How to Make a French Family

by Samantha Vérant

  From then on, I had nothing to do but wait. So, while I was waiting, I decided to revise my middle-grade novel, King of the Mutants, the story about a sideshow attraction on the search for his roots and his identity. I believed in this work too. Like my memoir, it held a piece of my heart. And, in a funny way, I related to the main character, Maverick. All those alienating experiences I’d had when I first moved to France helped me to shape the story.

  After a year of lessons in the pool with a drill sergeant (Jean-Luc) as my instructor, I was ready for my level one scuba certification. Over the winter, I’d tackled my fear of skiing and was now doing blue runs with the family. If I could conquer a mountain, certainly, a little water wouldn’t hurt me. But when we loaded up the car for Cap d’Agde on the Mediterranean coast, I was expecting calm waters, warm weather, and an underwater adventure, not a Navy Seal exercise.

  The first dive was brutal. Swimming fifteen feet to the buoy took great effort and, thanks to the twenty-pound lead baby, otherwise known as the air bottle, strapped to my back, I was completely winded. The water was freezing, and I wore a surf shorty under my seven-millimeter wet suit. And I was still cold. A spark of panic set in as the waves tossed me around like a shark torturing a baby seal before he ate it. I tried to swim and grip a rope hanging off the side of the boat, thinking, I can’t breathe. I’m going to die. What am I doing? This is supposed to be fun; it isn’t. It’s torture! Kill me now!

  But I wasn’t going to let fear hold me back. Not this time.

  Families that play together…stay together. Think positive thoughts. Such as a dream trip to the Seychelles or the Maldives.

  This time I knew what to do. I took slow, purposeful breaths to calm my nerves before the descent. We performed all level-one tasks—removing our masks, motioning for a loss of air and supplying another diver with the “octopus” (spare regulator), checking air levels, and stability exercises, the most important being the ascent. The first dive lasted about twenty-five minutes. I wasn’t wearing gloves; my hands were blocks of ice. Apparently, I was a masochist. But, after three more dives, one of which had zero visibility and required us to use a string to guide us, I was a masochist who was now level one certified.

  I faced my fears, and through diving I finally learned how to breathe.

  27

  LIFE IS A BOWL OF CHERRIES, EVEN WHEN THERE ARE PITS

  Wonderful things were happening at every turn, but bad news hits you when you least expect it. Jean-Luc’s mother passed on to the other side, dying peacefully in her sleep. This time our trip to La Ciotat was somber, filled with tears, not laughter and revelry. Then, the renter in the Paris apartment completely vanished, never returning one of Jean-Luc’s calls.

  “You have to evict him. We can’t take this. We can’t support him. Honey, you should call Philippe,” I suggested to Jean-Luc. “He’s a huissier.”

  “Can you get me his number?”

  Done.

  What we found out from Philippe wasn’t good. Unfortunately, in accordance with French law, you couldn’t boot someone out during the winter months (October to April). If the deadbeat renter didn’t leave willingly come April or before then, it could take up to three years to get rid of him. All Jean-Luc wanted to do was sell the place, but his hands were tied. We couldn’t change the locks and put the renter’s belongings in storage. If we had done that, Jean-Luc would get a thirty-thousand-euro fine and face time in prison. When it came to real estate in France, the laws in France protected the renters, not the owners. There have been horror stories about professional squatters—people who take over your house when you were on vacation. If you didn’t have an alarm system, or if there was no sign of a break-in, all these squatters had to do was send mail to themselves at your address or change the utilities to their name—and voilà—you’d have to start the eviction process, which, again, could take years. It was nuts.

  Jean-Luc had never wanted to purchase the apartment in the first place; he’d been pressured into it when he was with Frédérique. It was supposed to be a nest egg. But it wasn’t. It was a constant nightmare.

  Jean-Luc started the process to evict the renter. And we lost more money, hiring a huissier in Orly. The trial was set for November. Which meant the renter didn’t have to leave until April, if he left at all. We held our breath, hoping everything would work out. For now, there was nothing more we could do, save for losing nine hundred euro a month.

  The pressure was on, simmering like a pot-au-feu.

