Excited? Of course I was excited. I was as excited as a poodle getting its ass shaved for the first time. I felt like frigging royalty! Cannes? Are you kidding? It was like asking a rancorous backwaters dimwit to become president of the United Sta… (oh, sorry, wasn’t thinking…). Yes, I could feel it. After years of joyless dot dot dots and maybe a few semi-colons in my life, I was finally getting to see some girlish exclamation marks again. It felt magnificent. Exquisite. Me, I thought. Hell! Me! Something’s happening to me at last!

I told everyone of course. Heck, I kept repeating the news even to myself hoping it would eventually penetrate my thick skull like a mallet thrashing through drywall. Then I asked myself. Little dowdy malformed moi? Going to Cannes? Could it be? But yes, said Claudie. My dear, alcoholic, horse-haired, toothy Claudie who was the only one in Paris that ever hired me. Of course darling, she said. You’ll be getting your contract soon. And your ticket. And oh, you don’t have any specific preferences for your room do you?

My room? Preferences?
I was caught off-guard. Beggars like me didn’t often get to be choosers, so I didn’t know what to say.

Well uh, I guess no ground floors, I said. Because I am allergic to cats. And and…
But that was it.

And then I saw it. The contract. It arrived in the mail like Ulysses knocking on Calypso’s door. It was so heavy with money I wanted to frame it. Yes indeed. Alarming sums of money were being promised me for staying where we would stay (there was a brochure showing sea views and a Dynasty-style swimming pool) and working for a small and tentative list of superstars.

But the list was disappointing. Mostly men (and I'll explain later why that was a drawback), and only a few of them bone-wrenchingly famous. Only Andy Barfia and the lead singer of former 1980’s band Yurin Yurin who was now composing hit songs in Japan. And one woman I’d never heard of: some young Mexican actress called Hellma Slyek. But that was it. I mean sure, they said most of the guests would be added on later, but I couldn’t show off with this! This was disgustingly meager pickings.

Still, I felt pretty confident. Paris Plus would definitely get us some top guests once we were there. You bet. Paris Plus was the hottest channel on French television. They were even making forays into global TV now and yours truly was carving out a nice little niche for herself with Paris Plus. Yes sir. You see, I worked from French into English. While Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl worked from English into French. In other words, my French colleagues interpreted what the superstars said into French for the French audience and so were heard on TV. While I interpreted what the French interviewer asked the superstars and was heard only by the superstars through a little tiny earpiece.

The advantage was, I got to introduce myself to said superstars and whisper sweet interpretings into their well-groomed ears. The disadvantage was I never got heard by anybody in the real world and nobody knew who the hell I was. BUT because it was all live and no superstar could be seen waiting months for a question to be translated, I had to work fast. I mean fast. Very fast. And right there lay the core of my appeal to TV recruiters. Why I was going to Cannes instead of my poisonously pretentious fatuous colleagues. Why I was considered to be one of the most hirable of interpreters for television, especially when it came to working for mega-super-hyper stars like those who came to Cannes.

I was fast. Incredibly fast. I could finish interpreting a question even before the interviewer was done. So when I worked, all the stars were happy. From pop stars Steven Smyler and the material babe, LaDonna to the impossible-to-please Whortney Shove. Yes sir. They were all happy. Because for a change, they didn't have to feel or look as stupid as they feared they were. I was a champion in my newfound field. A veritable Rhodes, an Appleseed or any number of those world-exploring native-killing pioneers. This was because I took shortcuts and had learned to read the brazenly dull, unoriginal minds of most talkshow hosts. And because I was just plain brilliant. Either way, I had already acquired something of a reputation. The fastest draw in the biz, they called me at Paris Plus. Ze Billy ze Kid of ze microphone.

Still (and this is where I explain why men guests were a disappointment), with no women on the list, yours truly would remain a hidden genius. Since I wasn't French, the honor of doing the French voice would never be bestowed upon me in Paris. In Cannes however, if there were women guests, I would have to do them into French since hiring another woman there would be impossible. SO the only exception to me doing the English voice was if there were women guests on the show in Cannes. That way I could prove myself to the milling hordes. That way I could be heard on live television. That way I could conquer that vast lame-brained, celebrity-worshipping polity they called les téléspectateurs. Heck, even my colleagues would know how good I was.

Because that was still important you see. Yes, even now, my well-heeled ministerial colleagues looked down on me. Being fast while you interpreted celebritous inanities was not the greatest of linguistic achievements for an interpreter. And I knew it. But for once, I didn’t give a shit. We were being paid sheer granaries of cash to do this for pete's sake. And we were going to Cannes. And we were staying at a fabulous place (according to those brochures I got). And meeting superstars and getting subsidized meals at the famous restaurant of the Dominguez which was the super-luxurious hotel where Paris Plus would be based. So what the hell did I have to complain about?