The narrator recounts a vivid, first‑person story set in Paris during a year abroad. She first meets an artist who calls himself Christian (real name Frederick) at a poetry reading in a basement coffee shop, drawn to his dreadlocks. She initiates conversation by doodling, which leads Christian to invite her to collaborate on a comic strip—he needs someone to draw the frames. She visits his modest Montmartre apartment, shares a cramped space with a roommate and his girlfriend, and spends months drawing together, feeding off each other's creative energy. Meanwhile, she marries a man, becomes pregnant, and continues the artistic partnership. Sensing Christian’s growing affection, she plans to tell him during a late‑night trip to buy a mop. The mop‑shop scene becomes a symbolic confession: Christian holds two mops, declares he can’t say “I love you” any better, and asks which mop he should choose. She returns to his apartment, blurts out her pregnancy and marriage, leaving Christian confused. He offers to walk her home; she declines, takes a baguette and an apple, and walks alone, reflecting on countless alternate endings that will never be known. The narrative is steeped in melancholy, longing, and the ache of a missed connection.
Chapters
The first time I met Christian was in the basement of a coffee shop in Paris. I was studying there abroad for a year. I think it was a poetry reading, and there was a bunch of people gathered, and he read some of his poetry. It was okay, but But what caught my attention immediately were his dreadlocks. I guess I had a thing for dreadlocks. So sitting there, listening to what he was talking about, I started doodling. That was the way that I made conversation and attracted attention. I was too shy to just speak. And so eventually he, he He was talking about art, about work that he was dreaming up, and he noticed my doodles and he came up. He asked me if I want to do some artwork together. I was intrigued and we started talking. Christian wasn't actually his name. His name was Frederick. He introduced himself as Frederick once, and then some other people were calling him Christian, and eventually I just asked him, what is your name? I confronted him with this dilemma, and he said, well, you know, which one do you like better? And of course I picked Christian. That had a nice ring to it. He was working on a masterpiece comic strip. He lived comics. He breathed comics. He knew everything there was about comics. He knew all the superheroes, but more importantly, he knew all the artists that had created them, had drawn them. He knew the entire history of how comics came to be and developed and evolved over time. But he needed a partner. He needed someone to draw the frames. And honestly, I'd never thought of comics that seriously to consider that each strip in the film strip, so to speak, needs a frame. So that's what he needed me to do. And as odd of an assignment as it was, I was game. I was— I was game. excited to try something new, to try a partnership with another creative person. And so he gave me his address. Of course, it was in Montmartre, in the artist district. And a few days later, with a baguette and some drawing supplies in hand, I Found his apartment. Knocked on his door, and he was excited and clumsy and serious about getting down to work. He was American, and somehow I trusted him. So I went in, and it was just a really common, everyday, small, tiny apartment on the first floor. He shared it with a roommate. The roommate had a girlfriend. There was just 2 rooms. I was 16 years old. The living room, I guess, where Christian slept, and a bedroom where a roommate slept, and a small kitchen. I guess there must have been a bathroom there, but I don't remember it. Christian showed me a lot of his artwork, and he described his vision and his plan, and he had, he had huge plans. He was a visionary. He was so excited and just contagious, his excitement. It wore off on me and I got down to work and I think he popped in a CD or something and we just started doodling. He was working on something, I was working on something, and we were just feeding off the positive creative energy off each other. Once in a while his roommate would come in from Outside. He'd bring his girlfriend. We'd say, hey, hey. They'd go in the room and it was quiet for a while, and Christian and I would just continue drawing. And then you'd hear— you'd hear bedsprings creaking rhythmically. We would pretend that we didn't notice and, you know, They would accelerate faster and faster and faster and— and then everything fell silent. 