PAOLO COZMICI BARKED IRRITABLY AT HIS BOYFRIEND: "SO? Are you going to tell me what it says?"
The world-famous conductor was having breakfast at his usual table at Le Vaudeville on Rue Vivienne in Paris. An Art Deco hangout popular with locals and tourists alike, Le Vaudeville was Paolo Cozmici's home away from home, a place he came to relax. Henri, the ma?tre d', knew where Paolo Cozmici liked to sit. He knew that Paolo liked the milk for his cafe au lait warm, not hot, that Paolo's pain chocolat should always be light on the pain, heavy on the chocolat; and that Paolo did not expect to have to move to a table near the window in order to chain-smoke his beloved Gauloise cigarettes.
Everybody who knew Paolo Cozmici knew that his Sunday-morning ritual was sacrosanct and unchanging. His boyfriend knew it best of all. And yet the unfathomable boy had arrived for breakfast late, distracted, still dressed in his jogging pants (Paolo deplored jogging pants), and bleating on about some ridiculous letter he'd received from his kid sister back home.
I suppose it serves me right for falling in love with an American, thought Paolo philosophically. Barbarians, all of them, from sea to stinking sea.
"She wants me to come to her sixteenth birthday party next month. Apparently my father's throwing her a big bash at Cedar Hill House."
Paolo blew a disdainful smoke ring in his lover's direction. "O
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