The French Impressionist

by Rebecca Bischoff

  “How is your hand?” Valerie asks me without warning. I glance up, startled. All eyes turn to me. Showtime. I feel like an invisible curtain was raised, and I’m alone in the spotlight.

  I shrug and whisper, “Okay.” I smile apologetically, pat my neck, and mouth the words, “No voice.”

  “Oh, la la, I’d forgotten!” Sylvie says. “I’ll make something for you.” She hops to her feet and bustles to the stove.

  For a few minutes, quiet chatter follows and everyone eats. I’m allowed to sit in silence. No one asks me any more questions because I can’t speak. Why have I never thought of this before?

  Sylvie brings me a steaming cup of hot lemonade with honey. I sip in grateful silence and eat fish with butter sauce that has salty, little, green things in it that look like tiny peas. At least it’s not vomit-inducing. Neither is the salad with oily dressing, but I pass on some rubbery fried squid. The nervous stomach I’d had since I learned Gavin would be here settles down. Maybe I’m off the hook. The guy is apparently ignoring me as much as I’m trying to ignore him.

  And then, right at the moment when I get too comfortable, Gavin stops stuffing his face and speaks.

  “So, Rosemary,” he drawls in his backwoods southern accent, “we haven’t heard much from you. I wanna know your story. How did a girl from Idaho end up here?” He wipes his mouth with his napkin and turns to me. His face is expectant, his eyes kind of . . . waiting. He wants to know how I’ll respond to him.

  I might have imagined it. I swear I might have made it all up in my head, but when he said my name, I was sure I heard him exaggerate the “r” sound at the beginning, drawing it out so that it was way too long.

  Maybe he felt bad about before, but apparently, he’s over that.

  I pause, taking time to swallow the mouthful of bread that’s suddenly bone-dry in my throat. Then I pull out my cell phone. Mom always hates when I use it to talk for me, but she isn’t here, is she?

  Keeping my face neutral, I type the words:

  Not your business. Go home, hillbilly.

  I hold the screen so only Gavin can see it, make sure he reads the words, then delete them.

  Before Gavin can reply, Valerie pipes up, “Why, what a good idea, using your phone to talk for you when you can’t. I’d never have thought of it.”

  She smiles at me and I grin right back at her.

  Whah, thank you, I say in a chirpy Southern voice inside my head.

  Maybe she’s not as annoying as I first thought. Mom would never agree with that opinion. In Mom’s mind, using anything else to speak for you is a crutch. A weakness to overcome.

  “Can I borrow your phone? I didn’t get to answer,” Gavin says. He holds his hand out but I shove my cell into my pocket.

  Valerie answers for me. “Of course you can’t, Gav! You haven’t lost your voice. Well, what is her story?” she says.

  “My name is Gavin, Valerie,” Pumpkin-head says. I witness the venom-filled glare he shoots at his mom. So does everyone else.

  I take another quick sip of my lemonade as I watch the little family drama unfold. Phil mutters something soft but harsh-sounding to his son, while I’m frankly relieved the attention is off me. I didn’t need to type those stupid words! Gavin will be gone for good after dinner. I shouldn’t have let him get to me.

  Suddenly, Gavin speaks, loud and clear. “Rosemary didn’t give me much time to read, but I caught something about studying the French language,” he says.

  I turn to him, wary. He grins at me, and his eyes gleam with a hint of the same malice he’d aimed at his mother. He winks at me.

  “And . . . French kissing.”

  I stare at him for a nanosecond, reading a challenge in his brown eyes and amusement all over his face. His full lips twist into a smile. And without thinking, I dump my hot lemonade onto his lap.

  He leaps up and swears while everyone else moves at the same time, so there’s a sudden mini-explosion of people in the tiny, blue-tiled kitchen. Somehow I extricate myself from the group and reach the hallway outside the apartment. I lean on the closed door and listen to the raised voices inside. I’m breathing like I ran a marathon. Did I just throw a hot drink onto a guy’s lap and then bail? I blink, digesting this bit of information. I did.

  I am so embarrassed.

