Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. —VICTOR HUGO, LES MISÉRABLES

But this isn’t a fashion show and I’m not here to make friends, so I don’t care that every man on this plane is looking at me as though I don’t belong. Besides, I’m hungover. And I think I might throw up.

The French are better at day drinking. Likely because they’ve had more practice, but I’m determined to learn.

Memory is tricky, easily bleached by hunger and exhaustion.

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. —ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Love is a choice. It is the active choosing of good for another person. But like? It is a gift and it cannot be forced. The degree to which we like each other cannot be overstated. Though I won’t deny that we fell fast and hard into love as well. We laugh at the same things and he pretends to be long-suffering about my outspokenness, but I know it delights him. He is my match and I am his and we are both well aware of this.

The friendships of women are strange and wonderful. Fraught and irreplaceable.

The thing about marriage, I am learning, even this early on, is that so much is said without words. The gift of emotional intimacy is that you can read each other’s face from a distance.

The thing about lipstick, the reason it’s so powerful, is that it is distracting. Men don’t see the flashes of anger in your eyes or your clenched fists when you wear it. They see a woman, not a warrior, and that gives me the advantage.

Luxury is an odd thing. You don’t know you have it until confronted with someone else’s lack.

You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it. —VICTOR HUGO, LES MISÉRABLES