In mid-July 2012, the long-awaited third book was released, summing up the modern saga of Kathryn Pancol, which began with "The Yellow Eyes of the Crocodiles" and continued with "The Slow W altz of the Turtles “!
“ The Central Park Chipmunks are sad on Monday” is a magnetic continuation of the story of Josephine, Philip, the Ortans and the other characters that Pankol's devoted audience already knows well. Here, their personal dramas, raptures and vicissitudes arise from a new batch of fateful encounters and circumstances.
Katrin Pancol, one of the most popular contemporary French writers, visited Bulgaria in December 2010 and proved to the public that her vocation is to tell exciting stories, and her novels, written with inimitable ease, empathy and humor, made her success in Bulgaria inevitable. The trilogy, which has sold 6.5 million copies and ends with "The Central Park Chipmunks Are Sad on Mondays", is a well-deserved triumph in the international literary market!
Snippet
Ortance grabbed the champagne bottle and inverted it into the ice bucket. And because the bottle was full, there were strange sounds: glass scraping against metal, crushed ice cubes crunching, bubbling, and finally a swarm of bubbles bursting to the surface, turning into transparent foam.
The waiter, dressed in a white jacket and black bow tie, raised one eyebrow in bewilderment.
– This champagne is disgusting! – muttered Hortens in French and tapped the bottom of the bottle with his thumb and forefinger.
– Just because you don't have the opportunity to offer something branded, doesn't mean you have to offer such a return…
Grab a second bottle and continued in the same vein.
The waiter's face turned scarlet. Stunned, he kept his eyes on the slowly falling liquid level, obviously wondering whether to sound the alarm. He looked around frantically, looking for a witness to the vandalism of the girl who was cursing, turning the bottles upside down. He was sweating and his pimpled forehead was shiny. Another English slob who drools at the sight of fizzy grape juice, Ortans decided, tucking an unruly strand behind his ear. He kept his eyes on her, ready to grab her by the arms and incapacitate her if she decided to continue her destructive activities.
– What are you staring at me for, can I give you a picture?
Tonight she felt compelled to speak in French. Tonight he was burning with the desire to shock, crush someone innocent, and this boy was the perfect victim. There are such people, you want to pinch them to the point of blood, humiliate them, harass them. Unlucky boy, what to do.
– A man can't be that ugly! The pimples on your forehead hurt my eyes. Flashing like a traffic light!
The waiter swallowed, cleared his throat and screamed:
– Tell me, are you always this nasty, or do you go out of your way especially for me?
– Are you French?
– From Montelimar.
– Nougat is bad for your teeth…and your skin for that matter. You better stop cramming or your pimples will burst…
– Poor wretch! What did you get yourself into to be so mean?
Shame, insult. I swallowed a great insult from which I cannot recover! He dared. Under my nose. It's like I'm transparent. He had told me… what he had told me, to see her… and I believed him. I lifted my skirt high and took the hundred meters in less than eight seconds. I turned out to be just as dumb as that pimple-faced nougat halva-faced loser.
– To be so nasty, you must be unhappy… there is no other explanation.
– Okay, enough already Padre Pio, calm down and give me a car.
– May whoever brought you to this state continue to torment you!
– A brilliant psychologist, to top it off! Which ones are you from? From the followers of Lacan or of Freud? I need you to answer me, maybe our conversation will become a little more exciting!
She took the handed glass, raised it as if she were about to raise a toast, and walked away with a dancing gait, mingling with the guests.
But my luck is one too! A Frenchman! Sweaty freak. Dressed appropriately – black pants, white shirt, no jewelry, slicked back hair. They pay him five quid an hour and treat him like a mangy dog. Either he's a student, or he's gotten away from thirty-five hours a week of slogging and come here to make a living. One of the two. Except I don't care at all. But not at all. That kind of thing can't make me drop three hundred euros on ducks! I won't even buy the links!
She slipped, almost fell, managed to steady herself at the last moment, took off her shoe and caught sight of the pink gum stuck to the top of the purple heel of her elegant red crocodile skin shoes.
– That was all that was missing! she exclaimed. – My brand new Dior shoes.
She had starved herself for five days to buy them. And she had drawn a dozen fives for her friend Laura.
