The Gorgeous Girls by Marie Wilson Page B

between slender fingers.
    Suddenly, in the midst of her rapture, the woman notices me. Her long flowered skirt flutters in the breeze as she approaches. Speaking in rapid-fire French, too fast for me to understand, she shows me her newfound treasure. Hearing the fuss, Wyatt approaches. In broken English the woman blesses our union, then presses the ring into my hand. She cries and laughs and thanks God again.
    Then she asks for money. The request surprises me, but Wyatt takes it in stride and gives her two euros. She pockets the coins and demands more.
“Non,”
he says.
    â€œOui,”
she counters.
    He tells me to give the ring back. She refuses it, wants us to cross her palm with silver, not fool’s gold. Ah, but we are fools, fools in love, and she knows it.
    Finally we give in. Laughing, we walk away with a shiny, scratched-up 24K “gold” wedding band. Married on a bridge over the Seine by a Parisian gypsy for three euros.
    I came away from the land of silver fairy lights and golden gypsy jewelry deeper and stronger, feeling as fearless as I had before my heart was shattered by what’s-his-name. I had questions, to be sure, a whole new set of questions, a whole new reality facing me, but I was unafraid to take it on.
    The less fear you have in your soul, Paris whispered to me, the more room there is for
l’amour.
But what is that? It’s the way van Gogh painted irises, and it’s a kiss in the Parisian rain. It’s a blackbird on a chimney singing sweetly in the morning, and it’s your lover bringing you Rhum Baba from the Rue Mouffetard as you lounge in bed.
    And it’s an understanding of life and all its players that reaches the depth of your soul. Suddenly, plunging into those depths, you feel as light as a fairy wing, ancient in understanding, born anew into love, a scarlet scarf blowing in the breeze.

EPILOGUE
    Outspoken by whom?
    â€”Dorothy Parker

    Despite Rose and Wanda’s insistence that Con and Tyler name their baby Mrs. Parker, they didn’t. The proud parents christened their gorgeous babe Neo, and decided not to reveal the gender. Not yet, anyway—not for as long as they can hold their tongues.
    In their congratulatory card, Rose and Wanda paraphrased their patron saint: “Good work, Con. We knew you had it in you.”
    Two months later, the girls met at The Only Café, where they toasted Dot with a quote from her good friend Alexander Woolcott: “So odd a blend of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth. It is not so much the familiar phenomenon of a hand of steel in a velvet glove as a lacy sleeve with a bottle of vitriol concealed in its folds.”
    Between frothy slurps of her Brandy Alexander, Rose observed, “Anyone who’d bequeath her entire estate to Martin Luther King Jr. and the NAACP had more than vitriol up her sleeve.” She offered her glass up once more. “To Dorothy Parker, the original Gorgeous Girl!”

    fin

About the Author
    Marie Wilson was born in Vancouver, where she attended the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. As a regular contributor to Toronto’s
NOW
magazine, she wrote a record number of articles for their Naked City feature. She has written for
The Globe and Mail
,
Fireweed
,
Urban Graffiti
, and
Burning Ambitions
, and she is also the author of the popular blog Vargas Speaks. She lives in Toronto.

Copyright

    The Gorgeous Girls

Copyright © 2013 by Marie Wilson.
All rights reserved.

    Published by Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

    First edition

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