21 Steps to Happiness Read online

  Please. She should take a peek in my head! So far, this is nothing.

  “You’re weird,” she says and resumes the chase, sliding among the tourists and passersby to disappear inside a coffee shop. Only, it’s not a coffee shop, and once I follow her into the place I immediately understand a thing or two about Muriel B.

  The coffee shop is a tiny secluded bar. It’s full of women. Tall women. Short women. Fat women. Thin women. Young. Old. Dark. Blond. Women only.

  Muriel is at home in here. She kisses the barmaid on the lips.

  “C’est ta nouvelle copine?” the barmaid asks.

  “She thinks you’re my girlfriend. Do you think we would be a nice match?” Muriel says, smiling at me over her shoulder.

  Oh, God!

  “She is not my girlfriend. Lynn is from New York.” She explains to the barmaid.

  “Quoi? J’parle pas anglais, moi.”

  “Do you mind talking in French, Lynn?”

  Shit!

  “Non,” I say.

  The barmaid asks me something in French, so I just smile mysteriously. I do a smile that’s neither yes nor no. A kind of undecided smile. She asks me again, and looks at Muriel, seeking an explanation.

  I decide to say oui, and they laugh. I laugh with them. And I nod, of course.

  “So? What do you want to drink then?” Muriel asks.

  Oh, I see.

  “Just a coffee. A trim latte. Something like that.”

  The barmaid looks at me as if I had just landed from outer space.

  “Donne lui un café.”

  That grants me a horrible short-black and a disapproving face. It’s 11:30 a.m. Coffee time is over. Muriel orders a perroquet. It’s like a strange anise cocktail with mint syrup. The barmaid takes the same thing but without the syrup. She doesn’t take it too sweet.

  “Ça fait combien de temps que tu es à Paris?”

  “Muriel, we need to talk. In private.” I take her glass and walk to a booth far away from the bar. I want to take her away from the barmaid and all this maddening French language.

  She caresses the barmaid’s face and comes to sit with me.

  “Do you like it in here?” she asks.

  Two Japanese girls have just entered. They are dressed in school uniforms, only their skirts are far too short and reveal their underwear. Their faces are covered in colorful makeup. They look like two little porcelain dolls out of an sleazy old man’s fantasy.

  “The place has character,” I lie. I feel so inappropriate. Hell, I’ve never been in a place like this before.

  Once, with Delia, we went into a sauna parlor, but apparently they didn’t even have any real saunas and their masseuses were not really masseuses either. But that was an accident!

  And I don’t want to judge anyone. Damn, I just feel very uncomfortable watching girls engaged in passionate kissing at lunchtime.

  “Is this your kind of place?”

  “Well…”

  “See those two Japanese girls?”

  I nod. They’re sitting right behind us, sharing a pink milk shake with two straws. “Yes, I noticed them.”

  “Those two are really sick. They like weird games. They enjoy pain. I played with them last New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t sit for a week without shrieking.”

  She smiles at me.

  “Do I shock you?”

  “Muriel, I am from New York,” I lie again.

  In fact, I don’t know anyone like Muriel and yes, I am shocked and uneasy. Why did I think that all successful people should be elegant and refined like cheese crackers? Instead, I find myself with crazy young punks and unbalanced teenagers.

  “Can we talk about the job? That’s why you flew me to Paris, isn’t it?”

  “American women! Business! Business! Is there anything else that counts but your careers? Business was back there, when we talked to Pierre and you blew it. Now it’s time for something else.”

  Like kissing sadomasochist lesbian Japanese girls dressed in school uniforms?

  “It seems…” I start again.

  Oh, just say it, Lynn!

  “It seems that Nicolas wasn’t too keen on having me in Paris.”

  “Nicolas! He has lots of neuroses, that boy. His mind is full of no, no, no! My mind is all yes, yes, yes!” She laughs like a hyena and the two Japanese girls turn to check what she’s drinking and order two of the same.

  “I wanted to get a big name from New York,” Muriel continues. “A person that everybody would know in the business. Just like you.”

