Isn't It Romantic? Read Free

seemed sunken and yoked with a great weight as he eyed Natalie pensively and said, “ On a besoin de parler. ” (We need to talk.)
    â€œWe are in America,” she said. “We should speak English.”
    He got a mimeographed sheet of paper from inside his suit coat and shook it. “It is that I have read at last now our itinerary. Look at how we shall be eatings. Look at where we sleeps. What is cooking in your head?” He rattled the sheet again and scanned it. “We are to introduce ourselves to ‘Little Miss Middle-of-Nowhere.’ And then corn detasseling, whatever is that. We go to Chester, the birthplace of six-man football. We dine at the Wednesday night meeting of the Nebraska Catfishing Club. Are you thinking this is amusing for I?”
    She’d be the first to admit her voice was teeny as she answered, “It has its charms.”
    â€œWe could have gone to Avignon. But no. You do not want to go to Avignon. We could have gone to Aix. Again, you do not want to go to Aix. We are hearing good things from friends about Basel. Mais non , we could not go there. We had to go on . . . un pèlerinage !”
    â€œA pilgrimage.”
    â€œWe had to go on a carnival bus!”
    The old shawled woman beside him patted his wrist and said, “Life is sometimes a rocky road.”
    And then they heard a blowout and the bus jounced violently. Natalie saw crows of tire rubber flying onto the highway, and then she saw Pierre scowling up at her.
    â€œ C’est un complot ,” he said. (This is a plot.)

5
    T hey were stalled in an out-of-the-way section of Nebraska prairie where, as some citizens put it, the east and west peter out. Waving grasses, hot zephyrs in the mid-eighties, a certain crankiness to the trees, skies of a Windex blue. Worried and impatient tourists were milling about outside the bus or lounging dissolutely on their luggage, and the See America driver was hunched next to a rear wheel well, his hands on his knees, trying to fix the flat just by staring at it.
    Waiting tranquilly on a hillside of wildflowers, a red suitcase on rollers beside her, Natalie tilted her head back against a cattle fence so her face could catch the noontime sun as Pierre scrupulously examined the sleeves and cuffs of his Italian suit and cursed each time he picked a sticker or cocklebur from it. Wide Hereford cows were six feet away, their ears twitching tenacious flies, their mouths moving sideways as they chewed, their soft brown eyes watching him without curiosity. “Look at my clothings,” he said. “We are supposed to be on the happy vacation, but instead one is being addicted.”
    â€œAfflicted.”
    â€œ Oui .”
    â€œAnd last August?”
    Pierre loomed gigantically over her but there was a littleness to him as he evaluated whether this were a trick question. Without certainty he answered, “Cap d’Antibes.”
    â€œIn Cap d’Antibes you stared at everyone’s breasts but mine.”
    â€œYours always had books over them.”
    â€œIn Saint Laurent you took those long walks. Alone.”
    â€œHow many times can you watch Shame ?”
    â€œ Shane ,” Natalie corrected.
    â€œCowboys,” he said, and made a gun of his hand. “Bang bang.”
    â€œIn Strasbourg . . .,” she said.
    â€œ. . . you are in the library all the times.”
    She looked at him with sarcasm. “Perhaps I was researching the problem of male lust.”
    Pierre was stumped. “What is this word loost?”
    â€œ Plein de désir sexuel .”
    â€œWell, that is the difference between us. You research; I . . . fais des expériences ?”
    â€œExperiment.”
    â€œ C’est juste . I experiment.”
    â€œAnd what does one do when the experiment is over?”
    Each considered the other for a long time. In a city far away someone dropped a pin.
    â€œToday is Wednesday,” Natalie