Frankie in Paris
By Shauna McGuiness
Copyright © 2012 by Shauna McGuiness
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
1
Une Idée
2
Making Plans
3
Bon Voyage
4
Loose on the Town
5
Tour de Paris and Beyond
6
Champs-Élysées
7
The Lido
8
Old Dead Napoleon and Other Colorful Characters
9
The Lovely Louvre—or Not
10
Ice Cold Paris
11
The Tower of the Last Straw
12
Hanging with the Dead
13
The Purchase
1
Une Idée
I took French all through high school, conjugating verbs and doing lame skits with as much enthusiasm as I could muster—which was actually quite a bit. Although never fluent in the language, I could definitely hold a conversation. I learned how to say “Qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf” (‘He who steals an egg steals an ox’) and, “L’ananas va sauter en parachute” (which means something about parachuting pineapples, I think). It was possible for me to understand what people were saying en français, if not give an intelligible response.
French was on my schedule in junior college, too—for one semester, at least. All I remember about that class was the Croatian guy who sat next to me and talked incessantly about his “smokin’ hot” blonde girlfriend. Apparently, she resembled Cameron Diaz. He thought so anyway: he took her photo out of his wallet and showed me once. I wasn't impressed. She seemed more Soccer Mom than Supermodel.
Sitting around Lulu’s swimming pool in July, France was the farthest thing from my mind. I was sitting away from the pool. In the shade. I had been working on keeping my skin a vampiric shade of pale for years—which is quite a feat if you were born and raised in sunny California.
Okay now, back to my twenties. Actually, back to twenty: I had just left the teen years behind about four days prior, and my grandmother had an idea. Flipping up the attachable sunglasses that she wore over her regular specs, she looked at me intently.
“Every twenty-year-old girl should visit Paris,” Lulu announced.
“Really?” My interest was piqued because the only girl in the general vicinity who fit that bill was moi.
“How would you like to go?”
This blew my mind a little because we generally aren’t the kind of family that just up and flits off to foreign countries on a whim. We didn’t have that kind of money and my parents were under the impression that places should be visited by car, truck or RV. Even places that are very. Far. Away. Say, like, Canada.
***
Never will I forget spending days in the bed of my stepfather’s truck, bumping along from California to Banff. This was before those crazy seatbelt laws were put into effect (my dad would want me to mention that there was a cover over the truck bed). I spent hours and hours crowded back there with my whiny siblings, listening to endless ‘80s music. Just what every tween girl wants to do on her summer vacation. I still can’t listen to "Material Girl" without thinking about Expo ’86. Totally Radical, Dude.
The best part about that trip was getting my photo taken with a life-size cardboard cutout of my latest crush, Don Johnson, from Miami Vice. He was wearing the white sport jacket with the rolled up sleeves, made super famous by the TV series he starred in during the 1980’s. A pink T-shirt was visible under the manly-chic jacket. If you squinted your eyes and looked sideways at the photo, it almost looked real. Best eight bucks I ever spent.
***
Now forward to twenty: Paris! C’est magnifique!
“So, how do we do this?” I asked, trying not to be too hopeful.
“Well, I lived in France, you know!” Forty years ago.
I'm sure it hasn’t changed at all. Yeah, right! "When should we go?”
“How about soon? How about next week? Do you want some melon?” She handed me a paper plate filled with cantaloupe slices.
“Uh, Lulu, don’t we have to get plane tickets and a hotel room?”
“Really, Francesca, you do know that this isn’t the first trip that I’ve ever planned!”
***
My name is Francis, but everyone calls me Frank—because I don’t feel like a Francis. I was named after an aunt on my maternal side, somewhere way on down the line. Nobody remembers anything about her, but my mother thought it sounded like a sophisticated name. My very good friends call me Frankie, but Lulu insists on calling me Francesca and always has. I have no idea why.
My younger brother and sister got average names. Jimmy and Sally: you can’t get more normal than that.
That’s okay, though, because the truth is and will always remain that I am not. Normal, I mean. Because as far as I can tell, not too many normal people can do this one particularly strange thing that I am able to do: I move things with my mind. There, I said it. Sort of like an episode of The Twilight Zone, or something, isn't it?
It’s called telekinesis, or TK for short. Sounds crazy, right? Well, it is crazy. Some experts believe that most people have the ability to do what I can do, but they just don’t know how to channel the energy: I’ve spent a whole lot of years trying to figure out how not to use this... talent.
Can you imagine how freaked out the teachers at Happy Time Preschool got, when toys and books would fly right off the shelves into my hands? Or how Manny Lucas’s peanut butter sandwich inch-worming, as though alive, across the snack table didn’t go over terribly well? All I can say is that I was a PB&J devotee and my mother packed me tuna.
My parents worked diligently to teach me how to hide my abilities. They would prefer that I didn’t use them at all, but what fun would that be?
