I was fourteen at the time: the prime age for being humiliated by the physical appearance of any relative, or even letting other people of this age group know that you actually have a family. Statistics show that most people have—or have had at some point in their life—a family. Try telling that to a moody, hormonal confirmand.
My mother’s mother arrived at my Lutheran confirmation wearing stilettos with a metallic gold city skyline wrapped from heel to toe. It was pretty evident that she had experienced a lapse in judgment.
Now this is not a woman who attends church with any regularity. She comes as a visitor, for the “Big Events”: Christmas Eve, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. I’m not sure that she realizes that weekly attendance is an option. She has a cousin in Maryland who is a Lutheran pastor—maybe she thinks this makes her exempt from regular worship.
For this Big Event, she must have panicked when trying to find something suitable to wear. She must have forgotten about the two-dozen classy silk suits that she wears on a daily basis. She clearly looked in the far reaches of her many closets—all five bedroom closets in her house are filled with her clothing, and there are three racks in the garage, bowing with the weight of silk—and found what she believed to be the perfect outfit for Lutheran Confirmation Sunday: a purple suede mini skirt and a black rayon button up blouse.
The stilettos with buildings on them were the cherry on top. Or rather, at the bottom. There was a New York skyline wrapped around the shoe. Don't ask me to explain it, because I probably can't. Use your imagination on this one. Trust me.
I have looked everywhere for a photograph of this outfit, but all I can find are pictures of myself in my white confirmation poncho-thingy with a constipated look on my face. I think I was just barely holding back my brain from finding a paper bag in the church kitchen and making it fly over my head. That would have livened things up, for sure. It could have been a religious experience for all who were unfortunate enough to bear witness. HallelujahAmen.
***
Dear God, what would Lulu’s interpretation be of packing for a trip to Paris? Would she pack a dozen striped T-shirts and black stretch pants? A béret? Would she dig in the garage until she found the ancient dresses that she purchased when she lived in the Loire Valley? I decided that it didn’t matter. Travel with an eccentric seventy-something was better than no travel at all.
Maybe.
***
Wearing a navy blue and white striped T-shirt, I went to a local camera shop to have my passport photo taken. Stripes are totally French-ish to me: maybe it's because of mimes.
With thick bangs above my eyebrows, my hair was dark and cut just below my chin. Of course my face was really pale and my lips were covered in dark red lipstick: oh la la, baby!
My newest phase included wearing loads of black clothing and my Doc Marten boots. Dr. Marten must have been some kind of a genius, creating those "Bouncing Soles." If you've never owned a pair, then you should. They are the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned—not to mention the coolest.
Our punk friends told me that you could get Docs for really cheap at the outdoor markets in Paris, so I now had an instant mission: to find twelve-holed-boots.
The ones with twelve holes laced up most of your calf, and this was so very important in our group of friends. Returning home with a pair of that particular footwear could instantly elevate my status amongst other young adults who actually bothered to care about that sort of thing. Yeah, I'm kind of a big dork sometimes.
I also pierced my ears eleven times. A number of my friends had pierced other body parts, but I was way too chicken to do it. The little studs at the top of my ears had hurt when I got it done. A lot.
My boyfriend had created a local band promoter job for himself, and he was really successful at it. We would spend evenings and weekends, when I wasn’t working at the mall or performing in community theater productions, at punk shows all over the valley—visiting recording studios and hanging out in rehearsal spaces until all hours of the night, breathing in second-hand clove clouds and cigarette smoke.
I love that we went through this time together and managed to stay away from drugs. I was the weaker one. I would always say that I wanted to start smoking because I thought it looked really tough. Big dork: remember?
Richie has asthma and thinks that smoking is one of the vilest habits on the planet. He has always wanted to say, “Why, of course I don’t mind if you smoke: if you don’t mind if I take a crap in your shoe.” He has never actually said this to anyone, but whenever someone asks if they can light up around him, I have this almost psychic sense that he is barely able to keep himself from saying it.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I did actually take a puff once, in college. We were doing a scene in one of my theater classes, and the character that I was portraying was supposed to be a smoker. I thought it was gross, but my scene partner shared her pack of Marlboros so that I could do a practice run. I almost lost my lunch. It’s a wonder that I didn’t vomit on the classroom stage. We got a solid “A” on that performance, and I am convinced that it was because of the real cigarette: method acting at its finest.
***
No one else was in the international section at the library, so I cheated a little and slouched in an overstuffed chair—mentally calling books to and from shelves, straight into my hands. I had been at Above the Waist until after closing the night before, and I was toast.
Most of the books had photos or paintings of the Eiffel Tower on their covers. After spending a few seconds studying a photograph of Paris at night, I sighed at the beauty of all the twinkling, yellow lights. Curling up on one of the fluffy, slightly over-used chairs in the reference section, I tucked my heavy boots beneath me and studied pictures of famous Parisian landmarks that anyone would recognize: Notre Dame, l’Arc de Triomphe, The Louvre: there were so many of them! I could practically hear accordions play as I pored over books about French food, culture, fashion—you name it. I had read about most of that stuff when I was studying the language in school, but that was before I knew that I would be seeing it all first hand. I scanned with a new intensity, which probably would have helped my grade if I had applied myself in a like manner when I was a student in the subject.
