Petite Confessions, Vicki Lesage [top books of all time txt] 📗
- Author: Vicki Lesage
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As I headed to the front of the restaurant, not one but two waiters bumped into me, sans apology.
Thanks, guys!
When I finally got to the front, I remembered I needed to retrieve my coat from the coat check.
“Bonsoir, I’d like to get my coat, please,” I said to the hostess with a smile.
She looked up from the reservation book with a look of disgust on her snooty face and spat out her response. “You need a coat check ticket.”
“Oh. Hrm. It’s back at the table with my colleagues. Is it possible to get my coat without it? I’m kind of in a hurry to get home,” I said, pointing to my pregnant belly. I peeked around the door, and among the sea of trendy black coats my green plaid number stuck out like an unfashionable sore thumb. “It’s that green one back there.”
“You need a ticket,” she insisted.
Seriously? My coat had to be the cheapest one in there. Who would want to steal it? I know there’s a policy and I needed the ticket and blah blah blah, but you’d think when someone pays €3,000 for dinner the hostess could be a little more accommodating. Like perhaps, just give me my cheapo coat? Or offer to go back to my table and get the ticket for me so I don’t have to waddle my pregnant ass back there? I might expect this attitude at a fast food joint but not at a so-called high-class place like Costes.
“OK, fine, I’ll get the damn ticket,” I muttered, hefting my purse over my shoulder and hauling my pregnant booty back to the table.
Not one but two waiters bumped into me on the way. Sans apology, of course.
“Hey, it’s me again,” I said sheepishly as I arrived in front of the group. “Could I please get the coat check ticket?”
“Sure,” one of my colleagues said. “I’ll go with you. I need to stop off at the restroom, and that way I can take the ticket back when you’re done.”
We headed back to the lobby as—believe it or not—two waiters bumped into me again. Did they hire waiters for the sole purpose of walking down the hall and bumping into ugly people (which I clearly was, since I’d been seated in the back of the restaurant)?
My colleague headed to the restrooms as I geared up to retrieve my coat.
“Here’s the ticket, you stupid cow,” I said in my head. “Voilà, mademoiselle,” I said instead, a huge smile plastered on my face.
She rolled her eyes and got my coat. She held it out like a dirty diaper as I stuffed my arms into it and tried—in vain—to button it closed over my belly.
“Merci,” I said. “Oh wait, I had a scarf too. It’s green, like the coat.”
“Are you sure it’s not in the sleeve?” she asked as if I was totally stupid.
“Yes, I checked. Sorry.” What was I sorry for? That she hadn’t brought the scarf?
She rolled her eyes again and huffed off to get my scarf. When she returned, she thrust the horrible offending object at me. Just as I wrapped it around my horrible offensive neck, my colleague returned from the restroom.
“Here you go,” I said, handing him the coat check ticket, and counting my lucky stars that I didn’t have to go back to the table to give it to him (thus getting bumped four more times by the waiters).
I bounded down the restaurant’s marbled front steps, vowing never to return.
Unless someone else was paying.
Teeny Bellini
When I indulged in my $25 Bellini, I was pregnant so I didn’t actually get to indulge. More like “wet my lips and pretend.” So in the spirit of going for the flavor but not the liquor, this drink is very light on the alcohol.
1 peach slice
3 oz. peach nectar
2 oz. Prosecco
1 cup ice
1. Place all ingredients in blender.
2. Pulse until smooth.
3. Serve in a champagne glass. Great for baby showers or brunches or other places where you want to feel like you’re drinking, but don’t actually want much alcohol. (Pregnant moms: Sorry, this still doesn’t really mean you, but the cocktail still tastes delicious without the sparkling wine!)
Makes 1 serving
11
One Sunday morning, Mika and I took Leo on a leisurely stroll and stopped into Gare de Lyon for a coffee at Starbucks. I know there are a million cafés in Paris and it’s sacrilege to go to Starbucks, but there’s something about the hustle and bustle of the train station that we like.
Plus I had to get my holiday latte before Starbucks took it off the menu.
Mika and Leo sat on a nearby bench while I waited in the long but quick-moving line. I could have pulled rank and pointed to my pregnant belly but I kept it hidden (well, as much as one can hide a five-month-pregnant belly) under my coat. We weren’t in a rush and I don’t like to butt in front of people, no matter how valid the excuse (and how raging my hormones).
Leo contentedly watched trains arrive and depart, eyes wide with love for his favorite mode of transportation.
Slowly but surely I reached the counter and placed my order. The friendly employees ran the operation like a well-oiled machine. I guess you have to be efficient if you work at a coffee shop in a busy train station, but in France—a country not known for its efficient service—that’s absolutely no guarantee.
