Even though the garden was small, it was surprisingly lush. Potted bamboo hid most of the surrounding fence, making a cozy spot for old lawn chairs under a parasol. A tabby cat lounged on one of them, sunning himself.
“That’s Leo,” he said, pronouncing it Lay-o, which seemed rather fitting for a lazy cat. An ear twitched, signaling he knew we were here, but couldn’t be bothered to move. “Come on. Let’s eat gouter. You hungry?”
Gouter, it turned out, was the official name of the afternoon snack. At 4:30 every day, Valentin informed me, everyone - though mostly kids, really - had their biscuits, or chocolate milk, or fruits. Whatever made them happy.
“Dinners are late,” he said, “kids get hungry. Schools usually finish around this time so it’s a good excuse to eat.”
His kitchen looked almost like my parents’ back home, only a quarter of the size. Their fridge was smaller than the one we kept in the garage for sodas. As I leaned against it, Valentin cleared through the kitchen cupboards, trying to find something appropriate for us.
“Oh god, you have Oreos?” I hadn’t had anything familiar in almost a week, and the mere sight of the blue packaging had my mouth watering. Surprisingly Pavlovian response.
“Like home?” he asked, proud of himself.
They tasted even better after almost a week without them. I never thought, of all things, I would miss Oreos so much. Though having an afternoon snack gave me all kinds of home cravings: cookies and juice. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Chocolate milk.
“Zis is Jammy?”
I turned to see a woman about my mother’s age, twisting her long brown hair into a bun. She smiled as she stepped into the kitchen, cheek first.
“I’m Jamie, Hi,” I said. I knew the drill: Cheek, kiss, cheek, kiss.
“Mathilde,” she replied, “enchanté. You are the American?”
I nodded eagerly. I could see Valentin’s face in hers: in the way her lip curled slightly, so that she was constantly smiling, or in the fierceness of the brows, bushy and untamable.
“The girl of Henri Martin?” she asked. My face flushed: once again, it hadn’t occurred to me that people would actually know my family here. But I should have known better, seeing as dad spent the first twenty-odd years of his life here.
“Yes, that’s my dad,” I said, and her smile grew.
“I went to school with ‘im,” she laughed. Her accent was strong, but her English was incredibly good. Miles ahead of my French. “My little brozer was in his class. Zey were, as you say, inséparable. What is he?”
“She means to ask what he does now,” Valentin interjected.
“Iz what I said.” Mathilde ruffled her son’s hair, which was quite a feat, seeing as how he was a whole foot taller than her.
“My dad teaches French Literature at the University of Philadelphia,” I replied. “His focus is on the Lumières period.”
“Oh, Chaud!” she said.
“Show?”
“Chaud, hot,” said Valentin. What the hell, was she calling my father hot? “we say it to mean ‘impressive’.”
“Bon, je vous laisse,” she said, while grabbing an Oreo from Valentin’s pack. “Ciao!”
She left through the front door, munching on the cookie as she went. I turned to Valentin, confused.
“Ciao? Isn’t that Italian?”
“Is it?” he shrugged, already moving on to something else. “We walk from here.”
“Walk? Walk where?”
“I just thought you might want to see a real castle,” he replied, “many tourists do. And the one at Lourmarin is really nice: did you know it was the first of its kind in the entire region?”
“Of what kind?” I asked, before I realized what was going on. “Wait, you realize you don’t have to give me a tour or anything, right? I don’t need to be treated like a tourist.”
“You are one though, are you not?” He asked, cocking his head to the side as he stuffed his phone down into the pockets of his shorts. “Allez. What’s the point of being in Lourmarin if you don’t see the castle?”
I couldn’t argue with that. There was something deep inside me which was yearning to see a real castle: to see the places I had read about in fairy tales, better than any movie. And this stranger was just going to show them to me like that?
