Employment

I don’t do idle well. Plus, living in St. Tropez is not cheap. I needed a job.

On one of the trips to L’Esquinade, the all-powerful Edna suggested I work at the new shop that’s blossomed on the beach beside the restaurant. The man who runs it is very nice and apparently a friend of the family. I went to see him.

“It’s 20€ an hour,” he said.

‘Not bad,’ I thought.

“You must come every day, around lunch.”

Kind of a pain, but sure – I’d do it.

“What size are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your size,” he said in English, thinking I hadn’t understood his question in French. But it wasn’t the French that concerned me.

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Sell the bathing suits and stuff.”

I had figured as much – that he needed me to cover during his lunch breaks. But I still didn’t see what my size had anything to do with it.

“Yes, you walk around the beach, up and down, for an hour or so, and you sell the suits.”

Dear God. I remember being a child and watching the models sell the suits on the beach. They’d walk around looking sexy as hell and when a patron saw a suit she wanted, the model stripped down to her tiny thong and gave the patron the suit right off her body. These were stick-thin and perfectly fit dark skinned women who could get anything with a wink and a smile. I immediately saw myself stripping in the middle of L’Esquinade to reveal my tan lines (very un-French) and prance back to the shop in a little thong, all my womanly curves hanging everywhere.

“Really? Are you sure you want me to do that?”

“Well yes, of course.”

“I’m not exactly small.”

“It’s fine.”

Shit. Really? “I’ll have to see,” I said. “I will not be at the house all summer, and I don’t have a car, so I don’t know if I can come every day.” It felt better than saying no. After all, 20€ to 30€ a day to hang out on the beach and try on bathing suits didn’t seem so bad.

I immediately reported back to the family that he wanted me to be a model. They laughed.

So I was incredibly relieved when my friend in Cogolin called to say he had a job for me for 750€ a week.

“Doing what?” I’d learned my lesson by now.

“Folding T-shirts and other little bits and pieces.”

Hell, I can do that.