Not everything was good back when I was skinny

 The number on the phone says it's from France but I don't recognize it, so I just pick up

"Lucy Shadow speaking"

"Hello Lucy! It's Ben V! You remember? Do you still speak French?"

I do. I remember Ben V. While he keeps talking, I spend about three minutes trying to remember if I've ever had sex with him or not. Ben V was working in the same firm I was in my first years in Lyon.

I decide I did not, mentally pat myself on the shoulder and start paying attention.

While he proceeds telling me he now works for a private equity fund and that they're looking at an Italian company and he's seeking an Italian advisor, etc etc, suddenly some long buried souvenir floats to the surface of my mind.

I remember a mad night some 14 years ago, a night of drinks, sex, screams and madness. A night I had willingly buried in the darkest places of my mind for a long time.

Ben V rambles on and we agree he'll send me an email. I look up at the private equity firm he works for and spot my favourite client among their credentials, so I take a big breath and call him to ask for feedback. The good news is one of the partners who just joined Ben V firm is someone I know well and with whom I enjoy an excellent professional relationship! Of course he asks me why I sound worried about this, and I end up telling him a "mitigated" version of the story.

Later on, I dig into an older blog of mine archive, and found the post below. Trouble is, names have been changed and I can't place a sure identity on "Arnaud". He might be Ben V or he might be another guy who was friend with Nicolas (again, you'll have to read below to understand). Fuck.

Nicolas was a guy I knew in Lyon that I casually dated over a summer. I was 23, single and... well I don't regret the random sex life per se but sometimes it still backlashes at me.

Coyote Ugly

September 25, 2006

 

The night out with Nicolas finally happened but was… awkward

 

Do you all remember the Coyote Ugly girls? The idea was that coyotes that get trapped cut away the trapped leg with their teeth, to run away. Just the way you would want to do sometimes, when you wake up beside someone after a funky night, and all you wish is to run away without waking him. You know what I mean, huh?

 

Before you misunderstand, we did not do it. Ok, I’ll explain everything.

 

I arrived to the party around 9PM, wearing this innocent/lusty dress I have since college, that never failed to make me get what I wanted.

Nicolas wasn’t there yet, but there was Helene, girlfriend and neighbor of mine, who instantly started to pour me her wonderful vodka sour. One hour (and more than one vodka) later, Nicolas arrived with his friends, not yet drunk but already quite high. I just smiled, and he said “My love, why didn’t you answer me?” I was stunned. Picked up the phone and found a message from him, from two hours before, that said “Sweetheart, I’ll arrive later, shall we meet directly at the pub? Kisses”. I watched Nicolas, and smiled while he was saying “I don’t want everyone to see there’s something between us” just to start publicly making out with me, hands all over me and tongue down my throat.

 By the time we left for the pub, the evening was great.

We were both drunk, but still happy drunk. So, making out some more at the pub, just seemed a wonderful idea. Music was great, Nicolas (who apparently knows everyone no matter where he goes) was introducing me as his fiancé (???) to everyone, including my new junior colleague, who just watched me astonished (and I wasn’t enough shit faced to avoid thinking “MERDE, I’ll have to fix this”).

 When we decided to move to a club next door, the drama started. They wouldn’t let us in, basically because Nicolas was all over me. And then Arnaud, Nico’s spazzy friend, came out from the disco. I tried to persuade them to get in without me, so that I could join them a few minutes later, but by this time it was getting hard to explain things to Nico. And then, Arnaud pulled close and grabbed my breast.

I FRAKED OUT.

I got scared, screamed at them both, and tried to left. They tried to persuade me to move to another club with them, but I wasn’t getting it, Arnaud would not let me go and I realized that Nicolas wasn’t really seeing what was happening. So, when a friend of them pulled over in his car and they got distracted, I slipped away, walked for a while in the rain that had started pouring, managed to get a cab and went home sobbing.

Nicolas started calling me while I was in the cab but I was probably incoherent and he was still drunk.

Fifteen minutes after I got home, I had just got out of my drenched dress and into a nightie, when Nicolas showed up at my place. I buzzed him in, because after all I've had so many great nights with Nico and trusted him to be a good guy. I did think he had not fully grasped what was going on and I just wanted someone to hug me.

When I open the door the corridor was pitch black, Nico was drenched and smiling, whispering soft sexy French words. I stood by to let him in, and in he got. And behind him, Arnaud tried to get in as well.

I slammed the door on Arnaud, he backed out, I slammed the door again on his hand and he started howling and finally I got the door shut.

Shaking, I locked the door only to realize Nico was still in, and Arnaud was out pounding fists on my door.  Cold, miserable and frightened, I burst in tears. Nico started talking to the door quitly "Go away Arnaud. Go away. Why are you here? You were supposed to drop me off and leave. Go away or I'm coming out and beat your face to pulp. Was it you then who scared her? Fuck you asshole. Leave now, or I'll call the cops and they'll find some nice white stuff in your pocket".

That must have worked because Arnaud left. I didn't really want Nicolas to stay but I was to afraid to open the door again, and anyway he slumped on the couch shortly after and passed out.

