1939
It was raining in Paris. The sky was a solid sheet of dull gray as fat droplets of water fell from the heavy clouds. Everything moved in slow motion across the slick pavement, everything was in black and white. For the moment, the city was beautiful; more so than usual, or course. What made other places lifeless and stifling made Paris glisten and shine. The rain washed away the scum and dirt of the town and left life in its wake. It momentarily masked the dread of war.
That was how Donny felt up until he had to jump into a frumpy woman's path to avoid getting hit by a wall of dirty road water, kicked up by a car going much too fast down the Rue du Bac. The woman heaved her large coat, adjusted her umbrella, and shot Donny the dirtiest look he'd ever gotten from a woman that wasn't his Aunt Tilda (the devil's mistress) before continuing her frumpy way down the darkened sidewalk. Donny rolled his eyes and entered a cafe on the corner.
It was warm and golden inside, with a polished wood bar and red upholstered stools and booths. All around him people were speaking French, and he tried to understand, to pick up on their conversations with what little French he knew, but it was pointless, and he gave up. But, the record player in the corner was playing lovely accordion music, and Donny was instantly cozy. Of course, no one in the entire cafe even knew he had stepped into their little bubble of warmth and pastries. He knew, had any of them turned around, they wouldn't have seen him anyway. He didn't fit in with these French people and their luxurious lifestyles and their coffee and their poodles. He was grungy and kind of dirty and poor and American and Jewish. Donny Donowitz was invisible.
Which gave him the perfect opportunity to seat himself wherever he pleased. He quickly slipped into the back of the cafe, the section with the best windows and the least people and the most ashtrays, but was really in no hurry to sit down. He was fishing around in his trouser pocket for a cigarette when he saw her, sitting at a table by the window, drinking coffee and reading The Great Gatsby. There was a lit cigarette perched in the ashtray in front of her, the smoke curling gently off of the smoldering end and floating up, up, up to the top of her book before fluttering and disappearing like an elusive moth.
She sat so beautifully in that chair, her ankles crossed daintily and only the rounded toes of her red high heels touching the floor. Her dress was navy blue and polka dotted, and from the pin-tucked sleeves came slender arms and from the rounded neckline came a protruding clavicle and a small letter D on a slim golden chain. (Unknowingly, Donny's eyes lit up when he spied her necklace, for once in his 22 years of life believing in the fates.) Her enticing red painted lips were twisted in concentration, and her dark eyebrows were knotted, focused. He couldn't see her eyes, but he could see her wild brown curls spilling from a red satin ribbon. That was all he could see for a moment, just that unruly mane that somehow captivated him into wanting to actually woo this girl instead of just asking her to have sex with him. Which was kind of how he wooed women, but whatever.
Donny, who of course thought himself charming and devilishly handsome, invited himself to sit at the table across from her, leaning on one elbow and cocking one dark eyebrow, burning chocolate brown holes into her forehead with his stare and willing her to look up at him, he was just oh so curious as to the color of her eyes.
"Could I bother you for a cigarette, mademoiselle?" Donny said, putting his seven word French vocabulary to work.
The girl didn't so much as glance up from her book, but she scoffed and said, "No," and yes! She was so unmistakeably American and Donny wanted to bite his lip and squeal like an eight year old girl. But then he remembered that he was supposed to be suave, and suave men don't squeal like eight year old girls. He mentally shook his own hand and thanked himself for catching his mistake before he made it; that was almost a disaster.
"Really?" Donny pressed, drawing out the word. "'Cause you look like you've got a few stashed somewhere." He gestured to her slowly burning cigarette, still untouched, sitting in the ashtray. And then she looked at him and he caught sight of the most sinful hazel eyes he'd ever seen, and he knew then that he'd never forget them.
"Look, buddy," she spat. "Can't you see I'm busy? If I wanted to be bothered I wouldn't be sitting alone, now would I?"
