Paris

Paris has a designer handbag on her arm, but she hasn’t washed her hair this morning. She has done it up in a tousled bun, added a dash of red lipstick, and a cleavage, no one will notice the hair. She got up in a hurry and her tights have a run in them – never mind, she will switch her cheap scuffed black flats for Louboutins as soon as she gets to the office. She has a rich complicated perfume, too much for a girl, but she is glad she decided to wear it today – sweat trickles down her spine as the metro fills up. She reads a worn paperback with a lusty title. She doesn’t look up but pushes down the strapontin to help a child get a seat, she does it unconsciously, avoiding the grateful smile of the mother with the pram. She is so engrossed in her book that she doesn’t even seem to hear the loud plea of the crazed old man that breathes cheap beer all over the passengers while asking for money. Intuitively she knows when to get up, hold her balance and walk to the sliding doors without stumbling, without hesitation, without having to wait, and all in one sleek movement she is on the Quai, her eyes still glued to her novel.

The fresh air hits her on the stairs making her trench fly behind her like a cape and her mousy hair that has escaped the bun flutters around her head like butterflies. She smiles at the passing black boy with torn jeans. The sly smile of someone that knows they are desired and desirable without making an effort. A smile that can make you believe anything is possible. A smile that promises impossible riches. A smile that will make you work yourself into the grave for her. A smile that can give you back hope or make you go mad.

She walks out of the metro station and it is raining, she just puts her raincoat collar up and braves it. After all, she used to be a country girl before all this. A little rain won’t scare her. She’s as hard as nails.

She walks along the bridges, the golden domes shining dull in the rain. The waves of the Seine wash the dirt and the crust of the parapet. She smiles melancholic at the waters. A long time ago, a sailor robbed her heart and sailed down the Seine all the way to Normandy. He moved on, preferring the moody Honfleur boxy and awkward, daughter of sea merchants promising riches from across the ocean and tying him down to her. She decided she would never love again after that. She surely had a string of lovers though, the kind you just take on for fun, for a laugh. The kind you don’t have breakfast with. They were shallow and uninteresting as Canal water, but they let her forget her loneliness for a while. Friends came to her often for love advice. That always made her feel important. She would invent shiny stories to make them hope, make them think things would be settled, finally forever. But, except for a few cheap tricks and tart outfits, she had no clue, like everyone else.

All her sisters had stayed home, close to their roots, never expanding their horizons. They kept to their bourgeois little lifestyle and waited for her to have the adventures and tell them about it. She knew that a few of them silently wished she would expand into her own downfall.

She had a few scars already. Somber times had come and gone but she had risen from them. Eyes streaked with tears she had marched on. After all, she was known as being the revolutionary kind.

In the marbled entrance of the office where she works too many hours a week, she takes a shaky drag at her morning cigarette. The filter has turned bright red, the whirls of smoke are comforting. As she listens to the patter of the rain, she thinks of the evening ahead. After the numbing hours staring at her monitor, the lousy coffee, and the dirty jokes from her middle-aged employer she will take herself out, for a drink. She thinks of the twinkling lights of the cafes, the chatter of the people having their apéro outside, whatever the weather is doing. She thinks of the strolls along the river, waving at the tourist boats. The crowded streets of the Marais and the closed shop windows she peers into, a bit out of curiosity, a bit to stare at her own reflection.

She thinks of her University years and the pranks, the challenges, the roughness of youth that has slowly rubbed off, polishing her edges, and making her shape more uniform. Studying art always seemed like cheating to her. Gazing at beautiful things and talking about them, that’s all she ever wanted to do. She tried to be refined like the paintings she loved, but she always had a wild streak. Some would even call her a fast girl. In her youth, something was always askew, dangerously misplaced, or tragically lost. Now she has rounded, like a pebble polished by the river. She really doesn’t know how that happened. She is still rough around the edges and a country girl at heart but she is starting to believe what everyone tells her she is like. Starting to believe she is the snobbish, posh, and fashionable mid-thirties woman with an independent mind and a string of lovers.

She’s scared of losing touch with herself, becoming the masquerade other people want to see. A gaudy poor impression of herself, made of plastic, made in China.

She stubs out the cigarette with her heel. She has finally slipped on her vertiginous office talons. She resolutely straightens her gray skirt suit and her creamy silk blouse. She tries to adjust her hair in the reflection of the tight carpeted lift that clonks and whirs like an old clock. Her makeup has run slightly with the rain and she smudges it with her thumb. Her hair is still messy and she’s not as fresh as she used to be, but she’s still glorious. She winks at her own reflection as the lift pings and the doors open.

Time to start the day.