Extraordinary Theory of Objects (4 page)

Paris

Fall 1995

“Stay there,” Jake said. He was waving his beer bottle at me with his left hand. In his right hand was a camcorder. I was sitting in the grass of a park just outside of Paris trying my unsuccessful best to be enchanting. Jake and I were sort of “going out,” but I translated that into trying to play muse to him and Raees. I liked him very much, but not in the same way I lusted after Raees. There was no way I could have said no when he asked me out (it didn't mean on a date, but rather to officially be his instant-girlfriend). He and Raees were my friends, and I couldn't risk losing them. That and I desperately wanted to be like
Lee Miller
*
was to Man Ray—the video cameras and seventh-grade screenplay version. Miller had been troubled kind of like me and still managed to find someone, an artist, to love. She was beautiful, stylish, and independent, everything I was not. I tried my best too: a pale nude
slip
*
with a striped, ratty lime green cardigan I'd found at the vintage store Kiliwatch, in Paris. There was nothing to fill the bodice of the dress, save for my efforts at charm. The outfit was chosen for my screen test as Lady Macbeth in Jake and Raees's next film collaboration,
Macbeth: The Dice Decides
. They had just shown their short of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
in the school auditorium. I knew the audition would involve some drinking, smoking, and filming, so I'd tried to dress accordingly, my only sources of style inspiration: my mother and my magazines. I knew all about the current models, like my favorite, Karen Elson, with her bright red hair and pale skin. She was sometimes referred to as Le Freak, which worked for me. Then there were Guinevere van Seenus, Shalom Harlow, and Trish Goff. I loved all of them, especially Amber Valletta in the Prada ads, as she floated away on a boat in Southeast Asia. I didn't distinguish between advertisements and editorial. My floor was covered in glossy, torn-out pictures, like those of Harlow wearing neon stripes in Gucci ads alongside a redheaded model with her hand suggestively on her lap.

“There's a hole in the elbow of your sweater,” Jake said as he changed the CD from Smashing Pumpkins'
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
to
Nirvana
's
*
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” on
Nevermind
. He and Raees often talked about the music videos they'd seen on MTV, one of the few English-language channels. Music seemed to be the main way American culture seeped into France. I always felt I was experiencing a little of the life I would have had back in the States when we listened to certain bands. Perhaps this wishful nostalgia is the reason I fell in love with fashion too. That and I was painfully skinny and awkward-looking, like a tall elf, and so were the models of the time.

I ignored Jake's comment about the hole. He had transitioned from sweatpants to broken-in corduroys, which he wore with flat skater shoes and four layers of T-shirts in different washed-out colors with a long-sleeve thermal underneath. Raees had on a similar look, but with torn jeans and a blazer he told us he'd found in his father's closet. I thought he was beautiful. It wasn't his blond hair or height, but a certain stillness within him, a calmness I craved for myself. I had noticed he wasn't quite like the other boys but more laid-back and witty. He was the brain behind the Abott Charles Dingie Administration, a faux group of jester pundits, which had grown into a full-blown political ruse that now included campaign posters hanging in the halls at school. No teacher took the flyers down, complacently encouraging the whole scheme. I liked Jake and his quirky sensibility and creativity, but he was like me—introspective and creative. This was the problem.

“Steph, you want a beer?” When we were among friends we always spoke in English, even though most of us were fluent in French. I could understand everything I read, though my writing, especially verb conjugation, could stand some improvement.

“Sure.” When he turned away to film the trees behind us, I spilled the can's contents onto the ground.

“So, guys, what do you think of this setting for the witches scene?”

“It's cool,” Raees said. “Though, we would have to film at night.”

“I love parks when it's dark. Remember that night in the Bois de Boulogne?” Jake asked. I wasn't sure if I should mention my night walks, maybe they were weird.

I figured their new project would be a little like the upcoming version of
Romeo and Juliet
with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio I'd seen previews for, rather than the Zeffirelli version we'd watched in class, the teachers stopping and restarting the film to explain the play. Their argument was that it was akin to going to the Globe Theatre and seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company. But how does one translate Lady Macbeth into the nineties?

“Steph, do you have a costume to wear?” Jake asked.

“I have this dress that's a Scottish plaid, which I could wear with red Doc Martens?”

“Scottish, like Scotland. Good. Red, like blood on Lady Macbeth's hands. Excellent.”

“So, what now?” Raees asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I'm satisfied with this spot, and we're out of beers, and we've listened to both albums in full.”