Hours sprinted by, and I didn’t even notice. What wasn’t even a consideration about a week ago had become an obsession which I craved more than almost anything. I was ready for a baguette. I longed to stroll along the banks of the Seine. I wanted to confidently announce, “Que sera sera” and have people around me understand what I was trying to say... Shoot, wait a minute: is that French? I think it might be Spanish. I'll try to get back to you on that.
***
My parents weren’t overwhelmingly supportive of our trip, but they weren’t really opposed, either. They were always trying to get me to “see the world” and “go on an adventure.” I guess this trip fell into both categories.
Everyone in our family was used to Lulu’s bursts of impulsiveness, so the whole plan-a-European-vacation-in-no-time-flat thing didn’t faze them a bit.
***
Long evenings were spent with my boyfriend, talking about the need to be careful, him reminding me that I always had to have my passport with me. He found this little pouch thing at one of the travel stores at the mall when he was waiting to pick me up from work.
Made of cream muslin cloth, it was created to fit a passport and maybe a little bit of cash and be tied around your waist, underneath your clothing. It made me feel like I was wearing spy gear when I gave it a test run. This would surely save me from being arrested and thrown in a Parisian prison.
Being ever thoughtful, he bought one for Lulu, too.
We sat in the front seat of his root beer brown 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, the smell of his leather jacket and lemony cologne filling the small space. Looking into my eyes and holding my hand, he went over all of his concerns:
1. No going with strangers.
2. No going off and drinking
alone—an idea that appealed to me, to be honest! I mean, I was going to be in a country where toddlers are allowed wine with dinner. The legal drinking age in Paris was sixteen, so I was about four years behind the average Parisian. I still had a year to go in my country (not that I hadn’t broken the law a few times in this arena), so how could I not take advantage of this discrepancy?
His biggest rule was that I was to try not to use my cranium for anything that anyone else couldn’t do. He was afraid of sex traffickers, sure, but he was also well acquainted with any and all documentaries about Area 51, and he didn’t want me to end up strapped to a table like an alien.
I knew I wouldn’t go against his requests. I loved this boy, and I wouldn’t disappoint him.
Promising to be safe, I swore that I would make sure that Lulu didn’t do anything off the wall. As if I have ever had any control over what she has chosen to do!
***
My best friend, Alicia, told me that she wanted me to bring home something “like, really French” for her. Ever since we moved to
Hambran Lane, the summer before fifth grade, she had lived one house down from us. Recently she had moved out of her parents’ house and now lived in a nearby apartment complex.
My BFF had been stockpiling furniture and dishes since she was about ten. That was the age we were when I had met her, and for her birthday she had asked for a hope chest. I had no idea what a hope chest was, but she spent the next ten years filling it with things for her future home.
When her parents bought her a bedroom set in high school, she picked out a queen size bed and an entertainment center. It was a tight squeeze in her tiny bedroom.
In her new place, it looked great.
She really wished that she could go with me. I did, too.
I could just picture us, strolling along the Champs-Élysées, shopping bags in hand. She would wear her black hair twisted up on the top of her head in an elegant chignon. I would wear my standard—and oh, so French—red lipstick, and we’d be giggling and looking like tourists. Gorgeous, fashionable tourists, of course: no black knee socks with sandals for us!
Alicia had been around Lulu enough to know that this trip could be an interesting one. She was worried for me.
I was sitting on a couch that she had bought second hand. Allie had great taste and it was a beautiful piece of furniture.
It was difficult for me to admit that I was a little nervous, too, so I avoided eye contact and used TK to lazily loop my shoelaces back and forth around each other, twisting the loose ends and sending them through the eye of the bow, tangling them. Then I let go and let them fall back flat against my boots. I did this without moving a muscle, except my brain, that is. Alicia was one of the few people who had known my secret for more than half of my life.
Reassuring her proved futile, but I tried anyway. “It’s going to be fun! Cobblestone streets! Great shopping!”
Unconsciously pulling on her waist length hair, which was something that she did only when she was concerned, she said, “Hairy armpits. Strange, foreign men. What if she makes you eat snails, Frankie? I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it if she makes you eat snails.”
“It’s called escargot, and it’s a delicacy. I might just try it. ‘When in Rome,’ and all that.”
“You aren’t going to Rome. What if something happens to you? Make sure you have a nail file with you at all times.” Her mom used to say that to us when we were younger and she would drop us off at the mall. As if a metal nail file could stop a crazed attacker.
Picturing a menacing male mime with a dark twirly mustache and a black béret chasing me through the dark streets, I decided that I would definitely bring my metal nail file.
“Nothing’s going to happen, Al. People travel to Europe all the time!”
“At least you speak French. You’ll be able to say, ‘Get me out of here,’ if you have to. You better not join some traveling French theater troupe: I know you are dying to do that!”
“Don’t be crazy, Alicia.”
“Don’t let anyone see you do that extra thing you do. Don’t ever forget to bring your passport, and for God’s sake, keep an eye on your grandmother.”
