The French Girl

by Felicia Donovan

  “I know.”

  “She said I should keep writing to her and she will try to write back.”

  Giselle touched me on the knee.

  “Why don’t you come back down and I will make you a special dessert, okay?”

  But for some reason, I did not feel like dessert or eating.

  “I think I would like to go to bed instead,” I said.

  Giselle put her hand to my forehead. “Are you all right, Cherie?” she asked.

  “Yes, but I am very tired from swimming.”

  “Then I will make you an extra special dessert tomorrow night. Bonne nuit and puits de sommeil. Good night and sleep well.”

  ***

  After Giselle left, I got up and dug out the small blue bag that I had brought with me that I kept in the back of my closet. It still had Anais’ key chain with her engraved initials and Maman’s nail polish in it. I withdrew Anais’ letter from the nightstand and tucked it deep down into the bag and set it far back in the closet before climbing back into my bed.

  I laid there with the open window and thought for a long time about Anais’ letter and how she was not going to be able to leave the school for a while and her comment about there being much she wanted to tell me. Tell me about what? About Maman? About the police? About where she was? Was it possible that I did not want to know about these things now?

  I could hear Giselle and Jean come up the stairs and after a while, I climbed back out of bed because I wanted to ask Giselle if she knew exactly how long Anais would be at that school.

  Their door was open and the light was still on. As I neared their room, I could see their reflections in the tall mirror that stood next to Giselle’s side of the bed. Jean was sitting up against the headboard in a t-shirt reading a book while Giselle leaned against her in her nightgown, her eyes shut as she rested her head against Jean’s chest.

  “Two hearts in love need no words,” Jean read.

  “That is beautiful,” Giselle said. “Who is that?”

  “Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. I’m reading the translation.”

  “Valmore? We used to read her in class. She led a very sad life and lost several of her children. Still, the words are so beautiful.

  “How would you say it in French?” Jean asked.

  “Entre deux coeurs qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles.”

  “I think I like that even better.”

  “It is beautiful no matter what the language.”

  “And so are you,” Jean said as she leaned forward and kissed the top of Giselle’s head.

  Giselle traced her finger up Jean’s arm. “Shut the door,” she said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I was awakened the next morning to a thudding sound followed by the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Giselle was in her room wearing one of Jean’s old denim shirts with the sleeves rolled way up, moving furniture around and vacuuming in every corner.

  “What are you doing?” I asked rubbing my eyes.

  She jumped. “Oh! I did not hear you, Cherie. It is Saturday. It is cleaning day for the party tonight.”

  The last party I could remember having been to was when Papa turned thirty-five and Maman had made a big cake decorated with a picture of La Dominique out of frosting on the top of it. Many of the other fishermen and their wives came to our small house by the sea. I remember the house being filled with the sounds of laughter and the smell of tobacco and wine.

  “Is it someone’s birthday?” I asked.

  “Non, it is just friends getting together,” she said as she grabbed a cloth and sprayed the glass on the tall mirror that sat beside their bed.

  “What do you do?”

  “Mostly talk, laugh, drink. Have good times. Sometimes we watch an adult show called Saturday Night Live. It is very funny.”

  “Who will be there?”

  “Eppy and Carol and a woman named Susan and some others. I never really know how many will be there.”

  “Are they all women?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I come?”

  Giselle smiled into the mirror. “Of course you may, but just for a short while. You will meet everyone, but then you must go to bed. We will pick out a special dress for you to wear.” She tossed the cloth my way. “You can help clean, too.”

  “Where is Jean?”

  “Jean is cleaning downstairs. You may start by going back to your room and making sure everything is dusted.”

  “Who is Susan?”

  Giselle paused, then switched the cloth to her other hand. I watched the muscles of her arm twitch as she swirled the glass round and round with the cloth till the glass sparkled.

  “She is one of Jean’s friends. She is a lawyer and a teacher.”

  “She is your friend, too?”

  “She is Jean’s friend. She teaches some classes in the Women’s Studies Department about law and equality.”

  “Why isn’t she your friend?”

  Giselle sighed. “Because she is Jean’s friend. It is okay, you know, for people who live together to have different friends.”

  “But you do not like her?”

  Giselle turned her back to me. “Etoile, I have too much to do to answer all of your questions right now. Go on now, go clean your room then you may come down and I will make you some breakfast.”

  I was very careful dusting around the picture of Giselle’s grandmother. I had placed it against a pile of books on the dresser and sometimes if I had trouble sleeping, would look at her face and pretend it was Maman smiling back at me.

  We all worked very hard getting ready, especially Giselle. She took up rugs and made Jean drag them outside and hang them over the porch railing. Giselle gave me a broom to hit them with, sending dust into the air while she scrubbed the floors clean with Murphy’s oil soap.

  Giselle had Jean do all of the high-reaching chores like wiping down the light bulbs on the wrought-iron chandelier that hung over the kitchen table, and dusting the tops of the shelves neither of us could reach. Many times, Jean would begin to protest, but Giselle would go over and rub her shoulders or squeeze her hand and Jean would reluctantly go on.

