The French Impressionist

by Rebecca Bischoff

  It’s totally cringe-worthy. Not very original, either, but I settle down to read with my cell in hand, in case I need to translate any words. The guy goes on about the woman’s beauty and calls her sweeter than a “gâteau au fromage,” which has to mean cheesecake. Really?

  I skip ahead a little, and then find a phrase I think I understand.

  Even when your words are weak, they are sweet to my ears, for your voice is like music.

  Your words are “weak?” Is that supposed to be a compliment?

  I read and re-read this sentence. Am I wrong? I search for the word in my translator app.

  Faible means weak.

  The woman who once lived in the forgotten apartment spoke with “weak” words. What does that mean?

  I fall asleep with the letter in my hand.

  Twelve

  Sylvie and Émile don’t say anything to me during breakfast, but I catch one or two little glances they throw at each other. We eat in silence.

  When we finish, Sylvie says something about working in her studio. Émile asks me to go with him to do some shopping, so we head out to the tiny grocery store the next block over. I follow him with a little red basket. The place smells like rotten fruit. Wrinkling my nose, I wonder about “weak words,” and when Sylvie and Émile are going to talk to me about last night.

  An elderly woman with bristles on her chin brushes past me and murmurs, “Pardon.” She openly stares at Émile as he peruses the canned goods. He sees her gawking, smiles and greets her warmly. She nods back with round eyes and her mouth hanging open. Émile catches my eye and winks. The bearded lady moves on, we look at the cheese, and Émile chooses a chunk of brie. I add it to the red basket. We check out the pasta aisle. The old lady’s there. When she spots us she cranes her neck to get another look at the short, pale man beside me.

  Take a picture, it’ll last longer.

  Jada’s first words to me. The memory floods through me, bittersweet. Mom met Jada’s mom at yoga class. They talked, they bonded, they decided their daughters would be perfect for each other. A couple of freaks. Mom brought me to Jada’s house. There she sat, engulfed in this giant wheelchair, like a scrawny kid with a blonde ponytail who was being eaten alive by a plastic and metal alien from a lame sci-fi movie. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the drop of drool that collected on her chin. Her head whipped around, fast, and she glared. She started hitting the side of her skull against this red button attached to the wheelchair headrest. I thought she was having a seizure the way her body thrashed around. Then she said those words.

  I remember the horrified pause. Mom’s quick intake of breath, the wide-eyed look. But Jada’s words made me laugh. I giggled, harder and harder, and Jada joined in. And we were friends from that moment on.

  It would be the most awesome thing to say. Oh, how I wish I could do sarcastic remarks! But they require perfect timing and perfectly spoken words.

  I lift my eyes to the ceiling in exasperation and can’t believe what hits my eyeballs. Chubby cherubs. The ceiling in this grocery store is covered with fat, naked babies flying around a bunch of wispy clouds. I start to giggle. Once I start, I can’t stop. We buy the brie, some twisty pasta, some chocolate. In the checkout line I shake with laughter.

  Émile breaks open the chocolate bar as we walk back and shares it with me.

  “I’m glad you’re in a good mood,” he says.

  I don’t answer. I swipe away humor-induced tears and munch as I walk. I’m not in a good mood. I just can’t believe that my neighborhood grocery story has fat naked babies flying around on the ceiling. I love France!

  “Do you know how Sylvie and I met?” Émile asks, totally out of the blue, while some guy on a motorcycle zips by and shouts something. I shake my head.

  “I was at the beach,” Émile says. “A group of kids started to make fun of me. You know, of my strange hair and eyes and skin. They called me names and threw sand and rocks.”

  Oh. I know why he’s telling me this. This is how he and Sylvie decided they would approach their discussion of last night’s occurrence with me. I guess they figure since Émile knows what it’s like to be an oddball, he’s the one to do the honors. I take another bite of chocolate and think about cherubs on the ceiling above the pasta aisle, but this time, it doesn’t make me smile.

