“That’s an awesome idea,” I said. “I’ll bring mine.”
I did have a pierrade, a stone grill that is plugged in and placed in the center of a table, kind of like a hibachi. Cooking the meats—duck, chicken, and steak—is the responsibility of the guests, and the meal is accompanied by a variety of sauces and vegetables, like potatoes and zucchini.
The local bank gave us points at the end of the year, and Jean-Luc let me pick out something we needed. Thanks to the bank, I’d just received a free panini maker, which when folded down flat served as the grill—my own little pierrade.
“Do you want me to bring dessert too?”
“That would be awesome,” said Monique.
After we hung up, I called Jean-Luc to clear the plan with him. He, of course, had no objections to having dinner with my friends. “What should I make for dessert?” I asked.
“A crumble,” he said, referring to one of my specialties. “Apples, pears, and red fruits.”
“I’m on it.”
Cooking a crumble was easy. Peel the apples. Peel the pears. Chop them up into little squares. Put them in a baking dish. Add in red fruits—raspberries, currants, strawberries, and maybe some blueberries or blackberries (okay, not red, but considered to be part of the group). Making the mixture was sensual. Massaging flour, brown sugar, and butter together until it crumbled. A little cinnamon. A dash or two of rum. And, oh, the scent while it baked in the oven.
We ordered a pizza for the kids and made our way to centre ville. I was excited to finally meet my friends’ other halves. We sat down for the apéro—snacks and drinks—the get-to-know-you session for our men.
Jean-Christophe, JC, as Monique had described, was tall, dark, and handsome. He also had the most adorable space between his two front teeth. Funny and welcoming, it was as if I’d already met him. I now knew why Monique had “claimed” him with “he’s mine” many years ago. Like Jean-Luc, he was personable and funny. He made rum cocktails with freshly squeezed juice.
Philippe, Oksana’s partner, had also brought champagne. A former chief of police in Paris, he was a huissier in Toulouse, a man who upheld the law and made sure people paid their dues. A dashing and charming man, he had dark hair, wore glasses, and spoke with exuberant hand and eyebrow gestures.
Chris, Trupty’s new squeeze, was a sweet, ginger-haired Englishman who had lived in France for fourteen years running a gîte, a bed and breakfast, three hours north of Toulouse in the Aveyron. Although Chris was the quietest out of the bunch—which I suppose was inevitable when you put three boisterous Frenchmen and one soft-spoken Englishman together—he seemed to be enjoying himself. In fact, the men got along so well with one another that we had to play musical chairs and switch seats so the girls could get a word in edgewise—guys on one end of the table, girls on the other. It was nice to see these new connections forming right in front of us.
“Once everybody is back from summer vacations, the next dinner is at my house,” said Oksana.
We all raised our glasses and toasted, making direct eye contact with each person as the glasses clinked. Five out of the eight of us may not have been French, but we’d all been here long enough to know the customs of the land.
Jean-Luc sat me down. “Do you remember when I told you I bought an investment property outside of Paris in Orly with the children’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the renter hasn’t paid in four months. The last check he sent bounced.”
“What do we do?” I asked. “Can we kick him out?”
“No, French laws protect the renters. He has a three-year lease. And the only way to get him out is to start the eviction process.”
“So, let’s do it.”
“I want to be fair. I talked to him earlier. He’s promised to pay. But…”
“Give him one more month,” I said.
A wire for two months of rent came in the next day. Still, the whole situation didn’t feel right.
Although we had everything we needed—friends, a family, a roof over our heads, food on the table, and a car—living in France was expensive (our groceries were at least two hundred euros a week), and although I was writing and picking up the odd freelance design job, I wanted to pitch in more financially.
My mom would call and say, “Why don’t you teach English? Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” And, for the thousandth time, I had to explain that not only did I need to be certified to teach, but the certification process cost over fourteen hundred euros and teaching posts were rare, snapped up by the Brits who already had teaching backgrounds and taught “proper” English.
So when Monique emailed me a job listing for the American Presence Post Toulouse, an arm of the consulate, I was thrilled. It was a marketing and PR position, one I thought I’d be great for, especially since the major duty was building relations between the French and Americans.
Yes! I could do that! Why not? I was already building those skills.
In addition to Claude and Paulette, who treated me like their beloved granddaughter, I’d befriended many of our neighbors, most of them over the age of seventy. Take Monsieur Gregory, for example. One day, I’d noticed M. Gregory working in his yard in his usual uniform of a blue button-down garden coat, green rubber shoes, and black cap. I walked over, smiled, and introduced myself. He invited me into his garden, the prettiest and most manicured in the neighborhood, while telling me—with wild gesturing—about how he was also an immigrant and how his parents had moved to France from Italy during the war. His kind blue eyes sparkling, he loaded up a bag with tomatoes, peppers, and a few eggplants. I made a Tian Provençal that night and a homemade ratatouille, the latter of which I brought over to him and his wife Jeanine.
Pétanque was de rigueur among the men and played in the small park across the street from our house. Not many women joined in on the fun, but Jean-Luc and I played pétanque with Max, and, more than a few times, one of the neighbors, like Mr. Gregory, would race over with their set of steel balls asking if they could join in. Then the games always got serious. I got pretty good at pétanque fast. And, soon, I knew just about everyone in the neighborhood.
