Blondetourage

by Allison Rushby

'Gotcha,' George says, before she goes back to her speedy IMing.

  Fishkiller: Hey! Where r u?

  Vet2be: Paris! Can u believe it?

  Fishkiller: What? Ooh la la! What's it like?

  Vet2be: Beats me. Been here 4 hrs and only seen CDG

  so far.

  Fishkiller: CDG?

  Vet2be: Charles de Gaulle, darling. Airport.

  Fishkiller: Why 4 hrs? Security?

  Vet2be: No. Anouschka. Duty free shopping.

  Fishkiller: DFS 4 hours? Ooohhh. Swap lives with u now.

  Vet2be: Ha! Sounds good. Remember, it was Anouschka who shopped 4 hrs. I waited in business lounge. Surviving on mini croissants and juice. Hang on. Moving. Gotta run.

  Fishkiller: Okay. Talk soon. Hate u and ur fun life.

  Vet2be: Charming. Miss u too.

  'Grrr. That is so ... Anouschka. Right when we're settled in. You ready?' George asks, standing beside me, ready to go in seconds flat after seeing the crew member who's arrived to fetch us.

  'Sort of,' I quickly jump up and grab Fluffy's Louis Vuitton carrier from beneath my seat (I have to admit it looks kind of strange against my jeans and, no, I still haven't managed to get that mustard stain out of them entirely).

  'Girls! I'm waiting. Let's go!' crew guy claps his hands, hurrying us up.

  I glance up at him apologetically. 'Sorry! I'm coming! I just have to ... come on Fluffy. I'll take you out again as soon as I can. I promise.' And, with one final push on his rump, the cat's in the bag. Literally. I zip him up as fast as I can, get a firm grip on the bag and then run to the door.

  'You're really going to have to move faster when we're on the road, kid, or you'll get left behind,' crew guy says as I pass him by. 'Now let's move it. Go. That way. Go, go, go, go, go. Catch up to the others and make it snappy. Romy and Anouschka are waiting out front and you know how Anouschka feels about waiting.'

  I can just imagine, I think to myself. Outside the business lounge now, I catch a glimpse of a group of familiar-looking fast-moving people making their way hurriedly towards a large exit sign and I follow George, who's started jogging after them. As I go, I hug Fluffy's carrier to my chest so he doesn't jiggle around too much (he hates that, or so he tells me).

  'Come on, already,' crew guy runs past me. 'The cars are waiting. The girls are waiting.'

  With a huff and a puff I try to run faster, George easily taking the lead (I guess after a few seasons on the road, she's used to this). As we keep on running, she somehow manages to disentangle my backpack off my back and take it from me, lightening my load.

  'Thanks,' I try to say, but it comes out as more of a grunt than anything. It's only now that I notice how tiny she is. Tiny, but still faster than me.

  'Waiting !' Crew guy looks back from where he's gaining ground steadily in front of us.

  George snorts her trademark snort. 'Waiting, huh? Like we've been waiting, I guess. For almost five hours .'

  It's taking all my concentration to run, so I can't answer, not even to bag the Rich Girls. Slap, slap, slap, George's and my sneakered feet pound the tiles beneath us. Slap, slap, slap. 'Wait till I get my hands on Anouschka. I'll ... I'll ...'

  I look over Fluffy's carrier, unable to resist. 'You'll what?' I croak, hoping it's something good.

  Another snort. 'Yeah, okay. I'll probably smile sweetly and tell her those thighs of hers look remarkably thin today. But don't worry. I'll get her back for making us run. One day.'

  Bling it on!

  'Ooohhh ...' I breathe out slowly, totally forgetting not to look impressed.

  'Not too shabby, huh?' JJ grins back at me, still holding the bathroom door open. She'd brought me in here specifically to see the view.

  Yes. The view. From the bathroom.

  And, believe me, it's nothing like the view from the bathroom I'd shared with JJ in Sydney over our recent break (which was of Nan and Pop's red brick garage, two wheelie bins and often a present that Stinky Jack had left behind).

  I cough, remembering myself. It's just a view. It's not all that great. (Well, only about ninety-eight per cent. I mean, where's the sauna and masseuse?) 'I guess it'll do. At least there aren't any rats,' I try, but I'm sure I'm completely transparent. I can't take my eyes off it. It. The Eiffel Tower.

