21 Steps To Happiness

Maybe a pair of lightly shaded sunglasses is the missing detail. I don’t have that kind, just plain ugly ones. I try them on. I can hardly see my reflection in the mirror. And that’s good. I mean, not to be able to see myself. I immediately feel better.

The phone rings, I pick it up in the bathroom. Massoud is waiting for me downstairs.

Panic!

I hurriedly add a last spray of aerosol deodorant. Isn’t it too cold to wear nothing but a dirty T-shirt? I’m going to look naked. I grab a light pink pullover and throw it over my shoulders. Perfect! Now I look like a creature from the eighties who escaped after spending the past twenty years in a shoe box.

“Morning, Massoud,” I say as get in the car. “Nice to see you again.”

He turns and takes a good look at me and his nostrils twitch.

“No English,” he reminds me and opens his window. He whispers something. How do you say, God, the lady in pink really stinks in Arabic?

I recognize some of the streets from yesterday, mostly because of the herd of old prostitutes. Massoud stops the car and points at a wooden black gate across the street.

“Muriel B,” he says and I am not sure if he is talking about a brothel or a fashion company. “Rue Saint Denis, très, très hot!”

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

Jodie sent me to Paris to work in fashion not in prostitution. At least, I hope.

I step out of the car to find myself surrounded by people carrying racks of clothes, and prostitutes, lots of prostitutes.

The sight of Nicolas’s scooter instantly makes me feel better. I walk to the gate. I have to apologize to a prostitute since she’s leaning against the intercom.

“J’étais là la première, dégage!”

She’s shooing me away! Does she…? She thinks that I’m the competition!

“I just want to go into this building.” I point at the intercom. “I’m working in there.”

“I’m working here, too!” She steps away, very annoyed at me. She spits on the ground. That’s what she thinks of me.

I ring and the gate buzzes and opens. I pop my head inside, and then step into the courtyard. It’s very old-looking, with a little stone bench and a little angel statue in the middle. Behind the statue stands a large three-story building. It’s a sort of private house in the middle of Paris.

I walk on the old pavement listening to the sound of my Japanese flip-flops as I climb the marble stairs to the building.

I can see a reception desk past the French doors and a huge Muriel B logo. There’s no mistake. I have reached my own private hell.

But I can do this. I can prove to Jodie and everyone else I can fit in.

I open the door. The receptionist looks up at me. Everything is so silent. It seems that there’s just me and her in the building.

“Bonjour,” she says. “Je peux vous aider?”

“Nicolas Bouchez, please.”

“Qui dois-je annoncer?”

Oh, God, how long can I hide that I can’t speak a word of French? “I’m Lynn Blanchett.”

“Oh, but of course, take a seat, please.”

I take a seat in the beautiful white salon by the reception area. Everything feels brand new. You can still smell fresh paint. Electric cables are hanging here and there, waiting for the finishing touches.

Yet, the Muriel B office looks astonishing. A mixture of modernity set inside traditional surroundings. And beyond the black gates, past the courtyard, in the street, there is Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s so…fashionable!

I hear heavy footsteps coming down the large marble stairs. I’m so scared. Animals must feel this way before being killed and eaten. I put away my ridiculous sunglasses. I look up and see Nicolas walking toward me.

Seeing him is like a kick in the stomach. He looks that good.

Just like in my dream from last night. Yeah, that’s right, that dream. The one where he runs after me in the hay barn. He catches me and…

Did he make a special effort to look so good today? Or is he just plain cute like this every day?

“Nice to see you again, did you have some rest?” he asks.

I couldn’t stop thinking of you and you’ve even invaded my dreams. Oh, God, did I say that out loud? “I rested plenty, thank you.”

“Muriel is looking forward to meeting you.”

“Likewise.” Two sentences without sounding stupid. I’m on a roll!

“What do you think of our office? Amazing, no?” he asks as we start to climb toward whatever purgatory is waiting for me upstairs.

“It’s very…well, very special.”

“I know. It doesn’t look like a trendy district. That’s Muriel. She wants us to keep our ears to the ground, you know, be where things really happen.”

“The concept is good, I like it,” I say earnestly. “It can become some kind of motto—Muriel B. Where things really happen. You know what I mean?”

He smiles approvingly. That’s the first time he approves of something I say or do, except maybe for the scooter ride.

“You know what I think?” I ask, because all of a sudden I think that it would be great to do a fashion show right there, in the street below, in the middle of this chaos. That would be…

“No, what do you think, Lynn?”

Wait a second. What if my idea sounds completely stupid? How would I know?

“Well…Nothing,” I say mysteriously.

“Okay….”

Dull, dull, DULL!

We reach the landing and my heart is beating faster. Noises, voices, the sounds of movement and laughter are coming from behind a huge tall white wooden door.

