This time, I’m not the youngest person at the table. Hervé has a younger brother, Jean-Paul, who chatters away in French nonstop, and a little sister, Marie, with hair as fine as corn silk. Hervé sits across the table from me. He nods toward his brother, who seems to be telling a story involving lots of explosions, and rolls his eyes. Mom is seated between her friend Etienne and his wife. Madame Brouilly has dark brown hair, caught up in a bun, and a wide mouth that always seems to be smiling. As soon as I stepped in the door, she grabbed me and pulled me to her pillowy breasts.
We’ve had bowls of cold potato soup, fish cooked in broth, and now salad. All throughout the meal there has been lots of crusty French bread.
“After dinner, I’ll show you my manga collection,” Hervé says.
“Thanks.” Does this mean I get to see his room? I’ve never been in a boy’s room before, though I’ve peeked into Nathan’s, which, according to Whitney, always smells like dirty socks and Doritos.
“And by the way, I think you are un genie.”
“A genie? Like someone who comes out of a bottle?”
He laughs. “Non, non, non. You are a, how do you say? A genius!”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Hervé, I think you have me confused with someone else. Like, my mother?”
“Well, yes, your mother is un genie, too. But it’s you who has drawn the Gadget Girl comic, non?”
I glance toward my mother, who, thankfully, seems caught up in some story that Etienne is telling. Oh, good. She didn’t hear. I put a finger up to my lips. “Yes, but it’s a secret,” I whisper. “I don’t want my mother to know.”
“Oh! Pardon.” He lowers his voice and leans across the table. “Anyway, I think it’s, well… c’est magnifique!”
“Really?” My face is suddenly ablaze. No one but Whitney has ever gushed over my drawings before. She’s my best friend, so to her, everything I do is amazing and wonderful, and vice versa. Even Mr. Hodge has been pretty reserved about my work. He gives me As, sure, but he doesn’t say much.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I have a question for you.” He continues in the same low voice.
“Yes?”
“I’m thinking that your father is the model for Hiro Tanaka, no?”
“Yeah,” I say, though that’s not entirely true. Hiro Tanaka is the kind of guy I’ve always imagined my father to be—kind, reserved, intelligent. Solitary. But lately, my picture of him has gotten a little fuzzy. Now that I know he’s married with a son, it’s hard to think of him toiling away in the fields by himself. He’s probably too busy playing catch and fishing with Junpei and helping with homework to ever have time to think about Mom and the family they might have had together.
Hervé goes on. “And I figured out that your mother is the model for Gadget Girl…”
“My mother?” Not really, but come to think of it, they do share certain attributes—long hair, curves, and well-toned arms. Although I’ve never drawn Gadget Girl with my mother in mind, maybe my subconscious was at work.
“But I wonder,” Hervé continues, “who is this mec, Chaz Whittaker? Could he be your boyfriend americain?”
Is this some kind of a joke? Surely he must know that the best-looking guy at school wouldn’t waste his time with someone like me. “No,” I say, my face growing hot again. “He’s just this boy at school who happens to be the right type.”
Hervé raises his eyebrows. “And what is the right type?”
“Oh, you know,” I say. “Kind of artsy, kind of quiet, but master of the skateboard.” I think of an advertisement I cut out of a sporting goods catalog in which Chad appeared crouched on a board, as if he were ready to complete a half-pike.
Hervé gives me a blank look.
I laugh. To make things simple, I say, “He’s the kind who only dates cheerleaders.”
“Cheerleaders?”
I roll my eyes. This is turning into a social studies lesson. “C’mon, Hervé. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen American TV. Cheerleaders are those girls who jump around with pom-poms during basketball and football games. They’re always the prettiest, perkiest girls at school.”
“If they are the prettiest, then you must be one of these cheerleaders,” he says.
“Hardly.” The red tide creeps into my face again. I’m far from the prettiest, and no one has ever called me perky. Plus, you forgot about the jumping part.
