Frankie in Paris (3 page)

My boyfriend had created a local band promoter
job for himself, and he was really successful at it.
 
We would spend evenings and weekends, when I
wasn’t working at the mall or performing in community theater productions, at
punk shows all over the valley—visiting recording studios and hanging out in
rehearsal spaces until all hours of the night, breathing in second-hand clove
clouds and cigarette smoke.
 

I love that we went through this time together
and managed to stay away from drugs.
 
I
was the weaker one.
 
I would always say
that I wanted to start smoking because I thought it looked really tough.
 
Big dork:
 
remember?

Richie has asthma and thinks that smoking is
one of the vilest habits on the planet.
 
He has always wanted to say, “Why, of course I don’t mind if you smoke:
 
if you don’t mind if I take a crap in your
shoe.” He has never actually said this to anyone, but whenever someone asks if
they can light up around him, I have this almost psychic sense that he is
barely able to keep himself from saying it.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I did
actually take a puff once, in college. We were doing a scene in one of my
theater classes, and the character that I was portraying was supposed to be a
smoker. I thought it was gross, but my scene partner shared her pack of Marlboros
so that I could do a practice run.
 
I
almost lost my lunch.
 
It’s a wonder that
I didn’t vomit on the classroom stage.
 
We
 
got a solid “A” on that performance, and
I am convinced that it was because of the real cigarette:
 
method acting at its finest.

***

No one else was in the international section at
the library, so I cheated a little and slouched in an overstuffed chair—mentally
calling books to and from shelves, straight into my hands.
 
I had been at Above the Waist until after
closing the night before, and I was toast.
 

Most of the books had photos or paintings of
the Eiffel Tower on their covers.
 
After spending a few seconds studying a
photograph of Paris
at night,
 
I sighed at the beauty of all
the twinkling, yellow lights.
 
Curling up
on one of the fluffy, slightly over-used chairs in the reference section, I
tucked my heavy boots beneath me and studied pictures of famous Parisian
landmarks that anyone would recognize:
 
Notre Dame, l’Arc de Triomphe, The Louvre:
 
there were so many of them! I could
practically hear accordions play as I pored over books about French food,
culture, fashion—you name it.
 
I had read
about most of that stuff when I was studying the language in school, but that
was before I knew that I would be seeing it all first hand.
 
I scanned with a new intensity, which
probably would have helped my grade if I had applied myself in a like manner
when I was a student in the subject.
 

Hours sprinted by, and I didn’t even notice.
What wasn’t even a consideration about a week ago had become an obsession which
I craved more than almost anything.
 
I
was ready for a baguette. I longed to stroll along the banks of the Seine. I wanted to confidently announce, “
Que sera sera
” and have people around me
understand what I was trying to say... Shoot, wait a minute:
 
is that French?
 
I think it might be Spanish.
 
I'll try to get back to you on that.

***

My parents weren’t overwhelmingly supportive of
our trip, but they weren’t really opposed, either.
 
They were always trying to get me to “see the
world” and “go on an adventure.”
 
I guess
this trip fell into both categories.
    

Everyone in our family was used to Lulu’s
bursts of impulsiveness, so the whole plan-a-European-vacation-in-no-time-flat
thing didn’t faze them a bit.

***

Long evenings were spent with my boyfriend,
talking about the need to be careful, him reminding me that I always had to
have my passport with me.
 
He found this
little pouch thing at one of the travel stores at the mall when he was waiting
to pick me up from work.
 

Made of cream muslin cloth, it was created to
fit a passport and maybe a little bit of cash and be tied around your waist,
underneath your clothing.
 
It made me
feel like I was wearing spy gear when I gave it a test run.
 
This would surely save me from being arrested
and thrown in a Parisian prison.
 

Being ever thoughtful, he bought one for Lulu,
too.

We sat in the front seat of his root beer brown
1969 Volkswagen Beetle, the smell of his leather jacket and lemony cologne
filling the small space.
 
Looking into my
eyes and holding my hand, he went over all of his concerns:

1. No going with strangers.
 

2. No going off and drinking alone—an idea that
appealed to me, to be honest!
 
I mean, I
was going to be in a country where toddlers are allowed wine with dinner. The
legal drinking age in Paris
was sixteen, so I was about four years behind the average Parisian.
 
I still had a year to go in my country (not
that I hadn’t broken the law a few times in this arena), so how could I not
take advantage of this discrepancy?

His biggest rule was that I was to try not to
use my cranium for anything that anyone else couldn’t do.
 
