Enjoy the silence

After a humid night of incoherent Armagnac dreams, I end up spending the day at Venice Beach with Chloe, watching myself from the outside to the distant sound of airplanes approaching LAX. What if this was Nice, she says. I want to die at the Promenade des Anglais.

I remember being barefoot in the same sand last summer, waiting in devout silence for the sun to come up. It's barely been a year but feels like a lifetime. Chloe was there, maybe that's why I asked her to come with me, but we don't talk about our memories. I want to tell her about the strangely detached way in which I recall those vibrating emotions now. I want to ask her how she felt and if she thinks she'll ever feel that way again, but I don't. Instead I keep quiet and listen to her breathing calmly on my shoulder.

I would stand there in the middle of the street, all dressed in Chanel, she says drowsily, and Karl Lagerfeldt would run me over with a vintage Aston Martin.