A Dangerous Dress

by Julia Holden

  I do not care much for cats. I also do not care much for Nathalie Gauloise.

  The truth is that when I first met Nathalie, I did not have any opinion of her one way or another. Of course, I am human just like anybody else, and I started forming impressions.

  The very first one she made was that she is the prettiest girl I have ever seen. Really. And she still is—even though I am talking about someone you know I do not like.

  You may remember I told you that Celestine was not the prettiest girl I ever saw because I have seen a girl who is drop-dead movie-star perfect gorgeous. Well, that girl was Nathalie. What’s more, all of her is real, although it grieves me to say it. I wish I could tell you all that perfect gorgeousness is manufactured. But I can’t. I have seen Nathalie up close—much closer than I would have liked, in fact. And I do mean all of her. Including parts that tend not to be real when they look so perfect. But everything about her is real. And perfect. She has perfect black hair. Perfect pale skin. Perfect eyes, nose, cheekbones, teeth. Perfect tits. Waist. Butt. Legs. Even ankles and feet. So that was my very first impression.

  Then Nathalie immediately started rubbing up against Gerard Duclos like a cat in heat. Which contributed significantly to my second impression.

  Slut.

  That was the first word that popped into my head. Followed by

  Cheap whore slut bitch.

  Okay, maybe some of those words I thought of later, after everything happened. But that very first time, I distinctly remember. Slut.

  Nathalie and Gerard Duclos were murmuring to each other in French. Then they stopped murmuring. Nathalie looked at me. She blinked those big black eyes. Needless to say, she has very long eyelashes.

  “You are pretty,” she said.

  That was a surprise, coming from her. I said, “Thank you.”

  “But not so pretty as me.”

  “No,” I said. Which was quite true. But having her say it like that turned her compliment into an insult.

  “She did not bring the dress,” Gerard apologized to Nathalie.

  “She did not bring the dress?” Nathalie’s eyes narrowed, and for an instant I thought she resembled a very pretty poisonous snake.

  “She is an expert,” Gerard assured her. “She will find the dress.”

  Nathalie’s eyes unnarrowed, and the snake went away. “Find me the most good dress,” she instructed me.

  “Okay,” I said. I was happy Grandma’s dress was safely locked away in my mom’s suitcase in my room. Cheap whore slut bitch Nathalie Gauloise didn’t even deserve to look at it.

  I didn’t wait for her to say anything else. I walked out of the room. Irene followed me, shaking her head. “Nathalie will never accept the dress from me,” she said. “She is jealous.”

  “Jealous?” With all due respect, Nathalie was at least thirty years younger than Irene, and thirty years prettier.

  Irene shrugged. “Gerard and I have the history. The ancient history. And Nathalie is a stupid girl.” Then she immediately corrected herself. “But she is the star. Of course she is right. So you must find the dress for her.” Irene gave me a paper with Nathalie’s measurements on it—a French thirty-six, which is like an American size four. The paper had a long list of other measurements, in centimeters and inches. Like her neck. Inseam. Bust, thirty-four inches. And her waist, which I will not tell you because it is so small that just thinking about it depresses me.

  “You will also need this,” Irene said, handing me a cell phone.

  I own a cell phone. I can text-message, play games, all those things. My ringtone is programmed to play “Play That Funky Music White Boy,” which is an inside joke with an old boyfriend who is not my boyfriend anymore, and the inside joke is none of your business. In short, I am not cell phone illiterate. But I did not know that not all cell phones work everyplace.

  Here is what I mean. While I was stuck on my way in from the airport, I took out my cell phone to call home and tell my parents I had arrived safely. Only my phone didn’t work. The little picture on the screen of the antenna searching for a signal just kept searching and searching. It never found one. Finally I gave up trying.

  PA Jamie told me most American and European phones are on different frequencies, America versus Europe. So of course it didn’t work. Irene was giving me a phone that worked.

