by Phoebe Stone
“Oh, I see,” says Ava. Now she comes strolling into my room. She crosses her arms and starts wandering around, looking at everything carefully like she’s in a public museum. Ava doesn’t really like museums, though, and she usually hurries through them and waits at the exit, tapping her foot impatiently. So maybe she won’t stay long or notice that I am pressed in an odd way against my armoire.
Ava passes by my little table and picks up a jar of old buttons. “What’s this?” she says.
“Oh, Dad gave those to me. He bought them at a flea market,” I say.
“Why did he give you the buttons and not me?” she says. Her eyes, rain and fire. Now they flow like the Seine river toward the bouquet. She frowns. Suddenly she starts laughing. She covers her mouth but that laughter squeezes out anyway and goes zigzagging around the room.
“What, Ava?” I say. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing,” she says, “it’s just the way you were standing there.”
“What?” I say.
“With that bouquet next to you. It just made me remember how humorous you were, how you bumbled everything with that funny-looking boy you liked, the child prodigy,” she says and then she covers her laughter again with her hand.
“Windel is not funny looking and he is not a child,” I say, backing up closer to the armoire, still trying to hide the locked drawer with my skirt.
Ava puts her hand on her forehead and paces the room a little more. She picks up a drawing I did of the Eiffel Tower painted red.
“I painted that today. I did it that way because the lady at the bakery told me the Eiffel Tower was red when it was first built,” I say, kind of jumping up and down again. Doing the younger-sister hop.
Page thirty-four: Younger sisters tend to bounce and jump around in the presence of the older sibling. This is done to avoid unpleasant confrontation. Keep moving.
“Hmm,” says Ava and she tosses my picture back onto the table. She walks closer to me, stretching her neck around. “Why are you standing against the armoire like that?” she says.
“I’m not, Ava,” I say, trying to smile. “I’m just staying out of your way. My room is not the Versailles Palace, like yours. That’s all.”
Suddenly Ava gets bored the way older sisters do and, out of the blue, she just leaves.
The good news is, I don’t think she saw the little locked drawer. I mean, I found it and it’s my secret. Not Ava’s.
I take a huge breath of relief when Ava leaves, but the air seems to have been sucked out of my room. Ava’s perfume lingers over everything. I feel like I am choking.
I flop down on my bed and stare at the plaster molding along the edge of the ceiling. The bad news is Ava mentioned Windel Watson. Just the sound of his name! It flies through me like a startled bird. And all my mistakes!
I didn’t really bumble anything with Windel at first, actually. I just went every day to hear him practice piano. I mean, it’s true I never missed a day. But that wasn’t my fault. It was as if I had sort of fallen under a spell. That’s all.
Yes, the whole thing with Windel started off as a harmless spell. It was autumn in Boston. I liked to walk through the orange leaves on the way to the practice building. I felt music and sunlight in my heart. I had only wished to sit outside his door in secret and listen to him play the piano. He never knew I was there. And I wanted nothing more!
But once I ran into Windel by mistake in person on Halloween.
That night everybody who lives on my street in Boston sits on their steps and hands out candy. When the kids and their parents started pouring through, a small bull and a bigger bull and a grandpa dressed as a matador stopped in front of me. I was holding a tray of candy.
As the little bull reached for it, suddenly I noticed the bigger bull in the papier mâché horns was studying me in a curious way. I looked up at him and I realized in the dim glow of Halloween light that it was Windel Watson out with his little brother and his grandpa. I wasn’t sure if Windel recognized me from history class. He didn’t say hello or anything like that so I didn’t either. Instead I just poured about half the tray of candy into the little brother’s bag.
Then the grandpa shook his red cape in front of the little bull and the little bull charged at it, as a sort of performance for me, a kind of thank-you. All the while, Windel seemed to be watching me as if I were a documentary film about the discovery of human life on Mars.
Soon the three of them went off down the street. Two bulls and a matador. I don’t know how they ended up in my neighborhood. Halloween is like that. Ginger’s mom would chalk it up to “the falling glitter of coincidence.” But for me, it was momentous, recognizing Windel in a string of pumpkin lights, his face in the darkness, a sparkle of notes, a trill of melody. An almost smile. Amazement. You? Here?
