Stories, Thoughts and Snippets
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Mona would still be beautiful if she were French.
All right, that s about good for me, I m heading back home to the good old Eighth. Diane, why you insist on bringing these guys back with us is beyond me. I swear sometimes you girls are willfully ignorant.
You can be such an asshole when you re drunk. I can invite anyone home with me that I want, so why don t you go fuck yourself until you can be a little decent, huh? You ll apologize for this tomorrow.
Yeah, I probably will. Fuck it, I ll do it now. I m sorry I m an asshole. Etienne, good luck to you tonight, he stuck out his hand to shake mine, which I did because not doing so would make him angry, and Mona, say hi to Justin for me next time you talk to him. Bon Soiree, all. I ll see you demain.
He slammed the door behind him.
Why the fuck do we hang out with him? Asked Julie, a girl with blond hair who drank her wine very slowly.
He s not like that, really. He ll be sorry tomorrow, watch. He just gets so fucking jealous and protective when he drinks sometimes. He thinks it s his fucking job to take care of us or something, and he s pissed that we won t let him.
Do you need someone to take care of you? I asked, reminding them of my presence.
"Not as much as James needs someone to take care of him."
"I would love to go to America, the way that you have come to France. I would buy a motorcycle and see the country, I would like to drive through a desert on a motorcycle."
"It's expensive to travel in America, even on a motorcycle, if you don't know people who will let you stay with them." Mona offered.
"But I know you all now, I could stay with you and take you for rides on my motorcycle."
"Do you go to school, Etienne?"
"I finished my exams last year, now I am looking for work."
"What did you study."
"Engineering, I like automobiles."
"You studied engineering and you can't find a job?" Julie giggled a little.
"Everyone in France has a degree," I defended myself, "but there are no jobs unless you have a connection. "
"Waiting tables is fine, in engineering you would be locked up in a little room, working on math. At least this way you get to interact with people. You would never have met us otherwise."
"This is true. Life is only the other people we meet. But I cannot be a waiter forever."
"Where did you learn English, you speak it better than half the people in America."
"I had an English nanny when I was young. And I love American cinema, the best films in the world are American."
"Oh come on, Hollywood is such a fucking factory, you can't call those movies art." Diane was a very opinionated girl, I had met many like her, and I knew my answer would win her over. But I was more interested in Mona, she was listening, but she was not saying anything and it made it difficult to judge what she was thinking.
"I did not say I loved Hollywood. I said I loved cinema, you have such wonderful, beautiful, strange films, at the same time you have so much worthless shit. I wonder how the same country that gives life to directors like David Lynch can also make Spiderman one of the most successful films of all time."
"Hey, I liked Spiderman, it was fun. It did pretty well in the rest of the world, too, you know."
"That may be true, Julie, but it is not art, it does not say anything, all it does is distracts people for a few hours."
"Sometimes distractions are good, sometimes it's nice not to think about your life, your problems for a little while." Mona finally spoke. For a moment everyone was quiet, we listened to the music playing on Diane's laptop computer, and everyone drank there wine.
"Guys, you know I don't really care if you want to stay the night here, but it's getting a little late, and if you want to catch the metro home you had better start thinking about traveling on." She probably meant it for me, it did not bother me. I stood up and collected my jacket.
"My friend is spinning at Bar 3 on Friday, if you would like to come."
"Maybe, if we're free." Diane said.