Paris Tiltin’: Vodka, Olives & Love on the Rocks

FIP. As in “feep.” Long “eeee” where the “i” goes, soft “p”––the kind that  seemingly just inadvertently happens upon the lips, almost inaudibly, almost allegedly, almost erroneously, almost erogenously. Almost. Seemingly somewhat like a stolen kiss. FIP-ah. And a playlist so superbly schizophrenic that you never know if you’re going to get Gainsbourg or Gilberto Gil, Stravinsky or Strauss or Satie, Bing Crosby or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Thelonious Monk, Baba Maal or the Buzzcocks. FIP. As in “feep.” FeeP-ah. 

The thing about FIP Radio is that the more intriguing the music is, the more you’re intrigued with what’s really going down in the studio. Or, to be frank, who’s really going down in the studio.

At least a certain writer was. More interested in what, or who, was really going down in the FIP-uh studio, that is. As she drowsily, dazedly, dreamily, jet-laggedly adjusted the glow-y little dial on the tiny little Parisian ghetto blaster in the tiny little Parisian apartment on the tiny little Parisian street, she wondered what or who was really going down over there, chez FIP. Was interested? Still is!

Because this is the thing: the Women Of FIP – and they are all Women, unmistakably and undeniably Women, with a capital ‘W,’ not dames or even broads or even ladies or even gals or girls; especially not gals and even especially, most definitely not girls, but women, as in Women, as in WO-MEN––remind you of cream-colored blouses unbuttoned just a little too far. Like Mrs. Robinson’s lingerie in The Graduate. A sheer, black-stockinged foot trailing lazily up the pant leg of a gentleman caller. Musky perfume and musky night air and musky liquor and muskily, huskily, bruskily whispered nothings. Like orgasms. And afterglow.

It doesn’t matter that we never see them; makes no difference if we all know why some people get into radio instead of TV. Never mind what they dress like or what their hair is like or what their faces are like or what their bodies are like or what, overall and all over, they look like. You just have to hear their brusky-musky-lusty huskiness once to understand that the Women Of FIP(ah) are h-o-o-o-o-t.  Hot with multiple O’s.

Come to think of it, there are a few guys working at FIP. Come to think of it, they only deliver the news. Ten minutes before the hour, every hour, come to think of it. And yeah, there’s that one guy who co-hosts the jazz program around apéro hour. So there are at least a couple of guys in the studio chez FIP. Come to think of it, they all sound spent.

It makes you want to send in your CV, with your little job application all a-flutter.

“Vous écoutez FIP-(ah)…” the musky-husky-brusky feminine mezzo-alto breathes over the wet-damp airwaves of l’Île de France. “…il est une heure moins quart.” On a Tuesday afternoon. Or was it Wednesday? Jet lag made it hard to tell. It was definitely October, though. October 2004. William Shatner, Monsieur Star Trek, faithful friend of Spock, begins declaiming his way through Pulp’s “Common People.” Satire or serious? Or serious satire? Too hard to tell, and certainly Shatner wouldn’t know. It mattered not. In a way, a certain writer mused as she popped another olive into her mouth, chasing it with a generous gulp of vodka, the mystery surrounding whether it was satire or serious or both was kinda like Shatner’s coup de grâce, his fait accompli, his...

Olives––green, unpitted––are all that’s in the fridge. They’re Leader Price olives, the no-frills, no-thrills non-nom de marque that could be found––according to the little map left by the flat’s owner––at the no-thrills, no-frills Franprix supermarket just up the street, around the bend, down a few lanes, through a few passages and around the corner. The vodka––chilled, spiced, Polish, Zubrowka––was in the freezer. Both constituted sustenance for the last sixteen hours: the former as nutritional nourishment; the latter as an antidote to a hangover, a beery one, one acquired in another town in another region in another province in another country on another continent forty-eight hours before. A certain journalist concludes that eventually, pretty soon, as in like the immediate near future, quite urgently, she would have to quit being such a baby about the jet lag and venture downstairs, outside, out in the streets, up the street and around the bend and down a few lanes and through a few passages and around the corner for some more nourishing nourishment, the nutritional kind, sustenance, food, before the olives-and-vodka-only deal transformed into a slightly classier, slightly less cold, slightly more Parisian version of the Donner party. It was just a thought.

