Frankie in Paris (10 page)

***

Seeing a fashion show in Paris sounds really cool, right?
     

Well, this wasn’t like the fashion shows that
you see in magazines.
 
There weren’t any
fancy suits or crazy, creative dresses made to look like birdcages.
 
This was a fashion show at a
department store
.
 
It was like seeing one at the local mall.

We took the elevator several flights up and
entered a room that resembled a conference room at my mom’s work.
 
She worked for a telecommunications company,
and the conference rooms in her place of employment were almost completely
gray.
 
Gray walls, gray tables and gray
chairs.
 
This room could have been in her
building.

A couple of empty folding chairs sat next to
each other in the third row, so we took a seat.
 
I noticed that the carpet was almost exactly the same as the kind that
was installed at my school—that thin, cheap, all purpose stuff that they put
directly on top of cement flooring.
 

Loose price tags and flecks of glitter peppered
the ground.
 
Promotional posters in
silver metal frames leaned up against one another on another wall.
 
The one in the front of the stack had a
picture of two women wearing bras.
 
“Annual Under Sale,” I translated.

A T-shaped stage was set up as a runway.
 
It had a black curtain behind it, running the
length of the wall.

The room was full of people, and a woman and a
man wearing suits rushed around the room, speaking into walkie-talkies.
 
Pretty soon, the lights turned off.
 
They didn’t dim, like they might if they were
hooked up to a professional lighting board.
 
Someone just flipped the switch at the back of the room.
 
Two spotlights lit up the runway, and music
played behind us.

The models continuously entered and posed in
the corners of the stage and then exited.
 
They could have been from right off of the street.
 
One of them had cellulite all around her
thighs, and I couldn’t stop staring.
 
A
short man modeled a tiny, tight bathing suit.
 
He had an incredible amount of body hair. I thought he was trying to
make eye contact with me each time he strolled onto the stage, so I avoided his
face. I didn’t want to look at his dark downy chest, but I didn’t want to look
any lower, either.
 
Instead I just studied
my ravaged fingernails.
 

Lulu leaned forward, completely engaged, and
clapped after each outfit.
 
To her, this
was a real Parisian fashion show.
 
The
female announcer’s hair had grown out from the roots, and only the bottom two
thirds of it was blonde.
 
The rest was
dark, like mine.
 
Tons of teal eyeliner
and too much blush spackled her square face.
 
“
Très
bien
!”
 
she would call out in a nasal voice, after
each ensemble, and clap her hands with only the tips of her fingers, holding
them up to her bosom.
 

I was bored almost instantly, so I amused
myself by making her microphone flop down from its anchor at the top of the mic
stand.
 
Every once in a while, she would
begin to speak into it, and it would tilt until it was facing downward.
 
Her words would trail off, her lips still
moving.
 
Her eyes would lift to the back
of the room, searching for technical help, before yanking it back into
place.
 
I guess I have my moments of evil.

***

The hat was made of black wool.
 
I wore it out of the store, but took it off
shortly after realizing that wearing a
béret
in France
probably made me look even more like a dork than I already was.
  
I hadn't seen anyone wearing one since we
had been there.

It also made my head feel extremely hot.

6:30.
 

Out came our map, and we figured out where we
needed to go.

It might seem strange that Lulu planned to
bring me to a production where the women perform without most of their
clothes.
 
The truth was that she saw
herself as a very progressive, modern woman.
 
She even enjoyed shocking people a little, I think.
 

I remember hearing some Lulu Lore about how she
used to venture into the city with her friends to see the drag shows there.

She also loved The Gays, priding herself as
someone who was very accepting of people who were different. I don’t know that
this generous view extended to everyone, but it absolutely applied to the gay
community and had for a long time.
 

Another one of the Mysterious Life of Lulu
stories has it that she used to travel to the casinos in Tahoe with two of her
friends, April and Daisy.
 
She left
Grampy at home (it just wasn’t his idea of a great weekend), but the two other
women would bring their husbands.
 
It
turned out, after years of this routine, that the two men were having more fun
in the hotel room than the ladies were having at the black jack table.
 
It was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” type of
arrangement, and it apparently kept the spouses busy and happy, so it was
something that was overlooked every summer.

She also had a male friend, who was older than
my mother but still worked as a server at a popular Mexican food restaurant in
her neighborhood, which we frequented.
 
He'd been saying, "Careful, it's hot," after depositing
enchiladas on tables there since he was around seventeen.
 