  “Just like me? Muriel, nobody knows me.”

  “Your name, Lynn, everybody knows your name. Your name is going to open all the doors. And I spent a fortune getting you here. So now you need to convince me that you were a good investment and that Nicolas was wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “To think you were a waste of our time and money.”

  She drinks her perroquet with a large smile on her face. She really enjoys toying with me.

  “After talking to your brother, it’s rather odd that you would try to convince me to stay, Muriel. It looks like you’re broke. And by the way, how come he talks with a French accent?”

  “He grew up with Dad in Paris. I grew up with Mum, in London. Mum was a model.”

  “That’s…very nice.”

  “No, they’re horrible parents.”

  “Oh…”

  “Lynn, we’re not here to discuss my parents. We’re here to talk about me! Me! Me! Me! You see, I’m going to take off. I know it. It’s my destiny. I am the next Coco Chanel.”

  That or locked up in a mental ward.

  “I am not a businesswoman. I am an artist. I am crazy. I want to be crazy. And my company should reflect my personality. That’s why I need people like you. An American businesswoman with a big name that can help me reach the top.”

  “I’m not sure that I’m the person you are looking for, Muriel.”

  “Your mother vouched for you. Your mother is a genius.”

  I have this picture of Jodie working in her little workshop when she was still unknown and broke. I was very young but I remember her hard face looking down at me, snatching the fabrics away from my hands. “I told you not to touch! You’re going to mess everything up again!”

  Suddenly, someone’s singing a catchy French tune in Muriel’s pocket. She fishes out a sleek-looking cell phone. “Nicolas,” she sneers. “Work, work, work!” She throws the phone on the table.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  “He probably needs me to go back to the office and help him with something.” She finishes her perroquet shaking her head.

  Actually, I would love to help Nicolas with something, like…anything. “Let’s go back to the office,” I say when the phone is done singing.

  “Oh, no! We did enough work for today. Let’s go to my place. We can talk some more at my place.”

  “What about Nicolas?” I ask, nodding toward the phone as if he was trapped inside and needed immediate attention.

  “We’ll phone him back. We can meet him at my place. Nicolas loves my place.”

  Mmm? Nicolas loves her place. I didn’t think of that. Nicolas and Muriel? She has such short hair. That’s definitely an advantage over me when taking a ride on his scooter.

  I love privacy.

  Being inside your home is like being inside a safe nest. You close the door and you can recuperate from the mad and stressful goings-on of the real world. Your home is your only chance to get peace and quiet. I love my home.

  Muriel is completely different. Her home is like a train station at rush hour. It’s full of people from various walks of life, some of them she doesn’t even know by name.

  Muriel lives in a huge modern flat not too far from the office. I swear, the minute she opened the door, it seemed more busy and hectic inside than on the streets below.

  There is this guy from Spain. He wants Muriel to fix a meeting for him with Fjord Model Agency. Muriel met him in a
club in Paris and doesn’t even remember his name anymore. She told him that she could help him become a model or, eventually, get him a part in a porn film. She introduces him to me as her beautiful Spanish Stallion.

  He sleeps on her sofa.

  “You are Fjord Agency?” he asks me.

  “No, I’m Lynn Blanchett.”

  Sprawled out in front of the giant TV screen are the Fat Breeders, a band from London. The whole band is crashing in Muriel’s apartment. From the drummer to the backup singers.

  According to Muriel, they’ve been here for two weeks. By the looks of it, they’ll never move out.

  “Lynn is from New York, she’s Jodie Blanchett’s daughter,” Muriel presents me proudly.

  “Hi,” they say lazily, as if they didn’t really give a damn, or were already so used to meeting all kinds of real celebrities.

  In the kitchen, two girls are sharing a frozen yogurt. They look like twins. They both have long blond hair in a tight ponytail and wear identical sweatpants and T-shirts. And, of course, they have bodies to die for.

  “You must know Irena and Jacky. They’re from New York, too.”

  Irena and Jacky are dancers, temporarily making their living in Paris as topless waitresses. Muriel forgot how they came to live in her apartment.