  On April 22, I decided that the rules of publishing weren’t working for me. A few months prior, the agent who had the exclusive look at the manuscript declined representation. Through referrals from Jay, I’d tried three or four more agents. They all came back with rejections, hesitant to take on a book—even though rewritten from the ground up—that had already been shopped, although very lightly.

  But I was a fighter. I wouldn’t give up, not when I’d worked so hard and had come this far.

  So I decided to break the rules. Did I really need an agent? Of course, self-publishing was an option, but I wanted the guidance from a traditional publisher. That’s when I found Sourcebooks. They accepted unsolicited manuscripts from unagented authors. And, the more research I did on them, namely the Paris–based memoirs they’d put out, the more I believed I’d found the perfect home for my memoir. I popped open a bottle of wine. And, nervous as hell, I sent off my book proposal and a query letter. Then, I crossed my fingers. According to their site, I wouldn’t hear back from them for six to eight weeks. Until then, my book would rest in what was called the slush pile.

  While I was in fighting-for-my-writing mode, I also sent a query off for King of the Mutants, my middle grade, to an up-and-coming independent publisher. One week later, I had an offer of publication. I realized I could write. I had a voice. And it was time for people to hear it.

  In the beginning of June, it had been more than six weeks and I hadn’t heard back from Sourcebooks. I figured they weren’t interested. So I decided to break more publishing rules, contacting three editors at the big houses who had seen the first draft of Seven Letters and had given very positive feedback along with their rejections. It was a risk. But I was a risk-taker now. And, as they say, no risk, no reward. I figured, I wasn’t actually sending out an “unsolicited query.” These editors had all seen the manuscript before. My letter was sweet and polite. I reintroduced them to the book, explaining I’d left my agent and had hired an editor to help me structure it better. Two of them got back to me immediately. They remembered my story and they were anxious to see it again.

  And then Murphy’s law threw me for a loop. I woke up to an email from Anna, an editor for Sourcebooks, alerting me to the fact that she loved my book proposal and sample chapters. Could I send her the full manuscript? Three days later, she sent me another email to schedule “the call.” We talked about the book and the changes she wanted to make to it. Did I agree with her suggestions? You bet I did. Plus, she was so sweet and kind and passionate about the story. She also told me that in three years she had never made an offer for a book she’d found in the slush pile. When she made the offer for publication, I was quick to say yes. I’d found another member of “Team Seabiscuit.”

  My squees could be heard to my former home in California.

  It did put me in a slightly awkward situation, as I had to contact the two editors who had requested the manuscript, plus the third who hadn’t responded yet, letting them know Seven Letters from Paris had received an offer…and that, after much thought, I’d decided to take it, because it truly was the right home for the book. All three responded with hearty congratulations. And, thankfully, the two editors who had the manuscript in their hands hadn’t started reading yet.

  I was doing a happy dance in the kitchen when Max came downstairs. “You sold your book?”

  I nodded, smiled, and took a sip of wine.

  “Don’t forget. I get two hundred euro.”

  I grimaced. I’d forgotten ab
out the contract he had me sign. Smart kid. And note to self: never sign contracts when you’ve been drinking wine.

  A few days later, Anna sent me the final contract. I looked at the proposed publication date of October 2014. That was the same month my middle-grade novel was going to be released. So, yes, I had a romantic memoir and a book about a boy who was part alligator on the search for his identity coming out at the same time.

  All of a sudden, spring turned into summer, and our garden was in full bloom, the cherry tree dotted with plump red fruits. It was clafoutis time.

  The kids and I gathered the cherries so that Jean-Luc could make his famed dessert. As he poured the batter into the baking pan, Jean-Luc insisted that you couldn’t seed the cherries or it ruined the taste. I wasn’t going to argue with my Frenchman. We spit the seeds out. Classy. Adding to the spirit of revelry, when I was dropping off my dossier to renew my carte de séjour, I found out that after three years of marriage I now qualified for a ten-year card. If approved, I didn’t have to go to the préfecture every year, submitting my dossier filled with all the same paperwork months in advance. I came home, filled with excitement—happy-dance crazy. I wanted to share my good news.

