Frankie in Paris (12 page)

 
I nodded my head and wondered if he was a
good father.
 
He probably
 
wished he were home right now.
 
I know I did.

 
“Can you please mail this for me?”
 
I put the envelope on the counter.

“
Oui
.
 
Shall I beel eet to your room?”
 
He
said “beel” instead of “bill,” almost making me laugh.

“Yes,
please.”
 
I was too tired to answer in
any language other than English.

“I
weel put eet out tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”
 
Giving him a mini-wave, I headed back up to
the room.

***

I
should have bought a beer from that redhead’s bag in the bathroom at Versailles.

I
woke up before she did, which probably
 
had never happened before.
 
I couldn’t remember a single time that I had
been in that little nest between the twin beds and she wasn’t already watching
TV.
  

Grampy
would always bring her coffee every morning so she wouldn’t have to rise until
she was well caffeinated. I always wondered how they had agreed on that
arrangement.
 
Maybe at their wedding, she
made him say:
 
“I pledge to love, honor,
obey and deliver hot coffee to you every morning, as long as we both shall
live.” I would have to remember that, for my someday nuptials.
 

Could
I convince Rich to bring me daily coffee in bed?
 
I was pretty certain that he would.
 

***

The
stain above my head resembled George Washington’s profile today.
 
There was a pointy nose on one end and a
little curly ponytail on the other.
 
Was
it changing, or did it just seem that way?
 
What would that say about me if it had been a psychological test?
 

***

I
tiptoed to the shower and washed off the Champs, The Lido, and the snails.
 
I massaged bubbles into my scalp, rinsing
them away with tepid water.
 
Doing so
made me feel so much better.
      

As I
scrubbed, I wondered what was in store for us today.
 
Hopefully nothing that involved alligator
bags or champagne, although if I was the one drinking the champagne, dealing
with the alligator bags would be all the more pleasant.

When
I emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed with dripping hair, she was watching
the news:
 
or rather, seeing the news,
but not really understanding it.
 
I
wrapped a towel around my head and sat on the room’s sole chair, working the
terrycloth around the wet strands.
 
We
sat in silence for a while, the newscaster’s voice covering the hot topics of
the day.

“Whew!
 
What a night!”
 
She whistled. It wasn't clear whether she was
embarrassed or not.

“Yup.
 
It was a doozy.”
 
I grabbed my boots, pulling them on and
beginning to lace them.

“I’m
so glad that I went.
 
I offered to pay
Henri to take you to the show.
 
He said
he was busy, but the other desk boy would have done it.
 
I really enjoyed the show, though!”

Only
one lace was tied.
 
“Did you just say
that you tried to
pay
someone to take
me to the topless production?”
 
I was
still bent over.

“Well,
yes, but I decided to go.”

“You
decided to go, but you had
originally
planned to send me out at night with a stranger?
 
And you
were going to pay him?
”
 
I finally
straightened up and looked at her face.

Maybe
her over-priced champagne hangover had done something to her head because she
still didn’t quite understand how I was feeling about this new
information.
 

“He
seemed like a very nice boy.
 
He was more
than willing to do it.
 
I haven’t been to
The Lido in so long, though, so I thought that I should go.”

“I’m
sure he was more than willing to do it, Lulu!
 
What decent young man
wouldn’t
agree
to be a male escort and go on a free date?”
 
The sarcasm was lost on her
—or
she was ignoring
it.

“That’s
what I was counting on.
 
I am getting so
that I don’t like to go out at night, and I thought you would enjoy yourself so
much more if I could get someone young to take you out.”

“Lulu!
 
He could have been
dangerous
!
 
What if you sent
me out with a stranger and I never came back?
 
What would my parents say?
 
What
would Rich
say?
 
Seriously!”

“Oh,
please!
 
He couldn’t be dangerous!
 
He has his eyebrow pierced, but who doesn’t,
these days?”

The
urge to shake her was almost uncontrollable.
 
I was on the verge of screaming.
   
All of the items on the small dresser across from my bed began to
vibrate, coming alive with my overwhelming frustration.
 
I was seriously close to making keys,
lipstick, a box of Kleenex, and the TV’s remote rise up and attack her.
 
Instead, I left, mumbling something about
getting coffee.
 