He was afraid of sex traffickers, sure, but
he was also well acquainted with any and all documentaries about Area 51, and
he didn’t want me to end up strapped to a table like an alien.

I knew I wouldn’t go against his requests.
 
I loved this boy, and I wouldn’t disappoint
him.
 

Promising to be safe, I swore that I would make
sure that Lulu didn’t do anything off the wall.
 
As if I have ever had any control over what she has chosen to do!

***

My best friend, Alicia, told me that she wanted
me to bring home something “like, really French” for her.
 
Ever since we moved to

My BFF had been stockpiling furniture and
dishes since she was about ten.
 
That was
the age we were when I had met her, and for her birthday she had asked for a
hope chest.
 
I had no idea what a hope
chest was, but she spent the next ten years filling it with things for her
future home.
 

When her parents bought her a bedroom set in
high school, she picked out a queen size bed and an entertainment center.
 
It was a tight squeeze in her tiny
bedroom.
 

In her new place, it looked great.

She really wished that she could go with me.
 
I did, too.

I could just picture us, strolling along the
Champs-Élysées, shopping bags in hand.
 
She would wear her black hair twisted up on the top of her head in an
elegant chignon.
 
I would wear my
standard—and oh, so French—red lipstick, and we’d be giggling and looking like
tourists.
 
Gorgeous, fashionable
tourists, of course: no black knee socks with sandals for us!
 

Alicia had been around Lulu enough to know that
this trip could be an interesting one.
 
She was worried for me.
 

I was sitting on a couch that she had bought
second hand.
 
Allie had great taste and
it was a beautiful piece of furniture.

It was difficult for me to
 
admit that I was a little nervous, too, so I
avoided eye contact and used TK to lazily loop my shoelaces back and forth
around each other, twisting the loose ends and sending them through the eye of
the bow, tangling them.
 
Then I let go
and let them fall back flat against my boots.
 
I did this without moving a muscle, except my brain, that is.
 
Alicia was one of the few people who had
known my secret for more than half of my life.
 

Reassuring her proved futile, but I tried
anyway. “It’s going to be fun!
 
Cobblestone streets!
 
Great
shopping!”
 

Unconsciously pulling on her waist length hair,
which was something that she did only when she was concerned, she said, “Hairy
armpits.
 
Strange, foreign men.
 
What if she makes you eat snails, Frankie?
 
I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it if
she makes you eat snails.”

“It’s called
escargot,
and it’s a delicacy.
 
I might just try it.
 
‘When in Rome,’ and all that.”

“You aren’t going to Rome.
 
What if something happens to you?
 
Make sure you have a nail file with you at all times.”
 
Her mom used to say that to us when we were
younger and she would drop us off at the mall.
 
As if a metal nail file could stop a crazed attacker.
 

Picturing a menacing male mime with a dark
twirly mustache and a black
béret
chasing me through the dark
streets,
 
I decided that I would
definitely bring my metal nail file.

“Nothing’s going to happen, Al.
 
People travel to Europe
all the time!”

“At least you speak French.
 
You’ll be able to say, ‘Get me out of here,’
if you have to.
  
You better not join
some traveling French theater troupe:
 
I
know you are dying to do that!”

“Don’t be crazy, Alicia.”

“Don’t let anyone see you do that extra thing
you do.
 
Don’t ever forget to bring your
passport, and for God’s sake, keep an eye on your grandmother.”

I visited my grandparents’ house about a week
before we left to go over our plans.
 
Lulu insisted that we converge in the “sitting room.” I was
impressed.
 
We only use the sitting room
for Christmas morning.
 

There are three couches in the room:
 
two of them have frames that had been painted
gold and were upholstered in beautiful, light brocade, and one is covered in
white, velvet, horizontal stripes.
 
Two
gold chairs with gilded frames and bright gold fabric sit in one corner.
 
Two additional chairs that look like ancient
thrones stand poised on either side of the window.
 
They are tall and very, very old, covered in
green brocade and stuffed with something a little crunchy.
 
Probably some type of animal hair. I like
these chairs the best—they're the ones I usually sit in to open my Christmas
presents.
 
I chose one and sat down.
  

Lulu sat on the couch across from me.
 
It was the one with the large, oval, marble
table with little crystal dishes scattered all around on top of it.
 
Some were filled with cinnamon candies, which
were Lulu’s favorites.
 
I floated a candy
out of the dish and unwrapped it, mid-air.
 
The wrapper drifted into my lap, and my chin tilted to the ceiling, allowing
the treat to drop right into my mouth.
     

