Billie Read Free

one more time.
    Despite us.
    Despite me, especially.
    Yes. Since I wasn’t infalliable…infalloble… Oh, fine, since everything was my fault, it was up to me to keep talking her pointy ears off so she would reactivate the hotline.
    The others, they were beautiful too, but I really didn’t give a fuck about them—sorry, I mean, I couldn’t care less about them—while as for her, if I put all my heart and soul into describing the situation, I was sure she would soften up again.

 
    I think I found her.
    I think it was that one there, all the way up in the air, hovering above my fingertip, say, and billions of years away.
    So little, so cute, like a teensy Swarovski crystal, and slightly misaligned in the sky.
    Slightly set back from the herd . . .
    Â 
    Yes, she was the one. XXS, solitary and wary, but giving it all she had. The one who was twinkling with all her might. Who was too happy to be there. Who loved to sing and who knew all the lyrics by heart.
    Who was sparkling beautifully in the night.
    Who would be the first to bed and the first to wake up. Who was going to be out every night. Who had been partying for trillions of years and who always had that much flair.
    Hey, was I wrong?
    Hey, was it you?
    Oh, excuse my bad manners. Was it you,
Mademoiselle?
    Â 
    Hey . . . can I talk to you for a minute?
    Can I tell you again who we are, Franck and me, so you will love us this time for eternity?
    Â 
    I took her silence for a sigh of resignation, as in, hey, you’re wearing me out, you losers; but fine . . . you’re lucky, it’s a slow dance and I don’t have a date. So go ahead, I’m listening. Sell me on your story quickly so I can go back to munching my Milky Way.
    Â 
    I sought Franck’s hand, squeezed it with all my might, and took a minute to get us in order.
    Yes, I got us all spruced up, all polished and combed, in order to show you our best side, and after that I launched into our story.
    Â 
    Like Buzz Lightyear.
    To infinity and beyond . . .

 
    H is name is Franck because his mother and grandmother adored the singer Frank Alamo (
Biche, oh ma biche
,
Da doo ron ron
,
Allô Maillot 38-37
,
 
and all that. Yes, there really are songs with those titles) and my name is Billie because my mother was crazy about Michael Jackson (
Billie Jean is not my lover / She’s just a girl
,
 
et cetera).
    In other words, we didn’t start out in life with the same namesake and we weren’t necessarily destined to hang out together one day.
    His mom and his grandma took such great care of him when he was little that to show his appreciation he bought them a Return of the Yéyés CD, tickets to Frank Alamo’s Yéyé revival concert as well as to a musical, a Blu-ray DVD, and even the cruise that went with all that.
    And when Dadooron Frank kicked the bucket, Franck asked for a day off, went looking for them on the train to the funeral, moved them up to first class, and accompanied them to the front of I don’t remember what church.
    All that so he could support them in their grief as they hummed Alamo’s
Sur un dernier signe de la main
while his coffin was being loaded into the hearse . . .
    Â 
    As for my story, I don’t know if my mother had other kids after me whom she called Bad or Thriller nor if she cried when Bambi disappeared into the void since she took off when I was a year old. (I have to admit I was quite a pain in the ass . . . ) (That’s what my father told me one day: “Your mother took off because you were too much of a pain in the ass. It’s true, you did nothing but bawl all the time . . . ”) (Hey, I don’t know how many shrinks it would take to get over such an explanation, but loads of them, if you want my opinion!)
    Yes, one morning, she left and we never heard from her again.
    My stepmother never liked my first name. She said it sounded like a