21 Steps to Happiness

by F. G. Gerson

  Louise is one of the ugliest women I have ever seen. And her job is to manage some of the most beautiful girls in the world.

  “Allez les filles! Numéro quinze. Jolanta.” Louise calls. “Allez, ma puce! On n’a pas la journée, merde!”

  “Oh, that’s me. It’s my turn,” the girl from Prague says and runs to the casting room. I follow.

  Muriel and Nicolas are already in the room when I enter. I sit beside the video camera operated by Louise. The girl from Prague stands against the white wall.

  “How old are you?” Muriel asks.

  “Sixteen.”

  Sixteen? Shouldn’t she be in school or something? She brushes away her long hair. She strikes a pose. She is looking at Nicolas.

  Just like the other fourteen previous gorgeous creatures that came to sell themselves in the casting room. They couldn’t stop looking at him.

  Don’t you dare think about him!

  He is my angel!

  Grrr!

  “Would you turn around?” Muriel asks.

  The girl turns around.

  “What are your hobbies?”

  “I love traveling. And fashion. And going out.” She laughs.

  There it is again!

  She just smiled at him. What kind of smile was that? Does she wonder what it would be like to kiss him? She’s sixteen!

  “What do you think?” Nicolas asks me.

  “I think exactly the same as you.” Because I’m better suited to you than these teenagers, I finish mentally.

  “Can she walk?” Muriel asks Louise.

  “She’s done a few catwalks already. She’s good. Do you want her to walk for you?”

  “Please.”

  Louise gestures and the girl starts to walk back and forth. Twist. Turn. Pose.

  Why not ask her to show her teeth while she’s at it?

  “She’s good,” Nicolas proclaims.

  The girl stops walking. She is balancing her long, thin arm in the air, looking at us, the ugly, small potato-women group and the angel, waiting for our decision.

  Only we will decide later.

  She walks lazily out of the room, as if dragging it out a few extra seconds will increase her chances of getting selected. She stops and turns back to us. “Can I take a muffin home?”

  “Of course, darling,” Louise says. “You can take as many muffins as you like. And send in number sixteen. Kristy.”

  A tall, athletic girl comes in. She wears a very short skirt, a very tight T-shirt and high leather boots. She looks amazingly beautiful and sexy. And there it is again! She’s grinning at Nicolas.

  Dirty bitch.

  “Hi, I’m Kristy. I’m nineteen and I’ve been with Fjord for three years,” the girl says with a British accent. She smiles and smiles and smiles at him and he falls for it.

  He smiles back!

  “Can you walk?” I ask, annoyed.

  Everybody turns to me.

  “You’re very pretty,” Muriel says.

  I can’t believe she said that. Can you tell a model that she is very pretty? Isn’t that…unprofessional or something?

  “You’re very feminine, I like that,” she goes on. What Muriel means by feminine is that even though the girl is so skinny, she still has a pair of gigantic breasts.

  “Very feminine, that’s right,” Nicolas confirms.

  Look at them!

  They are so unprofessional.

  Especially Nicolas!

  Shame on him!

  And, by God, I need another muffin.

  My mind is still browsing through the different Kristys, Jolantas and other Ulrikas when the elevator door opens to Nicolas’s floor. It was a long day and I’m ready for the dinner he promised me.

  I can’t compete with models. I’m a frog and no matter how long you kiss me (ask Hubert) I will not transform into anything else.

  I knock on the door. Nicolas opens.

  God, you’re so damn beautiful.

  I’ll never get use to it.

  If only I could be more like…like them. I wouldn’t feel so challenged by you and I could start to see you the way you really are.

  I enter the apartment and it smells of…of…

  Of saffron. Which reminds me of home.

  “I cooked vegetarian,” he says.

  I follow him into the kitchen. There are chopped vegetables all over the place. Dirty pots and pans. It’s all happening in there.

  He grabs a bottle of wine and two glasses. “It’s a bottle I’ve been saving for a long time. And tonight is the night.”