“…Vous écoutez FIP...(ah)…” It was just past two. On a Wednesday (or could it be Tuesday?) afternoon. No matter. The stores would be open for a while. Plenty of time to stock up on more olives and Zubrowka. She helps herself to a healthy helping of each as the Woman Of FIP softly, silkily, seductively slips into what sounds like a traffic report.

There were sticky notes everywhere. All over the flat. Because it could really, only, exclusively, realistically be called a flat, even thought it was not entirely flat, technically, on a technical level, because of the spidery-spindly little ladder that led up to what the Parisian classifieds classified as a mezzanine, but was really, only, exclusively, realistically, technically a bed. So the flat wasn’t really flat; it was really on two levels. But it couldn’t be called a loft. Most certainly not. And it most certainly, most definitely, most decidedly was not an apartment. A compartment, maybe. Or maybe even a pad. Perhaps a pied à terre. The girl who had handed over the keys––not the landlady, but the girl the landlady had arranged for to carry out this precise task––had said that they had nicknamed it “the freight elevator.” As a nickname, it was apt. And there were sticky notes everywhere. All over the place. All over the flat. Affixed to appliances and mirrors and doors and walls. Explaining things like what to do if the shower plugged up and how to use the phone, what to do to get the internet up and running and the extraordinary intricacies involved in getting the vegetable steamer to work. Sticky notes. Everywhere. On everything. All over the place. Like wallpaper. In pink and yellow and baby blue. There was even one stuck to the little ghetto blaster that was crammed behind the stack of books in the corner. Specifying the frequency of FIP(ah).

The thing was, it seemed, to a certain writer at least, it seemed like the musky-husky-brusky feminine mezzo of FIP got muskier and huskier and bruskier and baritone-ier as the day dragged on. She wondered about the recruitment practices over there. She wondered about the criteria that job candidates had to fill. Was FIP like The Playboy Club or more like Hooters? Only instead of having to be able to bust out in a certain-sized bra, instead of having to be of a certain cup, when you went to apply for a job at FIP you had to not only be feminine and a near-baritone, but you must also be a musky-husky-brusky one to boot? And then once you did get hired, if you fulfilled the criteria, if you passed muster, if you aced the test, once you did get hired was there some kind of musky-husky-brusky rating system designed to classify the musky-husky-bruskiness of your baritone, you know, for depth, and the deeper and muskier and huskier and bruskier your feminine baritone was, the later and later and later they scheduled you in the day? Was that what was really going on and going down over there chez FIP? Over there, across Paris, on the other side of town, at the other end of the sixteenth arrondissement, on this side of the river? 

Another couple olives, another drink. It was really hard not to wonder about the Women Of FIP. What was going on over there, anyway? The Women Of FIP all probably had lots of lovers, younger ones and older ones and ones their own age, too, lovers with whom they scheduled secret sordid salacious rendez-vous for cinq à sept or deux à quatre or minuit à deux or midi à deux or whenever they could, depending on how bassy their musky-husky-brusky feminine baritones were and how early or late they had to get to work. And they all probably had fabulous flats, or lofts even, and apartments, too, decorated just so and arranged just right and filled with art and books on art and music and books on music and books on literature and philosophy and sociology and social commentary, too, books that made their lovers sit up and take notice and think and muse and dream and fantasize about how intriguing and intelligent and enlightened and cultured and therefore how seductive and therefore how astonishingly sexy they were. And they all, every last one of them, every single Femme de FIP, every single one, they all definitely, decidedly, undoubtedly, undeniably wore gorgeous lingerie. Gorgeous, lacy, detailed, dangerously distracting lingerie. Like garter belts and panty hose and corsets and bustiers and bras. Like Mrs. Robinson’s. Only better than Mrs. Robinson’s because it was French.

They were so damn sexy it made you want to be just like one of them.

“But you can be like us. You can be like us, too…”

Zubrowka sloshed. Zubrowka spilled. Zubrowka dribbled onto a certain writer’s bare toes. She could have sworn someone had just said something. In English. A woman. A whispery, breathy, brusky, musky, husky woman. But there was no one else in the room. “Hello…I mean, âllo…?”

Nothing. Nada. Silence. Rien. Or at least the sounds thereof.

“You can be like us…too…”

Again. There it was again.

“You can be like us…”

It sounded like it was coming from the ghetto blaster.

