Six weeks later, after a month of thumbing through England and Scotland, I arrived in France with my buddy, Bill. Paris was to be our base of operations while traveling by rail for several months. After arranging to rent a cheap room by-the-night from a woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy, we picked up our mail at the American Express office. I was surprised to see that Allison’s sister Lindy had written me of her whereabouts, since I hardly knew her. Of course I was only 21 years old, and still ignorant of the marvelous communicative webs that women could weave.
“Nick!” Lindy shrieked when I saw her crossing the bridge from the Metro stop at Pont Marie onto Ile St. Louis. The picturesque smaller island in the river Seine was where we were staying when in Paris. Though a relative stranger, she leapt into my arms, and I felt immediately uncomfortable since I didn’t know how to handle such familiarity with one of my distant younger sister’s friends. We’d hardly ever said hello. “What’s the matter? Don’t you recognize me?” she bubbled, looking up at me with a radiant smile and flashing green eyes.
“Ummm…yeah. It’s just that…you’ve changed!” I mumbled, tentatively. It was true. When I’d last seen her she was a petite, five-foot-tall blonde in a pageboy cut, with a tiny body still carrying some baby fat and looking no older than fifteen. What I now held in my arms was a taller girl with a blonde ponytail and peaches-and-cream complexion, which contrasted beautifully with the dark green sleeveless blouse she was wearing. I also felt a good bit of muscle tone underlying her elongated curves. I’d already noticed her flawless legs beneath her flowered skirt as she’d crossed the bridge to meet me. In a few minutes I realized that for an 18-year-old, Lindy was quite an attractive young woman…one who typically had been voted “most popular” in her class. Yet, she was still a young lady that I wouldn’t actively pursue, especially now. In those days, hooking up with a hometown girl in Europe was like taking a sandwich to a banquet.
Nevertheless, she had plans for me.
“I don’t want to go to the Louvre with you. I’ve seen enough museums with my mom. I want to go to the fun places…drink wine at sidewalk cafes…wander along the river…nngh, get dangerous!…go to the Arab Quarter!” she exclaimed later over a cup of espresso.
“You’re with your mother?” I asked.
“Yeah. She got a divorce from Dad and has taken an apartment in St. Germain for the Summer as my chaperone. When she leaves to go home in the Fall I’ll start the one-year Art History program at the University of Grenoble…in English!”
I hid my snobbish disapproval. I’d had five years of French in school and was proficient in the language. I resented spoiled American kids who’d taken a six-week course at Alliance Francaise and had come to the Continent for watered-down lectures in the French Alps while they experimented sexually. At least her mother might be getting something out of the trip, I thought.
For four days Lindy and I partied twelve hours a day, getting to know one another, until I was about to take an extended train trip north to Scandinavia. Unlike me, she had unlimited funds, and I felt uncomfortable – like a paid babysitter – when I was with her. We’d usually end up dancing our asses off at basement clubs on the Left Bank, then I’d take her home on the Metro – Paris’s version of the underground subway – and deposit her on her mother’s doorstep, still considering her a little girl…my younger sister’s friend.