  When the house was spotless, Jean and I retreated to the back porch to read while Giselle began cooking.

  “You watch,” Jean said to me as we carried an old chair out to the back porch so I could sit with her, “she’ll cook enough for an army.”

  “More for us,” I said opening my book.

  Jean gave a small laugh. “Indeed. More for us.”

  We read in silence except for the sound of Giselle banging pots and pans and occasionally swearing in French. Jean, who was sitting diagonally in the old couch with her long legs dangling over the sides, glanced over the top of her book when Giselle let out a few choice words about the quality of the meat.

  “She takes her cooking very seriously,” Jean said. “Ignore the rest.”

  I nodded and smiled to myself. When Giselle swore, and she only swore in French, it was funny. It was not at all like when Maman got upset and swore.

  “What are you reading, Jean?”

  “It’s a book called The Hite Report.”

  “What is it about?”

  “It’s…it’s an adult book about adult things.”

  I shrugged.

  “What are you reading?” Jean asked.

  “Nancy Drew.”

  “Really?” Jean said lowering her book. “I loved Nancy Drew growing up. Which one?”

  “The first one, The Secret of the Old Clock. I found it at the school library.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes. Very much. This Carolyn Keene is a very good writer.”

  “You do understand, Etoile, that there is no such person as Carolyn Keene?”

  I held the front cover of the book to her. “Yes there is, Jean. She wrote all of the Nancy Drew’s.”

  “It’s a pseudonym.”

  “A what?”

  “A pseudonym. An assumed name. In the case of Nancy Drew, mos
t of the books in the series were written by one particular woman, but several of the other books were written by other authors over a period of time. They used the name Carolyn Keene to be consistent with the readers.”

  “I still like them.”

  “They’re still very likeable,” Jean said.

  “I would like to read them in order, but the school library did not have many.”

  Jean set her book down and stood up. “Come with me, Etoile,” she said as she led me back through the kitchen.

  “Oh Jean, there you are,” Giselle said, her face dotted with spots of flour. There were several empty piecrusts sitting out on the wooden counter. “Can you please bring me some blueberry preserves from the back porch?”

  “In a minute,” Jean said as we walked past her.

  ***

  Jean led me back upstairs to the hallway just outside my bedroom. She went in my room and grabbed my wooden desk chair and placed it in the middle of the hallway, then climbed onto it and reached up. I had never noticed the doorframe in the ceiling before. Jean pulled heavily on a long cord and the doorframe opened up and a set of wooden stairs began to slide down.

  “Do you still have your flashlight?” she asked.

  I handed her the flashlight Giselle had set beside my bed the first day I had arrived.

  She shone it up the stairs as we went up. Jean pulled on a cord and the room was suddenly bathed in yellowish light. The air was hot and stuffy and smelled very old. There were piles of boxes everywhere. I saw the glimmer of shiny trophies spilling out of several boxes in one corner. Another corner had some old wooden chairs piled end on end. In another corner there were boxes of books, still others had clothes and tennis rackets in them. On one side, a pile of paintings leaned up against an old metal bed frame. I picked up one of the paintings and looked at it. It was a portrait of an old rotted fishing boat named “La Camelia” sitting on the grass. The boat was blue and white with holes scarring its side. It was lazily tipped over as if it had been forgotten and left to rot away. In the background was water. Across the water was the pier with the faint silhouette of men lifting big bins of fish to bring to the processing plant. I recognized the scene immediately.

  “Are these Giselle’s?” I asked.

  “Yes. She has a bunch of them that she’s done. I keep telling her she should show them, but she doesn’t think they’re good enough.”

  I picked the others up. One was of a beautiful garden scene with a fountain in the middle of it. Many were of water scenes. I took the last one out and carried it towards the light. It was a street scene. I immediately recognized the front of Madame Duvais’ market with the wooden bins of fruit and bread underneath each window and the faded blue awning that hung over them. Inside the store, Madame Duvais could be seen behind the counter near the fryers, helping a woman customer. The likeness was excellent, yet there was something about the picture that left me shaking my head because it seemed right in many ways, yet wrong somehow and I could not figure out why. Was it because Madame Duvais was smiling cheerfully as she helped the woman? I had not seen Madame smile at her customers many times.

  “Here we go,” Jean said as she lifted a heavy box up.

  I carefully set the picture back as Jean carried the box back downstairs.

  Jean folded the stairs back up and secured the latch. We went into my room. Jean found a damp towel from the hamper and wiped the dust and dirt off the top of the box. I waited with much anticipation as she opened the box up and began to hand me piles of Nancy Drew books. I read the titles as she passed them along, The Secret of Red Gate Farm, The Bungalow Mystery, The Mystery at Lilac Inn. I touched each one as I set them on top of the dresser. I had never seen an entire collection of books before. Soon, the top of my dresser was filled end to end with books and there were still more in the box.

  “Are these all yours?” I asked Jean.

  “They were. They’re yours now,” she said patting me on the shoulder.

  “Giselle! Giselle!” I yelled running down the stairs clutching some of the books in my hand. “Giselle, look at what Jean has given me!”