  He pours a little splash in each glass and passes me mine. He sniffs it. Shakes it. Makes a big fuss about it.

  “Should we make a toast?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  What would be an appropriate toast? “To the future and to Muriel B,” I propose.

  “No, to you.”

  “To me?”

  “Yes, to you and to our luck to have you here in Paris.”

  “Okay.” I’m about to toast but he stops me.

  “Actually, it’s the wrong toast. To my luck to have you here in Paris.”

  Oh!

  We toast and we sip a bit of wine. God, is this how a good red wine is supposed to taste? It really tastes like fungus.

  He looks at me with big wide-open eyes. So I swallow this disgusting liquid and say, “Mmm! Very delicious!”

  He spits his back in the glass.

  “Oh, no! It’s so corked,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

  I laugh. “Good, I was scared you would force me to drink the whole bottle. Yuck!”

  He takes my glass away. “It’s funny. I have been waiting to open this bottle for years. I have waited and desired it and when it finally happens, it’s crap. I’m so disappointed.”

  “That’s the story of my life.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Do you believe in destiny?”

  “I believe that you make your own destiny. You make your own choices.”

  You know, angels can be so naive.

  “I believe destiny is free will at work. I’m an existentialist. You know…Sartre?”

  “But what about luck?” I ask.

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t you believe in luck?”

  “I’m not a superstitious person, no. But I believe in chances, and in taking chances.”

  “So this corked wine is not bad luck?”

  “Definitely not, it’s bad cork, bad storage or bad wine.”

  “What about us? Isn’t it luck bringing perfect strangers together?”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it. People meet and break up all the time. You came to Paris. I was in Paris. It’s what you decide to do about it that’s important.”

  Does he mean that I should blame myself for sleeping with Hubert twice instead of blaming some invisible and destructive superpower? That is so…scary!

  He empties the red wine into the sink. All these years of expectation ruined and discarded. Bad luck! I can’t stop thinking this way.

  The world is run by luck.

  You either have bad luck or good luck. Thinking otherwise will only attract bad luck. Considering a world without luck feels like a sin. I touch wood discreetly. I would spit three times on the floor if I didn’t think it would get me kicked out of the apartment.

  “I think you’re wrong,” I say. “We follow the road that has been set for us. Look at me in Paris. It would be impossible if it wasn’t a trick set up by destiny.”

  He laughs. “Somehow, I believe your being in Paris has a lot to do with who your mother is.”

  Touché!

  “Sorry,” he immediately says when he sees all the blood leaving my face. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “It’s all right, Nicolas, I get it all the time.”

  He touches my face gently. That’s what I get as compensation for being humiliated. It’s better than nothing.

  “What I meant is, if I had followed the road set for me, I’d
be running a restaurant by now. I made choices, and I worked my own way up.”

  “Look at us,” I say because I like to bring back my favorite subject. “Don’t you think that somehow destiny has something to do with us being here, drinking corked wine together?”

  He opens another bottle and says, “This should sort out the cork problem. As for us…I think…” He sips some. “Mmm! This one is simple but very nice.”

  I try the new wine. It’s very good. It’s sweet and fruity. I like simple.

  “Very fruity, don’t you think?” he asks.

  Beware! Frenchmen avoid real conversation by talking about red wine. Someone should put that in a guidebook.

  “You don’t think that destiny brings two people together?”

  He goes back to his pots and pans. Frenchmen avoid any real conversation by cooking and talking about food, too.

  “I told you. I don’t believe in destiny.”

  Before I can respond, Marc enters with his date.

  “Lynn, this is Eddie. Eddie est banquier. Moneyman. Ha ha ha! Eddie, this is Lynn. Lynn is a star. Ha ha ha. Cocktails?”

  “J’ai ouvert une bouteille de vin,” Nicolas says.

  “Oh, he’s so boring with his wine. Anybody wants a cosmo or a mojito?” He turns to Eddie, the moneyman. “Oops! Do you speak English, darling?”