I couldn’t tell if the town was quieting down, or if the sugar had made me drowsy. You could feel the end of the day in the air, a general winding down of time itself. A small café we passed was filling up with patrons, sipping cream colored drinks with ice full to the top, glasses sweating. While the sun still looked high in the sky, the shadows were getting longer, the world more drawn out. The cicadas were still going strong, but they now seemed to add ambiance.
It took us all of five minutes to reach the castle. It was surreal that something so massive and imposing was just… there. Doors unlocked, ready for us to explore.
Well, after we dished out some cash, sure.
“You owe me 3 euros,” said Valentin, as he handed me my ticket.
“Um, I don’t actually have any money on me right now,” I said. He shrugged, but not like a little shoulder shrug: he shrugged with his entire body. It was the most exaggerated thing I had ever seen, but apparently it constituted language here, because that was his full response.
The castle was refreshing after the heat of the sun. It was a relief to be behind stone walls. The rooms were confusingly furnished: it looked old, but it was the kind of things Grandma loved to find while antiquing. It didn’t exactly match the whole castle vibe. One of the rooms, with an oddly flamboyant blue and red ceiling, was filled with little tables of all shapes and sizes. Too dainty for the heavy walls that surrounded them. The whole interior gave off a light and airy feel, nothing like the Hogwarts I was expecting. The only thing that was even half medieval looking were the gigantic fireplaces.
Valentin explained about the first foundations of the castle placed in the 12th century, how more was built upon it in the 15th, how the guys who came after in the 16th made it the first renaissance castle in Provence, and so on. It seemed like everyone who came through wanted to leave their mark on the place.
“It was almost demolished in 1920,” he continued, “But some rich man bought it, and with a group of friends and workmen from the village he restored and furnished it. He was killed in a car crash right after they finished.”
“Oh, wow,” I said, “that sucks.”
“But he was a good man. He left the château, his art and furniture collections, and his libraries to the French Academy for Art and Science in Aix, so long as they open the place up to the arts, at least during summers. That’s why there’s a photography exhibit. And concerts.”
“Wait, seriously? They have concerts here?”
“Yes. There’s even an amazing music festival, but you just missed it.”
“What the heck?”
He grinned and left it at that. He led me to a twisty stone staircase: now that’s more like it.
“Look, it’s a double twist stair,” he said, “very renaissance.”
He knew the castle like the back of his hand, showing me details I would never have seen on my own. He was like my own personal tour guide, translating the French signs and adding in his own twist.
Wait. Wait. Was this a date? The last time I had gone out with anyone, it had ended badly. Really, really badly. If I hadn’t dated Charlie, I probably wouldn’t have been at that party that night, and I wouldn’t have been in the car when the accident occurred. There wouldn’t even have been an accident. It was a good enough sign as any that I shouldn’t be dating. It would only end poorly.
Not that I would have minded a date with Valentin… I mean, talk about cute. Everything about him was perfectly… interesting. The way he rolled his r’s and z’ed his th’s. Or how that curl swung back and forth on his forehead. Or, how much he seemed to know about the renaissance.
“Are you, like, into History or something?” I asked, and realized
I sounded so, so basic. Was that even a thing in Europe, basicness?
“I love it,” he said, beaming, “I love letters. History, literature, poetry. Iz my life.”
And he was a nerd on top of it all. A cute, nerdy French boy wanted to show me around a castle and knew exactly what cheeses I was going to like. Talk about a fairy tale.
We left out the back, exiting onto a terrace with a beautiful little square pond and flowers everywhere. The outside of the castle looked smaller now that I had seen the inside, but no less beautiful.
“So, uh…” I started, trying to make conversation. He turned his eyes on me and my heart skipped a beat. Why was I feeling anything right now? The days of isolation were doing wonders to my heart.
“Valentin! Salut!”
Out of nowhere, what I could only call a bombshell appeared. She must have been a model or something, her long chestnut hair so straight it could have been spun of silk. Even though there was no breeze, it seemed to waft in the wind. She bent over to kiss Valentin on both cheeks, as he cheerfully greeted her back, a firm hand on her shoulder.
