we all know and love our friends who are not only outright members of the aristocracy, but generous too boot. royal or not, they have luscious offerings like empty beach houses (please feel free to use the house in sag harbor while we're down in st. bart's - such a shame to have it go empty) and seasons tickets to the met or even the mets. R&S recount just one such friend who's real estate holdings include the perfect top floor apartment in the rue du bac. rarely used and always available to r&s, it's owner is a fashion designer of some note. so, this free place to stay for a romantic week in paris also comes with a closet full of clothes and a twice weekly housekeeper. Just perfect.
r&s go for a week of biking and strolling around gay paris, enjoying pain au chocolat, fine wine, art and food. tuesdays and thursdays (that's mardi and jeudi in case you aren't up on your francais) they return home for the requisite nap before dinner to find the house clean. I am not sure but it's likely that the femme de menage even left the loo paper with that nice little folded triangle so that you would know she'd been there.
so rather than feeling the need to scurry around in the afternoons straightening up the place (even though the owner is a continent or two away, one never wants to risk the femme de menage giving a bad report (oh, madame, the guests, they were horrible, degolas!) r in particular felt comfortable checking out the clothes in the closets. she and her absentee hostess were long time friends and since r conveniently wears the same size, some trying on was in order. one pair of jeans was just so and r came out modelling them for s. s, an art historican specializing in design, demurred that they were nice and so they because a go to for the trip. when in paris, after all, even the most put together american can feel so frumpy. how do they wrap their sweaters around their necks so that they are both completely flat and twisted without looking lumpy or giving a hunch back? Try as i might it just never works the same way. and I am not even going to get in to the discussion of scarves and scarf tying or belts.
one afternoon after a lovely stroll through in the marais, r&s returned to the rue du bac to find the femme de manage gracefully wiping down the marble top counters. trust me, if i could import her to train up carmen a bit, I would. r, naturally was wearing the jeans and had a momentary panic that madame femme de menage would relay the purloined pants episode to the hostess. and the panic came true. femme de m approached r in a vigorous pantomime, pointing at the jeans. had their been a lazy french fly going by, it might have gone right in to r's mouth.
again, femme de m pointed at the jeans, and then just as vigorously, pointed at her self. repeat. and again.
you see,the just so jeans actually belonged to the femme de menage.
and this is why we all need to move to paris. the land where even the cleaning ladies know how to dress, no less clean.
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