A Dangerous Dress

by Julia Holden

  I went back to my desk. An e-mail came in from Elliot, with the script as an attachment. I printed it out. Here is what the cover page said:

  THE IMPORTANCE OF BEATING ERNEST

  an original screenplay

  The bottom of the page said Copyright J. Thomas, and there was an address on King Street in New York, NY.

  I was about to start reading, when another e-mail came in. I opened it, and woohoo turned into ohmygod. I immediately called Elliot Schiffter. “There’s a problem,” I said.

  “Didn’t you get the e-mail?” he asked.

  “Yes, I got the e-mail,” I said.

  “You don’t like the seat? You’re in First Class. You want a window instead of an aisle?”

  “The seat is fine,” I said.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “You’re sending me to Paris,” I said.

  “And?”

  “Paris, France,” I said.

  “I already told you that,” Elliot said. “That’s where they’re making the movie. So?”

  “So I just realized: I don’t have a passport.”

  There was a prolonged silence. So long, I thought we might have been cut off. Finally Elliot said, “Sure you do. Everybody has a passport.”

  “I don’t. I live in Kirland, Indiana. I’m twenty-five. I never needed a passport.”

  “I’ll call you right back,” Elliot said. Then he hung up on me.

  Thirty seconds later, the phone rang again. Forty-five seconds, max.

  “We’re putting you on a later flight,” Elliot said. “Go home. Pack. Be ready to leave in half an hour. A car will take you to the passport office in Chicago. They will process your passport on an emergency expedited basis. Then the car will take you to O’Hare Airport. Your flight will leave at . . .” I could just picture some little assistant whispering information into his ear—“six-oh-five,” he said. “Any questions?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then why are you still talking to me?” Elliot asked. Before I could answer, he hung up again.

  Two thoughts immediately collided in my head. The first was, I am going to Paris. I. Am. Going. To Paris. Paris, France. Which was amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable.

  The second thought was, I have to leave in twenty-nine minutes. Which was impossible.

  I am not speaking figuratively. I am not the very fastest person in the world when it comes to picking clothes. And, as you probably know, picking clothes is a fairly important part of packing a suitcase. Especially when you’re going to Paris, France. I had no idea how I could possibly do it in twenty-nine minutes.

  I ran home, which is only two blocks away. When I got there I pulled out a suitcase—my mom’s, because I don’t exactly have my own luggage. I do have some duffel baggy kind of things, but to go to Paris, I thought I should at least have an actual suitcase. Not that it was the suitcase I would have picked for Paris. It’s made of this pink carpet-bag fabric. But it was big. Then I proceeded to pull absolutely every piece of clothing out of my closet. No exaggeration. Every single thing. Then I just grabbed and tossed. Here are a few of the things I took:

  Everything I own that is black.

  A Miracle Bra. Not that I have anything to apologize for in that department, thank you, but every girl can use a little help now and then.

  A teeny tiny thong. Just in case an appropriate occasion presented itself.

  Every hopelessly ripped, shredded-at-the-heels pair of jeans I have ever refused to throw away no matter what my mom said.

  The most perfect little black Dolce & Gabbana skirt and top, which Celestine gave me. Celestine is my best friend from college, and she lives in Paris. I need to tell you considerably more about her. But first let me finish about my packing.

  A fiercely painful pair of Stephane Kélian pumps. Also from Celestine.

  All told, I packed enough clothes for a week. Or two. I had no reason to think anybody would need me in Paris for that long. But I could hope, couldn’t I? Let’s face it: If somebody offered you the chance to get out of Kirland, even for a day, you’d grab it. If you got the chance to stay away longer than you planned, you would. If staying away longer meant, oh, forever? Sign me up. And that’s if I was going just anyplace. But Paris? Oh, please let it be forever.

  I also took a copy of my “A Dangerous Dress” paper. Actually I packed that in my carry-on. Which I guess to the uninitiated might look like a small duffel baggy kind of thing. I figured I’d better reread the paper. Because that was why Elliot Schiffter was flying me to Paris.

