Road to Elsewhere, Excerpt #15: Hot for Professeure

What Isabelle Huppert taught me about sexual allure and the importance of respect.

OVERESTIMATING MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS in two semesters of college French, I signed up for an intermediate class at the Alliance Française in Paris. It was held in an ugly, 60s-design academic building around the corner from my dormitory, and I slinked in there in fear. I needn’t have worried; my fellow academics were simply biding their time until they could resume drinking 2F60C bottles of wine. 

FYI: Before it was a state of disaster, a “fiasco” was an 2L Italian wine jug. Which no doubt lead to many states of disaster. I’d prefer a 30L Midas, actually.

I enjoyed plenty of bottles—all sizes—of that cheap, amazing, perfect French wine, as well, but I actually intended to learn the language in the between times. That endeared me to our attractive mid-thirties instructor, who impressed in her ciel-bleu suit and crisp blouse on the first day of class. She wore the same outfit the second day as well, and that entire first week.