Paris, Adrift

by Vanda Writer

  “Scrambled egg white? That sounds terrible.”

  “It probably is, but I read it’s good protein. That’s what Rocky Graciano eats when he’s training for a fight.”

  “I’ll eat it if you let me take you out tonight.”

  “Jule, you need to rest.”

  “I will. I promise. But tonight, we go out.”

  “Okay. If you eat now and sleep all day, I’ll go out with you for an hour tonight.”

  “Make it two.”

  “Okay, two. But that’s it.”

  “We’ll see. I’m going to sponge down in the bathroom now.”

  “Sponge down? Why don’t you take a long hot bath? Relax your muscles so you can sleep.”

  “That sounds lovely, but French hotel bathrooms don’t have bath tubs.”

  “What?” I ran into the bathroom and found two ceramic basins molded out of one piece sitting on top of a ceramic base. A hot and cold brass faucet pointed to the center of each basin.

  “Two! We’ve got two basins,” Juliana exclaimed from behind me. “This is a good hotel.”

  “It is? What about the shower?”

  “No shower,” Juliana said, leaning against the bathroom doorway filing her nails.

  “There has to be, at least, a toilet. Where’s the toilet?”

  “Down the hall. With the communal tub. Oh, and there are also the public ones outside.”

  “Outside? I’m a private kind of person, especially about those things.”

  “When in Rome . . .”

  “Yeah, sure, and I suppose that other thing over there is the . . .”

  “Yes. The bidet. I’m going to wash up now.” She slipped her nail file into the pocket of her bathrobe. “You want to help?”

  “Yes, but no. We’ve got to stay serious. This is your career. You will go in there and get washed alone. And then you’ll sleep.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Service de chamber,” the masculine voice on the other side said.

  “Bring it to me in the bathroom.” She winked, letting her robe slip off her shoulders and down her deliciously naked body.

  “Juliana . . .” I whined.

  Chapter Nine

  The driver stopped the cab in front of Chez Moune and I drew out a fistful of francs from my pocket. Juliana counted out the right amount and handed it to him. He looked quizzically at her, then at me. He turned back to her and said something with an ugly smirk on his face.

  “Monsieur, vous nous déposez ici.” Juliana said sharply. Then to me, “Come on, hurry.”

  I slid out of the car. “What’d he say?”

  “It was nothing.”

  “It got you upset.”

  “He thought this was a mistake, that we didn’t want to get out here. Forget it.”

  I followed her down three flights of stone steps. The air was thick with humidity, and I wished I could throw off the coat I wore. On the way down, she told me that we were in Montparnasse, a section of Paris that used to be sort of like Greenwich Village. Before the war, it had been a home to a great many artists and writers who came from all over the world. The war and the occupation had made it too hard for them to stay, and once they left, they never came back.

  Chez Moune, a woman’s club, was first opened back in the thirties, and Juliana used to go to it when she was a kid before she went to live in the US. It was hard to imagine they had a women’s club way back then, but Juliana told me that those kinds of clubs had always existed, even in the US, only they were secret to most of the world. Juliana said she would never go to any of the gay bars in New York City because they were bars, not clubs, and they were for low-class people. Shirl and Mercy sometimes went to those kinds of bars and they’d ask me to come, but I never wanted to take a chance on getting arrested and Max having to fire me. Juliana said in France the police didn’t bother much about the women’s clubs, but they did raid the men’s since it was against the law in Paris for two men to dance together. That seemed strange since the French had legalized homosexuality way back in 1791.

  I wore the suit and tie that Shirl, or maybe it was Mercy, had snuck into my trunk. Juliana warned me that, although our kind of people weren’t illegal in France, regular people didn’t like us much more than the people in the U.S. did; they considered us a “social plague.” That meant I had to be careful to keep my coat closed till we got inside the club.

  Juliana was wearing an orange and green chiffon dress held up with spaghetti straps. She’d thrown an airy chiffon shawl around her shoulders.

