The Paris of Our Dreams, page 24
Besides the classrooms, there were still the offices, the teachers’ room, washrooms, elevator, and everything else. It was becoming a huge place.
They had set aside an open space for an exposition, which artists could pay to use—to show off their work: pictures, paintings, and sculptures. A nice lounge, living room, and an exclusive room for dancers. They even had showers installed.
Throughout all of this, a drama school had become interested in joining their center. They had shared some space with the dance school and heard about Mike’s project. After some negotiations, where they decided on the number of rooms they would have, how much they would pay for it, and as they settled their share of the renovations, the center grew even bigger.
In the middle of these renovations, even though they were trying as hard as possible to not disturb the classes, working mainly in the mornings, it was truly lucky that the classrooms had a good acoustics/soundproofing. Unfortunately, most of the other rooms—the offices, mainly—didn’t, so they had to rent offices to work near the school, which was another cost that hadn’t been accounted for . . . and probably a really bad decision, with people constantly having to run between the two places.
Eventually, they settled all of the details, especially about the festival. They were approached by two companies offering sponsorships for the project—Meirelles and (to an even greater extent) Montini.
When Eric, Marie, and Mike learned about that, they just looked at each other and nobody had to say anything: They all understood - they wanted to do it on their own.
Eric and Marie had the idea during a random talk of making a workshop specifically about rock music: the history of rock, styles, sub-styles, personalities, trivia, how to criticize it, and how to listen to it. Eric ended up being responsible for that course, and Marie decided to set one up about classical music, thinking that it wouldn’t take that much time (of which she had very little).
Eric started to literally study everything he could about his respective subject, day after day. He had also started training with Mike, to get better at playing the guitar and he was even taking singing lessons with a really good and experienced French teacher that Marie knew (one of her former teachers).
With the school finally done, they were able to sit back and watch what it had become. They actually got a bit scared: It was . . . insanely big. Even if they wanted to expand more, the building they were in had now zero space left for expansion.
It was a weird moment, the first time they actually noticed the number of people that were passing through their school already, taking classes, chilling, making friends and simply having a good time.
No time to rest. The marketing for the festival started at the end of their workshops. It got a bit rushed to do everything they had to do at once, but everything worked out fine.
Mike had a brutal schedule between taking care of everything in the cultural center, being the central figure of authority there, teaching (fewer and fewer) classes, training with Jan and Eric, and everything else he had to do.
Marie, too. The three of them were exhausted and it was only the beginning: The festival would be six months from that point.
When Eric finally gave his workshop in the newly-finished auditorium, Mike and Marie made sure they would be present every day, at least for a while, to check it out. It was pretty full, and they took the opportunity to start telling people about the festival. It was a total success.
At first, Eric didn’t want to take the money for the workshop, but as Mike insisted, Eric eventually accepted half of the money, and the rest he insisted Mike should keep as “rent for the auditorium.”
The day after the workshop was over, Mike, Marie, and Eric were signing everything to actually create the company that would manage the festival—with the sponsorships included. Mike wasn’t speaking much, but judging by the size of the school (and its monthly costs) and by the size of the prospects of the festival, it was pretty clear that he was indeed going all in on the project.
Besides that, they had to answer several questions about the festival from journalists, photographers, and bloggers in the days that followed. A journalist that Alice had a connection with in Paris (a friend of a friend of her uncle) eventually got in contact with them and asked for an exclusive interview with the three of them together. And it would soon prove worth it.
Chapter 38
A bit more than five months before the festival, they were sleeping during on the last weekend they would be able to afford to take a break. The last weekend before diving into the turbulence that would define the next months. Christmas and New Year’s Eve had been the only times they’d allowed themselves a bit of a break in the last few months.
The streets of Paris seemed to be shutting down. The air itself in Paris seemed to be turning off. They eventually had to go back to that insane routine without any doubt as an option.
Marie was looking for Eric’s hands in the darkness.
Marie had always been looking for Eric’s hands in the darkness
***
Eric had a really sexual dream one night: He woke up feeling sort of lost and confused, because, for starters, he had the strong feeling that he knew the woman it involved from somewhere, and second, because he felt bad for having slept with Marie and then thought about someone else.
He couldn’t get rid of that dream. It felt stuck in the back of his mind. He started to try to think about the girl from his dream. Eric had had sex with many girls since he had left Brazil, and it could’ve easily been an impossible task to remember each one specifically.
Intuitively, he was sure that he had never had sex with this girl before. It was the desire for the unknown. An instinctive desire. Like when he would be on tour, almost being able to choose with whom he was going to sleep that night.
Finally, he figured out where he knew this girl from a few hours later: It was his dad’s assistant.
Nothing easier, He thought. Then, he looked at Marie and felt disgusted for thinking that, especially when she hugged him minutes later, with the greatest affection in the world.
He had to go and take a cold shower.
