Bye Bye Blondie (3 page)

Gloria licks her lower lip. She's known Michel a long time, and he's the last real male friend she has. She'd be sorry to lose him. But she's out of control. Before, she might lose her temper now and then, and it made people laugh, it made her seem kind of a character, out of the
ordinary. A girl you didn't mess with. But she's mutated from picturesque fury to dangerous madwoman. And now it isn't just a few times a year, it's practically every day. As if she never gets tired of it.

“See, I think I've gone from being manipulative to being aggressive. Dunno why . . .”

“
You
were manipulative?”

“Yeah, before, it depended who I was talking to. I could be passive, aggressive, or just normal, and I always got my way. But now, I'm just aggressive.”

“And do you get your way now?”

“Nope. Don't want anything from anyone anymore, so I can't be bothered to manipulate them. I just prefer to bite their balls off.”

That makes him laugh. She tells herself that he doesn't yet quite hate her, and that soothes her for a couple of minutes. What she doesn't tell him is how much of a kick she gets these days out of being aggressive. How much she loves the moment when everything tips over, when the other person is caught off-balance and you have to go on, attacking, screaming, and seeing his fear. That's the moment she likes. The pleasure she gets from it is dirty, degrading, and dangerous, filling her with shame—a filthy and super powerful pleasure. She doesn't tell him this because like most people with a serious problem, she's sure she can deal with it on her own, no way is she going to crawl and admit it to anyone else.

In Lucas's apartment block, where she'd gone to live less than six months ago, everyone looks at her sideways, with a half-pitying look. They're so used to hearing her yell, roll on the ground, break dishes, and slam doors. The tricky thing, in fact, after these tantrums is the next day: closing the door, meeting the neighbor in the elevator, greeting her cheerfully as if nothing had happened.
If I act normal, perhaps she'll think it wasn't me
.

Michel comments: “The funny thing is when you're
drunk
, you don't piss anyone off.”

“No, not yet. I'm fun when I've had a few.”

“Should drink more then.”

“Should start earlier, you're right.”

Gloria spots Véronique going past in her blue Clio. She's slowing down to see who's in the bar. She waves to them and stops. She reverse-parks neatly, one-handed, in a single go. Then the driver wriggles around for a couple of minutes inside the car, putting on her coat, finding her glasses, her handbag, checking the mirror in case she has lipstick on her teeth. She comes to join them. Gloria wonders how she's going to ask if she can stay with her, praying she'll say yes. Véro lives in this comfortable little apartment, and she's genuinely nice. A good person. And you eat very well there too. Truly the woman of choice, if you want a sleepover.

Véronique kisses them hello and asks Gloria, “What happened to
you
?”

“I made a fool of myself.”

“Someone beat you up, you mean?”

Michel bursts out laughing.

Gloria protests, “You're out of order, she's right, it could happen.”

Véronique raises one eyebrow. She's the kind of girl who can do that, raise just one eyebrow. Gloria reassures her, “No, nobody tried to attack me. All men ever want me to do is PISS OFF.”

Véronique smiles, and takes off her coat, which she folds carefully over the back of her chair. She's wearing a pink-and-black dress, close-fitting. She's slim and looks great, not just great for forty-five, which she is. That's the only reason Gloria wouldn't want to live with her.
She doesn't want to see her in her nightie, or in a bra and panties. She feels too fat herself to be able to stand the sight of women with good figures.

Véronique sighs and slumps back in her chair. She tells them: “It was funny in school today, I tried to teach them the difference between a short
o
and a long
ô
—every year since I got back to Lorraine, this bit of the syllabus makes me laugh.”

“Why?”

“In a Lorraine accent, do you think the long
ô
exists? The kids listen, they stare at me, they have no idea what I'm talking about . . . but anyway, you're not going to be interested in this . . .”

Both speaking together and with great sincerity, they say, “Yes, yes, we are.”

And it's true that her stories of primary school are so exotic for Michel and Gloria that it's like being on holiday. But what they really like is when she gets started on the parents . . .