With unbrushed hair and
one shoe still untied, I headed for the elevator.
 
The black string trailed along the floor
until I stumbled over it and ran into the elevator door.
 

I
just couldn’t catch a break.

Once
inside, I fixed my boot, the laces making bunny ears and twisting into a knot
while I stood tall with my eyes scrunched shut.
 
At the lobby, the door opened, and the nice boy with the pierced eyebrow
was standing there, as if he were waiting for my arrival.
 

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle
.”
 
He smiled.
 
His blonde hair was longish.
 
It grew to his chin as Rich’s had when I had
first met him.
 
Bright green eyes sat underneath
the silver hardware.
 
I had originally
thought that he had only one ring, but there were actually two additional
piercings:
 
very thin silver rings with
tiny silver beads through the middle.
 
The
whole package was far from unappealing.
 

Human traffickers don't have to be ugly.
 
Looking down at my feet, I walked by him without
answering.
 
I could feel him watching me
until he disappeared behind the elevator doors.

***

Okay,
it was time to mentally calculate how long I would be able to survive in France alone
with a woman who wanted to employ someone to take me away.
 
Could I remain living for two days?
 
Would I make it home to my comparatively
uneventful life?
 
I probably would.
 
But I couldn’t say the same for Lulu:
 
if she continued in this vein, she wouldn’t
make it past the afternoon
—b
ecause I would
kill her.

***

I
had grabbed my purse on the way out the door and was relieved because
 
I didn’t remember picking it up.
 
Taking my mother’s calling card out of my bag,
I dialed Rich’s number.
 
It would
probably be around dinnertime at his house.
 

No
answer.
 
 
How could he be out
 
when I needed him?
 
I had to tell him that my life was in
danger!
 
I wanted him to tell me that I
was overreacting!

“Hey
—
this is Rich.
 
If you
are hearing this, then I am O.U.T.
 
You
know what to do.
Beeeeep.
”

“Uhm.
 
Hi Babe.
 
I... I... " A sob managed to escape.
 
Sneaky thing.
 
“Lulu is a mean, old woman and
I can’t stay here with her anymore
!”
 
Not able to continue, I hung up the phone.

I
allowed myself to cry for ten or so seconds, then re-entered the hotel.
 
SHE was waiting for me in the lobby.

“Dear,
you can’t just leave like that!
 
I was
afraid that I wouldn’t find you
—
I didn’t know
where you had gone!”
 
Ugh.

Sitting
through our carb-loaded breakfast, I wasn’t able to eat anything.
 
Lulu took around a hundred and forty years to
butter and ingest her food.
 
Any time I
saw a hotel employee, I imagined that they were looking at us, trying to figure
out what kind of grandmother tries to sell her grandchild to a foreigner.
 
Actually, I guess I was the foreigner in this
case.
 
Whatever.

“We
need to see Napoleon’s tomb today.
 
Also,
I think we should see the Louvre before it is too late.
 
You can’t go to Paris and not see the
Mona Lisa
.”

Why
did we
need
 
to see Napoleon’s tomb?
 
At this point I felt lucky not to be lying in
my own tomb.
 
I did want to visit the
Louvre, though.
 
I also wondered how my
grandmother was going to handle all the walking.

***

Lulu
was wearing what looked like a sailor’s outfit.

Both
the blouse and the slacks were navy blue.
 
The top had two rows of gold buttons running parallel from collar to
waist, and there were navy and white stripes between them.
 
A wide, white, square collar made her look
like she was a part of some munchkin singing group.
  

Her white
flats were looking a little worse for wear.
 
Black scuffmarks were smashed across the toes, and it looked like the
rubber was beginning to detach from the left heel.

And
yet, somehow it all worked for her.

How I love this woman:
 
even if she had tried to pay someone to take
me on a date.

***

“Off
we go,” she warbled, when she had finally,
finally
finished her habitual
morning croissant.
 

Mona's
face covered the back of Lulu’s head perfectly.
 
If this didn’t proclaim “Tourist!
 
Tourist!
 
Tourist!” I didn’t know
what possibly could.
 
Where could she
have found her artistic accessory?
 
I
hadn’t seen her buy it, so she must have brought it from home.
 
Unbelievable:
 
Lulu brought a French souvenir from the USofA.
 

