A Festive French Christmas Party
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toe. Stiletto heel. Silver buckle in the back. 530 Euros…All I want
for Christmas Santa will find in the Dolce & Gabbana window on Rue
de Rivoli.
Unfortunately, there are ten days till Christmas,
as illustrated on the advent calendar sent to me by Laura with the
pictures of male models’ buttocks reminding me that I’m single and
celibate this holiday season; these particular boots are vital for
updating my recycled holiday dress that I’m hoping still fits– post
pastry, baguette and cafe crème–for Laura’s chi chi company Christmas
party tomorrow night, promising cute boys and spiked egg nog.
I
wipe the window with my glove where my breath has fogged my view of the
most beautiful pair of boots I have ever seen. My heart is beating fast
as I desperately fight my urge to go into the store. I know that once I
open those glass doors it’s all over and my stipend for the month is
finished and I will be forced to eat chili con carne out of a can.
530
euros. What do they mean to me? This month’s grocery money; tickets to
see Love Actually for the second and third times; a plane trip to New
York to see my best friend, Malia, who forced me to go camping with her
family five years ago, when I fell off a log bridge into a swamp with
my silver lamé train case containing six Chanel lip glosses and an
essential collection of Kiehl’s skin- care products; a new cell phone
that allows me to make phone calls and retrieve messages (mine does
not, as it dates back to the late 80s); approximately 173 cafe crèmes.
I
lean my forehead against the window. It is time to say goodbye. I turn
to go, but as I wait for the light to cross the street to the Concorde
métro station, I am reminded of an Angela Lansbury film where she comes
to Paris to buy a purple dress that she cannot afford. How romantic, I
remember thinking, how French. Shoot–now I have the theme song from
Murder She Wrote stuck in my head. But nevertheless, if Angela did it,
so would I.
I bought the boots without even trying them on. The decision was simple: they were the perfect boots for a fabulous party.
The
next morning I was up at the crack of dawn and out the door by 9:30,
determined to get to the stores by 10 to avoid the Christmas crowd.
Sephora: for red lipstick; Le Bon Marché: for sexy black stockings to
go with my amazing new boots; and the Pharmacy: for Actifed in case of
hang-over tomorrow morning.
By late afternoon my errands were
finished and it was time to prepare for the party. I was to meet Laura
in front of the République métro stop at 6:30 p.m. She needed to stop
by her office briefly on the way to the party, which was being held at
a club a couple of blocks away. By 5:30 p.m. I was showered and dressed
and it was time to put the finishing touch on my outfit.
I sit
on my bed as I slide my foot into the soft leather–perfect fit. I feel
like Cinderella when she tries on the glass slippers for the first
time–though, if Cinderella had had this pair of boots, she wouldn’t
have left one on the steps of the Palace.
Once the boots are
on, I can’t help but admire myself in the full length mirror for a
couple of moments; five minutes later, I’m going to be late. I grab my
purse and cheerfully descend my seven flights of stairs, taking extra
care to avoid any scuffing on the boots against the ancient wooden
spiral steps.
On the métro I notice people staring at my legs,
admiring the Dolce & Gabbana, work of art. Yes, I am pleased with
my purchase…I pat myself on the back and try to ignore the creeping
hunger pains. I hadn’t eaten all day as I can no longer afford
food—well, at least not for the next couple of weeks. I’ll be sure to
fill up on caviar and foie gras at the party.
When I arrive at
the métro station, I am shocked that Laura is on time and waiting for
me when I reach the exit. She wears her newspaper boy hat, blue jeans
and an eggplant wool city coat from Zara. I feel extremely over-dressed
and hope that Laura plans on changing when we get to her office. I
regret my extravagant purchase.
Laura and I walk about a
block, shivering in the night air with a wind chill factor of about -4
degrees Celsius, to her monstrous office building. We proceed to the
9th floor where it appears that almost everyone has left for the party
except for a short blonde girl in a pink cardigan with silver sequins
on it, leaning over her desk whispering to somebody over the phone and
a man wearing a blue arm cast in the copy room attempting to lay out
his papers on the machine with his left hand. He drops his stack of
papers as we pass a mass of cubicles towards the back of the floor,
where Laura tells me her boss needs to see us in his office. I am
confused my her use of the word “us.” Why does Laura’s boss need to see
me? Does he need to approve me for entrance of the party or perhaps he
needs help carrying down some Perrier or something?
Laura
knocks on the door, and gives me sort of a half-smile, though she
avoids eye contact. She has been awfully quiet since I met her at the
métro–she didn’t even comment on my new boots, which is totally unlike
her. Even if she hated the boots or thought that the buckles in the
back were a little too much, which I could understand, she would tell
me that she hated them…strange. A very tall man in a black suit
wearing a red tie patterned with reindeer opens the door. I have to
strain my neck upward in order to look him in the eyes…which are
brown. He’s about 40, brunette, and looks divorced. He shakes my hand
and welcomes me into the office. I follow behind Laura.
“I just
can’t thank you enough for doing this, Christine,” says the tall
divorced man in the reindeer tie with a thick French accent. My name is
Kirsten, but I don’t correct him though I’m slightly annoyed. I look at
Laura who is standing to my left, but she will not look at me. What is
going on?
Laura’s boss reaches under his desk and pulls out a
huge Bon Marché shopping bag and hands it to Laura. Maybe he thinks
that I helped Laura on some sort of project and now he’s rewarding the
two of us with presents! “I hope these fit. You can change in here. See
you two in a few minutes.” He grabs his full length single breasted
coat and leaves.
