Identical Strangers by Elyse Schein

Author:Elyse Schein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781588366443
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

PAULA: Since I’ve been to Paris before and have visited most of the popular tourist attractions, I let Elyse guide me through her own personal tour of Paris, the places that matter most to her. Strolling through Elyse’s neighborhood, we stop to pay homage to Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir at their adjoining graves in Montparnasse Cemetery. Elyse cracks me up when, in her best affected British accent, she pretends to be a tour guide to the “Dead and Famous.”

Afterward, we stop off at a café where I order a croque monsieur and a citron pressé in my best high school French. Hearing Elyse speak French fluently makes me regret abandoning my studies.

Looking out at the boulevard, Elyse boasts about her illustrious neighbors.

“I can’t believe Jean-Pierre Léaud lives down the block!” I say to Elyse.

“I loved him in The 400 Blows.” I don’t have to ask Elyse if she’s seen the classic François Truffaut film since, like me, she is a devoted fan of the French new wave directors. Over cappuccinos, Elyse raves about how much she loves living in such a fashionable neighborhood, but warns me that her apartment is small.

After leaving the café, we stop by Elyse’s place, across the street. Nothing could have prepared me for the cubby Elyse calls home. Without a kitchen or a bathroom, her “apartment” is significantly smaller than my old dorm room at Wellesley. The reason she pays so little for the place, she explains, is that it is technically a storage room for the upscale apartment building.

Before I worked at Variety and met Avo, I lived a more precarious existence, juggling freelance writing assignments and scrambling to pay my rent. At the time I thought I was living the Bohemian life. Now it is hard for me to fathom how Elyse has managed to live in this tiny room for three years, relying on the bathroom down the hall and warming up her canned dinners on a hot plate.

I restrain my urge to blurt out, “How can you live like this?” and instead say, “It’s cute. You’ve done a lot with the place.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.