Hervé’s mother clears away our salad plates, and Etienne goes into the kitchen and comes back with a tray of sorbet. He places a dish in front of each of us.
I spoon some into my mouth. “Mmm. It tastes like pears.” It’s not chocolate, but it’s delicious. The perfect ending to this dinner.
I help to clear away the table, but Hervé’s mother motions me away. “You young people, go amuse yourselves. Your mother and I will wash the dishes.”
Mom gives me a meaningful look, as if she knows I’m crushing on Hervé. Who could help it? He’s so incredibly cute. And nice, too.
When I go back to the living room, he’s there, waiting for me. “Viens,” he says playfully. “I’ll show you where I live.”
His room is at the back of the apartment. It’s surprisingly neat. There are no clothes thrown over the backs of chairs, no crumpled-up bags or empty pop cans. There are posters of cars on his walls, maybe the cars that he dreams of driving across the desert. He has a laptop computer on his desk and a bookshelf filled with novels and comic books. I recognize some of the illustrators’ names, but the titles are all in French.
“I was thinking maybe I’d leave some copies of Gadget Girl around Paris,” I say. “You know, as kind of a guerrilla marketing thing.”
He looks puzzled. Maybe he doesn’t understand me. I try it again. “Maybe since you like my comic, other French people would, too. Maybe you could help me with la distribution.” I say the last word with a French accent, hoping that’ll help.
The room is small, and he’s standing so close to me that it’s giving me a buzz, like I’ve had too much Coke or something. If he reached out and touched me, I think I would faint.
“Ah, oui,” he says, totally normal. “If you like, I could translate it for you. It would be good practice for me.”
I put a hand on the back of the chair at his desk to steady myself. It seems better than sitting on the bed. “You’d do that?”
“Sure.” He shrugs. “It would be fun.” And then there’s that smile again, kind of lopsided, a young Elvis curl to his lips. “Actuellement, I’ve already started working on a translation.”
I imagine long afternoons sitting side by side in his father’s café, turning my words into French, our elbows and arms brushing against each other’s. His lips close enough to kiss. We can collaborate. We can be partners.
And then I start getting an idea for a new character—a cute French waiter with sideburns that curl and long eyelashes. And maybe a girl that he meets who looks sort of Asian, and sort of European, too. Adventure. Danger. Romance.
23
“How about a field trip?” Mom says the next morning after we’ve finished our room service breakfast. “I’ve got some free time. We could go see the garden that Isamu Noguchi designed.”
“I thought he was a sculptor.”
“Of course. But he worked in many mediums. He designed paper lamps, too. One of the first ones that he made was as a gift to his sister.”
His half sister, I correct in my mind. I know all about Isamu Noguchi’s family. His mother, Leonie Gilmour, was an American writer who fell in love with Yone Noguchi, a Japanese poet. She thought they were married, but they weren’t, not officially. She went back to America to give birth to her son, and while she was gone, Yone made plans to marry another American woman, a journalist for the Washington Post. But when this woman, Ethel, found out about Leonie and the baby, she broke up with him. Leonie had another child, Ailes, with a different Japanese guy. Isamu got to grow up with his sister. They played together, maybe fought with each other. He ma
de presents for her. I feel a little bit jealous about that part. It would have been nice to grow up with my brother.
“Noguchi designed parks, too,” Mom says, continuing with her art history lesson. “Did you know he had a plan to design a sculpture that could only be viewed from outer space?”
“Cool,” I say. “Where was it constructed?”
“It never got made. But you can’t say he wasn’t ambitious.”
We take a cab to the seventh arrondissement, where there are a bunch of military-related buildings.
“Here it is,” Mom says, paying the fare and stepping out of the taxi.
I follow and look up at an imposing structure, the UNESCO World Heritage Center.
We wander to the entrance of a garden. It’s not all flowers and bushes, but rocks and asphalt. Here and there is a pine tree.
