Au Paris

by Rachel Spencer

  We definitely weren’t in Paris anymore.

  Walking out of the market, we passed a stall full of chèvre. I hope I never learn to resist chèvre and I certainly didn’t try to that day. One round of chèvre frais for 2.30 euros and our daily trip was complete for under 6 euros. Four more remained between our two budgets so we bought two baguettes, one for lunch and one—a little prematurely—for dinner.

  At last we ventured beyond the sea wall to the cool shore of the Mediterranean. Time to start baking ourselves and gobbling our market fare. We soaked in the full sun as we ripped into our plastic sacs, brown paper bags, wax paper, and little pieces of tissue. Our lunch was simple but delicious as everything is when eaten with a beach appetite. I sat on my towel in the sand and ate one apricot after another on a slice of baguette smeared with the deliciously fresh goat cheese. Sarah ate the same and we saved some apricots and bread for later in the afternoon when we knew a few hours in the sun would re-create an appetite.

  Hours later after sweat, sand, and sea, we were back in town. I was sun-soaked, relaxed, and happier than I’d been in a long time. The trip was definitely the ultimate reward for my hard weeks as a nanny, and I was determined to soak up every moment of it before returning to the U.S., where real life and real responsibilities awaited me. I swore to myself before I left the Chronicle—actually, I prayed—that I would never again consider an 8-to-5 cubicle-enclosed, desk job. I knew by now I wanted more than that, but I also knew I was putting off real life. Nannying was sort of a holding period. It wasn’t my life I was living, it was somebody else’s, though I felt at ease enjoying such a luxurious lack of responsibility. But my days were numbered. Soon I would have bills to pay and decisions to make and responsibilities to carry out. I hated the thought of surrendering to another cubicle to pay those bills. Maybe I could live on student loans and prolong real life for another couple of semesters—debt seemed to be a popular way of life among people my age, anyway. But money and jobs were not issues that should plague anyone’s mind under the full sun of the Mediterranean. So I ignored the future as best I could, and soaked in more of the golden delicious rays of the present.

  Channeling Alex, I bought olive oil and vinegar (dipping into the souvenir budget) for dinner preparation that night. Once home and refreshed after a dirty day outdoors, I sliced up the tomatoes, exposing their velvety red insides. I bathed them in a marinade of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and fresh basil while I tossed the mesclun and roquette in more of the same sauce.

  The baguette did not cut as smoothly as the tomatoes, as it was half a day old and I had to saw through it with a tiny butter knife. So I gripped it with one hand and began gently sawing at an angle. It wouldn’t budge. So I sawed harder and the chewy bread gave way a bit. Encouraged, I sawed harder and harder and had one round cut! Victorious! From there, I proceeded with ease, befriending the knife and thinking that Alex would be so proud of my ability to make do with such primitive tools. I cut several more pieces and had gained a good rhythm when I got careless. One minute, I was happily sawing through the bread, the next I was seized with numbing, near-blackout pain. I must have shrieked because I faintly remembered Sarah yelling, “What?!” in sheer panic. Somehow I made it to the balcony patio outside in hopes that the fresh air would erase the incident or at least keep me from blacking out.

  “Rachel, your eyes are rolling back in your head,” Sarah said, sounding panicked.

  I didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. And I didn’t open my eyes, either. I was terrified of seeing my own blood.

  “Rachel, do I need to take you to the emergency room?”

  “No!” I yelled.

  “Well, I need you to get up,” Sarah said.

  “No!” I yelled.

  “Rachel . . .”

  “No!” I yelled.

  “Okay, okay. Just stay there.” Sarah came back onto the balcony with a wet dishtowel and wrapped my cut and bloodied finger while I whimpered in pain. I swore I’d cut a bone or something and I dared not look to see. In the bloodied wet towel, I held my hand over my head while Sarah looked on with a pained expression.