About a month later, just before Thanksgiving, Windel’s grandpa died. When I went to the practice building Windel’s room was empty for almost a week. Then at school I saw him from a distance. He was walking across the soccer field in the wind wearing his grandpa’s big tweed overcoat. I wanted to rush out to him and say, “Oh, Windel, I am so sad about your grandpa.” But I didn’t dare. Ava could do something like that, but me, I haven’t got that kind of confidence. Younger sisters are smaller and we always come in second. We just can’t do certain things, like talk to a crazy, windblown, heartbroken, tweed-coated boy in the middle of a snowy field all alone under the sunshine.
“Pet, your job this morning is to take the garbage downstairs to the bins in the courtyard,” says Mom. She hands me a big bag. Dad is behind a French newspaper in the dining room with a large bowl of café au lait in front of him. His face pops up from behind the paper and he smiles. “Pet, you want to know the word for ‘garbage’ in French?”
“Um,” I say.
“It’s les ordures,” says Dad with his usual cheer.
“You mean like odor, like stinky, get away from me, that kind of thing?”
“Uh-huh,” says Dad.
“This is your job, Dad,” I say. “Dads all across America right now are taking out the garbage while you are lounging with a café au lait.”
“Dads all across America are snoring in bed right now because of the time difference, honey,” Dad says, smiling supremely and waving me off in his Beanly manner.
I sigh, passing Ava in the hall. She is wearing this really cool French shift, which has these big cartoon eyes printed all over the fabric, tons of them staring at you and they glow in the dark. She bought it yesterday when we all went shopping at the Galeries Lafayette. I didn’t find anything I liked. All the dresses seemed to pinch me under the arms, cutting off my circulation and my sense of self-worth.
“Pee-yew!” says Ava, backing away from me and the garbage bag.
My watered silk dress kind of hangs in the air between us. That wasn’t an accident, Ava. I feel that pressing, sinking feeling. I suddenly decide to throw the dress away. I put the garbage bag down by the door. “Yikes, Pet, don’t come near me!” shouts Ava, scurrying away. “Pee-yew!”
I go into my room and stuff my ruined dress under my arm. Then I clump down the stairs with my smelly bag. I push out into the courtyard, heading for the garbage cans.
There is a rush of sunlight out here and a stand of those clipped French trees with speckled green bark that are everywhere in Paris. Dad says they’re called plane trees. And under those trees is a little table, some chairs, and Madame la concierge and Monsieur Le Bon Bon are sitting there with Albert in his beautiful cage while a noisy little boy chases a ball around the courtyard.
I deposit the garbage in one of the cans and then I push the watered silk dress into the mash. I shove it. I stuff it. I punch it down. I close the lid. Nobody likes my dresses. Not even me.
The concierge is waving me over. Now that I have helped her catch Albert, I guess I am no longer “les Américains.”
“Petunia,” she calls. “You are coming to meet Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s nephew! He is like you, un en
fant. He is learning English. Jean-Claude, viens ici! Jean-Claude! He is eight years old. You see, like a little brother, oui? You talk English with him. He needs to improve his grammar.”
Jean-Claude runs around the courtyard, bouncing the ball higher and higher. “Jean-Claude, don’t do this now. You come to meet Mademoiselle Petunia.”
Jean-Claude is dressed in short pants and long kneesocks and a little jacket, possibly a school uniform. His cheeks are like pink French roses. The brown of his eyes soft like the water in the mossy pool at the Tuileries Gardens. I sit down at the table and the concierge says, “You need to run with the ball, like un enfant, a child! Go ahead. What were you throwing away just now?”
“Oh, nothing,” I say.
“Nothing? I think I saw something. Something pretty. You and the older one are not always getting along?” she says.
That pressing feeling rushes up higher in my throat. How does the concierge know so much about me already?
“No, Ava and I are not getting along,” I say in a quiet voice. I look over at the garbage cans sitting in the dark corner. The pressing feeling seems to put its arms around me tighter and tighter. I will not cry.
