Chapter 9
9
Eloise’s expression is taut as she trudges towards me. Merde. Even from this distance I recognise the signs of mutiny; shoulders stiff and high, lips pressed hard into a straight line, eyes dark and fiery. This equation means she’s suffered an upset and is only just holding herself together for the sake of appearances. I’ve learned to read the signals, so that I’m best equipped to deal with these moods. My heart lurches. What could’ve happened?
I muster a welcoming smile as I shrivel up inside. That mother guilt is a wily beast, always lying in wait. The pendulum of raising a teenager swings from high to low.
If I ask her what the issue is, she’ll likely shut me down. The minefield of adolescence. Raising teens is like a game of chess, and it takes some careful consideration to decide which move to make.
First, I lead with the distraction technique in case it’s just a crabby mood. ‘Bonjour. Let’s go the bibliothèque and get you a library card.’
She grunts in response and kicks at the pavement .
I’m not daunted though; I press on. ‘I have the most wonderful news. I landed a job today! At a place called The Paris Bookshop for the Broken Hearted. I start tomorrow.’
‘ Felicitations, Mum,’ she mumbles, glancing over her shoulder. Is she missing her friends? The trio of girls aren’t hanging in a cluster by the steps as usual. Could that be why she’s morose? She can’t find them and feels left out?
‘ Merci, darling. It’s a fascinating little place – quirky, full of all sorts of bookish curiosities. I’d love to take you there at the weekend and treat you to a book and you can meet the lovely owner, Valérie.’
‘I don’t feel up to it.’ Her bottom lip wobbles slightly. There are times when she wants a shoulder to lean on, and other times she snaps at me for coddling her too much.
‘It’s only Wednesday, you might feel up to it at the weekend. We can wait and see. How was school? Are you keeping up with the workload OK?’ Could it be a problem with a subject? She’s always struggled with maths. ‘Are your teachers nice? The students?’
‘I hate all of it. The work, the teachers, the students. I hate Paris.’
We had just over two blissful weeks where she really seemed to be settling in aside from a few teary evenings after speaking to her BFFs in London. Perhaps the honeymoon period is waning. The swing of that pendulum is gnarly; you never quite know when it’s on the way back until it’s too late. ‘Did something happen?’ I guide her away from the school gates in the direction of the library.
She heaves a sigh as if she’s carrying the weight of the world on her stiffened shoulders. Without her usual haughty mask in place, she looks so young, so childlike, as though her transition into confident teenager is really all smoke and mirrors. Why can’t kids just stay kids? Adulthood comes soon enough. ‘It’s a long story.’
I give her hand a comforting squeeze. ‘We’ve got time, darling, and this sounds important.’ It must be serious, whatever’s bothering her, because she doesn’t shake my hand away and we’re still near school where it’s expressly verboten to show any displays of affection towards her.
‘OK. But you have to promise you’re not going to get involved.’
‘Well that depends on…’
‘ Promise .’
I sigh. ‘Fine. I promise under the condition that it’s nothing serious.’
Eloise nods; the deal is made. ‘Léa’s been, like, off with me.’ From what I’ve gathered, it seems as though Léa is the leader of the pack. That kind of dynamic always bothers me but I keep my opinions to myself for now.
‘How so?’
‘It started with some jokes about me being different coming from London, as if it’s the Wild West or something.’
‘Not very funny, I agree, but go on.’
‘I kind of laughed them off because what else can you say without it turning into an argument? Or they’ll tease me about being a snowflake, like I’m too sensitive or something?’
From the many self-help books I’ve read about rearing teenagers, I know this is not the time to give her a ten-point plan with various strategies. I’m supposed to listen to her as she shares her feelings, and once she’s opened up I can then offer practical solutions. It all makes sense on paper, but in the real world, it’s bloody hard not to demand she ditches these so- called friends. Growing up is just plain hard work without adding this kind of thing into the mix.
‘I understand. You laughed it off in the hopes it would end there and obviously it hasn’t?’
She pulls her lips to one side. ‘No, it hasn’t. Léa kept going on about stupid things, like how weird my shoes are.’
