The Cheating Fox

               When she was in her early twenties, my mama was a looker. The kind of looker that makes Travis Tritt sing ¨T-R-O-U-B-L-E¨.  (And she still is a looker!) Posed on our buffet at home amongst pictures of my brother, my sister, and I as kids at varying ages, is a photo of my mom, dewey faced and fresh eyed with hair blown out into wings like Farah Fawcett in her Charlie's Angels days. Her regard is soft and distant but has a coy, subtle mischief to it. My stepdad calls this the ¨Cheating Fox¨ picture, and by this he means fox in that 1970's definition where fox= very attractive and sexy. But ¨cheatin'¨, he meant, in the sense of player. Oh stepdad...

                 When I was a pimple ridden adolescent girl, I used to look at this picture in awe, but also turn beet red when said stepdad would teasingly imply that one day, I'd become a ¨cheatin' fox!¨ I laughed it off and thought that was impossible given the state of my social life and face.

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                     This Friday, French Wine Baron came up to Paris on the TGV for a salon du vin held this weekend. He called me on Tuesday night after I was off work and after discussing train tickets, and mentioned that he might stay with his cousin that is a student at the Ecole Normale, but wasn't sure.

                     ¨Look, I won't be there, I have to go to Fontainebleau to work this weekend...but why don't you stay at my studio?¨

                    ¨Really?¨ he sounded a bit shocked.
   
                    ¨Yeah, why not?¨

                   So on Friday he arrived at the front door of my building at 15h45, twenty minutes before I had to leave to go get girl kiddos from school, and I gave him my spare set of keys. I wish I could have stayed longer to spend time with him, and said so, because I am downright tired of being imprisoned the entire weekend in the damn countryside for work, especially when it means I render 48 hours of my life but am only paid for 20. But alas.

                    ¨When do you leave?¨ I asked him.
   
                    ¨Sunday in the afternoon. When do you get back?¨

                   ¨ Near 6 pm at the Gare de Lyon.¨
 
                  ¨Ah. I wanted to wait until you got back to leave, but I don't know if I can stay that late.¨

                  ¨No worries, if you have to leave before I get back then leave. I don't want to hold you up just because you want to say goodbye. I'll be coming down soon enough as it is!¨

                   He smiled and then I rushed out the door with my suitcase. On the train with the girls I sent him a text message that read ¨ I'm sorry I can't be there this weekend, but have fun! Bisous.¨

                   His response?

                  ¨ :( your studio is cold and empty without you...but next weekend things will be better! ;) ¨

                 I wanted to jump off the train and run in the other direction back to Paris.

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                Last night, once the girls were asleep, I was skyping my family in California when Monsieur Lawyer texted. It was after midnight and he was on the metro when he sent me this:

                ¨I'm on the metro and there are 20 something year old Americans speaking loudly. It's cute!¨

                 Me: ¨ LOL. I'm strange enough as it is for an American girl.¨

                ML: ¨Because you speak less loudly?¨

                Me: ¨LOL that's a habit I adopted in France. Rather because I speak fluent French.¨

                We then started discussing whether or not Américaines in general are or are not coquines. I mentioned then that I might be coquine for wanting to give him a kiss. I had been terribly busy all week, as was he, so I haven't seen him since last Saturday. I'd really just like to give him a hug right now, but he's headed up north to Normandy with friends this weekend and I'm rotting away in nannyville as per usual. I NEED MY LIFE BACK.

                 ML: ¨ Oh that's too cute! Next week, I promise promise promise.¨

                Then it hit me: oh crap. Am I playing these two guys at once? That don't even know of each other's existence? Am I being a total hypocrite here? And which one do I like MORE? oh CRAP. 

                 I am starting to feel super guilty because I am the one who told Monsieur Lawyer that I couldn't handle getting attached if he was seeing other people and now am I or am I not seeing FWB? FWB is such a come and go situation...he's still trying to find internships in California, he's still down South, I want to stay here in the North in France...it's just not an easy situation. No one said things that were worth it were easy, but I don't know where it's going to go with him. I'm still rather astounded that after a year of globe trotting he came back to me. I'm trying not to be a girl and read into it, because one of the biggest held tenets I have in this life is this:

                  If you love someone, you set them free. If they come back to you, they're yours, if not it was never meant to be. 

                  Granted, I do not l-o-v-e FWB. Could I if things worked out for the long term? Maybe. Who knows? I won't even pretend to know right now. Though SHIT, I have to MEET HIS FAMILY NEXT WEEKEND. GAHHHH. Ok calming down.

                  What I do know is this: just when I think Lawyer is going to drop off the face of the planet, he surges back and makes me think he really truly is interested and I'm not going out on a limb here. But he is also competing with down right, hard core, charismatic Southern charm from an until-proven-otherwise sweetheart seemingly out to win my California girl heart and whisk me off to wine country.

                  And I finally feel like in some mad twist of this universe, I have become a Cheating Fox.