Chapter 10
10
From: Olivia Iyer [email protected]
To: Anna Byrne [email protected]
Date: December 8, 2009 at 2:03 PM GMT +1
Subject: Re: Re: Bonjour
I know you’re busy gallivanting around the South of France with your new posh family, but where’s my reply? I need DETAILS. You promised I could live vicariously through you. The weather, at least. I’ll shock you: here, it’s rained, no joke, every day for a week and a half. You could wring me out. Your phone is a brick over there, I get that, but you’ve got to send me at least a few photos. And bring me home something nice, too, since I’m pinch-hitting with all your students. What are you eating? What do they do for fun? You sound like you actually like them. Are you making friends? Meals, drinks, fromage, gateau, what’s happening? Any cute garcons?
DETAILS!
xx
Liv
I was lost in town, but not at all concerned about it. The port area was so small, I knew I’d eventually be flushed out onto some main road I recognized or come upon a stop for the bus that had dropped me here, with a book under my arm and a pocket full of euros.
It was Saturday, no lessons with Pippa, and a brilliant, unseasonably warm afternoon. I was giddy with the free day and the sunlight, and celebrating the completion of my course essays, which had been hard to finish with so much to distract me here.
I’d first gone to the only real tourist attraction in town: the Citadelle de Saint-Tropez, a seventeenth-century stronghold of weather-beaten khaki stone, spiked with thin-necked cannons. I thought of Liv’s email and took a few photos with the nearly useless camera on my nearly useless phone: a breathtaking panorama of the bay, the boats, the mountains beyond, and the forested green hills behind us.
After, I headed into town on foot, intent on Christmas shopping. There were plenty of shops, absurd window displays—silk scarves at Hermès, gold watches at Rolex, sheath dresses at Dior and Celine—but not the kind of shops I was looking for. I kept wandering, and eventually found myself in an alley that narrowed into a ripe-smelling fish market, the day’s catch still flapping on ice as I tried to squeeze through. When I emerged, at last, onto a wide street with bright, breathable air, I leaned back against a bank building and laughed at myself.
“Well, I was going to ask if you’re lost, but you seem to be enjoying yourself,” someone called to me. I turned toward the voice. Callum, coming up the sidewalk, carrying a small sack of groceries.
“Can’t I be both?” I asked, pushing off the wall. “Lost and enjoying myself?” The swell of excitement, the nerves I had to swallow down—it was a bit much, considering we’d only met once. But there was no harm in it. I thought of Liv’s email: Any cute garcons? Oui.
“You’re staying around here?” I asked. “This is your neighborhood?”
“Two streets that way.” He jerked his head to the left and then pushed back the hair that slipped down over his forehead. This was what I should be taking photos of for Liv. Easily as breathtaking as a view of the bay. “Actually, I buy my fish down that little alley you’ve just come from.”
“A little too fresh for my taste,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “I like my food not moving.”
“That’s very American of you.” He nodded sternly. “Would you like to not be lost?”
I shrugged. “I wanted to do a little Christmas shopping. But I can’t seem to find the middle ground between Rolex and gutted fish.”
He laughed, a charming low bark. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“Just some little gifts, to send home. Souvenirs, but not cheap crap?”
“You don’t mind a trek?” he said, already turning back the way he’d come. “It’s about ten minutes.”
He was a good guide, helping me get my bearings, pointing things out to me as we walked—good breakfast spots, his favorite bakery, the historical marker outside the apartment where Henry James spent a few summers.
“You’re a fan, I assume?” he said.
“Of course. We American expats have to stick together in Europe.”
“And are you writing the Great American Novel, too?”
I shook my head. “I’m hoping for the Passably Decent British Dissertation, actually.”
He chuckled. “Seems very attainable. And next?”
“A visa to stay and work. A job in book publishing, if I can swing it. That’s what I did before I got here.”
We were passing an ice cream shop, the windows stacked high with cellophane bags of candy. I stopped outside it. “Do you mind if I just run in? Pippa’s mad about sweets,” I said, repeating the phrase she’d used. Candy, biscuits, lollipops, and chocolate-covered almonds fueled her daily study sessions. We worked one hour every morning before lunch and two hours after. I was anxious about earning my keep, but Mrs. Wilder said three hours a day seemed like plenty to her, it being Pippa’s holiday time, too.
