by Phoebe Stone
Mom hangs up the phone and calls Ava to the dining room. They shut the doors. I can hear muffled talking and then Ava crying. I can hear her call out, “But he’s not my dad. Dad’s my dad. I don’t want to have ice cream crêpes with some stranger tomorrow or any other time. No!”
The wind rattles the shutters of the building. It’s growing late. The girl across the street has covered up her birdcage and turned off her computer and she has disappeared into unseen hallways and unseen spaces, leaving a black vacant darkness in the room across from my window.
Dad took the night train from London. He was all hyper and stealthy and snuck in at around seven this morning, while we were sleeping. Now he wants us all to have breakfast on the balcony. He has cooked scrambled eggs as a surprise. He walks around asking if there’s a blue checked tablecloth in any of the drawers. “You know, like in the Bonnard painting?” he says.
“Honey, there isn’t room for all of us out there,” says Mom.
“Oh, come on! So we’ll squeeze a little, Buddy. It’s such a perfect Sunday morning for a French breakfast on the balcony!” Dad says, sort of barging in on the cobweb of gloom that settled over everything here while he was gone.
Last night was terrible, what with Ava’s father calling and me trying to sleep with that letter floating around in my head. When I awoke in the middle of the night I saw that the girl across from my window was also awake and once again on her computer. She kept getting up and walking around in circles as if she too were in turmoil.
Dad is now carrying a tray to the balcony, the coffee in white bowls, a dish of eggs, a compote of jam. Next he produces a fresh baguette, pretends it is a baseball bat, holds it over his shoulder, and says, “Pitch it right in there, Pet!” And when no one laughs Dad looks suddenly awkward and shy.
Ava appears with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looks like a butterfly going back into the cocoon stage. Since it is so sunny out, I have put on my big floppy green hat with the polka dots on the brim. “That’s ridiculous,” Ava says, looking at me. “It matches what?”
“Your blanket,” I say and stare right back at her.
We all sit around the table with Mom squished against the wall. Bright red geraniums stretch from flower pots around us. The sun is shining, cheerful and perky and unaware, like Dad today. The bread is still warm. The sweet butter melts into it. The hot cocoa is creamy and light, Sunday church bells ring in the distance. Everything is welcome and warm, except for the motor scooters roaring along on the rue Michel-Ange and Ava’s red swollen face and Logan’s hidden letter.
Mom doesn’t take her eyes off Ava. She even has her hand on Ava’s arm and squeezes it a few times occasionally as if she’s sending Ava a message in Morse code.
Ava, wrapped in her blanket, produces a stack of French patterns and puts them on the table. On the cover of each package is a chic teen modeling some short 1970s-looking dress.
“Honey, Ava is trying out for that fashion show at the embassy. Give her some kudos,” says Mom.
“Kudos, Ava!!! Kudos. Kudos. Kudos!” says Dad, putting his arm around her flannel blanket shoulders. “You know how proud I am of you, Pumpkin.”
“Kudos? What is that, Mom? It sounds like some health food cereal,” says Ava, looking again like she might cry. And then she says, “These are the dresses I am making. I’ll use these patterns. There are supposed to be four finished pieces for the application. I mean, I will use different fabric and everything.”
“Pumpkin?” says Dad. “Um, wouldn’t it be better if you, um, created your own patterns? I mean, I don’t know fashion, of course, but, um, wouldn’t that be better, Pumpkin? I mean, isn’t that the point?”
Mom glares at Dad. “Angus, you are being critical again.” Mom gets up, goes into the kitchen, rattles some pans, and doesn’t come back.
“Buddy, what?” calls Dad. “I’m a Hoosier, Buddy, from Indiana, and Hoosiers are honest. I was just trying to help.”
“We know you’re a Hoosier, Dad,” says Ava. “It’s okay. I’m fine.” And then she bursts into tears and stumbles back into the apartment, tripping on her blanket.
“It’s almost a perfect day,” says Dad. “What’s with all the drama?”
“Almost perfect doesn’t count,” I say.
