Paris, My Sweet (19 page)

“In the U.S., they make big cookies,” he pointed out as if I weren't intimately familiar with cookies that dwarfed my palm and could build my biceps as I brought them to my mouth, bite after euphoric bite. “And sometimes in the U.S., they don't bake them enough.” Which is true. But while some people like a crisp and crunchy chocolate chip cookie, I like mine the way Levain makes them: hulking and doughy, and flirting with rawness in the middle.

That's the wonderful thing about the chocolate chip cookie: there are infinite possibilities. And after years of kitchen wizardry, Eric Kayser also had his winner for the fussy French palette:
le
cookie
au
chocolat
, made with Valrhona chocolate and toasted pecans.

I now watched the woman place my
cookie
au
chocolat
on a sheet of thin bakery paper, fold it, and then twist the corners shut by working her hands in a rolling circular motion. I felt momentarily soothed by that lovely little French custom—almost as much as knowing that I'd soon have an American cookie in hand.

I carefully squirreled the cookie away in my bag and walked out into the narrow pedestrian streets, rue Montorgueil's markets and cafés especially animated now that it was late on a Saturday afternoon. That pang of longing in my belly I used to experience in my early days at seeing such bustling good cheer gave a little kick, reminding me that I was thousands of miles from home.

After climbing the six flights of stairs up to my Parisian tree house and saying hello to Milo, I stood before one of the arched windows looking out, wondering what to do. I used to love having no plans on a Saturday night. It used to be the biggest luxury, eschewing New York's crazy nightlife scene for some solo time with Netflix and the couch. Now it just felt sad.

Across the street, a woman in an apron was busy in her kitchen. From her open window, I could hear the sounds of running water, cupboard doors being slammed shut, and bowls and pans clanging against the countertops—inviting sounds of a happy home. Up above, the sky was gray. Across the horizon, the zinc roofs were gray. All around me, the limestone façades were gray. I had been telling myself a lot lately that these Parisian shades of gray weren't depressing. But I wasn't convinced. I was depressed.

No
time
like
the
present
, I taunted myself, reaching for the cookie inside my bag, even though it was supposed to be for later.

I unraveled the paper, exposing my treat, and took a bigger bite out of it than necessary. The foreign but familiar flavors filled my mouth. I thought it strange how Eric Kayser's cookie had looked like it was going to be quite crunchy but was actually soft and chewy. And the giant rectangular chunks of chocolate that erupted against the cookie's surface had set me up for an über-rich experience but, in fact, it was tame. It wasn't like any of the chocolate chip cookies back home. But that was the point, right? There was no sense clinging to my American comforts and beliefs while living in Paris. No matter how much I tried, I wasn't going to replicate my friends back home or recreate my easy New York life.

I had come to Paris for a new chapter, I reminded myself. For new experiences and friends. For new tastes and possibilities. For a whole new way of learning—about the world and myself. I just hadn't expected that part of the “new me” would feel so forlorn that even a chocolate chip cookie would fail to make me smile.

Every day you wake up with a choice: will today be a good day or a crummy day? Am I going to complain about the stubborn rain and cloying cold, the lack of sexy options hanging in my closet, and the extra five pounds that are stuck to my ass? That I have to get dressed and go to work despite the weather, my wardrobe, and big ass? Or am I going to be grateful? Am I going to focus on how lucky I am to
have
a job, that I have legs strong enough to carry me to work, and that I have a family who loves and supports me, expanding ass and all?

I'm not saying you can't be in a bad mood or have bad days. Lord knows, I have my share. I'm a Scorpio, after all. If you don't believe in astrology, all you have to do is ask one of my friends if “moody” and “mercurial” are apt descriptions of my personality or ask one of my cousins—bless their hearts—which one of us our grandmother called “sourpuss” (hint: it wasn't any of them). But bad moods are exhausting. And if I learned anything in that long, dark winter in Paris it's that sometimes if you change your attitude, life follows your lead.

