Frankie in Paris (4 page)

Then Grampy stood up and began to bellow one of
his favorite Broadway tunes, "Master of the House," from
Les Miserables
.
 
His substantial belly crowned the top of his
denim shorts and his hair stood in a wild wave of silver.
 
He was so entertaining that I didn’t feel the
need to add anything extra to enhance his performance.

The lyrics in the song that he had chosen
included the word “shit,” except that he always edited it out when he made that
particular selection.
    

I think he felt like he needed to shield me
from the profanity, even though he had taken me to see the musical and knew
that I had heard the word “shit” a few times in my life.
 
Just a few.

I was pretty sure that I had used the word more
than I could count and would probably hear
merde
,
too, while we were off being world travelers.
 
Just to clarify:
 
merde
means “shit” in French.
 

My grandfather had a wonderful tenor voice,
with fabulous vibrato.
 
I appreciated his
rendition and used my fingers to whistle once he was finished.
 

***

I drove home in the white Jeep that Grampy had
given me to drive, on loan. The top was down, and the warm breeze whipped
around the car, giving me a little buzz.
 
I hummed a French song, but the tune blew away into the world around me.

***

My dad gifted me his old clunker when I got my
license.
 
It was a 1974 Toyota
Corona.
 
Not a Toyota Corolla.
 
A
Corona
.
 
Never heard of one?
 
I'm not surprised.
 

Sounds like a dream, right?
 
Dad teaches you to drive.
 
He doesn’t even care when you put really loud
punk music on the cassette player when you are trying to figure out how to parallel
park in the high school parking lot, way after everyone on campus has called it
a night.
 
This is done in a car with a
stick shift, no less!
 
Then he gives you
the very car in which you’ve learned to drive.
 
What a guy!
 
Just add the part
where two of the tires need to be pumped up with air every morning and you’ve got
to fill the clutch fluid every other day, or you’ll be really, really
embarrassed when it runs out at a stop light near your school.
 

Now add the fact that the car was born one year
before you were.
 
The car was a piece of
crap.
 
Sorry, Dad.
  
The thing had finally shuddered to a noisy
death a month and a half earlier, and Dad sold it to some guy for two hundred
bucks.
 
It wasn’t clear to me whether the
guy wanted to try to make the car road worthy or cannibalize it for parts.
 

I never saw the two hundred dollars, and I had
been driving Grampy’s vehicle ever since.

I am
going to Paris!
 
I'm really going!

Probably
.

***

My last shift at Above the Waist flew right by.
 
Like a lead weight.
 
Really, it felt like its own hellish
twenty-four hours.
 
Times ten.

Everyone asked me to bring a souvenir home for
them, and I told them that I would.
 
The
assistant manager, Anne, was having boyfriend troubles and said that she wanted
to hide in my suitcase and come with me.
 
I advised her against it.
 

My coworker, Phuong, gave me withering looks
from under her dark eyelashes as she worked the cash register.
 
Her mom was making her tutor her little
brother in math all summer when she wasn’t working at the mall.
 
Paris
sounded like heaven, and her jealousy led her to punish the machine in front of
her with every violent button poke.

***

Ultimately, I managed to find some clothes to
pack.
 
Mostly black dresses with some
sort of pattern and spaghetti straps.
 
I
added a couple of skirts that looked like a European holiday to me,
"hanging" them all near the ceiling in the middle of my bedroom and
slowly twirling them around, trying to picture what they would all look like on
me.
 
Hoping they were French enough.
 

There was a small black velvet bag on clearance
at Victoria's
Secret, and I bought it for my toiletries. It was one of my
lunch-break-purchases. The
 
purple
flowers on the fabric were
 
très
chic
!

I polished and polished my Docs, sometimes in
the normal way, sometimes zoning out to the rhythm of the cloth rubbing across
thick black leather while I slumped on the living room couch watching TV.
  
I wore the heavy boots with everything, even
feminine dresses and skirts, so they would be the pair that I would bring on
our trip.
 

***

The night before we left, I sat crying in
Rich’s arms.
 
I told him how much I would
miss him and that I would write or call every day.
 
He teased me and reminded me that I'd only be
gone for a week.
 

He held my chin and said, “You’ll—
kiss
—be back—
kiss
—home with me—
kiss
—before
you know it.”
 
I almost believed
him.
 

Before we parted for the evening, he gave me a
hundred dollar bill, in case of emergency, and told me to spend it if I needed
to.
 
I made the large bill float in front
of Rich and folded it in half, making it clap as though the top corners were
hands.

“Thank you, Rich.”
 
I used my fingers to tuck the money into my
purse and gave him another smooch.

After Richie dropped me off at home, I
frantically looked through all of my old French textbooks and hoped I knew
enough of the language to communicate once we were there.
 

Paris
was a major tourist city.
 
Most likely, I would speak English the entire time I was visiting.
 
But I really hoped that I would be able to
practice my French without totally embarrassing both myself and my grandmother.
 
She said that she only remembered a few words
of it, and she was going to be depending on me.

