daisy chains

a lapse in time (13)

the thing with Paris is that I'm acutely aware that I'd been the one to strike the match that made the whole thing crash and burn.

to this day I still can't imagine why I'd done it.

when i think back on Paris, the city, i don't think of the girl who'd kissed me tasting like red wine and mint. i think, I shoulda known then, to break it off. 'Cause my eyes had started to wander, in the way they had in my youth. then when I'd kissed him near a painting of a naked greek god, I'd let him grip my waist. the touch of a man is different than that of a woman, for sure. it wasn't the thickness of his fingers, or the way his stubbed nails had dug into the thin chamise I had on. it was more so the way his tongue had fought between my lips, and how I had no intention to struggle beyond perhaps making it a little bit more enjoyable. i knew, and he knew, that I liked it because it was wrong. so he took me against a corner, and then out in the streets, and once under the table as I put my mouth on my cup of chocolat chaud and his between my legs.

I would often think of her when his fingers grazed the inside of my wrist, as he kissed my neck or dragged me somewhere half-hidden from the crowd.

Sometimes he'd say things to me in French. foreign words he was fully aware I could not comprehend. But i liked it, he knew that. Though it made me think of Paris, her name, her efforts to learn his language. If only i could learn it too, just to go home and teach it to her in bed.

But Paris let me go easily, as a bird dislodges its talons from an unworthy prey. when that happened, it was like someone did a quick rewind, and I was back. Like i'd woken up from a long dream, and it was just me again. lonely daisy with no friends. But at least that means she's got time for work. And then work consumed me, and it was so difficult to resurface.

Now i'm sitting with Fig in a cafe in New York, and while I'm aware he's sketching another picture of me in his notebook, I do nothing to dissuade him this time.

"and why are we here again?" I ask, for the millionth time.

he looks up from his notebook, tucks the pencil behind his ear. "we gotta get you familiar with the city. we'll be filming here for a few months."

"I know but I've been here before."

"You've never lived here," he says, and I have to groan. The project with Johnson has been riveting. I'd never worked on anything quite like it before. But Fig was a pain in the ass when he wasn't high on raw sugar, when he had his work clothes on and his hair swept back in a professional do at the nape of his neck. I don't tell him, but he looks a lot older like this. When he looks as if he's got his shit together.

He flips through his notes. "You smoke?"

"Who's asking?"

"Me. You smoke?" He looks up.

"Yes."

"Good." And then he's looking through his notes again, nodding and muttering to himself. "Fuck. That coffee had a lot of sugar in it, didn't it?"

"I don't know." I'm nursing a mug of hot chocolate, and it's difficult to hear him over the noise of the city.

Fig drops his notebook on the round table we've cramped in, and flips it around so i see another drawing of myself. she's Daisy, except all the edges are wavy cause that's how he draws, and she's got a cigarette hanging from her bottom lip.

"like this," he stabs his finger onto the page, and when a strand of his curly hair threatens to slop from the tight hold at the base of his neck, his fingers are quick to brush it back. "this is how you gon look."

"but," i say, holding the notebook a little closer. "that's how I always look, Fig."

"no, look at it properly. don't look at it with those passive eyes the way you do everything. really look."

and i try, but i only see a reflection of myself. "fig."

"daisy, baby, you see it. you just gotta look a little harder then you'll know what I'm on," he leans closer to me over the table, and i catch a whiff of his cologne, and a peek of the gold chain that hides underneath the collar of his pressed white shirt. "i appreciate it when you take the time to see me, you know? i do."

i let a laugh loose. "fig, we're friends now."

"i know," he smiles, and the scar on his nose almost disappears. "that's why you can have this," he tears the page out. "look at it closely, Daisy. study it, tuck it under your pillow for all I care. but learn it good. you'll see."

and really, i wish i could say this was a peculiar conversation, but that was the nature of all our meetings. fig would doodle, i would think quietly, and then he'd speak a cryptic message and call me hunny.