“Nice to see you again, did you have some rest?” he asks.
I couldn’t stop thinking of you and you’ve even invaded my dreams. Oh, God, did I say that out loud? “I rested plenty, thank you.”
“Muriel is looking forward to meeting you.”
“Likewise.” Two sentences without sounding stupid. I’m on a roll!
“What do you think of our office? Amazing, no?” he asks as we start to climb toward whatever purgatory is waiting for me upstairs.
“It’s very…well, very special.”
“I know. It doesn’t look like a trendy district. That’s Muriel. She wants us to keep our ears to the ground, you know, be where things really happen.”
“The concept is good, I like it,” I say earnestly. “It can become some kind of motto—Muriel B. Where things really happen. You know what I mean?”
He smiles approvingly. That’s the first time he approves of something I say or do, except maybe for the scooter ride.
“You know what I think?” I ask, because all of a sudden I think that it would be great to do a fashion show right there, in the street below, in the middle of this chaos. That would be…
“No, what do you think, Lynn?”
Wait a second. What if my idea sounds completely stupid? How would I know?
“Well…Nothing,” I say mysteriously.
“Okay….”
Dull, dull, DULL!
We reach the landing and my heart is beating faster. Noises, voices, the sounds of movement and laughter are coming from behind a huge tall white wooden door.
“C’est l’Atelier. The workshop,” Nicolas says. “All the offices are located on the second floor. But this is where the real magic takes place.”
He pushes open the door and invites me into their world.
It’s a huge space, like a ballroom. Groups of people are gathered around different tables.
They chatter away. They scream. It’s a zoo.
Most of them are very young, a majority look Asian, maybe Japanese, and dress in contemporary punk style.
Nicolas whisks me through, and I can see lots of facial piercings, tattoos, dreads and multicolored hairdos.
“Here she is,” Nicolas says, pointing at a group at the far end of the workshop. “Do you recognize her?”
“Oh, yes,” I say, trying to guess which one in this group of teenagers could be Muriel B, and finally decide that it has to be the oldest one, well, I mean a girl about my age, which happens to be the most elegant one, in a classic kind of way.
“Muriel,” Nicolas calls, and, yes, the elegant girl turns first, so I walk straight to her, take a large breath of air, shake her hand and give her my million-dollar smile.
“Hello, Muriel, I’m very pleased to meet you.”
She shakes my hand, smiles and says, “Françoise Neuton. Pleased to meet you, too.”
Shit!
She points at the smallest, youngest kid in the group. “That’s Muriel,” Françoise Neuton says amused.
Muriel can hardly be more than eighteen years old. Her lips and nose and ears are infested with multiple piercings and studs. A large tribal tattoo goes all around her neck and arms.
Nicolas clears his throat. “Muriel, this is Lynn Blanchett.”
“I see,” Muriel says, but we don’t shake hands. “C’est un honneur d’avoir une Blanchett parmi nous!”
Oh, we aren’t going to speak English, then?
I nod. It worked so far.
“Tu parles français, j’espère?”
“Oui,” I say. “Je… Mmm! Je…” Nothing French comes out, not even a word about buying bread at the bakery.
They turn to me. The whole workshop staff stops and waits for some sound to come out of my mouth.
Complete silence.
“So…you’ve already met Françoise.” Nicolas comes to my rescue. “She is our première. If Muriel is the creative mind, Françoise is her hands.”
“That’s very poetic, Nicolas. Well done,” Muriel says with a cool and exaggerated British accent.
She looks at me more carefully. Everybody looks at me more carefully. They don’t dare to think anything before Muriel has given her own verdict.
“I like your…T-shirt. DKNY?”
“No, it’s just a…basic one.”
“Basic, I’ve never heard of them. It’s really unattractive in a nice way. That is fashion though, isn’t it?”
The rest of them are now whispering about the quality of a Basic white T-shirt.
Stop staring at her tattoos! I scream to myself.
Is she…Yes, she has a huge stud on her tongue. I can’t believe that this is actually Muriel B. My future boss? Nicolas’s employer? I mean, isn’t she supposed to be at school or something?
“We’re working on that piece,” Muriel says. She shows me a dress. It hangs on a wood model behind the group. Yak! It’s sort of…ugly. “What do you think?”
“Oh…It’s sort of…”
“Don’t you like it?” Muriel asks amusingly.
Silence again.
“To be honest, well…no, I find it kind of…”
Kind of what, you idiot? Outdated? Too short? Too long? Too tight? Too brown? Not enough? What would you know?
“Kind of…ugly.”
Did I just say that?
Françoise Neuton looks away. “C’est tout de même incroyable!” She whispers. I must be the most annoying person she’s ever met.
“She finds it ugly,” Muriel laughs out. She thinks I’m very funny. “Everyone, listen up, Blanchett finds it kind of ugly.”
I turn to Nicolas. He’s cupping his chin in his fingers. He needs to take a better look at the dress. Then he looks at me. Me or the dress? Being given the choice, which one would he trash?
“That’s exactly what I think, Françoise! This is not what I had in mind. Redo it! Allez! Comment tu dis, Lynn? It’s…kind of ugly! Merci.”
More whispers. I feel like I’m surrounded by a sea of hissing snakes.
Françoise looks at me. Her lips are so tight you couldn’t slide a needle through.
Muriel comes closer and sniffs the air around me. Sniff sniff! “You’re wearing a very strong perfume. Kazo?”
I cannot tell Muriel she’s smelling my deodorant.
“No, it’s, er…designed just for me!”
“You American women are really getting away with everything. Ridiculous pink colors, horrible white T-shirts and perfectly awful perfumes. I love it.”
I smile, deciding that it’s her way to give a compliment.
“Une minute tout le monde,” Muriel calls, stopping the background murmuring. “Je vous presente Lynn Blanchett, la fille de Jodie Blanchett!”
Hisses, lots of hisses.
“Lynn vient de New York, et travaille comme…”
“Relation