We finish breakfast, Dad and me, eating bread and butter with French jam, which tastes as if branches hung over the balcony from which we picked handfuls of fresh raspberries. But I feel uneasy and torn. Ava’s red eyes, the phone ringing in the darkness last night, Logan turning in the wisteria and running.
Soon I too get up and go inside without saying much.
“Ava,” I call. “Um, Logan dropped off … um …”
“Don’t bother me, Pet,” Ava says, disappearing down the hallway.
I turn around and look through the French doors at Dad. His shoulders are slumped a little and he sits there among the red geraniums all alone.
The worry about Logan’s letter has driven me forward. I have never worked so hard on a dress before. And now it is half finished. I look around the room and I get this funny feeling again. Why do I feel like someone has been in here?
I pick up my new dress. The striped sleeves are attached with pins. Some of the seams are open. I would like to sew them on a sewing machine. And so I carry my half-made dress downstairs. It looks somehow wounded on the clothes hanger, arms hanging open as if shot by Jean-Claude in some terrible battle.
Collette’s door is open and I find her with her head wrapped in a big towel. She is wearing a light cotton flowered dress. “Ah, there you are!” she says. “The one my grandmother sent here.”
“Oh no, Collette, your grandmother did not send me,” I say. “I came here because my dad got a sabbatical.”
“Oh, people often don’t know when things are meant to be,” Collette says. “But no worry. Today you must excuse this. I am putting the henna in my hair, as you say, to take away le gris, the gray!”
Collette is carrying a framed picture in her arms. She puts it on the kitchen table. It is a hand-painted photograph of a little cottage in the countryside with roses climbing up its wall.
“Oh, this is pretty. Whose house is it?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” says Collette. “Just my papa’s house in Provence, in the south of France.”
“Is it yours now?” I ask.
“Yes, it is mine. But I never go there. Not for many years.”
“Why not?” I say. “It looks so beautiful and it is not that far away.”
“Oh no, no. I have things here keeping me,” she says, looking away.
“Um,” I say, “I have been working on this new dress.” And I hold it up.
“Mais bravo! Félicitations! It is so much to remind me of the little one made by the Jumeau company!”
“You like the dress? What?” I say. “I mean, I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe it was too weird.”
“As I said before, sometimes weird is good. Did you know this?” says Collette. “Oh, but you remind me of my little Delphine Rouette. So strange, is it not? Come, let me show you how to use the treadle on the sewing machine.” She tugs on my braid. “Allons-y, ma chérie!”
Soon I am sitting in front of the sewing machine. “Did Delphine use this machine when she worked on the doll dress?” I say as Collette shows me how to push down on the treadle with my feet. It reminds me of the pedals of a piano. It soon makes a comforting singing sound as it moves along.
“Yes,” says Collette. “This is the machine she used in between handstitching. And once the doll dress was finished, as I said before, Delphine knew it was extraordinary. She was not being vain or full of ego. No, she simply saw its beauty. She hardly felt she had sewn it herself. It was as if angels had helped her make the dress!
“Of course you can imagine! She felt great excitement and also great worry. Madame Jumeau would not accept a child’s work on an important dress. She would perhaps even be angry that Delphine had used Jumeau fabrics and made the
dress without permission. And so Delphine did something outside of herself, outside of the rules. She thought with her own head. And for a twelve-year-old girl, she did something daring.
“When her mama was out, perhaps taking a pair of blue walking boots to be re-heeled, Delphine reached in the cupboard and took the key, which had been given to her mama for the little box in the Luxembourg Gardens. Quickly she wrapped her beautiful doll dress in paper and tucked it in a basket and she left the apartment. At first she walked, then she ran, and finally she hopped on one of those omnibuses, I think you call them, that were pulled by a team of horses. It didn’t cost much to ride those omnibuses with wooden benches inside and benches up on top on the roof. And soon she got off near the Jardin du Luxembourg.
