21 Steps to Happiness

by F. G. Gerson

  I’m concerned about the damage she did in the construction site. I wonder if we should contact the owners and offer some sort of compensation, so I ask, “Should we talk about last night?”

  “Oh, come on,” Muriel explodes. “We were drunk! We were stupid and it’s not like we are connected now or something!”

  “I meant about the windows. Shouldn’t we pay something for the windows?”

  “Oh, that…They’re probably rich. They won’t mind.”

  “I can go and talk to them,” Nicolas suggests. “But it’s not like we have a lot of company money to pay for the damage.”

  “Forget about the fucking windows,” Muriel insists. “It will be their fee for ruining…the scenery.”

  There’s no point carrying Muriel from shop to shop and holding her in front of fashion displays pretending she’s getting some sort of inspiration. She’s complaining she’s going blind. Her eyes are going to pop out of her head. Actually, the whole head is going to fall off her body. Bring me to a bar, she begs. Lynn! Nicolas! A bar! Le Sénéquier. Please make it stop! Make it stop! I need a perroquet! perroquet! perroquet!

  She practically jumps at the waiter’s throat as we find a table on the busy terrace. She wants two drinks straightaway. She wants them fast, now, go!

  The waiter hisses insolently and walks away.

  This place, this terrace in the port, is a proper institution. It is part of a monument to Saint-Tropez’s past glamour. The waiter doesn’t hurry for anyone, not even Bardot. So, sit, be quiet, wait for your drink like everyone else, and look the part.

  “Nicolas, can you ask everyone to stop smoking? Oh, my head! No! Get me a cigarette, instead. Please!”

  If you ever go out with Muriel, let me warn you—she’s a handful.

  The waiter’s back after what seems like an eternity. He wants us to pay right now. He has identified us as potential troublemakers. Nicolas passes him the company credit card while Muriel is downing her first drink.

  “Ts! Une carte de crédit! Un dimanche!” the waiter complains. “On aura tout vu!”

  The mention of the credit card brought Nicolas back to planet Earth. “Work,” he says enigmatically.

  “Don’t worry.” Muriel is now sipping her second drink. “While you two lovebirds are walking around smelling flowers, I’m developing tons of new ideas.”

  “Like?”

  “It’s all up here,” she says, taping her head. “But now it’s locked and painful. Later. Later.”

  When the waiter is back with the bill, Muriel orders a new set of drinks.

  He hisses again.

  “Leave him a good tip. I like his attitude,” Muriel jokes.

  “What kind of ideas, Muriel?” Nicolas insists.

  “I thought about the wedding dress. I had a revelation. It’s going to be a masterpiece.” She taps her head again. All up here. No worries—we didn’t waste our time at all.

  “Ah! And I want a new tattoo,” she says as if this alone justifies our presence in Saint-Tropez. “Georgio gave me the idea.”

  “Bears?” I ask.

  She laughs. “Don’t make that face, Nicolas. Seriously, I think we should use tattoos as a part of the collection. We could draw them on the models. Imagine.”

  He nods. There’s something to it.

  “Haute couture tattoos of course. Designed by me.”

  “We could make it a trademark. You buy a Muriel B piece, you get a personal designed tattoo motif signed by you,” I add. “It would give the fashion editors something to chew on.”

  “What else?” Nicolas is waving for service. He wants a pad and pen. He wants to note everything down. What would we do without him?

  “Wait, we’ll continue this later. We’re going,” Muriel suddenly says, standing clumsily.

  We turn to see what she’s looking at.

  Jolanta and Francis are sitting at the other side of the terrace. The young model waves at us. Smiles. Laughs. It’s her five minutes in Saint-Tropez with the famous Francis Boutonnière.

  “Don’t be silly.” Nicolas holds her wrist and she sits back down. “What else?” Nicolas repeats, eager to turn our adventures into superproductive bliss.

  She sighs. The creative process is locked down again. Francis is like kryptonite.