***

I
followed the smiling (or maybe not:
 
it’s so hard to tell
!) woman to the
Metro station.

“Do
we know where we need to get off?”
 
I
asked my grandmother.

“I
think so.
 
I looked at the map this
morning. I don’t remember the name of the street, but when I hear it, I will
remember.”

“Did
you bring the map?
 
I’ll figure it out.”

“I
left it in our room.
 
You disappeared,
and I was in a hurry to get dressed and find you.”
 
Pursing her lips, she refused to look at me.
I couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses, but I’m sure they were all
ablaze with exasperation.

Funny
how she was so worried about me disappearing, all of a sudden!
 
She turned her head to look out the window,
and I found myself face to face with Mona again.
 
I rolled my eyes at her, but she didn’t
comment.

Behind
 
me sat a woman with a little boy.

“
Excusez moi
,” I said, “
Où
est …
uhm
… Napoleon’s Tomb
?”
 
I tried to find the
correct words.

“Ah.
 
Si vous
trouvez
l’
Esplanade des Invalides, vous trouvez Napoleon
.”
 
I think she was trying to simplify the words,
because she could tell that I was not a native speaker. What I gathered from
her explanation was something like “If you find the Esplanade des Invalides,
you find Napoleon.”
 
That was helpful.

“
Merci beaucoup
!”
 
I nodded vigorously, and she smiled.
 
The little boy giggled.

The
Metro had already made a stop, and the doors were closing.
 
When I looked through the window, I saw that
the sign on the station wall said “Esplanade des Invalides” in big, black
letters.
 
We were too late.
 
The car was already on the move!

“We
missed it, Lulu!”
 
I hissed.

“Well,
let’s get off at the next stop.
 
It can’t
be that far.”

“But
we won’t know where we are!”

“We’ll
ask someone. Besides, I used to live here.
 
I ought to know my way around!”
 
Flipping
brilliant.

We
exited at the next stop and ended up on the street.

“Okay,
now what?”

“You
know, I don’t think you’re in a very good mood today!”

“Really?”
 
I seethed.

“Yes,
really.
 
For someone who got to wake up
in Paris, you
sure are grumpy.”

Almost being sold into slavery can do that
to a person
.

“I’ll
try to be less
grumpy
,”
 
I promised through clenched teeth.

***

The
humidity pulled no punches and made quick work of making me sweat.
 
Damned
boots!
 
I had worn an almost
transparent skirt and a sleeveless sweater, but the black tights and
clodhoppers brought my core temperature through the roof, as usual.
 
I had dressed in an optimistic mood, even
adding color to my usual funereal attire.
 

This
was before I had found out about Lulu’s plans for me the previous night.
 

My
sweater was ribbed and cranberry red.
 
I
loved it because it stretched out around my breasts and made my waist look
small.
 
The skirt stopped just above my
knees and had little buttons trailing down the front:
 
it was black with white roses, and it twirled
when I spun around.
 
Not that I was doing
a lot of spinning, lost out there on the street.

***

It
was quite evident that we had no idea where we had landed.
 
I doubted that my grandmother had spent a lot
of time on this particular corner forty years ago.
 
If she had, it had been removed from her
memory.

“We
need to get back on the train,” I told her.

“What?
 
Why?”

“Because
it is too hot to wander around looking for dead Napoleon.
 
If we get back on the Metro, we can go back to
the right stop.”

Reluctantly,
she looked around, giving her navigational skills one last chance.
 
“Back on the train.” She turned and headed
back to the station.
 
Mona stared at me,
unblinking.
 

I
didn’t think she was smiling anymore.

***

I am
not sure what happened next, but I found myself lying on the street
—
on top of Lulu. My skirt was around my waist, and my elbow
hurt like crazy.
 
Muffled moaning could
be heard beneath me.

“Oh
my God!
 
Lulu, are you alright?”
 

A
man ran toward us and helped me up, then reached for Lulu and hauled her to a
standing position.
 

“
Mon Dieu
!”
 
he exclaimed. “What happened?”

Glasses
askew, the right side considerably higher than the left, Lulu adjusted them and
wiped dirt off of her knees.

“I
tripped.”
 
She touched her hair and made
sure that she still had her purse.

My
injured elbow was scraped and slightly bloody.
 
The man looked at the two of us and shook his head.