  Wow.

  I can't believe my bathroom (okay, okay, the Rich Girls' bathroom) has a view of the Eiffel Tower. Do people really live like this? Huh. I guess so. Pity they don't appreciate it. Romy and Anouschka probably think it's a decorative French cell phone tower they're looking at every time they glance out the window.

  Still, I guess I should just be thankful I'm here viewing it, even if I do have to put up with the two stupidest girls on Earth. As I may never have such a bathroom available to me ever again (judging by the quick succession of chefs around here), I decide to make use of the facilities before they disappear. Slowly, I cross the hardwood floor to the creamcoloured left-hand-side wash basin, turn the tap on, squirt some delicious-smelling grapefruit- scented soap into my palm and begin washing my hands as I keep right on staring out the window. Who knows how quickly this could be snatched away from me? I should take my hand-washing opportunities as they come. When I'm done, I wash them over again, just in case.

  'Are you all right there?' JJ asks me after a while, making me jump. Mesmerised by the view, I'd forgotten she was even there.

  'Um, sure. Just ... dirty. You know, from the airport.'

  'That's some dirt ...' JJ starts, but is cut off by a piercing Anouschka screech. 'And that would be my cue. I think the vultures may be hungry. If you can unpack a few things, that'd be a great help, sweetie.'

  'Sure,' I nod, Eiffel-transfixed again. 'Unpack things. I can do that.'

  'When you're done washing your oh-so-dirty hands, of course,' JJ says with a laugh, making me look up and around before she trots off down the corridor to the 'vultures', or make that 'vulture'.

  Right. Where was I? I guess washing my hands three times would probably be bordering on obsessive, whatever the view. Almost reluctantly, I dry off on a fluffy white handtowel and make my way into the corridor and across the hall to the bedroom JJ and I are sharing. It's small and obviously a kid's room, with an extra twin bed squished in, but I'm not complaining. After all, I'm not planning on spending a lot of time in here doing anything other than sleeping. I'm hoping to be out and about on the streets of Paris, seeing the sights, breathing in the culture and gourmet dining, rather than label-shopping till I drop (the true anti-Rich Girls experience). And when I am actually in the apartment, I'll probably be hanging out in the gorgeous cream-sofaed living room with its view of the Seine, luxuriating in the media room catching up on some classic French films or ... washing my hands as I gape at the Eiffel Tower. (Yes, again. Like I said, I have very dirty hands. Taking in culture on the gritty Parisian streets does tend to make a girl's hands filthy, you know.)

  And wait till I tell Steph about all of this. About the apartment. And the view of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower and ... um ... all the other stuff.

  I've kind of been wondering how much I should tell her, actually. I mean, it's probably going to be more trouble than it's worth. Because something's telling me Steph will be all 'I told you so' if I let on that things haven't been terribly, awfully, shockingly bad so far. The thing is, and I hate to admit it, but it's sort of been okay following the Rich Girls around. Sure, it's been less than forty-eight hours so far and it's mostly been sitting around on my butt, punctuated by running to make planes, driving through the night in black tinted SUVs and people staring at our huge group and Anouschka's even huger luggage collection (especially if the cameras are around), but I have to admit the attention has been kind of fun, or at least different, which I'm starting to realise is going to make it difficult to keep emailing/IMing Steph. Like I said, it'll be all, 'I told you so, I told you so' (Steph never seems to be able to say anything just once).

  That said, I stand by my convictions – of course the whole show is com
pletely superficial and ridiculous. The only reason it's been even slightly fun so far is because it's a novelty to me. And I'm sure it's going to change soon and I'll hate it with a passion. After all, running all over the world shopping and partying can't be fun all the time. Can it? I pause for second with this thought. No. No, of course it can't. There has to be more to life than shopping and partying. Not to mention spending hours a day being groomed. You'd die of boredom if that's all there was to do all day every day, wouldn't you? There's got to be more. There's just got to be. It's like ice-cream (stick with me here). It's yummy and you love it, but you hardly want to eat it for every meal. Anyway, I'll have to think a bit harder about the Steph thing. Right now, however, I'd rather think about Paris things.