A certain writer set down her glass and waded through the mound of shoes that she had dumped out onto the floor earlier, not entirely sure of where she would find the space to store them but increasingly certain that they would wind up back in her suitcase. They were summer shoes, mainly, all straps and sandals and faux snakeskin and such, completely impractical for the début of a Parisian winter and therefore completely useless for a three-and-a-half-month séjour. But she had packed them, a certain writer had, along with her summer clothes and her winter clothes that she had stuffed into the two suitcases she had allotted for the trip. Her three-and-a-half-month trip. She knew that in doing this she would rack up extra freight fees for the extra weight of the extra luggage––which she had––but it had seemed like the right thing to do. In a wrong kind of way. 

“Mais non !  It was…it was the right thing to do…”

Definitely––it was coming from the ghetto blaster. No doubt about it. She touched the knob, fiddled with it, fumbled with it, fondled it, tried to turn it back and forth. Stuck. It was stuck. Stuck on FIP. Or FIP(ah).

“Do you not think it peculiar that you packed so much, so much you didn’t need, for so brief a voyage? Do you not think it strange, Caro-leen?”

Why was she speaking English?! And how did she know that name??!! It was definitely coming from the ghetto blaster, and a certain writer was pretty sure it was definitely coming directly from FIP(ah). But why was this woman, this siren of the airwaves, this public radio nymph, why was she speaking directly to her? Directly to a certain writer? Directly to her, Caro-leen? In English? Sure, the Women Of FIP had spoken English before, a sexily-accented English, an English sexily-accented in French, musky and husky and brusky and baritone, but that was when they were citing the names of songs. English songs. Songs with English names. But other than that they spoke French. French-French. France-French. Parisian French. You know, French-y-French. Which was why, in the first place, a certain writer had tuned into FIP(ah). She needed to practice. She was far from fluent. She had a base, of course––she was Canadian, after all. She had taken French, which was mandatory, gone through French Immersion, followed French lessons, enrolled in French extra-curricular activities, participated enthusiastically in French kissing…had even hired a French tutor––a cute one, a real-live French-from-France one, one that was, you know, French––six months before she knew she was coming to Paris. He would come to her office, her office in Vancouver, this cute, real-live-French-from-France guy, to converse and counter and clarify and correct. He helped her brush up on her subjunctive tense. Charged twenty dollars an hour. She wore mini-skirts. That was that. And now she was listening to FIP––FIP(ah)––for practice. Wanted to become fluent.

“You will not succeed to become fluent in three-and-a-half months, Caro-leen. It is not enough time…”

Why was she…?! How was she…??!! How did she…???!!! 

A certain writer clambered back over the mound of shoes, over the pile of straps and faux snakeskin and buckles and sandals and such, stubbed her toe, barked her shin, and poured another shot. Yeah, sure, O.K., fine…when it came to being fluent, three-and-a-half months was probably pushing it. Three-and-a-half months was probably too short. But still, it didn’t mean…it didn’t mean…

“It did not mean that you had planned to stay in Paris, for good, in the first place?”

Of course not! How could she kn…how could she say that? Everyone knew that Caro-leen was only staying three-and-a-half months. Everyone. That’s why…that’s why…that’s why…that’s why…

“This is why all of your friends from home were placing bets on when they would receive news that you were never coming back...?”

That was just absurd. Completely over the top. Well mainly, anyway. O.K., sure all right, fine…there was only that one person that one time at that one going-away party who placed a bet. But they were drunk. And besides, they didn’t really know her that well anyway, and she didn’t really know them. Like, they had only really been acquainted for like five or six years. So it wasn’t fair to count them. It didn’t really count. Because everyone else knew, everyone else who knew and had known a certain writer for a very long time, longer than five or six years, everyone else had heard, everybody else had been informed and brought up to speed and kept in the know that a certain writer, a certain Caro-leen, would be returning to Vancouver. Vancouver, British Columbia. In Canada. In North America. In three-and-a-half-months. Everybody knew that.

“So why did you purchase a ticket one-way?”

Ahem. Plane tickets were expensive, you know. She had been waiting for a seat sale. Anybody could understand that.

“Like your boyfriend?”

What boyfriend?

“Oh là là, Caro-leen… only seventeen hours and you forget already about the boyfriend? The one you left behind? The one who you insisted not come along with you? The one you refer to, under your breath, when you’re on the phone to your girlfriends, as your ‘pet musician?’”

Oh. Him.

“Yessss????” Maybe it was all the William Shatner Star Trek-y stuff they played, but the Women Of FIP were beginning to sound like The Borg.

