CANDID

Paris. 

 

Have I said enough? Can the story be over now, can it just end here? You know where this is going, don’t you? I’m sure you do. 

 

You read “Paris” and you know my story. 

 

It shouldn’t surprise you to find me walking along the Seine, a wide-eyed and awkward girl tugging at her ponytail. I was not alone, of course, but traveling in a pack of four other students who were just as delighted to see the city of love—see as in to look but not touch. 

The five of us were walking down a cobblestone road that ran right along the river. I spotted a bridge up ahead, glinting in the summer heat; it was the Pont des Arts according to a small plaque at its opening. It was glinting because of the locks. They covered the bridge like a shimmering sea. 

They say that if you place a lock on the bridge with your lover and throw the key into the Seine you will be together forever. Well, that’s the Pont des Arts, the bridge for your committed love, according to tradition. I’m told the Pont de l’Archevêché, an entirely separate bridge in Paris, is for your lover (as in your mistress). 

 

Very Parisian, am I right? 

 

Wrong. The idea of the “love lock” is not Parisian. In fact, Parisians hate these bridges for what they have become. They hate the locks.

 

“Vandalism,” they say. “You foreigners are killing our bridges.” 

 

And they aren’t wrong.

 

Young and very much not in love with anyone in particular, I felt that the bridge presented a rite of passage, not just in the literal sense but as something to be done, crossed off the list before leaving Paris, and definitely not an act of vandalism. 

 

Certainly a friendship lock could hold us in this city, in this wonderful and rich summer for longer than just a moment. With that, I convinced my friends to buy a lock. There were three keys: one to throw in the Seine, one for Sam’s journal, and one for my own. 

 

We climbed the small set of stairs that led up to the bridge. It was crowded. Locks were locked to other locks which were locked to yet another lock, and it seemed that hardly any of them were actually attached to the bridge’s small and unimpressive siding. 

 

I imagined all of them gone. What would be left? Standard metal fencing, it seemed, and just planks of wood. The pedestrian bridge appeared to sacrifice architectural beauty for the sake of being functional. At one end was a looming domed structure with columns that reminded me of the Capitol building in DC. At the other end was the Louvre, a building that houses centuries of priceless art. Sandwiched between these two, in a city constructed upon vanity and self-image, was this ugly little bridge. A nothing sort of bridge. A point A to point B sort of bridge. Nothing more than a link. 

 

Unlike most of the French, I was glad for the locks. I saw them as a statement piece, jewelry to adorn the city of love.  Vandalism was not a word that came to mind—tourist attraction, yes, a sense of community and togetherness with strangers across the world, but not vandalism. 

 

Part of me wanted to take the time to examine each lock, to imagine the lives that accompanied them, create meaning in the names written on their gold faces. That is what I saw when I looked at the bridge: stories stacked upon stories, lives lived, people come and gone. 

 

“How many do you think there are?” Sam said. 

 

“I can’t even fathom it,” I said. “They must weigh a ton.”

 

“I wonder how much weight the bridge was made to hold.”

 

“They’ve probably supported it somehow.” 

 

They had not supported it somehow. After we returned to London, we heard that the siding of the bridge had given way in a few places. Parisians took it as a sign. Campaigns like “No Love Locks” now had firm evidence for the destructive power of such tourist vandalism. The collapses gave them a foothold on the issue, and by the fall city officials had a plan to remove the lock-laden siding of the Pont des Arts. Future lovers seeking to make a declaration will find glass panels instead, ones that are virtually impossible to deface. 

 

If we had had this foresight, known how the people of Paris would treat our wish, would we have still passed around our tiny gold lock and a pen, etched our initials on the metal? Hands together, would we have locked the lock and thrown away the key? Do we still expect it to be there now? If it hasn’t left my memory, has it really left the bridge? 

 

In the moment, I felt bonded—to Sam and Eric and Meredith and Lindsay, to Paris, to love, to the summer. It is strange to think that the Parisians are so against this, that they want to ban people from expressing how the city makes them feel alive and warm, how it pulls out the parts of you that you never knew were there and puts them on display. 

 

After locking our lock, we watched the water lap the foot of the bridge, feeling the sun beat down for a few minutes more. We decided to continue on our way; we set our sights on Mona Lisa.