Donny nodded and ran his tongue over his top teeth, trying to come up with something else suave to say. This girl was so obviously from New Jersey; she had that kind of attitude that Donny knew all too well from the girls back home in Boston. (And of course the accent was a dead giveaway.) Back home, he knew how to counteract the Boston girls – either mumble and nod and pretend to listen or turn around and walk away and pray that they don't notice. But he had to watch himself when it came to Jersey girls; they were a breed all their own. Like feral cats.
"Yeah, okay," Donny said, restarting the conversation before the girl got up and left. "Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot here." He stuck out his hand for her to shake. "I'm Donny Donowitz and it was totally your fault."
The girl smiled mirthlessly and shook Donny's hand so hard that he writhed in his seat and let out an awkward strangled groan. Then she said, "I'm Dinah and I think you're a pig."
Donny tried to laugh, but all he could think was oh sweet mother my fingers are broken. Instead of saying it out loud and ruining his suave guy impression, he opted to ask,
"So Dinah, is there a last name that goes with that?"
Dinah, who had begun to read again, looked up and said simply, "Nope," before looking back down at the page. Donny sighed. This was going nowhere. He pulled a cigarette and a lighter from his pants pocket and lit up, blowing smoke in Dinah's direction. They sat in silence for a good five and a half minutes, Dinah reading and taking the occasional sip of her coffee, and Donny smoking his cigarette and watching the rain through the window. He was surprised she let him stay there at all. And so he dashed his suave guy routine and stated a simple fact;
"That's a great book," he said, and when Dinah looked up, it was without hostility in the depths of her large hazel eyes.
"You've read Fitzgerald?" she asked him, those eyes squinting ever so slightly.
"Why do you sound so surprised?" Donny replied, a boyish grin starting to slip its way in.
Dinah shrugged and set her book down. Hallelujah. "I don't know," she said. "You just don't look like the bookish type, I guess."
Donny's grin was now in full swing. "Well you don't really know me at all, now do you?" he said, and he saw just the hint of a smile coming through on Dinah's red mouth.
"Oh, but we've only just met," she said, "And you've only just started to be less piggish."
Donny let out a barking laugh, and Dinah cracked her secretive smile, finally. "You think you're so clever, don't you?" Donny said, and Dinah shrugged her little shoulders and nodded. He went on and asked, "And why were you so opposed to me earlier? Why so giggly now?" he asked her, and she leaned forward and whispered to him,
"Because I hate suave men." She brought her coffee cup to her lips and took a sip, her eyes never leaving Donny's. He was struck. She continued.
"And I could tell you were faking it. But I'm liking you much better now that you quit the whole 'let me try and impress you with my great muscles and my brooding stare' thing. It gets so tiresome," she finished.
"Oh yeah, I know what you mean," Donny agreed sarcastically. "Chicks use that on me all the time. Let me tell ya', some of their muscles: really not that great." Dinah laughed. Her eyes squinted slightly and her mouth opened and the most beautiful sound came out, like she had angels living between her vocal chords and they sang the Lord's praises whenever she laughed. It took Donny a minute to compose himself. It took Dinah a minute of calling his name and waving her hand in front of his face for him to compose himself.
"Tell me about yourself," she was saying, and finally, after who knows how long, she picked up her cigarette from out of its ashtray hell and brought it to her lips.
"What do you want to know?" Donny asked. Dinah took a drag off the cigarette and blew smoke in his face, teasing him on the word
"Everything."
"Well," Donny started, "My name is Donny Donowitz, I'm twenty-two years old, I'm from Boston, I'm...you know..." He looked around warily, making sure the section of the cafe they were sitting in was still empty before beckoning Dinah closer and whispering, "Jewish."
Her eyes widened and she whispered back excitedly, "Me too!" Donny grinned again and had the sudden urge to kiss those fabulous red lips, they were just so close, but refrained from it when Dinah leaned back and said, "Continue, continue," with a wave of her hand.
"Well," Donny said again, clearing his throat and leaning back himself. "I'm a marvelous baseball player, my mother makes beautiful lasagna, I think you're very pretty, and I do not, ever, pretend to be suave." He finished with a sideways grin, and then there was that laugh. The angels were singing, Jesus is born, hallelujah, pass the bread.
