by Phoebe Stone
“What?” I say. “I don’t speak French.”
“Pretty!” she says, pointing to the flowers and then to me. I smile and begin looking through the piles of fabric. There, by chance I see a bolt of rusty orange silk, shining in the stack of yardage. Among the velvets, I also find a dark red. I hand the lady my twenty euros and she nods back at me and then at my flowers. “Comme les fleurs! Like the flowers! The same colors!”
“Oui, thank you,” I say and she hands me the bag and I hold it against myself. All mine and lying in my arms, a little piece of France.
“What a beautiful day,” I say out loud on the way home with my flowers and my clutch of licorice fennel in my basket. I am already imagining cutting out an orange silk dress with velvet sleeves and a red velvet panel down the front. It will fit me. And it will have the biggest silk sash around the dropped waist. It will be a glorious version of that doll dress. And when I pass the kiosk with the poster of Windel leaning over his piano, I just look away.
In the hallway outside our double doors, I hear voices, chatter, laughter, singing. I step into the apartment and call out, “Mom?”
First thing I see is Logan slouching on the loveseat in the salon. Just over his head in another tapestry stands Louis the Sixteenth, Dad’s favorite French king, probably because he was chubby like Dad.
Ava sweeps around and flops down next to Logan. My younger-sister heart drops a few notches.
I stand in front of them, reminding myself of one of Snow White’s seven dwarves, Bashful.
“Hey, Petunia Beanly! Pretty girl,” Logan says.
“You look bedraggled,” says Ava. “What’s in the bag?”
“Oh, nothing, Ava,” I say.
“Hey, that’s some jacket,” says Logan. “I’ve never seen one like that before.”
“I made it myself,” I say sort of quietly, still standing in front of the two of them. I look down at the rug. “I make all my clothes and their patterns. But Mom doesn’t really think they are practical.”
“They are pretty funny, aren’t they?” Ava says, laughing. “And she wears these things everywhere. I mean, silk blouses to soccer practice, to take out the garbage, to walk the dog.”
“Are we talking about stuffed dogs, Ava?” I say.
“No, we aren’t,” says Ava, frowning at me.
“Oh, because if we are, I should tell you that Ava had to bring her stuffed dog with her on the plane. She fuzzes his ears when she’s sad,” I say with a big younger-sister smile on my face. Then I look down and keep my head that way.
“Really?” says Logan. “A stuffed dog? But that’s so sweet. I like dogs too. Ava, what’s his name?”
“Puppy,” says Ava, biting her lip. “I know it’s not a very original name but he just has this cute little lost look on his face and all I can think of is Puppy when I look at him. And Pet forgot to tell you she sucked her thumb until she was nine years old.”
“Eight,” I say, cringing.
“And Pet, Windel Watson is in Paris,” says Ava with her twinkling eyes on me. “You know, the boy Pet stalked to the edge of the earth this spring. She stalked him so badly that he almost had to go into the witness protection program.”
“Ava! I did not,” I say and I feel a fiery sadness.
“You stalked Windel?” says Logan. “Really?”
“Um, well,” I say.
“You know, my mom has a homemade CD of one of his songs. And she plays that thing all the time,” says Logan. He settles back with his arm almost around Ava. Oh, don’t put it around her. Don’t!
Logan has just gotten a haircut so he has a fresh-scrubbed, pink-eared little-boy look about him. I love the way all boys get that look after a haircut. Even my dad.
“Oh yeah,” says Ava. “I remember the CD. It circulated around school for a while. Supposedly he wrote the song for Erin Barslow. Everybody liked Erin last year, even Jared Baker from my class.”
“Erin Barslow?” I say, feeling breathless. “Um, Windel wrote her a song?”
“Logan, you didn’t say anything about the dress I’m wearing. I sewed this myself too. My seams are perfect. I used a McCall pattern. Pet can’t even use a bought pattern. She can’t do it,” says Ava.
“I could if I wanted, Ava,” I say.
“I doubt that,” she says. “And the insides of her dresses are a mess, with threads everywhere.” Ava looks down at her own dress. It is black and sleeveless. She smooths the skirt. Then she sniffs and looks up.
