Aix Marks the Spot

by Sarah Anderson

  “I haven’t driven a car in decades,” said Mamie, scanning the sea of rentals outside the airport doors.

  “You rent, I drive?” I suggested.

  “You drive? My girl, you are so young!”

  “America,” I replied.

  “America.” She agreed, nodding slowly, “Will we break the law?”

  We didn’t, at the end. Good old Uber would be our savior. She sat up front with the nice driver as we left the airport and headed to my other grandmother’s suburb, chatting amicably in broken English about this being her first time to the US.

  Things got quiet when the woman dropped us off. We stood outside the flat home, staring at the single row of sunflowers before the window, the great green lawn opening its arms wide. It was unnerving how big the cars were, now that I was used to the French ones; or how much more humid it was than the air in France. How quiet it sounded without the Cicadas. Mamie took it all in in one large gasp.

  We didn’t need to come any closer. The door flew open and Dad was outside like lightning, hugging his mother so tight I couldn’t see her through his arms, or even hear her breathing through his tears. Or maybe they were her sobs I heard, as they sputtered in French, hugging and kissing and crying on my grandmother’s driveway.

  And then, in the doorway, I saw you.

  You were standing. Not easily, not on your own just yet. You had a walker, a massive step up from your chair that I left you with. And you were watching the reunion with tears in your own eyes, as if afraid to step forward, afraid that this moment wasn’t real.

  Trust me. I didn’t believe it either.

  When Mamie pulled away from Dad, it was to you she went first, her head bowed, her hands outstretched. And you pushed that walker forward, hesitantly at first, then gaining speed as she walked up, your mouth forming words of confusion, first in one language, then another.

  “I am so sorry,” said Mamie, her speech perfectly rehearsed. We had spent the entire flight over on it, and she was determined to pronounce every word right. “I am so sorry I thought-“

  You didn’t give her time to finish. You inclined your head forward, kissing her first on one cheek, then the other. Your hands were straining on the edge of your walker, trembling and twitching as your lips formed a bright, wide smile.

  “Come inside,” you said to her, “we have a lot to talk about.”

  I was the last one to say my hellos. I turned to dad, and we hugged, saying nothing, our words saved for where they were needed most. As I pulled away, I reached into my bag, pulling out the letters pressed so gently inside my sketchpad.

  “These are for you,” I said.

  So, as Mamie and you built new bridges with words, Dad walked down old paths you had created together, a new culture growing out of once dry soil.

  “You’re breaking up again,” I was saying, shaking my laptop as if that was going to help. Valentin’s frozen features are confused on the screen, his face caught in the middle of an expression that could either be sadness or a laughter.

  I’m sitting at the dining room table, the house suddenly full over capacity. Grandma is getting Mamie properly introduced to the kitchen appliances, the latter confused as to the lack of the electric kettle. However will she have her morning coffee?

  Grandma is taking a while to warm up to Mamie, and I can’t blame her. Things are far from perfect yet. Talking has resumed, apologies traded, but it doesn’t take back the hurt everyone has been causing each other for almost two decades. But they are trying, all of them. All of us.

  “Breaking up? Does that mean we were dating?”

  “What? I don’t want to break up with you! Hold on!”

  I put the laptop down and grab my phone, texting him to hang on for a sec. I look up, and there’s dad, climbing under the living room desk in search of the internet box.

  “Dad! Don’t mess with the Wi-Fi! The password is in Grandpa’s office!” I yell.

  “Did you just pronounce it whiffy?” he says, stopping in his tracks.

  “No?”

  “You did,” says Valentin, suddenly unfrozen. “Ha! I knew I could turn you French!”

  He looks adorable on that screen, my little boyfriend in a box. If he even is my boyfriend. We haven’t had that conversation yet, though I have a feeling we’re about to. My heart is pounding with excitement. But first things first.

  “How are you? Not too bored without me?”

  “A lot of Pétanque to pass the day!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Non.”

  “Is that the copain?” you ask, scooting up on the couch, where you have been watching dad toil ridiculously under the desk.

  “Maybe?” I reply.

  “Is he cute?”

  “Very.”

  “Then I approve.”

  “So we are not breaking up?” asked Valentin, “this sounds like the opposite.”

  “No,” I reply. “I think we are doing the opposite of breaking up.”

  I dip my toes into the comfortable effortless of loving him. I think I’m going to like it here.

  “So?” he asks, “you were saying? About being back in America?”

  I smile. There’s a lot to say: I had apparently gotten quite used to a lot of things in France I never thought I would. Like the morning coffee or the long meals, or the bread so fresh it never made it home from the bakery intact. Gosh, I missed the bread. And the cheese!

  “It’s taking some getting used to,” I reply, “I’ve had mac and cheese again.”

  “That orange excuse for fromage?”

  “Yeah. And guess what? I loved it.”

  “I take back what I say: we are breaking up.”

  “I agree with that!” you say from the couch.

  “Mom! Quit eavesdropping!”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  “Yeah, the house really is too small for all of us,” I replied, “but we’re all trying really hard to make it work, at least for now. I might stay a few nights at Jazz’s, but… I fully intend to finish my summer in Provence.”

  “You’re coming back?” His eyes light up like fireflies at night.

  “Only if you ask politely,” I insist.

  “Please, please come back,” he begs, an overdramatic pantomime. “However will I live without you?”

  I laugh. It’s true, I do miss him too. We had only just started to actually know each other before I flew back, and I’m looking forward to knowing him more when I return.

