Young and Revolting: The Continental Journals of Nick Twisp Read Online Free Page B

dire?
    “ Why, Connie? What happened?!”
    “ Ms. Twisp delivered a gorilla. She dropped an 18 pounder.”
    “ You’re kidding, Connie.”
    I thought my sister looked more than usually blimp-like the last time I saw her.
    “ No, they had a photo of the bruiser. It’s quite a monster. She named it Tyler Twisp. You could tell the hospital P.R. people wanted to make a big deal out of it, but they were kind of embarrassed because she wasn’t married.”
    “ I know, Connie. It’s another shocking Twisp scandal.”
    “ The father is a guy named Dimby. Some married rocket scientist. He refused to comment on camera. You want me to break up his marriage?”
    “ Don’t bother, Connie. The guy’s a creep. My sister is well rid of him.”
    “ Apparently his other kids were all on the small side. So they figure it must have been the mother’s genes responsible for Tyler being so tubby.”
    “ Eighteen pounds! Is that a new world record, Connie?”
    “ Not even close, Rick. She missed it by about five pounds. Still, I wouldn’t want to pass a watermelon that size.”
    You can say that again. Wow, the Twisps carry a gene for gigantism. Too bad it hasn’t affected my penile development. You’d think by now all those years of incessant masturbation would have triggered some cataclysmic genetic event.
    “ Who was it?” drawled Sheeni sleepily when I crawled back into bed.
    “ Connie,” I reported. “I’m an uncle.”
    “ That’s nice,” she sighed, dozing off.
    The other part of the story I think I’ll keep to myself. I don’t think Sheeni needs to know that Twisps have a predisposition toward awe-inspiring birth weights.
    11:22 a.m. Woke to the drone of rain on the lead-sheathed roof. Heavy clouds rolling in from the west. Just a few hours before, those same clouds had rained on English-speaking London, where I could have unfurled my umbrella and ordered beans on toast with admirable fluency. Instead, I joined Sheeni in our tin tub, where I soaped her exquisite curves and she drilled me in French numbers. She says at least I should learn these so in shops I don’t just hold up a fistful of bills and have the clerk pick out what I owe. “Not everyone in France is honest, you know, Nickie,” she pointed out.
    I know. I didn’t mention that the last wedge of Camembert I lugged up the stairs from our local alimentation appeared to have cost me over E40.
    3:40 p.m. No tourism today. Too wet. Sheeni read her book; I practiced my numbers and studied the view out our rain-splattered garret window. Lots of Parisian pigeons waiting out the storm. Seemingly quite at home, yet they have no more French than I do. The buildings across the street looking grandly immutable in the gray light. All the work of long-dead builders who somehow got it right. Rising in the distance: a lone skyscraper—the tallest in the city— truncated today by low clouds. Locals, I am informed by my wife, refer to it as the box that the Eiffel Tower came in. So now I’ve seen the ugly box, but its famous contents still elude me.
    Much noise continues to emanate from apartment of muscular dudes across the hall. Loud bangs, deep thumps, lusty shouts. Could be vigorous group sex (they dress flamboyantly), but from the way they mentally undress my wife every time we pass in the hall, I think not. Sheeni speculates they are Italian stonecutters hammering out gravestones in their living room.
    Ray of sunshine. Smiling Babette just knocked on the door and invited us out for an evening at “le jazz club.” Too bad Alphonse is coming along too.
    11:53 p.m. Back home from musical evening. Still raining. All four of us squeezed into Alphonse’s Twingo, a radically shrunken micro car. Lots of similar toy-sized cars zipping about Paris. Only practical size as they can be parked in the smallest nonexistent spots. Very scary as death is a certainty if you hit anything. Drove to bustling club scene on rue de Lappe. Don’t ask me where that is. All Paris