I drop my gaze to her shoes. Simple leather Mary Janes, a staple school shoe. I cannot envisage how one could label them weird.
We leave the busy street and head down Rue Madame. ‘What shoes does Léa wear?’ Not that I want Eloise to compare, or worse, cave in and buy the same shoe, but I’m genuinely curious.
Eloise makes a bitter sound: half grunt, half scoff. ‘Louis Vuitton platform loafers. They’re, like, really nice .’
‘They’re just a platform loafer. They go on your feet.’ I can imagine just how much those loafers cost. Too much.
Eloise gives me one of those drawn-out sighs that reflects, I presume, that I’m missing the point. ‘You’re all about practicalities, but fashion is important too.’ It’s not that I don’t care for fashion, I am half French after all, it’s more that I don’t agree with buying a brand name purely because everyone else is. Our wardrobes are full of good-quality fabrics rather than focusing on the brand itself, some we invested in new, others we found by scouring London thrift shops.
I fight the urge to lecture her about luxury items providing a faux sense of self-worth because that’s not what she wants to hear, but it spills out anyway. ‘Fashion is personal. You can still be trés chic without wearing designer clothes where you’re effectively paying exorbitantly to advertise their brand for them.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘However,’ I quickly add, ‘ this isn’t about designer footwear versus mid-tier brands, this is about another teenager making you feel bad because of your adequate and sensible shoe choice, no?’
‘It’s a miracle!’ she says, fist to the sky. ‘You’re getting it!’
‘Well, I am very intelligent and I was once your age, Eloise. Despite what you think, things haven’t changed that much.’
‘That’s depressing.’
‘ Oui . Most of us have suffered the same fate – not having the latest fashion, gadget, holiday that the upper echelon had. It’s not new.’
‘Well, it gets worse. After telling everyone about my weird babyish shoes, she started on my clothing choices.’
Now I’m confused. ‘How, when you all wear the very same uniform?’ I got Eloise’s school uniform second-hand but made sure each piece was in good condition.
‘Insta.’
‘Instagram?’ She shoots me a look. ‘This is not a criticism. OK, it is, but can you use full words when you’re in my company? I like words to be the regimented length.’
‘Oh, Mum. Seriously .’
‘So Léa looked at your Instagram page and decided your clothing isn’t acceptable by Parisian standards…?’ I’m beginning to dislike this Léa child.
She gives me a decisive nod. ‘And… she me called me cheugy, which is a massive insult.’
That’s a new word for the collection. I try to unscramble what it could possibly mean and come up blank. ‘Cheugy? It’s not a French word?’
Eloise shakes her head. ‘No, it’s English, but they use the same expression here. Blame social media.’
‘There’s no way of translating it. What does it mean?’
She flicks a silky strand of hair back. ‘It’s someone who is, like, mega off trend. Wears skinny jeans and sheepskin boots, has a side part, watches Friends reruns. Exudes that girl boss, hustle culture energy. Posts Insta pics that say, Rosé all day! Basically someone stuck in the early 2010s.’
‘And that’s a bad thing? It sounds suspiciously like me.’
She grins. ‘ Exactly! Just like you! You have that cheugy Millennial vibe.’
I take a moment to determine whether I’m offended or not. Gen Z speak is meant to be mostly tongue-in-cheek; sass. But seriously, what’s wrong with skinny jeans?
‘In that case, you clearly don’t fit the criteria for cheugy.’
She makes a face. ‘I know, but my Insta goes back a long time when I did sort of look a bit cheugy.’
‘You started your Instagram account at age thirteen, the minimum age requirement for the platform, the age you are now .’
‘Right. A lot can change.’
‘In nine months?’
‘That’s almost a year .’ The passage of time must go much slower for teenagers. I regularly monitor her social media, and I haven’t noticed any drastic cheugy-like change from the Eloise nine months ago to now. ‘I wasn’t, like, wearing sheepskin boots but I did make some questionable fashion choices. The sequined headband with a side part for example.’
