Diane, who had been dozing in her room, was late to dinner. As if to illustrate just how much things had changed, when we all took our places at the table, Diane slid into the seat next to me and confided that she’d stayed out until five o’clock in the morning. She’d done the same thing her last night in Spain, she’d told me. What did a fourteen-year-old girl do in the streets of Seville until five o’clock in the morning with complete strangers? I remembered staying up that late with friends when I was fourteen in my parents’ house. I thought that was a big deal. Diane, on the other hand, thought nothing of partying through the wee morning hours. But looking at her, I thought she might be glad to be home. I raised my eyebrows in response to her confession, laughed a little with her, and put my arm around her to hug her. It was a gesture that I think reassured me more than it did her, but regardless, here we all were together for the last supper. There were expressions of soft contentment on everyone’s faces.
I looked around the table and felt as though I was looking at where I had come from and where I was now and where I was going—even if I didn’t know where that was yet. But I knew this ending had to be the beginning of something good. Maybe a master’s in journalism wasn’t the ticket to something good. Maybe it didn’t matter if I never filled out the forms, if I missed registration. I didn’t have to know the right decision right away. It wasn’t about whether I turned to the right, or whether I turned to the left, it was just about whether I kept walking. I just had to keep going. It wasn’t the end, but the road.
“Bon!” Alex grunted satisfyingly, commencing the meal with his word of choice. Without delay, he grabbed for his show of langoustine, buttered and broiled, and placed one, two, three, four langoustines on his plate.
“They’re very small, you know? So you have to take several,” Alex informed us, justifying the mounting excitement on his face as his pile grew taller and taller. “Just crack them open and pull the meat. There’s not much meat on them so you have to take several,” he repeated, as if by way of explanation.
I sat trying not to gag at the thought of actually cracking the shell of a once-living creature when Constantin, who had already begun the process, started wailing.
“Constantin, qu’est-ce qui se passé?” Alex said. Constantin, still crying, said nothing and pointed to his plate that, aside from one langoustine, was filled with a puddle of bluish black ink. Again trying not to gag, I consoled Constantin, who was sitting to my left, as best I could. I wanted to say, “Yeah, aren’t they disgusting?” But of course I didn’t.
“Hand me the plate,” Alex demanded. I did, and watched him wipe it clean with a slice of baguette before he handed it back to me.
“It’s good, Constantin?” his father said, gesturing to the now clean plate. But Constantin would not be swayed. Much like his father might, he refused to eat on a plate that had been sprayed with the foulness of a bad langoustine.
“Hmph.” Constantin folded his arms across his chest in insolence and sat staring putridly at the plate before him until Estelle instructed Léonie to get him a clean plate. Indeed, he was the petit monsieur of the house.
With Constantin satisfied, I had to face my own plate of scary langoustines. They stared back at me with little ball-shaped black eyes, daring me to try them. I hesitated to touch them in fear of a second inking episode. “Okay, Alex,” I said. “I need some instruction on how to eat these!”
“You just rip the head from the body and pull the meat out,” Alex replied, as if everyone in the world knew how to eat langoustines except for me.
Stalling for time, I was about to ask him to approve my shell-cracking method when, sensing my hesitation, he stopped me before I could bother him with another question and said, “Oh, just shut up and eat it!”
He laughed. Everyone laughed. And I’d learned that Alex meant no harm, so I laughed too. It was impossible to be offended in the pleasure of such fine food and company. There were no offenses here. Especially not at the table. So I shut up and ate the langoustine, cracking the shell, avoiding the ink, and pulling out the silky white flesh of meat inside.
My plate was full. In addition to the langoustines, there was green salad with vinaigrette that I’d prepared, as had become the dinnertime ritual. It would be ridiculous to say that, after about five weeks of practice, I had perfected the art of making homemade vinaigrette. Nevertheless, week after week, Alex trusted me to whip together some Dijon with vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and whatever else inspired me to taste. For the final meal, I made the sauce with some added lemon juice and a little white wine.