Monsieur Le Bon Bon is very silent but sympathetic. Perhaps he is mute, like a Tintin character, under some strange Chinese spell. He is wearing small wire-rimmed glasses and today a little bow tie.
“Your mama, elle n’est pas contente? Not happy?” says the concierge.
“Oh, she’s fine,” I say but then I think about Ava. The shadowy way she doesn’t want to talk about her “other” father. You-know-who. Her biological dad. Mom doesn’t like him. Ava used to go see him but Mom didn’t want her to. So she stopped.
“Your mother paints. C’est fantastique!” the concierge says.
“Maybe,” I say, looking at the beautiful parrot in the cage on the table tearing at a slice of orange. The sunlight disappears for a moment and then reappears, dropping through the leaves above. I hear the nightingale trilling high up in the trees.
“What does the nightingale look like?” I say. “I haven’t seen it.”
“It is a plain little bird. But it has a magnificent voice,” says the concierge. “Magnifique!”
“Oh,” I say.
“He is not colorful like Albert. We all have different gifts, you see,” she says. “If we all had the same gift, it wouldn’t be a gift at all, n’est-ce pas?”
“The nightingale has a gift,” I say.
“Mais oui!” says the concierge.
I kind of slump against the back of my chair. The nightingale calls again. I suddenly think of the little locked drawer. I look up at the concierge and I say very softly and carefully, “Um, about the armoire in my room, um, has it been there a long time?”
The concierge puts her hand over her eyes, blocking the sunlight. She turns her head away from me and goes silent.
Jean-Claude is running past us and suddenly he stops before me. “You ’ave plaits,” he says, tugging on one of my braids.
“No,” I say. “Americans call them braids. I think English people call them plaits. You want to be English or American?”
Jean-Claude looks down at the stone floor of the courtyard. Then he looks back up at me. His face is beaming. “American!!! I want American!” he says and his little hand becomes a gun. “Bam, bam, bam,” he goes, shooting everything in the courtyard to pieces. “Bam Bam Bam Bam!” Even Monsieur Le Bon Bon is shot full of holes but he doesn’t seem to mind at all.
“Ce n’est pas agréable, Jean-Claude! It is not nice. You sit down,” says the concierge. “Oh, he has misbehaved, you know. Like Albert! This one has taken Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s Asterix books. He has broken into Le Bon Bon’s cupboard, picking at the lock. The little one is a terror!”
The wind blows. The leaves whisper. The nightingale sings.
Hmmm, the little one is a terror. He breaks into cupboards. What about my locked drawer? I am thinking, Hmmm, perhaps the little one can help me? Perhaps? Peut-être?
Autumn leaves and old flowers brushing into snow. Boston in early winter, Halloween and then Thanksgiving. I was there outside Windel’s practice room every single day. But of course, I was always careful that he never saw me, although sometimes I had to dash into the broom closet. Once, it was necessary to hide in a stall in the bathroom and I fell off the back of a toilet, breaking the porcelain cover. But I was pretty sure no one heard the crash.
When Windel first returned, his music had a mournful note because of his grandpa, but soon it seemed to grow deeper and better. I had been perfectly content to listen in secret to Windel practicing the piano every winter afternoon. But one day Ginger said, “Pet, you’re in a rut. You gotta meet Windel. You gotta talk to him.”
“Talk to him?” I said. “Me?”
And so Ginger pulled some strings (she helps out in the office) and landed me a volunteer job at the coat check table for a performance given by Windel Watson at his little brother’s school.
“Me?” I said to Ginger. “You want me to say hello and take Windel’s coat?”
“Yup,” said Ginger. “Piece of cake.”
It was very close to Christmas then, a snowy evening, cookies, cider, and me standing at the table in the hall taking people’s coats. I saw Windel coming toward me with his little brother leading him through the crowd. Windel was dressed in a tuxedo and red high-top sneakers. And this was probably the reason I didn’t notice anything else. I mean, it was such a surprise! Just like his music. And then the way he took his little brother’s hat off and handed it to me. I mean, when gruff-looking people are gentle, oh, it’s just that much sweeter.