  And, of course, I packed my Grandma’s dress: wrapped up in white acid-free tissue paper, folded very gently, and surrounded by a protective wall of Tampax boxes and Stayfree packages—which I packed for that express purpose.

  Looking at the dress, all wrapped and protected in my mom’s suitcase, I wondered if I would ever have the nerve to wear it.

  I suppose I should make this clear: I had never worn it. Ever.

  I didn’t even know if it fit. Sure, I had held it up in front of me, lots of times. It looked like it would fit. But I never put it on. The thought of me wearing Grandma’s dress has always seemed . . . how do I say this? . . . almost sacrilegious. Like if you were invited to a Christmas party and somebody offered to let you wear the Shroud of Turin, you wouldn’t, would you?

  Okay maybe that is not a perfect comparison. But you get the idea.

  So the fact that I was packing my own personal Shroud of Turin and taking it with me to Paris was somewhat terrifying. At the same time, though, it was . . . inspiring. Liberating.

  You read the part of my paper about the transformative powers I believed the dress must have had to be able to turn my small-town Grandma into a sophisticated, enchanting, dangerous woman of the world. Even though the dress was almost eighty years old, it still felt pretty powerful to me. Maybe the dress wasn’t the Shroud of Turin after all. Maybe it was a magic wand—not a fairy godmother’s, but my very own Grandma’s. And if I was lucky, it might have enough magical powers left to transform me, too.

  7

  Just as I zipped the suitcase shut, a car horn honked.

  I looked out the front window. A big black Lincoln Town Car was outside. I stuffed the screenplay into my carry-on duffel baggy, together with my “A Dangerous Dress” paper. I grabbed the suitcase and the duffel, and ran for the car.

  In three minutes we were out of Kirland and onto the toll road to Chicago. I took out my cell phone and called my mom, who had gone to Mrs. Holupki’s house for an early lunch. I couldn’t think of a clever or subtle way to introduce the subject, so I just said, “I’m going to Paris!”

  “Paris is in school, dear.” I swear I heard my mom tsk-tsk at me. “Please don’t disturb her.”

  I guess I hadn’t been entirely clear. “Not Mary’s Paris. Paris Paris.”

  “Paris, France?”

  “Of course Paris, France.” I gave her the two-minute version of events. I must say she took it pretty calmly. My parents are very steady people.

  “You will be careful,” she finally said.

  “Of course, Mom.”

  “Then . . . have a wonderful time.” She giggled. “Paris?”

  “Paris, Mom.”

  “But you don’t have a passport,” she observed.

  At that moment the driver pulled up in front of the Federal Building on Dearborn Street. “Eighteenth floor,” he said. “They’re waiting for you.”

  “I will in a few minutes,” I said. “Anyway, I’ll be fine. And I’ll be back in a couple of days. Tell Daddy I love him. Bye!”

  The driver was right: I got off the elevator, found the passport office—and the instant I walked in the door, a nice young woman greeted me by name. Then a nice young man took my picture with a special digital camera that printed out two identical photos for the application. The nice young woman handed me forms, filled out except for my signature. It was becoming quite clear that there are real advantages to being in the movie business. That
made me think, If I do a really great job and find this dress and save this movie, maybe I can get an actual permanent movie business job. One where you fly First Class, get driven around in Lincoln Town Cars, and drink sparkling water while the nice people at the passport office set a new land speed record processing your paperwork. A job in Hollywood. Or Paris. Anywhere but Kirland, Indiana.

  Whether my goal of leaving Indiana behind and getting a First Class-flying Hollywood job was realistic or not, it motivated me to pull out my “A Dangerous Dress” paper. While I waited, I read the whole thing. Including all those footnotes. Because Elliot Schiffter had not been very specific on the phone, and who knew what that director might ask me? I wanted to make a good impression. No—a perfect impression.

  A First Class impression.

  I never gave much thought to how long it takes to get a passport—or any thought, for that matter. But if you had asked, Is it possible to get a passport in under three hours? I would have said no. A week, maybe. Don’t ask me how they did it. But it is possible: two hours and forty-two minutes. I have the passport to prove it.