  “Out of nowhere,” Émile continues, “a woman wearing a blue sun hat ran up to us. She shouted at the boys and even grabbed one of them by his ear. You should have seen his face! She threw a few rocks after them as they ran, telling them they should know how it feels,” he says. His eyes crinkle with amusement. “And then she turned to me, took off her hat, and I saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. I was embarrassed that she had seen the need to defend me,” he says with a rueful expression.

  We turn the corner and head toward Sylvie’s shop. I wonder if I’m supposed to say something, but Émile keeps talking. “As this woman walked over to me, she tripped and fell. She’d twisted her ankle. So,” he says, opening the shop door and motioning for me to go inside, “I picked her up and carried her to my car, and took her to the hospital.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. Did I understand? The thought of Émile, barely taller than I am, carrying the much taller Sylvie . . .

  “I’m stronger than I appear,” Émile finishes with a grin, reading my mind.

  I laugh and Émile joins in.

  “Many people stare at me,” Émile says as we climb the stairs to the apartment. “Like that woman at the store. I don’t mind. At the beach, years ago, if I had been a tall, handsome man . . .”

  “You are handsome,” Sylvie says, sweeping over to us. She kisses Émile and winks at me.

  Émile places his groceries onto the counter, turns to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. He looks me in the eye.

  “So, now you know how I met Sylvie,” he says.

  I love him for the things he doesn’t say. I understand what he’s trying to tell me. I’m grateful for the affection I read in his eyes but everything inside me still feels kind of twisted. Émile could have told those boys to go away. He has a power I don’t have.

  Part of the reason I came here was to be seen as a normal girl. I wanted somebody to think that I was. Last night ruined that for me.

  “We love having you here, Rosie,” Sylvie says as she puts the pasta into the cupboard. “What does it matter if you cannot speak clearly?”

  It matters a lot, I want to tell her. To me. But I stay silent.

  Some things would be way too hard to explain, even if I could talk like a normal person.

  “Shall we paint, Rosie?” Sylvie asks, brushing her hands together. “It is time for another lesson, no?”

  I look up at Sylvie’s soft smile and try to return it. They think it’s all good now that we’ve cleared the air. Sylvie gives me a squeeze before we clomp downstairs to her studio. She hands me an apron and as I tie it around my waist, I mull over what happened. It might actually be to my advantage. Sylvie and Émile could be that much easier to convince to keep me forever. Rosie, the poor girl who can’t speak clearly, needs their help.

  The blank canvas before me is no longer the frightening challenge it used to be. I might try to paint a naked baby with wings.

  “Self-portraits,” Sylvie says. She points to a mirror propped up nearby.

  Oh. Well, whatever.

  I decide to make a tiny admission. “I don’t know how to paint people, yet,” I say, wincing at my “weak” words and hoping that Sylvie understood me.

  “I will help you, like before,” she answers. “We’ll start with a quick drawing before we paint.” And then we’re making sketches on paper, drawing ovals for faces and adding dividing lines to help us know where the features should be. It’s kind of cool to learn this. Before I know it, Sylvie says we’re ready to start painting.

  “Do not worry about bein
g exact,” she tells me as she squeezes paint onto her palette. “Like your Impressionists, Rosie, you do not have to recreate reality exactly as you see it. You paint how you see something. Today you paint how your reflection makes you feel. What would your portrait say about you? Understand?”

  I nod and pick up my paintbrush. I have an idea. I’ll show Sylvie and Émile how my reflection makes me feel. Boy, will I show them. Right here and now, they’ll invite me to stay forever. Smiling, I choose random colors and squirt paint onto my own palette.

  Émile pokes his head in and says something that makes Sylvie throw her head back to laugh. Then he leaves, and Sylvie starts singing a song. Every verse ends with, “and then I have a cigarette.” I find this hilarious. We giggle together as we paint.

  Sylvie chats on occasion, telling stories about different artists who have lived and worked around here, slapping paint onto the canvas in her sloppy manner, and I do my best to remember what I learned about the correct proportion of facial features. What I start with looks terrible, but I keep going. While Sylvie keeps chatting, I paint some brown roundish shapes for my eyes. Ugh. This is so bad. I still laugh. I paint a blob for my nose. Ew. But I tell myself it’s okay, because it’s not about what I see. It’s about what I feel.