“Ah, I am sure she was nervous. I am sure she was scared. She was fragile like a tiny fairy, light on her feet, my little grandmother. Quickly she went to find the box that was tucked behind the statue near the pool of water and she unlocked the box and put the wrapped doll dress in it.
“And then she locked it back up and hurried home, knowing Madame Jumeau would go there to pick up the dress that evening, knowing Madame Jumeau would think it was created by Delphine’s mama. And that is just what happened.
“Madame Jumeau collected the dress and when she took it home she loved it! She was in ecstasy over it! She hurried around her Parisian hôtel particulier, her private home, making plans. She loved it so much she decided immediately that it would go to the World’s Fair.
“Now all the Jumeau dolls from size zero to size sixteen had their very special dresses made by the best doll couturiers in Paris. And the seventeen perfect dolls that were to go to the fair that year were ready.
“Because of the arrangement with the hiding place, the spy had not seen this last dress. And Madame announced at the workshop when all were gathered that the selections had been made. And she thanked Delphine’s mama over and over again and paid her an extra bonus for the beautiful work. Delphine was at her mother’s side and she tugged on her mother’s arm when Madame was thanking her. Delphine tugged and tugged. Delphine’s mama was confused. She looked at Delphine and frowned. She closed her eyes but she waited and didn’t speak.
“Oh, things might have been different! Yes, things surely would have been different if Delphine’s dress had not been so beautiful and if it had not been selected to go to the fair. But it went. Yes, it went and that size eight doll attracted all the attention! And the Jumeau doll company made a huge sensation at the fair! Everyone loved the dolls and their beautiful clothes. And most especially the size eight Bébé Jumeau and its astonishing dress. There was nothing else like that dress in the whole World’s Fair and it brought home a medal for the Jumeau doll company.
“You must imagine Delphine just twelve years old. She was splitting with joy. She was singing on the rooftops. She was dancing on the bell tower of Notre-Dame Cathedral! She flew in her mind all the way to Montmartre, where all the artists lived and painted. You know, Renoir and all the others. The painter Chagall was not yet in Paris, but if he had been, he would have seen her floating by and he would have surely painted her flying over Paris.
“Delphine’s mama suspected what had happened. But you know, they never spoke of it. Her mama was silent and secretly pleased and very proud. Should they tell Madame Jumeau the truth, that the beautiful dress was made by a child? Oh no, it could not be said. It was against the company rules. This was the way it was back then. You know?
“And if that had been the end of it, perhaps the rest might not have happened. Perhaps I would have been spared my sorrow. But I was not spared. No. No. Not at all.”
Now Collette gets up and goes out into the courtyard. She walks back and forth out there, back and forth under shadowy plane trees. Finally she returns and pats my hand and says, “Enough, Petunia, I must take Le Bon Bon out of his dark hole. I see his curtains to the courtyard are drawn. He must go with me now to buy some socks. How can someone go dancing at the Hôtel Magique without socks! No no. It is not possible.”
And so I trudge back upstairs thinking about Delphine Rouette and her prizewinning doll dress. Did she ever get to say that she had sewn that doll dress, the one the world adored? Did she ever get to say that it was her design? Her creation?
I walk right in on Mom and Dad and Ava in the salon. They are planning to go to the Louvre museum which is open on Thursday nights. Not many people go then and that’s why Dad likes it. But I do not want to wander through those rooms that are empty except for enormous paintings of horses stampeding in battle and bulls rearing up in the dust and castles deteriorating in smoke and splendor. I do not want to get lost in rooms of Napoleon’s furniture, Egyptian vases, and gold-painted cupboards. Everything empty and bright and somehow desolate in the nighttime. “No, I don’t want to go. I’ll stay home this evening,” I say.
“It’s just so off the wall,” says Ava, her face crinkling up with bewilderment. “Where is Logan? I am sure he would have called. Mom, have you heard from Logan?”
I look away, dropping into the pit of my being where darkness lurks and everything drips with rain. Ginger, help me. Look into the blue mist of your yard-sale crystal ball and tell me how to change or take back what I have done!