  “They’ve been here forever. I am not even sure they’re really gay. They bring all kind of weird men in here. Macho types. They’re very, very loose girls.”

  In Muriel’s bedroom, we need to whisper. Carolina is asleep in her bed. She has just arrived from Nigeria and models for Elite. Carolina is not her real name. Her real name is too hard to pronounce and sounds vaguely like Carolina.

  “I like her. We’re not very serious about each other yet, but I could fall in love with her. She has the potential to become big. Who knows? She’s so young.”

  We bend over her like two fairies watching over the little sleeping princess, planning her bright future. Muriel pushes me into her private office.

  Only, it’s not private—or an office—at all. There is a sofa, clearly being used as a bed, and a horribly messy desk. Seated behind the desk is a very thin man of indefinite age. He’s typing on a laptop computer. He finally stops and takes a look at us. We are part of another world to him, like he really can’t see us, but merely feels our presence.

  “Bonjour,” he says.

  “That’s Stephan. He’s my favorite writer.”

  Stephan lives in the apartment, too. He never ever leaves it, apparently. He is the only French person in here. He has been writing for years and, in the opinion of all the editors he has sent his prose to, he is the most untalented writer of his generation.

  “That’s exactly why I love him. He doesn’t compromise.”

  Stephan’s skin is yellow, turning green, like his eyes. He looks sick.

  “He never eats. That’s worrying,” Muriel says, sighing in a maternal way. Or at least as maternal as someone like Muriel can get.

  He wears nothing but an old, very dirty bathrobe, and his skinny limbs coming out of it make him look like a dying insect.

  “Lynn is from New York,” Muriel tells him. She speaks slowly and loudly as if he were her deaf grandfather.

  “New York! Yeah! Bagels!” That’s all he has to say about New York before resuming the frenetic typing.

  “He doesn’t do drugs. He is naturally like that. Isn’t he great?”

  “He is fantastic,” I say and I look around the office. I have been looking for traces of Nicolas’s presence. The apartment is in such a mess that it would be hard to say who lives here and who doesn’t. It should get mentioned in travel guides: If you are in Paris, look cool and are searching for a free place to stay, just move to Muriel B’s flat. All welcome!

  “The flat used to belong to my grandmother. They gave it to me when she died. She had such terrible taste. Very bourgeois.”

  “Shouldn’t we call Nicolas?”

  “Relax, Lynn. One thing at a time. Today, we’re getting to know each other. Tomorrow, we can talk business and money.”

  By now, I have learned quite a few things about Muriel B. She frequents lesbian bars, runs a crazy bankrupt company and lives in an even crazier apartment. She still knows nothing about me but assumes that I can help her.

  We’re back in the living room. The Fat Breeders have found something more interesting to watch than MTV. Carolina has gotten out of bed wearing nothing but a tiny electric-blue G-string, hiding absolutely nothing of her long, beautiful, ebony body.

  She stretches and rubs her sleepy eyes and smiles when she sees Muriel. She does a few joyful leaps to take her in her arms. You would swear she still believes she is eight years old and doesn’t yet notice that she has a pair of amazing breasts.

  “Hello, darling!”

  “Pourquoi tu me parles en anglais?”

  “This is Lynn. I told you about her. She’s Jodie Blanchett’s daughter.”

  Carolina doesn’t need more information. She bends over me and gives me a big kiss on the lips. And yes, I feel her naked breast against own less perky ones. I can feel the blood coming to my cheeks and I am sure that I am red as a tomato.

  “J’ai faim!” Carolina yells and leaps happily toward the huge stainless-steel fridge.

  Muriel shrugs her shoulders. “She’s hungry all the time. And she stays so thin. She’s lucky.”

  Carolina comes back with Irena and Jacky’s frozen yogurt. She dips a spoon in it and sucks it provocatively. Muriel pats her bum.

  “Where does she put it?” Muriel says.

  “One wonders,” I mutter.

  The Fat Breeders must love it here. I’m sure that they are going to write songs about Carolina’s butt.

