Everything Frédéric had heard about America so far had been true. The people were arrogant and stubborn; the metro was terrible and everyone preferred to drive; and coffee was not served in delicate, porcelain teacups, but in garish, 16-ounce 7-Eleven cups. His apartment had no bidet, no fleur-de-lis inscriptions on the façade, not even a complimentary pack of cigarettes waiting in the kitchen drawer.
Yet he was glad to have enrolled at a closed-minded university that rejected the dystopian doctrine of “le wokisme,” the revolting disease that had swept over his native France. This, he believed, was the true spirit of America: the freedom to rebel against the woke agenda, choosing to proudly vomit when the government shoves pronouns and lavender lattes down your throat. Though his English was improving, every now and then Fred’s mind would freeze up, and he would have to stop himself from breaking into French. He dared not let anyone know he was foreign, though of course they knew. So maybe he was like the Americans after all, in his stubbornness to deny reality.
It was Monday, the very first Monday of college. Frédéric walked into his Uzbek literature course, “Unraveling the Myths of G‘afur G‘ulom: Critiquing the Soviet State.” Ho hum! he thought, I hope I never have to take another boring humanities class at this blue-hair university. He scanned the syllabus, trying not to gag. At least they have Abdulla Qodiriy, he thought; Qodiriy’s contributions to Uzbek realism are undeniable. But the other selections are pure garbage! Quelle honte! He settled into his chair, preparing to while away the next eighty minutes playing Google Snake by himself. If only he had someone to play a two-player game with! But he hadn’t made any friends yet—how long would he feel such despair and loneliness?
Just then, Marlene walked in. The fluorescent lights illuminated her pasty skin and oily roots. His eyes shot up, and were cast entirely on her. He looked down to see that his snake had crashed into a wall.
Fred learned from the class introductions that Marlene hailed from Bushwick, perhaps the wokest neighborhood in the wokest borough of New York City. She was a graduate student studying Queer Anthropology; her pronouns were she/they; and though Fred didn’t believe in “des pronoms,” he had secretly always longed to bag a she/they baddie. In her undergraduate years, she had taken part in countless campus protests. If she caught a demonstration happening outside of the dining hall, she would just join in, not needing to know necessarily what the cause was for. Her thirst for social justice was unquenchable.
She graduated with a double major in English and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, penning a thesis on the latent homoeroticism in Melville’s Moby Dick—though she sharply criticized the novel’s personification of queer men as animals—before continuing her studies by pursuing, as was said, a Ph.D. in Queer Anthropology. The summer after graduating, her exclusive long-distance polyamorous open relationship with her partners, Dick and Jane, ended in misery after the other two decided to close the relationship. Naturally, Marlene was heartbroken and vowed never to date again.
Glancing up at Frederic, Marlene could only think: Ugh, what a fugly chud. His Timothee Chalamet-esque mole rat body barely took up one quarter of his chair, and his pretentious French accent just pissed her off. And yet, there was something so alluring about this skinny croissant-muncher seated across from her. Maybe it was his furrowed concentration on his computer—so committed to his studies!—or the way his wavy brown hair rushed out from under his Anti-Social Social Club baseball cap. But just as the idea of a cishet, monogamous relationship started to glisten in her thoughts, she quickly averted her eyes and turned her head down into her notes. He’s too young for me, she concluded, and put the thought out of her mind.
That Thursday, after his class on Israeli Engineering, Robotics, and AI, he shuttled to Suzdan, the dining hall, where he happened upon the Francophone table. The other students were very impressed by his French and asked him how long he had been learning. Then, they invited him to Night at the Bar at the local bar, Fezzos. Later that night, he looked at his ass in the mirror as he pulled on his denim capris, only thinking, Je suis vraiment cet homme! Like Brie and Chardonnay, his outfit was the perfect pairing: a skin-tight cropped black T-shirt with woven brown sandals. He grabbed a bottle of champagne—one of the dozen he had smuggled from home—and ambled down the street towards Fezzos.
Marlene wasn’t planning on going out that night; there was a protest against the closure of an anti-fascist fro-yo spot in New Haven, and she had intended to go. However, her roommate Madeline begged her to no end.
“You must join me for a night on the town,” Madeline. “Please, we can even go home early!”
So Marlene relented. She pulled on her baggiest, darkest pair of dark wash jorts with a sheer silver top (nips out), put her hair in a messy bun, and headed out.
