The Currency of Love

by Jill Dodd

  “No. Oh, and tips are included. You can stay all day in a café, if you want. Good luck.” She picks up the phone and gives us her backside.

  I’m so distracted and confused by the scene in the agency—Gerald, all Mr. Handsome and Charming, and Pepper, all cocky and aloof ripping my portfolio apart—that I slide on a pile of dog shit on the way to the bookstore. Parisians don’t pick up dog shit. If my book is so bad, why did they even want me to come?

  We find the bookstore and the little maroon Plan de Paris. The cashier growls angry words in French while I write a traveler’s check. I can see he wants cash but I haven’t gotten any yet. The Plan de Paris is similar to the Thomas Guide map I use at home, but in French.

  “Good luck today, Scarlett.” I hug her.

  “Same to you.” We roll our eyes at each other like, yeah right. She heads off for face and hair appointments and I take off for fashion go-sees.

  I descend tentatively into the Metro, which is now a hive of activity compared to last night’s silence. Everyone rushes around, staring straight ahead. No one says hello or smiles at one another like in California. It’s all strictly business.

  I wander around reading my map trying to figure out which platform I should be on. Finally, I find it and stand in the crowd holding my white portfolio. As the Metro speeds in and screeches to a halt, chaos ensues. An ear-crushing buzz fills the tunnel until somebody flips the latch that opens the doors. Everybody pushes and shoves into the cars without a single “excuse me,” then the capsule of putrid smells takes off like a rocket.

  On the first sharp turn, I slam into an oily-looking man. I apologize in English and grab a pole.

  My Paris Planning composite

  THE MOUTH OF TRUTH

  Photo studios in Los Angeles are notoriously hard to find. Photographers don’t want thieves stealing their expensive equipment, so they’re hidden behind plain, nondescript walls. Paris takes this art of disguise to a new level.

  But first I need to find the right platform and the right station to get off and transfer trains a few times, find the exit, and walk in the correct direction block after block, looking for the right street, address, door, and person—without speaking French, because Parisians in 1980 refuse to speak English. I am shockingly on time for my 10 A.M. go-see with Elle magazine in an old stone mansion.

  The receptionist escorts me to a cavernous white room with rolling racks of clothes. Shoes and accessories are piled on the floor. A petite woman, probably in her thirties, walks in, scowling, looking at her watch. I still don’t know that it’s rude to be on time in Paris. On time in Paris is fifteen minutes late. She hands me a dress. I don’t see a dressing room, so I change right there while she flips through my now small selection of photos.

  In Los Angeles, I was used to clients liking me so even though I was nervous, I felt upbeat. The reality hits me that if this one lady likes me, I can shoot for Elle and take those gorgeous shots straight to New York and make it big. But that’s not what happens.

  She looks at my book, then back at me, shakes her head no, lights a cigarette, motions for me to do a spin. I spin around and she shakes her head no again, saying, “Non, ce n’est pas bien. Merci, au revoir.” I am dismissed. Not even a Polaroid. As she leaves the room, I wonder if there is any chance she could change her mind. Maybe she’ll call the agency and actually hire me. Maybe. Not.

  I’m intensely focused on finding my way to my next go-see with no idea where I’m going. Plus, I have ten more appointments in this maze of a city. I’m walking down the street, distracted, when suddenly a filthy dreadlocked man jumps out from a doorway and shoves a bloody, wiggling rat right in my face. I scream, and he breaks into a diabolical laugh. What kind of asshole does this? I run away while he chases me for a block with the bloody rat.

  I make it to the next go-see in a studio with about fifty other girls. They’re all American, Canadian, and European. They are never Asian, African, Indian, or Latin. I wait for two hours to be seen. Three women and one man, obviously the photographer, flip through my book, pointing at the photos. They look up at me and speak French to one another. I wish I could understand them. It doesn’t sound good. I imagine the worst. They hand me my book with a “Merci, au revoir.”

  About noon, I duck inside a café to eat and pee, where the thick, moist air reeks of wet dog, cigarettes, stale liquor, and old piss. Eventually, I crave rancid café odors, but not today. I pull out my French for Travelers book and say to the waiter, “Café seevoos plate.” He walks away, waving his hands in the air. He’s not putting up with me.