  We got to O’Hare Airport at about five ten. My flight was scheduled for six-oh-five. As you probably know, that is not necessarily a safe margin if you want to be sure you make your flight nowadays. Especially an international flight. Except that the advantages of being in the movie business do not end at the passport office. You also get to have somebody meet your car at the airport, check your suitcase at the curb, escort you directly to security, and put you into the short, fast line for the X-ray machine and the metal detector. I had always wondered who those people are who get to go in that short fast line. Now I know.

  I did hesitate for a minute when they were checking in my mom’s suitcase. Remember, my Grandma’s dress was in that bag. I was really nervous about being separated from it, even for the length of the flight. It was from 1928, which by definition made it irreplaceable. And it was my Grandma’s. I did not want to take the slightest chance of Grandma’s dress being lost. Let’s face it: Airlines have been known to lose things on occasion. In fact, I was so anxious I actually started to tell the skycap the whole story about the dress.

  “Do you want to buy extra insurance?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “So ... ?”

  “So . . . I just don’t want you to . . . lose it,” I said.

  “We’ll try hard,” he said, and flashed me a paternal smile.

  I got to my gate in plenty of time, even after stopping to buy a couple of magazines. I bought Premiere—because, after all, I was in the movie business. Also Daily Variety, for the same reason. Although $3.25 for a magazine that is only about twenty pages long seemed a bit much.

  Preboarding for the flight was announced: First Class passengers only. I walked up and handed the attendant my ticket and my brand-new passport. “I’m sorry,” the flight attendant said. “We are seating First Class passengers only.”

  “But I’m—”

  In row forty-two. I hadn’t looked at my ticket before this moment. The first ticket Elliot Schiffter sent me was for a First Class seat. I know they had to put me on a later flight because of the passport thing, but I had just assumed I’d still be in First Class.

  Obviously there was some mistake. I would have to talk to Elliot about this. Meanwhile, though, all I could do was blush and slink off and wait with the crowd until they called everybody sitting in the back of the plane.

  That is where I was. The last row, to be precise—where the seat doesn’t recline all the way back, because the bathroom is right behind you. In the middle seat.

  I guess because of the delay from the passport, I had missed all the nonstops from Chicago to Paris, so I was flying through Atlanta of all places. Thank goodness it only takes two hours to fly from Chicago to Atlanta. I don’t think I could have sat in that awful seat for ten hours nonstop, hemmed in by people who only spoke French and who promptly fell asleep, so that when I needed to use the restroom I had to climb over them.

  About an hour into the flight I noticed a woman who kept walking past me down the aisle, then forward, then toward the back of the plane again. Finally she stopped and leaned over the sleeping Frenchmen.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t put you in First Class,” she said to me.

  On the one hand, I agreed with her completely. On the other hand, I wondered how she possibly could have known about Elliot Schiffter and the tickets.

  She leaned down toward me again. “I don’t mean to bother you,” she said. “But I just had to say, I loved you in Lost in Translation. Working with Bill Murray must have been so much fun.”

  “Oh,” I said. My brain hadn’t fully caught up to what she just said. But I said “Thank you” anyway. Because I knew she had paid me a compliment.

  Before I could figure out what else to say, or not say, the man in the seat next to me woke up. He looked up at the woman, who was hovering about four inches over his nose, and made a huge noise clearing his throat, arrrrrughh-ughh. Which in any language plainly meant, Please move before you fall on me. So the woman just said “Bye,” gave me a little wave with her fingertips, and walked back to her seat.

  Now the man sitting next to me was looking at me. “I am not Scarlett Johansson,” I said.

  I have no idea if he understood me or not. He just closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  Notwithstanding what that lady said, I do not look like Scarlett Johansson. I mean, maybe a teeny tiny bit. She and I are probably about the same height, maybe even around the same weight. And we are both blonde. At least, I am. She changes her hair so much now, it’s hard to tell. And I guess the shape of my face is kind of like hers. But that’s it. If you had three or four Boilermakers, you might look at me and say, “You look a little like Scarlett Johansson.” Then after you sobered up, if you remembered saying it at all, you’d say, “No, you don’t.”