Grampy sat on another couch, in front of two
tiny marble tables.
 
There was an antique
glass cigarette lighter on one of them, solid and beautiful.
 
No one smoked in this house any longer, but
Lulu had for a long time.
 
I've got
photos of her sitting in bed with a cigarette in a long cigarette holder, thick
tiger glasses on her face.
 
So
glamorous!
  

Her first experience with cancer sticks had
been at age five, or so the story goes.
 
A cousin had handed her a lighted cigarette and told her not to let it
go out.
 
This led to several smokes and
an instant addiction which lasted decades.
 
My Aunt Margie likes to tell how the principal sent her home from school
in the first grade because she was caught lighting up in the girl’s
bathroom.
 

She says that the years of smoking have
affected her singing voice, but
 
I think
it’s just an excuse for her lack of musicality.
 
Lulu can’t hold a tune, even though she stopped sucking up the nicotine
when I was little.
 

***

The room looked empty without the Christmas
tree.
 
Dark and kind of spooky, too.
 
Olive carpet stretched out in all directions.
 
It was threadbare in places, but my
grandmother refused to acknowledge it:
 
the
carpet had been shipped from somewhere “overseas.”
 
It didn’t matter that it was thirty years old
and starting to fray.
 
This was a quality
carpet and "it was going to stay!"
 

The front window was enormous and covered by
three different treatments: a yellowing pull-down shade, a sheer curtain
hanging to the floor, behind one of the brocade couches, and then there was the
swag.
 
A hand me down from someone in the
neighborhood, decades ago, it consisted of yards and yards of thick, rich
fabric, which might have been velvet.
  
A
light puce, it framed the large window very well.
 
A decorative fringe around the edges made the
whole wall look royal.
 

Rug-sized brocade tapestries hung, unframed, on
the walls. I think I remember hearing that they were from her first visit to France.
 

In the corner, where the Christmas tree would
have been, was some sort of antique stand.
 
It had fancy knick-knacks packed on the tiered surfaces.
 
There were little works of art from Japan and
silver plates with dates, names and events on them—one from my grandfather’s
years in the Army.
  

Where do
they usually keep this stuff when the tree comes out of the box?
 
That
Christmas tree left no room for any extra pieces in its vicinity.
 
Lulu’s Conifer (and I call it this because
Grampy has no say in how it is decorated) is an artificial one.
  
It doesn’t really matter, though, because
when she is finished with it, you can’t see any actual foliage.
 
In this house, Oh Tannenbaum is covered in
bright pink balls.
 
Only
bright pink balls:
 
three shades of pink, all very similar.
 
And
boxes
of tinsel.
 
She starts with the large
glass globes on the bottom. The medium ornaments go in the middle, and the tiny
ones are at the top.
 
There is an exact
science to this, and it hasn’t changed since I’ve been alive.
 
A billion strands of silver tinsel are
delicately dripped from top to bottom.
 
Multicolored lights hide under the mass of pink and silver, and when
they are turned on, you would think you were in Las Vegas.
  

My boyfriend was so stunned by this vision
during our first Christmas together that he stood there and snapped pictures of
it because he knew that no one would ever believe what he had seen if he didn’t
have photographic evidence.
 

After Thanksgiving, the whole space is
transformed into a crazy maze of lights and fifty years of Christmas past.
 
In Vegas.

The stockings above the fireplace are square
because they were made from knitted afghan blanket squares, compliments of my
now deceased Aunt Eddie.
 
Ten of them
were suspended from a piece of sturdy wire.
 
Our names were printed on little squares of paper, which were then
attached with a stickpin.
   

There's this weird white ball that plugs into
the wall and makes chirping noises.
 
I
have never been able to figure out how this relates to baby Jesus or Santa
Claus, but my siblings and I always delighted in it when we were children.
 
We always fought over who got to plug it in
first, whenever it came out of the box of random decorations.
 

Three sets of Wise Men stared blankly at about
two dozen knitted candles that fit over empty toilet paper rolls (I have no
idea who made these, and I shudder to think that she actually paid for them),
singing lights hang around doorways, and little angels are suspended from an elegant
crystal chandelier.
 

The
coup
de grace
is Santa’s picture, which slides over the toilet seat.
 
I am not joking.
 
When the seat is closed, Santa is
smiling.
 
When the seat is opened, he is
holding his green mittened hands over his eyes.
 
I used to drive my parents crazy when I was younger because I would sit
in the bathroom doorway and watch the seat lift and close.
 
