21.

“An American girl in Paris” is such a cliché. They’ve even named lame books after that phrase.

I’ve been living on that street with the strange name since I was 18. I abandoned my family back in San Francisco, because I wanted to live and study in this city.

My life’s ok, my parents keep providing me with money and I’m a part-time employee at a vinyl store. It’s in the neighbourhood. Life’s good here.

I study French literature. Why else would I be here in the first place?

My friends come from a lot of countries. They’re mostly Spanish, Italians, Greeks and Algerians.

Nothing extraordinary takes place in this neighbourhood. Well, only yesterday, I met a boy with a thorn in his side.

He sat on a lovely café, near Saint Germain, on the Left Side, his ribs were aching so badly he couldn’t hold his – terrible, by the way – coffee in his right hand. 

Coffee tastes so terrible in Paris, sometimes I which a secret weapon would destroy all those coffee machines. 

Anyway, I wanted to have a cup of tea, so we shared his table, after asking him if I could join him, ‘cause I’m an American girl in Paris, therefore I can ask anything, anyone, anywhere. 

All the other tables were full, of course.

He was reading a book, I think it was a book by Oscar Wilde - come on now, if you reside in Paris, you should read French books.

But that’s just me.

Anyway, I obviously asked him why he was in such pain, caused by a mere thorn in the side (I know I’m indiscreet, I want to know everything) and he told me he had had a “murderous desire for love”, which caused him this kind of syndrome. 

That was an adequate explanation. I wished him luck and told him to stop being in pain and go find the girl he liked.

Yet, I only told him that this girl he liked would have been hanging around the Centre Pompidou and the Right Side, in general.

He said he was afraid to cross any bridge between the two sides.

“Pond Neuf would do the work for you. It always makes you want to cross it”.

I spend more than 15 thousand euros per year, just to be able to cross those bridges.