“It's been a while since I ate something this good," he finally said.
"Oh really? I thought you are living with your mother," she said with a sarcastic smile.
"My mother is dead..." He responded.
"Mon dieu, je suis très désolée !" she gesticulated feverously.
"That was a joke. I'm living alone and most of my food is from restaurants or simple stuff like French omelette I cook at home- you got that part right".
"Well, don't you visit your parents every once in a while?" she enquired while slurping spaghetti and sipping wine.
"Yes I do, but rarely," he answered.
"And why is that?"
"Because there is a whole Atlantic Ocean that I need to fly over if I wanted to see them," he answered jokingly.
"Wait, you're not French?"
"No I'm not. I'm Canadian from Montréal, Québec," he answered.
"Really? Your accent looked so Parisian. People in Québec rape French so much that I can't even understand them sometimes. Kudos for you, kid".
"You can 'see' accents?" he said with a Quebecois accent. "I've been living here for quite a while now, so my accent has certainly changed," he explained.
"Repeat that in French, please,” she said with a smirk.
He laughed at that and said while switching back to Parisian accent. “I’ve been living here for a while so speaking in Parisian accent is not a problem for me”.
“And what are you doing in Paris?" she asked him.
"Picking up girls on the metro and eating spaghetti with them at their places," he answered.
She chuckled silently. "No seriously, what are you doing here?" she communicated.
"Eating spaghetti and sipping wine," while raising his cup.
"Alright enough, tell me".
"Alright, do you really want to know?? You'll never be the same afterwards..." no reaction. "Okay, I'm the head of the Paris branch of my company," he said.
She laughed her ass off inaudibly, so much so she had to drink some wine to clear her throat because she almost choked. "That was funny," she finally said. "You don't look like the kind of guy who would run a company".
He laughed at this and said with a wink, "Come and work for me, sweetie".
"Okay, you look honest. I'm gonna believe you. What does your company do?"
"Smuggling cocaine from Canada".
To this she just sipped some wine and looked at him saying nothing.
"Alright, we import and export different kinds of wood between Canada and France," he answered.
"You guys must have a lot of forests to cut down," she communicated while glaring at him.
"Yep. So many that we made fortunes out of them. That's Canada for you," he said.
"So you're basically making money out of destroying the environment? How cool is that?" she told him.
"I like your your living room chairs made out of ash wood. Really durable. Your apartment entrance door is made out of maple wood; did you know that? Looks almost new which is impressive as the building is so unusually old. But what really caught my attention was the wardrobe at the end of the-"
"Alright, stop it. I get it," she interrupted him. "How could I be defending the environment while living in a house made of wood, correct?"
"Wait, what? Kudos for you, kid," this he followed with a victorious grin.
"Okay. And how large is your company?" she asked.
"Is this a some kind of an interview or something?" he said.
"You're in my apartment eating my food and drinking my wine. Don't you think I have the right to know?" she answered with firm and sharp hand signs.
"Hahaha, alright. I can't really argue with that. It's pretty big. For now, our main headquarters is in Alberta," he puts a mouthful of spaghetti. Then he continued, "And we have enough branches throughout Canada, and only recently-"
"Mon dieu, Pierre... Dont eat with your mouth full. I can't delineate anything".
So he switched to sign language and said, "Oh, sorry, it's an old habit of mine, plus your spaghetti is good," while giving her the okay sign. "So I was saying we recently began expanding in France. For the time being, we have branches in Paris, and Toulouse, and currently planning on creating new branches in Nice, Marseilles and Nantes".
"Wow, that's quite impressive. Is your company planning on going international?"
"Not really," he said. "I think we would stop at the French-speaking countries and that’s it. After France, we’re aiming to open a few branches in Belgium. But enough about me” he said, while rotating the fork a couple of times to get as many spaghetti strings as possible. "Tell me about your job".
This interview had been going throughout the whole dinner, and both Pierre and Amélie learnt quite a lot about each other and found each other's lives interesting. Amélie hinted couple of times at Pierre’s cocky and sometimes asshole attitude which she thought could be a bit too much, and Pierre made a joke about her provocative and naughty nature. Amélie couldn't believe that Pierre played the violin for 15 years in Canada and he couldn't stop making fun of her "amateur" drawing skills.
Ever since Pierre approached Amélie on the metro, they both felt like children immersed in the moment; just having fun discussing and making fun of their lives. They totally forgot about the fact that they had just randomly met on the metro #2 a few hours ago, that Pierre is practically a stranger in Amélie's house and is already helping with the chores.
At the back of Amélie's head, every time she waved some hand signs to him and he understood, she felt like she'd been knowing him for years. What really made her feel á l'aise around him was his cocky and easygoing attitude. It was something she never experienced with other guys she met or tried to date.
In Amélie's short peculiar dating and romantic life, most of the men she met treated her as a disabled person, as someone mute and deaf while all she asked for was someone who treated her indifferently, just like any other girl. She wanted to feel like a female playing the tug-of-war of love, but she's always been that cute "special" girl who deserved "special" treatment.
But with Pierre, she didn't feel such thing. When he made fun of her colorful pyjamas that resembled a clown's attire, she felt really special. When he makes jokes about her or what she does, she would feel a chemical rush in her brain that made her feel, for the first time in her life, complete.
Pierre made Amélie feel cute, small, feminine, naughty... things she'd never felt before. He made her feel like a girl. Every time he looked down on her with his cold gaze, she felt protected and safe by the confidence mingled with playfulness that streamed from his eyes.
Imagine walking down the street in some country that you don't speak its language, and you feel lost and insecure about who you are and where you come from. This was not Amélie's case per se. Although she spoke and understood the French around her, she paradoxically felt disconnected from those she communicated with. That feeling of her being mute and people treating her differently resonates perfectly with a stranger in a country different than theirs.
And you're taking the metro in that city one day, when some random attractive person speaks your language and not only that, but flirts with you and shows you how it is like to be a local, how it is like to be treated like a normal person.
That's what made Amélie connected to Pierre on a romantic, almost spiritual level. That's why on so many instances of their interaction, she felt like she's in some sort of a fictitious story where everything just happens, but not randomly, like everything is well-meditated and thought over.
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