What happened to Nadine
She arrived in Paris, it felt like spring, it was wet but warm. It was alien but it was where she wanted to be, away from the world she knew. The strangeness of the the place seemed to match the strangeness of herself. She was once the definition of plain, something which she cultivated, there was purpose behind it, to be modest, not flashy was what she saw as best and where she felt most comfortable. In a day that had been replaced, inverted, switched out, erased and in that place was a new thing. It was like a worm in her brain, a desire, an itch, to those things she had once shunned for herself. By now she had gotten used to halter tops, to feeling pride in her appearance, to waking that little bit earlier to do her hair and make up, to matching outfits, to heels, to the looks of boys, and to looking back. All of this felt wrong, but less wrong than doing the opposite, she couldn't bear the thought of going out in public without looking her best, she could find the attention of guys to be annoying but she hated to be ignored by them, mirrors were now a constant companion because without them she didn't know if she looked ok, all of this was new.
So it too was with her new surroundings, everything, the people, the customs, the language, the weather, the cars and the trains. The shoppes took different money, the restaurants served different food, the theaters showed different movies, and the women wore different cloths. The old her wouldn't have noticed but the new her was intrigued, she found herself constantly drawn to shops, to runway shows, to people watching. She spent the early part of her days learning French, but being surrounded by the language was supposed to be her main teacher, though she seemed to be a poor student, struggling to make herself understood. It was in her second week that she made her first friend, a girl who noticed her staring at the swirls of her dress as she walked in the town square. The girl asked her in french what was wrong with her, and Nadine answered in broken french, a stammer of something that sounded like "your dress". The girl was flattered, and complimented Nadine's attire as well, which Nadine took as high praise and blushed. This became a conversation, which became coffee, which became a friendship over the following week. The french girl was Nadine's entrance into the world of high fashion, to culture, to a whole world which fascinated all the new parts of Nadine. It was through this girl that Nadine began to truly shed the old her and embrace the new her, the first time she felt sexy, the first time she went out to a club to dance, the first time she initiated flirting with a boy instead of the other way around. By 5 weeks in it was as if all taboo had been replaced with freedom and fearlessness, and Nadine felt capable of anything, no longer seeing the change in herself as a bad thing, but as essential to who she was. She let her hair grow out, and wore it down or in what style fit what she wore, never boring, she liked being exciting and strove for that in all parts of her life, guided by a french maid with a wild heart. Few things were off the table, less if they had been drinking, Nadine had found herself a fan of wine, justified by the lower drinking age and the wine then justified all sorts of wild behavior.
Late in the summer Nadine was hung over, wild oats had soured in her belly, she wandered the streets, alone looking for what hit her and stumbled into a building hoping for a near by bathroom. But this was Europe, peppered with churches, and this was one of those small empty forgotten places, once a temple of meaning, now a warehouse of forgotten art. It took Nadine's addled mind time to recognize where she was, and the recognition brought with it a rush of shame akin to falling from a plane. The sight of her debauched self in the reflection of holy water forced on her reflection of her sins and how far she had fallen. She wept on the church floor, alone and surrounded by era upon era of art depicting the fall of man, the life of christ, the war in heaven, death and resurrection, faith and doubt, brokenness and healing. She begged God for forgiveness to a silence, and then begged to be freed from the bonds of whatever held her. Then a light came into the room, the shrine of St. Agnes of Paris glowed warmly, then shined into Nadine like a laser. Nadine felt sick as forces within her battled for control. In her mind she could hear a version of herself battle with a 14th century french saint, pain wracked her head as she lay on the ground passing between nightmare and dreaded awakness. Till finally she awoke, walked out of the church, called a taxi in perfect french and made plans to join her mates in Hawaii. She cut her own hair but did not say goodbye when she left. She was not the same after that.
