Frankie in Paris (16 page)

***

Long
shadows of impending evening blossomed around me.

“Hello?
 
Erm,
bonjour
?”
 
A pleasant male voice invaded my
thoughts.
 
At first I thought I was
hallucinating.

“Oui?”
 
I turned to see two men around my age.
 
They sat at a small round café table, smoking
cigarettes.
 
One had a goatee and thick,
black hair.
 
Both of his ears were
pierced with gigantic imitation diamonds.
 
The other young man was blonde and had red, ruddy cheeks.
 
I made a mental bet that they had both played
high school football.
 

“YOU,”
shouted the goateed smoker, “ARE A BEAUTIFUL FRENCH GIRL,”
 
speaking "French" like my
grandmother.
 
He tapped his cigarette
into an ashtray.

“YES,”
said the other one.
 
Although he looked
young, his hairline had begun to recede. “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.
 
TRESS BELLY.”
 
They both spoke LuluFrench, it seemed.
 
No actual translation of language required:
 
just
really
loud,
really
annunciated speech.

I
couldn’t decide whether or not to play along or cut them some slack.
 
I split it.
 
50-50.
 

“
Merci beaucoup, Messieurs
!”
 

“I
think she understood us, dude,” the blonde one said.
 

“
Oui oui
!”
 
I leaned on their table, “Because I’m from California.
 
Dude.”

They
looked horribly embarrassed, and I felt the tiniest pang of guilt.
 
“Where are you from?”
 
Future Male Pattern Baldness had his mouth
hanging open.
 

“We’re,
uh, from Wyoming,”
said Goatee.

“I’ve
never met anyone from Wyoming.
 
I live in San Jose.
   
It’s about an hour from Santa Cruz and an
hour from San Francisco.
 
In either direction.”

“Cool.”
 
An awkward silence swirled amongst us,
shortly followed by acrid blue smoke.

“Are
you boys traveling alone?”
 

“Yeah,
we’re backpacking across Europe.”

“Wow,
backpacking?
 
Like, with actual
backpacks?”

Goatee
lifted up his pack, which had a sleeping mat rolled up on the top of it.

“Actually,
it’s not as cool as it looks.”
 
Baldy
sighed.

“Trust
me:
 
you are having more fun here than I
am.”
 
I sounded so convincing that I was
sure they believed me.

“Do
you want to come with us?
 
We’re heading
to Germany
for a week or so.”
 

I
considered their offer for longer than I should have.

“I’m
here with my grandmother.
 
She’s back at
the hotel.”

Goatee
smiled, wistfully, “Ah, a hotel.
 
What I
would give for a soft bed and a long, hot shower.”

The
other one punched him on the arm. “We can go home whenever you want to.”
 
He looked at me and said, “I’m Mike.
 
That’s Tim.
 
Tim’s dad bet him a hundred bucks that we couldn’t last a month out on
our own.”

Tim
sighed, “We have another two weeks to go.
 
We’ve been staying in hostels.”

“Yeah,”
groaned Mike, “but there was that one night that we had to sleep outside.
 
That really sucked.”

“You
guys are doing this for a hundred dollars?
 
Why are you so far from home?”

Tim
shrugged, “It was part of the bet.
 
Dad
even paid for the plane tickets.”

“It’s
been alright, but I miss my room.
 
And my
dog.”
 
Mike scratched his eyebrow,
seemingly on the edge of a crying jag.

“
A hundred bucks
?
 
Seriously?
 
Why didn’t you just stay home and get a job at a gas station, or
something?”

“My
dad and I have a weird relationship.
 
He
really thinks I’m going to crawl back home.
 
I have to prove that I can do this. We figured it was at least a free
trip to Europe.”
 
Yeah, I
know how those free trips to Europe can turn
out!

Mike
punched him again. “Good thing you’ve got such an awesome, super-cool best
friend, huh?
 
Otherwise, you’d be out
here by yourself.”

“What
have you seen since you’ve been here?”
 

“We
haven’t been anywhere 'cause we don’t have any money for tickets! Sucks.”
 
Mike kicked at the ground with his toe.
 
Just plain ol' white sneaks.

“Wait,
Bro!
 
You forgot about Morrison’s grave.”

“Yeah,
that was pretty awesome.
 
There were all
kinds of people there, just sort of ... standing around, staring at the
grave.
 
They must have really loved Van
Morrison.”