At Fezzos, the dance floor was vibrating with an indescribable energy. Everybody was gay and merry, with gay meaning both ‘joyous’ and ‘homosexual’ in this context. Meanwhile, Frédéric was in the corner sulking, sneering at the stupid Americans and their clumsy dance moves. He took long sips from his bottle of champagne. He looked across the room when he suddenly saw her. It’s that girl from my Uzbek literature class! He realized. She was swaying her hips to “Velvet Ring” by Big Thief, clearly under the influence of alcohol. He couldn’t tell what it was, but something about her caught his whole interest. He decided that maybe it was time to try his famous French charm on an American girl, and began to walk in Marlene’s direction.
At the moment of conquest, a pack of buff rugby players waddled ahead of him, blocking his path. He stood on his tiptoes trying to see past them, but the strobe lights were too bright, the dance floor too popping. When the horde had dispersed, he saw that Marlene had disappeared, leaving behind a single golden hoop earring. He bent down and picked it up, clutching it in his hand. I must speak to her, or at least send her a DM, he said to himself. But what Frédéric didn’t realize, dear reader, was that Marlene had boycotted Instagram long ago for its use of AI, so he couldn’t find her profile. He knew he couldn’t wait until Monday’s class again, so in a desperate attempt to find his elusive Cinderella, he opened up Rizz, the school’s anonymous social media app.
He penned his love letter thus: “To whoever was the girl in the silver top at Fezzos, I need to see you. Meet me in the BestCo courtyard at midnight. Don’t be late.” Smiling, he began to sway to the rhythm of “Ballad of Big Nothing” by Elliott Smith blaring through the speakers.
* * *
Arms locked with Madeline, Marlene stumbled into their apartment. In between giggles and observations of how drunk the other was, she asked Madeline, “What should we do now?”
“Let’s see what’s new on Rizz!” was Madeline’s response, which is completely normal for a graduate student.
They collapsed on Marlene’s bed and began to scroll mindlessly through the app. It was mostly the usual complaints about the dining hall food and slightly concerning misogynistic comments: nothing too interesting. Suddenly, Madeline’s eyes lit up.
“Marlene!” she exclaimed, “This Rizz post is about you!”
“Really?” Marlene asked, “No fucking way!”
“Yes fucking way,” was Madeline’s response.
And there it was. They both stared at Frédéric’s desperate Rizz post for a moment before Madeline said, “You have to go meet whoever wrote this in the BestCo courtyard!”
Marlene’s first instinct was to roll her eyes and object. After all, she was above this childish hookup culture, and she was writing a chapter about it in her dissertation! But curiosity, that tricky fiend, got the better of her.
“Alright. Maybe I’ll go.”
“Hurry! You’re going to have to run—it’s already 11:55!”
Frédéric leaned coolly against one of the trees in the BestCo courtyard (fondly nicknamed “The Asshole”), smoking one of the last coffee-flavored cigarettes that he had smuggled over from Gallia. He kept an eye on his watch, watching as the minute hand inched closer and closer to midnight. He sighed. Maybe she wouldn’t show up after all. Maybe this place was not for the romantics after all. Suddenly, he heard a rustling noise, and Marlene stumbled out of one of the bushes that framed the entrance of the courtyard.
“Bonsoir,” said Frédéric after a moment.
“Hi, my pronouns are she/they, what are yours?” responded Marlene.
Frédéric resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he couldn’t deny that something was charming about her woke earnestness. For a second, they stared at each other, not moving, just waiting for the other to say something or do something—when Frédéric leaned in and kissed her.
“I’m glad you made that Rizz post,” Marlene said, wrapped up in the satin sheets in his twin-size bed. The morning sunlight poured in through his window. “I never would have been so brave as to make the first move.”
“C’est simple, ma chérie…I couldn’t resist your beautiful dance moves and even more beautiful…mind,” said Frédéric after a moment of thinking, not wanting to seem like he was objectifying her. Maybe Marlene was already starting to rub off on him, and he decided that maybe being woke wasn’t so bad after all.
In true Ezleyan University fashion, they told their respective friends and acquaintances that they had “hooked up but didn’t have sex.” That was a triumph enough. Nonetheless, they continued to see each other, enjoying Suzdan dates and picnics on Toss Hill before deciding to make it “official” after three weeks of seeing each other.
Frédéric would invite Marlene to France for winter break, where they would do all the traditional French activities of swimming in the Seine and eating croissants at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Slowly but surely, they fell in love, spending many nights together in Frédéric’s tiny BestCo twin XL.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Birdy & Bea
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