Finding It (17 page)

Ménage à Trois

Fanny and Poppy aren’t ever going to be great friends. In the words of the immortal Taylor Swift, “Like ever.” I must have reached into my old bag, pulled out my rose-colored glasses, and slipped them on my face when I envisioned the three of us bonding like some cheesy remake of
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
. We are three wildly different women, and it will take more than a pair of magic skinny jeans to fuse us together at the hips.

Three days ago, Poppy picked me up in her zippy little BMW coupe and we followed the M1 from London to the M6 and the Lakes District, eventually making our way to Edinburgh. We spent the first night skulking down Old Town Edinburgh’s narrow closes—or alleyways—listening to a tatted-up guide tell us titillating tales from the city’s history. As cheesy as it sounds, we had a great time listening to stories of murder, adultery, deception, and debauchery. The guide, Aeden, was wicked cool and invited us to join him for drinks in this slightly seedy cellar bar called The Vault. Aeden is the lead singer for System Shattered, a Scottish rock band, which totally explains his muscular, tatted, cocky swagger.
Insert swoon sound effect here, please.
When Aeden told us his band was one of the opening acts for Palaye Royale, an up-and-coming fashion-art rock band out of Las Vegas, and asked if we wanted to “come oot and get ratarsed” I thought Poppy would beg off. Poppy might be cool, but I taxed my vivid imagination trying to envision Miss President of the Swifties getting ratarsed—drunk—at an indie rock concert. Poppy not only went to the concert, but flirted with the guitarist of the appropriately named London-based band, Dirty Thrills.

Dirty Thrills has a crazy cool blues-rock sound with wailing guitar riffs and melt-your-panties vocals. The guitarist looks like Colin Farrell, with sad, love-me-till-it-hurts brown eyes, pouty lips, and a mustache that could tickle a girl in all the right places. Poppy disappears after their set and reappears later, her lipstick slightly smeared, her shirt untucked and rumpled, a broad grin stretched across her pretty face. I’m not saying she hooked up with the guitarist, but she definitely looks like she got a few dirty thrills.

To use an Americanism, Palaye Royale was awesome. The indie rock band has a psychedelic sound and 80’s theatrical look—like they’re the love children of Culture Club and the Doors.

Aeden’s band, System Shattered, was like the perfect bridge between Dirty Thrills’s solid, wailing sound and Palaye Royale’s liquid smooth harmonizing. It was an orgasmic musical trifecta.

Not to overstate, if God said He would create Vivia’s Perfect Night, it would probably look something like that night—only with more chocolate.

Still glowing with the after-effects of our night of music and alleged moustache-love, we met Fanny at the Edinburgh Airport. Maybe I am naïve, but I fully anticipated Fanny would join in and we would have a happy little marriage à trois. Ha! What a rude awakening. Like a morning after let-down, when you roll over and realize the hot dude you brought home from the club the night before is really a finger-sniffing dud, I took one look at Fanny’s tight expression and thought, “This is
so
not happening.”

Following Big Boss Lady’s dictate to write about offbeat places in Edinburgh—I found Arkangel and Felon, an eclectic clothing boutique, the Voodoo Rooms, a chic fringe bar with a burlesque show, and Angels with Bagpipes, a bijou wine bar on the Royal Mile. Next, we hit a spa where brawny kilt-wearing male therapists rubbed lavender scented lanolin into our sore muscles, a thirties combo Laundromat/swing dance class called Zoot Suits, the Museum of Pathology with jars of pickled human remains, and a neo-pagan fire festival where we sat around a huge bonfire and watched interpretive dancers and acrobats pay tribute to the May Queen.

Through it all, Fanny and Poppy verbally circled around each other like a pair of eighteenth century swordsmen preparing for a duel, assessing and testing reflexes with a stunning battery of thrusts, parries, and ripostes.

I keep waiting for the coup de grâce, the clean, brutal death blow that will bring one of my friends to her designer-clad knees, but they are determined to prolong their battle—death by a thousand small, thinly-veiled cuts.

You know that song that goes “you say po-tay-to, I say puh-tot-o, let’s call the whole thing off”? Well, whoever penned that inane ditty must have spent time with a Frenchman and a Brit. If Fanny says po-tay-to, you better believe Poppy politely chimes in with her corrective, “Pardon me, but I believe it is po-tot-o.” To which Fanny invariable argues the etymology of the word—how it most certainly comes from a French word because everyone knows the French are the masterminds behind civilization’s most tangible and tangential achievements.

