Bye Bye Blondie

by Virginie Despentes

  Then she goes into a stall, and closes the slightly twisted bolt. A very clean hole, the size of an old five-franc coin, has been drilled in the door. At about knee height. More-or-less surrealist graffiti covers the walls from top to bottom. She’s always liked one of them, a little palm tree up to the right of the door. Whoever drew it took some trouble, using different colored felt pens. Among all the death threats, revenge slogans, and drawings of private parts, somebody stood on tiptoe to draw a little palm tree.

  Back in the bar, she looks around for L’Est Républicain, the local paper, and sees it clutched in the pink false fingernails of the woman sitting at the bar. Classic slut. Another regular. Always lots of makeup, come-hither eyes. She’s fat, dark-haired, no great looker, but not letting on she knows that. Gloria has to make do with a TV listing lying around for no particular reason. She leafs through it as she sips her second whiskey. It falls open at a two-page spread: Eric Muyr, his life, his mad period, his achievements, and his shitty new show . . . someone has drawn spots on his nose and given him a little Hitler mustache. He doesn’t look like himself, either in real life or in the photo, she thinks. At this point, a hand laden with heavy rings, pharaohs and skulls, bangs down on the table between the presenter’s eyebrows.

  “There’s an article in L’Est as well, about that wuss you’re looking at.”

  Looking up, she sees Michel and gives him a big smile—he pulls a face.

  “I won’t ask how you’re doing . . .”

  “No, don’t bother. What article?”

  “A whole two pages on the local hero, his amazing success, his fantastic pioneering new TV show . . . just a game show, as if that’s anything to write home about.”

  “Actually I met him in town just now . . .”

  “No!”

  He takes off his leather jacket, pulls up a chair, and sits down. Leaning toward her, he listens to her story attentively, eager to pick up the scoop of the day.

  “I was crossing the road and he nearly ran me over, well his driver did . . . then he got out of the car—yeah, wuss is the word for it, so pleased with himself, I didn’t even shout at him, I was so stunned to see him. Mind-boggling.”

  Michel frowns and waits for her to go on. Gloria realizes that he’s wrongly connecting her disheveled appearance with this chance encounter. She reassures him.

  “Oh, no, that’s not why I look like death warmed up.

  Nothing to do with it. Tell you what though, I surprised myself: it really did nothing for me, bumping into Mr. TV Celebrity . . . If he thinks he’s going to impress us all . . .”

  “So, the red eyes . . . that’s because of Lucas?”

  Even hearing his name hurts, and she knows from experience that the first days won’t be the worst. The most intense perhaps—spectacularly so, in fact. But the worst will come later, when the sharp pain of a breakup recedes a little, leaving behind a sense of loss, a familiar ache, the lucid and unbearable consciousness of something irredeemably lost, gone . . . She repeats her mantra: Change your ways, Gloria, stop suffering, you don’t need this. But it doesn’t work. There are some people who torture themselves more than others. And in this category, she knows she’s a world-beater.

  Michel brings out his rolling kit, but Gloria flicks her packet of Russian cigarettes under his nose. He thanks her and takes one. He has rings on every finger, the same ones since last century, Egyptian scarabs, skulls, and precious stones. His nails are always black. She has no idea why. Perhaps he fixes cars on the sly? Dismantles engines when everyone’s back is turned . . . whatever. He stands up, goes over to collect his beer, and exchanges a few jokes with Jérémy, then brings out a newly cut CD from the pocket of his leather coat. Since his pockets are full of holes, he has to contort himself, feeling around in the lining to get ahold of it. Jérémy yells, “Yay!!! Another garage punk compilation, eh?” with almost the same degree of enthusiasm as if he’d just scored in the World Cup.