  When we got to the bottom of the steps, Juliana pushed through the heavy wooden door and we were in a darkened room with plush couches and tables, a dance floor, and a bar. The thick heat followed us into the room, and there was a faint smell of bodies. An orchestra played a foxtrot I didn’t recognize, and all the musicians were girls. I’d never seen anything like it. Girls in suits and ties like me danced with girls in dresses like Juliana. There were some girls in suits who danced with other girls in suits. The waiters, all girls too, wore tuxedos like they did at the 181 Club in the US. The difference was there were no queens in this place, just butches and femmes. And no one was performing for the straights because there were no straights. We had a place to be ourselves without fear that some guys in uniform would burst through the door ready to arrest us. Years of tension I didn’t even know was wound up in me seeped out, and I felt like I could breathe, maybe for the first time.

  Juliana told me there were some women’s bars like Le Monocle where a single woman could sit at the bar and try to attract another single woman, but at Chez Moune that was frowned upon. At Chez Moune, you had to come as a couple and leave as the same couple.

  “You can take your coat off now,” Juliana said. “You’ll be safe here.”

  “Safe.” I breathed the word in, and out. I decided not to think about Dan Schuyler.

  She walked me over to the hatcheck girl, who was a cute young thing in a little bitty outfit. I gave the girl Jule’s shawl and my coat.

  A blonde woman in a suit who looked to be in her forties hurried over to Juliana. “Ah, Julien.” She took Juliana’s one hand in her two and put a kiss on each of Juliana’s cheeks. Juliana did the same to her. The two spoke in a wild, excited French. Listening to Juliana speak French sent thrills up my legs. There was something so sexy and feminine about those sounds, at least the way they came out of Juliana. The woman seemed happy to see her.

  “Bon soir, Madame Moune. Comment-allez vous?” Juliana said.

  Smiling, Madame Moune said something back to Juliana.

  Juliana turned to me. “Je voudrai vous présenter Madam Alice Huffman.”

  “Welcome to Chez Moune,” the woman said in a heavily accented English, then she kissed me on both of my cheeks. “Australian?” She looked to Juliana.

  “No. American.”

  “Oh.” Madam Moune took a few steps back. “Well, you are a friend of Julien so drink, dance, relax yourself.”

  She spoke again in French to Juliana, and they seemed to have a little banter back and forth along with a few laughs before Madam Moune returned to sit with her friends on a long couch in the corner.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “She wanted me to sing.”

  “Tell her to buy a ticket to the opening.”

  “I didn’t put it quite so crudely, but I knew how you would feel about it. Shall we have a drink first or a dance?”

  “Dance? You mean—you and me? We can . . . Right out in public?”

  “Right out in public. And dancing here is about as public as you and I will ever get. So? Shall we?” She opened her arms and I took one of her hands in mine. I put my arm around her bare shoulders. Despite the heat, her skin was cool against my fingers. She pulled me close, holding me tight
; I felt her breasts beating against mine as she led me slowly around the dance floor. I hadn’t danced with her since that first time in her apartment when she kissed me. A new life pulsed through me. A girl stood in front of the orchestra, leaning into a microphone singing in English, “Time After Time,” and I got lost in Juliana’s eyes. There was no one left in the world, only Juliana and me. The music and our bodies swirled through a timeless space filled with just us. If Dan Schuyler’s face hadn’t kept popping into the back of my head, it would’ve been perfect.

  I laid my head on Juliana’s shoulder and her hair tickled my face. She hummed the song so that only I could hear. Her hair smelled of lemons. She kissed me right on the lips in front of everyone. It was a short kiss, but a good one. I was so filled with love; how could I let Schuyler tear it all away from us? I held her tighter. Nothing would ever separate us.

  There was a tap on my shoulder, wrenching me from my Juliana-Al world. I turned to look.

  “Hi.” Andy grinned. “May I cut in and dance with the prettiest girl in the room?” Andy’s dark, slicked-back hair glistened under the dim lights. I remembered how the girls at Club 181 practically drooled when this he-she mounted the stage and sang like Frank Sinatra. Even the straight girls swooned over her. I wanted to stomp on him—her—right there. Instead, I was about to concede, the way men do, when Juliana said, “Andy. Al and I have never danced together. Do you mind, terribly?”