  I ask the man behind the bar where the restroom is. He points to the stairs. I descend to find a tiny closet with a square porcelain floor. There are nonslip places for my feet on either side of a hole. I pull my jeans down and squat over the hole. No toilet paper. I drip-dry and leave hungry.

  I continue dragging myself around from go-see to go-see, each more depressing than the previous one. I don’t receive a shred of approval, not even a smile. All I get are rude, cold people pointing at my flaws and whispering about me in French.

  After a day full of confusion and rejection, I climb the stairs out of the Metro at dusk. I’m lost, hungry, tired, and broken. I take a shaky breath in and as I exhale, I break down crying. Paris doesn’t want me. What the fuck was I thinking? This place is hell!

  I stand on the corner as darkness falls around me, crying intensely but silently. I can hold in the sound of my sadness but can’t control my pouring tears, fast breathing, or pounding head. I’ve never felt like such a loser in my life, except maybe back in sixth grade when the entire class dumped their bins of trash on my head on trash pickup day. Everybody is against me. I’m a freak. I’m not what they want. I’m ugly, dirty, and flawed. Not pretty, fresh, and loved.

  But what can I do? If I give up and go back to Los Angeles, I still can’t make enough money to live well on. I’ve got to make it. I can’t give up. I’ve got to get the pictures and go to New York. If I make it big in New York, I’ll have enough money to be independent and free. I’m not giving up on my goal. But what if I don’t make it? Then what will I do?

  I skip the last two appointments and flag a taxi to the hotel, crying the whole way.

  When I enter the hotel lobby, I stand and look around. I notice how dirty and derelict everything is, from the peeling wallpaper to the cracked floor tiles. The manager pops up from under his desk, startling me. He points to himself, smiling and saying, “Jean Paul.” His salt-and-pepper-colored frizzy hair is poking out in every direction, like a bird’s nest. His wrinkly clothes are four sizes too big and his trousers, rolled at the ankle, must have belonged to someone else. He obviously dresses from the lost-and-found bin.

  “I’m Jill.” I point to myself and try to stop sobbing. He comes round the desk and kisses me on both cheeks with his greasy, unshaven, prickly face, which feels surprisingly comforting and makes me cry even more.

  He catches me looking at the long, thin needles that protrude from his forehead and his ears. He arranges his hair, trying to hide them, saying, “Je souffre de migraines. C’est l’acupuncture,” and hands me my skeleton key with the dirty, wine-colored tassel attached.

  “Thanks.” I turn to the stairs and take a deep breath. As I ascend the four flights, I fantasize about a hot bath. If this hotel doesn’t have heat, it’s got to have hot water, right? I grab the pressed, white linen hand towel from my room and go down the hall to the salle de bains.

  I step in the tub and turn on the hot water but, even after a long time, it’s still freezing cold. I wash the essentials and dry off with the tiny towel. I run, freezing, back to my room and jump under the covers. I made it through the first day. Barely.

  I roll out of bed and pee in the bidet. Fuck that freezing hallway. It’s Saturday—my face and my ass belong to me today.

  I grab my cold Levi’s from the floor. My knees ache from the pounding they endured all week. Walking on granite sidewalks all day in heels, or even flats
, made my knees swell and now they’re so tight I can hardly bend them. Years later, I learn that I’ve got a genetic connective tissue disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I pop the water blisters on my feet with a safety pin and throw on my tennis shoes.

  Breakfast is in the basement, through the rough-hewn limestone arch. I duck under, but Scarlett sails right through. We sit down at one of the small tables among the other foreign guests. I try to imagine the thousands of souls who must have eaten here and it makes me feel safe somehow.

  Jean Paul walks in with a big smile and brings us cafés au lait, warm baguettes, and triangles of soft cheese. I slather the warm bread with butter and apricot jam and dig in. Never have I ever tasted bread this delicious in my life. I eat the entire six-inch chunk. The French baguette would soon become a huge source of stress, since it’s always available, cheap, and so damn good.

  Scarlett says, “I’m not eating all this. I’ll eat half. No butter and jam.” Then she sets her cheese in the middle of the table.

  “Can I have your cheese?” I ask.

  Tourists at the other table give us the stink eye knowing we’re responsible for blowing out the hotel electrical panel. An American blow dryer was too much to handle.