  Giselle was whisking some yellow creamy mix in a bowl as I ran in.

  “Look, Giselle! Jean has given me all of these books to read. They are all Nancy Drew!”

  Giselle glanced up briefly and kept whisking. “That is very nice, Cherie. Did you thank her?”

  Jean walked in behind me.

  “Thank you, Jean,” I said.

  Jean patted me on the head. “You’re very welcome, Etoile. It’s nice to know they’ll be with someone who appreciates them. In fact, I might give them a quick re-read if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Jean,” Giselle said pushing at a piece of loose hair that had fallen across her face, “could you please go back now and get me the two jars of blueberry preserves from the porch that I asked you for?”

  Jean paused and tucked the hair back from Giselle’s face as she passed through to the back porch.

  “I am going to read them all in order,” I told Giselle. “See, this is number two. Jean has all of them in a series. It is always more fun to read them in the series because then you get…”

  “That is nice, Cherie, but I do not have time for this right now,” Giselle said as whisked with one hand and reached for some salt with the other.

  “What are you making?”

  “It is lemon custard. Go on, now. Go read your books or something, okay? I have too much work to do right now to chit-chat.”

  I could not be disappointed with such a treasure in my possession. I took the second and third book of the series with me into the porch and plopped down on the opposite end of the couch. Jean and I settled comfortably back into reading.

  ***

  It was not until much later that Giselle finished cooking and joined us out on the porch. She collapsed onto the couch across Jean’s lap, threw her head back and shut her eyes.

  “Ready for the invasion?” Jean asked.

  “You do not understand how difficult it is to prepare for something when you do not know how many people will show up.”

  “Giselle, you could have made just one of your dishes and everyone would be happy.”

  “They had better be.”

  “Be thankful we have all these friends.”

  “Your friends,” Giselle said.

  “No, our friends.”

  “They are not all our friends.”

  “Giselle…”

  “Please, Jean. Do not make me pretend she is my friend.”

  Jean glanced over at me, but I stuck my head into my book.

  “Giselle, you’ve never given her a chance. The two of you have been like oil and water from the day you first met.”

  “I could cook for you right now and make oil and water into something nice, Jean. It does not have to be rude and brash.”

  Jean sighed. “Fine, but you just remember that she is one of our top advocates. She’s done more work on our behalf than…”

  “I do not need anyone to advocate on my behalf, Jean,” Giselle said as she stood up. “And now I am going upstairs to take a long hot bath. Etoile, when I am done, it will be your turn and then we will get dressed.”

  A few hours later, I could hear the sounds of doors being opened and closed and of laughter drifting up the staircase when Giselle came into my room wearing her taffeta off-white robe with the flowers down the front.

  “Giselle, the people are here!”

  Giselle stopped in front of my mirror and slipped on a pair of dangling silver earrings.

  “I know. We will go down in a few minutes.”

  “But shouldn’t we be down now to greet everyone?”

  “Jean can greet them. You and I have to make an entrance. But first, we will pick out a special dress for you.” Giselle rummaged through my closet until she found a sleeveless pink voile dress with a ruffled skirt. “This will look very pretty,” she said handing it to me.

 
“Rapidement, quickly, put it on.”

  I liked how the dress fit my blossoming body. I brushed my hair and went over to Giselle’s room, but stopped in her doorway when I saw her. Giselle was wearing a sleeveless, v-neck linen dress with big, bright red geraniums against a white background. Her hair was partially pulled away from her face and secured in the back with a clip with a red flower on it. Her fingers, toenails and lips were all painted bright red. She turned my way and I was aware of the strangest feeling in my chest as if Maman was standing there.

  “You look beautiful, Cherie,” she said coming towards me. “Do you like that dress?” I kept staring at her. “Etoile?” she said leaning her head closer. “Is there something wrong?”

  “I have never seen you wear polish before,” was all I could think to say.

  Giselle closed the tube of lipstick and placed it back in a small case on top of her dresser.

  “I do not usually, but sometimes I like to. Would you like a dab of lipstick?”

  “No thank you.”

  Giselle put her hand out to me and brought me over to the long mirror in front of her bed. I stood in front of her. We looked at each other for several seconds, her hands resting on my shoulders.

  “You could be mine,” she said quietly.

  ***

  As we descended the stairs, I was aware of heads turning our way and conversations coming to a halt. My feet grew heavy, but Giselle took my hand and led me down.

  “Everyone,” she announced as we reached the bottom step, “I would like you to meet Etoile.”

  Jean came over wearing tan bell bottom chinos and a blue chambray shirt and kissed Giselle on the cheek.

  “You look beautiful,” she whispered.

  Eppy broke from the crowd and came over. “Don’t you both look stunning,” she said as she kissed Giselle on the cheek. Giselle cupped her hand and whispered something into Eppy’s ear.

  “Sure, I’d love to,” Eppy said. Turning to me, she asked, “How are you, Sweetie?”

  “It’s amazing,” another woman said, “She looks just like you, Giselle.”