Chapter 33

How Not to Court a Showgirl

IT WAS, I explained to my mates as we sat around our usual lunch table at the Grand Corona, like a kind of sustained tango. Partial as we all were to talking in high-falutin’ metaphors, I had chosen the sensual dance of the Argentinian proletariat to depict my current situation with the Showgirl.

“You know how the tango is the most sensual dance in the world?” I began. “Two partners, moving as one about the dance floor, gliding effortlessly across the parquet, their bodies aligned, in tune and together, but never touching? All of that beauty and sensuality and sexual tension caught in the empty space between their frantically beating hearts.”

It was lunchtime on a Thursday. The Grand Corona brasserie and café on the Place d’Alma was packed with a mixture of office workers, Eiffel Tower tourists, and ladies who lunch. It was the chosen venue for most of our biweekly Steak Tartare Summits, mostly because it was conveniently located near James’s, Will’s, and Julien’s offices, but also because it served a mean tartare aller-retour—a hunk of seasoned raw meat, lightly braised on both sides. Perfect food to aid the contemplation of life’s big ponderables that these male-only lunches comprised. James took in my tango metaphor, nodded agreement, and splashed his steak tartare with Worcestershire sauce.

“Just get her pissed and shag her,” he offered as he tucked into his fries. “I don’t understand what you’re waiting for. If it’s a gold-embossed invitation you want, you’re not going to get it. Get in there, and get on with it.” Undeniably his advice had merit. It was simple, straightforward, and held out the promise of quickly deciding things between me and the Showgirl, one way or the other. But short of assuming the mannerisms of, or being able to momentarily channel, a gruff northerner from Yorkshire, the strategy was beyond me.

“What you want to do, mate, is take her for a dinner,” offered Julien. “Somewhere intimistic.” It was one of his oft-used, made-up Franglais words. “Somewhere romantique. Tell her that you have never felt like this before, that you cannot eat, you cannot sleep, you cannot look at the moon without thinking of her.” I looked at him waiting for the punch line, then remembered he was French. He actually believed this shit.

“She’s Australian, Jules,” I replied. “She’ll either laugh or barf. Either way it’s not going to work.”

“Why don’t you write her a letter?” said Will, divulging one of his own preferred methods of seduction. “Or an e-mail. You’re good with words. Write it down, keep it light, keep it witty, and see what happens.”

I blanched at the thought of committing all my feelings to paper. What if the sentiment wasn’t mutual? What if I had been imagining it all this time? How would I bear the indignity of rejection and cope with the knowledge that the physical, printed evidence of my folly was being kept for eternity in one of those girly keepsake boxes with other quaint Paris mementos, brought out every now and then for a laugh? No, much better to stick to my current strategy: follow her around like a lovesick puppy, entertain her with my jokes, wow her with my wit, and generally stand around at her Lido dancer soirées like a little kid with his nose pressed up against a candy-store window.

Anyway, I told my lunch companions, the Showgirl and I were actually much closer and much better friends than we had been three months ago. Surely that counted for something.

“Bad news” came the reply from Will. “You let this gradual drift continue, and you can forget any idea of anything ever happening between you. Unless you do something soon, you are in mortal danger of becoming a good friend.” I felt a shudder pass through me. He was of course right.

Unless I took evasive action soon, I was on a one-way trip into territory from which there was no return: the Land of Just Good Friends. It’s a place in which countless thousands of hopeless men linger. The no-man’s-land between friendship and relationship. A barren, windswept place reserved exclusively for that unfortunate slice of the brotherhood who, instead of making a move on the object of their desire, choose instead to become a really good male friend. Painfully close to the woman they are dying to jump but never allowed to touch.

Teetering as I was on the edge of the precipice, I realized my situation had been brought on in large part by the Showgirl’s current emotional predicament. Having just endured a particularly nasty, drawn-out breakup with a French man, she was in no mood—or emotional head space—to embark upon another relationship. The fact that after three years together the French man had refused to accept the breakup and hence had launched a concerted stalking campaign only complicated matters further.