  “Uh, no,” Andy said, backing away. “She’s all yours, Al. You lucky dog, you.” She turned to Juliana and winked. “I’ll talk to you later, doll face.”

  After Andy left us, I held Juliana so close she couldn’t breathe. “Easy, Al. Give me a little room.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Thank you for doing that. Did you used to go with her or something?”

  “Or something. Your dancing has improved.”

  We danced all night. And drank and talked to Juliana’s friends. Some of them spoke English, but most didn’t, or said they didn’t. Juliana tried her best to keep up with translating for me, but there was a lot I didn’t get. Still, it was a marvelous sensation to be in a place where Juliana and I were a couple, and everyone accepted us like that. No one treated us as if we were mentally ill or two criminals on holiday. They were like us, and nobody was hiding. How lovely not to be hiding. It all felt so natural. The jams were always calling us unnatural. What did that mean? Here, with these women, dancing with Juliana, everything felt natural. I thought about how often I’d watched straight couples huddle around tables at the Copa or The Mt. Olympus or The Haven. They’d have their arms around each other; sometimes they’d kiss. I’d be so envious, but this night at Chez Moune, Juliana and I were like them. Except they didn’t have a Dan Schuyler lurking somewhere waiting to tear it all apart. Stop thinking about him.

  Around midnight, showgirls came onto the stage to sing and dance. It was hard for me to sit back and enjoy the show; in my mind, I kept casting this one or that one for the floorshow at The Haven.

  A couple of the girls came up to Juliana and asked her to sing, and my manager-self jumped in. “She has to rest her voice. She’s got a big show coming up in few of days at the Lido. We’d love to see you there.”

  “Sorry,” Juliana would shrug. “Al’s in charge.”

  Through much of the night, Andy sat at another table, balancing one of the showgirls on her knee while drinking one mug of beer after another. She-He watched Juliana closely. Sometimes Andy’s and my eyes would lock for a moment. Then I’d go back to listening to all the French flying around me. At one point during the night, I looked over at Andy’s table and she was gone.

  Juliana and I didn’t get home till almost dawn. “Bed. You have to get straight to bed,” I whispered as we got off the elevator and stepped into a black hallway, with not even a window to let in a bit of moonlight. “Jule, I can’t see a thing. How are we going to get to our room?”

  “There,” she yawned, pointing at a button that glowed through the dark. “That button. Press it.”

  I did, and the hall was awash in bright light, but as we stumbled toward our door, a little tipsy with drink and lack of sleep, it went out. “Jule! Are you still there?” I called out.

  “Right here,” her voice came. “The light doesn’t stay on long. It’s the way the French save money.”

  “You stay there,” I told her as I crawled along the wall, feeling my way back to the button. I pressed it and ran like hell, grabbing Juliana as I went by. The light blinked off before I could fit my key into the keyhole. “Damn! I can’t find it.”

  Juliana laughed as I struggled. “Shh. Everyone’s sleeping.”

  My key finally went in, and I pushed open the door on Juliana’s side of the suite. I flipped on the light and we fell into her room, laughing. She collapsed onto her bed, instantly falling asleep. I pulled off her dress and underthings.

  “Come on, Juliana, you’ve got to help a little. I’m trying to get this nightgown on you. And gosh, it’s sweltering in here. They must have a fan somewhere. I’ll ask tomorrow.” I had gotten the nightgown over her head and it bunched up around her neck. I struggled to get her arms through the sleeves. Her eyes opened, and she broke into laughter.

  “Juliana, stop laughing.” I said, laughing too. “You’ll never get through tomorrow, I mean, today’s rehearsal, which is soon. Put your arms through the sleeves.”

  She put her arms through the sleeves, and I pulled the gown down around her.

  “Did you have a good time tonight, Al?” she asked, her eyes closed.

  “Lift up,” I said.

  She lifted, and I slid the nightgown under her rear. I sat on the bed next to her. “It was a magical night, Juliana.”