  “Good morning.”

  The quavering words float to us from the direction of the shop, and I glance up, startled. Where is Sylvie? I wasn’t aware that she’d left her studio.

  “Ah, Mrs. Thackeray. Good morning to you,” Sylvie responds, her voice coming from the shop as well. Seconds later, she’s leading Mrs. Thackeray right into the studio, and what’s worse, the old lady isn’t alone.

  “You remember our neighbor, Rosie?” Sylvie asks.

  I nod, but Mrs. Thackeray barely acknowledges me. She points to the gaunt man next to her, and introduces him as her son, Thomas. He towers protectively over his tiny mother, hovering like her bodyguard. His wide-set eyes dart around the room, taking everything in. A dark mop of curly hair, touched with gray, sits on top of his head like a tangled cap. Though his body is lean, it’s also solid, bulging with muscles. Mrs. Thackeray beams at her son and pats his arm.

  “My son, Thomas. I’m so glad he’s here. I don’t know what I’d do without my Tommy,” she says.

  Thomas nods a greeting, glances once at Sylvie, and then his narrowed eyes rest on me, and I know who he is. Suddenly, I’m back in my hiding place behind the screen, trying not to breathe as this towering man searches the room, inches away from me. I take a breath and step back. His eyes narrow even more. I finally notice the small painting the man clutches in his big, bony hands. It’s the portrait of a woman with short, dark hair and gleaming eyes. Sylvie places an easel in front of Thomas, and he sets the painting there.

  I turn my back and pretend to work on my self-portrait, adding random blots here and there while I listen to the conversation behind me and pretend to breathe normally. First, I hear nothing but blather about the painting, which Mrs. T. says was in her family for years, by some marginally well-known artist. Where should she sell it, what does Sylvie think it would be worth? Thomas says nothing, but I swear I can feel his eyes on my back.

  Trying to ignore everyone, I work on recreating what my hair looks like. At least, I try.

  “Did you hear me, Rosemary?” Mrs. Thackeray’s quivery old-lady voice says, causing me to whirl around with the brush still in my hand and splatter paint.

  “I asked if you have noticed any strange noises during the night. Last night, we were certain we heard noises coming from the empty flat next to yours.”

  I shake my head.

  “Thomas and I are rather concerned about vandals. We’ve considered calling the police.”

  “We will call the police the moment we hear any other strange noises in that flat,” Thomas says in his gruff voice. I know his eyes are on me, but I can’t meet his gaze. Instead, I look at his mother. Mrs. Thackeray’s crinkly eyes stare into mine. I know I’m being warned.

  Sylvie chatters in alarm and asks me if I’ve ever heard any noise coming from the other side of my bedroom wall. I catch a reaction in Mrs. Thackeray’s shriveled face when she realizes that my bedroom is right on the other side of the empty flat. Her face hardens and her eyes bore into mine, but a moment later she turns back to Sylvie, the hardness smoothed away, her expression calm, polite. Heart in my throat, I turn back to my easel.

  A dark slash cuts across the face of my self-portrait, right across the blob of a mouth. I must have done that when I whirled around. It’s perfect. It’s just what I’d planned to do. I wanted to paint that bad dream I had. I wanted to show Sylvie and Émile what it’s like not to have a voice. I only wish that our “guests” weren’t here right now, breathing down my neck.

  Feeling the gaze of two pairs of eyes on my back, like tiny spiders crawling up and down, I lift my paintbrush. I’m going to act like I don’t care that the old lady and her son are here. I have to act like I didn’t lie to them. I add more dark paint to the slash across my portrait. Soon, my painted hair sweeps across my face and covers my mouth. Then the hair snakes itself around my painted neck. It’s exactly like it was in my nightmare. I keep working. The spiders stop crawling up and down my back. Noises blur into a soft hush in the background.

  I don’t hear anyone approach until the gruff voice whispers in my ear.

  “We’ll be watching you, girlie.”