  I bundle up in my ridiculous-looking, long, purple goose-down jacket, while Scarlett piles on layers of mountain-girl clothes. My face is numb with the cold as we stroll along streets, so quiet compared to the hustle of the workweek. With no destination in mind, we wind up at the Luxembourg Gardens. It’s so nice to just walk and talk—no go-sees, no one to impress.

  “How long were you in LA?” I ask.

  “Only two months.”

  “So, you came to model? I guess they don’t have much modeling work in Portland, do they?”

  “No, they don’t,” she says, laughing, “but I actually came to LA for cosmetology school.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, I was studying to be a makeup artist when someone from the school told me I should do face and hair modeling. So I interviewed at Wilhelmina and they signed me.”

  “That’s amazing! So, do you really love doing makeup?”

  “I do! I’m gonna do it again when I’m done modeling.”

  “Would you do my makeup, sometime?”

  “Of course!” She smiles.

  I pepper her with questions all around the gardens until we stop in front of the marble statue called La Bocca della Verità—The Mouth of Truth. Legend says that if you tell a lie with your hand in her mouth, she’ll bite it off. The statue is so playful and beautiful. I’ve never seen nude art like this. There’s no sexy vibe like in my dad’s collection of lusty nudes hanging in the garage and our den. This graceful nude woman doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable; she makes me feel good. I want to be like her, appreciated for her playful, womanly spirit, not just her beauty and sexuality.

  We wander through an open-air farmers’ market with bright orange carrots and ruby red beets, so fresh they have dirt still clinging to them. Onions, potatoes, and leeks overflow from wood crates. I don’t know what a fromagerie is, but small mountains of tiny cheeses are artfully arranged and piled high in every shade of yellow, cream, and orange imaginable. The vendors beam with pride over their products. It is nothing like the supermarkets back home.

  “Bonjour mademoiselles!” the butchers shout as we pass the meat stall, wearing aprons stained with blood. Huge hunks of meat hang overhead. We giggle at the reconstructed ducks that have been cleaned and reunited with their feathers and orange bills for display.

  The currency is a mystery, so as I pay for my goods, I show the vendor my bills and coins. They take the proper amount and count back to me, generously teaching me how to use French money. Soon, I’ve got bags of fresh yogurt, cheese, fruit, bread, and a dusty, homemade bottle of one-franc wine.

  Scarlett and I stroll slowly back to the hotel. I tie my bag of yogurt and cheese outside the window, on the balcony railing, hoping the pigeons don’t steal it. Who needs a refrigerator in this weather?

  Later that night, we slice the cheese with my Swiss Army knife and devour it with bread and wine. With no television or music, we find other ways to entertain ourselves, things that would never happen back home.

  We tear pages from my journal and make a backgammon board. Aspirin tablets and coins are our playing pieces. We play for hours, taking turns pulling hand-numbered scraps, like dice, from an empty yogurt container. I look at Scarlett’s sweet face and feel deep gratitude that she is here with me. As we play, I kind of pull away to watch our scene. . . .

  I’m in my favorite brown-and-white men’s flannel pajamas, a wool sweater, and three layers of socks. Scarlett is just as bundled up in her bright red coat and ski cap. Even with the struggles and difficulties, I feel something totally new. There’s not a single soul around watching me, telling me what to do. There are no house rules. I can do what I want, when I want, and no one knows or cares. No peer pressure, no parent pressure, and even no friend pressure. I’m completely unknown, anonymous. A brand-new sense of freedom fills my entire being as I watch myself laugh, feeling totally safe and at peace. I’m doing exactly what I want in this moment. I am free.

  Bread and wine, aspirin and coin backgammon, Paris, winter 1980

  ADJUSTMENTS

  As one challenging day of interviews bleeds into the next, I feel like my body is held hostage in Paris, with my mind detached and stuck in LA. I’m frustrated and lonely and miss everything about America. Paris is a bigger adjustment than I could have imagined. Mostly it’s the simple things I miss, like soft toilet paper or menus I can read.

  Los Angeles is always hot, but in Paris the gutters are frozen and sealed with ice crystals. And the rain! I’ve never seen so much rain. The sky is dark and covered in a blanket of gray clouds. It’s shocking, coming from the sunny blue skies of California, and pretty depressing too.