  Two young girls arrive, schoolbags on their shoulders. Given the time of day and their faces, they’re cutting class. They whisper and giggle in turn. Baby Goths, black makeup and pierced lips, they’re done up so they look almost like sisters. Baggy khaki trousers, skintight tops with pictures of improbably named groups. Black high-top Converse. Gloria knows what Michel is thinking, that’s the advantage of knowing each other so well. No way can he get used to the way the kids look today, starting with their trainers. He was born a bit too early for all that. A girl in trainers has the same effect on him as if she turned up in army combats: a complete turnoff. Sad for him, since that’s where we are now. Still, he goes over to say hi, and gives them a couple of pieces of solid advice about real life and how it is. They listen, heads to one side, taking it in. Tonight before going home, they’ll be in Place Carnot, drinking beer with some punks and reporting what they’ve learned.

  Michel does his cool act for a couple of minutes, then comes back to Gloria’s table, and like a reliable friend, he asks questions.

  “This time it’s serious, is it? Want to tell me about it?”

  “Hiroshima . . . I went ballistic.”

  “Ah.”

  He knows her history, so he needs to check: “But he’s . . . I mean you didn’t . . .?”

  His concern makes her smile, although she knows it isn’t funny.

  “No, no, I didn’t hurt him, nothing like that. Didn’t lay a finger on him. Anyway, he’s very quick, damn his eyes. But I did some damage on the way. I trashed his place a bit. But that’s not the worst. Well, maybe it is . . . Anyway, it’s over. It’s over, over, over, finished, I know. I swear, I’m so pissed off, every time I find a guy I really like, I drive him nuts and he chucks me out.”

  “I’ve heard this before from you. And if I was you, I’d be pissed off too.”

  “Yeah, but usually it’s just me that’s moaning in my corner. But it’s him that’s had enough this time. Totally, totally had it. You know the effect I have on guys: at first they love it that I’m in such a bad place, they always want to help. But if you overdo it, there’s too much pain, bad news for the furniture.”

  “So where are you going to crash?”

  “At your place?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “Not to worry, I guessed you’d have had enough of putting me up. I’m going to ask Véro.”

  “No, it’s not that, but Vanessa’s coming tonight, so it’s not really the moment . . .”

  “Cool for you. She doesn’t work during the week?”

  “She just got the sack.”

  “Too bad.”

  “No, it’s okay, she wanted out anyway. Records, you know, not really where it’s at now.”

  “Well she’s right, because before we go back to the shop and give them all our cash to buy their CDs, hell might’ve frozen over.”

  She likes saying this. But she doesn’t like Vanessa, Michel’s new girlfriend. Of course, there’s a bit of basic jealousy in there. Why would Michel need another girl around when he’s got her? But Gloria is old enough to know it’s best that her friends are happy, have someone to sleep with. Otherwise they start complaining and get to be a pain.

  But this Vanessa really is the pits. Pretty, yes, blondish, big boobs, wide blue eyes. She’s got delicate features, a long neck and a rather nearsighted gaze, so she reminds you a bit of a giraffe. She looks down her nose at you, she’s totally full of herself and really, really dumb, which would be quite funny if she wasn’t around so much. Envious, super competitive, always ready to complain. Aggressive, but in a very feminine way, roundabout and insidious. The remarks she makes are usually wounding, but not openly so: the punch in the jaw that she seems to be asking for the whole time wouldn’t look justified to a bystander.

  In Gloria’s view, this girl is only hanging around because she regards them all as provincial hicks, among whom she can easily shine. Reigning, even if it’s only over pigs and chickens, is still reigning—the sad duty of a slightly shopworn princess.

  Gloria an
d Vanessa exchange smiles of overwhelming hypocrisy every time they meet. Broad, murderous smiles.

  For the moment though, everyone finds this bimbo really nice, interesting, and charming. With her determined little expression and her calculating ways. Gloria knows she just has to wait. The Vanessas of this world don’t last long. You’ve got to have a bit more upstairs to be a girl that people really remember.

  But in the twenty years she’s known Michel, it’s the first time things have taken this unwelcome turn. He’s never stayed so long with a girlfriend without covertly starting to find fault with her. He falls in love often, quickly puts the girl on a pedestal—but it has an eject button.

