The Last Brownie in Paris
Savouring the sweet moments
Paris, je l’aime! I love Paris. A city full of hopelessly romantic memories for this hopeless romantic.
Get a local to show you the place. He was about my height, short dark hair, designer stubble, casually but perfectly dressed in blue jeans, linen shirt, and a dark jacket slung over his shoulder.
We left the conference dinner, and he walked me around Paris in the warm evening. At some point, our hands joined, and he took me through the Latin Quarter, showing me cutesy little alleys, a shop selling Algerian pastries which seemed to be at least half sweet syrup; the sort of things virgins might eat in Paradise.
And finally — around midnight — he sat me down at a sidewalk cafe on a corner, a sleepy waiter serving the last few customers, and a table barely big enough for the menu card.
“I’m not a complicated girl,” she laughed, “I just want to run away with you, rob a bank, fall in love and eat ice creams in Paris.” — Michael Faudet
He glanced at the menu, set it aside on a nearby chair, and gazed into my eyes. I looked at his, midnight Paris reflected in the curved shine of his brown pupils. Yes, we kissed, while the waiter served a businessman behind us. I eavesdropped in my high school French. He wanted coffee and a brownie. I could go a brownie.
A businessman? Well, he was wearing a jacket and tie. Perhaps that was the way all Parisian men dressed once they passed a certain age. I’d been taking notes off the locals, who weren’t wearing designer gowns, but certainly looked like movie stars rather than tourists. Like I did.
A young woman wafted past on a Vespa, dark curls escaping a perfect pink helmet, hot and sexy, not a molecule out of place. I felt like a frump in comparison. Why had my gorgeous guy picked me up when he had a selection of supermodels to choose from?
My man didn’t bother consulting me for the waiter. “Deux demis, s’il vous plaît.” He glanced my way, “Milk?”
I nodded, and mimed eating a brownie. “Au lait,” he went on, “et une petite chose pour ma copine.”
He shrugged, the waiter shrugged, I shrugged in sympathy. I didn’t really mind what I had. I could eat up this urbane young sweetie right now. I stroked his arm, covered in a light fuzz of tiny dark curls. He kissed me again. Yum.
A midnight feast
The waiter slid our coffees onto the table. Small cups, not the great expensive bowls they serve to tourists. And a brownie with a scoop of icecream. Perfect.
My companion picked up the tiny fork, carved off a corner, added a sliver of ice cream and teased it into my smiling mouth. Oh, but it was warm and chocolatey and delicious, and probably a million calories in each tiny morsel. I’d never be a skinny Parisian at this rate.
But who cared?
The waiter took his tray to the next table, dropped off another tiny coffee, and moved away. The businessman scowled; I could see his eyebrow bend in half as he called the waiter back. “Et mon brownie?”
The waiter looked at the man, looked at his tray, looked at my companion dissecting our brownie into two small halves. And shrugged, spreading his hands out. Apparently he’d given us the last brownie in Paris.
And it was the ultimate dessert. We picked up every crumb, and I kissed my man again to get the last smear of ice cream before we hit the dark streets again, the bereft businessman gazing ruefully after us.
Your place or mine?
The question was never asked. My hotel is beside Notre Dame, I said, and we walked back along the Seine, past the locked barrows of the booksellers, the reflections of the grand buildings in the flowing water, the art-deco streetlamps under the soft dark glow of the Parisian night.
We crossed a bridge and passed Notre Dame close enough to touch the ancient weathered stones. Serene and majestic, it was the heart of the city, a thousand tales in every glance. I hauled my guy into an alcove and we embraced. A scrapbook of memory kisses for my old age.
The parvis was deserted, every tourist asleep in their hotels, all the Gypsies curled up on beds of fake gold rings in the suburbs, a lone gendarme dozing in a Renault.
That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me.— Marion Cotillard, Midnight in Paris
I led my man across the square to my hotel, a boutique place I’d found in a “Secrets of Paris” guidebook.
He stopped me at the door, puzzlement on his face.
“But this is Hotel Dieu! The hospital!” He looked at me curiously. “You are not sick?”
I smiled at him. “It is my hotel. God’s hotel, oui?”
I pulled him in, past the reception desk, a clerk nodding at us, past deserted waiting benches, down a corridor under old stone arches, into an elevator lobby marked with the names of the wards. Dermatologie, Opthamologie…
And right at the top, my lodgings: Hotel Hospitel.
My Parisian secret
Travellers, this place is a gem. Yes, it is a tiny hotel in the attic of a working hotel. Once upon a time, it was where the families of rural patients stayed in spartan convenience, but now it is a series of tiny ensuite rooms under the sloping ceilings.
No windows, just skylights, and if you stand on the beds you can look out at Notre Dame a few metres away.
No dining room but a couple of tables in the foyer, where you may make capsule coffee and dine from a vending machine. The hospital cafeteria is in the basement, nothing fancy, nothing expensive.
Not five stars, but for the location, right in the centre of Paris, it cannot be beaten. In the old photo below, the hospital is to the left, the cathedral to the right. At dawn, wander out for the sun coming up behind the cathedral, and never another tourist in sight.
The hotel has a delightful interior garden courtyard, an enclave of silence in the busy city. Sure, you share the oversize elevators with patients on wheeled beds, and doctors might glance at you in amusement as you get lost with your luggage, but that adds to the adventure.
The Latin Quarter is just across the Seine to the south, and — yes, it’s on an island — across the Seine to the north is the Marais, with the Louvre and the Tuileries to the left, Bastille to the right, Opera and all the fancy shops ahead.
There are metro stations at the front door, and the airport train as well.
You’ll have to supply your own Parisian lover, I’m afraid.
Britni
Britni Pepper writes for Kindle Direct Publishing. She runs a blog where she reviews erotica, and rambles on about this and that. She may be reached on Twitter and Facebook.
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