Lift and close, Santa playing
peek-a-boo:
 
my siblings behind me,
giggling like maniacs.
 

Let me give you fair warning about the Christmas
toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom:
 
it is covered in holly and ivy print.
  
No one is allowed to use this toilet paper.
 
Ever. It is purely for decorative
purposes.
 
It sits on top of the toilet
tank, and God protect the person who ever runs out of Charmin and puts it on
the empty roller.

All of these things were safely packed in
cardboard boxes in the garage, and the space I was sitting in was quiet and
calm.

Looking like it had been transported out of a
castle somewhere, the room didn’t resemble the rest of the suburban (maybe a
little stuck in the Kennedy heyday) house.
 
A gold-framed mirror hung above the fireplace, which made the room look
a little larger.
 
During the holidays,
little elves with pointed noses and green felt bodies sat taped in all four
corners.
 
They looked creepy even without
me making them all wave their arms in unison.
 
Whenever I did that, my mother always shrieked at me to stop.
 

***

I sat on my crunchy throne and waited for
someone to say something.

“Do you want some melon, Francesca?” Lulu asked,
forever pushing that damned cantaloupe.

“No, thanks, I just ate.”

Finally, Lulu asked, “Are you ready for our
trip, yet?”

“I can’t wait!
 
I’m really excited!”

Grampy said, “Let’s decide who is going to take
you to the airport.”

“Rich would like to take us,” I explained.
 
My boyfriend really wanted to be there to see
me off.
 
He was afraid he would never see
me again.

“We’ll be staying a the Hôtel de Lutèce.
 
It’s near the Latin
Quarter."

“Awesome,” I said.
 
I would have to find a map and look up the Latin Quarter.
 

“You are going to have to watch your budget,” said
Grampy

“But we’re going to do everything there is to
do while we’re there,” assured Lulu.

I wondered what “watching your budget”
meant.
 
Grampy always said that Lulu had
delusions of grandeur:
 
meaning that she
saw herself in a grander life than she was actually living.
 

She was what I would call A Lady Who Lunches.
She had lunch out with her friends and went shopping almost every day, except
for Saturdays, when she was a champion bridge player at the senior center.

The reality was that they lived off of my
grandfather’s pension, which seemed to be a very suitable amount, but not
enough for a terribly extravagant lifestyle.
 
Lulu didn’t seem to notice and kind of just did whatever she felt like
doing.

My mother once told me that my grandmother was
so peeved when my grandfather retired that she decided that she would retire,
too.
 
She rarely did any housework or
cooked ever again—although she still makes the most delicious rice dish I have
ever tasted for Thanksgiving. I look forward to it every year, except when she
substitutes with low-fat cheese.
 
Then
it's kind of gross. Grampy ran the vacuum, or “the sweeper,” as they called it,
and dusted when necessary.
 
I’m not sure
who did laundry, although I did see it piled in the TV room from time to
time:
 
a heap of white socks and tighty
whiteys stacked on a pink velvet La-Z-Boy.

When they were stationed in Japan (my
mother was born at a military base there), they had nannies, cooks and
housekeepers:
 
The Help. I know that Lulu
still wished in her heart of hearts that they still had The Help, but she was
too afraid that a stranger might steal from her home—because everyone knows
that toilet-paper-roll candles are hot items on eBay, right?

“When is our flight?”
 
I asked

“Ten o’clock on July fifteenth.
 
We’ll be leaving from SFO.”

I had never flown out from San Francisco, and I was excited to have the
chance.
 
“I’ll tell Rich,” I said.

“Okay, I guess that about covers it,” said
Grampy, clapping his hands.

Well,
that was quite a meeting.
 
I got ready to leave.

Grampy stopped me and asked if I would sing
something before I left.
  
I was a
theater major and amateur performer.
 
I
loved singing for my grandparents because they actually enjoyed watching me do
it.

We moved into the family room, and I stood on
the step to their kitchen, which had served as a stage for my performances
since I was a kid. I sang "Memory" from
Cats
, making the dishtowels from the kitchen float in front of me
as I conducted them with my pointer fingers.
 
They swirled in circles and flew over my head like a canopy.
 

My grandparents were an attentive
audience.
 
The asked for another song,
and I chose "There’s No Business Like Show Business,"
trying to belt like Ethel Merman.
 
When I had completed my last note, they
applauded and made me feel like I was on a Broadway stage.
 
I made the little towels bow as well, then
return to their hanging positions:
 
one
on the fridge handle and one on the counter.
 
Lulu laughed with delight, sounding just like a little girl.