I'd been searching for it for years. A certain jacket. A sleek, form-fitting, black jacket, something with white trim. After nearly a decade, I finally found the jacket in Seattle and brought it to Paris. I'd never been to France, but having found myself the proud owner of an unexpected credit card, I was off to Europe to write about nightlife on the continent. Except for the neon-lit, windmill dance hall Moulin Rouge, the steeply-inclined village appeared shuttered-down and dead on that sleepy Sunday.
I wandered up winding Rue Lepic, past the stately Haussmann-era white apartments with mansard roofs and wrought-iron balconies, then snaked down back streets, imagining an era when Cancan girls danced from the bar, and Toulouse-Lautrec and Manet sat in cafes stirring sugar into emerald absinthe, once so commonly drunk that early evening was called "The Green Hour. Absinthe was no more, having been outlawed a century before, and the skirt-lifting Cancan girls had long ago hopped down off their bars; that night when Montmartre was snoring, I was doubtful there'd been a scene since.
Specifically, I saw two outside tables on the sloped sidewalk. And at one of them sat a group of devastatingly handsome French men alongside several Parisian beauties.
Next to me, the gorgeous French people were yukking it up, talking away to themselves. Not one stray word was thrown my way after two hours, not one faint Mona Lisa smile or curious glance tossed my direction, not a hint that they even noticed my jacket, even though I was sitting a mere half-a-baguette away. I burrowed into The Creators , cursing myself for having studied Russian, not French.
The sound of "La Bamba" drifted out to the sidewalk. The waitress, using sign language, urged me to go inside and check out " le disco.