I smile. ‘Aw! I still love that headband! It’s bedazzling, bright, sparkly…’
‘ Babyish .’ I let the comment slide away. It’s so strange how a child can pivot from sparkly headbands one day to coveting designer label shoes the next. ‘Then the other two girls joined in, pointing out other posts, not just what I wore but also my captions. The rest of the class overheard and laughed too.’
This is why I didn’t want her using social media. She pushed from age eleven for it because ‘everyone else uses it’, but I wouldn’t be swayed. She didn’t meet the minimum age requirements, simple as that. I’d have held out forever if I’d had my way. ‘That’s not nice of her, Eloise. Did you tell her to stop being so rude?’
I’m not great with confrontations, who is really, and I sense my daughter is the same, especially being the new kid at school and not wanting to make waves. She blows out a frustrated breath. ‘No, I just kept this dumbstruck smile on my face as if it was funny. Urgh , and then Léa asked me why I had Rapunzel hair. Was I hoping for a boy to come and rescue me from my bad fashion choices?’
My heart plummets. These girls are bullying her – for what reason?
‘Eloise, you know this behaviour is not acceptable, don’t you?’
She pulls a face. ‘Yeah, I guess, but what if I am cheugy, and my hair is so 2010? Maybe it’s time to cut it all off?’
What! Her hair is her crowning glory, long luscious locks that are naturally wavy. ‘They all have those jellyfish cuts or wear coastal cowgirl pigtails with bows.’
The – what? Not even hair is simple to understand any more. ‘So? Who cares what they have?’
‘ I care, because I want to fit in. Not stand out.’
Why are teens like this? These children are obviously trying to bring my daughter down a peg but how to get Eloise to understand this and to rail against it?
‘I get that you’re trying to fit in but changing who you are isn’t the way to go about it. A real friend will love you no matter what clothes you wear, or how you style your hair. They won’t stalk your social media posts to make fun of you, especially in front of others. ’
‘You don’t know what it’s like .’
‘My first real friends were fictional , Eloise, and that made me a target because I had no desire to be included, so I do know what it’s like. With us moving so often for my parents’ business ventures I was the new kid far too many times to count and I learned fast it was always best to stay true to myself, no matter whether I fit in or not.’
Eloise gives me a long look as if she’s debating arguing the point. ‘Yeah, but Mum, it wouldn’t bother you if you had no friends, as long as you had a book to read.’
‘That’s not entirely true. I’d get lonely just the same as you. But reading is a refuge when life gets tough. Instead of dwelling on my sadness, I escape into other worlds. It’s the best form of therapy there is.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want to escape into a book. I want to go back to London where my real friends are and I know that’s not an option, so I guess I’m stuck with Léa and the gang.’
Ah! If all else fails, turn to her idol. ‘Ask yourself, what would Taylor Swift do? She wouldn’t kowtow to these girls. She wouldn’t change her style, her hair. One thing I love about her is she stays true to herself. You don’t see her rushing off for one of those starfish cuts…’
‘Jellyfish.’
‘…One of those jellyfish cuts, or some oddly named pigtails. Taylor would write a song about them and find nicer students to be friends with.’
‘Hmm. Before this started, I really liked them, Léa especially. Now I don’t know what to think. What if it’s just that Léa is having a bad week? Should I give her another chance?’
‘That’s up to you, but if it were me, I’d distance myself from them for a bit.’
She expels a pent- up breath. ‘Maybe.’
It’s rare that my daughter is this vulnerable with me. I’m glad she’s sharing these big feelings, even though I can’t do much to help at this stage, except to monitor the situation and keep the lines of communication open. The tiger mum in me wants to march down to the school and demand justice. But that won’t work. It’ll only make it worse; been there done that got the silent treatment.
‘Is that why we’re here in Paris? So that you can distance yourself from Alexander?’
Eloise knows a pared-down version about what happened with Alexander. She’s at the age I felt she was mature enough to handle the truth, or at least parts of it. After all, the man had been in her life for a long time.
