Ava Fodor, a slightly plump, frizzy-haired nineteen-year-old American au pair in Paris struggles with being less than perfect. Jean-Michel is Ava's fussy, exacting first French boyfriend whose provincialism drives her up the wall yet who educates he...
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The next few weeks were among the most creative of my life. I was in love. I was in agony. Marceline returned home Monday evening with the news that her grandfather had suffered a stroke and she had to leave immediately to attend to him. Because of her advanced condition, Henri accompanied her, and they both took off for the grandfather's home outside of Paris. After a day, Henri called to say they would be staying on through the weekend as the house there was cooler than our stiflingly hot, un-air-conditioned flat. Blessedly, a week of solitude stretched out ahead of me. I would be alone with my music and my thoughts.
I made the most of it. At the top of my priority list was finding a performing job on my own so I could get out from under Henri's thumb as well as his flat. There was no way I wanted him managing my career. He hadn't known what a reverb unit was, he was about to become a first-time father, and sooner or later Marceline would come across an erotic sketch of me in Henri's office and all hell would break loose. For all of those reasons, Henri and I needed to part ways.
Days, I rehearsed in the mornings then broke for lunch. Every afternoon, I visited different neighborhoods known for nightlife. Pariscope was my guide, Paris's weekly entertainment listings magazine sold at every newsstand. I used the same technique I used back in New York to get a job – wandering into a place, getting the name of the manager or owner, then pretending to be my own agent as I presented head shots and a short recording of the sensational talent I represented: Ava Fodor from New York City.
My headshots were so dramatically retouched that no one associated them with the person who stood before them. I wore my glasses just in case anyone might have made the connection between me and the knock-out blonde with big hair and sharp cheekbones in the photos. No one did.
By late afternoon I'd return home, just as my creative juices began to flow. Other than preparing for my Friday evening gig at The Blue Cactus, I was free to focus on songwriting. Hands down, it was my favorite part of being a musician. The flat was more atmospheric without Henri and Marceline around. I threw open the windows, welcoming in Paris's street sounds for inspiration.
New songs came to me almost fully-formed, like Athena springing out of Zeus's head. The first night of my solitude I wrote Au Bord de la Seine sweet, wistful and as light as a bagatelle – a short, light-hearted piece of classical piano music.
The next night, I composed Find Me – a ballad. Thursday night, I mixed both songs. Then it was Friday, my gig. After observing male restaurant-goers salivate over my headshots in the front window of The Blue Cactus while I slipped by them unnoticed, a hard-edged tune popped into my head, Through Men's Eyes. I put it together after midnight, upon returning home from my unremarkable performance. On Saturday evening, I wrote my opus, Scheherazade. I thought it was at least as good as Madonna's Holiday.
Anyone other than a creative artist would find it hard to believe I could write music so quickly. But artists know too cruelly well that inspiration usually comes all at once or not at all. In my case, I was writing three-and a-half minute pop songs, not three-movement symphonies; verse, chorus - verse, chorus - bridge - verse, chorus - chorus. Et voilà. Done. It was a piece of cake, as Marie Antoinette more or less said.
