Authors: Shauna McGuiness
He looked decidedly unFrench to me.
I don’t know where I thought he might be
from, but it wasn’t this particular country.
His wild, curly black hair matched his full beard and he was wearing a
ribbed tank top, which had probably once been white.
It was sort of a yellowish tan now.
A "wife beater" tank top is what
some people would have called it:
gotta
love that image.
“Hey American!
I LOVE AMERICA!”
he chuckled in an indefinable accent and
flailed his arms around, trying to grab my shoulder.
“I love YOU, American!”
He pointed at Lulu with his odorous
food.
A piece of some kind of meat fell
out of it, onto the black velvet.
Picking
it up, he put it in his mouth, licked his fingers, then wiped them across his
chest.
My mouth dropped open, and I turned to give
Lulu a
what the hell
with my
face.
Her Coke-bottle-covered eyes glowed
with pleasure.
“Yes,” she said, ever the coquette.
She practically batted her eyelashes, “WE ARE
FROM AMERICA.”
She spoke slowly and loudly,
doing so, because she thought it made people understand English if you spoke excruciatingly
slowly, with great volume.
How
humiliating
.
“Heyhey American Ladies!
You come to my house, huh?” I reached for
Lulu, to
drag
her away from her new
friend if necessary, but she took a step forward, and I missed.
“Do you live in Paris?”
she asked, in a normal volume and tempo—she must have decided to trust
his language skills.
“No, not Paris, but close.
Close to here, lady!”
“Come on Lulu, we need to go.”
“No go!
You come to my house for real French party!”
He emphasized the word “party” with a hip
thrust, still yelling.
Lulu was rummaging in her purse, looking for a
scrap of paper to write the lunatic’s address down.
So we could go to his "real French
party.”
I shuddered to think what that
must have meant.
Her digging efforts paid off, and she found an
old Walgreens receipt.
“Do you have a pen?”
she asked him eagerly.
Nodding his head, greasy curls bouncing, he
picked one up off of his table to hand to her.
Giving it a hard look, I made it slip out of
his hand.
“Whoopsies!”
He reached for it, and I rolled it across the dark velvet, sending it
off the edge and onto the ground.
“Lulu:
NOW!” I looped my arm through her elbow and literally pulled her down
the street, while he yelled more invitations in our direction.
Twisting away from me, she glared.
“Now why did you do that?
We could have gone to a party!”
“I don’t think that was the kind of party you
want to bring your granddaughter to.”
“How do you know?
He seemed like a nice enough man.”
“Yeah, Lulu and he
really
likes Americans.”
I
gave her a heated glance.
Looking up and down the sidewalk for a place to
sit down and breathe for a moment, I realized that I was famished.
Then I saw it.
A beacon shining through the storm:
the Golden Arches that I had loved since I was too young to say “Happy
Meal.”
“I want to eat lunch over there,” I told Lulu,
who was still looking wistfully down the street, thoughts of what-could-have-been
running through her mind.
I could
practically see the wheels turning.
“Why do you want to eat there?”
she asked.
“That doesn’t make any sense at all!”
“Just... come with me,
please
?”
When we opened the doors, I felt an enormous
sense of relief.
Just in time, I had
found one of France’s
McDonald’s. The smell of fries cheered me instantly, and the familiar red and
yellow décor washed away all of my feelings of frustration and embarrassment
from our morning.
Lulu ordered a fish sandwich and a tap water,
doing a bit of charades to explain her choice of beverage.
My Big Mac and fries cost almost twice as
much as they did at home, but
I didn’t
care:
I would have paid twenty dollars
for that hamburger.
Lulu chuckled under her breath.
“What is it?”
“Well, at least you are eating
French
fries.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
***
We strolled around a little longer and then
took the Metro back to the hotel.
By the
time we reached Rue Berthollet, it was dark.
The air was still warm, and it seemed even more thickly humid than the
previous evening.
Along the cobblestones on the way to our hotel,
we heard music and laughter.
It sounded
like a party.
Still early in the
evening, the tone was very civilized, pleasant.
Getting closer, we realized that this was some
sort of live music street event.
Tourists and Parisians alike held bottles of beer or glasses of wine in
their hands and flirted with one another.
Many of them casually held cigarettes between their fingers.
The median age was probably close to mine.