As a child, I would spend hours playing with my dolls, making my Barbies create little live home movies right in front of my eyes. Ken would dip Barbie and give her kisses, or I could watch them drive her pink car around my room. It was better than Nick at Nite!
When I was six, my brother was born. My sister followed two years later. It was usually my job to keep them entertained because I could turn their nurseries into a Sunday evening Muppets special. It took some serious coaching to make sure that they never told anyone about their "special" toys. It had to be understood that this was For Home Only. No one would have believed them, anyway.
Apparently, this is a hereditary issue. I’m the first in two generations to be afflicted. And yes, it is an affliction. The temptation to use my gift is nearly overwhelming at times. I’ve learned to curb the urge and have become really good at sensing when no one is looking.
My great-grandmother was the last one to have the gift. It only shows up in the females of the family, on my mother’s side.
I met her once when I was ten and we flew to Iowa for a family reunion. Nana was already ninety and not quite all there. We visited her nursing home to help one of my uncles who was picking her up so she could live with him. The attendants at the place were spooked about the items in her room moving around when Nana’s classical records played. She had forgotten, or perhaps no longer cared, to hide her superpowers. Uncle Ronnie put on a pretty good show, accusing the facility of being haunted and acting really freaked out. He could have won an Oscar for all the crucifixes he planted on himself, backing out of the place with his fingers, repeating the "forehead, chest,
shoulder, shoulder" routine. We're not even Catholic!
Once we had her safely transported to her new home, they let me have a while alone with her. She had no idea who I was (and she thought Ronnie was my deceased great-grandfather), but she delighted in the fact that I could do the things that she could. She played a Chopin record on her ancient record player, and we made her things dance around the room in a delicate ballet of handkerchiefs and antique costume jewelry.
“I’ll tell you what my Aunt Edith told me.” Her eyes were covered in wrinkly folds, but sparkled like they belonged to a very young woman. “Use it or lose it.” Nana's laugh sounded like a spoon clinking on the side of a crystal glass.
***
So, I can swing my car keys through the air, or stir something on the stove while I’m sitting in front of the television. My ability to multitask is awesome. The limit is around fifty pounds—which means I can’t pick people up, or anything. Such a shame, since there have been plenty of times where I’d like to lift rude customers up and hurl them out into the mall, where I worked. Moving numerous items at the same time takes a ton of concentration and energy. It can be exhausting.
When I am really, really angry or frightened, I can’t always control myself. Explaining these instances away is difficult and mortifying. The only people—besides my family—who know about my secret are my best friend, Alicia, and my boyfriend, Rich.
***
Looking at the sun reflecting on the pool, I took a bite of melon and chewed thoughtfully. This trip was never going to happen.
“I’ll visit Triple A. Your grandfather will help me. Do you think you could go next week?”
I can definitely go next week. If it's really going to happen.
This was 1995, and I worked at the mall in a store called Above the Waist. You would think that we only sold things that were worn above the waist. Wrong! We did not discriminate against any body part. We even had a jewelry counter. We sold silver and gold, although I was never promoted to that department. I was usually on the sales floor selling baby doll Ts and Bongo jeans.
I am talking about the jeans that you wore buttoned above your navel. Now they are called Mom Jeans, but back then, it was what the girls wore on Friends.
I was good at my job, too. But not good enough that I couldn’t give very short notice for an all expenses paid trip to Paris, France.
“Lulu, I will make myself available if you can make it happen.” Please God. Pleasepleaseplease!
“Oh, I’ll make it happen. We won’t need to go with a group, because I lived there and I know my way around.”
***
Lulu Day moved from the United States to France in the late 1950s. My grandfather was a major in the US Army and was stationed there. His young wife didn’t want to be without him any longer, so she packed up herself and her two small children and hopped on a plane from America to France. Unannounced. So this wasn’t her first last minute trip to Europe.
I always loved hearing the story of how, upon debarking from the airplane at the French airport, she realized that her skirt was too long. The states had clearly not caught up to French fashion yet, and she wanted to blend in! Lulu carted my uncle and my mother off to the restroom and safety pinned her skirt to a more acceptable length. She was now ready to take on Le Monde.
It is another story altogether how she had to have her husband called away from service while in the middle of his military duties. He had to find her a car and a place to live. They ended up renting a storefront in the Loire Valley in some obscure local winery.
***
If my grandmother was willing to take me on this trip, then I would let her be my tour guide. I was fairly certain that we would be able to find attractions to visit. If we actually stayed en Paris, then we should be able to find the Eiffel Tower, right? Notre Dame? The Louvre? I knew we could do it. Sign me up!
My boyfriend wasn’t as excited as I was about the idea. Rich and I had been dating for three years, and he knew Lulu well.
“You mean you are going to go alone? Just the two of you?” He had some serious issues with the plan. His dark eyebrows were raised in disbelief, and I could see the concern in his gorgeous blue eyes. He’s half Sicilian, and he has thick black eyelashes—the kind most girls I know would kill for. They make his eyes stand out and look like they have sparkly light bulbs turned on behind them.