***
“Okay, okay. Listen up,” said Eric during breakfast, and eventually, everyone started to quiet down. “I’m going to go have lunch with him, and then we’ll meet you guys here with Mom.”
“At what time?” Gustavo asked
“She arrives around 4, I think, so we won’t be coming this way before that.”
“Hmm.”
“Sooo, you guys have enough time to clean the house and make sure you have nice little stories about your routine and about your last few weeks, got it?” said Eric.
“Okay. Sure.”
“You do know you’re doing the exact opposite of what you should actually do as an older brother, right?” Gustavo said maliciously.
“Yeah,” said Eric, staring at him. “You’d rather be honest with them? Yeah. Didn’t think so.”
“What time are you meeting Dad?” asked Isadora.
“At 1.” Eric replied, while drinking his coffee
“Where?”
“That Bistro he likes at Île Saint-Louis.”
“The one that’s like . . . always packed? Why doesn’t he just come here?”
“Not today. I think he just needs to do something around his hotel or something like that. I didn’t quite get that part.”
“Did you make a reservation at least?”
“Sure did. Mike, can I borrow your car?” said Eric.
“Sure, man.”
“You know you can’t legally drive, right?” said Gustavo, smirking at him.
“Yes, I can. I already took care of my driver’s license.”
“Sure” said Gustavo, who didn’t really care, of course.
“Anyway, Eric. There’s still three hours before your lunch,” said Mike.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Wow. I told you’d get bored with Paris,” said Gustavo.
“Actually, I said that,” said Marie, smiling. “We could go visit my aunt, hmm? She’s back in town after a couple of months in LA. We could probably have lunch with her.”
“Wouldn’t she be sleeping this early?” asked Mike.”
“My aunt? No way.”
“But what about here? We do need to clean up.”
“Ah, while Eric is having lunch with your dad, we can come back and clean up a bit. It’s not even messy. I don’t know what the big deal is.” Mike said
“It’s because you still don’t know your father-in-law, Mike,” said Gustavo. “Wait until he gives you one of his speeches . . .”
“Ha-ha. Okay.”
“Good. So are we clear on what to do?”
Chapter 39
Eric had gotten a table outside (a heated terrace for the winter), the weather being especially nice that day, and the view of the Seine was amazing. For some reason, that day, the restaurant wasn’t so packed, and he was sitting at a table alone.
He was a little bit restless, moving his fingers like crazy, moving around the salt and pepper shakers and everything else that was on the table. It has been years and years that he didn’t have to face his dad by himself. Especially after what happened in St Jean, it didn’t look like it was going to be easy.
He even got there ten minutes early, knowing how much his dad hated when people were late. He probably did that unconsciously because he certainly wasn’t trying to please his dad. No way.
Even the waiters started to stare at him at some point. He certainly must have looked a bit nervous. He just ignored it, though. His mouth was begging for a cigarette or a beer. His feet were moving faster and faster on the floor.
Minutes passed, and he just wanted to get it over with. He had the instinct of fighting with his dad. They would both get pissed off and then he would just have to decide what to do with the rest of his day. But he needed that conversation. He needed to get through it for Mike, for Tom, for Marie. For his siblings. For the school.
The clock seemed to have stopped.
He was looking at the Parisians that were in that restaurant or passing by. They were kind of unique. Very fancy clothes, very classy people—crazy hair notwithstanding. Women were smoking visibly more than the men. At least that was what he could have concluded from that small sample of society.
And yeah, definitely and surprisingly, his father was late.
Once more, he refused anything from the waiters, this time not being friendly anymore. Drinking water sucks. “Sir, you cannot stay here for so long without ordering anything.” (Fuck, are you serious? I’ve been here for less than twenty minutes. Usually it’s a pain to be served…) When he was just about to get into an argument with that rude waiter—tell him how he had a reservation and perhaps throw some change at him . . . then ask to be served by the hot waitress and give her the biggest tip in the history of mankind (just to make that piece of shit feel bad for the rest of his life for having judged him like that) . . . Just when he was about to do all of that, with his hands starting to shake out of anger, his dad showed up.
“Hey, Son.”
“Hi.”
Eric looked at the waiter again, and the guy just left.
“Wow, what was that about?”
“He was almost kicking me out.”
“Wow, okay. Am I that late?” asked his dad, smiling “Waiters in Paris usually don’t care if you wait for them for an hour…”
“Yeah, actually. And just the fact that you’re late at all surprised me. Weren’t you always Mr. Punctual?”
His father smiled in a friendly way. “Ha-ha. I lost track of time in a bookstore.”
“At this time?”
“Yeah, there’s one near the hotel, so I decided to go and check it out for a while.”
“Ah, okay. Cool. What about mom. Still coming this afternoon?”
“She’s arriving later by train.” He checked his watch. “In like four hours.”
“Cool.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen. Would you like to order some drinks?” asked the waiter.
“Oh, yeah. A glass of red wine from the house, please.”