  “I studied management in England,” Eddie says to me. “A long, long time ago.”

  Look at Eddie. He looks like the perfect boring gray accountant. But once he leaves his office, the gray man becomes crazy Marc’s partner. What, if not destiny, brings two people so different together.

  “I could trade my wine for a Bloody Mary,” I say.

  “But of course! Nicolas, you are so old-fashioned.” He turns to me. “Nicolas is so cute but at the same time so French. Eddie used to be very French, too. But I changed him.” He laughs heartily.

  Marc mixes the drinks for us. He and Eddie have set their minds on whiskey sour, with the iced cherry and all. Nicolas sticks to wine. He is so French!

  “Before I came into his life, Eddie had a girlfriend. A girlfriend! Poor thing. I changed that, too….” He bursts out laughing again.

  Before me, Nicolas didn’t believe in destiny. Can I change that? If you can change somebody’s sexual orientation, can you also change their beliefs?

  “Wine is an art. Vodka is just alcohol,” Nicolas snaps.

  “Alors, look who’s upset now!”

  “I think that Nicolas is very sexy,” I say boldly. “Old-fashioned is sexy. It’s classic. It’s beyond fashion and trend. I like that about him.”

  “Oho!” Marc and Eddie sing together.

  “Thank you, Lynn. I knew that finally there would be something sexy about being ancient,” Nicolas says jokingly.

  “An old man trapped in this gorgeous Apollo’s body. Mmm! Darling!” Marc is playing suggestively with his iced cherry. “Lynn’s right, that’s hot.”

  “I didn’t say hot, I said sexy.”

  “Girls say sexy when they mean hot and hot when they only mean sexy. Ha ha ha!”

  “I’m hot,” Nicolas says proudly.

  And we drink to that.

  “Lynn, you look like a fun girl.” Marc points at me. “Let’s go out tonight!”

  I’m about to tell him that I’m exhausted and that I need some rest tonight, but my handbag starts to vibrate.

  I swear. It didn’t vibrate when I bought it in Kazo’s shop. It’s like a weird paranormal phenomenon.

  “Your bag…” Marc says and passes it to me.

  Not only does it vibrate, it plays a famous dance tune. I open the bag and take my new cell phone.

  “I’m so sorry.” I should turn the phone off, but my curiosity takes over. Who could be phoning me?

  “Hey, you,” Hubert says. “I’m back.”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “I phoned Muriel. I told you, I’m a very good friend of her dad’s.”

  “You phoned my boss to get this number?”

  “Actually, she had to phone somebody and she called me back with your number.”

  “You’re using my boss as your personal assistant?”

  “Come on. I’ve watched the girl grow up. Muriel’s father and I, we go way back.”

  “Give me a second.”

  I stand and walk away from Nicolas. I walk all the way to the entrance and leave the apartment. But that’s not enough. I run down the stairs and only start to talk again once I’ve reached the courtyard.

  “I told you that I’m working tonight,” I say.

  “I’m happy to hear the sound of your voice, too.”

  “Hubert!”

  “What’s with you? Each time we’re separated for more then twelve hours, we have to start all over again.”

  And each time I see you, I fall for it again.

  “Actually,” he says, “I like it. I feel challenged. Not played but challenged.”

  I’m his own private rhino, and he is thinking of adding my head to his collection.

  “Hubert, I can not talk to you right now.”

  “I need to see you tonight.”

  “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m with someone.”

  I look up. From here, I can see Nicolas’s silhouette in his living-room window.

  “I’ll find you, Lynn.”

  It’s entirely my fault. I should have stopped this thing with the Hub from the start, so I say it, “We need to talk, Hubert.”

  “Who is this someone?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I have been in this situation before. It’s nothing that cannot be fixed.”

  “Well, I haven’t been in this situation before and I sure don’t like it.”