I slept out of exhaustion, but 4 hours later I had to catch the train at 6:30AM (weekend with parents had been planned long ago). I did not want to wake Nicolas and talk about it, so I just left him asleep on my couch leaving him a note.

 

I don’t even know how the hell will I manage to walk into the office on Monday morning, after everyone saw the two of us on Friday night

Back to present, I decide I can't figure who Nico's friend was that night. I haven0t seen any of these people for over 12 years. I give a call to Ben V boss, say hi, and decide I'll take the engagement anyways. The past is gone and shall better stay forgotten. There will be no going for drinks on this engagement in any case. Any out of office meeting will be strictly confined to breakfast!

Crystal palace

 Citylife is my biggest dream in terms of buying a flat in the city. It's this new area they have completly rebuilt 6 years ago that was turned into a big (beautiful) park, 3 skyscrapers and a mall, and 2 enclosed residential complexes that are supposed to be the best you can have in this city.

When we step through the gates, it's perfect. The real estate agent is elegant, there are families quietly chatting in the common garden areas, everything is quiet and beautiful in a lovely autumn evening.

The flat looks like a fucking closet.

Granted, it's beautiful, but it is advertised as a 136 square meters (1,464 sq feet) and the insternal space is actually 84sqm (904sqf). There is a big balcony, true, but what the fuck, my husband is right, we can't possibly spend over one fucking million Euros for a fucking closet.

And we can't afford to spend more. We can't even afford that much. I do make a lot of money now, but the sad truth is I've been working for 16 years and I've only been making some real money over the past 3, and anyways half of it goes into taxes. Anything over 700k and we'll need to make a loan anyways.

This used to be a place to remind myself to stay skinny and it's ended with a fat, almost 40 woman failing to get pregnant and bitterly complaining about house and work. How fucking exciting.

*mirror, mirror,

where's the crystal palace?

but I only can see myself*

(Winter, Tori Amos)

what next?

 Dear American friends,

let me remember how I love your country, your amber waves of grain as well as your purple mountain majesties, ad let's not forget your fruited plain of course.

And the truth is, when you voted Mr Trump as your PResident, everyone down here was happy: finally, jokes are no longer about Italy and Berlusconi, because let's face it, you made fun of us for ages, but wh's making fun of who now? huh?

..and yet, dear friends...

..when your President who is  Covid19 positive feels it's okay to take off his mask in public, I really must ask:

will you have him spit on your face as well?

Just to be clear, I cannot say I don't care. Because while Berluscono in the end is mostly our problem, Trump's influence is a tiny bit larger...

Armed with our weapons, we fight our enemy

 Like a novel samurai, we are warriors, committed to facing with our beautifully carved swords, an enemy that surpasses us not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of weapons.

We are armed with gels, a tissue mask on the face, hope, courage and little else. Well, for most of us, a good wifi connection, Kindle, Amazon Prime and Netflix.

We have all seen on the TV the army's truck loaded with coffins, taking away the dead remains of our loved ones, because there were too many to be dealt with.

The enemy is invisible, the enemy is everywhere, the enemy is among us.

We have tried to barricade, to let the enemy outside siege us. But in the long run, we need to work, so we resigned ourselves to open the gates and go out and fight.

You have to take the tube to go to work, and you have to avoid the enemy, but the enemy is everywhere and the number of trains remained the same.

Some say they might forbid Christmas family reunions, but after what we've seen, we'd rather die at home with our loved ones, than being carried away without bidding adieu, our mortal remains piled in a camouflage truck.

After all, even Samurais did sometimes chose self-disembowelment rather than losing their honor.

After all, we are peasants, not samurai. 

Sometimes

One of the crazy, unimaginable from the outside, impossible things to fully grasp of my work is what happens when you get along really well with a client.

These people have their job, which is stressful enough as it is as it usually consists in making a company work. Then they get through one of the most stressful, incredible (and sometimes successful and fulfilling) period in their professional life: they are involved in the sale of the company, or in purchasing another one. Half of the time (ok, 85% of the time) they are clueless about what they are doing, which is normal, as it's not their usual job.

This is where I come in. When a project works out real well (10% of the times to be honest), I'm the person they call every time they are in doubt, the person who is sitting or standing next to them in the negotiation, the person they call when they don't know what to do, when they need a solution, when they need to spill their stress over to someone.

And sometimes, this creates a very intimate relationship, because these thigs can last months, and you develop something when someone stands with you in your difficult times.

And then projects are over, and suddenly you no longer meet each other.

Sometimes they call me for a while, until they ask me on a date and I suggest breakfast instead and they disappear.

Sometimes they send a token at the end of the project (a book, a gadget) and a card at Christmas.

Sometimes, but only sometimes, they call me every other month or so for a quick chat. It gets awkward over time, because I'm less and less part of their lives. I never was really, I know little of their life outside work. Sometimes the project lasts for years, and it's harder to let go, even for me. Sometimes there is even a new project, and suddenly they realize that when this one will be over, we'll probably never see each other again. And you end up with bleary eyes on both sides, because you'll miss each other.

How can you leave me standing,

alone in a world that's so cold?

Maybe I'm just too demanding,

maybe I'm just like my father

too bold.

Maybe I'm just like my mother,

she's never satisfied.

(When doves cry, Prince)