Oh.
“Jamie, this is Chloë,” he said, turning to face me, “Chloë, Jamie.”
“Enchanté, do you do ze bise?” said the model, leaning down for me to kiss both cheeks.
“Chloë and I are in the same class at lycée,” he said, “though she lives in Cadenet. Qu’es ce tu fais la?”
She answered something I didn’t catch, and they laughed. In an instant they were in deep conversation, hands flying as they spoke. And in that same moment, all hope I had drained out of me.
If I didn’t have a bike to pick up in his garden, I would have slipped away right then and there. But instead, I was forced to endure a conversation in a language I didn’t understand, between two people who were more than friendly, one of whom I had started to feel the semblance of a crush for.
Well. I could have had a crush on both of them at this point. Chloë was so gorgeous my heart melted for her also, though everything melted in this heat.
“Bon, j’y vais, le bus va passer,” she said, after what must have been an hour, “A toute!”
“A toute!” Valentin replied. It was only after she was out of sight that his attention returned to me. “Chloë is trying to sign up for driving. She is a waitress to pay it.”
“Oh,” I said, “I just got my license back home. But I don’t think I’m allowed to drive here.”
He nodded. “I need to learn, but iz too expensive. I do not have a thousand euro at the moment. Maybe after my Bac.”
I didn’t know what to pick up on first in that sentence, the ridiculously expensive cost or whatever the heck was wrong with his back. I was realizing now just how burned out I was, exhausted from trying to keep up with all the details all day.
That was the first night that I didn’t have jet lag keeping me up. The first night I didn’t give a crap about the cicadas and frogs. For once, I was happy and full: confused about things, sure, but I had spent time with an actual human being that I could actually communicate with, and that changed everything.
Though I still woke up the next morning with a face full of mosquito bites.
Jean-Pascal arrived around noon, driving not a ridiculous old car like the one he had picked me up in, but a brand-new silver thing that looked like it could power through swamps.
“Donne-lui un coup de main,” said Mamie, as I put down the plate I was drying.
“What?”
She jerked her head in his direction. I could see him out the door, carrying a grocery bag. Ah. So that’s where she got her groceries from, when she wasn’t sending her estranged granddaughter to market for her.
I dashed outside, taking the bag from his hands, and he thanked me, returning to grab what was left. Together, the two of us unloaded the bags and bags of food.
“Alors?” he asked me, as he closed the now empty trunk of his car. “How is it?”
“How is what?”
“France!”
How was I supposed to answer that, exactly? The country is hot, the countryside is noisy, the language is hard, my grandma won’t speak to me, there’s a cute boy, but the girls my age are gorgeous, and…
“Salut, JP,” said Mamie, interrupting my train of thought by kissing the man on both cheeks. And then they were off, chatting again, old friends who didn’t need the awkward girl standing around in a corner.
Frustrated, I climbed the stairs back to my room. My bed was becoming the one place in the house I didn’t feel unwelcome. When boredom and heat collided, I would lay on it, staring at the ceiling, trying to think my way out of here: I would imagine I was with Jazz, sketching: they had moved on to structures, and were now strolling around Philly, trying to capture the most striking details of the city. I hadn’t even seen a building from this century since I had gotten here.
I grabbed for my backpack. The only book I had brought for the trip I had read three times already. My computer was useless without the internet. My sketchpad lay empty on the desk, all my inspiration and skill dried up, shriveled in this heat.
Last resort? Dad’s books.
There was no denying he had a great collection, though I could only understand half the titles. It’s not everyone who decided to do a masters in French lit, and from what dad told me, his studies were grueling. When I complained about my essays for English, he would always tell me how at my age, he was already writing philosophy dissertations. He was probably exaggerating.
The books on dad’s old shelf looked just like those at home: I wondered how many he had had to buy copies of when he moved, abandoning these ones when he left behind France. Most all the spines were cracked.
The bottom shelf was far more interesting. Where above he had all the great philosophers and poets, below were the red and yellow spines of hardcover comic books. I pulled them out one by one. Asterix and Obelix. Tintin. Gaston Lagaffe.
Just as I was pulling out a water damaged copy of Lucky Luke, a note dropped out.
I paused, frozen, unsure of how to react. On the one hand, this note was probably something dad had forgotten, or maybe hidden. On the other, he had abandoned when he fled his mother. Was I supposed to read it, was I even allowed to?
I put the Lucky Luke on the growing stack of comic books, on top of Asterix et Cleopatre. The letter was yellowing with age but wasn’t brittle: it must have been written around the time that dad had left. I turned it over, shocked to see it was a few pages long, typed up on a typewriter like the one Mamie had. Maybe the same one.
What the hell, I thought, sitting down on my bed, dad didn’t have to know I was reading this. Who was going to tell him?
Mon Amour,
Tadaa! You see, I told you I was going to do something for our six months together! And you thought I would be too busy with my thesis. Well, it just goes to show you never to underestimate me and my will to create elaborate schemes.
(Being broke probably doesn’t help. Student life is the best life).
Happy six months, mon chou! Six months of late nights in the library writing all those horrible dissertations, of memorizing Baudelaire after Baudelaire, of catching trains to anywhere just to get out of it all. Six months of picnics on the beach and old men yelling at us to speak French to each other.
Seeing as how our year is almost over, and our relationship had just hit this monumental milestone, I’m sending you on a mission. A treasure hunt. And it’s not going to be easy, mind you. I’m not going to cut you any slack just because you’re defending your thesis in a few days. I am too, and yet I still had the time to put this together for you!
At the end of the hunt, I promise you, there will be a surprise you won’t want to miss. Well, unless this hunt has completely put you off me. I’d say I completely understand, but it wouldn’t make any sense after I went to all this trouble to put together this crazy thing I knew you would adore.
Now, it won’t be a long trip. Not if you’re smart about it. And I’m not giving
you any hints unless you’re completely and irrevocably stuck. In which case, I guess you’ll just have to owe me. We’ll work out my price later.
Five stops, that’s all I’m giving you. Only places that mean something to us, that we’ve been to together. They won’t be easy but they’re definitely not impossible.
Your first clue is to go to the spot where we first kissed. Here’s your hint: blackcurrant beach. Remember how we used to joke about the name?
You’re probably also remembering that we didn’t kiss on that beach. And you’d be right. We were out with Seb and his friends, only a month into the year, already decimated by the course load. Seb had suggested a beach day, and pretty much the entire masters was on board. I came by train, you took your scooter. It was only early October, but it was still as hot as summer. The entire beach was filled with tourists.
Seb suggested we move the picnic into the calanques. Getting to Port Miou was a hassle, and it must have taken us an hour to all get there and even start the actual hike. We carried bags of food and towels and so many bottles of water. We knew each other vaguely from class, but that day we shared the straps of a massive beach tote, and we talked the entire way over the cliff and back down again. We just clicked on every level, making jokes about Victor Hugo’s crazy love life and how Pagnol might have over-romanticized country living.
By the time we reached the beach, the sun was high, we were starving, and I had a crush on you. I remember how your stomach kept grumbling, as if trying to join the conversation. But Seb wasn’t convinced by the crowd. He claimed the next beach over would be even better. That he knew a path that would get us all there so much faster than the usual route.
There was grumbling, but we got back on the trail again. This way was steeper, and for a few minutes we joked that Seb was taking us to the middle of the forest to kill us off and spare himself the competition for grant money at the end of the year. But then we reached the top of the cliff, and the world fell away beneath us, and I felt in that instant that I was soaring with you.
Those calanques. I can see them a million times, but it will always take my breath away. It’s as if nature fell asleep while adjusting the colors and made everything brighter and more vibrant than anywhere else. It’s enough to show you that the impressionists were not as far off as anyone thinks.
Aix Marks the Spot Page 5