“Jim
Morrison,” I corrected him.

“Oh,
right.
 
Jim Morrison.
 
I heard he died in a bathtub.
 
Anyhoo, that was a free thing to do.
 
It was kinda creepy, in a cool way.”
 
Mike must not have been a huge fan of
The Doors
.

I
decided that I wanted to visit Jim Morrison’s grave, too.
 
My brother was a huge fan and would really
dig it if I brought back a picture.
 
Maybe I’d steal some dust for him, or something.
 
Lulu probably had another eyeglass kit
container.
 

It
was getting pretty dark.
 

“I’d
better get back to the hotel,” I said, as I stood.

“Yeah,
well, enjoy your hotel.
 
We’ll be
thinking of you when we’re sleeping God knows where.”
 
Mike shook his head.

“See
you around.
 
Have fun in Germany.”

They
waved, half-heartedly.
 
I felt for my
passport:
 
it was still there.

***

Familiar
night music was starting to fill the warm air.
 
Would Lulu notice if I just decided to join the party?
 
Plenty of people were on their way to
wherever they were going.
 
It would be
easy to make new friends and see what people my own age did when traveling
through Paris.
 

I
was too terrified:
 
I knew that nasty
mime was just waiting somewhere to whisk me off to those traffickers.
 

My
heavy feet made a rhythm on the cobblestones, which got faster when I thought
for a moment that I might be lost.
 
I was
relieved when I ended up making eye contact with Henri through the front window
of Le Hôtel de
Lutèce
.
 
Beckoning to me, he
smiled.

“Well,
she returns!”
 
I nodded and leaned on his
counter. “So, what was Lu Day doing wiz all zat ice?”

“Trust
me, you don’t want to know.
 
I wish I
didn’t know.”
 
Putting a hand on each
cheek, I rested my elbows on the surface of the counter.
 
“Can you tell me how to get to Jim Morrison’s
grave?”

“
Oui
.
 
I was wondering if you might ask me zat sometime.”
 
Snickering, he brought a map up from his
desk.
 
“You are looking for
Le Cimetière du
Père-Lachaise
.
 
         
You know, zere are quite a few famous
people buried there. Not just “Light My Fire.”
 
How about Proust?”

The name sounded sort of familiar.
 

He
raised an eyebrow.
 
“Yves Montand?”

I
shook my head.

“Gertrude
Stein?
 
Isadora Duncan?
 
They were American.”

I
shrugged.

Laughing,
he handed me the map.
 
I saluted him,
snapping my feet together and spinning around toward the elevator
—finding
myself nose to nose with
Monsieur
Eyebrow Piercing.
 

“Uh.
 
Hi.”
 

What
I really wanted to say was:
 
“Hey
there.
 
Sorry my Grandmother is such a
freak.
 
I don’t know another person on
the planet who would cover themselves in ice from the hotel machine.
 
I realize that this is unbalanced
behavior.
 
Oh, and another thing:
 
she may or may not have given you the
impression that I was single and looking for a date
—o
r, rather, looking to hire a companion for the evening.
 
The truth is I have a really cute boyfriend
at home who wouldn’t appreciate that.
 
Not one bit.
 
Basically, take
whatever she says or asks you to do and ignore it.
 
Thankyouverymuch.”

We
both leaned to the left, then the right, trying to step away.
 
After a bit of awkward dancing, we managed to
separate and walk in our intended directions:
 
he toward the front desk and I to the elevator.
 
Turning to look back at him, I saw with
horror that he had turned to look back at me, too.

I
pushed the elevator button about eight times, very quickly.
 
Everyone knows it
 
comes down faster if you do that.

Before
opening the door to our room, I hesitated for a moment.
 
What kind of surprise might be waiting for me
there?
 
It was becoming steadily more
obvious that my grandmother did not think like everyone else.
 
As if I hadn’t known that, like, since
birth.
 

She
was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, wearing her munchkin outfit
—
wicker shoes waiting beneath her feet
—
drinking from her water bottle and watching the
television.
 
Nary an ice cube in sight.

“There
you are!”
 
She held out her water bottle,
in offering to me.
 
I shook my head and
closed the door behind me.
 
“It starting
to get dark.
 
I’m glad you came back.”

“I
just needed to get out for a minute.
 
I
met some American boys.”
 
I told her the
story about how they thought I was “tress belly,” and she laughed.
 
It all felt so, well,
normal
.