  It was a picture phone. She showed me how to use the camera, and how to dial Gerard’s preprogrammed number. “Call when you find something,” she said. “That way Gerard can just look and say no.”

  Then she gave me a list of vintage clothing stores, and a map of Paris, indicating the locations and addresses of the stores. There were an awful lot of them.

  “I am sorry I cannot go with you,” Irene said. “But the whole movie . . . everybody wears the 1920s clothes. I have much work. Everything else, Gerard is happy. But this dress . . .”

  “I’ll find it,” I said. I had a flicker of self-doubt. Then I remembered Grandma’s dress. The magic would not have brought me this far only to let me down now.

  “I think the chance is more good in the stores here in the Sixth, and in the Fourth.”

  “The sixth and fourth what?” I asked.

  For a second, Irene stared at me like I was a Neanderthal. Then I guess she remembered where I was from, because she patiently showed me on the map. Paris is made up of twenty districts called arrondissements. Which I now know how to spell but still can’t pronounce, so I will just say districts. Anyway the districts are laid out in a spiral. The Fourth is on the Right Bank of the Seine, and the Sixth is on the Left Bank. Do not ask me who thought this was a sensible way to lay out a city.

  Also do not ask me why one side of the Seine is called the Right Bank, and the other side is called the Left Bank. If you turned around, what was the Right Bank to you a minute ago would now be the Left Bank, if you see what I mean.

  Irene looked at me, and I was pretty sure I saw panic in her eyes. I wondered how much trouble she’d be in if I didn’t find the dress. Probably plenty. Because clearly I was the dangerous dress hunter of last resort.

  She gave me a hug and kissed me on my cheeks—right cheek, left cheek. Then she said “Bonne chance,” and escaped.

  She did not give me any money. In fact, nobody gave me money or a credit card or anything like that. So I did not know what I would do if I found a dress.

  No, not if. This was the main event. When. When I found a dress.

  The dress.

  I even knew how I would recognize it. It would be the dress that was almost as dangerous as Grandma’s—but not quite.

  14

  I did not immediately start looking for the dress.

  Instead I took out the cell phone Irene gave me. First I called home, where I got the answering machine. I said the flights were great, which wasn’t true, but I didn’t want my parents to fret. Then I said Paris was great, which was true so far. Finally I said I would call again after I found the dress, which I hoped would be soon.

  Then I called Celestine. Because Celestine is my best friend, she lives in Paris, and I was suddenly in Paris too, for the first and maybe only time ever. Not to mention that her lecher of a father was now my boss. So even though I had a perfect dress to find, and even though Gerard Duclos had said Celestine was in Barcelona, I called her anyway.

  I do not know what she said on her answering machine, because she said it all in French. At the end of her message there were four funny beeps, then a very mechanical-sounding French man’s voice said something I was pretty sure meant Celestine’s machine was full. Some things do not need translation.

  I put the phone away and got to work searching for the dress. I spent the next three hours shuttling from one vintage clothing store to the next. In fact, I made it through seven different shops.

  It turned out that how I would buy the dress without money was not an immediate concern. Because I did not find the dress.

  That isn’t to say I didn’t see anything gorgeous. I did. Paris
is the home of haute couture. You can find all kinds of glorious used clothes from Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent and Chanel. There is even more stuff that doesn’t actually have one of those superstar labels, but the couture is just as haute—if not hauter. Like for example Grandma’s dress, which had no label at all, but which was the hautest dress I had ever seen.

  Unfortunately, the wonderful garments I saw in those seven shops were mostly from the forties and fifties and sixties. They were not from the 1920s. You could find the best, most diaphanous, most dangerous dress from 1948, and it would look absolutely nothing like the best, most diaphanous, most dangerous dress from 1928.

  I did find several evening dresses from the 1920s. A few were in pretty good shape, and a couple might have fit Nathalie. But one of those wasn’t remotely diaphanous, and the other one was diaphanous—and orange. I could just picture her declaring it “ ’orrible.”

