench. “Way to go!”

“Shush, they can still see you,” I said.

But whatever. I have a date! Kind of.

Joanna just turned off the lights. Can’t see in the dark.

A demain!