  Jean-Luc was hacking away at my favorite rosebush, the one climbing up the back of our town house. Apparently, one thick branch had wedged its way under the small, tiled roof hanging over the kitchen. “Stop! It’s like you’re cutting off my arm,” I said, my demeanor shifting.

  “Would you rather the roof falls down, crushing somebody?” he asked.

  I had to think on this. For me, this rosebush symbolized my growth in France, rooting itself to this place as I’d done—no matter what the weather brought. “Well…”

  “Sam, enough with your clown-school drama,” said Jean-Luc.

  I narrowed my eyes into a glare. “Fine. But only the wayward branch. And if you kill this rose bush, I’m not going to be happy. I might chop something else off. Keep that in mind.”

  “I’m scared,” said Jean-Luc.

  “You should be,” I said and he laughed.

  “Not funny,” I said, making a motion to cut my throat with my finger. “I’m serious.”

  The phone rang, saving Jean-Luc from my rosebush wrath. I went into the house to answer the call, cringing at the sound of Jean-Luc’s saw. Caller ID displayed Tracey’s number. “I have big news,” she said.

  “Can’t wait to hear it.” We had unlimited calling to the U.S. and sixty or so other countries for an extra seven euro a month. Tracey was calling from her cell. “I’ll call you right back.” And so I did.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  I sucked in my breath.

  After one round of IVF, Tracey was now twelve weeks pregnant with a healthy baby girl. Naturally, she asked her decades-long best friend to be the godmother. Naturally, I accepted. Although I was thrilled to bits for her, twinges of jealousy sparked my nerves like live wires and I found myself questioning if I wanted to try again. As I sat on the couch, I kept coming back to the same answer, which was a resounding no. I was happy with my life and all of the decisions Jean-Luc and I made together—aside from the massacre of my rosebush. I was a mother—just not in the way I’d expected.

  Sometimes you just had to approach life a bit differently.

  Take sushi, for example. Although they had sushi restaurants in Toulouse, I couldn’t find the rolls I was jonesing for, like dragon rolls or shrimp tempura rolls with mango and avocado. So I made my way to the Asian grocer, the one oddly named Paris Store, bought the required materials like a rice maker and a sushi mat, and learned how to make them myself. Oksana and Trupty joined me one day, and we had a sushi-making party, coming up with creative vegetarian options using roasted vegetables for Trupty. On a roll, I decided to invent a French-inspired dish. I was cooking up slices of magret de canard (duck breast), steamed sticky rice, and making a cherry compote when Jean-Luc walked into the kitchen.

  “What are you making?” asked Jean-Luc. “I thought we were having sushi.”

  “Well, it’s sort of like sushi,” I said. “But this is frushi.”

  “Frushi? What’s that? There’s no such thing.”

  “Yes, there is. French-inspired sushi. Tu vois? I’m going to roll cooked ingredients in seaweed and slice them up.”

  “So you just made this up? Like Stepmother’s Day?”

  “That holiday is 100 percent real,” I said, giving him the stink eye, followed by a smile. “And so is frushi. Taste.”

  Focusing on the things I missed from my American life had proven to be futile. I didn’t miss anything anymore. Not when I had everything I needed—like a loving husband and two adorable kids. When dreams change you just had to roll right along with them. Kind of like sushi. Or Frushi. Whatever.

  28

  SWEET SIXTEEN

  Even with its twists and turns, nature eventually takes its course, and everything just flowed, the time sped up by happiness. That summer, our family dove in Mediterranean waters. In the fall, we celebrated Thanksgiving, introducing my French family and friends to the American tradition, followed by another Christmas in Provence, one New Year’s celebration, a couple of ski trips, and a few lunches and dinners with our friends. If life were like Groundhog Day, I’d have no problem repeating every day, every meal, or every event.