“Ava, you know what? My mom helps out at the embassy every year when they do this fashion show. It’s only for American students and it’s kind of a big deal. Hard to get into but you should try out. My mom has a stack of applications at home. It’s just for Americans. No, I mean it,” says Logan.
“What about me?” I say.
“You’re too young, Pet,” says Ava. “That show is only for high school kids, right, Logan?”
“Yeah, probably,” says Logan. “But not to worry. Hey, why don’t you play some Scrabble with us? Though I have to warn you, there’s nothing left but a bunch of O’s.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah, lots of those,” says Logan and he gives me a smile, an ice cream smile with blue and yellow and green sprinkles all over the top.
I look at him and I feel kind of faint. Jean-Claude says the way to say “I fainted” in French translates as “I fell in the apples.” I am definitely in the apples right now.
“Actually, we’re pretty much done with Scrabble. And I was just reading Ava a little bit of this book, Catcher in the Rye,” says Logan. “In French it’s called The Catcher of Hearts.”
“Funny,” says Ava, looking down and whispering. “Because that’s just what you are, Logan.”
“I read that book twice,” I say. “And Ava hasn’t read it at all.”
Suddenly Ava gets up and leans her head back and says, “Logan, look. I think my hair has grown since we’ve been here. It’s below my waist. Can you believe it? Look. Logan, tell me. Look.”
Mom is calling me so I take my flowers and I go into the kitchen thinking, Why am I too young for the fashion show? And, Oh … Windel Watson wrote a song for Erin Barslow.
I am just putting the orange and red tulips in a vase when Ava announces that she’s walking Logan home and I shout out, “Hey, wait for me!” I run back into the salon. But Logan and Ava are already gone.
The Scrabble game didn’t get put away. Then I see someone has arranged wooden letters on the table to form two words. It reads: “ERIN BARSLOW.”
For the last two nights, I sat on the balcony in the moonlight, stitching. On the table, there are two little sparkly candles that I lit. I worked and worked on the orange-and-maroon velvet dress. As it slowly emerged in my hands, I realized it looked so much like the doll dress. Of course, I was wishing I had a sewing machine. Ava found one for ten euros somewhere but I don’t get to use it.
As I stitched I just kept thinking about Erin Barslow and how Windel wrote her that song. It figures.
This morning in my room I look at the orange-and-maroon velvet dress and I decide it’s done. So I put the dress on. Then I open the armoire doors and look into the mirror at myself wearing it.
Suddenly I stand back. I have been so busy making the dress that I haven’t even thought about why a doll dress might be hidden away for so many years. I mean the doll dress must be at least a hundred years old. Why would it need to be hidden?
When I finish a dress I usually like to wear it immediately, no matter what. An outfit can become “too dressy” very quickly if it sits in your closet too long, and once it becomes “too dressy,” if you have my kind of life, it is a lost cause. So at least I would like to wear it downstairs to get the mail.
I open my door and stick my head out into our hall. I don’t want Mom to see me. She will really hate this one. It’s by far my weirdest dress yet. “Dad will like it,” I say, nodding to myself because suddenly I am not sure if I like my new dress. A worried feeling po
urs over me.
It’s very quiet this morning. Everyone is still asleep. I tiptoe into the dark hall, trying to imagine why someone would go to the trouble of locking away a little doll dress. Then I hear a noise. I freeze.
I back up slowly and I step right smack into Ava. She’s standing there wearing her dog pajamas.
“Where are you going in that?” says Ava. “That is just plain weird.”
“It is?” I say.
“Yes,” says Ava. “Very.”
“Ava,” I say, standing up as tall as I can. “Maybe you don’t know this, but style is risk taking. Style is wearing silk and velvet to a French ‘fooootball’ game … and not caring if everybody looks at you sideways.” I return her flat stare.
Page forty-eight: In tight spaces, do the Little Sister Shuffle. This tends to confuse the older sibling.
So I start to do a little early morning dance right in front of Ava.
“What are you doing? Why don’t you just give up?” says Ava. She folds her arms. There are dogs with red bows printed all over her flannel sleeves.