“This is the Garden of Peace,” Mom says. “Originally, Noguchi was asked to design just the patio, but he convinced everyone to let him do an entire garden. He was the first sculptor to do such a thing.”
She leads me to a platform, from which we can see the whole thing laid out below. “This is the dais. Traditional Japanese gardens don’t have this little stage. You’re not supposed to be able to see the whole thing at once. Most Japanese gardens are revealed little by little, but Noguchi wanted to do things differently.”
She points out the area designated for tea ceremony, where there are rocks for sitting instead of the usual tatami mats. “And see that big rock over there with water pouring over it? That’s the Wa no Taki—the Fountain of Peace. All of these stones came from Shikoku. He had them shipped over from Japan.”
These rocks are from the island where my father and Junpei live. I suddenly feel connected to this place.
We step off the dais and amble along the path, checking out cherry and plum trees and bamboo and magnolias. Little streams run through the garden in imitation of rivers, and the rocks are meant to be mountains. Across one stream, there are stepping stones. Mom holds my hand as I make my way across.
“See those smaller stones?” she asks, indicating three rocks in the water. “Those are tsue ishi. They’re for resting a cane or walking stick while you cross the stream.”
I never thought a garden could be a work of art before. I love all the little surprises—the pond shaped like the ideogram for heart, the three tall stones which represent Buddha and two disciples. And I’m so glad Mom is here to make sense of everything.
I like knowing that Noguchi did a lot of different things. Maybe I can be a manga artist and an indigo farmer, too. Noguchi combined plants and art. Why not? I can be American and Japanese. Maybe I can even come back and live in Paris one day.
When we come back from our expedition, I can see Hervé through the café window. He’s wiping down a table by the door.
“Shall we stop in for some hot chocolate?” Mom asks. “I could use a cup of coffee.”
“Okay.” I lower my eyes, trying not betray my pleasure at seeing Hervé.
The bell jangles as we push the door open. Butterflies rise up in my stomach.
He looks up and smiles. “Bonjour!”
I’m frozen for a moment, suddenly shy. Mom puts her hand on the small of my back and ushers me inside. Great. Now I look like an invalid, like someone who needs help getting across the room. I try to shrug away from her.
Just then I hear a high-pitched voice squeal, “Hervé!”
I glance across the café. It’s obviously not coming from that elderly woman’s lapdog, shrill though the thing may be. And then I notice the table of French girls against the wall. They look to be around the same age as Hervé, maybe sixteen. They obviously know him. When he goes over to their table, he flicks his towel playfully. A girl with a high ponytail and puffed up glossy lips, hooks her hand over his elbow.
“Looks like our Hervé is quite the ladies’ man,” Mom says in a low voice.
I remember what she said that first day about French waiters. Maybe he flirts with every female that comes in here. Maybe he makes every girl feel special, but I’m the only one stupid enough to think his attention means something.
The girls rise at once, and Hervé leans in toward Ponytail. They kiss, twice on each cheek. He doesn’t kiss the other two. He’s never done that to me. That girl must be a good friend or more. And so what am I to him? A tourist, I guess. A customer. His father’s friend’s daughter.
“You know what? I think I’ll skip that hot chocolate,” I say. “My stomach feels a little strange.”
“Oh, dear. Did you catch a bug?” She puts her palm on my forehead and frowns. “You don’t seem to have a fever.”
“Something I ate, I guess.”
“I’ll go with you.” She starts to get up, but I shake my head. Right now I need some time alone.
Back in our room, I open my laptop and check my e-mail. Still no word from Whitney. I imagine her wandering in the woods, holding her cell phone to the sky, trying to pick up a signal. There are a dozen messages from people I’ve never heard of with the subject “Gadget Girl.” One girl wonders if Gadget Girl and Chaz will ever lock lips, but writes that she loves the story no matter what. And a guy wants to know when the next issue will come out, and how he can get his hands on all of the previous ones. The fan mail makes me feel a little better. There’s also one from Broken Pencil. I click it open and find a glowing review of my manga. “Quirky,” the reviewer writes, “drawn in an appealing faux naïf style.” He likes the storyline, too. This is so cool! I wish I had someone to share it with, but Whitney is the only one I want to tell.
