Mad About That City of Light!

Far field with travel correspondent Nan Darien

I'm sure you'll think I'm the Queen of Vulgaria. But when my helicopter landed in the middle of the Tuileries in Paris, the force of the chopper's updraft unhinged all the flower petals from their stems in the most enchanting way. It was stunning: like a snowstorm. A snowstorm in hell, gave a little French boy 200 francs to hand-gather all the petals for me; I'll make potpourri by pouring bourbon over them. Les Fleurs du Malt. Absolutely divine!

I adore Paris, even if many of the residents are French. Don't get me wrong, I'm mad for French schoolchildren—I often wish I could put every single one of them at the bottom of my handbag and just enjoy them like hard candies. Some of the French tradesmen I could do without, certainly, and I'd like to scrub all of the shopkeepers raw with a strong wire brush. But really we go to Paris for the sights, don't we? I always go to les puces, the flea market, at Clignancourt (I collect Marie Antoinette's teeth). I also love the pyramid at the Louvre—all those angles and reflective glass—it's like being trapped inside a giant scotch and soda. Divine! I avoid St. Michel, the student quarter, like the plague—I wouldn't stuff a pillow with couscous, and as for merguez or whatever that "sausage" is, you cannot fool me, I know something that belongs on the underside of a dachshund when I see it. And I tend to shop, shop, shop like a very chic little demon: Cartier, Buccellati, Dior.

My friend Yves Saint Laurent threw a party on the Eiffel Tower. Sublime. I mingled with le tout Paris—Kristin Scott Thomas, Jeanne Moreau, Jacqueline de Ribes, Gaultier, Mugler, as well as Peugeots, Renaults, and other car manufacturers galore.

And then I saw him. The man who I think is the nec plus ultra of manliness: Charlton Heston. In a safari vest. I absolutely gasped for air with excitement; even my watch stopped ticking. Yes, I admit it—I like the tang of gunpowder on a man; few people are more devastating to me than the man to whom clings the faint aroma of recently felled ibex. Chuck asked how I had managed to become a working journalist so quickly; I explained that it doesn't hurt that I've co-chaired the Leukemia Follies for 16 years running. I mean, I have Misha Baryshnikov's cellphone number; Anne Bass still has three of my cake pans. I'm an inkstained wretch, darling! I did a lot of writing at Mount Holyoke! I lived in Kay Graham's potting shed on the Vineyard one summer! I told Chuck that, while Paris is a darling, darling city to visit, it's really a city to die in: Callas, Wilde, Dodi and Diana—everyone who dies in Paris is absolutely fascinating. Chuck asked me where in Paris I would like to be buried. Just as I started to answer, a magical thing happened. Do you know Cheez Puffs, the orange balls of phosphorescent cheese that come in a can? I'm mad for them, eat nothing but, particularly in France, where everything is drenched in beurre, beurre, beurre. Well, I'd brought a can of puffs to the party, and while Chuck and I were talking, the wind suddenly wafted 20 or so puffs out over the Paris skyline, like a production of Peter Pan with too many Tinker Bells.

I bet you'd like to shoot at those," I said to Chuck. "Yes. Yes, I would," he responded. (Can't you absolutely feel the magic?)

Then the wind did a most enchanting thing—it deposited the puffs on the ground below us, forming a sort of rec tangle or plot, all aglow. Stunning. City of Light.

Bury me in a grave of fromage américain.