  But that’s what she said. Maybe she had a few Boilermakers before boarding. Anyway that was the best thing that happened on the flight, which tells you it was a pretty rotten flight.

  After what seemed like forever, we landed in Atlanta. I had to change to an Air France flight, but I didn’t care. Because I got to get out of that terrible seat.

  My flight came in at Terminal T. My Air France flight was leaving in half an hour from Terminal E. And by the way, Terminals A, B, C, and D are between Terminal T and Terminal E. So I ran the whole way. But I did get there in time. And no, I did not have the middle seat again.

  I had the seat next to the middle seat. In the same back row.

  8

  The flight from Atlanta to Paris was long. But in spite of my excruciating seat, the awful food, and the overpriced screw-top wine, it was okay, because I was so excited. About going to Paris, and about my new movie job, of course. But also about seeing Celestine. Who is my best friend, who lives in Paris, and who becomes extremely relevant. So it is high time I told you about her.

  For reasons that are not very interesting, there was nobody from my freshman year at Purdue that I particularly wanted to room with. When I put in my housing request for sophomore year, I figured I’d take my chances. And taking my chances, I got Samantha.

  She was much shorter than me, so we would not be able to share clothes, which was too bad. She was an Engineering major, pretty, and Asian. And oh, by the way, Samantha was a lesbian. She told me so in about the first five minutes. She said, “I should probably tell you, I’m a lesbian.” Which, by the way, was fine with me. Although please don’t go getting any ideas. Because I didn’t. It just didn’t bother me.

  It bothered her.

  She immediately decided we were not going to have a good healthy roommate relationship. She asked for a transfer, and they gave it to her in two seconds flat.

  Leaving me without a roommate. Which could be a problem. If I waited for the housing office to assign me somebody, I was at severe risk of getting a person with major issues. So I took matters into my own hands. I
f I was going to get a bad roommate, at least let her be a bad roommate I picked for myself.

  But I didn’t get a bad roommate at all: I got a best friend. I got Celestine. Here’s how.

  In my desperate search for a roommate without major issues, I combed the virtual message boards on the university’s web site. But I also looked at physical bulletin boards, the old-fashioned kind with cork and thumbtacks. On one board there was a pale lavender piece of paper. It was handwritten in writing different from any I had ever seen.

  The notice was Celestine’s. The handwriting was different because Celestine is from Paris, France. Even though people in Europe are writing the same letters and numbers as us, they write very differently. I didn’t know that then. I only knew I’d never seen handwriting like that.

  The only thing the notice said was: Who is my roommate? Plus a cell phone number.

  I called. I don’t know why. She could have been awful.

  But she was Celestine.

  I arranged to meet her in one of the lounges. As soon as she walked in I thought, Oh please let that be her. I admit, my immediate reaction was selfish. Because I could see right away that Celestine is the type of girl who attracts a lot of boys, and high-caliber boys at that. And they can’t all get her, so that would give me a shot at one or two.

  Celestine is the second-prettiest girl I have ever known. In fact, she is almost beautiful. But only almost. It’s as if she was born with an absolutely perfect face. Only then somebody gave her nose the tiniest twist while everything was still soft, and it stayed that way. She is very sensitive about it, which I have tried forever to convince her is nonsense. And I am right. I have known a girl who is even prettier than Celestine. Movie-star-perfect gorgeous, in fact. But in my view, no guy who qualifies as a human being would date her. Because girls like that know they are movie-star gorgeous, which gives them an attitude that, to say the least, is not lovable.

  Celestine is exactly the opposite. Because she’s so ridiculously insecure about her looks, she is totally approachable and lovable, and she does not intimidate boys. So she has more dates than she knows what to do with, and she always will. At least until she settles down, which she swears she will, but I’ll believe that when I see it.