  It’s a very noisy terrace. Still, we can hear Jolanta laughing with our waiter. She’s either telling him about the sofa in the pool or the chocolate mousse she didn’t eat.

  “Embarrassing,” Muriel mumbles.

  The waiter slaloms back to our table. He even breaks into a smile. He tells us that Monsieur Boutonnière and his special friend invite us to their table. He starts to collect our drinks to help us relocate, but Muriel snaps her drink back. “On est très bien ici. Allez vous-en! Allez!”

  I shrug for Jolanta’s benefit. Sorry, can’t come, we’re glued to our seats and they’re bolted to the floor.

  She shrugs back at me and turns away to look at Francis.

  Le Sénéquier: infected.

  Saint-Tropez: infected.

  The villa: infected.

  The swimming pool: infected because Jolanta’s undies were drying there, even though now they are where Muriel threw them, in the undergrowth.

  I’ve retreated to my room for a hot shower. I’m so sore from last night.

  I walk to the terrace. The sofa is drying under the evening sun. Jolanta’s going to be so sad. For losing her underwear, of course, but for the sofa, too. She really liked it submerged. It was like wreck-diving.

  I take a quick look at the large bed in my room.

  The crisp bedcover hasn’t even been…uncrisped. It looks so comfortable, to sleep and to hold Nicolas in perfect privacy.

  Knock, knock.

  “May I come in?”

  Speak of the devil.

  “Sure,” I say, and feel surprisingly uncomfortable, just like the day he showed me the little room above L’Escargot.

  Only now, we’ve spooned.

  He closes the door and smiles clumsily.

  Oho! I make a mental note: Must sleep with Nicolas NOW!

  And before I have time to share my decision, he is pressed against me and we’re kissing. He gently lifts me and we finally uncrisp the bed.

  He pauses to just look at me. His hand is playing with my bathrobe belt.

  My whole body stiffens.

  Noticing I’ve suddenly become a brickwoman, he looks at my face quizzically.

  I’m actually staring at the little terrace behind us, and when Nicolas turns to see what’s captivating my attention, he realizes that Muriel is standing on the terrace, a few feet from us, watching in shock.

  “I’m…I wanted a word with Lynn,” she says awkwardly.

  “We’ll be there in a minute,” Nicolas says with surprising self-control.

  “Okay,” she says and walks away.

  I make a sliding movement to get out from under him and prudishly close my bathrobe again. We sit up side by side on the bed and he takes my hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  Oh, don’t be, Nicolas! I’m not sorry. Not sorry at all.

  So I kiss him on the neck and caress his cheek.

  Work seminars are the best!

  When I arrive in the living room, ready to take the whole incident lightly and joke about it with Muriel, she looks all packed up inside winter clothes and Massoud is already carrying her luggage to the limo.

  “I’m calling this thing off,” she says immediately. “We’re going back to Paris.”

  “Now? But what about—”

  “Yeah, what about it!” she snaps.

  “We…you know…should work. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re done, we’re gone!”

  “Because of Nicolas and me? Muriel, it has nothing to do with you.”

  “This place is bad for us. Don’t you feel it? The vibes?”

  All I feel is an urge to return to my room and wait for the night to let Nicola
s in.

  “It’s late. Can’t we just leave tomorrow morning?”

  “Lynn! You heard me. We’re done!”

  Dammit!

  In under an hour we’re back on the highway headed north, and as soon as we leave the shore the sky starts to pack gray clouds.

  I turn to look at Muriel.

  She stares moodily at the landscape, and when we pass by the gas station, the one she always goes to on her way to the Boutonnière villa, I can see her twisting her neck to look at it just a bit longer.

  When I wake up, we’re back in Paris, locked in a traffic jam.

  I see the Eiffel Tower in the distance and it immediately hits me: Paris equals Barclay.

  “You snore,” is the first thing Muriel says. But at least she smiles about it. So I guess she feels less sore about everything.

  “You actually do,” Nicolas confirms.

  Humiliating, humiliating, HUMILIATING!

  “Do you feel it?”

  “What?”