“I wish
you had someone to go out with in the evenings.” Lulu sounded sincere. “I am
just too tired.
I’m not used to all this
walking—"
“Don’t worry about it, Lulu.
Seriously, I am tired too.
This really isn’t my sort of thing,
anyway.”
I don’t know what my “thing” was, but I didn’t
want her to feel bad.
A daydream rapidly cycled through my brain, in
which Rich and I stood in the group.
I
had a glass of wine in my hand, and we were laughing.
Holding onto the lapels of his leather jacket,
I kissed him.
“Do you mind eef I smoke?” a man with a thick
accent asked from behind us.
“Of course not,” Rich drawled, “as long as you
don’t mind if I take a crap in your shoe.”
I burst into a crazy fit of laughter, and Lulu looked at me as if I had
lost my mind.
Shaking my head as we
entered the lobby of the Hôtel de Lutèce, I stopped—peering out the door where
the payphone was hiding, just out of sight.
“Lulu, I’ll be up in a minute,” I said. “I need
to make a phone call.”
Nodding, she hit the elevator button.
Calculating the time difference, I thought it
was around five in the morning in California.
Holding my breath, I dialed anyway.
“Richie,” I breathed when he answered, “I’m so
glad you picked up.”
“Where else would I be?
It’s still the middle of the night,” he
yawned.
I pictured him all warm and
cozy, wrapped up in his blue flannel sheets.
“Well, technically it’s not the middle of the
night.”
I stopped.
“I am really sorry for calling you so
early.
I just… I really needed to hear
your voice.”
“I told you to call me anytime.
Don’t worry about it.
How is it so far?”
“Interesting.”
Gazing longingly at the pearl ring around my
finger, I recounted last night’s dinner and he laughed softly.
Being able to see the humor in the situation
helped so much!
“Any requests from the land of cheese and
wine?”
“Be nice to Lulu.
Try to enjoy yourself.
And remember, I am here if you need me.”
The call was being billed to my mom’s calling
card, and I really didn’t have too much left to say, so I said goodbye—even
though I didn't want to.
“Love you.
Miss you,” I whispered.
“I love and miss you, too, Frankie.”
I held the phone for a few seconds, lost in
thought.
***
Henri was behind the desk when I reentered the
building.
“Well
bonjour,
Mademoiselle
.
How was your day of
adventure?”
“It was…adventurous.”
I must have looked a little desperate because
he laughed as I turned toward the elevator with a powerful sigh.
“Zat
grand
-
mère
of yours.
She eez quite zee firecracker.”
I snorted.
What a terrific description.
More like a runaway forest fire
.
Giving a half-hearted wave, I glumly headed
for our floor.
“
Bon soir
,”
Henri called after me.
I wondered if he had a wife and family.
Maybe I would ask him. He seemed harmless
enough, and I was sure I would need some conversation with someone other than
my grandmother, some time during our trip.
Already dressed for bed, she was waiting for
me, wearing emerald green silk pajamas.
The pants were hemmed to fit her diminutive height.
Her top was short-sleeved and had buttons all
the way down the front.
Glamorous was
she, even at bedtime.
“I should have let you buy the boots,” she
apologized, twisting the multiple rings on one of her fingers.
“I should have just let you buy them.”
“It gives us an excuse to go back to the
Bastille Market.”
I said, “It was pretty
wonderful, wasn’t it?”
Smiling, she smoothed some perfumed cream on
her hands.
The party downstairs was
getting louder, developing a new attitude.
After getting ready for bed, I slipped my
headphones over my ears and closed my eyes, listening to the music and thinking
about home.
I decided that the stain over
my head might just be a big, sloppy heart.
By the time the tape ended, I was already
asleep.
Lulu was already dressed when I woke.
“You need to hurry.
We are going on a tour today, I’ve just
arranged it.”
She was bustling around
our room.
“Where are we going?”
I stretched and stared at the ceiling. The
brown mark resembled a fireworks explosion.
Maybe a bouquet of flowers.
“We are going to Palace Versailles.
Henri pulled some strings to get us on
today’s tour. It was very expensive, so we can’t be late.”
Putting her hands on her hips, she stared down
at me, pointedly.
As quickly as possible, I got up and moved.
A cup of coffee waited for me, with three
creams and five sweeteners, just how I liked it.