  I hear some footsteps. The courtyard light comes on. Nicolas stands there, behind me. “Are you all right?”

  “Is that him?” Hubert asks.

  “Listen, I’ll call you later.”

  “What’s the problem?” Nicolas asks.

  I’m frantically looking for a way to turn off the phone. “Don’t hang up on me, Lynn!” I can hear Hubert say.

  Off, off, OFF!

  “Who was that?”

  “It was Hubert Barclay.”

  “Oh?”

  “We needed to talk…and we talked.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you mean by…okay?”

  “You sound weird again, Lynn.”

  He comes closer to me.

  I feel so confused! “I’m sorry, Nicolas, but I need to go, I’m so…tired.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “I can’t do it, Nicolas. Not tonight. Will you say goodbye to Marc and Eddie for me?”

  “You’re going to see Barclay, aren’t you?”

  I don’t feel obliged to answer. Instead, I give him a reassuring kiss on the lips. A quick one.

  “Stay, please.”

  “Nicolas, trust me.”

  He comes back at me and kisses me again, the same way. The quick way. He needed two kisses to feel in the safe zone.

  Once I’m in back in the street, I finally manage to get basic brain functions going again.

  I’ve kissed him.

  For real!

  Not a stolen kiss, or the double-cheek trick. The real thing, where he kisses me back and asks for more!

  Step #13:

  Once you have convinced yourself, convince the others.

  “Are we there already?” Muriel asks with unusual sweetness. She’s been sleeping in the car, but wakes when Massoud slows down to pull into a gas station.

  “On vient de passer Lyon,” Massoud answers.

  “Halfway,” Nicolas explains for me.

  Yes, we’re on our way south to Saint-freaking-Tropez. Oh, we’re not going on holidays, no, no! Muriel decided that we needed the isolation of the Boutonnière villa to gather forces and prepare the show in serenity. She calls it a work seminar.

  We get
out of the car while Massoud starts to pump the gas.

  “Nicolas, would you buy me a diet something?” Muriel asks, yawning. She puts on her shades even though the sky is dark gray. “Actually, make it a bottle of rosé.”

  To tell you the truth, we don’t really look like three young professionals on our way to a seminar. We look like three spoiled kids with money to spend, a deep craving for rosé and a chauffeured car.

  “Have you ever been to the Boutonnière villa?” I ask him as we stand in front of a huge wine selection in the gas station.

  I know. The French need easy access to wine even on the highway.

  “She never did me the honor,” he says and picks up a bottle.

  “It’s funny all you do for her. You run the company. You deal with her staff. You’re even her sommelier, by the looks of it. You must be by far the most versatile human resources manager ever.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. It’s funny.”

  We both turn to Muriel. She’s standing in front of a row of coffee-vending machines. She looks as if she can’t understand how to handle them without involving her PA. She slides her shades down to get a better look at the instructions.

  Nicolas and I exchange a quick glance and laugh.

  “I’m telling you, she’s lucky to have you,” I say.

  Muriel turns to us. “What?”

  “Do you need help?” Nicolas proposes.

  Vending machine conquered, we sit at a table with three horrible plastic-cupped cappuccinos.

  “We always stop here,” Muriel says moodily. “I must have stopped here about a million times.”

  “Is your father living on the Riviera then?” I dare ask, because mentioning her father always fuels some fire in her.

  “Nobody lives at the villa,” she says. “It’s there for fun.”

  And work seminars, of course.

  Nicolas lifts his left eyebrow at me while sipping his coffee.

  He’s impressed I had the guts to mention the F word.

  “Is he not living in France, then?” I insist.

  “Dad lives in his jet,” Muriel breathes. “He doesn’t do anything like normal people.” You can almost see the rage slowly building inside her. “I don’t really care where he is as long as it’s not in my way. Can we talk about something else now?”

  I’ve ruined her bad-cappuccino moment.

  “Fuck it anyway!” she snaps. She takes her cup and empties it in the trash bin. “I need to take a piss!”