The day arrived, and any fears that I had were
displaced by anticipation.
 

I was ready to travel.
 

Lulu and I sat in Rich’s car. Knowing it would
be a bumpy ride, I let her have the front seat.
 
Older VW Beetles are not known for their smooth carriage.

No one said a word.
 
I guess we didn’t have anything to say.
 
Or maybe we had too much to say.
 
Keeping my hands in my lap, I turned the knob
on the radio, trying to find some good traveling music.
 
I found a throwback station and managed to
relax a little bit, as Flock of Seagulls told us that they ran, they ran so far
away.
 
They had to get away.

Watching the world fly by, I regarded all of
the random things that I always notice on the way to the city.
 
I saw the little round white house, off of
Northbound 280—you can’t miss it from the freeway.
 
There was always some debate over whether it
looks like it belonged to the Smurfs or the Barbapapas, but since the latter's
popularity fizzled out in the 1970's, the Smurfs usually won.
  
I also saw the “Pointing Padre” statue of
Father
Juníper
o Serra, California icon.
 

We had all said our goodbyes to the family and
given them our itinerary that morning, and I promised to call when we got
there.
 
There would be a nine-hour time
difference.
  
Rich told me to call him if
I needed him; no matter what time it was on either end.
 

Only eight thirty in the morning and it was
already a warm, seventy degrees.
 
I was
glad that we’d be escaping the July heat for at least the thirteen hours of the
plane ride.

In my carryon bag awaited a sketchpad and pens,
a mix cassette of my favorite punk songs and the current issues of a bunch of
fashion magazines.
 

We arrived at the airport, and Rich eased into
a parking spot.
 
He effortlessly lifted
our bags from the trunk.
 
Lulu’s had
wheels on it, and she was able to pull it by the long handle on its side.
 
Mine just had handles, and it was heavy with
clothes that I hoped would be appropriate for our trip, but my handsome
boyfriend easily threw it over his shoulder and locked the doors.
 

Entering the bustling airport, we found the
correct counter and checked our bags.
 
Potential
passengers walked in a hurry all around us.
 
Everyone was on his or her way to somewhere, and
 
I felt excitement blossom within me because I
was going somewhere, too.
 

***

My grandmother started to get the nervous edge
that she gets when she’s doing something new. She gets a little twitchy.
 
She looks around a lot and starts to get
bossy.

“Richard!” she barked, “Why don’t you get us
some pop?”
 
That’s what she calls soda.
As if it were still 1956.
 
As in "Let’s
go to the diner for a pop or a malted."

“You got it,” replied Rich, in his usual
charming way.
 
I could smell the leather
from his motorcycle jacket when he lifted his arm to give her a thumbs up.

“Wait!” she yelled, sounding panicky, “Let me
give you some money!”

She started pulling fifty dollar bills out of
her pocket.
 
One drifted to Rich’s boot, like
an autumn leaf, and he bent over to pick it up.
 
He warned me with his eyes, as if he knew how badly I wanted to float it
back up into his hand, like film in reverse.

“Lulu, I have some money.
 
Don’t worry about it.” Rich grinned his
beautiful smile and looked over at me with humor in his glorious clear-sky-colored
eyes.
 
Good Lord, how was I going to live
without him for seven days?

We stood in the middle of a stream of bodies
and waited for our pop.
 
Rich was quick
and brought her a can of Sprite.
 
Diet
Pepsi for me.

“Thanks,” we said at the same time.
 
I kept myself from saying “Jinx!”, like some
immature kid.
 

After taking a couple of sips, she threw the
can away, which was unlike her, as she is usually one of those people who will
put an open soda can in the fridge and continue nursing it for several days
until it is completely drained.
 

This worried me.
 
She was already losing it.
 
Am I
really going to the other side of the world with her today?

She started to walk really fast in the wrong direction
and then stopped and looked at us.
 
Rich
gently took her arm and guided her toward the metal detectors, and we all made
it through without any problems.
   

It was surprising that Lulu’s jewelry didn't
set off an alarm:
 
she wears between two
and five rings on each finger, and in the sunlight, her hands sparkle like they
are made of shattered crystal.
 
I don’t
know what we would have done if she needed to take them all off:
 
it would have taken an hour, at least.

This was years before September 11, 2001, and
the process was much simpler then.

“Where is our gate?”
 
she asked in a shrill voice.

“Follow me,” Rich said calmly.
 
We did.
 
He got us there quickly and we sat down.
 
Lulu went through her purse, making sure that she had not left anything
behind.
 

She wouldn’t let me hold my ticket, which made
me feel like a four-year-old.

I looked at my fingers, twisting the pearl ring
that Rich had given me for Valentine’s Day the year before, and chewed on my
cuticles:
 
an enduring and disgusting
habit that I can’t shake.

“Stop eating your hands,” Rich said, so I did.

Instead, I picked at an artfully placed hole in
my jeans.
 
I had chosen faded jeans and a
tight black T-shirt for our trip.
 
And my
Docs. Always the boots:
 
you can't go
wrong with "Bouncing Soles"...
I
tried to erase the lipstick off of my nibbled fingers.
 