  And then I see what’s in front of me. Walking along the hallway is a tiny, shriveled woman who shuffles by in a housecoat and dirty slippers. She stares at me with a suspicious gaze, like I’m going to try to grab the crumpled paper bag she holds clutched in her wrinkled hands.

  I stare back.

  Her eyes narrow. Finally, she whips her head around to face forward and heads up the nearby staircase. I glimpse bulging, blue veins on her skinny legs as she ascends and hear voices at my back, growing louder.

  They’re coming out.

  Telling myself I’m only being polite, because I don’t want to cause the poor Southerners any more discomfort, I inch my way down the hall and creep up the stairs to avoid any more unpleasant interactions. Luckily, the old lady is gone.

  The fixture that lights the upper hallway goes on automatically when I reach the top step. There’s a door to my left marked with the number 64, and a plastic potted palm at my right, so close I brush against its dusty fronds. There’s one more door at the end of the long, narrow hall, but it’s not marked.

  More voices from the hall below chase me farther away so I head to the unmarked door. I keep telling myself I’m not running away from anything. I’m just sparing the feelings of others.

  Rusted metal forms a tiny balcony that doesn’t look very sturdy, and narrow spiral stairs wind upward along the outer wall of the building. My mother would have a heart attack at the thought of me climbing this rickety monstrosity. The thought spurs me onward.

  At the top, the stairs open up onto a flat roof that’s been turned into a garden. Trees in huge pots line one side of the rooftop. Their leaves shiver in the soft blowing air. The space before me is covered with low wooden boxes that hold rose bushes, tons of flowers, or the spiky leaves of onions and feathery tops of carrots. One box holds wiry tendrils that spill out all over the place. I smell the perfume of the blossoms and the clean, earthy scent of wet soil.

  I sit and look up at the rain-washed sky that glows as the sun sinks low. Then I lie down on the flat roof, actually lie down right on top of dirt and leaves and cigarette butts. And I smile like an idiot up at the blushing sky. This is what it’s like to truly be alone. Everything inside me feels new. Polished. Shining. I can almost forget my latest humiliation.

  And in the space of one tiny heartbeat, I know that I can’t. Not really. I sit up and pick leaves from my hair.

  It’s always going to be like this. How can I forget? It’s like there’s this room full of people, all talking and laughing and having a great time and I’m watching through a wall of glass, wanting to join them.

  The sun goes down as I explore every inch, pick a hard green apricot, smell the roses, drop petals from the roof, and finally decide that I’ve wasted enough time.

  Downstairs, I listen at Sylvie’s door to make sure the Americans are gone. They are. I pause with my hand on the knob and try to gather some courage. I hear my therapist’s voice in my mind. “Find your feet, Rosemary. Breathe.” It sounds so stupid, but sometimes it works. Thinking about my feet is supposed to make me forget whatever’s bothering me. It’s also a symbol for stepping forward and moving on from the crap that happened. Then I just breathe. Out with the bad air. In with the good air.

  I find my feet. I breathe. And I talk in my head.

  Goodbye, Gavin. Y’all don’t come back now, y’hear?

  Sylvie meets me inside and enfolds me in a warm embrace. I hug her back, gratified and kind of shocked that she’s showing such affection to a stranger. To an awkward girl who behaved like a toddler. My hopes heave themselves
back off of the floor inside me.

  When Sylvie releases me, she says nothing. Émile asks me if I’m still hungry, offers dessert, and that’s all. For a second, he looks at me like there’s something he wants to say, but he doesn’t. So I sit and eat chocolate cake with fresh raspberries, and I feel dumb. Lame for running off the way I did. I make myself a promise. This is the last time I run away from anything.

  New home.

  New family.

  New Rosemary.

  Five

  Truth: Jada is my best friend. Yes, she was chosen for me, but I love her. She’s the real deal. This is no lie.

  “Rosemary! How’s Paris?” Jada asks, squealing with glee. I can tell she’s turned up the volume on her laptop so I can hear her loud and clear. Even so, the synthesized voice Jada uses is almost drowned out by her very real giggles. Her voice is so loud I have to hold my cell away from my ear. Jada can laugh while she’s talking but still have all her words come out steady and clear. She’s got talent. Well that, and super-powered communication software that speaks for her.