Well...well. Well, he was kind of busy right now. Had a lot of projects going on. Creative projects. Artistic projects. Music projects. Important ones. Like that open mic night he hosted every Monday night. There was that. And then there was that song that he had been working on––the one he had started last year––he was just about to nail it. And then there was all of that recording software that she had just bought for him, and then there was that new guitar, and of course that amp had finally just come back from the repair shop, some hand-made, specially-designed, one-of-a-kind custom job that had cost an arm and a leg and kept blowing up, and then there was that car she had bought him, the shiny black fast one that he said he needed so he could drive around and gather inspiration and write lyrics in his head and think, there was that, too, and it would’ve been a shame to have insisted on him coming, all the way to Paris, only to bow out on that gig that he had in a few weeks, the one he had booked at the local pizza joint, the one that paid fifty bucks if enough people showed up, when they could really use the money. And then there was the fact that she was kind of getting in the way, you know, in the way of his creativity, in the way of his art, in the way of his music, you know, with all of her venting and stressing and freaking out about and going on about how despite all the writing jobs she had, despite the fact that she was working overtime, despite the fact that she was at the office, in front of her computer, typing and clicking and inserting and deleting all damn day and night, that they couldn’t make ends meet. It was kinda getting in the way of his groove.

“But he is a loser…”

Well…

…well.

“A loser…”  She pronounced it FIP-ah style:  “Loos-zair...”  It had a certain flair when you put it that way. 

Well… Well… Well… Well she wouldn’t really call him a loser. Perhaps “loser” was being a bit too harsh. And besides, “loser” was really a subjective term when you thought about it. Wasn’t it? Like, for instance, a certain writer thought many people that wore three-piece suits to work were losers, even though they paid the bills and bought cool stuff and could actually afford the slick cars they drove around in and could actually cough up the cash if they had wanted to purchase fancy musical equipment, you know, to play on the weekends when they were sitting around listening to The Eagles…a certain writer thought many of those guys were losers, not because of the three-piece suits or the cool stuff or the slick cars or the fancy musical equipment, but mainly because of The Eagles. And that probably wasn’t fair. Among all of those three-piece suit-wearing, cool stuff-buying, slick car-driving, fancy musical equipment-on-the-weekend-playing, Eagles-listening dudes there were probably one or two nice guys. But, as she had said, the term “loser” was subjective. So maybe it wasn’t that her boyfriend, the one she had left back home, was a loser; maybe he was just misunderstood.

“Oh come now, Caro-leen…we could never play this music of his on FIP-ah.  It would be too.... too... too....”  Even the Woman Of FIP-ah was at a loss for words for how awful it would be. 

A certain writer bit into her last olive––she was tempted, a little histrionically, to declare it The Final Olive––and chased it with a swig of Zubrowka. There were some things that one couldn’t argue about. There were some things that, if argued about, made it hard for the argue-ee to save face. Maybe the Woman Of FIP(ah) was right. Maybe she should…Maybe she could…Maybe she would…

“Perhaps you might wish to dump him...”

Or she could…

“Abandon him....”

Or she would…

“Throw him in the air!”

What??!!

A clearing of The Voice. “It’s a direct translation from French for jets-le en air. It is to say that you should not leave…”

Where?

“That you should live…”

Here?  (She was having trouble telling whether the Woman of FIP-ah was saying “leave” or “live.” It was all so confusing!)

The Voice of the Woman of FIP cut through her confusion. “That you should stay…”

In Paris?

“Yes, in Paris. Mais oui––of course! No one but farmers and the indecisives lives outside of Paris. It is why you came, n’est-ce pas ?”

Well, ye…well, yea…well… But what about work?

“Stay…”

Paris isn’t cheap, you know.... she couldn’t stay here forever without working.

“Stay-ay-y-y…”

But a girl’s gotta pay rent and buy olives and Zubrowka and shoes and clothes and champagne and…

“Caro-leen, really! You are a writer. There are many writers in Paris. We are known for these. Writers may work from any spot, true? Did you not bring your computer with you? Had you not planned to work a little bit during your séjour ? Do you not have some deadlines?”

She knew. She had. She did. But what about the apartment? What was she going to do about that? She only had it for three-and-a-half months.

“FIP-ah is but a radio station, Caro-leen, not a real estate agency. For this I propose to consult the classifieds, comme tout le monde. Your search for an apartment is not FIP-ah’s concern.”