  Like Paris, there wasn’t a pharmacy or any store open past five o’clock, so Sarah wrapped a tight tourniquet of toilet paper around the sliced finger and tied it off with dental floss. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. Once the pain and panic subsided a bit, my optimistic spirit took over. I was determined to create the perfect French beach vacation dinner, and I wasn’t letting a stupid bloody finger stop me! I inched my way up toward standing again and, holding my hand above my head, returned to the kitchen. I kept my hand in the air, and Sarah indulged my stubbornness, holding down the loaf while I sliced the remaining portion into rounds. Together we fried them in oil on the stovetop. Just before browning, we added crottins of chèvre to the tops of the bread rounds, allowing them to melt only slightly. We served them warm over our bed of salad and ate the marinated tomatoes alongside. The meal was a little primitive, but well earned and naturally delicious! With such fresh produce, little needs to be added. And after trauma, anything tastes good.

  We completed our first full day on budget and had apricots to spare for dessert. It wasn’t a meal of Alex-size proportions, but it was simple, fresh, and satisfying—and I had done it myself. As I crawled into bed that night, sleepy, happy, and with my bandaged finger, I realized something. Six weeks ago, in this same situation, I would have given up and gone to bed without dinner. But now here I was, more confident, more calm (sort of) and more willing to take charge of the world around me. It was a small progression, but a good one. Before I drifted off to sleep that night, I promised myself that my newfound courage would not end with France. I would take it back across the Atlantic Ocean and to whatever new experiences awaited me. As for my finger—in the morning, I would experience a very local side of Antibes at the pharmacy, if I could find one.

  Did going to the doctor christen me as a local? If so, I would have transferred citizenship right then and there. Well, for a short time, perhaps. Nevertheless, I felt like a French citizen, seeking out the benefits of free medical care at last. Like everything else in France, local pharmacies had not been bought out by conglomerates and mega stores. You could spot them by the bright green neon crosses in their windows. It had always seemed so quaint to me. That is, until I incurred a minor injury and needed care on a Sunday. Then the quaintness quickly turned to frustration—the pharmacy would not re-open until 2:30 p.m. the next day. I had flashbacks to l’op-ticien, but Sarah and I made the best of it, and spent the day lazing in the sun.

  I woke up early Monday before Sarah and set off in search of a breakfast treat. I’d just come out of a bakery with a bag of fresh croissants when I noted a green cross lit on the building a couple doors down. Could it be? A pharmacist who broke the closed-Mondays rule of French business? The door was open and a kind, white-coated pharmacist welcomed me inside. C’est vrai! He took one look at my makeshift attempt at health care and motioned me back to his workspace. He pulled out a doctor’s kit full of all kinds of gadgets and packages.

  He removed the toilet paper and we both winced a little at the nasty sight of my rather deep cut gone unattended for twelve hours. Of course I had no idea how to tell him what I needed, so I resorted to Franglais. Antiseptique didn’t seem to translate that well to him, but he did squeeze a few drops of something medicinal-smelling onto the cut. Hoping for some Neosporin, I asked, “Crème d’antibiotique?” I wasn’t sure if I was making any sense, but he spread a greenish-yellow ointment into the cut. He taped, gauzed, and wrapped my finger so I looked like a regular war hero—a kitchen war hero.

  Like so many of the Frenchmen I’d met on my trip, he had quite a sense of humor. On cutting the excess tape, he pretended he took scissors to my finger—the injured one—and made silly attack noises while he clipped the scissors in the air. This did little to comfort me, as I’d spent the previous night trying to get the image of the knife slipping from the baguette and into my finger o
ut of my mind. But, despite the cruel humor, he had made it all better. And to confirm the rumor I’d heard and wanted to believe about French government and medical services, he charged me nothing. It was almost worth the cut just to get personal medical attention free of charge.

  Sarah and I spent the day mostly in the sun, taking special care to stay away from knives (and chewy, stale baguettes). Sarah washed my hair for me that night as I really couldn’t do it alone with just one hand. She took good care of me, and we watched Sabrina in bed again, just for comfort’s sake. The day that followed blended together hours of sun, swim, long walks, and fresh market finds. We ate and tanned mostly, walking only to dry off the excess water from a swim before we dove in again. The beaches were crowded, many in the topless fashion of Anne-Laure. I tried to adjust, though I knew I would never be completely comfortable so au naturel.