Hooray for solidarity in the workforce.
  
“He,” Lulu would lean in close and whisper,
“is
gay
.”
  

As someone who had been involved in musical
theater for most of my life, this did not shock me.
 
I had plenty of gay friends, including one
young lady who chased after me for the better part of a year—even though she
knew that I was devoted to my boyfriend and
not
interested in exploring lesbianism.
 

The part that
did
shock me was how Lulu and the waiter had smoked marijuana at a
party over twenty years ago.
  
That was
her favorite part to tell.
 

The thought of my grandmother toking it up with
Roddy was enough to make my head spin.

***

Our destination came into view.
 

The front of the building was covered in bright
lights and photos.
 
An usher
 
accompanied us
 
into a dark, cool theater.
 
It turned out that we actually had really
good seats.
 
I silently thanked Henri—he
must have had a hand in this.
 

Our tickets included dinner, so I ordered the filet
mignon I had been craving since our arrival. Lulu ordered chicken.
 
And a bottle of champagne.

“My granddaughter is only twenty,” she told our
waiter.
 

He was wearing a white coat and shirt, with a
black tie, cummerbund, and black slacks.
 
His small, thin black moustache and his hair were neatly slicked
back.
 
Lulu continued:
 
“In our country, she is not allowed to drink
alcohol yet, so this is a special occasion.”

“
Oui,
Madame
,” he smiled at me in a condescending way that made me want to crawl
into a hole.

“Wheech bottle do you desire?”

Looking at the extensive list, she ultimately
picked a bottle.
 
A bottle of two-hundred
dollar French champagne.

I didn’t know much about champagne at the
time.
 
I didn’t know, for instance, that
the local convenience store keeps cheap bottles in the cooler above the orange
soda and root beer.
 
However, I did
realize that two hundred dollars was a lot of money for a woman who usually
insisted on drinking tap water in dining establishments.
 
I was suitably impressed.

“
Magnifique
!”
 
the waiter grinned. “Excellent choice!”
 
It was like the words came straight from his
nose, sounding like “esselont shwoss.”

He disappeared.

Someone brought bread, which was served
straight on the table, as we put our napkins on our laps.
 
Thanking her, I noticed that we were sitting
in a beautifully ornate theater.
 
Our
table was up above a small audience area.

Sparkling, square chandeliers surrounded the
stage, suspended from the ceiling. It reminded me of the time I went to Reno with my boyfriend
and his mother. I had been too young to gamble, but we saw a concert at one of
the many theaters there. It was nicer than any venue where I had performed, and
the people around us were dressed in their best.

Feeling wilted after our long day, I excused
myself to visit the restroom.
 
I wished
that I could wash my face, but I hadn’t brought any makeup to reapply.
 

An attendant stood with her arms crossed,
waiting to… what?
 
To help me out?
 
I never really understood this
occupation.
 
Maybe it makes people feel
rich and important?
 
It really just made
me
feel uncomfortable.
 
I reached for a paper towel, which was in a
tall, neat stack.

Without looking in my direction, the attendant
blocked my hand as fast as a ninja and swooped up a paper towel with a flourish—holding
it in my direction without even glancing at me.
 
Wadding and drenching it, I put it on the back of my neck.
 
I wiped off my lipstick and reapplied
it.
 
Melted eyeliner gathered around the
bottom of my eyes, so I cleaned that up, too. I tried to separate my bangs—which
were smashed together after hours of heat and stress—and decided to grow them
out.

Feeling better already,
 
I went back to join Lulu.

***

I didn’t think about tipping the attendant
until I was already seated across from my grandmother. Damn.
 
Now
she’ll remember me if I have to go back in there
.
 
What
will she do to retaliate?
 
Of course
she would do nothing.
 
But it made me
feel more uncomfortable than ever about the idea of having restroom attendants
in attendance.

***

The waiter came back with a little flat blade
and scraped the breadcrumbs from our table.
 
This felt absurdly decadent.
 
He
disappeared again and then reappeared instantly, holding our bottle of
champagne, cradling it in his arm like an infant. Then he thrust it in Lulu’s
face so she could check the label.
 
She
barely glanced at it.

“Have you ever heard of the Plusot
Winery?”
 
she asked.

He shook his head

“Hoohoohoo.
 
Plusot Winery!
 
I lived there more
than thirty years ago.
 
