Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Third week in December, I risked my life and rented a Vélib to ride to work. Face-smacking loveliness of a day, and while I navigated around Place de la Concorde and began climbing up the Champs-Elysées, I heard a loud rushing RRRrrriiiiiipppppppp. Whence cometh hell.

It had sounded like a scooter revving its engine. In fact, my crotch was gone. I’d pedaled too hard, and the seat had been ripped out from my jeans. So I made a diaper of my trench coat, attended a meeting, and rode the Métro home to change my pants.

Around the same time, the president became enviable. “Bling bling” Sarkozy had a new squeeze: Carla Bruni, ex-model, successful musician. And where did Sarko l’Américain take his new girlfriend for the weekend? Disneyland Paris. Sarkozy was in love—same for the newspapers, with the spectacle. Especially because Bruni was the ex of Donald Trump and Mick Jagger, and she confirmed the papers’ worst suspicions about Sarkozy’s lust for celebrity, especially non-French celebrity (never mind Bruni’s thing for powerful men).

“Power crazy, this girl,” Julie said, confirming much of what Paris thought, “but it’s true, she can sing.”

According to reports, also attending the Disneyland Paris weekend were Bruni’s mother, a concert pianist, and Bruni’s son, whom she’d had with Raphaël Enthoven, a philosopher whom The New York Times reported Ms. Bruni had stolen away from an author named Justine Levy, who was the daughter of the philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, and who’d gone on to write a novel about Bruni’s romantic poaching.

Sometimes the French were so incredibly French—so cultured, so reliably contradictory—it thrilled me. There was nothing else to say. What a wonderful place.

From Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin

I refilled our cups and asked Bruno if there was any food a Parisian wouldn’t pair with champagne.

Looking back, I think, Oh, the sum of small acts …

“Cheeseburger?” I said.

Bruno turned away from his computer. “Cheeseburger, why do you always talk about cheeseburger? But it’s not bad, sure.”

“How about sushi?”

“Sushi, beer is better,” Bruno said, “but sure, champagne.”

“That works?” I said. Ça marche?

“That works,” Bruno said. Ça marche.

Ça marche was my phrase of the month.

“What about cheese?” I said. “A platter of cheeses?”

Bruno said, “Now this is tricky.” He explained that it depended on the cheeses served and the type of champagne. Perhaps a rosé? He’d have to think about it. Next I asked him what was required for a proper French Christmas dinner.

“Shellfish,” Bruno said. “Parisians eat shellfish.”

“This is also not bad with champagne,” he added.

Several times in those eighteen months, over coffee, at lunch, Bruno explained to me that native Parisians were disappointed by default. “We say pas mal before we say très bien. Look where we live. If you have Paris, what lives up to it? The strikes—you know, the fathers went on strike, so the sons follow. But it’s theater now. Everything changes.”

From Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin

There was a lot to observe in Paris about seduction, about the Parisian manner of seduction. If only because seduction was the base syrup of most exchanges, business or otherwise, along with confrontation.

I found more lessons in my coworkers’ social-media updates than in watching lovers make out along the Seine—most of those lovers being tourists. Of course, plenty of French people still made out along the Seine; they simply had more company these days, Paris having so many goldfish in the privacy of their bowls …

Anyway, my French coworkers used the Web pretty much the same as Americans did, but with greater respect for individual privacy—I never saw photos of any coworkers shotgunning beers, though perhaps shotgunning beers wasn’t the best test case—and, in almost all exchanges, with flirtation.

There was also greater tolerance for sexy material. Men, and plenty of women, would get up from their desks to cluster around what ever nude flesh was trending on the Web. Of course, it was excused as a business exercise; we worked in an ad agency, and we required inspiration. And French advertising didn’t lack for nudity. Like one condom TV spot that got passed around. Six of us clustered around Josette’s computer. The video showed a woman’s face and bare breasts responding to something being done to her offscreen—a lot of tickling, perhaps, during an earthquake.

“What I like is the music,” Josette said. The soundtrack had a young Wayne Newton saying thanks in German. “That and the joy that is presented by the contrast, rather than anything nasty.”

The men chimed in, Ah oui, la musique …

From Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin