by Phoebe Stone
“Thanks a lot, Jean-Claude,” says Ava. She frowns at Jean-Claude. He frowns back at her and suddenly I realize I have acquired, by accident, an ally.
“Well, what are you talking about, Angus?” says Mom. “Ava and Logan went to Notre-Dame Cathedral together yesterday. He read her a French poem in the garden there, for goodness’ sake.”
Ava blushes. Snow White with blond hair, Sleeping Beauty awake, the Princess and the Pea, rested. There is no telltale blushing in storybooks but I can see the red color climbing across Ava’s face.
“He read her a poem?” I say. And oh, how I bumbled things with Windel.
“Mom, hush!” Ava whispers, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes over toward me.
I can hear water in the bathtub running. It sounds like it is about to overflow. Ava remembers it too suddenly and goes hurrying off down the long hall toward the bathroom, pulling her little makeup case on wheels. We won’t see her now for a very long time. Yesterday Ava broke the world record for taking the longest bath in history.
“Jean-Claude, s’il vous plaît?” I say. “Please? Can you help me with a little something?” I walk to my room and wave to him.
Jean-Claude leaps forward in his kneesocks and short pants.
“My uncle thinks you will teach me more English,” he says. “I am ready. I want to be Johnny Depp. Tonto! The Lone Ranger!”
“Come in and fermez la porte,” I say. “Close the door, quick.”
Jean-Claude slams the door. “I can kiss better than Logan,” he says, leaning back against it. “Now is it time for an American embrace?”
“Jean-Claude, are you crazy? You’re just a little kid. I am old enough to be your mama!”
“I like tall girls,” he says.
“I am not tall. Ava’s tall. I am a shrimp so far.”
“Perhaps you will be tall soon,” he says. “I like braids too.”
“Jean-Claude, look, promise you won’t tell anyone. This will be our secret.”
“Oooh là là!” he says.
“Come here, can you help me unlock this little drawer?” I say, pulling a chair away from the armoire, exposing the drawer with its tiny bumblebee handle.
Jean-Claude sniffs at the air as if smelling the problem. Then he raises his little dark eyebrows.
“I need un couteau … for putting the butter on the bread,” he says.
“You need butter?” I say.
“Non non non. Le couteau for cutting butter.”
“Oh, a knife,” I say. “A butter knife.”
“Oui, dans la cuisine! In the kitchen,” says Jean-Claude. He opens the door of my room and sticks his head out, reminding me for a moment of a smaller, more devious Tintin with his pen-and-ink stretching neck. Then Jean-Claude dashes into the hall.
“Jean-Claude,” my dad calls out. “Où est le pistol? Le six-shooter!”
And then I hear a lot of bam bams and a bunch of pretend grenades exploding. I hear Jean-Claude’s feet scampering down the hall and then too I see Dad scrambling after him.
Soon Jean-Claude returns and closes the door. He has a little butter knife sticking out of his jacket pocket.
“Voilà!” he says. “We slip this in, you see. It will open then, perhaps. Okie dokie?”
For some reason my heart skips and scampers then too. It flutters and buffets inside me and I stand here almost shaking. Perhaps there will be nothing inside the drawer. Nothing but disappointment. Emptiness. The usual younger-sister fare.
“Gold coins, perhaps?” says Jean-Claude. “You become très riche. You will take me in matrimony.”
“Open it, Jean-Claude,” I say.
And he shoves the butter knife along the top of the drawer and listens. We hear a little click and he pulls the drawer open. Jean-Claude glows with pride. He slaps his hands together and tilts his head. “Voilà!” he says again.
Inside the drawer there is a package wrapped in old flowered wrapping paper and tied with a ribbon. It is a gift. Clearly. An unopened gift. With a card under the ribbon. I was always taught not to open other people’s presents. I mean, break a rule like that and Christmas would soon become chaos and disaster.
I look at Jean-Claude and he looks back at me. Then he reaches for the gift but I block him with my elbow and pick up the package myself.
It is light, almost weightless. I set it down on my desk and look at it. I twiddle my thumbs for a minute, mindlessly humming.
“It is a present for me,” says Jean-Claude, rushing forward.
“No,” I say, “it’s a present for someone, but not for you. We shouldn’t really be …” And then I leap toward it and grab it. I rip back the paper. It tears so easily.
Within the folds of tissue I see something amazing. Oh! I feel a series of crackles and splashes like sparklers lighting up one by one inside me. Oh!
There in my hands is a very tiny dress made of orange silk and maroon velvet. It has a silk bow at the back and a great orange silk sash. The dress is only about eleven inches tall. But so beautiful, all made with the tiniest of stitches. It is the loveliest doll dress I have ever seen. I am so surprised and so amazed that I start coughing.
“Une robe de poupée!” shouts Jean-Claude. “Not for me! Is too bad.”
“Shhh! No, it’s a doll dress,” I say, whispering.
“Oui,” says Jean-Claude, “très ancienne.”
“Uh-huh, very old,” I say, still kind of coughing and studying the doll dress and the card that is with it, written in swirling French handwriting. The only thing I can recognize on the card is a date, which I can’t really read.
Jean-Claude shakes his head in a cheerful sad way when I look up at him. “I can’t read that,” he says, shrugging his little shoulders. “All I can read is Asterix.”
“Since it was a gift for someone that we opened, we better keep this a secret. Okay?” I say. Then I push the wrapping paper and the card way to the back of the drawer.
“Ah, oui,” Jean-Claude says, his eyes lit like little sparklers too. “I like to have a secret with you.”
“Promise?” I say. “No telling?”
“Mais oui, I promise,” he whispers.
I stare at the little dress lying in my hands. I am astonished, dazzled, surprised, and very, very baffled.
And then one sentence pops into my mind: Why was the dress hidden?
Last Valentine’s Day, Ava got fourteen valentines. And she taped all of them around her mirror in the shape of a heart. Then she took a photograph of it and posted it online. I only wanted one valentine, not fourteen. Just one.
On Valentine’s Day on the streets in Boston I always used to see college boys with bouquets wrapped in cellophane rushing past me. Everyone was carrying a bouquet that day, it seemed. And it was on one of those Valentine’s Days that Ginger arranged my next encounter with Windel. Oh, but why did I go along with it?
Ginger knows all the volunteer stuff going on at our group of schools in Boston and she suggested me for the elementary school party on February 14. Windel would be there because of his little brother. I was to carry a bag of valentines from the first- and second-grade classrooms to the school gym where the party was to be held. And that wasn’t easy for Ginger to arrange. The custodian was against it from the beginning because of the overcoat incident but Ginger managed it anyway.
And so I found myself on February 14 hauling a bag of valentines down to the elementary school gym. Windel was to be dressed in a mailman’s suit and he was supposed to collect the bag from me at the gym door and distribute the valentines to all the little kids, the ones they had all made for one another.
Ginger smiled and handed me a pair of sunglasses. She said, “If you see the custodian, just put these on.” Then she left.
For me it should have been an easy job. But being a second child, a low-ranking younger sister, I was nervous, shy, and even scared. If I had been Ava, perhaps I would have noticed that the big plastic bag had a long subtle broken seam down one side. Oh, I should have noti
ced! But alas, my lack of confidence encouraged my fear, which blurred my thoughts.
Well, at least I got to the gym door with the bag before it broke. And then, it split open and the entire contents spilled all over the floor. Hundreds of valentines were scattered everywhere in the hallway. And they were slippery too. I got so flustered that I skidded on a pile of them and my feet slid out from under me. When Windel opened the gym door in his mailman’s suit, there was this girl (me) sprawled out on the floor in the midst of hundreds of kid valentines.
“Are you okay?” Windel said, looking down at me like his glasses weren’t working, like maybe he needed a stronger pair to understand what was before him on the floor.
“Oh, Windel, I am so sorry,” I said, getting to my knees, picking up a couple of wrinkled valentines and handing them up to him. Ginger hurried over. She had been outside and had missed the whole thing. She quickly began gathering up valentines for me.
But then something terrible happened. Ginger started giggling. And Ginger’s giggling is very contagious. Unfortunately I was so stressed that I started giggling too and we both could not stop laughing. I laughed so hard I almost collapsed.
Windel leaned down and put one of his large piano hands on my shoulder and said, “Are you choking? Should I call the nurse?”
Some kids heard all the laughing and coughing and saw all the valentines and they came out to look and more kids followed. Soon everyone was running around, grabbing valentines and laughing and jumping up and down. One kid was zooming around wearing Windel’s mailman hat, and there were valentines flying through the air.
Finally a teacher blew a big, loud whistle and the kids fell into a straight line and filed silently into the gym. Windel followed, looking back at me like a trip to the eye doctor was definitely on his must-do list.
On top of everything else, I left my favorite pink jacket in the hall there that day. I never saw it again. You might think that all this would have crushed my crush. But alas, it did not. No one seemed to have the talent or the secret passion that Windel had. I was the only one who had seen him practicing alone month after month, his hands flying over the piano keys. And one of those piano hands had been on my shoulder! And when he chased the kid who had stolen his mailman hat, he was giving another little kid a piggyback ride and that was so sweet.
Today Ava is with Mom in the kitchen and she’s crying. She misses Lucy, our dog, who is staying with the Barbours back in Boston. They are encamped around the kitchen table, draped together, inseparable. Dad is standing there with his hands dangling at his sides, looking sheepish and out of sorts.
“My sweet Ava,” says Mom. “My firstborn child. We are so much alike, honey. I want to go home too. I have nothing to do all day.”
“Buddy,” says Dad. “I did a little shopping yesterday and guess what I bought for you? Some paints and a nice big canvas! Remember how you used to love to paint?”
“Oh, Angus,” says Mom, “I wouldn’t know where to begin. Honey? Why don’t you take Ava to the Bois de Boulogne, the park where they have horse stables. Just the two of you, what do you say, Angus?”
“Fine, Buddy,” says Dad, swinging his arms.
Ava looks sweetly up at Dad, reminding me for a second of the way it was when we were younger when we used to play together. Then, no one was as much fun as Ava. She could build wonderful houses of sticks and blocks. She brought in moss and flowers and rocks from the yard to make little beds and chairs and tables for our tiny dolls.
“Okay, I’m ready to go, Dad,” says Ava, standing up. Today again she is wearing that shift with those cartoon eyes.
“I don’t know if I would wear glowing eyes to the Bois de Boulogne,” says Dad, adjusting his hidden money belt under his shirt, “but that’s just me.”
“Honey, if you wore glowing eyes anywhere, we might have to start marriage counseling,” says Mom.
“Ha-ha, Mom,” Ava says, putting her long arm over Dad’s shoulder. She looks down at her shift and frowns. A slight dented look crosses her face. Then she glares at me and says, “Pet, that skirt you’re wearing is not very French, actually.”
“Actually, I’m not French,” I say. And I pick up my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. My valentine’s present from Grandma Beanly. Ava gets white satin slippers. I get a backpack. Go figure.
“Okay, we’re off, then, Ava,” Dad says, pulling open the double doors. He looks back at me. “Pet, honey, I hear you’re going out to the Auteuil Market on your own today. Good for you, sweetheart! And guess what? When I was out yesterday I bought you this little pocket French dictionary so you can look up French words.” He hands me a tiny red book. “It goes right in your backpack. The outdoor market is only a couple of blocks away. But be careful, okay?” he says and hugs me. My dad is cozy and warm and when he wraps his dad arms around me, I feel for a minute like I am back in America. Home.
“What did you get for Ava?” says Mom.
“Oh, Pumpkin, it wasn’t like that,” says Dad, looking befuddled. “The dictionary was just a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. I’ll get you one too.”
Ava looks down at her dress again and gets all shadowy and slinks off to her room and shuts the door. “Pumpkin,” calls Dad, “come on, sweetheart.” He knocks on her door. Ava doesn’t answer. Dad stands there and his cotton shirt suddenly looks wrinkled.
“Pet, move aside,” says Mom, sweeping into Ava’s room and closing the door.
“Mom?” I say. “Mom?”
We hear whispering and complaining. I hear my name and it falls through me, hot and white, burning like a comet.
Soon Ava emerges. She has changed her outfit. She’s wearing bright red lipstick. She doesn’t look my way. She just takes Dad’s arm and pulls him out the door.
I put on my purple jacket with puffy sleeves and covered buttons down the front that I sewed before we left “the States,” as they call it here. Strange to think of home with its new name and from this new angle. The States. A wistful feeling pours through me.
In the hall Mom hands me a shopping basket and ten euros. “Honey, I need some fennel. Thanks for doing this,” she says and then she shakes her head at me and adds, “Pet, you are the living limit. You should be wearing a T-shirt and jeans to the outdoor market. That purple jacket is just too …” She closes her eyes.
“What?” I say. “What, Mom?”
“Oh, never mind,” she says. She blows me a kiss and waves.
I take the tiny cage elevator downstairs. As it drops, my heart drops too. Mom doesn’t really like my purple jacket.
This elevator feels rickety and as if the wire could snap at any moment. But it doesn’t. It always seems to hold. It is just like everything in Paris: delicate, old, balanced just right, and working mostly, in a French kind of way.
I get out onto the street and pass flowers in the window boxes blooming a French blue. The sky too is the same powdery forever blue. I pass a child holding a blue notebook sitting outside a flower shop on the corner. I nod and smile.
But then I walk by a poster in a round kiosk. The sight of it throws me backward off the curb as if in electric shock.
In horror, I look closer, hoping I am wrong. No. It’s true. There’s a picture of Windel Watson playing the piano on it. Large letters announce in English and in French: “Windel Watson plays Chopin in the Prodigies in Paris Series!” Windel’s face seems to follow me down the street, accusing me, shunning me.
Feeling wounded, I cover my face for a minute. My luck. I thought I could leave my shame about the Windel incidents behind me, like a suitcase left on the shore. But many have tried and learned that leaving embarrassment and humiliation behind when you cross the ocean is never really possible.
I bustle with everyone else into the open-air vegetable market, which is under tents at the Place Jean Lorrain. It is usually just a little leafy park in the middle of the intersection, but the area now has come to life, crowded with color and noise. I walk through tables piled with oranges and gr
apefruits and gleaming apples. Stands of flowers—peonies, irises, tulips, roses. I pass Frenchwomen with bags of vegetables bulging, leek tops poking out, spinach in bunches passing hands, artichokes, lemons, celery root.
If only spring hadn’t come to Paris so beautifully just as we arrived from the darkest late winter back home. If only I didn’t feel like crying one more time over Windel and his spectacular rise to greatness at thirteen years old. I look down at my jacket. It is too what? Mom didn’t finish her sentence.
Then I go into an aisle of Indian bedspreads and skirts and scarves. Racks of saris blow in the wind and I get lost between layers of floating block-printed cotton, billowing blouses, and bedspreads. Did Mom mean too purple, maybe?
A group of African women, their heads wrapped in bright colored fabric, filter by me. A French mother rattles on to her small child and I can’t understand a word of it. I don’t understand anything. I am afloat in a foreign sea and I am tired of it. I want to go home.
Then the man at the flower stall says, “Voilà, made-moiselle!” He holds out a great big bouquet of tulips and I look at the color. I’m astonished. Some of the tulips are bright orange and some of the tulips are a deep maroon. And it sends another kind of sparkle through me and I can’t believe my eyes. Ginger whispers to me again. Yes, three bouquets.
“Wow!” I say.
“Trois euros,” he calls.
“Three euros?” I say. He nods. I count them out and hand them to him. And then the bouquet is mine.
The orange and dark red are the same colors exactly as the small beautiful doll dress back in my armoire. And that makes me laugh and hiccup. Suddenly I feel wonder and magic and I am flooded with an idea. Yes, I know exactly what I am going to do.
I still have twenty euros in my pocket, a present from Grandma Beanly before we got on the plane. Just beyond the Indian saris, there’s a fabric stall and I stop there with my bouquet of tulips. “Les fleurs sont jolies comme la jeune fille!” says a lady selling fabric.