Episode 6:
I finally had a chance to get Odile, Jai-Pi's girlfriend, alone in
conversation - we were walking along the Croisette and Jai-Pi ran
into a copain, stepped aside for an animated mini-conference.
The French can be so emphatic, it's starting to get on my nerves.
She's quite pretty and so to start the conversation I asked her if
she wanted to be an actress. "Oh, mon dieu, certainly not!
Those people, they spend their whole life pretending to be someone
else and then they forget who they actually are. I 've already
forgotten who I am so I don't need to do that!"
I asked her about Jai-Pi. "I'm just a little nothing of a girl from
Antibes, I don't know anyone and don't do anything. He blew in like
the mistral and swept me away. Well, I know he's quite
conceited, but so are all French men, so what's a poor French girl to
do? He has problems with reality too. It's like a game to him, you
have to win. If facts get the upper hand then you're the loser."
I asked her what life was like growing up on the Riviera. "Hopeless.
The people here don't look beyond their nose. The boys run up and
down the croisette on their motorcycles. The girls don't have an
idea. Nothing at all happens for eleven and a half months of the
year. Then the Festival comes, and makes it all look exciting. But
it's as foreign as a visit from spacemen."
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