With nothing to wipe it on, I rubbed the red
smudge into my skin until it disappeared.

***

Looking around at the people who would be
flying with us, I noted that there were all different types of people with whom
we would be sharing thirteen hours of our lives.
 
Some looked French to me.
 
Others definitely had that tourism vibe.
 
Not sure where I fit in, I wondered what they
thought of me.
 

It
doesn't matter.
 

Someone with a microphone started announcing
our flight, and we stood up, Lulu practically falling over in her haste.
 
Focusing on my beloved boyfriend, she asked, “How
would you like to go with us, Richard?”

Incredulous, he looked back at her. “Oh my
God!
 
Really?”
    

My heart leapt about five feet.

“Just kidding,” she giggled. “Let’s go!”

Holding Rich with a fierceness that I didn’t
know I possessed, I gazed into his eyes.
 
“I promise to use good judgment.
 
I will call.
 
I love you.”

He looked like he was about to cry.
 
“I love you, too, Frankie.”

Walking backwards for a few steps, I finally
turned around.
 
I was about to go through
the tunnel leading to the plane, and I peeked at him, one last time.
 
I had a crazy feeling that it really could be
the last time that I saw him.
 

My dear Richie was standing there with
shoulders hunched, his eyes huge and solemn.
 
I tentatively waved and then boarded the aircraft.

***

Our seats were in the middle of the plane:
 
two in a long line of strangers.
 
I was on the aisle, which I preferred because
I could make a quick exit, if necessary.
 

I inhaled canned plane air.
 
Thirteen
hours
.
 
I settled in and was able to
unwind a little.
 
Lulu was already relaxed,
with her feet dangling above the ground.
 
Fat little toes wiggled, enjoying their freedom.
  

The pilot made an announcement, and the safety
demonstration was performed by the flight attendants.
 
We weren’t near a safety exit, so I didn’t
have to obsess about it for the whole flight.
 
That was good.
 
Everything was
said in English and French, and
 
I
recognized almost all of the French.
     

That was
très
bien
.

It was a pretty uneventful flight.
 
There was a movie and they fed us.
 
The film was one that I had already seen with
Alicia, so I began taking out my art supplies—lining colored pencils up like
soldiers on the flimsy foldout table attached to the seat in front of me.

When the snack cart was brought around, Lulu purloined
two extra packages of pretzels and tucked them into her purse.
 
She poked me with her pointy elbow and
whispered in my ear,
 
“Grab some more
pretzels, will you?”

The flight attendant was bent over a row next
to us, but her cart was too far for me to pilfer another bag.
 
“She’s too far for me to reach, Lulu!”
 
I hissed back at her.

“Well, can’t you just...
you know
!”
 
She moved her
fingers as though she were doing an elaborate magic trick.

What?
 
She's asking me to make airplane snacks
float across the isle
?
 
No. Way
.
 
I shook my head vehemently
and turned to my sketchbook.
 
She sighed
in disappointment and annoyance.
 

I filled pages with faces:
 
girls with large doe eyes, young and
old.
 
Just to kill time.
 

Lulu claimed my mix tape early on.
 
It had a bunch of punk classics from the ‘70s
and some music from Rich’s local bands.
 
The
headphones were over her ears, and every once in a while she would burst out
with random offensive lyrics and not realize it.
   

You haven’t truly lived until you’ve heard a
senior citizen yell/sing, “We’ll burn down the town and take the women with
us!” in a silent airplane full of sleeping people. I think she learned every
word to most of the songs by the end of the flight.

 
Throughout the next couple of weeks, I would
know which hard-core punk song was in my grandmother’s head by the little
snippets that she would be humming out of tune.

***

The flight didn’t seem as long as I imagined it
would be, but I was ready to hop in a taxi and head for the Hôtel de
Lutèce
.
 
Landing and debarking
the plane, Lulu held on to the railing for dear life, carefully stepping down
the stairs.
 

We were told to prepare our passports for
inspection, so I took mine out of my purse.
 
Lulu fumbled with her bag, pulling out wadded tissues and tourist
pamphlets, ultimately finding her passport somewhere at the bottom.
 

After staggering our way through customs and being
allowed into the country, we went to find our luggage.
 

Lulu had insisted that we tie ridiculous gold
ribbon to our suitcase handles so we could find them easily.
 
I was pretty sure that no one else would be
traveling with the teal monstrosity that held my clothes, but it turned out
that approximately two-thirds of all passengers carried the same black bag that
she had packed.
 
The fat, shiny ribbon
was a lifesaver.
 
When I saw it dump onto
the carousel, I sighed with relief.
 

The airport looked like… well, like an
airport.
 
I was surprised to note that it
didn’t look like we had gone anywhere.
 
I
guess it was because no matter which airport you are in, the people there are
from all over the place.
 

What had I expected?
 
Maybe a scene out of
Moulin Rouge
?
  
Red velvet
everywhere and topless waitresses handing out Merlot?
 
I was too exhausted to be disappointed.