  After several days of lazing around, Sarah and I both decided we could not be so close to the Italian border without crossing it. We got a crazy idea. We went to Europcar around 10 a.m. that morning, hoping they would have un décapo-table available for rent. Sure, renting a convertible was twice the price of the funny-shaped European cars, but if we were going to cruise along the Riviera straight into Italy, we were going to do it in style.

  The woman behind the counter said they had a French-made cabriolet available. We weren’t sold. Sarah and I looked at each other, making “I don’t know” faces. Maybe we would try the Hertz rental place by the train station. But then, out of the jumble of French words, I heard something familiar—Volkswagen.

  I have to admit, I’ve always been charmed by Volkswagens, thanks to their genius marketing efforts. They drew me in with the ad where teenage, maybe college-aged kids drove the convertible at night, listened to good music, and looked at the stars. The commercials always encompassed both youth and responsibility, and since I was trying so hard to hang on to both, I felt confident that even I could be a driver of a Volkswagen.

  We turned to the woman behind the counter and asked, “Le Volkswagen—C’est la même prix que le cabriolet?” Surely a bug convertible wasn’t the same price as a boxy French convertible with almost no style?

  “Mais, oui,” she replied.

  Our eyes glimmered. The transaction was made. Freedom was so close I could smell it. Soon I would be zooming along the coast, creating my own Volkswagen commercial as I went along. But alas, I am not the responsible sister. A responsible sister would have remembered to bring her driver’s license. And the responsible sister did. So I let Sarah take the wheel.

  Minutes later, we met Bugsy. She came smiling around the corner, a beautiful cream-colored car with black convertible top. She was the perfect Riviera ride. Bugsy was a faithful friend—the type who gave cheerfully, not expecting anything in return. I wished I had a flower to put in her vase inside, but I knew she didn’t mind too much to leave it empty. Bugsy was the happy-natured type who just wanted everyone to have a good time. The more the merrier—that was Bugsy’s motto.

  We hopped in, and zoomed off toward the bord de mer, like Bugsy was made to drive no other route. We introduced her to Chris Martin and his folks and went flying to the song, “Fix You,” that I believed would land Coldplay a permanent place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right next to U2.

  There was no better song to hear at that moment, on that day. We listened to it on repeat from Antibes to Italy and back. It was a song about getting what you want, but not what you need. It was all about failing but going on anyway. Loving, knowing that losing love is the worst thing in the world—the most, awful, painful, God-forsaken thing in the world that still doesn’t kill you—but letting go of love all the same. And after all is said and done, ruined and wasted, dead and irreparable, there is life again. Life from death. Beauty from ashes. A new thing happening even in the dead of winter. Branches crack. The ground is frozen. And it’s only by your breath coming out in frosted puffs that you know you’re still breathing. But then from nothing, something. You wake up one day and it is the hottest summer of your life. And you see that after all that cold, dark gray of winter, you’re sweating so much you can hardly stand it.

  We sped along the bord de mer. I blasted the volume as high as it could go. Sarah winced a little, but she let me do it anyway. It was a thrill—a boiling hot thrill. It was the greatest time of my life.

  Tears streamed down my face. I let go of all the things I thought had been lost. I once thought I lost everything I knew, and I had given up to become someone I never wanted to be.

  And I never wanted to go back again.

  But there was more. There was redemption. This is what happens when you trust—when you jump out in faith. When you forgive. When everything hurts like hell, but you learn how to say, “I messed up.” So what. You move on. You say after that, “Oh well.” There’s more to come if you want. There’s life after death. There’s hope—and with the wind hitting my face faster than it ever had, with the amazing bright blue of the Mediterranean sea stretching to my right as far as I could see, the bright orange ball of sun radiating, bouncing light off the waves onto my skin, there was even fun. Fun! And there was home.

  Home was coming. If I could face it, if I could learn from it, if I could just live and be, I would go home soon.

  Chapitre Treize

  So we went home. Home to Paris, that is, for one more day and two more nights before going home for good to the States. Sarah and I passed the second to last evening quietly. We ate dinner at my favorite pizza place near the Vladescos’ house. San Remo, it was called. And now that I had driven through Italy and to the town of San Remo before we turned Bugsy around, it seemed the most appropriate place to conclude our trip. Plus, I was desperate to redeem that horrible anchovy episode in Antibes.