Sure, this is not my party, I get it. I'll be home before the words "Queen of Apples" flash across my forehead. By the way, should I remember what he told me? Saturday night going to Sybil Garson's? A big, very big gathering. We can meet there. Her lips curled into a grimace, but she remembered the date and his words. To meet meant to leave together, hand in hand. The proposal was worth considering. She was about to drop out and ask him if he was going alone or with the Plague. She froze for a while - the important thing was to show that Charlotte Bradsbury did not exist for her, to ignore her, to ignore her to the end - but even then she began to consider how she could be among the invited. Sybil Garson - tabloid icon, scion of the highest aristocracy, with innate elegance, with innate arrogance - never invited foreign women, for Frenchmen - forget it, unless their name is Charlotte Gainsbourg, Juliette Binoche or they are in the company of Johnny Depp. I, Hortance Cortés, plebeian, super unknown, poor and above all French, I just don't stand a chance. Unless she slipped into the clothes of the waitress hired for the occasion and grabbed the tray. I'd rather die!
He had said he would see me there. In other words, he obviously meant himself and me, me and him, me, Ortance Cortez, and him, Gary Ward. Which suggested that Miss Bradsbury had gotten lost somewhere along the way, that she was no longer relevant. Miss Charlotte Bradsbury has been given her way, or she has decided to leave herself. What do I care! One thing was certain - the way was cleared. Her turn has come. Hortense Cortez enters the game, the doors to London parties, nightclubs and museums open for her, the Tate Modern gallery, she has a table reserved for her by the window in the Design Museum restaurant, from where there is a dizzying view of the Tower, they await her the weekends at fairy-tale estates, the Queen's sharp-nosed short-legged dogs licking her hand in Windsor, the scone with grape filling, the tea with jam and thick clotted cream to be enjoyed slowly, seated beneath some slightly faded Turner painting, delicately offering the cup tea to your lips… And the English bun is not to be eaten anyway! They have invented a whole ritual: it is cut straight, smeared liberally with cream, held elegantly with the thumb and forefinger. Because otherwise, as Laura says, you'll be whistled right away and let's go to the selandurs.
Infiltrating Sybil Garson, fluttering my eyelashes, snatching Gary and displacing Charlotte Bradsbury. I become important, famous, internationally famous, spoken to respectfully, receive luxuriously engraved invitations, dressed from head to toe, evade the paparazzi and choose my next best friend. I stop being just some French woman who is trembling to make a name for herself, and I take the shortcut and become an Arrogant Englishwoman. For too long I stood in the shadow of the unknown and anonymous little people. I will no longer tolerate them treating me like I'm half-human, wiping their hands on my tits, and walking past me like I'm transparent. I want respect, reverence, I want to be noticed, I want power, power. And power again.
But before she became Arrogant Englishwoman, she had to come up with the magic word that would get her into the private party reserved for the lucky few who graced the pages of the dull English tabloids. It won't be easy, Ortáns Cortes, it won't be easy at all. What if I take down Pete Doherty? And then it's not tied up in a towel… I'd rather try to sneak in undetected at Sybil Garson's.
She had succeeded.
In front of No. 3 Belgravia Square, she had approached two Englishmen engaged in a conversation about the cinema. He followed them, pretending to soak up their every word, slipping into the spacious flat with Canterbury Cathedral ceilings with them, not missing a word of Stephen and Nick's chatter as they discussed Jane Campion's Bright Star. They had seen it at the pre-premiere at the London Film Festival and boasted that they belonged to the select club who could discuss it. To belong or not to belong - this seemed to be the motto of every sophisticated Englishman. You had to 'belong' to one or more clubs, to a family, a school, a family estate, a posh London neighborhood, otherwise it was simply not worth living.
Steven studied cinematography, spoke about Truffaut and Kusturica. He was wearing soaked black jeans, worn faux leather boots, a white long sleeved T-shirt and a black vest with white dots. Every time he nodded his head fiercely and emphatically, his long greasy hair fluttered. His friend Nick, clean and pink, was a pastoral version of Mick Jagger in his youth. And he was nodding his head and scratching his chin. He probably imagined it was aging him tremendously.
She dropped them and went to leave her coat in a spacious room that served as a dressing room. Tossing it on the bed, piled with faux furs, khaki anoraks, black slippers, she straightened her hair in front of the large mirror over the fireplace, humming encouragingly to herself, "You're perfect, honey, you're just flawless." It will bite the line like the miracle goldfish. In the elegant Dior high heels and the little black Alaia dress she picked up at the thrift store on Brick Lane, she looked super sexy and super reserved at the same time. Sexy if I choose, reserved if I choose, she whispered, blowing an air kiss at her reflection in the mirror. I still haven't decided whether to kill him instantly or postpone the execution… We'll see how things go.