  You need to watch it, Gloria tells herself anxiously, because people can change, when you least expect it. You know them so well, you’re used to them, you don’t spot when the day comes they can’t take it anymore, you don’t necessarily realize. But now, apparently, Michel is fed up with being on his own. So he’s closed down a section of his brain, the one that tells him what this girl is like: a château-bottled bitch.

  Gloria, chin on hand, elbow on the table, is humming a France Gall song: “Laisse tomber les filles, laisse tomber les filles / un jour c’est toi qu’on laissera” (“Give up on the chicks, give up on the chicks / Next time around you’ll be in the fix”).

  Michel finishes his beer, elbow in the air, flexes his neck with ease, stands up, and takes Gloria’s glass with his own.

  “Same again?” She nods with a sniff, she’s in no position to refuse.

  Then he stops, saying nothing, gazing out at the street, and searches for words, before saying without looking her in the eye, “You’re sure you don’t want to try . . .”

  “A shrink? Are you nuts?”

  “You can’t carry on like this.”

  “Yes I can.”

  She pretends to think it’s funny, but her eyes are stinging and she’d like to put her head on the table and cry, or bash her forehead in. She swallows, forces herself to reject the thoughts that arise, and looks once more at the TV listing. She’s choking with rage, her heart is pounding irregularly. Once more, that image, very clear in her head: someone puts a barrel of a gun to the back of her neck and pulls the trigger. A release.

  She’d like to go back in time three months, to the days when Lucas used to follow her in the street after every fight, when he didn’t want to let her go, when he loved her at whatever the cost. When she felt herself desired. She’d like to go back three months and sleep with him tonight, have him feel for her feet with his in his sleep, as he used to.

  Michel sits down again and asks: “So what was it about this time?”

  “He installed AOL on my computer.”

  “And?”

  “I’d asked him not to.”

  “So?”

  “I trashed the place.”

  “Really? I mean you just saw he’d installed AOL and you smashed everything up?”

  “Exactly. I picked up the computer and I threw it on the floor.”

  “Ah, that would make an impression, yes.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d never done that before, makes a hell of a noise. And you know Lucas, he doesn’t do conflict.”

  “Even if he was a macho guy, it would still come as a surprise.”

  “Hmm. He said I’d gone psycho. He was different than usual, this time he’d made up his mind. I think he’s met someone else.”

  “Perhaps he just wants to stay alive.”

  “Well, we’ll never know now, will we?”

  She raises her drink and they clink glasses. The memory of the scene makes her feel bad, genuinely. But she can’t stop herself from joking when she tells anyone about it. She concludes: “When the mood takes me, it takes me. Honestly, nothing I can do about it.”

  “Thing is, Gloria, the mood’s taking you a heck of a lot these days. If you weren’t sleeping with anyone, people might say find a guy. But you’re never not sleeping with someone. Maybe it’s the opposite, you should try giving up sex.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be sober as a nun, that should calm me down, but that’s not so much fun as being weird and killing everyone in the street, as many as possible in an afternoon.”

  Michel smiles and remains polite. But she knows he’s thinking she really ought to get this sorted out. Only last week, she broke the pinball machine in another bar because it went “tilt” on her. She’d picked up a chair and smashed the machine with it. Michel’s often there when she blows a fuse. Last month, they’d been standing in line at the town hall to get a passport, and this young guy had tried to push in front of them, pretending to be tough, when you could tell at a glance he was from the better end of town. In two minutes she was raging at him, with her madwoman-in-the-attic look. Michel had had to drag her outside, too bad about the passport. And then Michel had made the mistake of letting her have a coffee in the bar opposite, to calm down for a few minutes. As soon as she’d seen the same stupid boy come out, she’d run into the street, unthinking, and without even realizing it, she’d got him down and was banging his head on the ground. Luckily he was a strong kid, and he managed to get away without too much trouble. At least for the moment, she only picks fights with people stronger than herself—she likes to say she does it on purpose.