O.K., all right, sure fine…if you wanted to be that way. She would find her own damn apartment, thank you very much. Or, en français : merci beaucoup. She didn’t need the Women Of FIP(ah) to help her. No siree. Or, no ma’am. Or, non madame. Or, non mesdames. She had already found this apartment, after all, all alone, on her own, of her own accord, toute seule, and that was when she was still overseas. Across the Big Pond. On the other side of Canada. On the Western coast of her country. So she would be just fine, thank you very much, merci beaucoup, muchas graçias, danke schoen.  Or no, non, better yet––screw the classifieds! She didn’t need ’em!! Had no use for them at all!!! She had better plans, bigger plans, more effective plans…plans of action. She would find somebody who knew somebody who had heard of somebody who was friends with somebody who sought somebody to rent their apartment. That’s what she would do!!!! You couldn’t stop her!!!!! She was unstoppable!!!!!! Once she met somebody, that is.

“You see, Caro-leen? Tu vois ?”

Of course she saw. She was beginning to see lots of things. And lots of doubles of lots of things. Starting with the empty bottle of vodka.

“You are a resourceful girl…”

Well, duh.

“And resourceful girls can find solutions to any problem…”

They could. It was a fact.

“Trust yourself, Caro-leen…you make the right decision…you will be ver-ry, ver-ry ’appy in Paris…”

She knew she would. Or at least she was pretty sure. Who couldn’t be ’appy in Paris? It just seemed like the right thing to do. In a ver-ry, ver-ry right kind of way. But there was one more thing, one last question, one last matter that needed clearing up. What if…? What if…?

She waited. She wondered.  She clinked her nails against her glass. She tried pouring herself the last drops of Zubrowka, but it was all gone. So, too, was The Voice. It had slipped away, silently, silkily, a secret lover sneaking stealthily out into the night. And then…and then…

Music. Fast and then slow and then sparse and then full. Loud and then soft and then big and then bold. It was a famous tune, a show tune, a tune she knew all too well, a tune she knew by heart. It was Kander and Ebb and Fosse and Liza. Liza, with a “z.” The height of show biz. Show biz, with a “z.” Liza whispering, Liza dancing, Liza high-kicking, Liza singing, belting “Mein Herr.” Ditching him. Dumping him. Leaving him. Escaping him. Throwing him in the air. 

And so, in that tiny little Parisian apartment, on that tiny little Parisian street, as the tiny little afternoon dwindled into dusk, a certain writer danced. And sang. And high-kicked. And then danced and danced some more. Through the mountain of shoes, amidst a shower of sticky notes, she sang and she danced some more. She could do this, she would do this, there was no stopping her now, she was unstoppable, unshakable, unbeatable, undefeatable, kicking her leggy legs and heel-y heels in the air––

Silence. And the sounds thereof.

The plug. The plug attached to the little ghetto blaster crammed behind the little stack of books in the corner, somewhere beneath the big blizzard of sticky notes. In all of her dancing and singing and high-kicking, a certain writer had knocked the plug out of the wall. No more Liza. No more Fosse. No more Kander and Ebb.  Worst, no more  “Mein Herr.”  

No more FIP(ah). No more Women of FIP(ah). No more Women of FIP(ah) to lead the way.

What could she do now? What would she do now? How unstoppable was she if a little loss of juice, whether electrical or Zubrowka . . . well, made her stop?

Then something happened. In her head, something clicked. In her body, something ticked. A certain writer resumed dancing, and singing, and whispering, and high-kicking, and singing and dancing some more. Much as she loved her, she didn’t need Liza. She could certainly do without Fosse and Kander and Ebb. And the Women Of FIP(ah)? Well, she was sorry their little one-on-one was over, was kinda sad to hear that they had gone, but beyond that, she had no regrets. She would listen sagely to their traffic reports, and their sexily French-accented introductions to English songs, and the musky, husky, brusky way that they announced the hour. But beyond that, above and beyond that, after all that, well, that was pretty much that. Their conversation had reached its natural conclusion. It was time to move on. Or rather, to stay put. In Paris.

There was one thing, though. One final issue. Just one small matter she wished she had cleared up. One last question she wished she had asked.

If she wanted a voice like the Women of FIP(ah), did it mean that she should start to smoke?

First published on Running In Heels in 2009.