20, 30 minutes after that, one of the two would come out in a bath towel, and then the other one a few minutes later, and half an hour later they'd be dressed again and heading back out. Meanwhile, Christian and I were just drawing, minding our business. I ended up coming to Christian's for a couple months pretty regularly. And in the same time, I met a guy. One thing led to another very quickly, and we got married without telling anyone. And I got pregnant. Still, I would come to Christian's, and we would draw, and he would talk about his grand work coming to completion, and we had plans of publishing it, his comics with my frames. Eventually, I started picking up very small signals that he might like me. And so one day I decided that it's time to tell him. I came that day with a baguette. Again, I was in my first or second month of pregnancy and I was starving all the time. And I didn't have any money for anything else, but baguettes were a great staple. So I brought a baguette. I was hoping we would get to eat it. Right away, and I had fully intended to tell him that I was pregnant, that I was with someone, that we got married, kind of all in the span of a few months since I've been coming. But when I came in, he was kind of agitated. He seemed restless in the house. He Took my baguette. He set it off to the side. I watched it hungrily. He said, "I need to buy a mop." Let's go get a mop. So I was like, okay, let's go get a mop. It was evening, and we set out from his apartment. We walked past Moulin Rouge and some other. Places of repute that are less famous and more efficient at what they do. And we kept walking and just trying to find a store that sold mops. And the whole time I was consumed in my own thoughts, thinking about how do I tell him and how do I even bring it up. He was talking. He was talking out loud, and I didn't really pay attention to what he was saying. Just kind of yeah, mm-hmm, right, mm-hmm. Finally, we found a store, kind of a brick-and-brack place, and we walked down the steps into this semi-underground space where they had all the mops and the brooms and the Dustpails, dustbins, all the cleaning supplies. And he started looking for the perfect mop, working through this mop and that mop and this broom. And at the same time, he kept talking. And slowly I realized that he's talking about me. He's telling me how, how we met. He's reminding me about the time we've spent together and how he's grown really used to me and how I'm special, that he's attached to me. He appreciates my artistic sensibility. And at the same time, he was looking at the mops and he found this one mop that looked like a rag doll, and another mop that had these long slithers of fabric. So he's standing there with these 2 mops, one in each hand, looking at me. His monologue crescendos and, and his voice gets worried and excited, and he says, Well, I guess this is as close as I'm gonna get to saying that I love you. And I blink, and he says, which mop? Which mop do you think I should get? I blink again, and I say, the ragdoll one. Okay, great, he says, puts the other one down, and heads upstairs to make his purchase. And then in a couple minutes we're outside again. It's very late now and we're walking back to his apartment. Nobody's talking anymore and each one is kind of consumed in their own thoughts. I haven't told him anything. I don't know what he's thinking. We get to his apartment. He says, well, you know, you want to come in? We can continue drawing. And I feel like I really have to tell him. So I tell him, Christian, I'm pregnant. I can't even think of a more eloquent way of saying it. I just blurt it out, and he just looks at me completely Completely confused. And so I have to back up, and I have to explain it, and I met this guy, and things moved pretty fast, and fell in love, and got married. And as I'm talking, his eyes are just getting bigger and bigger. I'm standing there in the hallway, and basically, I'm pregnant now. Christian looks at me and, well, do you want to come in? No, I say, I better get home. It's past midnight and he offers to walk me home because he lives all the way up in Montmartre and I live on the Left Bank. But I say no, I'll be fine, I'll walk home myself. That's cool. I eye the baguette that he left in the corner. He sees me looking at it. He says, do you want your baguette? Yeah, I respond. I mean, if you don't mind, it was my dinner. He jumps for the baguette and he hands it to me and he starts looking around. Well, do you want an apple? Yes, I say embarrassedly. Damn, you weren't joking. You really are pregnant. Yeah, I guess I am, I say. He looks around in his fridge. Well, do you want an egg or something for the walk home? No, I'll be fine. And so I take my baguette and I take the apple and— okay, well, I guess I'll call you, I say. And he says bye. Start walking home. Walking in the empty streets down towards the Seine, I think about how the scene could have gone differently. I think about how he stands there telling me and how I smile back at him and I say, Christian, you know, I feel the same way. I'm sorry. I really think we have something here. Or I dash into his arms, open because he's holding the 2 mops, and I exclaim, yes! Yes! Or I— I'm awkward and I say nothing, but then when he walks me home, I tell him that I have similar feelings for him. I think about how everything could have gone so differently and how he took a chance and was vulnerable and how awful and sad it is that I couldn't respond in like. And instead of all the many happy endings that could have been, he's there alone now and I'm walking Chomping down on my apple in one hand and on my baguette in my other hand, thinking about all the what-ifs and all the could-have-beens. And the incredible melancholy truth is that I will never know. I will never know how that story could have ended.
