My First Date With Her Last Cigarette

by Mark Chester

She inhaled with a slurping sound, as only a European enjoys having a good smoke. Then she exhaled with laughter. Genevieve smiled at me, grasping for English words. She was French, a country girl - earthy and sophisticated.

I followed her trail of cigarette smoke, leading me into a cloud of infatuation.. I was carried away by her presence, having an out-of-body experience.

She spoke. Her soft voice said, “I want you to have this,” handing me her miniature lighter. “ I stop smoking, now,” striking her palms, making a clean slate gesture. She looked resolved, and so cute.

We had met earlier that day in a crafts shop in Colmar, a small town south of Strasbourg, in France’s eastern province of Alsace. She needed a basket. 

 Our eyes met and locked; seconds passed. We just stared at each other without either of us blinking.

What do you say when your eyes lock up? I managed to blurt out, “What kind of basket are you looking for?”  She smiled – she was born with a smile. I thought. Then she gazed downward, pausing to understand what I had asked. I spoke too fast, literally.  

“Slower, please. My, English, not good,” she looked up at me – with that smile!

  I could hardly hear her words. I was taken by her sincerity her wholesome looks, her fragrance, her dark, shiny hair and hazel eyes. She had self-confidence and good posture; her feminine blouse revealed a girlish figure. She looked like a brunette version of actress Meg Ryan.

Maybe mid 30s, I guessed. 

“Yes. I speak more slowly,” phrasing the stupid question more simply, saying anything to keep her attention. “What basket do you like?”  She paused, mentally translating. Reaching back to her adolescent school years of learning English, she spoke in a a fractured sentence. Who cared about syntax? Anything she said was music to my ears. I was smitten.

She told me she left her basket in the country at a picnic with her two children. She wanted to replace it. She apologized for her English, but the more we talked she could remember words. She said that she liked talking to me.

I took this as a positive sign. We talked in the store for what seemed an hour, standing in the same spot without moving. But I was very moved.

“Genevieve,” she introduced herself, extending her hand. I didn’t want to let go of it. I invited her to have dinner.  She said she had plans with a friend, but invited me to join them. She wrote her cell number on a piece of paper the clerk gave her.  I gave her the number of the hotel I had just checked into that morning.

She promised to call me at the hotel later. I floated out of the store- a “basket case”. Then I went to buy an English French dictionary.

We rendezvoused at an outdoor café in a romantic plaza - two people unable to speak the other’s language. But there was a mutual attraction - a wanting to know the other. Sometimes, people don’t need words to express feelings. And so it seemed that balmy night on our first date.

Genevieve took out the one remaining cigarette from the pack.  She said that this was her last one; and decided to quit smoking. Cold duck, she said. You mean cold turkey, I said. She looked at me, with that smile of hers.

Her lighter sits on my desk next to the photograph I took of her smoking her last cigarette on our first date. I am still lost in her cloud of smoke………….

---