It’s funny, but since we arrived in Paris I haven’t felt like drawing Gadget Girl and Chaz Whittaker. Nor Hiro Tanaka, for that matter. Instead of the heroic hermit I’d originally imagined, I’m thinking now he’s more like the Wizard of Oz—a cowardly guy who hides behind a made-up facade. I feel like digging up all of his plants and leaving him on his own, but that story wouldn’t make sense. I’m totally blocked. Just when my superheroine’s popularity has peaked, my well of ideas has gone dry.
Instead of the girl with gadgets, I’ve been drawing a young woman with dark hair and almond eyes and a lanky guy with curling sideburns. They meet in cafés and street corners and in front of the Eiffel Tower. I don’t have a story for these images. Not yet. But now, after seeing Hervé with those French girls, I think that maybe I should tear out these pages and start over.
hervé
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe
24
When Mom comes back to the room, she’s carrying a manila envelope. “Hervé asked me to give this to you,” she says.
It looks about the size of my comic book. I guess he’s giving it back. I take the envelope and toss it on top of my suitcase.
“Aren’t you going to take a look?” she says.
“Later.” I don’t feel like explaining how Gadget Girl landed in Paris.
“He seemed pretty disappointed to find you gone.”
I shrug. What does he need me for when he has a harem?
“What shall we do tonight?” she asks. “Do you want to go on one of those boats on the river? Les Bateaux Mouche?”
Those are the boats that Whitney thought would be oh-so-romantic. Well, it won’t be romantic with my mother, but I want to get out of the hotel for a while, far away from the café. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The ride along the Seine is actually really nice. Although the day has been hot and sticky, a cool breeze lifts from the water and caresses our limbs. The rocking of the boat and the sound of the river lapping against the hull lulls me. Slowly, my disappointment drains away. I start to get a handle on the situation.
There is no reason to get upset about those girls in the café. After all, I have only known Hervé for a couple of days. And even if he likes me in that way, it’s not as if we have a future together. I live across the Atlantic Oce
an, in Michigan. I’m too young, according to Mom, to have a serious boyfriend. Isn’t it enough that I’ve made a friend here in Paris? Someone who shares my interests and isn’t hung up on my disability?
After the ride, we find a little shop that serves pastries and have dessert. I choose the tarte tatin, which is sort of like apple pie, and Mom has an éclair.
“Mmm. I wonder if Raoul could make this,” I say, after the first bite.
Later, back in our hotel room, I pick up the envelope from Hervé and peek inside. It’s not Gadget Girl being returned to me after all, but a French translation. Hervé’s translation. He’s photocopied the five pages of the story, whited out the English text, and written French words instead. At first I’m disappointed that we didn’t get to work on this together. Then again, maybe if I’d hung around, he would have come over to the table, and we would have discussed it. And maybe he’d be interested in helping translate more stories—the back issues, and the ones I have yet to write. At any rate, we’ve made some sort of connection, and now my manga is in another language. That’s something worth singing and dancing about.
The next morning, Mom has stuff to do at the gallery. She invites me along, but I tell her I’d rather wait for her in Etienne’s café. When I get there, I’m happy to see that Hervé is at work. He brings me a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of croissants before I’ve even had a chance to order.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle!”
“Bonjour,” I say. “Thanks for translating my manga, Hervé.”
“It was my pleasure,” he says.
His voice makes me dizzy. I need a moment to collect myself. He’s just a friend, I tell myself. Pull yourself together. I pick up my cup and take a sip. The chocolate is rich and warm on my tongue. It may be a kiddie drink, but I admit that I love it more than coffee.
Hervé winks, and goes off to serve another customer.
A few minutes later, he comes back to my table. “Have you been sightseeing?” he asks. “Maybe I can show you around after I finish my shift. I get off in an hour.”
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