It’s in France. Plusot
Winery!”

Looking annoyed, he announced, “Zere are a lot
of wineries in France,
Madame
.
 
I have never heard of eet.”
 
He liberated the cork on our bottle with a
loud “pop,” and a little volcano of foam erupted from the top.
 
Pouring her a glass, he then aimed the bottle
in my direction.

“Only a little bit,” Lulu told him, “
we are breaking the American drinking law!
”
  
I don't think I've ever heard such a
loud stage whisper.

I wanted to scream, “IT’S THE
CALIFORNIA
LAW! WE’RE NOT IN CALIFORNIA! BESIDES,
I’VE HAD ALCOHOL BEFORE!
 
LOTS AND LOTS
OF IT!
 
GALLONS
!”

I didn’t.
 
I just sat lower in my chair and waited for the waiter to pour my two
fingers of champagne. It tasted just fine to me, so I sipped it until my steak
arrived.
 
My dinner was delicious, and I
enjoyed the feel of firm meat between my teeth.
 

Lulu was on her second glass.

Lulu hadn’t touched her chicken.
 

Maybe it was because she hadn’t eaten. Or maybe
the medication she was taking interacted poorly with the champagne.
   
Whatever the reason, she turned into an
obnoxious drunk almost immediately.

“Plusot Winery!
 
Any one ever heard of it? Loire
Valley?”
 
she called out and giggled.
 

Her feet didn’t reach the floor, and one of her
shoes dropped to the ground.

“Lulu, it was a long time ago,” I
insisted.
 
“Eat your dinner.”

"Bring on the dancing girls!”
 
she hooted, then: “We’re at the place in France
where the naked ladies dance!”
 

Oh, Good
Lord
, they were going to ask us to
leave before the show even began.
 

Thankfully there was a lot of noise.
 
Different conversations in many different
languages wafted through the air and disappeared somewhere around the lighting
fixtures.

“Shhhhhhhh. Eat your chicken, Lulu.
 
We need to get something in your
stomach!”
 

The waiter glided past our table, glaring at
us.
 
Lulu gestured for glass number three,
and
 
I couldn’t find the words to stop
her.
 
He Who Was Supremely Annoyed poured
the champagne.
 
A much smaller glass than
the last.
 

Then she grabbed his arm, and he looked alarmed.
 
He was wearing a gold pinky ring.
 
“Take the bottle and dump it out,”
 
she commanded earnestly.

"
M-Madame
,
zere are at least anozer two glasses left in the—"

“Don’t care.”
 
She shook her head emphatically. “Dump it out.
 
I wanna bring it home with me.”

Putting a hand up near his throat, he looked
pained. “As you weesh,” he frowned.
 

“Thanksh,”
 
she slurred, “you are a good man.”

He left to drain the champagne.
 
Hopefully into someone’s glass in the
kitchen.

I grabbed Lulu’s fork and speared a chunk of
chicken.

“Open your mouth!”
 
Like I was feeding a toddler.
 
I should have said something like, “Here
comes the airplane—open wide!”

In turn, she was acting exactly that age,
crossing her arms and shaking her head, white hair bouncing.

Glaring at her, I put down the fork.
 
I should have made a piece fly up and tag her
on the stubborn nose.
 
But I didn’t:
 
how’s
that for willpower?

***

The
 
performance began, and my party animal grandmother
used two fingers in her mouth to whistle like a bachelor party guest.
 
I scrunched my eyes closed and took a deep
breath.

The show was full of color, music, and
breasts.
 

Many, many breasts.
 

Large breasts.
 
Small breasts.
 
Obviously human
engineered breasts.
 
There were dance
numbers which represented countries from all over the world.
 
Countries where I am sure breasts are usually
covered.

Eventually, I no longer saw only boobs and
noticed some of the really cool things about the production:
 
there was a real ice skating rink during one
part and a water fountain show during one of the songs.
 
An aircraft came out of the ceiling for one
number.
 
A dancer was carried onstage by
a huge artificial elephant during another. Once you got past the knockers, it
was a really fabulous production.
 

***

I clapped my hands after the finale and saw
that my grandmother had fallen asleep.
 
Her chin touched her chest, and I’m sure I would have heard snoring if
the cast hadn’t arrived for their bows.
 
She was slumped so far down in her seat that I couldn’t see below her
nose without standing a bit. Both miniature white wicker shoes sat on the floor
underneath her feet.