The model from Paris shared an apartment on Ile St. Louis. Her husband paid the rent. He was an ex-legionnaire living in the South of France. She assuaged his suspicion about our having an affair by declaring at dinner on Cap d’Antibes that I was gay. In truth we were never lovers. I wasn’t her type. She liked skinny painters and singers. Her face and body graced the cover of Vogue. She had her pick, but we were good friends.
“We’ll get married when you’re 65.” She vowed over a bottle of wine at the Brasserie d’Ile.
“And you can push my wheelchair down the steps on Montmatre once I get too decrepit.” I sat in the glow of the sun setting between the towers of Notre Dame. My fate seemed assured, although her recent conversion to Christianity has threatened my long-awaited demise.
Just yesterday I wrote a reminder of her promise.
“Pray for me when you push my wheelchair down the stairs. I’m nearing 65 with every breath I take.”
Her response “You are nearing eternity and that’s no joke buddy.”
Buddy?
I think life is funny at least some of the time and wrote back, “I will embrace eternity with a smile on my face.”
Atheists don’t fear Hell until we get there.