Billie (13 page)

“ . . . ”

So there! Score 0–0.

Oh yeah. I didn't laugh at all, not any more.

Instead, I acted all blasé like Our Royal Roommate, and I let out a
ffff
, spitting my olive pit onto his plate:

“Nah, cash is not a problem. I've got some . . . ”

O
kay, of course that continued for hours, the little conversation to set us straight, but I took a screen shot for you, little star, because I love this image so much: Franck Mumu's head when he realized that the lousy cuckoo bird who was squatting in his nest for months was really a majestic eagle with golden feathers who held in her golden beak a golden key to a golden future.

I don't know how it would look in a brooch, but in a deserted Chinese pizzeria in the Paris suburbs on a Tuesday evening around ten o'clock, it really looked good.

 

Otherwise, and this was expected, since guys are very predictable, he really resisted me.

I told him he could repay me when he had his boutique on I don't know what square, where there was some sort of column in the middle, and that I wouldn't forget to charge interest, which would be huge of course; but he proved to be a lot more macho than I would have imagined, and ultimately, I cracked.

Ultimately, I admitted to him that when I had run into him on the stairs dressed like a slut, it was because I was on my way to be screwed standing up by a security guard on his break in a trash storage area against the paper-towel rolls and that if he wouldn't do it for himself, he could at least have the generosity to do it for me . . .

That for him his talent was his hunting rifle, and he owed it me.

And then, of course, he gave in.

“
Your gift
,” he said, imitating my backwoods armed-robber voice.

 

* * *

 

Time is running out . . . here comes another hurried summary . . .

 

Well, it's not all that important, you know . . . as far as we're concerned, the biggest part of the journey is behind us.

From here on, there's no point in further details. Our little private
Warcraft
gave us something to do until Francky condescended to finally finish his warm then cold then burnt then cold again calzone, but after that, we gave everything back: the clubs, the axes, the armor, the spiked helmets, and all that crap.

We called it quits. We were tired of fighting.

 

From that point on, we became little bobos like the others, and fuck, I shouldn't say that word, but I'll say it anyway: and fuck . . . it was good!

Ah, yes, it was good to be as moronic as the Parisians! To get all worked up over a lame city bike, something blocking a delivery zone, an unfair parking ticket, a packed restaurant, a phone with a dead battery, or the opening hours of a secondhand shop posted incorrectly.

Oh, it was good, it was good, it was good . . .

I'll never get tired of it!

 

* * *

 

To sum up:

In the course of the episodes that came next, our two heroes, Franck and Billie, left to live in Paris and lived in the way they had promised themselves they would live.

They moved five times in two years, gaining a few extra feet of space and losing a few cockroaches with every threshold they crossed.

Franck was accepted at his school and Billie practiced various trades, some more glamorous than others, one has to admit, but, by a stroke of luck, she never had to work with potatoes.

Little star, you're too kind . . .

 

They each fell in love with someone, true love, a love from deep down inside. They believed in it, told each other about it, motivated each other, were disillusioned, made fools of themselves, stumbled, got knocked down, laughed, cried, consoled each other, and ended up learning all about Paris. Its codes, its benefits, and its limits. The wild beasts, the land, the watering holes.

They worked like dogs; they fed each other, dressed each other, got drunk with each other, sobered up together, told each other off, left each other, bored each other, spoiled each other, were rotten to each other, hated each other, cut themselves off from each other, rebooted each other, disappointed each other, adored each other, rediscovered each other, helped each other all the way, and, especially, learned to hold their heads up together.

It's they who lived.

Them.

 

In the years that followed, they separated from each other several times, but always kept, one or the other and according to the vagaries of their respective romantic crushes, their little two-room apartment on the rue de la Fidelité, which remains, even today, their only home port on Earth.

Except to go on vacation. And even then, Billie no longer left Paris, that comforting city that had become her only family in addition to Franck, and Franck, because he was a good son, continued to take the train to see his family the day before public and other holidays.

His father no longer spoke to him, but it wasn't a big deal: he no longer spoke to anyone except his little group of friends on guard against Fifth Columnists. His mother walked around like a zombie but Claudine was doing well. Claudine never forgot to pass along a few kisses for Billie. And some shortbread cookies, which were sometimes a little mushy.

 

Almost three years went by—during which time Franck had begun an apprenticeship program in a jewelry workshop located in the Marais and Billie had started coming there to corrupt him in the evenings since she had become single again and worked nights at this time (she was white and could work legally, of course, but you can't dream too much), and had her breakfast while he was drinking his little Chablis at night—sailor's delight. Things were starting to move for her again.

 

Because Franck was often late, and because the little florist woman facing his workshop was at least two thousand years old, and because she took hours to bring in her buckets, her little box trees, her pots of flowers and all that crap, Billie—who didn't like waiting for a boy for longer than what seemed reasonable—had begun to help the woman out and to close up the shop in order to have something to do. (And avoid drinking a half pint of beer before her coffee, let's say, we who know about Billie's habits.)

And thus, a little helping out led to more helping out, a little chitchat led to much bigger chat, little bouquets led to funeral crosses, a little advice led to a big apprenticeship, a few Saturdays led to whole weeks, little initiatives led to big changes, big innovations led to little successes, little money vouchers and pay stubs led to a great passion, and voilà, she became a superstar florist.

And it was a foregone conclusion, little star, a foregone conclusion . . .

Billie was born to create beauty despite the fact that everything in her previous life seemed to prove she had no right to it.

A foregone conclusion.

 

A night won't suffice to recount how our little nervous Nellie had become the cock of the walk, of her neighborhood, of the Rungis market of Paris, the darling of the newspaper editors, of the decorators, of the flower-power grapevine of Paris—it requires an entire book.