“
Au revoir
,” he said, as he walked
away.
 
I wouldn’t want to be a part of this either.

“Can
you walk?”
 
Since I had fallen on top of
her, I was worried.
 
I was much larger
than she and capable of damage.

“
Of course I can walk
!
 
I just tripped on something, that’s all.
 
I am fine.
 
I want to see Napoleon.
 
Now let’s
go!”
 

She
was visibly frustrated and a little pride-damaged.
 

“Do
you want to sit down for a minute?
 
We
aren’t really in any hurry... ”
 
I wanted
to make sure that she wasn’t hurt, but she was already limping away from me.

Once
reseated, Lulu took a Kleenex out of her bag and handed it to me.
 
I dabbed my elbow and hissed. This brought
back memories of falling off my bike when I was little. It seemed to sting so
much more as an adult.
 

***

Children
must have some sort of coping mechanism for boo-boos:
 
they hit their heads on things all day long
and walk away like nothing happened.
 
Sometimes they need a kiss from their mothers, but then they're
fine.
 
Whenever I banged my head on
something, I felt like I needed to go to bed for the rest of the day.
 
When did the change happen?
 
Why do adults dwell on things that children
just shrug away?
  

I
longed to be able to take the chip off my shoulder from this awful morning
—
and for a character bandage and an orange popsicle.

***

“Here’s
our exit.
 
We really have to get off this
time.”
 
I sounded annoyed.

“You
know, you really will catch more flies with honey,” Lulu responded.

“Can
we please just get off the
—
” The doors shut,
and we headed for the next stop.
 
      
Again.

The guy
who had checked on us after our collapse was waiting for his ride when we
debarked and then instantly embarked... again.
 
He refused to make eye contact with me.
 
I refused to make eye contact with Lulu.
 
We went through the sliding doors.
 

Again.

When
we finally made it back to the Rue de Napoleon, I was already standing and
ready to exit
—
scowling at Lulu, who refused to stand
until the train was completely stopped.
 
I swear I heard applause as we stepped out.

“Follow
me.
  
I will get us there.
 
I promise.” I dragged her along the stones
until we ended up in front of a large building with people practically piling
on top of each other to get inside.

“I
think you’ve found it, dear.”

I
headed for the entrance, not bothering to check if she was following behind me.

“You’ve
found Napoleon!”

“Hooray
for dead Napoleon,” I quipped.

“Be
respectful, dear.
 
He is a very famous
man.”

Zut alors
!
 
I turned slowly and glowered, “He
was
a very famous man.
 
He’s dead now.
 
I hope he’s worth it, because that was one
hell of a ride.”

“Good
grief!
 
Please try to be respectful!”

“I’m
sorry, Lulu.
 
My elbow hurts, and I’m
hungry.”

“Hungry?
 
You are
always
hungry!”

The
dusty tips of my boots marched inside the building.
 

***

I
wasn’t impressed.
 
What looked like big,
concrete coffins lay in a circle on the floor.
 
Was I exhausted, or jaded... or what?
 
It just wasn’t that interesting to me.
 
Sitting on the lip of one of the platforms holding a tomb, I nibbled on
a fingernail.
   

Restlessly
kicking my heel, I checked out all the tourists.
 
I wondered how many of them had been sent out
with a professional date the previous evening. My guess was none.
 
Zero.
 
Zip. Only poor little me had been offered out
to whichever eye-brow-pierced-foreign man accepted the deal.
 

In
my heart, I knew that no one had actually accepted the offer, and I had been
safe all along.
 
I was just too hot,
pissed, and homesick to recognize it.
 

My
fingers tasted like a salt lick, but I didn’t care
—m
y teeth continued their assault on my cuticles.
 
Not paying attention to where Lulu had wandered
was a major mistake because she had disappeared, yet again.

“Lulu?”
 
I called, semi-quietly, my voice sounding
hollow in the enormous room.
 
I didn’t
get an answer, and I was past the point of minding my manners.

“Lu
Day?
 
Lulu!”
 
I shouted from the top of my lungs.

“
Madame
, you must come wiz us.”
 
A man in what looked like a navy blue
security uniform appeared from thin air and pinched my sore elbow.

“Wait,
what is this all about?”
 
In my distress,
my words refused to translate into French.