I looked at the rest of the job requirements. There were two problems: the deadline to mail in my resumé was that day; and I was supposed to be able to speak and write in French at an advanced level. I decided to go for it anyway. I polished up my resumé and sent it via email, alerting human resources to the fact that I’d only just heard about the position and pleading with them to consider me for it. I also wrote that I wasn’t quite a level four with my French, but I managed. This was a lie. At best, I was at level two.
The following day, a man named Laurent called to schedule an interview. He spoke fast, and I found myself wondering: why in the world, if this job was for the American post, wasn’t he speaking English?
We hung up, and I flew upstairs to my computer, pulled up the job listing, and studied the list of requirements. I looked up all the newspaper companies in our region, the Midi-Pyrénées. I memorized all the local universities and Franco-American organizations. I combed through UNESCO and the American Consulate’s site, printing out document after document.
Overstuffed with information, I crammed the night before my big interview at the consulate. I arrived fifteen minutes early for the rendezvous, expecting to see the American flag hanging somewhere—all stars and stripes and red, white, and blue. There was nothing of the sort, no clue that a post for the American consulate was located in the old building. I checked the address again. Indeed, I was at the right place. I opened the door and headed inside, found the buzzer and rang it. The voice that greeted me was, of course, French. I was told to take the elevator to the second floor.
A security guard asked for my cell phone and any electronics. I handed them over. He placed them in a plastic bag, explaining I’d get them back when the interview was over, then he ushered me through a security scanner, similar to that of an airport. I walked into a wait
ing room, noting how small this office was, and took a seat. A man with brown hair, brown eyes, a five-o’clock shadow, and a blue suit walked in right after me.
“Samantha,” he said, holding his hand out. “It’s nice to meet you.”
I recognized him from the picture I’d found online. I turned my head, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting to meet the consul himself.”
“Only for two more weeks. My replacement starts soon. You’d work with her.” I must have looked confused. After an awkward pause, he continued. “I’ve accepted a post in China. I’m going back to the States to learn Chinese, and then I’m headed for Beijing.”
“Oh,” I said. “How exciting. The wild, wild East.”
“Yeah, it is. Well, I won’t be interviewing you today. Laurent has that particular honor. Good luck with everything today. You’ve got quite an impressive resumé. We were really happy to receive so many qualified candidates this year.”
The consul shot me a two-finger salute before heading into his office, and then my competition entered the room. I said a friendly “Hello,” only to learn the opposition wasn’t so affable, nor were they American. One of the ladies was an angry Frenchwoman, about thirty-two, with a permanent scowl, dark hair, and dark eyes. The other woman was an even angrier Englishwoman who immediately started bitching about everyone and everything. For a minute, I was confident. I did an internal happy dance, maybe the Cabbage Patch and the Lawnmower at the same time. This job would be mine!
Hope faded as Laurent, the interviewer, explained the purpose of the interview, which was a test. We had a little less than two hours to translate two articles—one from French to English and one vice versa. Then, we were to answer two pages of questions in French, one dealing with comprehension, the other with PR. I’d been studying all the wrong things. I should have been brushing up on my grammar skills, my conjugations. Sweat dripped down my back as I attempted the translation from English into French, hoping I wasn’t writing complete and utter nonsense. “Is it hot in here or what?” I asked and fanned my neck with my hand.
The Frenchwoman sniggered. The Englishwoman said, “It would have been bloody nice if they told us this post wasn’t for Bordeaux, but Toulouse. I want them to reimburse me for my train ticket.”
“The job sheet did say the post was for Toulouse,” said the Frenchwoman.
The Englishwoman glared at her. The ladies dropped their heads and went back to their translations. I didn’t understand why the Englishwoman was even bothering. I didn’t know why I was. My pages were a mess of crossed-out phrases, misspellings. My mind was completely blank. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
On the train, I just sat there muttering, cursing myself. The woman seated next to me shifted her body to the side. One bus ride later, and I was home.
Jean-Luc looked up from his paper when I walked in. “How’d it go?”
“Well, I don’t think I’ll be getting that job,” I said, explaining what had gone down.
“At least you tried,” he said.
“Yep,” I said. “At least I tried.”
I had known that this job was out of my realm. But I’d been thinking about other options. And in my spare time I’d been working on it. I ran my idea by Jean-Luc.
“I’m almost finished with that story about us,” I said. “The story about how we got together—”
“Nobody cares about us. Write about your mutant kid,” he said, referring to the middle grade manuscript titled King of the Mutants I’d started writing a few years prior.
“But I think our story is one that needs to be told,” I said. “It’s romantic. There’s something special. I know it.”
“Fine. But you need to kill me off at the end.”
Forget about hope, the French believed all great love stories must come to a tragic ending, or at least be plagued by misery and loss.
“Jean-Luc, I’m writing a memoir, our story. I can’t kill you off. It wouldn’t be the truth.”
“Romance by itself is boring,” he scoffed. “You have to kill me.”