Then clear out of the blue, a woman in a long fur coat and stilettos as sharp as her attitude cut in front of me, literally knocking the credit card out of my hand as I was about to pay.
“I’ll have an espresso and—” she started.
Um, what? Who did she think she was? Ooh, wait, maybe she was someone? Was this a French celebrity in my midst? Though, other than Gerard Depardieu (who I saw in a cheese shop once) and Sophie Marceau, I wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to recognize a French celebrity if one was butting in line right in front of me.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but you’ll need to get in line,” the Starbucks employee said, indicating the line that was now snaking around the station.
Celebrity or not, she just got TOLD.
“But I have a train to catch!” the lady wailed.
“Ma’am, we’re in a train station. Everyone has a train to catch.”
Touché!
Actually, I didn’t have a train to catch and neither did my patient husband and son, who were waving at me from the bench, but we were probably the only ones at Gare de Lyon not waiting for a train.
If everyone else had to stand in line, why did this lady think it was her God-given right to have a latte—and pronto!—for the train ride?
The possibly famous, definitely annoying woman stormed off, her clicking heels echoing in the cavernous station, and I paid for my coffee. The cashier and I shared a knowing look. Order had been restored.
And that’s a rare thing in Paris.
Holiday Latte Cocktail
Taking its inspiration from the Starbucks holiday menu, this cocktail will get you in the Christmas spirit without having to wait in the long line.
1 oz. hazelnut liqueur
1 oz. coffee liqueur
3 oz. Irish cream liqueur
1. Add ingredients to martini shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake, then strain into a martini glass. Enjoy at a relaxed pace, knowing you don’t have a train to catch.
Makes 1 serving
Petite Makeovers
Parenting [noun]: When you make sure everyone else has eaten, slept, and gone to the bathroom before you.
12
Tank tops are kind of my thing. They show off my toned arms, one of the few features worth showing off (because, hello, you can’t SEE how funny I am).
With sleeveless shirts, though, comes a responsibility to keep those pits shaved. Hence, the reason I opted for pricey laser hair removal. And why not throw in the bikini area while we’re shooting laser beams at sensitive bits?
I had located a swanky place off the Champs Elysées that would happily take my euros in exchange for permanently burning hair off my body.
At the consultation, the doctor compared the color of my hair (relatively dark) to the color of my skin (relatively see-through) and determined I was a good candidate for the treatment. She wrote a prescription for topical anesthetic and told me to bring the numbing cream and my freshly-shaved goods to the next appointment.
At this next appointment, a quick-talking mademoiselle led me to the Special Room Where They Rub You Down With Anesthetic Cream.
“Blah blah le blah?” she asked.
“Pardon?” I eloquently replied. I was still working on my French and had missed class the day they taught laser hair removal lingo.
“Ah, you speak English. Please take off zee clothes.”
Let the fun begin. I obliged, leaving only my bra between me and zees total stranger.
“I put cream, to show you how, then you do zee rest yourself, yeah?”
Got it.
“You want me to do your underlegs?” she asked.
What the flip was an underleg? I assumed it was a bad translation of “part of my body next to my hoo-hah” so I replied, “Oh, I’ll do that myself.” I would let her demonstrate on my armpits and then I’d do my “underlegs” on my own time.
Swipe. Pause. Swoosh.
Before I knew what had happened, she’d rubbed anesthetic cream down one side of my lady bits and back up the other.
“You see how it’s done? Now you do underlegs.”
The heck? I’d thought she was going to do my underarms and… oh. Ohhhhhhh. I got it now. “Underlegs” had been a poor translation of “underarms.” I’d unwittingly asked her to rub down my previously-private parts, leaving the pits for myself.
Naked, shaken from the recent fondling, and still generally confused, I somehow managed to spread the cream on my underarms as she watched.
“Now we wrap you in plastic.”
This just got better and better. She bandaged a roll of saran wrap around each shoulder and armpit, then covered my bikini area, creating a chic transparent diaper.
“This keeps the cream moist,” she said.
Gag, cough, blerk… She didn’t know the word for “underarm” but she knew everyone’s least favorite word, “moist”?
“Get dressed and wait in zee waiting room until you are called.”
Excusez-moi, WHAT? I had to go in public like this?
I trudged down the hall, armpits and butt crack squeaking under my clothes, embarrassed to enter the waiting room looking (and sounding) like this.
I needn’t have worried.
The room full of mummies barely looked up from their tattered copies of Vogue, embarrassed enough by their own saran-wrapped faces, necks, arms, and legs. We waited in mutual silence as if saying, “I won’t look at what you’re having lasered off if you won’t look at mine. Weirdo.”
Five sessions later, I was hair (and plastic wrap) free. If only they could laser off the embarrassment.
Sparkling Caipirinha
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