Aix Marks the Spot

by Sarah Anderson

  I nodded, eyes still riveted on Van Gogh’s portrait. I would never be able to capture that blue, no matter how I tried. Post-accident Jamie would have to find a new passion. She would never have the skill I saw before me.

  The museum was large, with more than just the Van Gogh collection, even if it was my favorite part of the whole thing. We left out the giftshop, and I had to admit, I was feeling a little better. It hadn’t solved the problem of my Mamie kicking me out, but she wasn’t all of Provence. I was still here, exploring where dad’s roots had been ripped from the soil. I didn’t need Mamie to plant me here, I was doing very well on my own.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Valentin. We passed a familiar café, and I did a double take: yellow awning, tables and chairs outside… the sign before it confirmed I was right. It might have been daytime, but I recognized Van Gogh’s café scene.

  “Oh my gosh, can we actually eat here?” I begged. To eat at the place where the artist himself once sat? The place had been renamed café Van Gogh in honor of him, and I wondered if they had appreciated his patronage when he was still alive.

  I was falling right into the habits Valentin hated, sounding just like the loud American I knew I was. For the umpteenth time that day, I felt shame roll through my bones.

  “You are going to make me broke.” Valentin patted his pockets down, proving how light he was. “I’ve got better.”

  His better was three-euro paninis from the tiniest store you had ever seen. He grabbed us cokes from the fridge as the woman rang us up, and in a few minutes, we were strolling down the street with our melty, cheesy messes.

  “No wonder you guys don’t do Micky D’s when you’ve got this as your fast food,” I said. The pesto and mozzarella were perfect together.

  “What is a Michey D?”

  “McDonald’s.”

  “Oh, Mac’do!” He exclaimed, “it’s too expensive.”

  “Too expensive?”

  What the heck even was this country? Paninis where cheap and McDonald’s expensive, it was completely upside down and backwards to boot. Come to think of it, there wasn’t a Wendy’s or Chick-Fil-A anywhere in sight. I wondered if the tourists from earlier had ever found a Starbucks, because I sure hadn’t seen one.

  Oddly enough, I didn’t miss my chains. I was happy with my melty panini and my mind full of art.

  We spent the afternoon just wandering around town, seeing as how Valentin couldn’t get into the other ruins. He suggested a certain blue museum, but we didn’t have the time: eventually we just had to call it quits and catch the bus, arriving in Lourmarin just in time for dinner.

  His mother didn’t seem at all surprised to see me there. She gave me the bise and told me to set the table, so I did, taking the plates and setting them out on the tablecloth. It was as if I was family: I hadn’t even had the time to put my bag down yet.

  “You should put that in my room,” said Valentin, carrying a salad bowl to the table. “I cannot believe my mother has you doing work.”

  “Oh, I’m happy to,” I said, “I kinda want her to like me, you know.”

  “Like you? She loves you. We all do.”

  “Really? Why?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact he had just said they loved me. HE loved me. Maybe I was just reading too much into it: we hadn’t even talked about last night’s kiss since, well, last night.

  “Why me?” I continued, “I thought you guys didn’t like Americans.”

  “I told you, we don’t like loud Americans who have nothing interesting to say, with fake smiles and tans,” he replied with the familiar Valentin smirk. “But most aren’t like that, and you always have interesting things to say. And a nice smile.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know how to answer that. Maybe with a compliment in return? Think, Jamie, think. Is this supposed to be flirting? “Your smile is nice too. I like how your teeth are straight and white.”

  Well, that went well. But he was beaming, so that had to count for something.

  Valentin led me to his bedroom, one floor up and overlooking his small garden. It was a cozy room, about half of what I had back home, but it fit everything in snugly. His bed was wide, his desk in the corner was taken up entirely by a massive computer. The shelf between the bed and desk was full of the same white paperbacks that cluttered Dad’s room back at Mamie’s.

  “You can put your bag here,” he said, pointing me to the desk as he rushed to pick up strewn laundry and shove it into his closet. Leo must have been sleeping on one of his shirts, because I heard a disgruntled meow before seeing a tail bob out the door.