By virtue of our strengthening friendship, I heard more and more from the Showgirl about the freaky ex and his increasingly disturbing behavior: making phone calls at all hours of the day and night, standing outside her apartment at two a.m. waiting for her to return from work, hacking into her e-mail account to keep track of her movements. Most countries call it stalking and have laws to prevent it. But in France it was apparently all a part of the melodrama of being in love. And in my attempt to provide support and advice, I had drifted dangerously close to the border of Just Good Friends Land. If I didn’t make a move soon, or discontinue the sympathetic-shoulder-to-cry-on routine, I was doomed.

As useful as the lads’ counsel had been, especially that of James, I needed a fourth, and crucially female, opinion. Someone straight-talking, no nonsense and eminently sensible. Melinda was the obvious choice. As fellow Australians in Paris, Melinda and I had formed a fast friendship since meeting two years previously. Though she had arrived in France with the stated aim of avoiding all contact with fellow Antipodeans, she was prepared to make an exception for me.

“Because you like red wine as much as I do and you seem to neither know nor care about Australian football.”

Following through on a year-old promise to research a newspaper story about Australian showgirls on the Paris stage, I organized a couple of tickets through the Lido press office and asked Melinda to join me for the show. As we took our seats, it struck me that I was about to see the object of my affection as close to naked as she could possibly be. Though swathed in feathers and sequins throughout the hour-and-a-half performance, the Showgirl was one of sixteen so-called “nude” dancers at the Lido, meaning she spent much of the show in a state of semiundress. I was careful to ostentatiously maintain eye contact with her each time she strode on stage.

At the end of the show, and with a few bottles of complimentary Champagne coursing through our systems, Melinda and I arranged to meet the Showgirl at the stage door, where we invited her to join us for a postperformance drink. The three of us sat in a bar off the Champs Elysées. Over a carafe of wine, the Showgirl and I listened attentively as Melinda explained in impressive detail her upcoming wedding: the choice of venue, the choice of menu, the importance of making sure the placecards matched the napkins and the best man’s tie. Now in our early thirties, this was a conversation both the Showgirl and I had heard from many different friends, many times over. We exchanged knowing looks.

Somewhere in between a lengthy description of the wedding dress and a verbal treatise on the timely demise of sugared almonds as bonbonniere, the Showgirl managed to establish an easy rapport with Melinda. So much so that later, after we had all bid one another goodnight, I received a text message from Mel giving the Showgirl an enthusiastic thumbs-up. We convened a follow-up session of wine and cigarettes for the following night to discuss next steps.

We met, as we habitually did, at the Bar des Artistes, near the apartment Melinda shared with her English carpenter boyfriend, Conrad, in the down-at-heel tenth arrondissement. We ordered a pichet of Bordeaux and lit up a couple of Marlboro Lights. We only ever smoked in each other’s company, an illicit indulgence we reserved for the express purpose of better integrating with our wildly puffing Parisian counterparts.

“I’m not being funny,” said Melinda, employing the clause with which she started any sentence containing a potentially harsh personal judgment. “But you’re acting like a spineless idiot. I cannot believe you can be so extroverted in every other part of your life and yet incapable of expressing yourself when it really matters. If you’re waiting for divine intervention, it isn’t going to come.”

She was right, of course. The time had come for me to push the boat out, throw caution to the wind, and tell the Showgirl how I really felt. I resolved to get her alone in the coming days and make my feelings known.

As it turned out, intervention did in fact come. But it was neither divine nor desirable.

 

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” I asked the Showgirl, as we stood together one night at the bar of Café Oz in Chatelet.

She had just received a text message and, after quickly replying, was gathering her things and preparing to leave.

“Hmm? Oh, I have to go and meet someone,” she replied. She was looking typically gorgeous. Her short-cropped auburn hair framed her elegant neck. Pale skin, blue eyes, and expertly chiseled cheekbones: I was staring again.