Véronique plunges into the TV listing for that evening. Gloria is shredding a cardboard beer coaster to pieces, and in her mind formulating her request in several ways:
I've got this little problem, I don't know where I'm sleeping tonight
, or,
Are you by any chance looking for a lodger?
Michel rolls himself a cigarette, the Sonics are singing, “
'Cause she's the Witch,
” and he beats time with his foot.

Véronique taps her finger on the two-page spread showing Eric smiling, with the drawn-on mustache.

“Apparently you used to know him when he lived in Nancy?”

“Yeah. I was a teenager, so was he. It was a long time ago, I have to say . . .”

“What was he like?”

“Oh, cool. We got on okay. But, ouf, he was fifteen. Not hard to be cool at fifteen.”

Michel agrees and adds: “Yeah, after thirty it gets harder.”

Many of their mutual friends have left the cool scene, as the years have gone by: they've changed drastically, often in surprising ways. How can a punk with a Mohawk, who listens to the right music, has the right attitude, the right leathers, who's good fun, a real amigo, mutate in a season into a solid respectable citizen, with buried dreams and a mortgage? With the pariah's meaningless excuse: “That's life, eh?” as if he'd had good reason for falling into line, conforming, putting up with things. It's a subject she's often thought about: in Nancy, it's true, you can often bump into your old school friends. Beautiful teenagers who've turned into fat slobs. Bitter, freaked out, wounded egos, losers, or victims of their pathetic successes.

Michel sits up. “Oh, yeah, you didn't finish telling me. You saw him again?”

“Yes I did, I just told you everything, it lasted all of two minutes. I was completely out of it, I'd just walked out on Lucas, I was switched off. I didn't say anything. Not a word.”

“And him?”

She puts on a silly precious voice and speaks with her mouth wide open: “Blah blah blah, I'm
sooo
glad to see you, why don't we get together
tonight,
blah blah, oh really you know a nice bar? Blah blah blah, a glass of bubbly perhaps? Can my driver drop you off?”

Then she drops the voice and concludes: “Poor guy, what a dope he's turned into.”

“You could tell that in two minutes?” asks Véronique doubtfully.

“Course I could, it was written all over his face, he was putting it on like crazy.”

She doesn't get angry while blaming him. Michel's looking at her attentively out of the corner of his eye. He rubs his lips.

“So, that, ‘Oh really, you know a nice bar,' means you've made a date for tonight?”

“He said he'd drop in here this evening. But I know guys like him: he won't. Anyway, see if I care, I'm not going to hang around all night.”

Unwisely, Véronique asks: “Oh, you're doing something tonight?”

“Well, I was just going to ask you, I was hoping I might crash at your place.”

VÉRONIQUE HAS AGREED
at once to take her in: “But just for three or four days, okay?” Admiring the friendly, straightforward way she states her conditions, Gloria replies, “Of course, thanks, that's so cool,” while telling herself that once she has her feet under the table, she'll manage to extend the stay.

Véro's living room: pale yellow walls, postcards pinned up with little clothes pegs, teapot in the shape of a blue elephant, cups with big Japanese fish on them, piles of videos and DVDs, books lined up neatly by size. The graphic albums are stacked on the floor, probably because they won't fit on the bookshelves. A Batman is sitting down in a corner, arms outstretched and no head. Must belong to some little nephew. Véronique has throngs of sisters, there were eight daughters in the family. All the others have reproduced in multiple copies. She often looks after a kid or two for a day. That's one of the secrets of her hospitality: she doesn't mind getting stains on the carpet.

They've hardly arrived before Véronique offers Gloria a spliff. “I wouldn't say no,” anything to dull the anguish will be welcome tonight. While listening to her voice mail, Véronique has switched on the television and guess what, Eric's face fills the screen. Clean-shaven, dark blue suit, full of health and well-being. He's presenting a totally stupid game show, one that Gloria has never been able to understand. He teases the contestants, who all blush pink with pleasure before they make fools of themselves in front of the whole of France, giving ridiculous answers to dopey questions.