This
worried me.

I
needed to let go of the vision in my head.
 
It stuck there as if it were frozen in place.
 
Which indeed, it was.
 
In the literal sense of the word.

“We
must visit the Eiffel
Tower.”
 
She nodded to emphasize her suggestion.

“
Must
we go tonight?
 
I’ve had a…rough day.”
 

“Well,
I’m just worried that our time is running out.
 
If we don’t go tonight and something happens in the next day or so, we
might not be able to see France’s
most famous tourist destination.”

What does she think is going to
happen?
 
Does she plan on doing something
weirder than getting detained by a security guard or sending me out with an
escort?

“Can
we eat first?”
 

“I
have some mints in my purse.”

“That
isn’t what I meant.
 
I was talking about,
like, dinner.”

“All
you do is talk about eating.”

“That’s
because all you do is avoid taking me out to eat.”

“Fine.
 
We’ll
eat
.”
 
She was acting like I was making an
outlandish request.
 

***

Dragging
her to a café which I had been eyeing since we arrived in the country, I
ordered the onion soup:
 
it lived up to
its alluring scent. Lulu just sat and glowered at me
—
she had toted her water with her.
 
Two giant croutons floated on top of the
soup, and I willed them down to the bottom, letting them soak up the fragrant
juices.

Once
again I was struck with the air of romance up and down the simple street.
 
A woman leaned out of her apartment window at
the waist and draped a wet plaid skirt over her window box to dry.
  
I could only see her shadowy form since the
sun was going down behind her building, blinding me with rich oranges and
yellows.
  
I realized that I hadn’t
really been breathing since I walked in on Lulu and her sordid, indiscreet
affair with the ice machine.
 

“Did
you get your hair done?”
 
Is she finally noticing?

“Yes.”
Scooping up a soggy crouton with my spoon, my stomach thanked me as I took a
bite of the wonderful soup.
 

“When
did you do that?”

“When
you were… uh… cooling down, this afternoon.”

“It
looks very French.
 
You look like you
should be doing silent movies.”

That
was most likely as close to a compliment as I was going to get.
 
As
 
I
finished eating, she began impatiently drumming her fingers on the tabletop.
 
I hadn’t even wiped
 
my mouth when she stood up and grabbed her
purse from the back of the wrought iron chair.

“How
are we getting there?”
 
I asked.
 
She looked at me incredulously, noting that I
had not yet risen from my seat.

“Well,
I
—
”

I
didn’t let her finish.
 
“We’re taking a cab.
 
I will pay for it if I have to.”

“Fine!”

“Fine.”
 
I was relieved that she didn’t try to talk me
out of it, but annoyed that I would be footing the bill.
 
I had hoped that she would say something
along the lines of, “Oh, don’t be silly, I’ll pay for the ride.”
 
Sometimes I’m a slow learner.

I
paid the server.
 
It seemed that my
grandmother was finished with providing meals for me, as well.

***

A
sleek black Mercedes Benz pulled up to the curb, with a beautiful blonde woman
wearing dark sunglasses behind the wheel.
 
Several diamond tennis bracelets clung to her right wrist, and a giant
leather Gucci bag slumped on the seat next to her.

“
Cherchez-vous un trajet
?”
 
She wanted to know if we were looking for a
ride.

“
Oui
!”
 
Nodding furiously and opening the rear passenger door, I slid into the
backseat.
 
The interior was tan leather
and smelled fantastic.
 
So much better
than “new car” smell at the carwash.

“What
do you think you are doing?”
 
Lulu
planted herself at the curb and wouldn’t budge.

“I
am taking this ride.”

“But
it doesn’t even say taxi on it or anything.
 
How do we know that
—
”

“In
zee car, Lady!”
 
ordered our chauffeur.

Lulu
reluctantly got in and closed the door.
 
The driver took off
 
like a
competitor in the Indy 500!

“What
is your destination?”
 
Her English was
flawless, but I could hardly hear her over the squealing tires.

 
"We’d like to go to the Eiffel Tower.”
 
Lulu was right.
 
Not even a small sticker signifying that this
was public transportation.

She
quoted us a price, which was comparable to around twenty American dollars.

“Deal.”
 
I nodded my head and Lulu sighed.
 
I could practically read her mind:
 
I was never going learn to bargain for
anything.

What
followed was the wildest ride that either of us had ever experienced.
 