One of my greater feats in Paris was finding an English-speaking GP who doubled as a gynecologist. Faking my way through transactions at the dry-cleaner or post office was one thing. But smiling with faux understanding, feet in cold metal stirrups, paper gown opened to reveal my whole front side, was just beyond my comfort and acting skills. Dr. Tippy was an English girl's secret weapon in Paris, the referral generously passed on to me from Jo when I finally decided to address some “female issues” I was having.

“So then, how're you doing?” Dr. Tippy asked in her clipped British accent. She was a fast talker. Even in the same tongue, I had a hard time catching just what the hell she was saying sometimes. And I wanted to be sure I heard every word she said today. It had been a good eight months since I'd had my period, and a couple weeks since I had come in for an exam and blood work. I wanted to know what was going on with my system. “Right, so I have the results to your blood tests,” she barreled on, rifling through the papers on her big wooden desk, not waiting for my response. “Hmmm, hmmm, that's right,” she muttered to herself. I told the butterflies in my stomach to quit it, that everything was going to be okay.

She finally looked up at me through her large owl glasses. “It looks like your estrogen levels are really quite low,” her voice also starting to get low. My butterflies were now fluttering in a tizzy, Dr. Tippy's conspiratorial tone making me nervous. It reminded me of that scene from
St.
Elmo's Fire
when everyone's gathered at the dining room table and the mom whispers “cancer” because it's too ugly a word to say out loud. Oh God, was that where our conversation was heading? Were my nonexistent periods—something I had obviously known wasn't right but was one less thing I had to deal with these past trying months—something more serious? More ominous? Dr. Tippy was glancing back down at her papers, voice now so low, she was purring. “They're almost nonexistent, actually.”

She continued talking, throwing out the names of female hormones—LH, FSH, progesterone—but I could barely hear her above the shrieking inside my head.
What
the
fuck? What the FUCK?
This was all my fault. I knew I had ovarian cysts when I came to Paris. My super high-tech New York gyno had pointed them out to me on the sonogram screen and told me the first point of action in treating this “polycystic ovary syndrome” was going on the pill. That was three days before flying off to a new life in Paris. I had shoes and books to pack. People and bakeries to say good-bye to. Getting a birth control prescription just wasn't at the top of my priority list. So I, well, I sort of pretended she never said it. I knew it was foolish and immature, and the knowledge of those little cysts had been lurking in the back of my mind ever since. But my Manhattan doctor had also said the cysts were benign, quite treatable, and nothing to get alarmed about, so I didn't. Get alarmed. Until now.

“So, what does that mean exactly?” I asked, in a calm voice that I hoped didn't belie my internal profanity. “The ‘nonexistent estrogen levels'?”

“Well, it could mean a few things,” Dr. Tippy responded in her speed-whisper. As she started ticking these things off, the words she used, like “ovulation,” “fertility,” and “menopause,” echoed nastily in my head. I felt rattled and disoriented. I didn't understand what was happening. And then it just got worse. “Do you have a partner?” she asked. “Are children something you're considering?” The benign look on Dr. Tippy's face gave absolutely no indication of how loaded her questions were. The room was unbearably quiet as she waited. Inconsolable babies wailed in the waiting room down the hall.

“No.”
Was
I considering children? “I mean, yes.” Exactly how
did
I feel about having kids? “No, yes. I don't have a partner right now, but I probably do want kids. I think. Some day.”

“Well listen, you have time. You're thirty-six—oh wait, thirty-seven—I see you recently had a birthday,” her reference a little twist to the dagger she had dug into my gut five minutes ago. “Well, no matter. But this is obviously something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, especially if you do think kids are something you want in your future.”

Dr. Tippy briskly shuffled her papers again, this time with a determined spirit. “I can only do so much for you so I'm going to give you the name of an endocrinologist, which is a hormone specialist. She'll be able to explain things a bit further and take you through your options.” She tore the referral from her prescription pad and gave me that doctor smile that's supposed to be calming and reassuring but just made me want to throw up.