 

The bridge dead-ended in the Louvre so we did not have far to walk. Strange movement up ahead caught my eye. It was a street performer painted all in metallic gray. He was glittering and moving in stiff, definite motions like a robot. 

 

From this distance, he was intriguing and entertaining. I took this foresight into account and got out a coin so that I’d be ready when I reached him. I did not want to stop. People say street performers are just there to distract you, to get you to reveal your stash of money—make it clearer to the pick-pockets where their target is, which is why I normally avoid paying street performers at all. 

 

As I approached I flashed a quick smile at the robot-man, dropping in the coin. 

 

He mimed to me, hands clasping in thanks and blowing kisses. He motioned for me to move toward him, but I put my hand up and kept walking.

“Kathleen!” Lindsay called to me, “Look at him!” 

 

I stopped a few yards away and turned. His hands were balled into fists, which he used to make small circles under his eyes as if he were wiping away tears.

“Aww, come on, Kathleen you have to go back,” Lindsay said. 

 

I sighed. 

 

I’m in Paris, what do I have to lose? I thought. Take the chance. 

 

I walked over, tugging at my shirt and smoothing back my ponytail. I wished I had washed my hair. 

 

I clasped my purse at my side, hesitant to let it near him. 

 

Standing next to the robot-man, I said to Meredith, whose camera was an extension of her hand, “Let’s just take a picture.” My toes curled and uncurled inside my shoes. 

 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lean in to me, tapping his cheek with a smirk. 

 

A kiss—he was miming for a kiss. 

 

Things I should have been thinking in this moment: 

 

Who even is this guy? 

 

Is this really his career—street performer? 

 

Oh God, is this metallic paint going to come off on my lips? 

 

Things I was actually thinking in this moment: 

 

Nope.

 

Then, 

 

Take the chance. 

 

I closed my eyes, prematurely if I am honest with myself. 

 

I leaned for his cheek. 

 

“If you look to your left,” the standard tour guide might have narrated, “you’ll find the trendy tourist destination of Pont des Arts, a spot for lovers from all around the world. 

 

“Oh, here’s a classic! A real treat! Take a gander at these two: the naïve and blonde American girl (no doubt with a host of self-doubts and an acute sense of her own ability to step out of her comfort zone) and the French street-urchin, a likely mischievous character. Makes you wonder what’s beneath all that metallic paint, am I right?

 

“Keep watching, folks—there’s a laugh to be had here.” 

 

My lips, which were pursed a little too tight, finally met their destination. But it was most certainly not a cheek. 

It took me a moment to identify his lips. Like a ninja, he had turned his head at the last second and kissed me full on the mouth. I was ninja-kissed by a robot-man in Paris. 

 

My eyes flew open as I came to this realization. My hands ran up to cover my face as I spun away from him and began to briskly walk down the bridge. 

 

My face was hot and it was not because of the sun. 

 

“Can we please go?” I called back, laughing hard while my chest echoed and ached from my fast-beating heart. I turned over my shoulder to see Eric, who could not handle the situation (who could never handle the situation), walk over to the edge of the bridge to brace himself. Sam, Meredith, and Lindsay were piled against each other for support as they tried to walk. 

 

I found myself at the end of the bridge, back on land, so I sat down. I tugged without thinking at my shirt. 

 

I should have been checking my wallet. 

 

I should have been wondering where else those lips had been. Who else they had kissed? 

 

I should have realized sooner. I had heard this story before, hadn’t I? 

I should not have run away. 

 

Instead, I laughed and that was right. 

 

Sam came up to me and stopped my tugging; she grabbed my hands. Her grin and the light in her eyes were contagious. She said, “Please, for the love of God, tell me that was your first kiss.”

 

I didn’t think it was my first kiss. 

 

Was that me that that had happened to? Am I sure that it wasn’t Sam or Lindsay? I could see this happening to them, but not to me. I’m not the sort for spontaneous kissing.

 

It was an electric moment either way, not for how it felt, but for the thing itself—the knowledge that it was a kiss. 

 

Did that thing, that tight-lipped peck, count as a kiss? Really? Truly?

 

“No, of course not,” I said and we walked on.