  Muriel pushes Carolina playfully. “Go take a shower. You smell! I need to talk to Lynn.”

  “I don’t smell. It’s her that smells,” Carolina says, pointing her spoon at me. She realizes she might have been a bit too rude so she’s back licking the spoon provocatively to make me like her again.

  Abruptly Muriel takes my hand and drags me to the bedroom.

  She closes the door behind us. She leaves the heavy curtains closed and switches on the bed-top lights.

  The room smells of sweat. I can actually feel the lack of oxygen. I am very uncomfortable.

  Muriel sits on the corner of the huge bed. She pats the space beside her to invite me to sit.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Actually I am starving. I am so hungry that I feel light-headed. Add to this the caffeine and the stress, and I am about to burst.

  “No, I am fine.”

  I sit very cautiously beside her. She makes a slight hop to get closer.

  “For what it’s worth, I like you.”

  “So you said.”

  “I mean I really like you. I feel…you are like…my big sister.”

  She gets even closer. I don’t believe sisters look at each other that way!

  “I think we could work together.” She hops even closer.

  I try to move away slightly, but she puts her hands on my leg. “You, me, Nicolas. We can be a great team. Do you like Nicolas?”

  I can feel the weight of her hand on my knee. It’s sliding up now. I close my eyes. “He idolizes me. It’s very flattering.” She tickles my thigh with the tips of her fingers. “He is so cute, isn’t he?” I hear her say.

  I grab her hand and put it back on her own lap.

  “He is rather cute,” I confirm clumsily.

  “Pity he is gay.” She puts her hand back on my knee.

  Gay!

  “Gay?”

  “Gay! Comme un phoque!”

  She looks up at me. She caught me by surprise and it excites her.

  “Of course he is gay. Everybody is gay.”

  She takes advantage of my stupor and goes for the kiss, only she stops when the door opens. We look like two lovers caught by the husband—or the wife—who knows?

  “Ah, quelle salope!”

  Carolina drops her yogurt
pot and runs to the bed. Before I can explain that it’s not what it looks like, she jumps on Muriel and throws a couple of punches. But instead of fighting back, Muriel laughs her head off.

  Oh, God!

  I stand and step away from the bed.

  “I…I need to go back to the hotel.”

  They don’t listen. They just fight on the bed, and now Carolina is laughing, too. They find everything hilarious.

  I walk out of the room. The Fat Breeders are watching them fighting. They are in heaven.

  I walk to the door. As I pass in front of the office I can hear Stephan, the worst writer of his generation, yelling, “Bagels!”

  I put up the Do Not Disturb sign and lock the door to my room. I don’t ever want to go out again. Here, in the room it’s safe and comfortable. Out there is madness. Crazy Japanese girls, Pierre the banker, frozen-yogurt Carolina and the Fat Breeders.

  And Nicolas!

  He betrayed me!

  Somehow…Okay, so I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.

  But come on. He took me on his scooter. Everyone knows a scooter ride means something. It’s like a secret bond. You cannot seduce a girl with your scooter and then tell her that you are gay.

  Bastard! Oh, I hate him.

  I sit at the desk. I see the Air France flight coupon and my passport. I can leave…whenever. And now would be a good time.

  This job, this place, these people, it’s all way out of my league. It’s not at all the way I pictured it, not even in my worst nightmare.

  I pick up the flight coupon. I see Roxanne Green’s bible: 20 Steps to Success.

  I open the book. Roxanne wrote a phone number on the first page. “You can phone me in case of emergency,” she said.

  I dial and I recognize Roxanne’s voice.

  “Who’s that?”

  “It’s…Lynn. You know? We met on the plane.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Jodie Blanchett’s daughter.”

  “Yes, I know. Listen, I’m in the middle of something, darling.”

  “It’s an emergency, like you said.”

  “Did they fire you already?”

  “No, it’s much worse than that.”

  I am about to cry. I don’t want to cry. That would only annoy her more and she would hang up.

  “Are you crying?” she asks.