Needless to say, I was a wreck in the ensuing days. The littlest things—a conversational impasse at work, a rude Frenchie cutting me off in the street, my mom's photo on the fridge—were all it took to turn me into a geyser of salty tears. I had to wait two weeks before I could get in to see the endocrinologist, which left me, once again, with too much time inside my head. Alone with my thoughts. Doubting myself.

I kept hearing Dr. Tippy asking:
Are
children
something
you're considering?
It was a good question—one that I had cleverly avoided for years. I had always thought that I first needed to meet someone who knocked my socks off. Someone I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Then, maybe then, I'd feel strongly enough about having kids. To me, starting a family was the result of loving someone so incredibly much that you wanted to make a baby with him. While I had been in love with Max and had lovely memories of Eric, I had been too young or our situations just weren't right for that sort of commitment.

Had I forever altered my life, being so heedless about my biological clock? Would those young and fertile, willfully ignorant, years come back to haunt me? While I still didn't necessarily know if I wanted babies, I certainly didn't want anyone telling me they weren't an option.

As I muddled through my angst, my instinct was to call one of my girlfriends back home, but I didn't feel right doing that. I didn't want anyone to feel guilty for their deserved good fortune. AJ's wedding was creeping up. She was getting married in a matter of weeks, and I knew she was excited to start trying to get pregnant. Everyone else already had kids, having largely gone the traditional route of marrying in their late twenties and starting families by their early thirties. I'd experienced a lot of the new motherhood drama with them: the lack of sleep, sex, and vacations. The soiled diapers, blouses, and couches. And the greater existential dilemmas like choosing between being a stay-at-home mom and a working mom, and the pressure to always be a supermom. Listening to my friends struggle throughout the years, I had secretly considered myself fortunate that I didn't have to make those decisions. I knew it wasn't easy. And selfishly, I was psyched that I never had to sacrifice designer sofas, lazy Sunday mornings, or spontaneous sex.

I knew my girls wouldn't see it this way, but I felt if I called them now in a puddle of fertility woes, they'd feel guilty. I had always felt fulfilled and proud of my solo lifestyle—how it gave me freedom and made every day more fun, adventurous, and unexpected. This Parisian boondoggle was the perfect case in point. I could only do it because I was unattached and had no obligations except a monthly mortgage payment and Milo's cat food bills. And when I told everyone I was off to Paris to work on Louis Vuitton's advertising and learn the difference between choux pastry and puff pastry, they showered me with excitement and envy. “Take me with you!” they joked.

But now I was thirty-six years old—whoops, thirty-seven—and maybe the joke was on me. My knee-jerk “It would be nice if it happened” response had to be more carefully considered. I had been recklessly squelching the baby question, burying it deep inside of me as a maybe, maybe not scenario for years. Now it was maybe, maybe not too late. It was a reminder that I had stubbornly chosen to blaze a path of independence. The one on which I was now seemingly lost.

“Oh, bunny, I'm so sorry. I know exactly what you're going through.” As further evidence that Melissa and I were separated at birth, she really did know—five years earlier she had gone through a similar scare, hers leading to a final prognosis that she couldn't have kids. Now she was offering me the comfort and reassurance that I really needed at that moment.

“It's like my body is betraying me. I'm only thirty-six—damn, I keep doing that. I keep thinking I'm thirty-six. But I'm
thirty-seven
—”

“Still, Aim, thirty-seven is young. You have time.”

“‘Young' is pushing it. Thirty-seven is hardly ‘young.' Especially when it comes to being a woman, much less getting pregnant.” We looked at each other knowingly, the indignity of aging, and the injustice of getting older as a woman versus as a man, noted for a conversation another time. “But seriously, is this a sign of things to come? Am I just going to start decaying and falling apart? I mean, my ovaries just decided they were done with producing eggs?! And these cysts that I have? You know, sometimes you grow
beards
as a result!”