“This dress is my style, Ava. Maybe you don’t understand, but style is walking through the Café Oui in a plaid silk dress with cowboy boots on and yes, a backpack and a baseball cap, while listening to Dad lecture about some dead French novelist. Style is standing by whatever you do and not backing down!” I say, still kind of doing the Little Sister Shuffle. Then, by mistake, I trip over the vacuum cleaner that somebody left in the hall. I fall on my face.
“What style!” says Ava, laughing.
When I get to my feet, I take a few twirls in the dress, even though I sort of feel like crying. But it doesn’t spin away the hurt. I just feel dizzy on top of everything else. I look down at my dress. It used to seem so pretty to me.
I head for the mailboxes in the downstairs hall. The concierge has her door open. She spots me peering in our mailbox … “Oh, non non non, no letters,” she calls from her couch in front of her TV. “Le courrier n’est pas arrivé. There is une grève, a strike. There will be no mail now.”
Oh, maybe this is why I haven’t heard from Ginger since we got here, why she didn’t warn me about Windel’s French tour occurring so quickly, leaving me gasping for air on the streets of Paris when I saw the poster.
The concierge comes out of her apartment. (Dad calls it her “lair.”) She begins rearranging papers on the hall table. Then she looks up at me and stops still.
Her eyes freeze on me and her face is suddenly filled with terror. Then it changes to turmoil. “Where did you get this?” she whispers. “The dress? I can’t believe it.” Tears fill her eyes.
“I made it,” I said. “I sewed it. I …” And then I feel terrible all over again. Maybe Ava is right, I should just give up. Why did I so foolishly get Jean-Claude to pick the lock on that drawer? Does the concierge know? Yes, I opened someone else’s gift. But I mean, it was an old gift. Is there an unspoken expiration date on somebody else’s present?
“Madame, I …”
“Non. Non,” says the concierge. “It can’t be. I am surely dreaming. It is not possible.” And she goes into her apartment and closes her door. Since my family arrived in Paris, I have never seen her door shut.
I stare at Madame’s closed door. The maroon and orange tulips and the maroon-and-orange doll dress swirl around in my mind, as if floating in Ginger’s crystal ball. Maybe you should just give up. “No!” I say out loud.
Suddenly I start knocking on the concierge’s door. Quietly at first and then louder. I don’t stop. Finally I hear the sound of a latch and the concierge pokes her head out. “Madame, um,” I say. “Um …”
The concierge looks at my dress. She touches one of the velvet sleeves. She looks into my face.
“Please,” I say. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
She looks at the velvet sash. She closes her eyes and when she opens them, a wash of sadness pours over her face. “Perhaps I am dreaming. Perhaps. Oui. Peut-être. Perhaps you are only a dream little girl. A mirage. But you come with me anyway,” she says.
I follow Madame as she raps on Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s door. Then she turns the handle and goes in with her nose leading the way.
Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s apartment is dark except in the kitchen, where Albert perches in his cage set before a bright window.
The concierge goes straight for the bedroom. Monsieur Le Bon Bon is lying in his bed. She throws open his curtains. “Bon courage, Le Bon Bon!” She says. “Have courage!”
Monsieur stares at the ceiling. “I have brought the little girl from the Barbour apartment. Voilà! Look!”
“Bonjour!” I say. Monsieur Le Bon Bon continues to study the ceiling.
“You see, he won’t get out of bed. It’s because he lost his love. This woman has chosen a man who sells hams,” says the concierge, pulling the white sheet up to Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s chin and then tucking and smoothing it around him.
“Le Bon Bon understands English,” she goes on, “but he doesn’t admit it! You tell him, Petunia. Tell him there are other women in the sea.”
“You mean other fish in the sea,” I say.
“Yes, there are other fish in the sea,” says Madame. “There are lots of fish everywhere. Lots of fish who would marry a nice monsieur. Isn’t that so, Petunia?”
“Yes,” I say. “Um, sort of.”
“Come,” she says, patting the foot of Monsieur Le Bon Bon. “Albert is hungry. You must get out of bed!”