“Pas mal,” he commended me when he tasted it. “No, in fact. It’s good. Very good!” So I sat and ate my own salad, enjoying the taste more so than usual knowing the grand chef approved.
Course by course, we ate our last supper together, and afterwards, we toasted with a glass of champagne. Actually it was several glasses of champagne, but doesn’t champagne have a bubbly way of causing us to ignore the silly details?
Once all the food had been eaten and the wine drunk, I stumbled up from my seat to present Estelle and Alex with a small gift. I offered a velvety brown box from Maison du Chocolat full of champagne truffles. Never mind the Vladescos would never overdose on a box of decadent chocolate, but it was luxury nonetheless, and during my time with them, they had taught me that the art of luxury is not about size, it’s about enjoyment of something fine and simple. What on earth else could I possibly offer this family? Estelle also had a gift for me, and for Sarah. She presented us with a fragrance from a store whose name I didn’t recognize. But Diane wanted it, which meant it was probably very nice or very cool, and probably both.
I kissed the girls and Constantin one by one as they flitted from the table off to bed. Well, Léonie and Constantin flitted; Diane moved slowly, probably from the combination of too much champagne and too little sleep. So I walked her to her room and bid her good-bye, and behind her eyes was the look of a little girl who might need a nanny more than either of us realized.
Then I looked into Léonie and Constantin’s rooms. Léonie looked up at me from her bed, where she was sitting and reading a book. She regarded me for a moment, then turned her attention back to her reading. I stood there, feeling her quiet, passionate intensity. She was so special. I wanted to be there when all she had been storing inside her spilled over into greatness. I knew it would—she was bound for greatness.
Then in rapid movement, Léonie leapt from her bed and ran to me. She refused to look up but kept her head pressed into my leg while she wailed. She really wailed. She cried and begged me not to leave, like if I did I would be betraying her. I didn’t want to leave. Sure, there was a life waiting for me somewhere else, and it was time to go live that life I’d thought about so much. But little Léonie the Star had asked me to stay. And I took it as the highest compliment.
I was gripping her tiny toned arms and squeezing my eyes shut to avoid tears when I felt short pawlike strokes on my own arms. It was Constantin; he had come to comfort us. He stood at our side, petting both of us with his sweet little hands. His eyes were closed. His lashes rested still against his pink cheeks, and a smile spread across his contented face. I kissed the babies good-bye. I would be back, I told them, as I fought back my own tears. I had to come back. There would always be a reason for me here. Then I climbed slowly down the stairs to the main floor and then down again to the nanny bedroom where Sarah was already sleeping.
In Paris more than any other place, I found it impossible to sleep. And when I climbed into bed that night, Ella Fitzgerald singing “At Duke’s Place” drifted down the stairs and into my basement bedroom. I couldn’t see him, but I knew that Alex sat in his living room, listening to music, puffing a cigar and tapping his feet. I wondered how he maintained a lifestyle of late nights and 10- or 12-hour work days, but this balance of work and pleasure, where pleasure seemed to outweigh every possible burden, was one of many mysteries of Paris, of les Vladesco, of Alex and Estelle, that was too wond
erful to question. And I realized that I didn’t have to question it anymore. So I just accepted it and listened to his music from my room.
It was 2 a.m. and I lay wide awake, counting the days and hours since my plane left for Paris. I lay there making mental lists of all that I hadn’t done, all that was yet to be done in this city. I thought of the days waiting for me back in Houston. I thought of wherever it was I was going in Arkansas. I thought of all the days waiting for me in the years to come—all of the days when I would look back and remember this very moment and long for the freedom, the peace, the love I found in Paris.
I could have walked the streets of Paris all day, every day, from the day I came until my plane took off again. Even then, I wouldn’t have walked enough.