Thanks,
Lulu!
After I gulped the caffeine, I
crimsoned my lips.
“Ready!”
Grabbing our purses, we headed for the door.
A big black bus with enormous tinted windows pulled
up to the curb, and I was proud of Lulu for signing us up for a legitimate,
organized tour.
Travelling across the
French countryside, we bounced along the
uneven road until we arrived at the most outrageously over the top, gorgeous
place I had ever seen.
***
Versailles
was built by the order of King
Louis XIV, the
“Sun King,” in the 1600’s.
I remembered
hearing in one of my classes about how it was a wonderful example of royalty
going totally overboard, to show everyone just how royal they were.
Stepping off the bus, we waited for our guide
to bring us on the tour.
In the group, there was another grandmother/granddaughter
team.
They were from Canada, and the
grandmother used a cane.
Her face was
wide and powdery pale and her hair was short and spiky:
she kind of resembled a spork.
The
girl was dressed in black, as I was—but she had impossibly fiery orange-red
hair almost down to her waist in a mass of neat curls and a face covered in
freckles.
Her whole body, probably.
I could see her thin, freckly arms sticking
out of her sweater.
I was hungry for conversation with someone who
appeared to be my age, but the girl was so quiet that I didn’t even hear her
name when she introduced herself.
She is probably just shy.
I concentrated on the sights instead.
Our surroundings were so intensely lavish that
they bordered on garish.
I had never seen
so much gold:
the walls, the mirrors,
the chandeliers, and the furniture were covered in it.
Immediately, I understood Lulu’s sitting
room.
It was as if someone had
transported one of the rooms from Palace Versailles to San Jose, California,
and plopped it down into my grandparents’ house.
The chandeliers, the furniture, the mirrors,
they were all twins to the Christmas room.
Smiling a secret smile, she studied everything intently.
Delighted and obviously feeling right at home,
she walked in those tiny white shoes—staring in every direction, all at
once.
I felt as though I was seeing a
part of her which no one else had seen, a sense of awe and appreciation so
complete that she was speechless.
I could almost see ghosts of women with tall
powdered wigs, holding roses in their cleavage to mask the smell of
anti-hygiene.
Perhaps
my grandmother had lived a past life as one of
those women...
***
When the tour was finished, I needed to use the
restroom, so I told Lulu I would meet her at the exit.
While I was washing my hands, a twist of smoke rose
above one of the stall doors—accompanied by the undeniable, identifiable smell
of marijuana.
The toilet flushed, and
the door begin to open.
I didn’t want to
stare, but I had to see who had the
cajones
to smoke weed at the Palace Versailles.
It would have been less of a surprise if The
Easter Bunny had stepped out of the door.
It was the shy girl from the other old lady/young lady pairing.
She smirked at me and kicked the door shut
with her foot.
“What a bore, huh?”
she had a low voice.
Rummaging through a large, green, army
messenger-style bag, she produced some breath spray.
Two squirts seemed to satisfy her. I
shrugged, mostly because I didn’t trust myself to speak
“I heard you can find drugs here pretty easy?
If you know where to look?”
Her
sentences all seemed to end with a question mark.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I couldn’t meet her eyes,
“I’m just looking for boots.”
“Boots?
Okay:
do you wanna buy some
grass?”
How on
earth had she gotten that onto the airplane?
Or had she bought it here?
Shaking my head, I felt my cheeks turn into the
twin beacons of embarrassment which had become such a problem for me of late.
“How about some beer?”
She opened the bag enough for me to see two
glass bottles floating around in a pile of personal items.
Did she
carry that stuff everywhere?
I
didn’t want a beer, but the sunglasses in there were pretty cute.
I wondered if I should make an offer on them.
Walking to the door seemed safer, so I said, “I
better find my grandmother, or she’ll wonder what is taking me so long.”
“Right?
She might think you’re doing something
naughty
.”
She laughed.
At me, I was sure.
How had I thought her shy?
I left her preening in the mirror and exited
the ladies room.
Lulu was not there waiting for me.
I tried not to panic, but the place had seven
hundred rooms and over two thousand acres of property and
what if I can’t find her
?
What would I tell my family? She was so small and defenseless.
What if someone had taken her?
Oh my
God
!
Running down the enormous open hallway, looking
left and right,
I saw some smallish
people—but they were all children.
