Thursday, August 13, 2009

Eloise Retold



Once upon a yesterday, there was a young lady named Eloise. She lived in the heart of New York City inside of the Plaza Hotel with her Nanny and dog Weenie. When she was little, she was a blonde sprite who wrecked mischievous havoc on the elevators and in the downstairs dining rooms.

Now she was a little bit older and the only parts of herself she felt had changed were her newly brunette hair shade and the trading up of old Mary Janes for Christian Louboutins.

"Oh Nanny you mustn't check up on me tonight." Eloise insisted on her cordless phone, "I am, what is the word?, too ma-TOUR to get into any trouble."

Had Nanny been able to see her on the other end, she would have caught Eloise's crossed fingers.




Nanny graciously agreed to let Eloise spend the evening alone in her room at the plaza and Eloise rushed in a flurry to her mother's closet where she tried on every set of Jackie O styled gloves and diamond necklaces in the jewelry box.

She cranked up her stereo and played The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" as loudly as she could and skipped back and forth in front of the mirror.

"Dah-ling, shall we sip on a spot of gin and tonic this evening?" She had a marvelous natural British accent. She began chewing on the diamond necklace out of old habit. It was tastier than a piece of hair.

Eloise glanced down and gasped, "Weenie!"

She leaned over and pried free from Weenie's mouth a magazine photo of her favorite male crush, Ralph Fiennes. "You must NEV-AH chew on my fu-tour husband!"

Her gloved fingers smoothed the picture out and put it back up on her mirror where it belonged.




Eloise did the Charleston the whole way to the bathroom and stripped down to her skivvies to get ready. For what, she was never sure. Surely there was always something positively madcap happening in all corners of the world and even though she had never left the cozy confines of the plaza, she knew where she lived was madness unto itself.

Eloise cranked up the hair dryer and spun in circles precariously close to the wet sink. "Eeep!" she cried out and ran backwards pulling her hair dryer with her. The cord flew out of the socket and landed in the wet bathtub where Eloise "Eeeped!" again and threw the entire thing into the tub.

The lights flickered once and shut out. She could hear the neighbors up above her crying out in confusion. They must have lost power too!

"Never fear!" Eloise cried out as loudly as she could, "I will find the power!"

Weenie whimpered softly in the adjoining front room.




After a quick change into her school uniform (what? you didn't think she would traipse about the Plaza in the garters and petticoat did you? Silly readers!), Eloise took a hold of her trusty bike and headed out in search of power.

This search proved to be harder than expected. The first and foremost problem was that the bike had mysteriously shrunk over the years. It was simply too small to speedily assist anyone on!

"Perhaps Nanny slipped me some of those Alice in Wonderland grow bigger cookies." Eloise mused as she headed downstairs to the concierge.

Second and lastly of all, Eloise felt peculiar about not creating mischief. It was what she did best after all! So Eloise and the bike abandoned the idea of assistance (the Plaza always did the best to care for their residents) and went downstairs to the cocktail lounge.

"I get no kick out of champagne!" The Frank Sinatra impersonator crooned into the microphone. Eloise sat down next to a well dressed chap and clapped excitedly along with the other patrons. Golden Hollywood night was her very favorite at the Plaza!

"Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all!" The Ol Blue Eyes lookalike continued, tipping his hat in Eloise's direction.

She clapped happily, "Me neither!"

The chap next to her smiled a brilliant ear to ear grin at her, "My dear, what does thrill you?"

"Oh you know. Lipstick. Pretty white shoes. Dancing to the classics." Eloise waggled her eyebrows.




Back in her bedroom, Eloise happily kicked her feet back and forth, blissfully admiring her lovely white shoes and reapplying her lovely red lipstick that the chap had given her.

"My name is Rupert." He said and spun her out on the dance floor. Eloise closed her eyes and pretended that they really could fly to the moon.

Now that she back in her now-electricity lit room, Eloise felt content from the fun. There hadn't been any mischief but that was okay. So long as it was she and Weenie at the Plaza forever.

"Eloise my dear, I've got the water balloons ready!" Rupert cried out from the other room.

Well, almost no mischief.


Love to you all,
Heather

2 comments:

Rene said...

I love this!

Rene said...
This comment has been removed by the author.