“How’s it going with Pippa?” Callum asked when I emerged a minute later. “Bad enough you have to bribe her with candy?”
I laughed. “She’s a good student, very smart. But when she’s bored with the material—which is very boring, to be fair—she’ll try to get me off topic. Asks me all about America, boys, college, that kind of thing. Junk food helps.” I didn’t mention that once she really burned out, that third hour, she could be fractious and sullen. Still, we’d settled into a decent routine. In the afternoons Pippa got all her questions answered, and then it was time to watch Gossip Girl and pass a jar of Nutella between us, dipping in biscuits or pretzels or, in Pippa’s case, fingers. She insisted I looked like the show’s lead bombshell, Serena van der Woodsen, but I didn’t see it at all. The character was several shades blonder than me, and several inches taller and thinner, too.
Faye joined us sometimes, and Pippa coached her sister and me through the show’s soapy plot lines. The ridiculous drama reminded me of watching Chelsea Made with Andre . Twice Faye played boules with us on the court behind the house, and yesterday Pippa had persuaded Chef to make us affogatos—espresso poured over vanilla ice cream—and we’d eaten them in the hot tub in our swimsuits. Even Faye had one, despite the sugar and carbs.
I opened one of the oversized bags of sour gummies I’d bought, and Callum and I dipped our hands in as we walked. “Pippa does seem very bright,” he said. “The snark is strong with that one.”
“Maybe a little too strong, sometimes.”
He smiled, chewing thoughtfully. I liked watching his mouth move, the lips turning up or down as he considered whatever I’d said. And walking side by side—his dark, romance-novel eyes on the road, not on me—I didn’t get so nervous. “Still,” he said, “Pippa must be a hard worker, studying on her holidays. Faye’s a few years younger than me, so it’s not like we were classmates, but I don’t remember her being so focused.”
“You went to the same school?”
“Only at first; we went to different places after year six. You know, boys’ schools, girls’ schools. But a group of us from that area—near the Heath—we’ve all stayed in touch.”
“Well, now I have to guess if you’re Ham or High,” I said. Hampstead or Highgate.
He laughed. “No clues.”
“I’m leaning toward Highgate.”
“Why’s that?”
“Hampstead always feels like an older crowd. Feels a little stuffier to me. Am I right?”
“Spot-on, actually. But my grandparents are in Hampstead, and they love it.” He stopped and pointed across to a large shop window, framed with lace curtains. “This is the shop I was thinking of. Good for small stuff.”
The woman behind the counter stood to offer us help as we entered, but Callum declined in shy, neat French.
“Well, let’s see,” he said, turning to take in the wares. “You’ll probably want something small, since you’re shipping back to America. Does your mother cook? Maybe some herbes de Provence?”
I hesitated. “It’s not going to America. Just to London.”
He turned to look at me, an attractive, confused frown pulling at his lips. “You said you were shopping for back home.”
I shrugged, letting my fingers comb through the folds of a silk scarf hanging on a hook next to me. “London is home.”
“But your parents, what about—” He seemed to stop himself, recognizing the awkwardness of the question, or the awkwardness of requiring me to answer it. “I’m sorry, that was rude—not any of my business.”
I lifted the scarf up a few inches with my forearm and watched it slide off, slippery and heavy like running water. Should I make an excuse or just tell him? And then, before I could decide, I was saying it: “My mom passed away. My father and I, we had a sort of falling-out. But we were never close.”
Callum nodded slowly, sympathetically. “That’s really rough, I’m sorry.”
I twisted my fingers into the tasseled fringe of another scarf, black and green velvet. “It’s okay.”
He looked around the shop, giving me a moment. “I never really liked Christmas shopping,” he said finally. “It’s so hard to find something they’ll actually use.” Probably the people in his life already had everything. He dressed simply, but he looked rich like Faye did—like simplicity was the mark of it.