  “Are you happy?” she asked, her eyes two sleepy slits.

  “Very.” Dan Schuyler’s face popped in to dilute my joy.

  “I want you to be happy,” she said.

  I slid my two hands under her nightgown, pushing it up a little, and lay the side of my face against her pussy because I needed to be there. A tear rolled out of my eye.

  “Al, is something wrong?” she asked, putting her hand on my head.

  “Just happy.” I squeezed my eyes around my tears as she ran her fingers through my hair.

  Chapter Ten

  “Eleven o’clock?” I shot up in bed and threw my watch back on the end table. “Oh, no. Juliana!” I jumped out of bed and ran through the door that separated us.

  Her bed was empty, the sheets thrown back. There was a note pinned to her pillow.

  Al, I’m off to rehearsal. I’m meeting Scott and the boys there. I wish I could show you around the city, but that doesn’t look possible. At least not today. Take yourself out. Relax in a café. Have a French breakfast. Go see the Eiffel Tower, take a day trip to Versailles, or go for a ride on the new Cityrama Tour Bus. You’ll love it. I saw a picture of it. I can hear you saying it looks like something out of a Buck Rogers comic strip. Don’t spend the whole day working. You’re in Paris!

  Well, the idea of spending a leisurely day sightseeing sounded wonderful, but totally out of the question. I had research to do. And I had to find a fan. Today! The top of my nightgown was soaked. With Juliana gone, it seemed like a good time to put a call through to Shirl to see if she knew anything about Dan Schuyler. First, I opened a window trying to get some air. Cars and buses honked and screeched. Clouds of exhaust drifted in, making me cough. I closed it again.

  “Monsieur Fournier? No? English? You don’t? You’re not pretending, are you? I don’t understand. No je n’cest . . . forget it. English por favor. No, that’s Spanish. I—need—an—English—Eng—lish,” I overpronounced. “Op—er—a—tor. Never mind. Okay. Okay. Yeah, c’est bean.”

  I hung up and immediately dialed the desk again. “Hello, Girard—No! I mean, Monsieur! No, don’t go. Bonjour, Bonjour!! Thank you, thank
you! I need to place a call to the United States. Could you help me? New York City. The number is SPring 3-5743. Call me when you get through. Do you know about how long that’ll be? That long? Thanks, I mean, merci, monsieur. I’ll be here.”

  I dashed into the bathroom. I had time. Girard said it could take an hour. I leaned over one of the basins washing myself in the freshly filled water basin with a rough cloth and a bar of soap. The phone rang. I had a mouthful of toothpaste. This is not an hour! Pushing my toothbrush to the side of my mouth, dripping toothpaste, I wrapped myself in a couple of thick white bath towels and ran to pick it up.

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll be right down.”

  I threw off the towels, ran back into the bathroom to rinse and spit. I dashed back into the bedroom and pulled my clothes from the closet and out of the drawers. Keeping Shirl waiting down there was costing me a fortune. I jumped into my underwear, blue day dress, stockings, flats and sped out the door and down the carpeted steps. I was afraid the clunky elevator would take too long.

  Breathless, I grabbed the receiver of the international phone lying on the desk. “Shirl?”

  “Al? Is that really you?” she asked.

  “Yeah! Shirl, I had—”

  “All the way from Paris,” Shirl mused. “Our little Country Girl, calling all the way from Paris. So grown up.”

  “There’s something I wanted to—”

  “Where’s Juliana? I want to talk to her too.”

  “She’s at rehearsal.”

  “Too bad. You’re settled into your hotel? Mercy, come. It’s Al.”

  “Shirl, I wanted to ask you—”

  “Is your hotel ‘tray chick’?”

  “Nice, but the reason I called you was—”

  “Mercy!” she yelled. “Hurry! Al, say hello to Mercy. She’s never talked to anyone in Paris.”

  “Not now. You see—”

  “Here Mercy. Say something.”

  “Hi, Al,” Mercy shouted. “This is so exciting. You’re calling all the way from Paris?”