  Like all the fantastic sightseeing I have to fit in, all the pain au chocolat I can cram in my mouth and all of my bad French phrases that I have to try out. I've got a doozy I've been saving up for some time:

  Les Mets de cette saison ne sont pas très bons (This year's Mets aren't so hot).

  This one came from JJ's employer before last – an American baseball team manager living in Tokyo who hated Japanese food (JJ cooked a lot of burgers that year). I'd been hoping this job would be a little more illuminating on the knowledge front, but with Romy and Anouschka heading up the show, my next French phrase is more likely to be, 'I'll take one in every colour and make it snappy, you Gallic peasant.'

  Getting down to business, I unzip JJ's and my suitcases, pull out our toiletry bags and then hang the very few things we've brought with us that require any kind of ironing. We'd been given a short set of rules to pack by – hard, trolley-style, carry-on luggage, plus one small backpack. All to be re-packed in ten minutes or less. Romy and Anouschka were allowed to check their luggage, of course. Matching. Louis Vuitton. And plenty of it. Just an hour or so ago, as we were sitting in our car outside the airport waiting to leave, George had pointed the vast sea of it out to me. We watched it through the car window, being loaded, case by heavy case (it had to be counted three times before we left – Anouschka, it seems, trusts no one).

  George had shaken her head as she watched the never-ending cases pass us by. 'There are people starving all over the world and their luggage gets its own car.'

  Unfortunately, Ashleigh had been listening in from her seat in front of us. 'If the starving owned fifty gs worth of luggage, they'd probably make sure they got an extra car for it too,' she'd whirled around in her seat in front of us and snapped.

  On one side of her, Toby groaned. On the other side, Melinda simply sighed. 'Remind me we're behind on Geography tomorrow. Very behind. It isn't quite what we should be studying, but perhaps we should take a close look at the reasons behind the rise of poverty in Africa.'

  Now, absentmindedly folding a few bits and pieces that have moved around in JJ's and my bags, I think about Ashleigh's comment again. The first thing I wonder about is whether the girls' luggage is really worth $50,000. I glance down at our own bags, battered, bruised and stickered from just a few short trips. I'd thought they were expensive when we spent a couple of hundred bucks on each of them, but wow – $50,000 seems like an awful lot of money to spend on something that's going to get battered, bruised and stickered. Then again, maybe it isn't a lot of money and they don't get battered. Not if you travel first class everywhere. And you're a millionaire. And not that I'd ever admit it to Steph, but that luggage did look pretty nice, all lined up on the concrete, with its matching insignias. Almost like it was about to do the can-can, as everyone who walked by goggled at how much there was of it and how much it was obviously worth. Still, $50,000. That's a scary amount of money to pay for some stitched together leather and a couple of zips – for stuff to haul your stuff in.

  With a frown and a fold of a couple of T-shirts, I move on. To something not altogether so nice – the other thing Ashleigh had said. The thing about the starving people in the world. I mean, come on. She can't really have meant that, can she? The weird thing was, no one had seemed particularly shocked that she'd come out with what she'd said, so I guess she must say things like that all the time. I wonder for second or two if she really does think this way. Has she always been like that, or has hanging around the Rich Girls turned her into one herself? On the show (yes, yes, okay, so I've caught a couple of episodes, so sue me!), Anouschka's always managing to come out with corkers like Ashleigh's comment. That homeless people should 'just find somewhere nice to rent if they can't afford to buy' or that 'girls with anorexia should eat something already – they make the rest of us look fat'. And everyone's always telling me that it's all in fun, that the girls don't really mean the things they say or do, but I don't know. I don't really buy into that argument. I think saying things like that at all is almost as bad. It makes what they're saying valid in some way. As if it's a point of view that actually matters, because people are listening, right? And I'm sure there's plenty of people, little kids mainly, who watch the show and think it's a hundred per cent for real. And then, just like Ashleigh, they go around repeating those awful phrases and acting like the Rich Girls. Even worse, after meeting Anouschka, I think she does mean all those things she says. The whole Anouschka thing isn't an act. It's actually for real. Anouschka really is, well ... Anouschka and ...

  Knock, knock.

  I look up from my suitcase to the doorway and a sea of black.

  'Want to come for a walk?' George asks, leaning against the doorframe.

  I fold one last T-shirt and close the suitcase lid. 'Sure.'