We were sitting on Rich’s floor, in his bedroom, which had about a dozen punk band posters hanging on the walls and an impressive amount of sound equipment—including an electric keyboard and an old drum kit. I used my TK to organize his record collection.
Richie owns more records than anyone I’ve ever met. Some of them are really old and collectible. Putting them in alphabetical order gave me something to do—other than looking at the disapproving expression on his face. I had to squint a little to read the titles since they were floating kind of far across from where we sat.
“We’ll be fine! She lived there, you know.” Ugh. Did I really just say that?
“Forty years ago! And she didn’t live in Paris. And she’s blind.”
***
I forgot to mention that Lulu is legally blind, didn't I? She can "see well enough to drive," but she is blind enough to have a handicapped placard for her car. This has never made any sense to me. If you are legally permitted to park in a special parking spot because you can’t see, shouldn’t you, say, not be driving? She has vision (with the thickest glasses you have ever seen), but she has no peripheral vision.
Going to the movies with her is an interesting experience because you have to sit at the back of the theater and she still has to move her head around in order to see the whole screen, like she’s watching a tennis match. It can be super distracting, especially if you’re seeing a movie like Braveheart, which is around three hours long. Her neck must have been really tired after viewing that masterpiece.
Through the course of her life, she has had dozens of eye surgeries. She’s even in a couple of medical journals. Her irises are no longer round, although you would never be able to see them through those glass lenses: her pupils are shaped sort of like a cat’s. Lulu never complains about her eye problems and goes through life undaunted.
***
I argued my point: “She’s not going to be driving while we’re there! We’re going to take the Metro everywhere... ”
Somehow, I had managed to file David Bowie behind Never Mind the Bullocks Here's the Sex Pistols. Calling the square cardboard sleeve out of the box, I moved it forward to an earlier place in the alphabet. Lifting a few until I found The Clash, I was satisfied with popping Mr. Bowie right behind them.
“I don’t know, Frankie, it sounds kind of crazy.”
“It’s a free trip to Europe! I have to go!”
Rich understood. But he didn’t like it. Not even a little bit. I’m pretty sure that he thought I was going to be kidnapped by human traffickers. Sometimes his glass is just a little too half-empty.
***
After I left my grandparents' pool—daydreams of travel dancing in my head—I got my ugly, teal, corduroy suitcase out of the storage shed at my parents’ house where I lived.
The suitcase was a high school graduation present from Mom and Dad. When I opened that gift on that special day, I looked inside for the tickets to Hawaii or Mexico. Or Disneyland. No tickets: the luggage was the present.
It was an unattractive, albeit practical gift.
***
Somehow Lulu managed to book plane tickets and find a hotel. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think she used a travel agent. I imagine that it took a lot of work and a bunch of phone calls. Remember, this was ’95, so most people didn't have their own computers, yet—let alone the beloved Internet. And no WWW=no helpful Travelocity gnomes.
***
We would be leaving in exactly fourteen days. I told my manager, Carole, that I'd be gone for a week, and she solemnly swore that she would hold my job for me because I was so terrific at keep
ing the flannel shirt table straightened.
Everything seemed to be falling into place.
I didn’t know how I was going to live through the next two weeks. I suspected that I would mentally pack and repack those suitcases continuously while spending an eternity at work: re-hanging bikinis and listening to grunge music through a dusty ceiling speaker in a dressing room at Southgate Mall. You can only listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit a few hundred times before you wish you could hunt down Kurt Cobain and ask him what the hell he was thinking. I know this from personal experience.
What was I supposed to pack? How does one prepare for a European holiday? Visions of chic black pantsuits and little red cocktail dresses danced through my head. I owned neither. I knew what Lulu would pack: Liz Claiborne suits and high heels.
You can pretty much depend on my grandmother to wear a designer silk suit—or something that resembles a designer suit: a boxy blazer and slacks with sharp creases. And she always wears super high heel shoes—not necessarily stilettos, although she does have some of those. She wears chunky heels, peek-a-boo toe shoes, and shoes with pointy toes: When you buy them in a ladies' size five, they look like midget witch shoes.
I imagine—and I’m really not exaggerating—that she probably owns around one hundred and fifty pairs of shoes. All of them have heels that add at least two inches to her height, although I have, on occasion, seen her in four-inchers, and I am usually afraid that she will trip and break her hip.
Did I happen to mention that Lulu is almost short enough to be an official “little person”? She is 4’8’’, if she is standing with an iron rod back and teases her hair. When she's piloting her enormous car, and you are driving behind her, you can see her little fluffy white head barely peeking over the steering wheel.
She is one of those little old lady drivers. Only she is legally blind.
Lulu’s footwear is usually very tasteful, but when you go shopping in the three to four inch heel department, you eventually run into Lucite or red plastic heel straps. Sometimes she forays into the tacky shoe territory. Such was the case when she came to my church confirmation.
Frankie in Paris Page 1