I’d love to say this was an argument, but it wasn’t. It was a debate. And the French love a good debate, regardless of the topic. Politics? Religion? Art? Literature? It’s all game. Come prepared, because they’ll come at you with very compelling ways to win their point. I had to stand strong and not back down.
“Women need hope. I’m not killing you off.”
“You have to.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Kill me.”
“Fine. How do you want to die?”
“A heroic death, one that will make women cry. Maybe you’re pregnant, in the hospital, waiting for me. I’m on my way to see the birth of our daughter or son. And I die, on the road, after trying to save another pregnant woman from a burning car and there’s a big explosion—”
“No. That’s horrible.”
“I suppose you have a better suggestion?”
I choked back my laughter, almost moved to tears. Boy oh boy, did I have a few scenarios for him. “Well, you love scuba and you want to dive with the giant squid off the coast of Oregon, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. So you’re diving in really deep waters with the giant squid—”
“Uh-huh.” By his excited tone, the glint in his eye, I could tell he liked the idea. So far.
“Okay. One of the squids is going to fall in love with you. I don’t know if it’s male or female, but whatever, does it matter? Anyway, the giant squid is going to wrap you in his or her tentacles and drag you down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.”
Silence.
“That’s how you’ll die.”
More silence.
“The squid is going to love you to death.” Jean-Luc’s lips pinched together. I wondered if my humor translated. “Get it?”
“Sam, that isn’t a heroic death. It’s ridiculous.”
Exactly.
“Honey,” I said. “I haven’t been sitting in the house staring at walls and picking up lizard tails. I kind of finished the book. And I’m ready to query agents.” I paused. “So, let’s make a deal. If I don’t get anywhere with my writing career in a few months, I’ll look for a job in advertising. And, in the meantime, I’ll keep freelancing.”
He looked skeptical, but he agreed to my plan.
“Uh, do you mind if I use your letters and emails?” I asked, even though I’d already included them.
“Why would I mind? Those letters are yours.”
I’d titled the book Seven Letters from Paris, and to keep with the theme, I sent out seven query letters each week for three weeks, hoping to get seven full or partial requests. Jackpot. I received a few rejections. Some agents never responded. But I had my number. Seven.
Three months later, I landed a stellar agent at one of New York’s best boutique agencies. I’d never been so excited to receive “a call.” Stephanie was passionate about the story, but told me that I had to go through one or two rounds of revisions with her. But we had time. In fact, the New York Times had just come out with an article bashing memoirs. She wanted to wait until things cooled off. I was fine with that. I had a real live agent, one who loved my story. I jumped into my dreams, no longer just a fantasy in my head. Of course, I shared my news with Jean-Luc.
His response was, “Don’t get too excited. You don’t have a deal until it’s done.”
Leave it to my rocket scientist to ground my pie-in-the-sky fantasies on Earth.
18
DIVING RIGHT IN
Soon, summer was in full swing and our family was taking a longer road trip for Jean-Luc’s biannual scuba diving excursion. We were heading six hours away by car to L’île de Porquerolles—an island off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea near Toulon—home of enormous fish called morue, cod with lips so puffed out they made Angelina Jolie’s look small, but (thankfully) no giant squids that would fall in love with Jean-Luc and drag him down to a watery grave.
Prior to leaving, when our family doctor removed my
stitches from my cycling accident, he informed me that I couldn’t go into the water, which left me feeling supremely disappointed. But at my checkup with Doctor K, a simple appointment to make sure all the “material” from my last miscarriage had cleared, I asked for a second opinion. He gave the go-ahead to swim, but also encouraged us to try getting pregnant again.
“You poor thing,” he said. “Please don’t let all this stop you and Jean-Luc from trying again.” He patted my arm. “It wasn’t anything you did, Samantha. It was just your body’s way of rejecting a baby that wasn’t meant to be. If you want to become pregnant again, you will and you can.” He winked. “I have a good feeling about this.”
“Is one month long enough to stay on the Pill?”
“Usually I recommend two, but you’re free and clear. Everything looks healthy. Just give your body some time to heal. And I don’t see any reason you can’t swim on your trip; salt water will be good for you, but make sure you keep the wound clean and dry afterward.”
Doctor K’s positivity rubbed off on me. I left his office with a smile on my face, but it turned into a frown the following day. My arm itched so badly it felt like ants were swarming underneath my skin. I squeezed the bandage tighter onto the wound, swearing the family doctor had forgotten a few stitches. Once again, I walked the three blocks to his office during the open hours. I showed him the wound, pointed out a little piece of what looked, to me, like fishing line. He told me it was just my skin healing, asked for his twenty-three euros, and sent me on my way.
On an early morning in Hyères, we caught the dive boat with the rest of Jean-Luc’s scuba club, skimming the turquoise waters our way to the Mediterranean paradise that is L’île de Porquerolles, passing sailboats and motorboats, great and small, and the occasional yacht. Warm summer breezes whipped in our hair, and fifteen minutes later, the rugged natural landscape of an island with cliffs dotted with hundreds of umbrella-shaped Aleppo pine trees and sandy beaches came into view.
How to Make a French Family Page 16