  Gloria licks her lower lip. She’s known Michel a long time, and he’s the last real male friend she has. She’d be sorry to lose him. But she’s out of control. Before, she might lose her temper now and then, and it made people laugh, it made her seem kind of a character, out of the ordinary. A girl you didn’t mess with. But she’s mutated from picturesque fury to dangerous madwoman. And now it isn’t just a few times a year, it’s practically every day. As if she never gets tired of it.

  “See, I think I’ve gone from being manipulative to being aggressive. Dunno why . . .”

  “You were manipulative?”

  “Yeah, before, it depended who I was talking to. I could be passive, aggressive, or just normal, and I always got my way. But now, I’m just aggressive.”

  “And do you get your way now?”

  “Nope. Don’t want anything from anyone anymore, so I can’t be bothered to manipulate them. I just prefer to bite their balls off.”

  That makes him laugh. She tells herself that he doesn’t yet quite hate her, and that soothes her for a couple of minutes. What she doesn’t tell him is how much of a kick she gets these days out of being aggressive. How much she loves the moment when everything tips over, when the other person is caught off-balance and you have to go on, attacking, screaming, and seeing his fear. That’s the moment she likes. The pleasure she gets from it is dirty, degrading, and dangerous, filling her with shame—a filthy and super powerful pleasure. She doesn’t tell him this because like most people with a serious problem, she’s sure she can deal with it on her own, no way is she going to crawl and admit it to anyone else.

  In Lucas’s apartment block, where she’d gone to live less than six months ago, everyone looks at her sideways, with a half-pitying look. They’re so used to hearing her yell, roll on the ground, break dishes, and slam doors. The tricky thing, in fact, after these tantrums is the next day: closing the door, meeting the neighbor in the elevator, greeting her cheerfully as if nothing had happened. If I act normal, perhaps she’ll think it wasn’t me.

  Michel comments: “The funny thing is when you’re drunk, you don’t piss anyone off.”

  “No, not yet. I’m fun when I’ve had a few.”

  “Should drink more then.”

  “Should start earlier, you’re right.”

  Gloria spots Véronique going past in her blue Clio. She’s slowing down to see who’s in the bar. She waves to them and stops. She reverse-parks neatly, one-handed, in a single go. Then the driver wriggles around for a couple of minutes inside the car, putting on her coat, finding her glasses, her handbag, checking the mirror in case she has lipstick on her teeth. She comes to join them. Gloria wonders how she’s going to ask if she can stay with her,
praying she’ll say yes. Véro lives in this comfortable little apartment, and she’s genuinely nice. A good person. And you eat very well there too. Truly the woman of choice, if you want a sleepover.

  Véronique kisses them hello and asks Gloria, “What happened to you?”

  “I made a fool of myself.”

  “Someone beat you up, you mean?”

  Michel bursts out laughing.

  Gloria protests, “You’re out of order, she’s right, it could happen.”

  Véronique raises one eyebrow. She’s the kind of girl who can do that, raise just one eyebrow. Gloria reassures her, “No, nobody tried to attack me. All men ever want me to do is PISS OFF.”

  Véronique smiles, and takes off her coat, which she folds carefully over the back of her chair. She’s wearing a pink-and-black dress, close-fitting. She’s slim and looks great, not just great for forty-five, which she is. That’s the only reason Gloria wouldn’t want to live with her. She doesn’t want to see her in her nightie, or in a bra and panties. She feels too fat herself to be able to stand the sight of women with good figures.

  Véronique sighs and slumps back in her chair. She tells them: “It was funny in school today, I tried to teach them the difference between a short o and a long ô—every year since I got back to Lorraine, this bit of the syllabus makes me laugh.”

  “Why?”

  “In a Lorraine accent, do you think the long ô exists? The kids listen, they stare at me, they have no idea what I’m talking about . . . but anyway, you’re not going to be interested in this . . .”

  Both speaking together and with great sincerity, they say, “Yes, yes, we are.”

  And it’s true that her stories of primary school are so exotic for Michel and Gloria that it’s like being on holiday. But what they really like is when she gets started on the parents . . .