  I’m used to speeding all over in my red sports car, from the beach to the city, out to clubs and restaurants, and over to friends’ houses. Here, I have to walk and take the Metro, which never winds up being close to where I’m going anyway, so I still have to walk. Back home, I always know where I am but here I’m always lost and confused.

  In Los Angeles, I lived on healthy salad bars and tasty Mexican food. Here, I eat bread, cheese, and wine and always feel bloated. The French bistros don’t offer healthy salads, just fatty German sausages, baguette sandwiches, and premade croque monsieurs—bread stuffed with fatty cheese, butter, and ham. I feel fat but can’t go to the gym. They don’t have gyms here. None that I can find anyway. I’m used to working out three times a week, plus swimming. I feel my muscles fading away, except in my legs from all the walking. I wish I could afford a car, but I don’t know where I’m going and can’t speak French, so how could I read the road signs, pass a driving test, or buy a car?

  At home, I fit in. Here I stand out like a freak. I don’t know how to dress, I can’t speak the language, and I can’t figure out the modeling market. It’s nothing like Los Angeles.

  Even though I run around on go-sees all week, I’m not used to having this much free time. Normally, I’m busy with my friends in between work. I don’t know what to do with all my nervous energy, but I’ve got to get it out, so I start writing at cafés—a lot. I sit between interviews, writing letters home or in my journal. Sometimes I sit and stare and watch the people trudging by. I’ve never written this much or sat in silence for so long in my life!

  Even though I broke up with Jack before leaving the US, I miss the sex. It’s not easy for me to have sex. Jack was the first boy I ever slept with. Sex and I have a complicated relationship. I fear it and crave it at the same time.

  I miss my friends, I miss the sun, I miss my car, and I hate these hotels. I miss speaking English so badly that I go to the American Legion in Paris to talk with old war veterans.

  My favorite reminder of home that I’ve found so far is a restaurant called Jo Allen, because everything is in English. The waiters even s
peak broken English, although with thick French accents. I always get the same thing: carrot ginger soup and afterward, a warm brownie topped with a mountain of whipped cream. I eat slowly and enjoy being somewhere that feels a little more like home.

  Misery in Paris, winter 1980

  PARIS PHOTOS

  My first shoot is for Paris Match, which I assume is a fashion magazine, but later learn is closer to Newsweek. Pin-Up studio on Avenue Jean-Moulin isn’t easy to find in the pouring rain. I’ve been using my white vinyl portfolio to shield me from the downpour instead of buying an umbrella.

  Inside, Pink Floyd’s The Wall is blasting and stylists buzz around. The smell of cigarettes and espresso hangs in the air. The studio is cavernous, with tall ceilings and white walls. No faded wallpaper or antique woodwork here.

  The photographer yells to me, “Bonjour! Commencez les cheveux et le maquillage, s’il vous plaît,” and returns to his lighting setup.

  “Bonjour,” I say, and head to the makeup room, with walls of mirrors and clear, round bulbs, and take a seat among the other models. The hairstylist puts my hair in hot rollers, while the makeup artist jumps in, chatting away in French. He dabs concealer under my eyes, covers my face in foundation, brushes on blush, then eye shadow, eyeliner, and mascara. With steady hands, he lines my lips and fills them with lipstick and gloss. After the hairstylist runs his hands through my hair, I’m ready to shoot.

  The photographer indicates for me to pull my V-necked T-shirt down off my shoulders to just above my breasts, which always means a face shot. No gorgeous clothes today.

  Being comfortable with nudity comes bit by tiny bit. For me, it began with growing up in the heat waves of Los Angeles, where I ran around in my bikini. Then, when I worked as a swim instructor, a bikini was my uniform. Working as a fit model for a swimwear company, my breasts and ass were tools—shaping devices that perfectly fitting swimsuits were formed upon. I’ve learned to separate my body from my inner self. I see my body as a tool with many uses, from creating good-fitting swimsuits to promoting products. I use my body to make money, selling everything from swimwear and sportswear to soap and soda. It is confusing sometimes though, because there are times when I need to detach, like for work or if men are staring at me, and there are other times when I need to feel connected with my body in order to feel peace and rest. I constantly go in and out of connecting with myself.