  Jada’s the only other person on the planet who knows I’m not in Paris. But she doesn’t know everything. I’m going to puke. I hate lying to my best friend. But I have to.

  “Paris is amazing, J.,” I tell her, feeling my “fruits of the sea” swimming around in my gut while I play along with Jada’s little joke. “The Eiffel tower is way tall.”

  Jada snorts. She only does this when she’s laughing really hard. She thinks she’s in on everything. She thinks we just pulled one over big time on both my Mom and Zander. She doesn’t know I’m pulling one over on her as well.

  “Tall palm trees, too,” she finally manages to say.

  My laugh is forced. I hope she doesn’t notice.

  Jada’s at school, during free period. This is when we decided we’d call each other. I say something lame about how pretty the ocean is and switch topics in less than a heartbeat so she can’t ask anything else. I describe Gavin (coffee, pumpkins, and the heart of a viper). I tell her about the broken bottle and my cut hand, and then the disastrous dinner.

  It feels so good to have someone to share this with. While I talk, the tension melts off me like wax dripping from a candle. My words come out all garbled but Jada understands me better than anyone. Maybe it’s because I know my bestie understands me, so I relax and words come easier. Jada not only gets what I say, but how I feel, too. She knows how it is to be the freak of the day.

  When I get to the part where I dumped my hot lemonade onto Gavin’s lap, Jada laughs so hard she gets hiccups. This cracks me up so we just sit there, giggling over the phone for like, forever.

  Finally Jada regains control. “I forgot the new name. What was it?”

  “Well,” I answer, hesitating. “It’s May, but maybe I need a better one. One I can’t forget.”

  “Come on!” is Jada’s response. I can tell she’s about to say more because of the way she breathes. It takes her effort to talk, too. Way more effort than me, since she can’t even control her laptop with her hands. She has to hit a switch with the side of her head to move the mouse and make it click on the words she wants. This is actually an advantage on my part, because I always have time to think of what I’m going to say next when Jada is getting ready to answer.

  “Jerubadissah,” she finally says.

  “That’s so mean!” I answer, but I’m laughing. I know Jada said it on purpose. She’s teasing me.

  “Gotta go. New name, okay?” Jada says.

  “Okay.”

  “Bring it, sister,” Jada says. Then she’s gone. “Bring it” is her way of telling me to be strong. To be brave. To stand up for myself.

  I stare at the photo of Jada that glows from my cell phone screen. Jada’s mom always calls us the “Opposite Twins.” As far as physical appearance, we’re kind of like Sylvie and Émile. Jada’s eyes are green and her short, spiky hair is ash blonde. My eyes are brown, and my dark hair is heavy and long. But on the inside, they all say we’re like twins. Same soul, different bodies.

  Whatever.

  It’s true that Jada and I are very different in a physical sense, even down to the things that don’t work correctly. Jada’s body doesn’t do what she tells it to do. Her legs and arms don’t obey the signals from her brain. Her mouth doesn’t either. As for me, well, it’s only my tongue that’s broken. That’s all. But my words are so tangled that sometimes I wish I could use something to do the talking for me, like Jada. But Mom says no. She says I don’t need it. It would be a crutch.

  Exhaustion is dragging my eyelids closed. Jada’s mom is wrong about us. My bestie and I are as different inside as we are on the outside. Jada never lets anyone make fun of her. She always has a comeback. Not me. I stand there with my heart in my throat, like a wounded animal. I only have good comebacks inside my head.

  I snuggle down into my comfy bed and listen to the radio on my cell phone, letting the musical, nasally tones of the French language soothe me to sleep. Like I often do, I pretend that it’s my voice I hear, forming perfect, fluid, silvery words that drop from my lips without any effort. Without even a thought.

  Rolling over onto my side, I stare blankly at Ansel’s murals, which are barely visible. What would it be like to be normal? To have a brain that wasn’t wired to make me sound like an idiot every time I opened my mouth?

  A new song comes on. I catch some of it, “They killed Spiderman! Nobody knows who did it. Maybe it was the Mafia.” I start to laugh. It’s cool that I can understand words in a different language. I so totally can’t say them, though.