“No, it’s not really my thing,” I agreed. I’d been ten the first time Dad enlisted me to help him find a present for Mom. A Goldilocks gift: something nice, but not so nice that she would panic about the cost. Her mouth tensing into an anxious line while her fingers worked through the wrapping paper. Wondering if what she unwrapped would mean cutting corners elsewhere. Groceries, school clothes, test strips, insulin.
“Who is it you’re shopping for, then?” Callum asked.
It sounded a little like the lines men at the corner store sometimes used, to ask-but-not-ask if I had a boyfriend. Any plans this weekend? Is that just for you? Who’s going to help you unpack all these groceries? But it seemed unlikely Callum meant it like that, for me.
“My two best friends in London,” I said, and smiled up at him so he’d know I was welcoming the change of topic. “My flatmate Andre, and Liv—she teaches with me.”
“Brilliant,” he said. “What do you think? There’s a lot of soap, isn’t there?” A whole corner was devoted to soaps and lotions, all a milky lilac color and strongly scented with lavender. “Do your friends like soap?”
“I have no idea,” I said, realizing it was true. Maybe best friends had been a bit of an overstatement. I’d only known them six months. Still, there was no one clamoring to go in front of them in line. I’d sent a few postcards to old friends—from the neighborhood, from Smith—but we hardly kept in touch these days beyond commenting on each other’s Facebook posts. I hadn’t been the most present human after Mom died, hadn’t returned messages or answered calls. And then it had felt easier not to, once I knew I was leaving.
Callum offered a woven pouch with a tiny embroidered stalk of green-gray lavender on it. His fingers around it were long and tan and distracting. “What about these? Maybe a little bit nicer?”
He held the perfumy pouch up to my nose for me to smell. “Andre might like that,” I said. “We have a really filthy roommate. Flat smells atrocious.” I wrinkled my nose, and Callum laughed. It was what I’d been trying for: that laugh. Trying to pump the sunlight of his smile into my body before he took his little sack of groceries and left.
For Liv, I chose a set of two tea towels, blue bays and white sailboats. I’d never been over to her house and not seen a spill of some kind. Her roommates were great, but not great cleaners.
“Do you think I should get something for the Wilders?” I asked. “I’ll be with them for Christmas.” I looked around; nothing here would be nice enough for them. It was only nice enough for people like me. It’d been good of Callum to know to bring me here, to know this was what I could afford, without making me say it. Like when he’d pressed the oyster fork into my hand, unasked, under the table.
“I wouldn’t bother, honestly,” he said, shaking his head. “But if you want, there’s a nice fromagerie near the bus stop here, and a wine shop. Get them a bit of both and you’re golden. Very French.”
I chose the largest, prettiest lavender pouch and carried it with my tea towels up to the shopkeeper. When she saw that was all I had in my hands, her brow furrowed. “Oh, but you were admiring the scarves,” she said in accented English. “You must at least try.”
Before I could say anything, she’d hopped off her stool and returned with an armful. She draped the first scarf, heavy silk, over my shoulders. Behind her, Callum was trying and failing to hide how funny he found my predicament. But then the shopkeeper turned to him and said, “Beautiful, yes?”
“Yes,” he said, grinning. “Very beautiful.”
When I smiled and shook my head (the price was more than I’d spend on a whole outfit), the shopkeeper took it off and put another around my neck, and then another, turning me this way and that by my elbow, commanding Callum to admire the scarf, or me, or me in the scarf. The last on the counter was a gauzy blush-colored thing, and I held it up for him. “Look, it’s just the color of the wine we had at Bar Sube.”
“It is,” he laughed. “The perfect souvenir. You need a Christmas gift, too, you know.”
I ran my fingers over the fabric, light like a breath of air. It really did remind me of the rosé: cool, delicate, the faintest hint of pink. The headiness of that first night out. Too expensive, almost certainly, but the euros were there, in my pocket. And Callum was right. No one else was getting me a Christmas gift.
I didn’t even look for the price tag, just handed it over to the shopkeeper to ring up. She had earned it. And I left happy, a hundred euros lighter.