  “You know, I still have to visit Aix,” I say, grinning. “I only saw it so briefly. But there’s more. Now that Dad and Mom and Mamie are talking, well… my parents haven’t been to France in ages. And since they teach French lit, well…”

  “What are you saying?” His grin is so wide, I could drown in it. I can’t wait to make it grow even wider.

  “Well, the baccalaureate is done in two years, right?” I say. “I’m going to be in Junior year in the fall, so Mom and Dad think it might be the perfect time to move. If things go right, Mamie’s house might be full again.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You know, there are schools in America that offer scholarships to international students,” he said, and my heart skipped a beat.

  “And you know that French schools cost less than one semester’s worth of textbooks,” I replied.

  “What are you saying?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” I said, “All I know is, long distance sucks.”

  I look over at my parents, sitting comfortably together on the low couch. You’re leaning on dad, your eyes closed, smiling even as you drift off to sleep. He’s reading your letters and holding back tears. There’s a lot of tissues on his side of the room.

  I look at you, and an image forms in front of you: your current selves, and your selves from seventeen years ago, two eras superimposed in one, sitting together on a beach towel in Cassis. It’s like looking through a window
back in time: you, with your hair long and loose, wearing a maxi dress because you hadn’t predicted you would be hiking that day; dad in his ridiculous aviators, which he had bought from a north African man on the beach and he thought made him look cool. Blink, and you’re gone, the real you taking their place. My mother, the woman who lost her legs and was finding them again, who would never let go of the things she loved, no matter what. Dad, the man who had lost his mother and motherland in one fell swoop, rerooting himself after the storm.

  I turn my attention back to Valentin, taking in his smile, and that stray curl still sitting on his forehead. I imagine him twenty years from now, that same hair sprinkled with light grey, gentle wrinkles on his skin. I take in his face, as it is, now, smiling and eagerly waiting for me to say something, anything.

  My words come out flimsy and tough, but they do the trick, and the smile, impossibly, widens.

  “Et si on parlait de nous?” I ask.

  Now, let’s talk about us.

  When I first sat down to write about my childhood in Provence, the plan was to write a non-fiction. But the words didn’t come: the stories were there, they were just disjointed paragraphs, short episodes from my life and others. It took a very strange dream and a sharp reset to turn my life around, and for Provence to make me write the book I did.

  Everything that happened in Aix Marks the Spot happened for real: either to me, or to a friend. Every conversation overheard on the bus or confusing interaction in town, all of it is real. Only the treasure hunt that ties it all together was invented, for cohesion’s sake.

  Writing this book has been the strangest and most wonderful experience of my life. Never before or since did words spill out of me in this way, and I have so many people to thank for setting me up and putting me on the path that made this story come out.

  First and foremost, to my parents, Tim and Apryl. If you had not chosen Aix as our home, we certainly wouldn’t be here today. I know that it’s not always been easy, for any of us. Living outside of one’s culture comes with a whole slew of challenges. But you choosing Aix gave me a culture to call home. I had the childhood most people could only dream of. It gave me friends that I will keep forever, opportunities that exist no place else, and a fantastic life.

  In that same vein, all my wonderful friends who shared their stories with me, not knowing a decade ago that they would somehow end up in this book. Thank you Alix, Valentine, Victor, Nicolas, Laura, Lea, Lucy, Joanna. You were there for me through thick and thin and probably remember half the events in these pages. Thank you for sharing your stories, and your lives, with me.

  I can’t go anywhere without thanking my partner, Hugo, my own personal Provence romance. Thank you for being supportive and silly through the good times and the bad. I never thought people could live such a romance in real life. In this book, I took reality and turned it to fiction, but every day you take fiction and make it real.

  To Cora, for her unbridled enthusiasm for this book from day one. For pushing me to get the whole story out, for helping me put a glossy coat of polish on it. This book would not exist if not for you. I’m so excited for us to travel Jaime’s trail together one day. I can’t wait to show you these places I love.

  Thank you to my critique partners, Madeline, Denise, Emily, Lisa, and Heidi. It’s such a privilege to have you women in my life! Aix Marks the Spot would be dull and lusterless without your keen eyes for detail.

  For the woman who grounded me and helped me hear what Provence had to say: thank you, Odette. You unlocked something within me that had been hiding for years.

  And to all my readers who shared Jaime’s journey and connected in some small way to the story I had to tell: thank you for coming along. I hope that you enjoyed this book as much as I loved writing it. Please come visit Provence one day and see for yourselves how magical it can be.

  THE STARSTRUCK SAGA:

  Starstruck

  Alienation

  Traveler

  Celestial

  Starbound

  Earthstuck

  NOVELLAS:

  Miss Planet Earth

  (Pew! Pew! - The Quest for More Pew!)

  The Horrible Habits of Humans

  (Pew! Pew! - Bite My Shiny Metal Pew!)

  Miss Planet Earth and the Amulet of Beb Sha Na

  Head over Heels (Starstruck Halloween Short)

  Sarah Anderson can’t ever tell you where she’s from. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because it inevitably leads to a confusing conversation about where she was born (England) where she grew up (France) and where her family is from (USA) and it tends to make things very complicated.

  She’s lived her entire life in the South of France, except for a brief stint where she moved to Washington DC, or the eighty years she spent as a queen of Narnia before coming back home five minutes after she had left. Currently, she is working on her PhD in Astrophysics and Planetary sciences in Besançon, France.

  When she’s not writing - or trying to do science - she’s either reading, designing, crafting, or attempting to speak with various woodland creatures in an attempt to get them to do household chores for her. She could also be gaming, or pretending she’s not watching anything on Netflix.

  Connect with her on social media:

  www.seandersonauthor.com