  Anyone who knows me would think I was insane to try to learn another language, when I can’t even speak my own.

  I would have thought that too, if it weren’t for Jada.

  She forced me to take French with her last year.

  “Everyone else will sound just as bad,” she insisted.

  And the most amazing thing happened.

  She was right.

  That day, the plan started to form in my brain. Jada came up with part of it. I owe her. Big time.

  My bed is so soft. I yawn and stretch out. I don’t remember falling asleep. Usually the nightmares wake me, but I must have been too exhausted to dream. This time, noise tears me from my sleep. The bedside clock tells me it’s three in the morning.

  I hear sounds. A soft thump, then sliding noises, like something being moved. Thump . . . bump . . . clump. The noises come from the other side of my wall, the painted wall where light shone through a crack. I’d finally managed to ask Sylvie about it after dinner. I couldn’t figure out how to talk about the crack in the wall that glowed because a light shone behind it, but I asked who lived next door to us. And the answer was, “No one has lived there for fifty years.” There’s nothing but an empty apartment behind the painted wall in this room.

  My lungs ache from the strain of holding my breath as I sit up in bed, listening. Then, softly, above my head, I hear more noises. They’re moving upward, to the next floor. More soft bumps, a thud, and a voice murmuring words. A door slamming shut. Finally, silence.

  Fuzzy-socked feet make no sound on the wooden floor. Sylvie’s cat grumbles at me as I shove him aside with my foot. I’ve decided to call him “Fat Cat,” since I can’t understand, much less say, the name Sylvie told me. Stepping over him, I open my bedroom door. My heart does a little cartwheel. I’m opening my door at night, leaving my room! There’s no lock on the other side.

  The hallway is dark. Sylvie and Émile must be asleep. Émile’s thunder-rumble snores fill the air.

  The front door opens with a soft squeak and the outer hall light automatically clicks on. I ease the apartment door closed and tiptoe down the hall and up the stairs, feeling my pulse quicken. I don’t know what I expect to find. Maybe a light behind one of the apartment doors upstairs? What would that tell me? I’m not sure, but I
do know one thing, as I creep along in my worn-out pjs and green fuzzy socks at three in the morning, I am happy. I like my alone-ness. I like knowing that I can go wherever I choose. I don’t have to ask anyone. I take a deep breath. Even the air is different when you’re by yourself. No one else is there to steal your oxygen.

  The old wooden stairs creak under my feet. I pause, trying to tread lightly. Is this nothing more than curiosity, or am I doing this simply because I can? Either way, I’m probably being stupid. All I can say in my defense is that I just want to know. I want to know what those sounds were that I heard coming from an apartment that’s supposed to have been empty for half a century.

  As I get closer to the top of the stairs, I hunch over and creep upward, hugging the wall until I’m almost at the top step. I don’t want the automatic lights to turn on.

  Skylights let in enough faint, watery moonlight for me to view my surroundings. To the right is the plastic palm tree, part of a fake jungle made of ugly pretend plants. To my left is apartment number 64, obviously the home of that old lady I saw earlier. The sounds are coming from behind that door. I stumble backward down several steps and crouch against the wall, holding my breath.

  A door opens and light, shuffling footsteps creep across the hall in the darkness. The automatic light in the upper hallway clicks on. I move up a few steps but keep far enough away that I know I won’t be seen. I hear what sounds like something heavy being moved. A voice grunts with the effort. Finally, I hear the same slow footsteps cross the hall again. A door closes.

  Hardly daring to breathe, I inch upward. The little jungle to my right looks different, like stuff has been rearranged, and then behind dusty palm fronds, I see it. A door. I should have known. There’s another apartment on this side of the building, behind the fake foliage, and it must connect to the so-called empty apartment below. Why did someone go inside? And why is the apartment door up here hidden behind a bunch of plastic plants?

  I lower myself down to sit on the stairs. This shouldn’t matter to me. It’s none of my business. But, I think, picking lint from my socks, somebody is hiding a secret. I mean, who moves heavy things around like that in the middle of the night?