“But it’s just getting interesting here,” I ventured. “The entertainment is just beginning.” As indeed it was. The visiting ranks of Australian football’s finest, the touring Kangaroo rugby league team, had only just trooped into Café Oz and were setting about making embarrassing spectacles of themselves. Despite having to play against the French national side the next day, they were off on a bender, drinking industrial quantities of beer and employing some of the worst pick-up lines ever employed to woo French women.

“Does that actually work where you’re from?” I overheard one unimpressed young French woman say to a leering twenty-two-year-old from Sydney whose attempt at a pickup had included a crude compliment on her hair color and a boast that he had once drunk twelve schooners of beer in a one-hour period “and not even chucked.”

“I’m going to have to leave you to show those Kangaroos how it’s done,” said the Showgirl before disappearing out the door. I watched her leave, felt my heart sink again, and launched into a now familiar round of quiet self-flagellation. Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! I silently scolded myself. Why didn’t you say something? Do something?

Hours later, when I met up with Lisa at another bar, I asked her about the Showgirl’s disappearing act.

“Oh, that will be Guillaume,” Lisa replied.

“Who’s Guillaume?” I asked, knowing I was not going to like the answer.

“Guillaume Canet. The French actor. He was in that movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio—little fella, kind of cute, but small in that French way. They’ve been having this on-again, off-again fling for a while. He calls her up whenever he’s in town, and if she’s in the mood to see him, they hook up.” Cue sound of heart crushing.

“Oh right,” I managed to respond, oblivious to the scream of panic welling inside me. “She’s seeing a French movie star, of course.” Bloody perfect. Not only was I now competing with a French man, on his turf, but he was a goddamned famous one at that, whose cheeky Gallic grin graced the walls of lusty teen girls’ rooms all over the country. Performing a mental checklist, I concluded that the only two things I had over him were height and a comprehensive knowledge of Australian TV commercial jingles from the late 1970s and 1980s. The prognosis was not great. Height was something the Showgirl could have any night of the week at the Lido, and there is only so much entertainment you can squeeze out of Rita the Eta Eater.

Lisa went on to explain that the Showgirl had come across this randy little celluloid Frog some months previously at the Paris premiere of the Leonardo DiCaprio film Gangs of New York. Invited to the postpremiere party at Queen nightclub by a promoter wanting to pepper the place with appropriately stunning women, Lisa and the Showgirl had duly attended, been spotted by Leo and Guillaume, and were invited back to the lads’ Plaza Athenée hotel suite for some VIP party action. En route the Showgirl—apparently in a state of high inebriation—had tripped on the stairs leading out of Queen and cut open her finger, deeply and seriously. We’re talking to-the-bone and severed tendons. There was, according to Lisa, a lot of blood. But determined not to let a dangerously dangling digit stand between her and a Leonardo DiCaprio/Plaza Athenée in-suite bash, she had simply wrapped the offending appendage in a makeshift bandage and soldiered on.

Wow, I thought to myself. She puts parties with movie stars in luxury hotel suites and all-night drinking ahead of personal health and safety. I felt myself fall in love all over again.

Once they were in the suite and milling drunkenly with the other DiCaprio–ordained VIPs, the Showgirl’s enthusiastic dance-floor twirling and blood-soaked-bandage-wielding apparently brought her to the attention of the party’s high-profile hosts. Sensing either a media or a diplomatic incident on their hands, they asked security to politely escort the “two tall girls” out of the room, down to the lobby, and into a taxicab bound for the nearest hospital. But before they left, the wily Monsieur Canet had nabbed the Showgirl’s cell number. Et voilà—instant illicit, mutually beneficial affair. The bastard. I decided on the spot that I hated him.

