A PARISIAN bistro. Four girls are seated at a table close to the door.
Adèle: It has been two weeks now. I didn't leave home in case he would ring. This is my first time out with you girls.
Berthe: He was supposed to send you an e-mail, wasn't he?
Adèle: Yes, but I was expecting a call. We had a pretty hot time and I thought it was worth a call. I would have called.
Camille: Maybe it was hot for you and not so hot for him. You never know.
Adèle (dry): Ask him!
Dany: Do not add an affair to the affair…
Berthe: He has cooled down on his way back to Arkansas. That can happen. I've been told it's quite common with American boys. They cool down.
Adèle: He is forty-five!
Camille: Have another coffee. Garçon! Quatre express.
The garçon : Quatre serrés pour les demoiselles!
Dany: Lose one, find ten…
Adèle: I don't want to lose this one.
Berthe: I do not understand why you do not simply give him a call.
Adèle: Because I want him to call me first. I want to know if he is serious.
Camille: You are too complicated. You should send him an e-mail, something like "Hello, what kind of weather are you having there?"
Adèle: That's not exactly the kind of thing we talked about!
Camille: So, what did you talk about?
Adèle: In fact we didn't that much. We kissed, if you really want to know.
Dany: Kiss him good bye.
Berthe: Was it so good?
Adèle: I can see that glint in your eyes, greedy girls! You would like to know everything: kisses, caresses, size, shape and all. Stop dreaming. Nothing. You will know nothing.
Dany: Personally, I don't give a damn.
Berthe: Talk for yourself. I would like to know. Aren't we friends after all? Aren't we supposed to share?
Dany: I don't want to share a bum. Thank you.
Berthe : Call him!
Camille: Text him!
Adèle: If he does not give a sign before tonight, I am lost. I leave town tomorrow first thing in the morning to trail a couple of Basque terrorists in the Massif Central. I will be out of reach for weeks, on all fours in bushes and dark forests.
Dany: Be a cop…
Enter a couple of fat American tourists wearing shorts and ridiculous baseball caps. They sit at a nearby table. The man is deaf. He signs and his wife translates. He draws kind of a moon on the table and his wife translates.
American woman : Monsieur Garçon, du croi-croi, du croissant, please. Three.
The garçon brings three croissants.
Le Garçon: Et avec ça, ma petite dame, du café ? Du thé ? Du Bourbon ?
American woman : Beer.
The fat deaf American man swallows two croissants in a row. Pushing them inside his mouth with two fingers. And suddenly, he chokes. He turns red, then white.
Adèle jumps on her feet.
Adèle: Let him breathe!
She rushes. She places herself behind him, lifts all his weight up and practices the Heimlich maneuver. The man grunts and eventually a huge ball of croissant shoots out of his mouth, breaking a bottle on the bar. The man falls back heavily on his chair. His wife takes Adèle's hands in hers.
American woman : I can ne-never thank you-you enough for what you-you have done.
Adèle : Nothing. It's my job. I am a cop and "surviving" is my motto. He should not eat so fast. He looks pretty greedy, doesn't he?
American woman: I am so relieved. It is terrible to be a widow in Arkansas. It is so boring.
Adèle: You said Arkansas?
American woman: Ye-yes, Little Ro-rock, Arkansas. Why?
All the girls make a circle around the couple.
Adèle: Do you happen to know a Johnny Deep there?
American woman: Yes, he-he is my so-so-son, why?
At that exact second Adèle's mobile phone rings. She pulls it out of her pocket as if it were a gun.
Adèle : Hello...You say a bomb?...Peroxide?...Clermont-Ferrand. I'll be right there.... Yes, Captain.
She rushes out of the bistro without a word, pocketing her phone.