You know those spy movies where the driver is
being chased by
—
insert your government agency here
—
and he/she zips between buildings, on top of sidewalks,
tipping fruit carts, etc.?
 
This ride was
more creative and infinitely scarier, speaking as a passenger.
     

I witnessed
more middle fingers rising toward our vehicle than any other ride in
history.
 
People screamed at us, spewing
profanity in their native languages.
 
She
ran over a small tree with her bumper, and I could not imagine how the sleek
black car remained, well, sleek and black.
 

Lulu
was totally beside herself.
 
Her eyes
were squeezed shut, and she clutched her alligator bag on her lap with so much
force that her knuckles were drained of blood.
 
I was pretty sure that she was praying, but her lips were barely moving.

“So,
ah, what’s your story?”
 
I shouted over
the sound of the roaring engine and squealing tires.
 
At the moment, the driver was squeezing
between two cars parked on the street, like a motorcycle might do.
 
Or a bicycle. Something much smaller than a
Mercedes Benz.
 
I held my breath because
I was sure that we were going to get stuck in between them.
 
Wedged in, like
—
well, I don’t know what, but it would be a tight squeeze.

“
C’est mon petit ami
.
 
He is a bastard!
 
He used
my
money to take
her
out to dinner!
 
For
zee past two years!”
 
Looking over her
shoulder at me, she narrowly missed a pole. "Twelve years!
 
This is what he does to thank me for twelve
years of my life!”
 
A quick
Mon Dieu
! escaped from her mouth, as our
two side wheels jumped over a curb and back down again.
 

“Let
me guess,” I was beginning to worry a bit;
 
Lulu was still praying,
 
“this is
your boyfriend’s car?”
 

“
Oui
!
 
This is his car and I am going to
drive
it into the ground
!”
 
she growled,
 
letting out a maniacal cackle and making a
hard left onto a new street.
 
A group of
students heard her coming and jumped out of the way.
 

“Lovely,”
I said under my breath.

“I’m
going to make some money, first, since he spent all of MINE on HER!”

“Do
something, Francesca!”
 
Lulu screeched.

“Like
what?”
 

“Well,”
she yelled, “like, stop this car!”

“It’s
too heavy!”
 
I squealed in horror.

“Move
some of the stuff she keeps on hitting, then
—"

As
if on cue, our frenzied driver smacked into a silver garbage can.

“She’s
too fast for me!”
 
I couldn’t anticipate
where she was going in time to remove items from our path.

Turning
a corner in a way that seemed impossible, she drove so fast that it was almost
as though the car would have to
bend
to
get around at the speed that she was moving.
 
I pitied all those poor, formerly beautiful cobblestones.
 
They would all have black tire marks on them
now.

Not
a moment too soon, she pulled to a very quick stop at the curb in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Lulu’s
head whipped back, and she opened her eyes.
 

“Pay
me,
s'il vous plaît
.”
 
The woman pulled her glasses down to her
nose, revealing beautiful
—
but completely
lunatic
—
turquoise eyes.
 
Licking her very French lips, she turned and
thrust her palm into the back seat.

I
handed her the money, then realized that my grandmother had already exited the
car.

Before
I had even completely closed the rear door, the crazed driver squealed away
from the curb.
 
The
 
natural force of inertia made it swing closed
as she made a U turn in the middle of a crowded intersection.

My grandmother
grabbed my arm and took a deep breath.

“I
feel woozy,” she said.

I
could relate. My boots had never felt more like lead weights, as I bent over at
my waist and held my knees while I took a deep breath.

***

The
sun had almost completely gone, leaving everything in shades of purple.
 
When I stood up and turned around, I was
stunned by the beautiful sight before me.
 

La
Tour Eiffel.
 
It looked like a gigantic
Christmas tree
—
tall enough for God, Himself, to plop the
star on top.
     

This might have even been worth Mr. Toad’s
Wild Ride.
 

From
where I was standing, it looked like the structure went up and on forever.
 
There was a line of people waiting to buy
tickets to board the elevator.
 
The sign
above them was labeled
Pillar Nord
.

Without
consulting my nauseous grandmother, I decided that we would be taking the
elevator, not tromping up the many hundreds of steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
I’m sure she was getting tired, and my boots felt heavy, but that wasn’t really
my motivation:
 
I didn’t think that I
could stand to have her nagging me the whole way up about my transportation
choice and my lack of bargaining skill.