  I plopped the backpack from my shoulders, relieved to have the weight finally off me. It set me free to explore the small room, picking up details I hadn’t noticed before, like how the wall hidden from the door was covered in posters of random video games (were those giant rabbits?) or how a big black book on Napoleon sat on his bedside table, bookmarked three quarters of the way through.

  “Uh, dinner?” Valentin’s voice plucked me out of my snooping, and I looked up to see him twitching nervously.

  “Yes, sure, yeah.”

  Back in the dining room, Mathilde was just finishing pouring us water. She looked back as we entered, putting down the carafe.

  We sat down together for chicken cordon bleu and salad. The leaves were lightly tossed in a homemade vinaigrette, and I could have eaten that for my entire meal. The chicken was even better.

  “So what did you see today, Jammy?” asked Mathilde, ripping off a neat chunk of baguette to soak up the leftover vinaigrette on the table.

  “Valentin took me to Arles,” I replied, taking the baguette and imitating her. I could get used to ripping my way through a loaf of bread. “We did the Theatre Antique and the Van Gogh foundation.”

  “Oh, I love that museum!”

  “It was amazing!”

  She wanted to talk about nothing but art after that. Van Gogh this; Cezanne that; what did I think of Picasso, genius or weirdo? Neither of us had all the perfect words, but Valentin did an amazing job filling in those gaps.

  After devouring a plate of fresh cheeses, we called it quits on dinner. I helped tidy up, all the while Valentin quizzing me on my knowledge of French kitchenware, and I was surprised that I knew most of what we ate off of, though I was still on the fence about the gender of a spoon.

  “So they teach you to talk about plates and forks, but not about asking for directions?”

  I shrugged. “Admittedly, I wasn’t in the best program.”

  “By the time you go home, you had better be fluent,” he said with a wink, “American English is exhausting. So much smiling and arm waving.”

  “We have arm waving?” I scoffed. “You French use your whole body to shrug. You don’t just use your hands, but your shoulders and chest and whatever else. I could never learn that.”

  “Rho, you will,” he said reassuringly. “So long as you don’t pick up Parisian habits, we’ll understand you fine.”

  I sure hoped so. I liked it. Being understood, I mean. Though I liked everything else to do with spending time with Valentin, too.

  Mathilde leant me pajamas and pointed me to the shower. Oh heaven, the shower was normal! I had spent over a week now learning to clean myself in what amounted to that tank from Empire Strikes Back. Now I had my feet in a tub, and the rain shower relaxed my every muscle.

  Clean and now dressed in soft PJs, I almost forgot that this was a result of Mamie kicking me out. It could almost be a normal slumber party.

  With a boy.

  That I liked.

  A boy who was now standing in the hallway, taking in my towel-turbaned hair, holding his phone out to me.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I thought you might want the whiffy password,” he explained, “You probably miss civilization.”

  “Oh god. Gimme.”

  I practically ripped the phone from his hands and barreled into his room, grabbing my phone from the desk and typing the password in lickety
-split. Not that I had actually missed anything: a message from Jazz, but nothing I wanted to hear.

  “Hey girl,” she said, “Sorry I couldn’t answer last night, I was out. I didn’t even hear the phone ring. Talk later?”

  Yeah, right. I had seen her hang up. I wanted to call her out on it, ask her really why she wasn’t there, but I stopped myself. I had restraint. I would wait until I was no longer mad at her to answer… if that day would ever come.

  “I’ll be on the couch tonight,” said Valentin suddenly. He was making it a habit to break me out of my trances, it seemed. “If you need anything, you wake me, ok?”

  “Oh no, I can’t ask you to do that!” I replied, rising to my feet. I handed his phone back. “Please. I’m the one crashing here. I’m not going to push you out of you bed.”

  I glanced at the comfy double bed, hoping I would still somehow get to sleep in it. It looked so wide and nice: as much as sleeping on the couch was the right thing to do, it didn’t mean I didn’t want to stay here.

