NUMBER FOUR: The Discothèque

First, I'm sitting in Victoria's bathroom, once again in front of Virginie. She and Victoria are insisting that they straighten all the hairs on my head, and why haven't I learned not to fight the Euroflow? "But," I protest, touching my hair nervously, "I have so much volume that when you straighten my hair, it looks silly." I really wouldn't have said this if I didn't know that you can't take the Jew out of the girl (even if her curly hair is from the French side of the family anyway), but Victoria and Virginie still think I'm shitting them. Twenty or thirty minutes later, most of my hair is more or less straight, and the rest is still untouched and curly. They pin it up kind of funny and set to work on my makeup.

I knew well enough not to propose that we keep the layer of makeup kind of light, because whatever I said would make no difference. So I let them put a bunch of crap on my face, including gitter, which I thought only strippers and prepubescent girls wore. Go ahead and put that lipgloss on, I said to myself as Virginie spread a thick layer of the stuff across my mouth. I'm just going to eat it off anyway.

When I got a good look at myself, I was relieved to see that I only look pretty ridiculous. And once I had eaten the gloss off my lips and and rubbed the glitter off onto my fingers, I just looked like a young, easy Jewish bitch. It could be worse.

Next, I am being introduced to Maureen's family (including her brother Thomas, pronounced Tohmah, which is infinitely sexier) at a famous beach resort in Cagnes sur Mer, for Wednesday was Maureen's birthday,and tonight we are celebrating by going to a real French discothèque. Her parents kept offering me food and her grandparents could not have been more tickled to have an American in their midst. Her grandmother, a rather small, round woman with accented French, called me "Mademoiselle Amèricaine" chattered about the Pacific Ocean, hula dancers, the Silicon Valley, and Mexico. My life, basically.

A few hours later, around 11 p.m., we arrived at Maureen's mother's house to change into our disclothes. Her mother's room could have been Maureen's room; it had no door, just a kind of purple transluscent curtain, a computer with a webcam (a little device that is a given on any French computer, all of which are PCs, so they think Macs are fucking NIFTY), stickers, candles, and pictures of a pretty young woman that strongly resembled Maureen. "That's my daughter," Maureen's grandmother said, literally bursting with pride. She had come into the room shirtless. The pictures of Maureen's mother were fantastic, really. It was hard to believe,and a little unsettling too, that her features had shifted and sagged and that the same woman was only a few yards away. A portrait in the hall displayed what was obviously Maureen's grandparents with their three young children, the whole family stunning. There was her grandmother, thin, dark-skinned, classy, smiling through thin lips, and here she was, taking off her white jean capris and revealing rolls of soft old flesh.

And then we waited. At seven past midnight, all the boys in our party had bailed out, and by twenty before one we were finally in the car. I was expecting bright colors and body paint and neon shots of vodka and a lot of techno.

The Pearl sits right on the water in a nearby town called Antibes. The dancefloor is bordered on one side by a dock, upon which sits long, high tables and several bars, and on the other by a pool. It was really more like your average outdoor club than anything else, with a restaurant, slot machines, and gigantic bottles of champagne. Upon entering, we received little cards for one free drink, and the poor, repressed Californian in me flipped out. We could DRINK here! I mean, okay, Maureen's grandmother and mother had both come in with us, as well as Laura's mother (because although Laura, and now Maureen, were eighteen, they hadnt gotten their licenses yet) but whatever!
If we had brought a creative assortment of pills, it probably would have been infinitely better. The dancefloor alternately filled with white smoke, through which you could see nothing, not even your hands, just pulsing white light, pink light. By about 2:30, everyone had used up their free drink and had begun to pay for their next. And their next. And their next. I was not really down to pay 12-14 Euros for a little drink that was more juice than alcohol, so I sat around and watched people start to make out everywhere. A guy across the table from me ashed his cigarette and leaned in to me, said something in French. Dark hair, average looks, young-much less sketch than the men who had stared hungrily at Laura's ass and tried to rub their crotches on Maureen.

Oh wait, let me not get ahead of myself. We were on the dancefloor, right, and out of nowhere, Victoria points at one of the platforms and says "Mika!" which is OF COURSE short for MICHAEL which is OF COURSE short for MICHAEL, THE EX BOYFRIEND. If anyone remembers this girl from last summer, you remember Michael, the boy who scootered his ass to Victoria's house in late December to beg her forgiveness because he played too much PS2 and spent too little time with our little Vicky. Mika, as it turns out, is good fucking looking, and I'll leave it at that.

Back to me and my guy- our conversation was easy and moving along, but before I know it, we are rained upon by teenage girls and a grandmother, who grabs my face and plants a kiss on my cheek. After they left, the first question out of his mouth is of course "How old are you?" Eighteen, right?