Now, Lord Jesus knows I love me some Fanny Moreau, but my best friend really can be a…snob. It’s not her fault. She’s French. If you have spent time in France, you understand arrogance is as much a part of their genetic makeup as bone marrow or superb fashion sense.

Fanny explained it to me once. She said, “Several hundred years ago, the French believed Paris was the center of the Universe. The farther one traveled from Paris, the more uncivilized the world became. It’s a belief that has metastasized throughout the body of France. We genuinely believe France brought civilization to the Universe, and this belief gives us a sense of deep, unshakable superiority.”

“So you believe you’re better than the rest of the world?”

“Believe?” Fanny frowned. “We don’t believe we are better, we just know we are.”

Poppy might be British, but nature has endowed her with an equally healthy dose of arrogance. She is holding her own against anything Fanny is throwing down.

They have bickered about food, romance, literature, art, tea.

Yes, they had a spirited discussion this morning about the merits of consuming tea instead of coffee. Just when Fanny seemed on the brink of conceding her coffee to Poppy’s tea, she volleyed back with her great “red wine” argument.

For Fanny, red wine is the elixir of life. One of my first memories of my best friend is of her taking long, dramatic drags of a cigarette while expostulating on her theory of the medicinal benefits of consuming at least one glass of red wine a day.

“A day without zee wine,
cherié,
ees sheet.”

Fanny was a few glasses over her daily quota when she made that proclamation, which explains the heavy French accent. She speaks nearly flawless English except when she is very angry or very tipsy.

After the Great Tea Debate, they bickered about eggs. Eggs, for Humpty’s sake! The hotel restaurant served our eggs slightly on the runny side—way undercooked by American standards. Poppy sent her plate back to the kitchen with detailed instructions on how to prepare the perfect poached egg.

Poppy was only being polite when she asked us if we wanted our runny-side up eggs recooked.

“I do not understand the British and their obsession with pasteurization and sanitization,” Fanny said, waving the waitress away. “It’s an egg, not a medical utensil.”

And they were off…again…circling and thrusting, parrying and riposting. I managed to intervene and establish a wary truce by redirecting their focus to our impending journey to the sheep farm and my dire need for appropriate sheep shearing attire.

“I want a pair of Hunter Wellies. Tall, shiny, pink rain boots perfect for bog stomping.” I tossed my napkin on the table beside my runny eggs and stood. “I saw a pair at that boutique on Victoria Street that had the cute pink cashmere fingerless gloves and scarf. I am going to get them. Who’s with me?”

Two hours later, we are cruising over a bridge spanning the Loch Ness and I am sporting the fiercest pair of shiny pink Wellies and itching to stomp a bog. I can’t stop clicking my heels together and staring at the glassine pink toes. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning, mesmerized by all of the pretty, shiny things.

“This is awesome!”

“Awesome,” Fanny mumbles.

Fanny is crammed in Poppy’s backseat, wedged between her two Louis Vuitton suitcases, her carry-on perched on her lap. Poppy’s tiny trunk couldn’t accommodate Fanny’s travel accoutrement.

Fanny is the Rose DeWitt Bukater of our group. You remember Rose, the heroine in the movie
Titanic
? Remember the opening scene with Rose standing on the dock, dispassionately staring at the ship of dreams while her two car loads of steamer trunks and suitcases are unloaded? Yeah, that’s Fanny.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to hold your carryon for you?” I tear my gaze from my rain boots and look at my miserable best friend crammed in the backseat. “I don’t mind.”

“It’s fine.”

The flat tone and averted gaze tell me all I need to know about Fanny’s attitude. She’s pissed. The best way to deal with a pissed-off French woman is to pretend you don’t know she’s pissed off.

“I can’t believe I am driving over Loch Ness,” I say, staring out the window at a purple-painted ferryboat loaded with tourists. “It’s spectacular, isn’t it Fanny?”

“Eh.” Fanny’s tone is blasé and I imagine her shrugging her shoulders. “It’s too touristy.”

“Sometimes touristy things are fun. Remember when we rented electric bikes and rode them over the Golden Gate to Sausalito? That was fun.”

“If you say so.”

“Lighten up, Fanny. Your negative ’tude is harshing my mellow.”