When she's at home, Gloria zaps it off as soon as it comes on. It's an acquired reflex. It doesn't make her feel in any way happy to have known in flesh and blood someone who's on TV. She thinks it just shouldn't happen. There are the little people on screen in one world, and then there's the big, real people in the other. If everyone stays in their place, it's fine—if not, it creates confusion. She doesn't dare ask Véro to switch channels, seeing that she seems to like the show.

Gloria comments, making her voice sound impressed: “Well, get him, great, isn't it, the older he gets, the younger he looks. Nice to have lots of dough.”

“Apparently they have loads of makeup on for the cameras. What did he look like for real?”

“Good-looking. Ghastly.”

“You don't like him?”

“Couldn't care less. But I like to trash the people on TV. Good way to let off steam, eh?”

“And you
slept
with him?” asks Véro, right away. Gloria takes advantage of the moment to show off.

“Yeah, course. Mind you, in those days I slept with anyone at the drop of a hat, they had to run to get away from me.”

Eric carries on hosting the show on the small screen, Véronique is staring at him, absolutely glued to it, as if the fact that someone she knows actually
went out
with him makes the program fantastic. Gloria drinks some tea, burns her tongue, makes a face and adds, “He wasn't as bad as all that. At least he was interested. Not like some guys who make a song and dance to get you into bed, and say, ‘Okay for you?' after three pathetic little pokes.”

Gloria follows Véro into the kitchen, spliff in hand. That familiar lump in her throat. She's trying to resist calling Lucas. She wants to tell him how sorry she is, how ashamed. She's lonely, she'd like him to say he loves her and wants her back. Only that's not what he would say. He'd say, “I've had it up to here,” he'd say, “I can't take anymore of this.” He'd say he was sorry, and would sound sincerely exhausted. And in less than two seconds, she'd have started snarling hysterically that she'd find him and kill him. She knows herself of old. So she's not going to call him, the same way you're not going to pick up a cigarette when you've just decided to give it up.

Be patient with the pain, suffer in silence, grit your teeth, wait
.

Gloria unfolds an IKEA chair, such a weird color green, whoever designed it ought to be caught and questioned: Why did you make it that color? The tablecloth has a pattern of fruit. Everything in this house is pretty, it looks grown-up and at the same time definitely feminine. It actually says “respectable housewife,” the kitchen is so well kept, everything in its place. Colored magnets on the fridge, pinned to photos of holidays, Christmas parties, friends laughing with their noses pressed up against the camera, red-eyed like rabbits.

The frozen vegetables are hissing in the frying pan, and the microwave is humming to warm up some mini pizzas. Between comfort and despair, Gloria is gently getting drowsy.

Lucas had taken fright. Too many tantrums, too many mornings when she would get up quietly to go and cry, lying in the empty bath, and end up on the bathroom floor, hitting herself and covering her stomach or her face with scratches. She liked to bang her head against the wall as well, scaring herself with the violence of the blows. It gave her a weird feeling inside her skull. An unusual echo. Your skull is a solid piece of work, in her experience. It can be fractured, yes, but it's fucking solid. She'd realized gradually that he was going to freak out. First it was the mornings, when he found her in that state, then the evenings when he got home. Then he started getting scared to put his arms around her, because he never knew what her reaction would be. He'd panic when she phoned him. He'd see her number come up on his phone and he wouldn't know what shape she'd be in.

And the worst of it was, she couldn't reproach him with anything. No cracks in his wall where she could hang on and attack him. Of course he didn't want to have a child with her. Who'd want to, with a madwoman?

She attacks her belly with her fingernails, as she's now in the habit of doing. So much so that it's covered with blue semicircular bruises and nail marks digging into the flesh. Or long red welts that take months to disappear where she's drawn blood. Stupid belly—prominent and empty.

She's at the age when women who haven't had children realize that they won't ever now. To be born a woman, the worst fate in practically every society. Just one trump card: the ability to give birth. And in her case, she's missed the boat. As with everything else. She's really missed out on everything, from start to finish.