Don't think that just because we've been on Long Island for the past few weeks that I wasn't going to brew up some French fun somehow. While I have been offering Séb an authentic New York experience, I needed a little taste of my adopted culture, so for one of our last meals together in New York, I took him to my favorite (the only?) French restaurant in the area, Citron in the historic old village of Roslyn. (Sidebar: This restaurant was featured in an episode of Gossip Girl, for those of you who would be interested. No names.)
One of the things that I've missed while living in Paris is the option to dine at the bar which is something that hasn't quite trended in French dining culture. Why I like sitting at the bar is because bartenders tend to not judge you when you want that extra glass of wine, they're quicker, more interesting and give away freebies if you're friendly. In an effort to allow cultures our to collide, we enjoyed our French feast at the marble top counter while watching Jeopardy! on the bar area's flat screen.
It was the perfect way to spend a quiet weekday night in January, I was with my beau, a bottle of Bordeaux, oysters from the raw bar and American trivia. Who ever said I was a difficult date was an asshole, I'm really am quite easy to please. Séb blew me away when he answered not one but three Jeopardy! questions correctly. Was it Teen Jeopardy!? No. College Jeopardy!? Nope. But real Jeopardy! with real brainiac contestants! So I knew he was smart and that his English was amazing but I didn't think he was quick thinking Jeopardy! smart. (How annoying is it that I have to keep putting the exclamation point each time I write Jeopardy!) The trick with Jeopardy! is that you have to be quick which is what always takes me out of the winner's circle. To say that I was impressed with Séb would be an understatement. I've only been able to answer one question on the French trivia show Questions pour un Champion and the answer was Alanis Morrisette - hardly rocket science.
The bartender, who came over to fill our wine glasses overhead us speaking French and asked me if we had come in before. We told him that I had sat at the bar to eat several times but this was Séb's first trip out to Long Island. The bartender said that he could have sworn that he recognized us both and that Italian New Yorkers who speak French with their French significant others don't pass through that often. I told him that every other time that I had come in, it was with my mother who I certainly do not speak French with. Perhaps I have a nemesis wandering the suburbs and if that was the case I wanted to find her to see how the subjunctive was working out for her.
And then it hit me...of course. I came here last year with Monsieur Flâneur who told me that night that I drank too much because I had a mimosa at brunch that morning. How could I forget? He was such as ass that night. We sat at the bar because there weren't any available tables in the dining area and sat next to a group of Long Island divorcées who were drinking Pinot Grigio and wanted to speak their high school French with him. God my memory is going down the toilet, but I guess after everything that has happened this year, details like this are bound to get lost.
Wanting to avoid further questions, I denied to the bartender that it was me who came last year with another French man and changed the subject to how Vanna White never ages, which oddly works every time. The bartender brushed it off and while cleaning out a martini shaker mumbled "I wonder what ever happened to those two, they were such a nice couple." If he only knew the half of it...
It was an honest mistake that I took Séb to this restaurant, it completely escaped me that I had done the same exact thing a year earlier, just with another Parisian import. I couldn't beat myself up about it and had to blow if off as an oversight. Had I taken him to the now off-limits restaurant in the 11th, Les P'tites Indécises that would be a different story but a bistro on Long Island? This is my territory...but I still felt really lame about it.
Our New York trip is coming to a close where we have been spending the most time we've ever spent together and I'm discovering more and more how compatible we are for each other. While I did have some great times with MF and even the gross Lucien, the disagreements out-weighed them casting a shadow of irritating conversations and frustrations over our relationships. With Séb, we get along peacefully where on top of being my boyfriend, he is also turning into a good friend. I'm going to miss him...
