by F. G. Gerson
“Is Nicolas here?” I ask matter-of-factly, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, she eases up in the sofa, tries to embrace me, stumbles, misses and lands on the table, knocking down our drinks. I help her up. “Hi, Marion!” she yells when she realizes who’s sitting with us.
“Hi, dear, how’s your dad?”
“My dad?”
“How is he?”
“Good.”
Muriel’s not smiling anymore. It sobers her up to be reminded that she’s Francis’s daughter.
“I’ve got to…” She stands and walks away. Dad is the secret word that turns her into a zombie.
“You’ll send him my regards, won’t you?” Marion says, but Muriel is already gone.
I’m about to follow her, but Hubert stops me.
“Muriel will be all right,” he says authoritatively.
I look more carefully into the crowd. The dance floor is clear. The bar appears clear. Oh, God! I want to hide under the table, just in case.
A handsome young man detaches himself from the crowd. He’s wearing glasses. It makes him look smart rather than nerdy. He sits down next to Marion, as if it is the obvious thing to do.
“They told me you were here,” the man says. “I didn’t believe them. I told them you’re not going out anymore. I told them you’re locked up in your fucking castle in London.” He turns to us. “Hey, Hub.”
“Joe, this is…” Hubert tries to introduce me.
“Yeah, one of your girls, who cares.” He turns back to Marion. “We’ve missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Marion says and embraces him.
Wait a second. This is not your common Joe. This is Joe Tip, the actor.
“He owns the club,” Hubert explains.
“Marion, Marion, a picture, please?”
We look up. A woman, a professional photographer, already has her camera glued to her face.
“I know her. She’s all right.”
Joe and Marion turn to her and they freeze in a pose. They look straight into the camera. I’d swear they sucked their cheeks in. They look perfect. I can imagine how the picture will look. The photographer takes a few more pictures and turns to us. She asks again, “Hubert, do you mind?”
He takes my hand. He nods and she takes a few pictures of us together. Flash, flash, flash. Hubert Barclay with his special friend. Oh, dammit! I didn’t suck my cheeks in.
“Hey!” somebody shouts from the crowd. “Qu’est-ce que tu fais là, princesse?”
Moi? Princesse?
I look up. God, no, it’s Marc and he is completely drunk! Or high. Or both.
I turn to Hubert. “It’s all right, Marc is a friend from work,” I say, but my heart is about to explode. I already feel exposed and I look around for a possible escape route.
“You know this guy?” Joe Tip asks.
“Ah!” Marc shrieks suddenly. He’s realized that Marion’s sitting with us. “You are my GODDESS!” he yells at her.
She looks away. She’s not enjoying herself anymore.
“Marc, I think you should go,” I say, immediately regretting being so rude.
“Oh!”
Before I can apologize, two bouncers grab him and drag him away.
Hubert puts his arm around my shoulder. “It’s all right. They’re just going to put him in a cab.”
“Hey, buddy!” Joe snaps. “Don’t you know that it is impolite to stare? Fuck! Who let those people in?”
What? Who’s staring? Where?
Oh, God. Nicolas!
He is there, by our table. Staring at me. Me with Hubert’s arm around my shoulders.
Joe waves for service. He’s going to have Nicolas kicked out, too.
“No, it’s okay. He’s one of Muriel’s employees,” I say.
“Muriel who?”
“Muriel B.”
“The drunk girl, Boutonnière’s daughter,” Marion explains. She’s getting very annoyed with all this mess.
A waiter has arrived at our table.
“So…you know this man?” Joe asks again. “Do you know all the freaks that make it into my establishment?”
Nicolas steps toward me. He looks completely confused.
“We work together. He is all right,” I say.
Joe scratches his chin. Mmm? He turns to the waiter. “Offer the man a drink.” He turns to Nicolas. “Sorry, I thought you were a creep.”
“He’s not a creep,” Marion says. “He is far too beautiful for that.”
I can feel Hubert’s body tensing beside me.
“Come on, then! Have a drink. It’s on me,” Joe repeats.
It’s all so awkward.
“What would you like?” the waiter asks.
“What?”
“What drink would you like?”
Nicolas shakes his head. “I don’t get you,” he says to me and walks away.
“Wow!” Joe laughs. “Who’s in trouble now?”
“So, that’s the someone?” Hubert asks.
I don’t have time to answer Hubert. I abandon them and go after Nicolas. I hear Marion say, “It radiates from her.” And her voice disappears in the club noise.
When I reach the street, everybody is gone.
I shout. “Nicolas!”
I wait.
I shout again because, well, it radiates from me.
“Nicolas!”
“Ça suffit!” one of the bouncers yells at me. “Il est parti, votre Nicolas.”
“Il est parti?” I repeat word for word.
“Parti. Gone. Zouf!”
“Zouf?”
My love has zoufed away.
Nothing has gone as planned. Not with Hubert. Not with Nicolas. Might as well try the last person on my list. I ring the doorbell.
“What do you want?” Carolina spits. She’s still sore for not making it to the Riviera with us.