  I ordered pizza with garlic, gorgonzola, and tomato. Sarah had four-cheese, and we split a salade césar and a bottle of red wine. A great homecoming meal back in that city of lights and love. But everything felt, even tasted, bittersweet. Tomorrow was the last day. Then the journey would be over and I would have to start living out whatever it was I had learned. But the journey was never truly over.

  So much was left unwritten, so much was left undone. But I knew that was the point of places like Paris. You can’t ever see or do it all so you keep craving it. You keep coming back. You keep believing it’s the greatest place on Earth because you’re not really sure yet what kind of place it is.

  In true American tourist form, I spent our last day blowing money and time on frivolous things as planned, dragging Sarah along with me. Chocolate, wine, gift boxes of macaroons from Ladurée, all things that perish, all things that must be enjoyed in a moment, then committed to memory. Just like Paris. We came home for our last dinner on the garden patio, chez Vladesco, the best restaurant in town.

  The air was warm and sweet. Softer, quieter, slower than the first day I arrived. All the lanterns were lit in the garden, casting a golden glow on the table. Wanting to keep the moment in my mind, I walked out and sat at the table alone. Alex stood boastfully over the grill, humming and muttering to himself in his usual grand chef way. He kissed his fingers and looked back at me, grinning in delight at his work of perfection. Knowingly, I smiled back.

  That night, we feasted on langoustine, which sounds twice as elegant and palatable as feasting on “large prawns,” as we’d say it in English. Alex had ordered from the poissonerie especially for our last supper together. He had them delivered fresh from both the coasts of Brittany and Scotland because, bien sûr, the best langoustines come from the coasts of Brittany and Scotland. Far be it for me to relay to the grand chef my intense disgust for shellfish of any origin. Still, I was flattered by the obvious gesture the meal implied and tried convincing myself that my last night in Paris would be the night I fell in love with shellfish. Or maybe not. Maybe I would eat it and hate it but eat it anyway because I’d fallen in love with the Vladescos and with Paris and with their house and with everything in the past six weeks of my life.


  Estelle stood halfway out the sliding glass door, sucking on a cigarette. She stared off, unaffected by her fussing husband. She was always staring off, but I understood now as I hadn’t before that her silence was not so much a lack of interest as it was a quiet appreciation of the company of others.

  I walked inside to see what mischief Léonie and Constantin were concocting and ran into Constantin on his way out. He ran straight to Estelle, and Estelle, not looking down, brushed her hand over his tiny head. He tugged at her until she looked to see the picture he had just drawn for her. “Je t’aime, Maman,” the picture read in words drawn with black marker over a colored red heart. She cooed a little, reveling in the brilliance and sweetness of her youngest child. He was satisfied with her loving attention, little Alex that he is, and, handing her the picture, he turned to run off again, and I followed my 7-year-old dictator inside. He turned to be certain I was following him, as it is very important that he receive attention at all times, but once he saw I was in fact exactly where he wanted me, he lost interest. It is his cool, aloof way of loving those around him.

  When I first arrived under the domination of Monsieur Constantin, this sort of behavior both infuriated and intimidated me. I was sure there was no way to love or attend to such a demanding child. Now I knew his looking back at me meant he needed me and in fact, wanted me, even though he pretended he did not. I was happy to do it for the short and rare and precious time we had left.

  He ran to the bottom of the stairs where he cried, “Léoniiiiiieeee!!! À table!”

  Léonie of course was upstairs instant messaging back and forth to her friends. She almost never replied to the first call to dinner, and Constantin never stopped yelling until he received a reply. Before he could rattle the windows again I scooped him up and swung him around. He screamed and cried and giggled deliriously as he was prone to do. I put him down, and said up the stairs loudly but gently, “Léonie, come down.” Then I grabbled his little hand and led him to the patio for dinner. There was a time when I would have stood at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for Léonie, but now I knew she would come down when she was ready. And she was always ready pretty close to the time she needed to be.