  “Better vibes. We’re adults, we’re going to fix this.”

  “There’s nothing to fix,” I say.

  “Oh, yes there is! What happened in the villa…” She shakes her head. “Let’s not part straightaway, it would be awkward. Nicolas?”

  “Sure,” he says and turns to me.

  “Let’s go to my apartment,” Muriel suggests.

  I shrug. All I can think about is the Hub. It’s like a huge shadow swallowing me, and I’m sure about several things. There will be no more partying, no more Nicolas, no more anything before I end everything with the Hub. So I say, “I can’t go out tonight, I have…plans.”

  Before Muriel has time to protest, I lean forward and ask Massoud to drive me to the Georges V. A little while later, as the porter opens the door, Muriel leans forward and grabs my hand.

  “You keep this one,” she says and gives me the hedgehog. “Friends?”

  “Friends,” I say and before I know it, she gives me a quick kiss on the mouth.

  “I like you,” is the last thing I hear before Massoud drives away, leaving me in front of my hotel, with my Adidas bag and a little plastic hedgehog, staring back at Nicolas’s worried face in the back window of the limo.

  I’m not going to my suite though.

  Oh, no!

  I grab my cell phone and switch it back on. I manage to find the call-back function in the French menu.

  “I need to see you now,” I say before Barclay has any time to take control of the conversation.

  “I’ll send Dave,” he says.

  “No, you’re not going to lure me into one of your ultra-romantic traps again.”

  “What?”

  “I’m coming to your apartment right now. And please, don’t make any plans.”

  “Okay, you—”

  “I nothing! Give me the address!”

  I hang up on him. Be strong, Lynn. You can manage a breakup with the Hub.

  Step #16:

  Don’t get too attached to Mr. Lovely.

  The taxi stops in front of Hubert’s building. I pay the driver and stand across the street from the apartment. A very light rain starts falling on me.

  I walk across the street and press the H.B. button on the interphone. There is a little camera looking straight at me.

  “Come on in,” Hubert says.

  “What floor?”

  I make a little mental lottery. Odd numbers, all will be fine. Even numbers, it will all turn to shit.

  “Second.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I climb the two floors slowly. The door to the apartment is open. I hear Hubert’s voice. He’s not alone. He is talking to a woman and even though I can’t hear what they’re saying, her voice seems awfully familiar.

  “Here you are,” Hubert welcomes me with a killer smile. “Marion has just arrived in town. I hope you don’t mind her joining us.”

  “Who’s Marion?” I ask.

  I step in the living room and I see who the fuck it is. I need to sit. I know her voice because we all know her voice. I mean us as in us the entire planet. What I didn’t know is that in private people call her Marion.

  “Do you know each other?” Hubert asks. “Probably you do. Marion, you must have met Lynn.”

  “You’re Jodie’s daughter, aren’t you?” she asks.

  She actually knows me! But I’m goddamn sure we never met before, and I’m also sure that Jodie would never have mentioned me to her.

  “Oh, y-yes,” I stutter.

  She offers her hand. I discreetly wipe mine on my dress and shake it.

  Please, Lynn, don’t say anything stupid. Like I’m one of your biggest fans or I love your music or Is yoga really the answer?

  “We must have been to some of the same parties,” I lie because Jodie never takes me to any functions and prefers to lock me in her amazing loft apartment whenever she’s in the mood to see me.

  “I’m a big fan of Jodie’s. She designed some of my favorite pieces.”

  I nod as if that was a compliment for me.

  Hubert proposes a drink. Marion asks for a refill of sparkling water and I say, “Sparkling water, oh that sounds lovely,” and regret that no one mentioned vodka or something stronger.

  Marion excuses herself and goes to…She is going to the toilet. She doesn’t even ask where to find it. They are such good friends. Mmm…

  Hubert passes me my sparkling water. “I know that we were supposed to talk. But Marion is going through something and she needed a friend.”

  “Of course, of course!”

  “She needs to go out, you know….”

  “Yes, yes…I understand.”