  By eight P.M., the shops were closing, so my hunting was done for the day. I suppressed a flash of panic. I would find the dress tomorrow. I would. Anyway, I was extremely hungry. And it occurred to me, What better place in the world to be hungry than in Paris? Now all I had to do was find the perfect Parisian spot to eat perfect French food and drink perfect French wine.

  I turned a corner and, as fate would have it, found myself on a little street lined with carts selling sandwiches with meats and cheeses, stands selling pastries that looked so good it made my stomach hurt, and one place that had this rotisserie thing right there on the sidewalk, with chickens rotating over the grill. The smell was just amazing. It struck me that I needed to eat immediately or I would not live long enough to find the perfect dress. Okay that is a little bit of an overstatement. But I was famished.

  I tried to buy one of the sandwiches. Only the woman at that cart did not take credit cards. Or dollars. “Euros,” she said.

  I had no euros. My perfect French-food moment would have to wait until I got some. So I hurried back to the hotel with my stomach aching. I didn’t even go upstairs. I took eighty-seven dollars out of my wallet, which was all the cash I had, went to the front desk and asked to change it.

  “Of course,” said the desk clerk. He started to count out euros for me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said a voice behind me. A man’s voice. Which I didn’t recognize.

  I spun around and found myself face to face with an American man. He had his arms folded across his chest, the way people do when they disapprove of what you’re doing. It is a posture I saw a lot on my grade school nuns and my high school principal, Mr. Demjanich.

  This man did not look old enough to be a high school principal. He was maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He was also kind of cute, and I do not think of high school principals as cute. But cute or not, the man did have that stern principal look about him.

  I knew the guy was American for two reasons. First, he sounded American. Second, he was wearing a baseball cap. I had not seen a single French person wearing a baseball cap. His hair, at least what wasn’t covered by the cap, was sandy brown. Nice hair. Not all men have nice, thick hair. He did.

  “I’m changing money,” I said.

  “No you’re not,” he said.

  “Yes I am,” I said. The desk clerk had finished counting out the euros and was handing them to me.

  “No you’re not,” said the American. He may have been cute, but boy was he pushy. He actually reached across the desk, picked up my eighty-seven dollars, handed it back to me, and said to the desk clerk, “She’s not changing anything.” What’s more, he took me by the elbow and steered me out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk.

  “How dare you?” I said. Which is a phrase I had heard in old romantic black-and-white movies, but I’d never actually said before. Then again, this was the first time I had been forcibly escorted out of a Paris hotel by a handsome but pushy American man.

  “Don’t you know anything about money?” he asked. From the way he asked, I could tell he thought I didn’t. Which was pretty insulting, considering that I work at Independence Savings and Loan Association of Northwest Indiana. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I had very little experience dealing with foreign currency. Actually no experience. But it was rude of this man to rub my nose in it. I resented him quite a lot. Which was too bad, because he was quite handsome, in an intellectual sort of way. Like somehow I knew he wasn’t wearing those glasses because they were fashionable, but because he had worn his eyes out studying. Although they were very attractive frames. Which accentuated his very attractive eyes.

  “What do you mean, I don’t know anything? I know lots of things.” Which even I thought was pretty lame. Frankly I think I would have done better just repeating How dare you?

  “Not about changing money. I assume you have a wallet.” He started to walk away.

  Do not ask me why, but I followed him. He was terribly obnoxious. But very attractive, too. “Of course I have a wallet,” I said. He had seen me take it out, so his question confused me.

  “And in that wallet you have a cash card,” he said. Still walking.

  “Well of course I have a cash card,” I said. Still following.

  “So,” he said. He stopped so suddenly I almost plowed into him. The absence of personal space between us made me notice that he was only three or four inches taller than me, which made him about five-nine, or maybe five-ten if he was thinking tall thoughts when they measured him. And I swear, it’s not my fault, but the thought just popped into my head that he was a very convenient height for kissing.