“C’est l’Atelier. The workshop,” Nicolas says. “All the offices are located on the second floor. But this is where the real magic takes place.”

He pushes open the door and invites me into their world.

It’s a huge space, like a ballroom. Groups of people are gathered around different tables.

They chatter away. They scream. It’s a zoo.

Most of them are very young, a majority look Asian, maybe Japanese, and dress in contemporary punk style.

Nicolas whisks me through, and I can see lots of facial piercings, tattoos, dreads and multicolored hairdos.

“Here she is,” Nicolas says, pointing at a group at the far end of the workshop. “Do you recognize her?”

“Oh, yes,” I say, trying to guess which one in this group of teenagers could be Muriel B, and finally decide that it has to be the oldest one, well, I mean a girl about my age, which happens to be the most elegant one, in a classic kind of way.

“Muriel,” Nicolas calls, and, yes, the elegant girl turns first, so I walk straight to her, take a large breath of air, shake her hand and give her my million-dollar smile.

“Hello, Muriel, I’m very pleased to meet you.”

She shakes my hand, smiles and says, “Françoise Neuton. Pleased to meet you, too.”

Shit!

She points at the smallest, youngest kid in the group. “That’s Muriel,” Françoise Neuton says amused.

Muriel can hardly be more than eighteen years old. Her lips and nose and ears are infested with multiple piercings and studs. A large tribal tattoo goes all around her neck and arms.

Nicolas clears his throat. “Muriel, this is Lynn Blanchett.”

“I see,” Muriel says, but we don’t shake hands. “C’est un honneur d’avoir une Blanchett parmi nous!”

Oh, we aren’t going to speak English, then?

I nod. It worked so far.

“Tu parles français, j’espère?”

“Oui,” I say. “Je… Mmm! Je…” Nothing French comes out, not even a word about buying bread at the bakery.

They turn to me. The whole workshop staff stops and waits for some sound to come out of my mouth.

Complete silence.

“So…you’ve already met Françoise.” Nicolas comes to my rescue. “She is our première. If Muriel is the creative mind, Françoise is her hands.”

“That’s very poetic, Nicolas. Well done,” Muriel says with a cool and exaggerated British accent.

She looks at me more carefully. Everybody looks at me more carefully. They don’t dare to think anything before Muriel has given her own verdict.

“I like your…T-shirt. DKNY?”

“No, it’s just a…basic one.”

“Basic, I’ve never heard of them. It’s really unattractive in a nice way. That is fashion though, isn’t it?”

The rest of them are now whispering about the quality of a Basic white T-shirt.

Stop staring at her tattoos! I scream to myself.

Is she…Yes, she has a huge stud on her tongue. I can’t believe that this is actually Muriel B. My future boss? Nicolas’s employer? I mean, isn’t she supposed to be at school or something?

“We’re working on that piece,” Muriel says. She shows me a dress. It hangs on a wood model behind the group. Yak! It’s sort of…ugly. “What do you think?”

“Oh…It’s sort of…”

“Don’t you like it?” Muriel asks amusingly.

Silence again.

“To be honest, well…no, I find it kind of…”

Kind of what, you idiot? Outdated? Too short? Too long? Too tight? Too brown? Not enough? What would you know?

“Kind of…ugly.”

Did I just say that?

Françoise Neuton looks away. “C’est tout de même incroyable!” She whispers. I must be the most annoying person she’s ever met.

“She finds it ugly,” Muriel laughs out. She thinks I’m very funny. “Everyone, listen up, Blanchett finds it kind of ugly.”

I turn to Nicolas. He’s cupping his chin in his fingers. He needs to take a better look at the dress. Then he looks at me. Me or the dress? Being given the choice, which one would he trash?

“That’s exactly what I think, Françoise! This is not what I had in mind. Redo it! Allez! Comment tu dis, Lynn? It’s…kind of ugly! Merci.”

More whispers. I feel like I’m surrounded by a sea of hissing snakes.

Françoise looks at me. Her lips are so tight you couldn’t slide a needle through.

Muriel comes closer and sniffs the air around me. Sniff sniff! “You’re wearing a very strong perfume. Kazo?”

I cannot tell Muriel she’s smelling my deodorant.

“No, it’s, er…designed just for me!”

“You American women are really getting away with everything. Ridiculous pink colors, horrible white T-shirts and perfectly awful perfumes. I love it.”

I smile, deciding that it’s her way to give a compliment.

“Une minute tout le monde,” Muriel calls, stopping the background murmuring. “Je vous presente Lynn Blanchett, la fille de Jodie Blanchett!”

Hisses, lots of hisses.

“Lynn vient de New York, et travaille comme…”

“Relation publique.” Nicolas helps her remember why in God’s name I’m here if it wasn’t for Jodie’s name.

