In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

"I liked it better before."
"Merci, I agree, you need perfection of zee bone structure to
carry zat look. I don't know what has gotten into her head zeez days."
She rolled her eyes and smeared some goop on her gnarled finger, then
wrapped her finger around the clump, blow dried it and let go one
perfect corkscrew curl.
"Voilà mademoiselle, and sink about zuh ears. Madame
Tivoglio says young ladies should never have zuh ears unadorned, nut
even as zey slumber!"
"Thank you, Madame d'Oc, it's, um, très avant garde." She
smiled her biggest, friendliest smile so the coiffeuse wouldn't think she
was an ungrateful brat.
"Mademoiselle deserves nussing less. When you go to receive
your Prix Nobel I hope it will be my honor to do your coiffure.”
In the lounge, Alessandro was reclining on a black leather
chaise, watching the catwalk on the screen through the integrated
goggles of his latex oxygen mask.
As soon as they were out from under the striped awning into
the Place Vendôme, Penny shouted, "Fresh Air!"
"I should have offered you the oxygen, I am such an egoist."
"Hey, no way was I gonna I put that thing on! Whole
experience was too freaky."
"You look so pretty this way." He fiddled with the little curl.
"It's not much different than the four dollar job I get on Mott
Street, but she did it all with scissors. Thanks, I really needed a haircut,
by now my head is cold and look, those black clouds are closing in."
Luckily a taxi station was right there with an idling cab, so they
got in just as the sky opened up again. Looking out the window at the
Eiffel tower against the gray sky, with its tiny orange elevators crawling
up and down the sides like aphids on a branch, Alessandro said,
"Madame d'Oc, as you have probably guessed, is transsexual, one of the
first and a medical pioneer. Her operations were only partially
successful, but after many years of living as a woman in a man's body,
inhabiting a female body, even an inferior one was preferable than
living a lie. During the war she was a famous transvestite cabaret singer
and even fooled Hitler's troupes when she was a spy for the Résistance.
Madame is the one who told mama that Gelino would never be a
'normal' boy."
"Yikes. Tranny granny. So, how did your mom take the news?
"They sent us to the Jesuits to make us into normal boys."
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