For some reason Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s foot poking up under the white sheet makes me feel sad. The concierge keeps patting his foot. “This little girl knows something about ma grand-mére. My petite grandmother. You know? This one has seen something, I think. Look at what she is wearing!” Suddenly Madame puts her head in her hands and begins crying.
“Oh, I didn’t mean any harm,” I say again. “Please! I am so sorry.”
Suddenly Monsieur Le Bon Bon sits up in bed as if Madame’s tears have brought him back to life. “She wants to know,” says Monsieur Le Bon Bon in a very thick accent. “She wants to know about the dress. You make that? Tell her. Tell her!”
The concierge goes to the windows in Monsieur Le Bon Bon’s bedroom and she pushes them open and out. The courtyard is beyond and the sun is speckling the floor. And shadows from the green plane trees startle and stutter across the cobblestones. The doves are cooing above the window ledge and the nightingale is singing its string of notes at the top of the trees. I still haven’t seen the nightingale. I only hear it. Madame brings Albert and his cage to the bedroom. Then she sits in a shaft of sunlight near the open French windows.
“The dress you have made reminds me of something,” she says. “You understand?” Then she closes her eyes and adds in a soft, hesitating way. “He wants me to tell you the story of my grandmother.”
“Oh yes,” I say. “Please.”
“First you will get out of bed, Le Bon Bon? They will not hold your job forever,” she says. “It’s a good job. You must go back.”
“Peut-être,” he says with his head tucked down into the sheets. “Perhaps.”
“Ah, first he must have a glass of water. Can you get it for him?” she says.
I go and get a glass of water for Monsieur Le Bon Bon. Then I sit down and wait. Finally the concierge sighs and begins, “You see, my grandmother’s name was Delphine Rouette. The name Delphine is linked to the delphinium flower. It’s a flower name like Petunia. And she was always little, like you too. Elle était toute petite! Toute petite! Like you. She never grew very tall.”
Monsieur Le Bon Bon looks sadly at me and shakes his head. Then he sits up against his pillow and nods along as the concierge speaks, as if he knows already what she will be saying. She opens the cage and holds out her fingers and Albert grabs one and sits up high on it. As she strokes his green and orange and purple feathers, she says, “My grandmother, when she was twelve years old, worked with her mother at home, the way children did in those days. Children o
ften had to string beads or sew buttons on cards or stitch together strips of straw for hats. They were paid a small amount for each piece completed. Today all children go to school. But back then, no, many worked instead. I do not think our Jean-Claude could have managed that. Do you, Le Bon Bon?”
Monsieur Le Bon Bon puffs out his cheeks, blows air through his teeth, and says, “Mais non! Pas du tout! No!”
“You see, my little grandmother had a great talent. Even though she was only twelve years old, she was a magnificent seamstress.” The concierge whispers when she says this. “Perhaps a little bit like you. Her mother was a great couturier. What is a couturier, you are thinking? I will tell you. It is a grand seamstress and dressmaker. But they did not design and sew clothes for people to wear. No, no, no, les robes étaient toutes petites! So little! They made doll dresses. They worked for Madame Ernestine Jumeau and the Jumeau doll company in Paris. This was the most famous French company of all. Here in Paris were the workshops and stores that sold the dresses and the beautiful dolls. This was my little Delphine Rouette in the 1890s, my small grandmother.”
Monsieur Le Bon Bon has a little tear on his cheek and he tilts his head to the side as the concierge speaks.
“Delphine had been allowed to sew only the underclothes for the dolls, the slips and the bloomers. The children who worked for the factory were not allowed to sew the fancy dresses. Every week Delphine and her mama would visit Madame Jumeau at the workshop to show her the new dresses the mother had made and all the slips and bloomers that Delphine had sewn. Madame Jumeau would either approve of them and place orders for more or she would reject them. It was always up to Madame Jumeau.
“Although most beloved of all companies, the Jumeau doll company had a problem. Because they were so admired, because they were the best doll company in France and in all the world, other companies were jealous. German doll companies wanted to outdo the Jumeau dolls. They wanted to destroy the company. They wanted to copy the exquisite dresses and sell them at much cheaper prices. And so they installed a spy in the workshops of Madame Ernestine Jumeau.