I took the hat and the coats. But I wish I would have taken more notice. I did remember the little one had a cute hood. But alas, I was flustered and didn’t recall Windel’s overcoat or anything later. I mean, Ginger says I must have been cooked, fried by the sight of the tuxedo and the little brother and the smell of cider and it was Christmas. I mean, these things encourage crushes. It wasn’t my fault!!!
I sat in the deep darkness at the back of the auditorium, admiring Windel’s rendition of “The First Noel.” When the lights went on I quickly stumbled back to the coat check table and began distributing coats as kids appeared. Windel and his little brother were among the last to show up for their coats. I pawed through the remaining pile nervously. In panic, I looked up at Windel. Then Windel pawed through the pile and then we pawed through it together.
But alas, his coat was gone! And as we untangled the pile, a strand of my hair got wrapped around one of the cuff links on his sleeve. I couldn’t move my head more than a few inches from his wrist or it hurt. It was his right hand so he couldn’t do much to get the hair untangled, though he tried.
“It was a tweed coat,” said Windel, looking at me sadly through his horn-rim glasses as I stood hunched over with my head against his wrist. “Brown with little flecks of gray all over it.” I knew it had been his grandpa’s coat and that made it so much worse. He seemed to wear only his grandpa’s clothes now, and you could always spot Windel from miles away, the wavering, swaying kid with music scores under his arm, the one wearing his grandpa’s baggy corduroy trousers.
Finally the custodian snipped my strands of hair with scissors and I stood up straight and said, “Possibly, um, somebody’s father took your coat by mistake. You know fathers, they never know what their kids’ coats look like,” I said. I wasn’t sure if Windel was mad or not. I mean, with the dark Chopin eyes and the way he looked at me over the top of his glasses. And the half a smile. And the tuxedo and the red sneakers. I think I mumbled something like, “Oh, Windel, I am so sorry.”
His brother needed to get home so Windel helped him put on his little hooded jacket. Then Windel shrugged his shoulders and patted his brother on the back. There were no coats left. The snow outside had turned ferocious. Finally the janitor came out with a big roll of bubble wrap and offered it to Windel.
The last thing I saw of them that evening was Windel h
olding his little brother’s hand and heading cheerfully out into the snow, wearing a funny-looking cape made of bubble wrap.
I was left at the coat check table, standing there just dying, watching the wind stirring up the snow in great funnels of whiteness.
“Jean-Claude, bonjour!” I call down the stairwell. “Yoo-hoo! Are you down there?” We have just returned from a trip in a rented car to visit Flaubert’s house outside of Paris. Dad loves Gustave Flaubert, the author of Madame Bovary. But we never got to Flaubert’s house. There was a huge protest, a manifestation as they say here, which caused all the streets of Paris to be blocked.
“Désolé, mais la route est bloquée!” said the policeman standing in the middle of the street with his hand up to stop us. Dad seemed quiet on the way home. Now he walks into the apartment looking like a balloon that has just lost all its air, which is unusual for Dad. He’s never down.
“Jean-Claude, I have something to ask you,” I call again.
Jean-Claude comes racing up the stairs and into our apartment. He darts past me. Within moments, he has snagged Dad into a shoot-out in the salon. Dad is now crouching behind the piano with a ruler in his hand using it as a machine gun, firing at the sofa behind which Jean-Claude lurks.
Ava puts down her little suitcase, which she uses as a makeup carrier. Nobody even asked her why she was bringing that to Flaubert’s house.
“Jean-Claude,” I say. “Yoo-hoo! I need your help.”
Jean-Claude rushes into the hall now and looks up at Ava. “Where is Logan?” he says. “I see you taking walks with him.”
“What?” says Ava.
“Maybe,” says Jean-Claude, “you fell into love of Logan.”
“What?” says Ava again, stepping back a few paces.
“Ava,” says Dad, breathing hard, brushing off his hands, recovering from the shoot-out. “You haven’t had time to get to know Logan, so of course you don’t love him. People mistake culture shock for love all the time, girls. Love and culture shock both make you feel charmed and stunned and lost. Ah, Ava, come on, give Paris her due. Don’t misplace the glorious feeling!”