  A heartbeat later, Thomas straightens and turns around. “I’m admiring the girl’s work,” he says in a loud voice, stepping back from me. “Fascinating. Well, shall we go, Mum?”

  Mrs. Thackeray gets up, groaning as she moves. Then, she shuffles closer.

  “My goodness, child,” she gasps. “What on earth are you doing?”

  Sylvie puts her hand to her mouth when she sees my painting. Thomas checks his watch like he’s bored and looks out the window. I can’t read Mrs. Thackeray’s expression, but she stares at me for the longest time. No one speaks. The smell of wet paint hangs in the air, along with Mrs. Thackeray’s flowery perfume. It’s too sweet, exactly like something an old lady would wear. I feel light-headed. I can’t deal with what just happened. Thomas warning me, Sylvie’s reaction to my painting.

  “Sylvie,” I whisper. I didn’t think she would be that upset.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I have to flee the scene. I can’t help it.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I mumble as I head out of the room.

  At the doorway, I risk a quick glance back over my shoulder.

  Mrs. Thackeray remains where she is, staring after me, while Thomas continues to gaze out the window.

  Sylvie is still staring at my painting. A single tear trails down her cheek.

  Thirteen

  Thomas is watching me. I made Sylvie cry.

  These two facts float around in my head. I try to make sense of them as I stare out at the water.

  Sylvie feels sorry for me. That was the cause of her tears. Getting her sympathy was part of my plan, but . . . I sigh and dig my toes into the warm, rocky sand of the beach.

  I didn’t want to cause her pain. I didn’t want to make her cry. I just wanted her to care enough to let me stay.

  As for Thomas, well, I stuck my nose somewhere it didn’t belong and now I have to answer for it. What do I do? If Thomas and his mother accuse me of breaking into the apartment, they’ll ruin my plan.

  A hot wind carries the smell of sunscreen. I watch tourists oil themselves and turn over so they broil evenly. I sit and sweat, waiting for Jada to answer my email. I need her help. Finally, she answers.

  You gonna take swimming class with me after school? Your Mom says ok.

  Jada’s message is not what I expect. Nothing about the apartment, Gavin, and the letters I took. Nothing about Thomas’s warning.

  So what? I want to answer. That doesn’t mean I’ll take the class,
simply because Mom said I could. How does Jada know I want to do it?

  I’ll let you know.

  I feel like throwing my phone, but settle for tossing a small stone that I grab from the ground. The beaches of Nice are covered with round, smooth galets, as Sylvie calls them. She gathers them, polishes them and makes intricate mosaics. Sylvie can make anything beautiful, even using plain, gray rocks. Why is it that everything I make is so ugly?

  I have to stop feeling sorry for myself. I’m like this because I’m upset with Jada. She didn’t respond to my pleas for help and she asked Mom about the class before she asked me.

  It’s hot. I scratch sweaty, itchy skin and finally admit the truth. I’m not mad at Jada. I’m mad at myself. My best friend still doesn’t know the whole truth. When do I tell her? And how?

  Closing my eyes, I raise my face to the sun. I don’t want to lose my only friend, but I had to make a choice: accept a life sentence in Mom Prison, and keep Jada in my world. Choose freedom and a new life, but ditch the best friend. Well maybe I’ll still have her, but she won’t be here, live and in person. She’ll be thousands of miles away. It sucks.

  The sun is burning my eyelids. Shading my eyes, I throw another galet into the gurgling ocean. My phone plays Rob Zombie, Jada’s ringtone.

  “Girlfriend! It’s me!” she says.

  “Jada!” Relief and guilt start a fist fight inside my chest.

  “You take swimming with me?”

  What do I say? I don’t have the right words. I can’t think. I wait too long to answer.

  “Rosemary? You there?” Jada asks.

  “Yes,” I say, still not sure what to tell her, or how. Maybe it’s time, but the right words don’t come. I’m too scared.

  “Sweet! Be fun!” she says.

  She thinks I’m saying yes to swimming class. I don’t correct her.

  “I sent your Mom some photos I said were from you,” Jada says, while I’m still trying to think of what to say to her.