  “We thought we could go to Mean Ray. Just the three of us. It will be good for her.”

  Poor Marion, confused and lost with her own emotional troubles.

  “The media has been on her back, since…the scandal….”

  He frowns suggestively. I have no idea what he’s referring to but I nod all the same.

  “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Oh, no, if…”

  Wait a minute! I’m not here to cheer up poor Marion. I’m here to get the hell out of Hubert’s life.

  “Actually, that’s not okay….” My breakup mood is back, but Marion has returned to the living room.

  “Mean Ray?” she asks. She looks at me. “I don’t want to be a drag.”

  Hubert smiles at me. If I smile back it means yes, let’s forget about breaking up and have fun and then sex. If I start to convulse and white froth comes out of my mouth, it would mean no, leave me alone.

  I smile hesitantly.

  “Should we go, then?”

  What, now? We haven’t finished our mineral water.

  Marion dials her cell phone and says, “We’re going now,” very coldly, as if she were speaking to a computer. She hangs up. “Paul will be here in a minute.”

  Paul? Paul McCartney? Paul Weller? Which Paul, for Chrissake!

  “My driver,” she says specifically at me.

  Oh, that Paul!

  There is no queue for us, no wait, no effort at all. We fly through people like three ghosts. We’re untouchable and everybody would kill to be with us. That’s how important we are.

  We don’t need to speak either. We sit in the VIP corner and a waiter brings mineral water and three glasses. They can read our minds.

  Hubert orders drinks for us—Marion sticks to the water—two Bloody Marys and a conversation about London real estate later, Marion wants me to accompany her to the toilets.

  I’m her toilet partner!

  “Sure,” I say, standing. Hubert pats my butt and I really can’t tell him to fuck off because I have to stay all hunky-dory not to hurt Marion’s feelings.

  We make our way to the toilets, and everybody—I mean everybody!—looks at us. I feel the collective envy crawling all over me.

  “I’m sorry,” Marion tells me.

  “About what?”

  “About invading your nig
ht like that.”

  “Yeah, but look, I get to go to the toilet with one of the most famous women in the world!”

  Oops!

  “You’re funny,” she says.

  In all the hottest clubs in Paris, there’s a much greater party going on in the toilets. That’s where things really happen. It’s not only about doing the business, it’s a space where one regains composure with oneself.

  “He’s a great man. I envy you,” Marion tells me from her cubicle.

  “You must be envying a lot of girls. His entire address book, actually.”

  “I never met any of those girls. You must be someone special to him.”

  We get out of the cubicles and a young model type spots Marion in the mirror, moves away gracefully and leaves us her precious mirror space. She gets rewarded by a smile from the Queen of Pop.

  I mean, what wouldn’t you do for that?

  “Hubert doesn’t mix his friends and his…girls.” She takes a prescription bottle from her bag and drops a pill. She rinses her face under some cold water. She looks at her reflection. “So, I envy you.”

  “Can I tell you how much I love your music? And you,” a young girl with a French accent says.

  “Thank you,” Marion replies kindly.

  “Oh, thank you, you’re so graceful,” the girl says and walks away all grateful. Marion gets thanked for accepting compliments. You have to see it to believe it.

  “Hubert is a lucky man, too. I don’t know you, but you seem to be a genuinely nice person. Hubert sees you that way, too, I can tell.”

  Marion, that’s what I used to be before I jumped on that plane to Paris. I have killed that honest and true person.

  I lie! I deceive! I hurt! I’m out of control. I’m a monster.

  “Are you all right?” she asks as she watches me collapse inside myself.

  “I…hope you’re right.”

  “Lynn, you’re an honest and nice girl. It radiates from you.”

  Hubert is no longer alone at the table when we return. Muriel has joined him and I’m suddenly covered in goose bumps.

  “I thought you had plans, Lynn!” Muriel laughs like a camel and turns to Hubert. “Oh! He’s your plans! You’re a busy girl.”

  This is not happening!

  I try to look calm and sit down.