Although she lacked family connections, that is, someone to act as her guarantor when she wanted to get some dough from a bank,
mama mia
, she could have given lectures to the daddy's girls of the business schools . . .

She didn't just have a nose for business but an eye, ear, mouth, and chin.

What Billie wanted, God invented for her.

Her crazy clothes (in all weather) from head (scarf) to toe (shoes), uniquely in flower motifs (plucked from thrift shops), her hair dyed in all the Pantone® colors and matched to the color of her dog's fur (a type of poodle crossed with a dachshund, but a lot uglier) depending on their moods, and her old Renault van painted pale green and covered in buttercup plants that the traffic cops no longer dared to ticket for fear of betraying the cause.

It wasn't a question of accounting, but fine, hey, flowers wither when they want to, right? So pay in cash, my friends; here's it's too humid for a credit card machine. Look, I'm not lying . . . the screen is covered in vapor . . . Oh, darn, no luck . . . Pay in cash, ladies and gentlemen, and we'll put a cloud of forget-me-nots in the boutonniere for your trouble.

 

Billie's bouquets were the prettiest, the loveliest, the simplest, and the least expensive in Paris, and when it came to conquering the world, Billie didn't have anything to learn from anyone.

Up at dawn, she also went to bed at dawn, and hopped around all day between her buttercups and her pansies, with Doc Martens from Liberty London on her feet, a raffia belt, the brazenness of Arletty, and pruning shears, the safety catch unlocked, which clicked from evening till morning. From afar, you would have said she was the daughter of Eliza Doolittle, when she was still cockney, and Edward Scissorhands.

My Fair Fair Fair Billie . . .

Suffice it to say that from afar you would no longer see in her much from the Morels.

Hmmm . . . a certain business sense, perhaps . . .

 

The old lady was still there, but she had totally abdicated. She managed the cash and converted it to old francs each evening while her young assistant was bringing the plants back in from the sidewalk. Oh, Lord, those plants really brought in a lot of money—she would live well for two thousand years!

 

* * *

 

Okay, little star, I relinquished responsibility for two minutes because it's difficult to toot your own horn, but here I am again, and I want to tell you . . . I want to tell you
now
since the next season is partly focused on you and seems less interesting: thank you.

Thank you for everything.

I thank you and I thank you on behalf of my roommate for life who came back from India six months ago and is working today, finally, in one of the largest jewelry workshops on the square with the column in the middle. (The Vendôme column, they insist on calling it).

I knew it.

I predicted it for him, one evening, in the Lotus Imperial pizzeria.

I should have bet on it. How stupid of me.

 

Thanks for my life, for your life, for my lovers, for his lovers, for my fuchsia-colored dog whom I love so much and at whom no one will ever point a gun, thanks for Paris, thanks for my old boss lady who breaks my balls but pays for everything, thanks for my little van which has never yet broken down on me, thanks for the peonies, for the sweet peas, the bleeding hearts, thanks because I no longer drink too much but can have a glass of wine once in a while, thanks because I no longer cry at night, thanks because I always have warm water, and thanks because I work in a place that always smells good.

Thanks for Madame Guillet. Thanks for live theater. Thanks for Alfred de Musset and thanks for Camille and Perdican.

And thanks for Billie Holiday who also sang
No Regrets
.

And, above all, thanks for him.

Thanks for Franck Mumu from Prévert.

Thanks for Franck Mumu who was there.

Thanks for giving him to me.

For all of this, little star,
merci
.

 

And now that all has been said and done, unload your fucking stretchers, goddamn it! I'm freezing my ass off and you're almost gone!

It's true! What the hell are you doing for Christ's sake?

You don't think we've suffered enough?

Goddamnit! Twinkle a little!

Shimmer! Sparkle! Let yourself go!

 

I know, I know . . .

I know what you want . . .

You want me to look to the sky and say that I screwed up and that I deserve to suffer a little bit more this night.

Okay, let's get to it, girl . . . let's go.

Turn the page.

L
ook, little star, I've put on my Sunday best and my polished shoes, and I come to you as I do to confession.

Don't pay any attention to my hair, which is a bit lilac in color these days, but focus only on my pure heart.

A Madonna lily . . .

(
Lilium candidum.
)

 

If I'm here, withering, wilting, freezing my bulb off, and begging you during the night to help us one more time, it's because I did a foolish little thing.

Ah yes . . . It happens once and a while . . . imagine.

Usually, it's when I drink too much Ti' punch and rum made the way they do it at Samy's Beach Bar, but at that time, I was on as much of an empty stomach as one can be when one has to put up with a family hiking trip, with jackasses and morons, in Cévennes National Park.

What was I thinking?

What was I thinking? What was I thinking? What was I thinking?

 

Do I regret this foolish little thing?

No.

I even think I should have hit him harder.

You see, I'm admitting everything to you . . .

And if you don't pardon my urges, at least take my honesty into consideration.

Because like Billie Holiday and for the same reasons she had: I have no regrets.

 

I have no regrets, and I will never regret anything in life because too big a piece has already been snatched from me. A piece that was supposed to be nice too . . . So, no, don't count on me to lick your Boötes.

I wouldn't know how.

I've never done it.

When someone pushes me into a corner, I prefer to pick up a rifle or hit them hard.

I'm not proud of it, but there it is. That's how I am and I already know I won't change.

Since I was born, I've held on only by my will to hold on and the first person who lays a hand on the things that support me, as fragile as they are, I'll demolish him.

At the moment, it turns out that my preferred support is not very strong. He's stretched out next to me; he is suffering and no longer answers when I speak. If you don't help me to fix him, I'll make you disappear, too. I'll arrange things between me and myself so that I never see you again.