  'Melinda says we can have some free time until dinner. Then we have to put in a couple of hours study and really hit the books tomorrow.'

  'Oh.' Poof. There go my grand ideas about hanging out in the gorgeous cream-sofaed living room with its view of the Seine, luxuriating in the media room with my classic French films or ... washing my hands as I gape at the Eiffel Tower (well, I guess I could sneak away for a quick bit of grapefruit-scented hand washing. You have to go to the bathroom now and again, right?).

  George must see my face fall. 'I know. It feels like a bit of a vacation at first, doesn't it? You soon find out it's not. You should see the places we've done lessons. Fighting motion sickness on the bullet train in Japan. Holed up in a café in Disneyland Paris. Even stuck on the London Eye. Melinda managed to squeeze in a whole Geography lesson on the Thames while we were on that thing. It takes a whole half hour to go around, you know.'

  'Well, after years of being tutored by myself, it still sounds pretty good to me. If it's here or a year in a dusty opera singer's library, I choose here.' (Don't tell JJ I said this.)

  'It has its moments. The London Eye was fun. The motion sickness on the bullet train thing, not so much.'

  I nod. Still, it does sound a lot more enticing than a full year with Frau Braun, which was looking like the alternative.

  'Is that true? You were tutored by yourself before this?'

  'Mostly in Vienna. JJ worked with an opera singer there for years. And there were a couple of other stints in Japan and so on.'

  George leans on the doorway for a second and frowns. 'An opera singer? I thought they were always fat. Isn't your mom some kind of weight loss cooking guru?'

  'Sort of. She's into eating healthily. It's not a dieting thing. She doesn't believe in diets.'

  'Anouschka thinks she has some kind of secret cooking method that she never tells anyone.'

  I pause for a second. 'She does. Kind of.' Heaven forbid anyone ever finds out the exact ingredients in JJ's recipes. I know all her tricks and for the Anouschkas of this world, it's fairly mind-blowing stuff. 'So, um, how about this walk then?' I change the subject. I'm often asked about JJ's 'secret'.

  George pushes herself off the doorframe. 'Oh, yeah, sure. I thought I could take you to this cool park I know – Parc André Citroën. You haven't seen it yet, have you?'

  I shake my head. 'No. I've actually never been to Paris before. That sounds great. I'll just go and get the "stay together, be back in less tha
n an hour, don't talk to strangers with French bon bons" lecture from JJ and we'll go.'

  'I'll grab my jacket and meet you at the door. Watch out though, Anouschka's in the kitchen.'

  I pull on my own jacket, wishing it had invisibility powers. 'Thanks for the warning.'

  $$$

  'How'd it go?' George asks, closing the front door to the apartment behind us. 'I see you still have both your eyes, so there was obviously no gouging or anything. She must be in a good mood.'

  Wow. Gouging. That Anouschka must be really something. 'Thankfully, Anouschka was scarfing down a mushroom omelette, so she was pretty quiet. JJ was busy tending to her every need, so I got the "stay together, be back in less than an hour" bit, but she forgot to mention the bon bons.'

  'Maybe she knows you couldn't resist them anyway.'

  I laugh. 'Probably. After years of Viennese chocolate, resisting supermarket-style chocolate is pretty easy, but French bon bons? I don't think so.'

  'Before we go, I've got to ask. Why JJ? Why not Mom?' George pauses in the hall, looking confused. 'JJ is your mom, right?'

  'Well, for a start, we're Australian, so it's "Mum", which kind of confuses people. And the JJ is a bit of a family joke. Everyone in our family has two names. We have our real names and our "sit-com" names – the names that we should have been called because they suit us better. JJ's real name is Susan.'

  George pauses for a moment then nods. 'Definitely weird, but I can see that. She's not a Susan. What's your sit-com name, then?'

  I grimace. 'Petunia. Another little family joke. A not-so-funny one.'

  Another pause. 'I guess you had to be there.'

  I laugh. 'Don't worry. It doesn't make any sense and you don't want to go to the headspace where it does. If you understand my family, you're in huge mental trouble.'

  'I so know what you mean. Wait till you meet my mom. Like I told you, she's the makeup artist. She thinks it's perfectly okay to walk right up to people and begin inspecting their blemishes and picking at their skin. But anyway, stairs or elevator?' George points at each with one hand.