2
Making Plans
I visited my grandparents’ house about a week before we left to go over our plans. Lulu insisted that we converge in the “sitting room.” I was impressed. We only use the sitting room for Christmas morning.
There are three couches in the room: two of them have frames that had been painted gold and were upholstered in beautiful, light brocade, and one is covered in white, velvet, horizontal stripes. Two gold chairs with gilded frames and bright gold fabric sit in one corner. Two additional chairs that look like ancient thrones stand poised on either side of the window. They are tall and very, very old, covered in green brocade and stuffed with something a little crunchy. Probably some type of animal hair. I like these chairs the best—they're the ones I usually sit in to open my Christmas presents. I chose one and sat down.
Lulu sat on the couch across from me. It was the one with the large, oval, marble table with little crystal dishes scattered all around on top of it. Some were filled with cinnamon candies, which were Lulu’s favorites. I floated a candy out of the dish and unwrapped it, mid-air. The wrapper drifted into my lap, and my chin tilted to the ceiling, allowing the treat to drop right into my mouth.
Grampy sat on another couch, in front of two tiny marble tables. There was an antique glass cigarette lighter on one of them, solid and beautiful. No one smoked in this house any longer, but Lulu had for a long time. I've got photos of her sitting in bed with a cigarette in a long cigarette holder, thick tiger glasses on her face. So glamorous!
Her first experience with cancer sticks had been at age five, or so the story goes. A cousin had handed her a lighted cigarette and told her not to let it go out. This led to several smokes and an instant addiction which lasted decades. My Aunt Margie likes to tell how the principal sent her home from school in the first grade because she was caught lighting up in the girl’s bathroom.
She says that the years of smoking have affected her singing voice, but I think it’s just an excuse for her lack of musicality. Lulu can’t hold a tune, even though she stopped sucking up the nicotine when I was little.
***
The room looked empty without the Christmas tree. Dark and kind of spooky, too. Olive carpet stretched out in all directions. It was threadbare in places, but my grandmother refused to acknowledge it: the carpet had been shipped from somewhere “overseas.” It didn’t matter that it was thirty years old and starting to fray. This was a quality carpet and "it was going to stay!"
The front window was enormous and covered by three different treatments: a yellowing pull-down shade, a sheer curtain hanging to the floor, behind one of the brocade couches, and then there was the swag. A hand me down from someone in the neighborhood, decades ago, it consisted of yards and yards of thick, rich fabric, which might have been velvet. A light puce, it framed the large window very well. A decorative fringe around the edges made the whole wall look royal.
Rug-sized brocade tapestries hung, unframed, on the walls. I think I remember hearing that they were from her first visit to France.
In the corner, where the Christmas tree would have been, was some sort of antique stand. It had fancy knick-knacks packed on the tiered surfaces. There were little works of art from Japan and silver plates with dates, names and events on them—one from my grandfather’s years in the Army.
Where do they usually keep this stuff when the tree comes out of the box? That Christmas tree left no room for any extra pieces in its vicinity. Lulu’s Conifer (and I call it this because Grampy has no say in how it is decorated) is an artificial one. It doesn’t really matter, though, because when she is finished with it, you can’t see any actual foliage. In this house, Oh Tannenbaum is covered in bright pink balls. Only bright pink balls: three shades of pink, all very similar. And boxes of tinsel. She starts wi
th the large glass globes on the bottom. The medium ornaments go in the middle, and the tiny ones are at the top. There is an exact science to this, and it hasn’t changed since I’ve been alive. A billion strands of silver tinsel are delicately dripped from top to bottom. Multicolored lights hide under the mass of pink and silver, and when they are turned on, you would think you were in Las Vegas.
My boyfriend was so stunned by this vision during our first Christmas together that he stood there and snapped pictures of it because he knew that no one would ever believe what he had seen if he didn’t have photographic evidence.
After Thanksgiving, the whole space is transformed into a crazy maze of lights and fifty years of Christmas past. In Vegas.
The stockings above the fireplace are square because they were made from knitted afghan blanket squares, compliments of my now deceased Aunt Eddie. Ten of them were suspended from a piece of sturdy wire. Our names were printed on little squares of paper, which were then attached with a stickpin.
There's this weird white ball that plugs into the wall and makes chirping noises. I have never been able to figure out how this relates to baby Jesus or Santa Claus, but my siblings and I always delighted in it when we were children. We always fought over who got to plug it in first, whenever it came out of the box of random decorations.
Three sets of Wise Men stared blankly at about two dozen knitted candles that fit over empty toilet paper rolls (I have no idea who made these, and I shudder to think that she actually paid for them), singing lights hang around doorways, and little angels are suspended from an elegant crystal chandelier.
The coup de grace is Santa’s picture, which slides over the toilet seat. I am not joking. When the seat is closed, Santa is smiling. When the seat is opened, he is holding his green mittened hands over his eyes. I used to drive my parents crazy when I was younger because I would sit in the bathroom doorway and watch the seat lift and close. Lift and close, Santa playing peek-a-boo: my siblings behind me, giggling like maniacs.
Frankie in Paris Page 2