“Bienvenu, Lynn,” a very effeminate male voice says from the snake pit and, even though I cannot see who said that, for the first time since I left New York, I feel good.

Oh la la!

Muriel acts as if I’ve already been working for her for hundreds of years. She thinks I’m all clued up.

She drags me around in the office and tells me about what we’re going to do to bring our company to the top and how my work is essential for making us the newest, funkiest brand on the market.

“But we need money, Lynn. Lots of money. And you’re going to help me get it.”

She laughs.

I laugh along, without knowing exactly why.

“You will talk to them. Once they realize we’ve got somebody like you on board, they will give me all the money I need. Imagine, a Blanchett working at Muriel B! Won’t they buy into that, huh? Nicolas?”

“Mmm…” That’s what Nicolas thinks about me.

I am just very “Mmm.”

Back home, I imagined Muriel B to be a mature woman, elegant, well traveled, drinking champagne like I drink water. Somehow, I imagined her like Roxanne Green.

And look what I get.

A teenager with tribal tattoos and delusions of grandeur. She doesn’t drink champagne. Instead, she opens one can of sugar-free Red Bull after the next and never misses an occasion to burp. Her hair has been fashioned into a set of well-defined short black spikes. She looks very sexy but at the same time very dangerous and free spirited.

“That’s my office. That’s the only place where I can get some peace. You like it?”

Her office is a large room, very bright, with high windows and ceiling. It’s amazing. It’s stripped of any furniture but for a low floor table, on top of which is a streamlined portable computer, some documents and a few electronic gizmos. Behind the table is a huge Buddha statue, suspended against the wall. His eyes are closed and he holds up his hands, pointing to Nirvana.

“It’s very…Zen. I love it.”

There are no chairs. She sits on the wooden floor, in front of the table, and invites us to join her.

“We need to talk to Him, Nicolas. Get Him on the phone.”

Nicolas looks at his watch. “Catherine has arranged a phone conference. It starts in only five minutes.”

“Did you explain to Lynn what’s going on?”

“Well, we need to talk to the bank now and, er, we…Maybe Lynn doesn’t need to know everything right now, Muriel.”

Muriel shakes her head. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

Tell me what?

Nicolas sighs. “We’re broke, Lynn.”

“And you are our last hope,” Muriel explains.

Me? But…I don’t have any money! Alarm bells sound in my head.

“Bonjour! Muriel? Tu m’entends?”

A voice has just come out of a weird triangular black object in the center of the table.

“Pierre?” Muriel asks. “Can we make this conversation in English, because we have Lynn Blanchett from New York with us.”

“Pas de problème, I mean, yes, Muriel.”

She presses a button on the gizmo.

“Pierre can’t hear us now. Pierre is the financial manager of Crédit de la Cité.”

“It’s our bank,” Nicolas explains.

“It’s my father’s bank. I mean, my father owns the bank and every cent in it,” Muriel clarifies.

“We’ve asked them for a lot of money,” Nicolas whispers even though the phone is on mute.

“And you are going to help us get it.” Muriel releases the button and I feel like I am falling into a bottomless hole.

“Muriel?”

“We’re back, Pierre. Sorry, we had to go to another conference room.”

She presses the silence button again.

“Ah! And, by the way, Pierre is my brother, and we can’t stand each other.”

Brother? But…he speaks with a French accent.

“I heard that, Muriel,” the triangle says. “Ha ha ha! Don’t listen to her, we love each other. Who is with you?”

“Nicolas Bouchez, Lynn and me. Lynn is our new recruit and she is a major asset for the company. She’s Jodie Blanchett’s daughter, you know!”

I am money in the bank.

“Hi, Lynn. Nice talking to you. So go for it, Muriel. Pitch me, because here, we’re not very happy with the last business plan you have sent in. It’s very…em…naïf…questionable.”

“Well…I believe Lynn would be the best person to talk to. She has lots of brilliants ideas! Lots! She’s…you know…has all those brilliant ideas about…new business strategies, exactly.” Muriel turns to me and rolls her hand to invite me to speak to the triangle. “Lynn?”

Who are these people? What do they want from me? I don’t know anything about their business strategies! So what does she want me to say?

“Lynn?” the triangle asks. “Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. I think we’ve been disconnected!”

Muriel points at the triangle. I need to talk to the triangle and say something brilliant to convince it to spit out millions of euros. So I bend over the gizmo and mutter, “Bonjour, Pierre. It’s nice talking to you, too.”

There is a silence on the other end of the line. Apparently I need to say more. But I have no idea what I should say to the triangle and the silence only becomes heavier.

“Muriel?” Pierre snaps and cuts me from the conversation.

Muriel gives me a dark look, as if I have just missed an obvious opportunity.

“Yes, Pierre.”