“For you, sir?” asked the waiter, looking at Eric.
“I’ll stay on the water, thank you. When this glass is finished, you can ask for that girl to come and bring me some Perrier. After that, just ask her to keep coming back to get our orders. Does that sound reasonable to you, sir?” asked Eric, staring at the waiter.
“Ah. Hmmm. Cer-certainly, sir.”
“I appreciate it.”
The waiter gave him an uncomfortable smile and then turned around. After that, he didn’t come back. He seemed annoyed when he went to explain the situation to the manager and the waitress.
His father didn’t say anything
“What? Are you not gonna say anything about it?”
“No, I trust you’ve used your best judgment.”
That kind of answer shocked Eric. “All right then. I probably didn’t though …”
“So, tell me, are you enjoying Paris so far? It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Eric shrugged his shoulders.
“What about the projects for the school?”
“They’re advancing. Pretty soon we’ll have an insane amount of work to do.”
“Everything’s going well so far, it seems?”
“Yeah, in theory, everything’s perfect.”
“Great. And how’s everyone?”
“Everyone’s great.”
“Great. I’m happy to hear that.” His dad paused for a second. “See, when I first heard this story of having everyone moving to Paris, I thought it would be complicated and our house would get too empty.”
“Yeah, I imagine. Did they use to have a lot of people over, too?”
“Ha, you have no idea. A lot. Especially Gustavo. How’s he doing, by the way? School? Girls?”
“Ahh, you can probably imagine. He’s a smart kid.”
“Yeah, and let’s leave it there, lest anything goes to his head.”
The waitress finally came to get their orders, and then Eric’s father continued.“But hey, tell me . . .”
“Yeah?”
“How are the girls?”
“Isa is doing well, and Marie isn’t so bad either.”
“Not what I meant,” said his dad, smiling.
“I don’t know. I write to Alice from time to time. Sometimes, I miss her . . .” Eric really didn’t know how that’d slipped.
“Yeah, really.”
“What?”
“Gustavo taught me this concept: ‘first-world problems.’ Seems to apply in your case, right?” His father smiled.
“Actually, it’s not like that at all—”
“Okay. I can imagine. Hey, I’m only kidding. I don’t know, Eric. Enjoy it. Don’t take that too seriously. You’re in what’s supposed to be the best period of your life; nobody is expecting you to get married anytime soon.”
“Yeah, I know. It just gets tiring after a while.”
“What exactly?”
“I don’t know. I guess it would be nice to . . . you know, finally get something right.”
“You’ve gotten a lot of things right over the years, Son.”
“Thanks, but I meant about a girl. Have a serious, healthy relationship for once.”
“I see, but why now? Don’t you think there are a lot of girls in the world that you could meet still? I mean, I love both Marie and Alice, but by the way you’re talking, it sounds like maybe you’re putting too much thought into something unnecessary at this point. And in this moment of your life, maybe you should just have some fun.”
“Come on. I’ve met . . . let’s put it like that . . . at least, what? Three hundred girls. Maybe way more since I left Brazil.”
His father could not hide his surprise. “You’ve met . . . like?” He discretely made an obscene gesture and laughed.
“Yep,” said Eric, nodding his head.
“It’s a nice number. Congrats, I guess?” His dad didn’t know how to react. “I suppose you took care of . . . you know, protection and all? I won’t have to worry about fifty pensions in the near future?”
“Nah, I probably do have fifty kids out there by now. Of course I used protection, Dad. Even when I was drunk.” Eric didn’t know why he had said that, but it was the truth.
“Okay, no slut-shaming on my part.”
Eric laughed at his dad’s reaction and comment, and his dad ended up laughing too.
For the next hour, they chatted about nothing in particular, but as they were finishing their coffee and desserts, his dad eventually got heavy. “Son, I wasn’t sure if I should bring this up, but . . . your mom told me that you guys talked.”
Eric was looking deep into his dad’s eyes.
“I just wanted to tell you—and I was actually going over and over this part in front of the mirror; that’s why I was late—I understand how it must’ve been hard for you. All of that. I mean, I actually have no idea how hard, but I meant to say that I understand that it definitely wasn’t easy at all. And yeah, I am to blame, and I judged you, and I was angry at you, and at myself.” He was struggling to find his words. “And I’m sorry. I should’ve been by your side. I did my best to protect you, but I ended up not doing a good job of being there for you, you understand?” At this point, he paused, carefully considering his next words. “We should’ve talked. I should’ve listened, I mean. And I just wanted to tell you, that you were brave that night. You tried defending your friends; and you tried doing the right thing. And I’m really, really sorry that you experienced that pain and that violence, especially so early in life.”
Silence.
“I’m just really happy that we’re getting a second chance to be a family again. I’m really thankful to God that you survived all of this—and for the person you are now. I’m very proud of you, Eric, and I’m sorry if I haven’t made that clear enough over the years.”