What was it about being in Paris that made the filth and grime endearing? Dirty streets, stinky rubbish, graffiti-covered concrete walls; oh, I loved the horrible, wonderful sight of it all. This life was full of agony and ecstasy. One contradiction after another had kept me thirsty for years. I yearned to be a part—to be hurled into the great black hole of middle that was the mess of life. Perhaps I was there. I couldn’t tell. I only knew I was thirstier than ever. Maybe that was the key—not the knowing, just the thirst. And the thirst gave way to knowing. I knew what to expect—expect anything, actually. And expect everything.
Anything less was just not Paris. Anything less was just not me.
I listened to the night air waft in and out of my nanny room windows, as I lay there, stiff and still. I knew morning would come too soon. Morning always came too soon when clocks were ticking. And clocks that I hadn’t heard since I left home were ticking—even if only in my mind. But I would just take my café a little stronger the next day. And then, the sunrise.
As I lay there, I remembered something I read from one of Alex’s cookbooks by an English chef. One of the chef’s new hires complained about being tired after only six hours of sleep. The chef looked at him disgustedly and said, “If you sleep six hours every night you’ll have slept for fifteen years by the time you’re sixty. Doesn’t that scare [you to death]?” “Yes,” the new hire said. “Then go home and sleep four hours, and when you’re sixty, you’ll have only wasted ten.”
I didn’t do the math, but the concept seemed appropriate. I’d slept too much already. So I was content to lie there and listen to the funny sirens and dissonant horns and wait until I smelled baking bread at the boulangerie around the corner.
Then I would gather my things, buy one last croissant or maybe two, and get on a plane to go back to where I came from. Home. I guess I’d been going there all along.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ve missed setting the table. I’ve missed the water decanters and wine bottles at every meal. I’ve even missed the personalized napkin rings. But when I was there, I missed Southern summers. I missed the Fourth of July. I missed oversized, overpriced lattes. And now of course, I miss and dream of that fantastic espresso machine. But loving both places, loving both lives is all part of it.
To les Vladesco, I thank you for offering me that other life for just one brief moment. I owe you all much more than this. Léonie, I had a dream the other night you were a ballerina—you were the best one on stage, bien sûr. I love all of you very much—and your family in all corners of the city and country.
To my Svengali, Dwight Silverman, thank you for naming this book, first the blog, then allowing us to carry on the title. Thanks to all dear friends at the Houston Chronicle—to Stephen Weis and Jeff Cohen who urged me to pitch the blog at all; to Scott Clark who gave the stamp of approval; to my old team (here’s where I write Deanna Marie Jewell Barrett) and to Kim Michell. I’ll always love the Chronicle—thank you.
To my editor, Danielle Chiotti, who edited my book alongside planning her wedding, thank you for risking so much with me. Thanks to Kensington Publishing and Danielle alike for offering me the contract and for hours of dedicated, tedious work. Thanks to my agent, William, who advised me both inside and outside publishing. Thank you to my friend Dan Limke who so kindly indulged me for my first ever “photo shoot.”
To Nitty, thank you for introducing all of us to les Vladesco, and thank you for introducing me to nearly everything. You always take care of me, always indulge me, and then somehow still love me despite my vanity and abrasiveness. I thank all of my family and friends who have supported me through this. “I no have notion of loving people by halves . . . My attachments are always excessively strong.” —Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.
I am most recently indebted to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. To David Brown and to John Mobbs, thank you for caring about me beyond work. You know I want to make you proud, and despite immense frustration and my sick attitude many days, you know I’m grateful.
I’d also like to thank a few of my first teachers in writing, though there is a lifetime of work ahead of me, and I’ll probably remain eternally intimidated by you. I think of all of you often, more than I ever let on. Thank you, Lindy Nelson, Melissa Hayhurst, Dr. Louise Montgomery, Gerald Jordan, and Miller Williams. Some teachers have discouraged me, but you are the reason I want to keep learning.
Above all, thank you, readers. Readers of the blog, you were such an inspiration. And readers of this book—whether you liked it or hated it, thank you for reading. Cheers and bon courage.
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Copyright © 2006 Rachel Spencer
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2006929667
ISBN: 978-0-8065-2797-0
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