“Georges from Finance is sitting here with me. He went through your accounts. You’re spending too much, and we can’t see you making any sort of income in the near future.”

“Building a name takes courage, Pierre. You know…it takes balls. And Lynn Blanchett will help us now. I’ll forward her CV. She is quite amazing.”

“Yeah, do that. Send me her CV and my people will check her out.”

Check me out? Oh, God!

“Pierre. I need the money. You know it. We’ve come too far to stop now.”

“We all need money. Listen, I’ve got to go and…Well, it was nice to talk to you, Lynn. I’m, er, a big admirer of your mother.”

They start to speak in French. I just listen to the melody and keep nodding.

I can feel cold sweat running along my spine. Check my CV? What CV? Nobody ever asked me for a CV. Jodie didn’t mention any CV! She just said, “Try to look like you know what you’re doing,” or something like that.

Muriel presses a button on the triangle and it dies.

She looks at Nicolas and shakes her head. Then she looks at me.

“So, that’s all you had to say to him? Thank you for your help, Lynn.”

“Lynn might need more preparation.” Nicolas comes to my rescue again.

“Preparation! We have no time for preparation! We are broke, Nicolas! Broke!”

“I know. But we’ll find solutions. We always do.” He looks confident and calm but in a super-sexy kind of way.

She stares at him. She is about to eat him alive, bones and clothes included.

“Listen, Muriel,” I say hesitantly. “I didn’t come here to convince your brother to give you some money. I didn’t even know you were broke.”

That’s it, Lynn, swap responsibilities.

“Well, why don’t you explain to me why you are here!”

What? Is she serious?

“But…you’re the one who made me come here,” I stammer.

“She’s right,” Nicolas says and looks at me as if I was some sort of doom she had forced upon them. “Inviting Lynn was your call,” he reminds her, making it obvious he never wanted me here in the first place.

I feel the need to defend myself. “I came here to…”

To what?

“To…help you,” I try.

“Help me?” Muriel nearly shouts.

Think, Lynn. What do you mean by help her? How does she need your help? Remember what Roxanne said.

“Well, we all know…that…you’re just spending your father’s money for this…fantaisie…right?”

Oho, don’t go this way, Lynn! But it’s too late. I already am.

“And…this is just, like, a rich-dad-financing-his-daughter thing. Nobody really believes that you’re for real. So…I came here…to make people believe that you’re for real.”

Bravo moi!

They both look at me. Then they look at each other. It’s clear that she hasn’t been addressed like this…ever!

She is going to kill me. They are all going to kill me. She is going to press the ‘kill the ugly American bitch’ button on her intercom and a herd of gay Asian designers will pour into the office to crush me!

“Mais de quoi elle parle, celle la?” she yells out. “Do you listen to yourself?” She grabs the triangular gizmo and throws it at the poor Buddha.

“Muriel, calm down,” Nicolas says. “This is not the right time or the right place for one of your tantrums!”

He looks perfectly used to this. She yells. He hushes. She breaks. He fixes.

“Nicolas, tais toi!” She points at me. “You, you are coming with me!”

I must have hit a sensitive spot. She stands and leaves her office in a fury. I look up at the Buddha. I just want to check if he has opened his eyes, but no, he still pretends that he can meditate amidst such mayhem. I turn to Nicolas for an explanation but he just shrugs.

“I guess you better follow her. And, Lynn…”

“Yes?”

“I’ll need a copy of your CV, you know, for Pierre.”

Shit.

“Lynn!” Muriel yells all the way from the reception area.

I just want to go back to the hotel, take a last shower and return to the airport to catch the next plane home.

Paris. The city of love. Yeah right. It’s the city of people going bonkers!

I’ll just tell Jodie I caught the flu.

Or dysentery.

Jodie’s so scared of microbes, she’ll forgive me for giving up so fast.

I have no idea where we’re going. I have to run after Muriel and she makes a point of walking a few steps ahead, but then, all of a sudden, she stops and turns to me.

“I am not just spending my father’s money. I have been in this business for five years. I have talent! Everyone says that I have talent. So who are you to talk to me like that?”

I swear, she is about to cry. Just like the silly little teenage girl that she tries not to be.

“Muriel, I don’t want to play this game with you, we’re both too old.”

“What game?”

“The little-spoiled-girls game.”

“I’m not like this! I’m…I am just so stressed. Merde, tout va mal!”

She walks away. We’re on the run again, only this time I grab her wrist and stop her.

“Things are never as bad as they seem.”

“You’re wrong, Confucius! Things are generally much worse.”

Confucius?

I smile at her. I like her. She is wild but I like her. And she smiles back at me. She’s cute when she smiles.

“What is there to smile about?” she asks.

“You. You’re funny. Confucius!”

“Are you always like this?”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Saying whatever pops into your head?”

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!