“I guess we go back,” Jake said, reaching for my leg. I inched away from him into the puddle of beer on the ground.

I saw Raees the next day at school, but Jake never turned up.

*    *    *

“Your father's in the basement,” my mother said when I got home one afternoon from school. It was a month after Jake's weeklong disappearance. He'd returned to school as if nothing had happened. We all knew it had to be something serious by the way the teachers whispered and nodded. Of course, I was supposed to be his “girlfriend,” but he didn't mention anything to me, so I thought better of asking him. Clearly we had a healthy, normal relationship. I was in love with his best friend and didn't know how to communicate with either of them.

I rounded the corner down the stairs to find my father. “Daddy?”

“Stephie!” he called to me.

“I am so happy you're back. Why do you go for so long?”

“Work,” he said, bending down to pick up a stud that had fallen out of his hand.

“What are you doing?” I asked. He had a hammer in one hand and squat nails in the other. There were silk foulard scarves all over the floor where he'd dismantled the base of three antique
chairs
.
*

My mother had warned him against buying the trio, but he'd believed he'd find the fourth one somehow, somewhere. He was busy reupholstering the seats with scarves he'd stolen from her drawer. I had no idea where he got this idea or if my mother had any idea it was happening. Nonetheless, her Hermès carousel scarf was being tacked onto the seat of a dark wooden frame. My father gestured for me to hold the corner of the fabric while he pinned it down. “Do you want to go with me to the
brocante
to look for the other chair?”

“You actually think you'll find it?”

“Why not? It could happen.”

“You're serious?”

He nodded. “I had an idea earlier, why don't you decorate the library here however you like? You can do some research and make the room whatever you imagine. It will be the perfect place to put our Minotaur and Hydra.” One of our activities when my father was in town was to create papier-mâché animals. We used assorted materials—tape, balloons—anything to construct the bodies of the beasts I'd read about in my mythology books. We then covered these creatures in wet sheets of plaster of paris, which hardened to life as cardboard skins.

I liked this idea, especially as I'd just read about this eccentric decorator named
Madeleine Castaing
.
*
Unlike many of the women who captivated me, she had been alive the year we moved to France. I wish I had known to ask my father to take me to see her. He would have loved that she would sell her own flea market finds based on the value she felt for them or the desire of the potential owner, regardless of the object's material worth. This is how my father conducted his treasure hunts.

“I need to tell Zach to get ready. He's coming too, no?” I asked.

“Sure,” my father said. I ran up the blue stairs from the basement to look for my brother.

“Zach,” I yelled.

“What?” he said, poking his head out of the bathroom where he was wearing swimming goggles while sailing miniature ships in the bidet. I laughed.

“Get ready.”

“Should I bring my goggles?” he asked. I shouldn't have laughed, considering his odd behavior was further evidence of our shared genes.

“Your goggles?”

“To see the sea monsters.”

“We're not going to Versailles.” He'd always wanted to stick his head into the Grand Canal to see the fish there. “We're going to look for antiques.”

“So boring.” He rolled his eyes behind the blue plastic before running upstairs to put on some clothes. My mother came out of the kitchen carrying the wicker basket she sometimes used as a purse. “I packed a little picnic,” she said.

My father walked the white marble stairs from his bedroom, looking like a vagabond with torn corduroy pants, a denim shirt, and an old Scottish sweater. Dressing down was one of his tactics for haggling with sellers. He took the picnic basket from my mother and gave her a kiss. She was wearing very long trousers that dragged on the floor over her heels and a silk blouse with a bow at the neck. Very seventies, very Yves Saint Laurent, very my grandmother. She was also wearing her mother's armful of gold bangles.

“Where's your brother?” my father asked.

“Coming!” Zach yelled as he slid down the stairs in his socks.

“That's dangerous. No socks on these floors,” my mother said.

He rolled his eyes again. “Do we really have to go to this antique thing?”

“Yes, we are going as a family,” my father said. We followed him out to the car.

*    *    *

When we arrived at the market, my father stopped us at the entrance for a briefing. “Okay, so before we split up there are a couple of things we are in search of. One: I need an armoire for the dining room. I want something old, intricate, and carved with fish! No other sea creatures; no mermaids. Two: we need an animal of some kind, discounting the fish on the armoire. Finally, whoever finds the fourth chair missing from our set will be able to buy whatever they want within reason. Understood?”