A tricky part of parenting is knowing how much to share. Enough so they understand, not too much so they aren’t burdened by it. ‘No, I’m not keeping my distance from him, it’s probably the other way around. We came back to Paris in large part because I needed the kind of support only my parents could give. Not just giving us a roof over our heads, but emotional support too. I needed home. I needed to lick my wounds and let them heal.’
‘Because of the thefts?’
I frown. ‘How do…?’
She shakes her head at me as if I’m dense. ‘Google, mum. Google. You’re not exactly a spontaneous person, and you’re all jittery when you’re pretending everything is fine.’
‘I am?’ My acting abilities are second to none; that faux brightness requires a lot of energy to keep up. Hadn’t I nailed my role?
‘You are. You speak in this high voice, and you paste on a terrifying smile that gives me nightmares. ’
I guess my lockjaw was obvious to one and all. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad!’ She mimics it. ‘OK, that is terrifying.’
‘When you said you’d quit your job, I knew that couldn’t be right. You’d never just leave your authors like that, especially not Sally and Janae.’ They’ve grown close to Eloise over the years too, sending her birthday cards and small gifts at Christmas.
‘I – uh.’ Am flummoxed. I didn’t want to tell her about the business, not yet anyway. It felt like too much on top of Alexander’s disappearing act. The man didn’t even have it in his heart to say goodbye to Eloise, and that bothered me. I’d have kept my cool in front of her, he knows that.
‘So I researched online about what happened to you. How Alexander vanished. I’m glad your lawyer proved you weren’t involved in the thefts.’ Her voice turns hard. ‘I’m mad that he got away with it. I really thought he was a great almost dad.’
Almost dad. God, it makes me want to wail. She deserves so much better. ‘I’m mad too. I’m mad at myself for not setting up the system well enough to catch this type of betrayal. And mad that I couldn’t salvage what was left and turn it around in my favour. Most of all, I’m sorry I had to uproot your life.’
‘He has to answer for it, eventually, right?’
‘I’m sure he will one day.’ How to tell her that I, her organised mother who makes lists and covers every scenario, doesn’t know how to fix this mess and get what’s owed?
‘You should get your authors back. Start again. Alone.’
I nod as if it’s a wonderful idea. My daughter doesn’t need an account of just how upset our authors were and the clause in their contracts that freed them to find new publishers. It strikes me that running a business was never my dream, and the loss of it all proves it. My love was always centred around editing and my passion for the stories themselves and the relationship with my authors as together we bring a new book into the world.
We get to the library and head upstairs. It’s a bright colourful place for Eloise to study. We wander around perusing the shelves, but my mind is on Eloise and the fact she knows more than I thought about the fallout of the business. It is a modern world and she’s a smart cookie.
She taps my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. ‘So, is the search on for a new prince charming?’
‘No! I’ve closed the book on men for the foreseeable.’
She runs her finger along a collection of classics with leather-bound spines. ‘Why? Soon I’ll be grown up and gone. You can’t be alone forever or you’ll end up best friends with Alexa , your virtual assistant.’ She shudders. ‘You’ll live on wheels of brie and barrels of red wine…’
I tilt my head. ‘ Voilà , the perfect life!’
‘Come on, that’s just sad!’
‘Not really. I’ll dive into my gothic romance reads era and have a slew of gothic book boyfriends to choose from. I can do sudoku and crochet and be blissfully happy.’
She laughs, the most beautiful melody in the moment. ‘It sounds, erm… cosy. And probably for the best. You wouldn’t want to fall in love in Paris in case we move back to London. Long-distance relationships never work.’ Said with all the experience of a thirteen-year-old.
Do I temper her expectations by reminding her there will be no returning to London?
I’m saved from deciding when she says, ‘So, where are we going tonight for our celebratory dinner?’
‘We’re taking your grandparents out for dinner to La Coupole to say thanks for all they’ve done for us.’
‘ Parfait . ’
We spend the next hour sorting a library card and checking out the facilities at Bibliothèque Rainer-Maria Rilke, Eloise decreeing it perfect for her needs. I’m a little hesitant now because, when I agreed she could study at the library, it was with the thought that there’d be three or four of them walking here together. I keep my worries to myself for the moment though, not wanting to spoil the good mood between us.