  “What is this?” He pointed to something.

  I looked. “A cash machine.” Incidentally, there are no cash machines at Independence Savings, because Uncle John thinks people will take out more money than they put in.

  “Try opening your wallet. Taking out your cash card. Putting the card in the cash machine. And asking for money.” He did not say any of this in a particularly nice way, which made me totally forget about kissing him. But I did all those things anyway.

  I had seen cash machines while I was running from one vintage clothing store to another. But I assumed they wouldn’t work. If my American cell phone didn’t work in France, why should my American ATM card?

  My ATM card worked.

  As I was thinking about how much to ask for, he said, “The euro is a buck twenty-five. So a hundred euros is a hundred twenty-five dollars.”

  I got a hundred euros: four twenties and two tens. The bills were much prettier than our money, lovely blue and peach, with pictures of stained-glass windows, bridges, and a map of Europe. I put the euros in my wallet. “Tell me why I had to do that,” I said.

  “Because the euro is a buck fifty at the hotel.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t take the time to do the math, but I knew he had just saved me money. But why did he have to act so superior?

  At that moment my stomach growled. Not grumbled—growled. Practically roared.

  Maybe I did it because he had saved me money. Or because I wanted him to lose that attitude. Or because I wanted to spend my first evening in Paris dining with a handsome, kissable man. Whatever the reason, I asked him:

  “Are you hungry?”

  15

  “Where would you like to eat?” he asked.

  Since he seemed to think I didn’t know anything, I couldn’t imagine why he was asking me where to eat. I didn’t want to look ignorant, but I didn’t know any restaurants in Paris.

  Then I remembered the menu I had found in the suitcase with Grandma’s dress. “How about La Tour d’Argent?” I asked.

  He actually laughed out loud.

  Had I said something stupid? Maybe after four hundred years, the restaurant had finally closed, and I was the last one to know. “What’s so funny?”

  “La Tour d’Argent is probably the most expensive restaurant in Paris,” he explained.

  “Oh.” Great. I had said something stupid. I waited for him to rub my nose in it.

  Only
he didn’t. Instead he asked, “Do you like Italian?”

  “Why would you eat Italian food in Paris?”

  “Have you ever eaten real Italian food?”

  Real Italian food? Maybe it was a trick question. “I’ve eaten at the Como Inn,” I said. “It’s this big place on the north end of Chicago.”

  “In other words, you haven’t eaten real Italian food. So do you like Italian?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Okay, let’s go.” He started to walk, so I followed him. Without missing a step, he flipped open a cell phone and punched in a number. “Hello, Sebastien? Can you get us a reservation for eight thirty at Il Vicolo? Terrific.” He snapped his phone shut.

  I looked at my watch. “That’s in five minutes.”

  “Which will give us just enough time to get there,” he said.

  “If they have a table open in five minutes, why do we need a reservation?”

  “Because this is Paris,” he said.

  He was a very fast walker, which meant that he kept getting ahead of me, and I had to run to catch up. It wasn’t very thoughtful of him, walking so fast that I kept falling behind.

  On the other hand, I learned that he has a very nice butt.

  We walked another half a block when something occurred to me. “Should I change?”

  He stopped and looked at me. “No. You look nice the way you are.” Then he started walking again.

  Ooh. He thought I looked nice. Which gave me a warm little feeling. I realized, I am not just anywhere, I am in Paris. Going to dinner with a handsome stranger I just met. That warm feeling started to grow, and in a few seconds I felt like I was glowing again.

  Only then I thought, He could’ve said “You look great” or “You look fantastic.” Saying “You look nice” wasn’t all that much more than saying “You look fine.” And saying “You look fine” would be about the same as saying “You don’t look embarrassing.” Kissing was officially off the table.

  He wasn’t much taller than me, but boy could he walk fast. I was starting to get out of breath. “Hey,” I said.