But then, who was I kidding anyway? Here she was, the toast of Paris, an object of desire, fantasy, and envy for several thousand people each night—why would she be interested in a schmuck like me? I was kind of funny, perhaps. Amusing to have around, certainly. But not serious boyfriend material. As we spun around the floor of our mutual attraction, engaged in our very own wholly enjoyable albeit slightly confusing tango, I had been cut in on. And by a short-arsed Frog, to boot. I turned to the bottom of my trusty pint glass for comfort and proceeded to get very drunk.

And so the weeks passed. The Showgirl conducted an illicit affair with a French movie star while I dedicated a whole lot of effort to the serious business of appearing to be indifferent. I suppose, in retrospect, I should have made more of a stand. If I was serious about my obsession with the Showgirl, I ought to have risen gallantly to the challenge: looked with scorn at the child-size gauntlet thrown down to me by this height-challenged French film star and beaten him at his own game.

But I didn’t. Instead, I spent more and more time with the Showgirl during daylight hours, allowing myself to be sucked ever closer to the border of Just Good Friends Land. The flexible hours of my new working arrangement and her nocturnal work schedule meant that days had become a new staging ground for our budding friendship.

We would meet for picnics on the Champ de Mars and sprawl on the lawn in the spring sunshine under the span of the Eiffel Tower. We would meet for coffee in the cafés near the Love Pad whenever the Showgirl was visiting the Marais from her apartment in the seventeenth arrondissement. One day, in a cunning change of my trademark seduction tactics (i.e., so subtle as to be barely noticeable), I even tried to get to the Showgirl via her beloved cat, Willy.

Willy was a blue-gray Chartreux. As a youngster, he was reputedly a very handsome cat. Now six years old and recently neutered, Willy had developed a definite weight problem. He was, not to put too fine a point on it, a very fat cat. Willy was a house cat, which in Parisian terms means an apartment cat. He had lived out his entire six-year existence within the four hundred square feet that constituted the Showgirl’s tiny apartment. In an attempt to show Shay how much I was into animals, I took it upon myself to educate Willy about the wide world outside her living room and bought him a leash to take him on a daytime excursion. His first outing was to Parc Monceau, a beautiful public park just minutes from where the Showgirl lived. The three of us trooped down to the park.

I carried, or rather lugged, Willy in his cat carrying bag. Upon arrival in the garden, I set the bag down on the ground and urged him to step forth and finally taste the forbidden fruits of freedom. But he was having none of it. He point-blank refused to budge. All the trees, grass, sky, and open space were too much for his little brain to process. He sat resolutely inside his bag, head down, mewing in distress. I attached him to the leash and tried to walk him across a stretch of lawn. He hunkered low into the ground and went heavy. The only movement he would concede was to make a beeline for my Vespa helmet and attempt to crawl inside. Paris’s only agoraphobic cat—just my luck.

We decided to abandon the cat experiment and retreated to the Showgirl’s apartment. I spent the afternoon sitting in her kitchen as she prepared cupcakes and biscuits for a dressing-room party. We whiled away the time making small talk and chatting in that easy way we had.

Willy, fully recovered from his outdoor ordeal and back in the domain of which he was the undisputed king, sat opposite me in the kitchen, laughing at me with his iridescent green eyes. If the Showgirl was none the wiser about the crush I had developed on her, Willy certainly seemed to know all about it, flashing occasional looks of disdain in my direction.

As if! he seemed to be saying to me. Loser! Move on! Next!

Paris was over for her, the Showgirl told me. A disastrous end to a long-term relationship, a level of exhaustion at having to keep up a grueling nightly work schedule, and a desire to return to the homeland in which she hadn’t lived for almost eight years were all pointing her in the direction of Brisbane, Australia.

“What is there to keep me here anyway?” she asked me. “Other than Willy, I don’t have any ties.” She would give it another six months, she said, then it would be au revoir, Paris.

I sat there and nodded my head in agreement, hoping she couldn’t tell my stomach was churning.

But before packing up and leaving Paris for good, she said, she would return to Australia for a three-week vacation. Back to Brisbane, to the cradle of family, to the sunshine and surf.

When she left, I would miss her.