  And then I saw the box on his bed side table.

  Oh.

  “Merde! Merci, Maman.” He flew to the small blue box, picking it up and throwing it into the nightstand in a flash. I didn’t know whether to laugh or back out of the room slowly.

  “It’s not every mom who would leave a box of condoms out for her son,” I replied.

  “I’m so, so sorry about that,” he said, his face so red it could have been on fire.

  “I guess that means she likes me?”

  He brushed his hair away from his forehead, laughing the most uncomfortable laugh I had ever heard, wobbly and weird. And I laughed too: Mathilde was so like you, and yet so different. I wondered if all French moms were this chill about their teenagers sharing a room – though chill seemed to be an understatement. When Charlie and I were dating – if you could even call it that – I don’t think his mother even knew I was in his life. I don’t think I told you much about him, either.

  My gut churned at the memory of us in the back of his car, his hands parading over grounds I had never shared before, mine reaching for places I had always wanted to explore. How could I ever have believed it was anything more than just that. How disgusted I had felt after I saw his phone, that night at the party.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said, catching my attention, “I really didn’t mean…”

  “It’s fine, Valentin.” I took a seat on his bed, reveling in the comfort of soft clean sheets. “It’s not you I’m struggling with.”

  “Your Mamie?”

  “I guess. Her, and a lot of things. Is it ok if I just… sit here? On the internet?”

  “Sure,” he replied, “I will be in the living room if you need me.”

  He turned and heading towards the door, and I felt guilty for pushing him away. The box of condoms hadn’t bothered me: only the memories they brought back did. He looked deflated, defeated: it broke my heart.

  “I don’t mean to kick you out,” I stammered.

  “Don’t worry, I understand.”

  “No, no…” Come on Jamie, this is English! The words shouldn’t be so hard when it’s the only language you know! “Why don’t you stay with me? I’m just going to be on my phone. I won’t be good company but I’m not trying to be a bad guest, either.”

  “It’s fine,” he replied, “I can do the same downstairs.”

  “Please stay?”

  His eyes lit up, and I had never seen something as beautiful in my life. He sat down on his bed beside me, keeping a polite distance – I hadn’t mentioned the bed, but I wasn’t going to push him off now. I mean, it was his bed - between us, he took out his phone, too.

  I scrolled down the old messages I had never tried to answer. Downloaded the emails that were clogging my inbox, deleting the spam. Turns out, some apps get oddly clingy when you don’t open them for a few days: I deleted most of them right away. I didn’t like how they fought for my time.

  “Thanks for letting me use your Wi-Fi,” I said, turning to Valentin. His eyes went wide.

  “It’s wi-fi?” he stammered, “Merde! I’ve been saying whiffy for years! You never corrected me?”

  “I thought it was kinda cute.”

  “Cute? It’s an abomination of the English language!” he said through a thick grin. “You are supposed to say when I speak wrong!”

  “And lose your accent? No thank you. I like the way your speak.”

  “Good luck getting my help with your French,” he chided, “you’ll be stuck with your accent forever.”

  “No! The horror!”

  “Bon courage pour me comprendre.”

  “What now?”

  “Good luck understanding me if I parle comme ca!”

  “Merde! Putain! Sacrebleu!”

  “Wow, you can speak Marseillais. Good job!”

  Stalemate. We grinned at each other like our lives depended on the width of our smiles. And god, was his smile beautiful.

  “Thanks again for today,” I said. “I haven’t felt this - I don’t even know the word. Included? At home? - Since I got off the plane at Marseille airport.”

  “My pleasure,” he replied, “you’re in Provence: anything less than a warm welcome would bring shame upon my family.”

  The last time I had been so close to him, I had tasted his lips. He had kissed me so deeply it had sucked all the homesickness right through my chest, if only for a moment. Was he leaning in now, to make it all go away again? Was he going to ask where I wanted this to go?