“Ooooooh, I wonder what’s in the bag?” Laura
does not seem so excited. I reach below the paper filling and pull out
something very green. I unfold it. What the–two avocado green
leotards. I reach back into the bag and pull out two pair of matching
avocado green tights. “Ew! What is this?!” Laura looks nervous.
“Laura, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Laura?”
“Mmmmmmm, yeah I’m fine..it’s just…ughhh…”
“What? Talk to me. You’re acting weird.”
“Ummmm…okay, well, I sort of, ummmm…”
“Yes?”
“Yeah.
I kinda of told my boss that you and I would dress up as elves for the
Christmas party.” Laura jumps back as quickly as she can, she’s afraid
that I’m going to hit her. I really want to.
“You what?!!!”
I’m ready to kill her. I really am, I’ll hide her body in the Bon
Marché bag under the matching avocado green leotards and tights and
leave it on her boss’s desk . “I SPENT 530 EUROS ON D&G BOOTS!!!”
“I am sooo sorry. Kirsten I didn’t have a choice. My boss asked me to do it and I didn’t want to–“
“Obviously…but you thought I would?”
No, I just, please help me…everything is going really well here, please—I know you’re mad.”
“Yes Laura. I’m mad.”
“Please, Kirsten, please.”
What
was I supposed to do? I grab the Bon Marché bag and begin to undress. I
squeeze into the avocado green elf costume made out of a cheap material
that I am clearly allergic to, as I have had it on for 30 seconds and
cannot stop scratching myself. I itch all over the place and look like
a green monkey. Laura puts on her green monkey suit and we place our
clothes (including my 530 euro boots) in the Bon Marché bag.
There’s
just one more thing,” Laura walks slowly over to the gray file cabinets
on the left side of the office and opens the top drawer. She pulls out
two pair of avocado-green velvet slippers lined with white faux fur
that curve upward, coming to a pointed toe with a gold jingle bell at
the tip and two avocado-green velvet cone hats that have some sort of
white ear muffs attached–vital accessories for the avocado green elf
suits. I cannot believe that this is happening. I grab my elf feet and
my cone hat and head towards the elevator with my boots in the Bon
Marché bag under my right arm.
I do not speak to Laura in the
elevator or on the short walk to the club. A hairy homeless man missing
a few teeth points and laughs at us while his brown dog lurches towards
me, barking at my cone hat as we near the entrance to the club. I am
humiliated as I remove my coat and check it and the Bon Marché bag at
the door and now have “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth”
stuck in my head.
Laura and I are greeted by her boss, who
commends us on how festive we look in our elf suits. This makes me want
to vomit all over his stupid reindeer tie. We follow him down a long
hallway, where there appear to be some private offices, probably for
the owners of the club, and through the kitchen where the caterers
prepare their trays of foie gras and caviar, which I would certainly
not be eating. Oh wow! One of the servers is totally cute, he looks
like a model with his intense blue eyes and pouty pink lips–I mean he
is hot. Eighteen, but hot. I start to smile as we pass by and then I
remember that I am wearing an elf suit and cone hat.
Laura’s
boss leads us to a table where there is a stack of about 500 forms that
are supposed to be filled out by the people at the party. At the end of
the night there will be a drawing, and someone will win a free trip to
Italy. He goes on to tell us that we are to stand on the raised stage
area and for every 20 entries we perform an “elf jig” where we jump up
and down three times pulling our elbows up to our chest, jingle our
right toe, jingle our left toe, feet together and bow.
I laugh
at this funny joke until I realize that Laura is not laughing and that
it is not a joke at all and that he really expects us to do an “elf
jig.” I am now less concerned with punishing Laura and am frightened by
the fact that her boss has actually developed an “elf jig.”
I
downed four glasses of champagne before Laura and I went on stage. I
don’t know how many jigs Laura and I performed that night–I lost count
after number 12. I don’t know who won the trip to Italy nor do I recall
the drawing. And I don’t remember the name of the 18-year old model
that I made out with in the stock room, while Laura was flirting with a
lawyer in a Santa Claus hat, or if he was a good kisser or whether the
fact that he was into the elf-suit meant that he was gay or French?
At
2 a.m., sobered up, Laura and I go to retrieve our coats at the
entrance of the club. Laura and I hand the middle-aged woman with the
short red hair our claim tickets and wait while she disappears behind
the black curtains. She returns with Laura’s Zara eggplant wool city
coat and a red pea coat that she hands to me. This is not my coat.
Where is my camel cashmere Calvin Klein coat? Where is the Bon Marché
bag?
The red headed coat checker looks for 20 minutes before
Laura and I join her behind the black curtains, where we search
desperately for our belongings and my boots! They are nowhere to be
found. The bag is gone. Our clothes are gone. My Dolce & Gabbana
boots are gone. We leave our contact info with the red-headed coat
checker and step out into the cold all in avocado green. Laura, feeling
guilty, as she should, offers me her coat, which I do not accept.
Laura
and I jingle all the way to the bus station as we are harassed by two
fourteen year-old boys and one drunk Santa Claus who tries to steal my
cone hat. We stand at the bus station is silence for two minutes before
we both burst out laughing. If we weren’t laughing we would be crying.
On
the way up my stairs to my studio, I walk carefully because, I don’t
want the noise from the jingle bells on my toes to disturb my
neighbors, and I mourn the loss of my boots. I wonder if Cinderella was
this depressed when she lost her glass slipper? But then in the end she
got the Prince… I wonder if there is a man out there that I could
love as much as my D&G boots? And if so, would he love me enough to
buy me another pair at 530 Euros?
Dear Santa, this year rather
than leave my presents under the tree, could you please send my D&G
boots care of a 6’3″ package with: brown hair, medium length, a nice
build, strong shoulders and hazel eyes that sparkle when he smiles.
Merçi beaucoup!
—