When I scanned the room, I saw five or six swaddled newborns and one miniature 1920s actress. Bibi had round eyes the size of saucers, chalky white skin, and dainty fingers that seemed already capable of needlepoint.

Anaïs had one of those bobs with concave bangs French women seem 
to master, which make them look like adorable sixties KGB agents. 


No matter how well I could pronounce words or expressions, there was no terroir in my vocabulary. Words all meant the same to me—almost like those black and white letter magnets you stick to a refrigerator. Table, 
Chaise, Connard, Pute, Vélo, Merde were all interchangeable and non-denominational, standing next to each other in my brain like a bad 
haiku. 


We’d found our social groove, and the more these dinners 
clicked, the more I felt like a dinner-jacketed Cole Porter, a gadfly of the Parisian bourgeoisie, a cosmopolitan homme de lettres. 
I also like getting hammered. 


True democracy, the French were teaching me, involves swallowing loads of shit to arrive at a consensual second choice we can now all critique.

The reason fluency isn’t a given is that life isn’t fair. The classroom can only take you so far. There’s preseason and regular season, and players of all sports will tell you, the speed’s just not the same.