  I thought of the little blue box in his nightstand, and blushed. If that option was on the table, I wasn’t sure what I’d say.

  But he didn’t lean in. He didn’t try to kiss me. He simply went back to his phone, back to scrolling through memes. Was any of this flirting, to him? He was French, he would know better than I did. Maybe it was all just a normal day for him. Maybe yesterday’s kiss was just a… really enthusiastic goodbye.

  Wow, French was really, really confusing.

  “I think I’m going to go to bed now,” I said, almost robotically, dare the confusion take over my entire brain. I pulled back the covers and slipped under them, though it was much too warm for sheets in his room, too. He reached over and turned on a rotating fan without having to ask, and the air breezed over us, instantly relaxing me.

  “I’ll go,” he said, “let you get your sleep.”

  “You don’t have to leave,” I muttered.

  “Are you sure? You said that you wanted to go to bed, no?”

  “I didn’t say you had to go. It is your room.”

  So, he stayed. I curled up on my pillow (his pillow, smelling gloriously of him) and closed my eyes, letting sleep begin to peacefully wash over me. But in the quiet, my mind began to churn. It started off with the mental weight of the meaning of that kiss, but then it drifted off to what had happened after: Mamie’s breakdown, her drunken insults, her throwing me out, and everything that came with it.

  “Are you alright?” asked Valentin.

  “Mm-hum.”

  “You’re not,” he insisted, “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Why do you always assume it’s you?”

  He didn’t answer. I peeked open my eyes to see him still scrolling in the dark, memes tiny on his screen. It was astounding to think he had wasted his time learning English for that.

  “I don’t know what to tell my parents,” I said, “about Mamie.”

  “That Collette Martin is a drunk and you’re not safe with her, maybe?”

  “I’m sorry this means you won’t get your autograph.”

  “Please. I don’t care about that anymore. She’s not worth it.”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded. “You read someone’s books, and you think you know them. But books are… they’re for the reader, not the writer. So I was really only seeing myself when I thought I was seeing her.”

  I nodded, though I don’t think he could see it in the darkness of the room. When he had shut off the light,
I didn’t know. He still sat atop his sheets, hairy legs stretched out along the bed, lit blue in the glare of his phone. A spooky, hairy ghost resting beside me.

  “I’ll call my parents tomorrow, after we come back from Aix. See if we can work something out for me to stay back home. There’s no room at Grandma’s house, but maybe someone from school won’t mind me living with them.”

  “And leave Provence?” he stammered, “You can stay here, if you want to. My mother understands, she would be… delighted.”

  “You mean it?”

  Would it work? Would my parents approve of me staying in a stranger’s home, instead of Mamie’s? Valentin was far less foreign to me than she was.

  “You said you wanted me to stay,” he said, quietly, his voice a low whisper. “Jamie, I want you to stay too.”

  And I fell asleep there, in the bed next to him, his words running on a loop in my mind, warding off my Mamie’s words like a magic charm.

  Waking up next to someone is a seriously underrated activity.

  I don’t think there’s anything quite like opening your eyes to someone else’s sleeping face. To see the look of peace there. Seeing a person without their mask on, the lack of tension, no veiled emotions, only them.

  Valentin might have had a stoic face during the day, but in the morning, before he woke up, he was soft. His hair rested in waves around his face like a halo, and he breathed softly in my face, filling my nose with the scent of gross morning breath.

  Good moment over.

  I sat up, realizing one of my feet was wrapped around his legs, and pulled it back sharply. Oh god, I had slept with a boy. Not slept-slept, but shared a bed, let him see me in my ridiculous baggy pajamas, touched his foot with mine.

  Skin to skin contact.

  That happened.

  I flew out of bed, grabbed my clothes, and got changed in the bathroom. Breathe, Jamie, breathe. It meant nothing, and he would wake up without even knowing any of that happened. Because nothing did happen.

  I trotted down to the living room, feeling out of place. I was hungry, but didn’t know which cupboard to open, or even if I should: it wasn’t my home, and I was definitely the intruder here.