“Ava,” I say, “um, you got a—”
Ava pushes by me, saying, “Mom, when you saw Mrs. Stewart yesterday, did she mention anything about Logan?”
“No, I don’t think so, honey,” says Mom. “We were having lunch with Nan Watson. We talked about Boston. It was nice to get out and speak English.”
“Nan Watson?” I say, backing up. I start to tremble. Mom had lunch with Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. Watson?
Dad hooks an elbow around me and says, “Wish you were coming with us, sweetheart. The famous statue of Venus is at this museum. And yes, I know, she’s missing a couple of arms, but then nobody’s perfect.” Dad kisses me on the cheek.
“Come on,” Ava says. “Let’s go.”
“Ah yes,” says Dad. “Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, awaits us at the museum. Girls, did you know Venus is also called Aphrodite? We’re coming! We’re on our way! All righty, Aphrodite!”
Ava reaches out to put her hand on Dad’s shoulder, but he kind of changes direction in a bumbly way, not noticing, and Ava’s hand falls back to her side.
Alone at home after the family leaves, I am thinking I didn’t find a way to say anything to Ava. Again. And oh, I just couldn’t ask about Mrs. Watson. I didn’t want to know. I just hope during lunch she didn’t mention to Mom anything about me and what happened at the Watson house. I would just die.
I go back into my room and stand next to the dark wooden armoire. In spite of everything, I am still wondering why someone hid that little dress in the locked drawer. Collette hasn’t explained that. I open the doors of the armoire and see my two new dresses hanging in there. Mom doesn’t like anything I have made here and of course Ava hates everything of mine. I am scared and I probably won’t get accepted, but I am going to try to finish at least two more dresses for the fashion show application, which is due very soon.
Collette gave me a book with pictures of dolls made by the Jumeau company in the 1890s. The dolls are shown dressed in their original costumes created by Ernestine Jumeau and her team of couturiers, Delphine and her mother among them. I flip through the pages looking for a doll dress that might inspire my next design.
I finally decide on a cotton one with lace inserts and a double flounce skirt. I do happen to have some thin yellow cotton that I brought from home. America. That word is beginning to sound strange and faraway, America, as if I am looking through veils of yellow fabric and can barely see it. Ginger and her mom seem lost too in the bolts of blowing chiffon. And there among the waves of fabric floats another letter. The one I wrote to Windel.
After I had tried to return the overcoat and failed, Ginger said to me, “Look, you gotta contact Windel. Maybe a letter would work. This has gone on too long. Windel has to know
how you feel. Tell him everything. You write it. I’ll mail it. Piece of cake.” We were sitting in her laundry room. She kept her crystal ball and her cards and stuff in there. She called it her office. She said the spinning dryer encouraged psychic activity. She was sitting on the dryer as she spoke. A pair of purple jeans were tossing around in there.
“Oh no!” I said. “Me? You want me to write a letter to Windel? I just don’t have that kind of daring. I’m more, uh, cautious about this kind of thing,” I said, pulling up my very slouching kneesocks. “A letter like that doesn’t usually come from a second-born type.”
“My mom says psychically you need to break free. She saw it in your stars. Let’s start with the letter,” Ginger said, glancing at the spinning dryer.
So I wrote the letter to Windel. And yes, it said everything. I put into it all the love I felt for him and all the joy knowing him had given me. I told him how nice it was to see him walking his brother to school every day, how sweet it was when he bought a valentine in Harvard Square, probably for his grandma because it was not long after his grandpa had died. I told him I felt bad when kids made fun of him when his music scores once fell out of his arms and blew around the lunchroom. And I told him I loved his music.
And then we mailed it. We dropped the letter in the box and it went cheerfully off on its way to the Watson residence.
But alas, I quickly grew to regret what we had done. I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned and whined and worried. And I called Ginger every two minutes. I sent her so many emails I clogged her mailbox. Her computer crashed. Her iPhone collapsed from too many texts and way too many of my miserable selfies sent at all hours. “Ginger,” I repeated over and over again, “I don’t want Windel to see that letter!!!”