  In May, that month of new beginnings, Jean-Luc and I finally made it to Paris, under both good and bad circumstances. The good: the wicked non-paying renter had finally left the apartment in Orly. The bad: it was up to us to paint it so we could sell the beast, and hopefully quick, because for the past year Jean-Luc had lost close to nine hundred euro a month and, although I’d sold Seven Letters from Paris and received a decent advance, my career as a writer had yet to kick off, as my book wouldn’t hit the shelves for another year. We might have been struggling financially for a while, but we were rich in love. And I’m a glass-is-half-full, not half-empty kind of girl, so the trip wouldn’t be all backbreaking work and no play. Before we drove the seven long hours—our car loaded up with paint, an air mattress, and cleaning supplies—I made dinner plans with Patrick, the friend of Jean-Luc’s I’d met at that infamous café in Paris the summer of 1989. Although Jean-Luc hadn’t kept in touch with Patrick, I’d connected with him on Facebook after Jean-Luc and I had tied the proverbial knot.

  After working from sunup to sundown, Jean-Luc and I cleaned ourselves up and drove to the seventh arrondisement to meet Patrick at his beautiful apartment, a stone’s throw away from Hôtel des Invalides. Patrick opened the door and embraced us, twirling Jean-Luc around. We sat down on the leather couch for the apéro, and we were introduced to Alexandra, Patrick’s wife. Patrick popped open a bottle of champagne.

  “Here’s to old friends,” he said.

  “Tchin-tchin,” said Jean-Luc.

  Patrick served us a salmon that he’d caught and smoked himself at their home in the country. Then he told us how and he and Alexandra had gotten married on water-skis. Soon, he and Jean-Luc picked up right where they left off more than twenty long years ago, updating one another on all of life’s past events—marriages and divorces, the birth of children (Patrick and Alexandra had two), and how crazy it was that Jean-Luc and I had reconnected after all those years.

  “Does your friend Tracey wonder about Patrick?” asked Alexandra with a coy smile.

  “She’s with a man from her past, too,” I said. “And very happy.”

  She laughed. “I wasn’t worried.”

  From the apéro, it was off to a local café, where we ate a light dinner and talked about the future, and laughed about the past. We spent the evening strolling along the Seine. Instead of retracing the steps Jean-Luc and I first took in Paris together like I’d always envisioned, we created a new memory. And it was time to create a few more.

  One month later, I was to chaperone Elvire and two of her friends, Manon and Emma, on a trip to California for her sixteenth birthday. Her girlfriends would stay with my family for two we
eks, Elvire and I would have one week alone with my family, and then, Jean-Luc and Max would join us for three weeks. Before we left, the parents of Manon and Emma loaded me up with gifts to take to my family—tablecloths, French lotions, and chocolates. We also set a budget. Save for Elvire, I was covering the girls’ meals, but not all the extras. And we’d planned on quite a few extras. The girls’ mothers made me promise that they would only speak English.

  My mom had been a fitness instructor for more than thirty years. She was currently teaching yoga to former soldiers suffering from pain or post-traumatic stress at the Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles. She was taking two weeks off work to spend time with me and get to know Elvire better. We took the girls to Disneyland for Elvire’s birthday, and then out on my parents’ boat, dolphins jumping in the wake. We had tea at the Beverly Wilshire after window-shopping on Rodeo drive. We rented bikes, one a tandem, and cruised down the path from Santa Monica to Venice Beach. We strolled down Hollywood Boulevard, laughing at fat Batman and all of the other weirdos, the girls hitting every souvenir shop along the way. We went to the Universal theme park, where we discovered the way to skip lines: head to the single riders section. I even took the girls to Palm Desert, wanting to catch up with a friend of mine of over thirty years, Debra, while I had the chance.

  Jean-Luc had met Debra in October of 2009, at her 17,000-square-foot Moroccan palace.

  “Is this a hotel?” Jean-Luc had asked when we arrived.

  Like Jean-Luc, the girls’ jaws dropped when they saw her home. Debra had hired workers from Morocco to build her masterpiece. The floors were intricately tiled. The brass lights were all hand hammered. The moldings were finely detailed, white and perfect, like the prettiest of wedding cakes. Toward the back of the home, right off the gourmet kitchen, there was a hookah room, where at the press of a button, a twenty-foot-wide movie screen would rise in front of its stunned audience. Outside, there were two pools—one was an infinity-edged lap pool, the water flowing and giving the impression it was one with the surrounding landscape; the other large and circular with built-in sun beds. It was paradise, a desert oasis of luxurious dreams.