The Last Dress from Paris(12)

As if to cruelly compound my own lack of glamour, I have landed in Paris at what appears to be Fashion Week, which, from what I can see, is kicking off in the hotel Granny has booked me in to. Do people actually live like this? Is it a legitimate way of life to wrap oneself up in a ribbon of pink silk, scattered with thousands of silver crystals, and posture around Paris for all to see? Yes, it is! I’ve never seen such beautiful women—models, presumably. They are otherworldly in their perfection, as if they have stepped off the giant billboards on the Champs-élysées and into real life like supercharged, half-human, half-fantasy creatures, here to make love to us all. Nothing is lacking. Hair is scraped up into face-altering ponytails; skin is flawlessly luminous. Lips are full, parted, waiting to be kissed. Everyone is touching everyone else. There are no boundaries here. It’s like I’ve stepped into a giant orgy of fashion where the cost of entry is simply to be fearlessly fabulous.

And the men. I can see at least five I could happily fall in love with right now. They’re kissing necks, tracing their fingers slowly along naked thighs; they’ve moved in close so the space between man and woman is vacuumed shut to any would-be challengers. I watch as one man whispers something intensely into the ear of his companion, a woman who stands with her legs just wide enough apart to allow one of his between them. He’s so close, his lips are touching her skin as he speaks, and he’s snaking an arm around her tiny waist and up over her rib cage. Whatever he’s saying is causing her to melt a little deeper into him. Then, Jesus, she lets her tongue lick briefly across his lips, into his mouth, and I can hear the rhythm of my own breath shudder with the sexiness of it.

As I step out into the cleansing evening air, I’m in need of a couple of big, heart-rate-reducing breaths. What was that? And will I ever in my lifetime experience a fraction of it? Dear God, please let it be so. You can keep the sequins and the feathers, but can I have just a little of the hotness? Not every night of the week, I couldn’t cope, but maybe once or twice a month? Is that asking too much? I’ve only been here a few hours, and already, first chance it gets, I’ve allowed Paris to seduce me with its sexy sparkle. I have a word with myself and plow on to Veronique’s, a bracing forty-minute walk from my hotel into the first arrondissement. I hug the river, heading east, before breaking left through some formal gardens and onto one of the quieter narrow streets just off the impressive place Vend?me.

I feel different, in the same way I imagine everyone does when they walk the streets of a foreign city. It feels good to be noticed for my unusualness. For a start, I’m not in the Parisian girl off-duty uniform of super-skinny jeans, black fine knit, cigarette. I’m in sneakers with the same jeans I traveled in, but I’ve switched the shirt for a ruffled blouse with gathered sleeves that puff outward at the top, giving it a slight military feel.

But it’s more than that. I can’t think of many times I’ve been seen, which makes my heart sag a little. I’m never on the list of contenders when Dylan is lining up his favorites for the best travel trips. He’s always banging on about how the best pieces are the personal ones, adventures of discovery that transcend merely visiting somewhere new. Hard to achieve when he never actually sends me anywhere. But that’s nothing compared to not being seen by my own mother. I know she’ll feel guilty if she doesn’t see me once a month, but only because she’ll have failed to achieve a goal she set herself. How much does she really know about me? What keeps me awake at night (the fear I am wasting this precious life of mine)? What do I need more of (reasons to smile, an escape from the monotony) or less of (the pretense that everything is just fine when I know it’s not)? I doubt she could name the company I work for. She might have to open my last email to check my job title. I’m as much a stranger to her as the woman who will bag up her next supermarket shop.

Perhaps there is little to impress her. I have no savings in the bank, no grand plan; I’m drifting through life waiting for an opportunity to find me, which doesn’t bode well for my love life either. But I’m not sure I could cope with the pressure to compete with a man who needs to achieve every second of the day. One who can’t exist in third gear, where I seem to spend most of my time. I remember what it did to Dad, before he finally accepted defeat and left. How the spotlight of Mum’s success was too bright for him. A diminished man, she said, never able to keep pace with her rise through the corporate ranks and a salary that far eclipsed his. I remember the day he left, and I wondered why my mum would choose her job over my dad. I was young, I didn’t know the details, but still, he stood there wanting to love her, and she chose money and business accolades. It was like the moment he questioned the way she orchestrated their lives, she no longer respected him. He became the problem. Whatever his role was, I think she assumed it would be absorbed by someone better or we would simply move on without it. We’d adapt. That’s what her job did to her. It conditioned her to be ruthless. To always take emotion out of the negotiation. Mum didn’t break stride. What a waste of all those years invested in each other. She cleaned him out of her life in the time it took him to remove his personal belongings. Then handed me his door key. The closeness Dad and I had built could only stretch so far. Every third weekend at his new place was too far, as it turned out.

One thing I know for sure, I’m not one of those women who thrives on pressure. I am not my mother. I launch a silent promise into the night sky—I need to be kinder to myself—and decide that’s enough self-reflection for one night.