Damn,
damn, damn!
Why hadn’t she been waiting where I told her to be?
I found myself standing in the Hall of Mirrors,
which was really just that:
a hall of
mirrors.
There were opulent chandeliers
dripping from above, and colorful artwork adorned the ceiling.
All I could see was the reflection of my
face:
wild, frightened eyes seated in a
pale oval.
Overwhelmed with chaotic emotion, my old
friend, Telekinesis, took hold of the wheel, and I was nothing more than a
passenger:
the chandeliers began to sway
as if under the influence of one of our California
earthquakes.
As I passed two of the
mirrors, spider web cracks bloomed from the center outward.
The people closest to me looked around in
panic.
I stopped where I was standing
and took deep breaths, trying to calm down enough that my cerebrum could stop
itself from getting me into terrible trouble.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people
milling around, the reflections multiplying the number.
I saw dozens of Japanese tourists and a crazy
looking twenty-year-old American with greasy bangs and red, red lips several
times.
Not one vertically challenged woman with white
hair and dark glasses.
Crap!
A docent and two security guards had arrived at
the broken mirrors, looking around for clues as to what had happened.
I had to get away from there, fast!
Then I remembered what my grandfather had
always told me when I was a little girl.
“If you get lost, don’t go wandering around.
Stay put.”
Good advice.
Better to have at
least one half of a separated pair remaining stationary than two people running
away from each other for who knows how long?
I returned to the restroom, and there she was,
holding a paper cup and laughing with the Canadian elder.
The dope peddler was there, too.
One side of her mouth lifted noticeably into
a smirk when she caught view of my worried, crazed appearance.
Perspiration was gathering pretty much
everywhere, and my lips felt dry.
“Where in the world were
you
?”
my grandmother
demanded.
“I couldn’t find you—"
“Couldn’t find me?
I was right here.
Well, most of the time.
Ginny here offered me some of her water.
She carries an extra cup with her.
Isn’t that brilliant?”
Spork-Ginny beamed at me and leaned on her
cane.
“You should be careful, Frank,” her
granddaughter said, pronouncing my name like the French currency and
emphasizing the ending consonant.
"There are all kinds of
un-savory
types in places like this?”
I wanted to punch her in her too-freckled face.
***
When it was time to return to the hotel, I
could tell that Lulu would have preferred to remain at the palace. Forever,
probably.
I helped her up the steps onto
the bus, and we sat in silence for the duration of the return trip.
Her eyes closed, and she began to breathe deep,
even breaths.
I knew that she was
dreaming of gilded furniture and marble tiles.
Parting ways with Ginny and her evil grandchild
when the ride finally ended was a relief.
They had been seated behind us, and it felt like someone was staring at
the back of my head for the whole of our return.
Someone with red, curly hair.
A demented version of Annie, that orphan that
still thinks the sun’ll come up tomorrow.
***
We rested in the hotel for a while that
afternoon.
I tried to watch some
television, but it took too much concentration to follow along.
So I sketched instead.
My drawing started out as one of the ladies
with giant eyes that I like to draw, but soon morphed into Ginny's ginger
granddaughter.
I
was not amused.
The page balled itself up and flew into the
waste basket.
Dinnertime arrived, and both hungry and curious
about the Latin Quarter, we walked a short
distance and found eclectic crowds, street performers, and lots of food.
The smells were amazing!
They made me think of old cartoons where the
colored vapors of scent carried the characters along.
I could feel the pull!
My stomach growled and I looked for something
safe to try.
An ice cream shop and a
tiny falafel stand were situated next to each other, just within view.
Lulu chose a chocolate-covered vanilla ice
cream bar, and I tried the falafel.
The
first bite made my eyes close in pleasure; I could taste lettuce, tomato, salt
and pepper.
Middle Eastern flavors that
I couldn’t name filled my senses and my belly.
A breeze twisted through the avenues and
alleyways, for the first time since we had arrived, and the sun felt wonderful
instead of hot and stifling.
We were
sitting on a curb, our legs outstretched, enjoying our meal.
French students engaged in some sort of
artistic comedy production in the middle of the street, sporting colorful wigs
and using big physical movements to emphasize their words.
I was able to follow most of what they were
saying and laughed in the right spots.
Lulu asked me to translate, and I did the best that I could.