"What about you, Dinah no-last-name?" Donny asked, putting his dwindling cigarette out in the ashtray. Dinah did the same.
"Ah," she said, folding her arms on the table and leaning forward. "Well, my name is Dinah, I'm from New Jersey, I'm 21 years old, I love red lipstick, I hate suave men, I think you're rather charming, and my cat died last month."
Donny could do nothing but blink at her, and when he finally spoke, he could say nothing but, "I'm sorry about your cat."
Dinah waved it off. "It's alright. He was twenty years old anyway, so it was only a matter of time. I've gotten over it mostly," she said, but there was a hint of sadness in her voice.
"Hey, Dinah," Donny said, his tone careful. But then he thought, what the hell, and went for it. "D'you wanna...go over to my place? We can – I don't know – talk about your cat. Or something."
Dinah smiled. "Or something," she said, and then she winked at him. It was a playful wink and she winked it at him. It was like a dream.
Donny stood up and held out his arm for Dinah to take hold of. She closed her book, put it in her purse, tossed a few Francs on the table, shouldered her bag, and then easily slipped her arm into his. They grinned at each other before heading out of the cafe and onto the wet street, arm in arm, step for step in the direction of Donny's tiny apartment.
The thing about the apartment was that it didn't really belong to Donny. He was squatting, yes, but it was kept in the family, so he didn't think it was too bad. It wasn't that his cousin didn't know that Donny was living in his apartment during his stay in Paris. (He was gone for a reason, right?) He just didn't know that Donny had been living in his apartment for as long as he had been. (Six and a half months.) But that wasn't the point. The point was, Dinah no-last-name was the first and only girl that Donny had ever brought and ever would bring to his cousin's apartment. It was more or less a cause for celebration, but he was too fixated on Dinah unbuttoning her dress to really celebrate anything other than what was going on directly in front of him.
When he finally kissed her, he was sitting on his cousin's bed (he tried not to think about that part of the set up) and she was standing between his knees, her dress unbuttoned and her slender fingers curling in Donny's dark hair. His rough hands were on her hips and he kissed her expertly in the dark, rainy gloom of an apartment that didn't belong to him.
He reluctantly pulled away from her for a moment to take off his shirt, and when her face reappeared, she had her arms behind her head, unclasping her necklace.
"Wow, you really do have great muscles," she commented idly, smiling lazily down at him, and he leaned up and kissed her again while reaching behind her head to take off the necklace for her. He'd barely placed it on the bedside table before Dinah's lips were on his once more and he was being shoved down onto the bed by a pair of strong little hands on his shoulders. The two were laughing as they laid next to each other amongst the sheets and pillows, Dinah's curls splayed out around her and her mouth smiling. Donny touched his forehead to hers and closed his eyes before edging Dinah's unbuttoned dress off of her shoulders.
When Donny awoke the next morning, it was still dark and stormy, he was naked in his cousin's bed, and he was, most disappointingly, alone. The only thing left of Dinah was a blood red lipstick kiss on a napkin, her gold chain sprawled halfway under the bed, knocked off of the bedside table and forgotten in her rush to leave, and the haunting image of her hazel eyes seared into Donny's memory. Other than that, she was a ghost.
So, there we have it. Part numero uno. A few things to apologize for: 1-excuse my lack of accents in the dialogue. I tried my best to make their speech a lot less formal and cleverly funny than I wanted to, more blunt, I guess. I, as usual, said all the dialogue out loud to myself with (massacred) accents to test it, but it really comes down to the fact that typing accents makes me uncomfortable. Sorry for that.
2-my abuse of line breaks. I have an addiction to those annoying lines and I like to think they're dramatic and interesting. Whatever.
3-just a heads up, I get all my foreign language info from Babel Fish, so if it's not accurate when I possibly use it in future chapters, that's why.
SO with that out of the way, wish me luck, leave a review, questions comments manifestos. Don't be mean, or comment on my terrible writing style, I know it's awkward and jumpy, but I'm just getting over a three month long bout of writer's block. It was ridiculous.
XOXO, The Constable