“Hi,” I say, as if it was normal for me to come to their apartment at daybreak. “I need to see Muriel.”
“She sleeps.” She closes the door with no further ceremony.
I ring again and again and again.
She reopens. “Mais t’es folle, toi!”
“I need to see Muriel. Er…besoin Muriel.”
“You want to wake up Muriel? Okay!” She lets me in. “Elle va te tuer. Ha ha ha!”
She’s actually eager to see what Muriel’s going to do to me once I’ve dragged her out of bed.
Muriel lies on top of the bed still wearing the clothes she had on in Mean Ray, cuddling the bedcover around her. I approach. Oops, I stepped on something crisp and noisy. There are a few sheets of paper spread on the floor. I pick one up. It’s…sketches. A woman with a huge spider over her head. She must have drawn it just before crashing.
Carolina drops her silk kimono, and, completely nude, slips back into bed.
“Muriel?” I try.
Muriel mumbles, turns and dives deeper into the bedcover. Not available. Sorry.
“Muriel? It’s me, Lynn.” I approach, give her a tap on the shoulder and step back carefully. “Muriel? Come on!”
“She’s going to kill you,” Carolina murmurs like she’s been there before.
I take my cell phone and speed-dial Muriel.
Her cell phone rings. She has it on her. She’s not really awake but she looks for her phone instinctively. She finds it and still with her eyes tightly shut yells “What!”
“Muriel, it’s me, Lynn,” I say in the phone.
“What?”
“Muriel, I’m standing just beside you. Wake up, please.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes, for Crissake!”
She does. I’m there. With my cell phone making a two-meters-distance call.
She doesn’t need any more information. She throws her cell phone at me. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she yells.
“I told her,” Carolina clears herself.
“Xavier Urbain offered me a job.”
“What?”
“He offered me
more money than you could ever afford. But I’m going to reject his offer.”
I’m not sure she understood anything I just said. She fights with the bedcover and grabs her alarm clock. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Muriel, I have decided not to work for you, either.”
She slams the alarm clock back on her bedside table.
“I lied to you, Muriel.”
“What?”
“I lied to everyone. I’m not the person you think I am.”
She looks around. She’s trying to get a better feel for where she is. She turns to Carolina. “Did you let her in?”
Carolina just shoves the duvet over her head.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Lynn, are you on drugs?”
“Listen to me…I can’t do the job! I’m not like Jodie! I’m nothing like her. I’m nobody. I lie! I lie all the time! I have no idea what I’m doing here. I’m NOBODY!”
Silence.
“You did coke, didn’t you?”
“Listen to me! I didn’t do any drugs! I’m just not the kind of person you expected.”
“Can we discuss this later, when you calm down and I’ve had some fucking sleep?”
“Muriel, I can’t do this job. I’m going back to New York.”
She breathes deeply. “Leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Leaving me?”
I want to say something self-deprecating so she won’t regret losing me, but I’m far too busy fighting back tears.
“Leaving me, huh? Okay, then!” Muriel pulls the duvet away from Carolina and kicks her butt quite rudely. “You, out! Now!”
“But…It’s not my fault! I told her not to wake you up!”
“Out! Out! Out!”
Carolina mumbles something about me being such a troublemaker, picks up her kimono and flashes me her butt on her way out.
“And close the door!”
“I’m going to sleep with Irena and Jacky!” Carolina threatens and slams the door.
“You, in!” Muriel orders, opening the duvet for me.
“I don’t think—”
“In, I said.”
I hesitantly sit down on the edge of the bed. She pushes me down until I lie beside her.
She throws the duvet over us. It’s completely dark under there. I almost jump out when her voice breaks the silence.
“Lynn?”
I can’t find my voice to respond.
“Are you crying?”
“No, I’m not crying,” I lie.
“I don’t care who you are and who you think you’re not,” she whispers. Her voice is so low, it’s like little raindrops on wood. “Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“You know, there.” Muriel is referring to the villa. I can’t believe it really was only yesterday we were there.
“I would give everything to be back there, in your arms,” Muriel continues. “Only it won’t be the same. Because it was…there. You understand?”
Silence. I don’t know what to say.
“Why did you do it?”
“You were breaking all the freaking windows!” I sniff and wipe my eyes. “You were sad.”
“No one ever bothered before.”
“I didn’t want you to be sad,” is all I can reply.
“Lynn, you can’t leave now. I need you, Lynn.”
“Oh, stop, please! I just want to go home!”
“Lynn?”
“What?”
“It’s about Nicolas, isn’t it?”
“My God, Muriel! What have I done?”
“We’ll fix it, love.” Her hand has found mine. “Don’t worry about Nicolas. He’ll forgive you.”
Step #17:
What people think of you doesn’t matter, as long as they don’t work for Vanity Fair.
Good God, great creator of things, evaporate me and let me flee through the ventilation system!
Here we are, in his office.
I’m so ashamed. Muriel dragged me in and wants me to tell Nicolas about my meeting with Urbain. And that’s what I’m trying to do with a throat so tight words hurt. What I really want to do is jump at his feet and beg for forgiveness.