“Sorry.”

She emphasizes the first syllable, drawing it out in an unnatural falsetto voice that tells me she’s not really sorry.

I take a deep breath—drawing in light and positivity—and then exhale slowly—pushing the negative vibes away. “What a beautiful day.”

“Look at those clouds.” Fanny taps the window with her finger. “It’s going to rain.”

“Good! I like rain.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“That must be a new development because you hated rain when you lived in San Francisco.”

“Only because I didn’t own a super cool pair of Wellies.”

Poppy glances over at me.

I smile apologetically. “The world looks different when you’re wearing Wellies. You should have bought a pair, Fanny.”

“Why?”

“They’re fun.”

“They’re
rubber
boots.”

“Rubber boots that come in cool colors.”

“They’re overpriced.”

“Can you put a price tag on happiness?” Poppy chimes in. “I don’t think so.”

“Pfft.”

Uh-oh. Fanny’s pfft-ing. We’re losing her. Someone grab a crash cart filled with bottles of French wine and tubes of Dior lip gloss, STAT.

“I can’t wait to climb gorse-covered hills and stomp through a bog.” I click my shiny heels together again, smiling at the rubbery thud sound. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“Fabulous fun,” Poppy says.

“No.” Fanny shifts her carryon, banging it into the back of my seat. “It doesn’t sound like fun. People die in bogs, Vivian. Do you want to drown in a bog and then a hundred years from now have some Scottish farmer pull your leathery body out by one of your stupid pink rain boots?”

Black-cloud Fanny and her sunshine-stealing bad mood are really bumming me out. I want to pull out my happy umbrella and shield myself from her negativity deluge, but her unprovoked attack on my Wellies has stunned me. Complain about the weather, the tourists, the runny eggs, but leave my innocent overpriced rubber boots alone.

“That’s quite enough!” Poppy engages the directional signal with unnecessary force. “Just because you have an abundance of negativity doesn’t mean you need to share it.”

“Sorry,” Fanny says in an unnaturally high voice. “I’m French. I haven’t learned how to do that fake stiff-upper lip routine. What you see is what you get.”

“What I see is a foul-tempered woman with a Napoleon Complex. You’re a small person with a large ego!” Poppy slaps the directional signal again to turn it off. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Fanny Bonaparte. Just because you’re mood is in the gutter doesn’t mean you have to pull everyone down with you.”

Jesus, Mary, and Josephine! Poppy did not just call Fanny a midget-sized megalomaniac, did she?

“Hold up!” I raise a hand. “Let’s pause this before someone says something she will regret.”

Fanny and Poppy respond in unison. “Too late.”

“Can’t we just get along?”

“
Putain
! What did you expect Vivian?” Fanny spits. “England and France have been rivals for hundreds of years. The British have an inborn distaste for my country.”

“Bollocks!” Poppy declares. “I love France. I simply dislike the French.”

Fanny’s response in her native tongue is too rapid for me to follow, but Poppy has no problem translating.

“I can answer that,” Poppy says, glancing at Fanny in the rearview mirror. “I don’t like the French because you’re pseudo-intellectuals and insufferable snobs.”

“You confuse sophistication with snobbery.”

“Puhleez,” Poppy laughs. “You’re snobs about food, wine, art, fashion… About the only thing you’re not snobbish about is your battlefield tenacity. Understandable, since you needed the British and Americans to rescue you from Hitler’s clutches.”

“
C’est des conneries
!” Fanny’s this is bullshit ricochets around the BMW’s quiet interior. “It’s been over sixty years. How much longer do you British plan on cashing in your World War Two chits?”

“Probably about the time you French stop being pretentious snobs.”

I purse my lips and let out a low, long whistle. This is getting ugly.

“The French are not snobby.” Fanny pokes my shoulder. “Are we, Vivian?”

“Don’t drag me into this.” I hold up my hands. “I am Switzerland.”

“You’re American.”

“I am neutral.”

“So you do think I’m a snob?”

A dozen memories flicker in my brain—Fanny rebuking me for buying a knock-off Prada bag, Fanny clucking her tongue at an overweight woman sitting on a park bench eating a donut, Fanny wrinkling her nose at my grilled cheese and saying, “Processed American cheese? Really, Vivian? In France, we only use perfectly aged Gruyère.”

I swivel around and look my best friend in the eye so she doesn’t read more into what I am about to say.