Things developed like lightning. Coming out of the makeshift dressing room, he caught a glimpse of Gary arm in arm with the hated Bradsbury, who just then gave a loud gasp, threw back his head, exposing his white chest, and delicately put a hand to his pale lips to quell the sudden burst of joy and avoid any vulgarity.
Gary pressed her against him, caught her by the thin waist, the terribly thin waist. Lowered his dark-haired head to that of the Plague… Ortans, except he didn't remember.
He almost came back to insult the mirror, grab his coat and leave.
But remembering the effort she had gone to to break into this place, she gritted her teeth and headed for the buffet, where she took out the wrath of the cheap champagne and the pimply waiter.
Now what should I do?
To take down the first more or less acceptable man who came her way and chirp while hanging on his arm? A trick used countless times. A threadbare, pathetic and pathetic strategy. If I apply it, Gary will know I've hit rock bottom.
No, no! I'll put on the smug look of a single young lady who can't find the right bachelor because she's aiming too high… I'll smile scornfully, pretend to be surprised if I run into the damn couple, and try to find myself in the crowd a couple of idiots to pretend to be engaged in conversation with before I head home… on the subway.
Mary Dorsey was fit for purpose. She was one of those touchy-feely girls whose only goal in life is to find a man. No matter what, as long as it holds him for more than forty-eight hours. And if he kept it for a whole weekend, he felt on the verge of complete bliss. Usually the boys Mary Dorsey abducted to her flat on the south bank of the Thames were gone long before she knew their names. The last time Ortance had met her at Barrow Market, where Nicholas had wooed her, Mary had whispered to her, 'He's so cute!' Will you give it to me after you've had enough of it? And did you see what a disproportionate torso he has? It's too long!” snapped Ortance. I do not care. Long torso, decent build.
Mary Dorsey was a hopeless case. She had tried everything: meetings with strangers, all kinds of dating parties, on classifieds, with Jews, with Christians, with Labourists, with Tories, with scumbags, with perverts, on the Internet… She was ready for anything, just to not spend an evening alone home and eating chocolate chip cookies while sobbing in the final scene of the melodrama "One Unforgettable Love" when Cary Grant finally realizes that Deborah Kerr is hiding something of him under the big beige blanket. Alone, in a faded tracksuit, in the company of countless crumpled paper handkerchiefs strewn about, Mary sobbed, I want a man to pick up my blanket and carry me away in his arms! And because she had already seen the bottom of whole bowls of ice cream and a bottle of Drambuillet, she added, all sticky and with smudged eye make-up: "There are no more Cary Grants left, no more… real men are dying out," before to roll on the floor and seethe for a long time among the crumpled tissues.
She loved to narrate these pitiful scenes that did not portray her in a good light. He claimed that one had to loathe oneself to the core in order to move forward.
The memory of one such conversation changed the trajectory of Ortans, who was just about to put a hand on Mary Dorsey's shoulder. The girl turned towards some blond, charming, stunning creature.
Agnes Dane. She herself of flesh and blood. That was the girl. The girl with a capital "M". He was about to displace Kate Moss from the catwalk. The face of Burberry, Giorgio Armani, Jean-Paul Gaultier, the girl who sings with the rock band Five O'Clock Heroes and appears on the covers of Vogue, Elle, Grazia. And she was invited, very blonde, very thin, her very blonde and very short hair tied up with a scarf in deep navy blue, with bright red tights and dazzling white sneakers, a short lace fluttering dress and a distressed, worn denim jacket.
Divine!
And who was Agnes Dane talking to, smiling broadly and benevolently, evidently interested, though her eyes darted in all directions, looking for other Lapnisharans? With Stephen and Nick, the two lovers of the seventh art who had served as her entrance ticket.
Ortance hurriedly made his way through the crowd, reached the group and joined the conversation.
The more approachable of the two, Nick, was just talking about how he presented models for Eddie Slimane at Paris Fashion Week. Agnes Dane asked him what he thought of Eddie's collection. Nick stated that his memories of the revue were fading, but on the other hand, he perfectly remembered the chick he fixed up under the stairs of some Parisian bar.
The three laughed, Ortans trying to match their tone. Agnes pulled a marker from her tiny red purse and wrote the name of the bar on her white sneakers. Ortance watched her dumbfounded. She wondered if from a distance it looked like she too was part of the laughing youths, and to dispel any doubt she took a step forward.