I gather enough guts to look at him. He doesn’t appear to be listening. He is analyzing the sky, the white colors of the walls, the smoothness of the desk. Anything to avoid looking at me.
“First, there’s the Fran Wellish situation, and now this,” Muriel comments.
“The Fran Wellish situation?” I ask.
“We invited the bitch to Paris, paid for everything, and yesterday she went to Xavier Urbain! That’s why she disappeared. Don’t you see it? It’s a war! And the fat bastard is winning it! Nicolas, for Chrissake!”
Her tattoos are turning from black to red.
“I’ve met with Xavier Urbain, too,” Nicolas says coldly. “He offered me a position.”
This is just too much for Muriel. She sits silently on the floor and waits for him to say more.
“The condition was that I would resign from Muriel B on the spot,” he continues. “I was also supposed to stop any sort of further contact with you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” She’s still trying to sound tough, but she’s lost her steam.
“I was actually considering their offer.”
“You bastard!” Okay, some of the steam is back.
“I had decided to stay with you anyway,” he says and turns to me. “I liked our team. I believed in us. I trusted…us. But now…”
“I’m so sorry, Nicolas,” I mutter.
Muriel claps his hands and brings us away from last night’s mayhem, back into her office. “You listen to me, you two. I don’t care who’s screwing who. This is a business not a dating service!” She turns to Nicolas. “We started this together, Nicolas, and we’re going to finish it together. You got that?”
Nicolas just shrugs, eases back and resumes staring at the gray sky like a keen meteorologist.
“I need to talk with him, alone,” Muriel tells me. She looks as if she’s going to say something nice, but instead adds, “And Lynn, if you try to get on a plane and leave me, I will find you. And I will kill you.”
Out in the workshop I see Marc and I walk up to him. “Marc, I’m so sorry about last night.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Don’t you remember? In Mean Ray?”
“Did I go to Mean Ray? Oh la la, I don’t remember a thing.”
I fill him in on how he met Marion.
He screams.
“Did I behave?”
“You were very…enthusiastic.”
“A-ah! Keen-o! I’ll never drink again! I’m going to join a convent and become a nun.”
Nun? Marc?
He points at Muriel’s office. “It’s very electric this morning. What’s going on?”
“They’re discussing my future with the company.”
“Oh, I see. Money talks.” He put his finger across his mouth and invites us not to talk about it. “Dirty talk.”
I nod and look at the fabric he is working on. It’s some sort of a metallic web with trapped silver pearls.
“What are you doing?”
He grabs a few drawings lying at the side of his table.
“It came in this morning. It’s the wedding dress. See, it’s like a spiderweb.”
I recognize them. They are the sketches that were lying around Muriel’s bed.
“Muriel, she is different. She doesn’t work with a simple drawing. She makes different sketches. She lets you visualize the dress from different angles. So you don’t just see it. You feel it.”
He turns the pages and the dress comes alive in my mind. He’s right. Muriel has drawn the different sketches to give you a full mental picture of the piece.
“Isn’t the design a bit morbid for a wedding?”
He stops and looks at me as if steam were coming out my ears.
“It’s symbolic, don’t you get it? The brid
e has caught herself a husband. And he’s going to bring her money. See the silver pearls? That’s the money. It’s symbolic. It’s simply genius.”
“I see it now. It’s very cynical.”
“You want cynical, look at the hat.”
The hat is a huge black spider holding the web that has captured the bride with its legs.
“So the bride is not the spider,” I say. “The spider is the institution of marriage and the victim is the bride, who has been seduced by the pearls.”
The dress is like a Polaroid of Muriel’s mind. It’s clever and truly beautiful, in a dark sort of way.
“Hmm, I guess you’re right.” Marc looks up.
There’re some roar and commotion coming from Nicolas’s office. I guess the forgiveness business isn’t going down that well after all.
It’s five o’clock. This has been the longest day in my life. I had absolutely nothing to do all day but make sure that the clock was progressing one minute at a time and wait for Nicolas or Muriel to call me back into his office.
They’ve been locked in there all day just yelling and yelling at each other.
Catherine was running in and out, bringing food, water, coffee and documents. I wish she was wearing a helmet, for safety measures.
The door opens at last. Muriel steps out and looks at me. She appears exhausted. Disheveled. I stand. I take a few steps toward her. “Oh, Lynn, not now!” she breathes and walks away.
But…
Nicolas comes to the door and waves for me. You! In my office! Now!
He closes the door behind us.
“Nicolas, I’m sorry for all the trouble I brought on you,” I start.
“Yes, you said that already. Please sit down.”
I’m back at school sitting in the principal’s office after skipping class.
“Muriel wants to offer you the position of public relations executive assistant.”
“Assistant?” What happened to consultant?
He pushes a little folder in front of me. I lift it from his desk. It’s strangely light.
“You can return it to Catherine or Muriel,” he says, “once you have read it and signed each page. It’s in English.”
I open the folder and look through the shortest contract in the history of employment. It’s written on four single pages.
“You’ll be on a trial period for the next three months. During that period Muriel can choose to terminate the contract without notice.”