Chapter 2 January 1995 Lily Jacobsen—Job Applicant #3
She arranged the drawings in her portfolio, careful not to smudge them.
A way of giving me privacy as I absorbed the seismic shift in our relationship.
Was it something I’d done—talked on the phone too much, smacked my cereal when she tried to sleep in?
Something I hadn’t done—the dishes, taking out the garbage?
“It’s nothing you did or didn’t do,” she reassured me.
A part of me was heartened—as always, she read my mind. Another part was devastated.
We’d always been inseparable.
“I’ll only be a few métro stops away,” she said.
My head shot back. “You already found a place?” Somehow this news stung more than her initial announcement. “I’ll pick up more tutoring hours, or find a second job. I certainly don’t want to hold you back.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Words can reveal or conceal. To hide my hurt, I grabbed a copy of FUSAC (France-USA Contacts) and held it to my face.
I skimmed the headlines—PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON INVOKES EMERGENCY POWERS.
O.J. SIMPSON ON TRIAL FOR MURDER—before moving to the personal ads.
Usually, we delighted in the random desires of strangers.
(“Can you believe it? This one wants a woman who’ll nibble his toes!
”) Coming from a straitlaced town, where folks had a tough time articulating their desires, we admired anyone who could admit what they wanted.
Now, Mary Louise ignored my ignoring her and plunked down beside me. She flipped to the next section, which happened to be job listings.
“You’re certainly eager to turn the page,” I muttered.
She looked like she wanted to say more. I waited for her to confide in me about her mystery guy. Or her future studio. Something.
“I’m worried about leaving you to pay rent on your own,” she said. “Just read.”
HLC, France’s second-best business school (source: Finance Times), seeks English instructors. Salary commensurate with degree. Travel costs reimbursed.
“Second-best” instead of “ranked second” brought a bitter smile to my lips. I was feeling second-best myself.
“Clearly, they need you,” Mary Louise said.
“You’re saying that because you want me to take any old job so you can move out.”
“I’m saying it because you’re a good teacher,” she responded in a low, even tone.
“No more business English.”
She handed me the charcoal, and I blacked out the entire ad.
The American Library in Paris is recruiting for a part-time Program Manager. Must be able to work evenings. Modest salary.
“Oh, là, là!” I drew five exclamation points beside the ad—a sign, a dream.
This was the first time I’d seen an ALP job advertised. On our visit there, we learned that a yearly membership cost a hundred bucks. I couldn’t justify paying that much, not when the Sorbonne library had a large English-language section.
“There’s probably tons of downtime there, so you’ll be able to write and research,” Mary Louise reasoned. “You’ll save money by using their printer. As an employee, I bet you can check out all the books you want and never pay any fines. And Odile will be so proud.”
She was selling me something I’d already bought.
Glancing at Mary Louise’s canvases propped against the wall, I realized that the sooner I had a steady paycheck, the sooner she’d be free to move out and hopefully resume painting.
Last spring, in sundresses we used to wear to church, we’d schlepped six of her sixteen-inch canvases into the métro, zigzagging under the city from gallery to gallery.
Ten owners rejected us immediately, but one accorded Mary Louise a chance.
Her voice sang as she spoke of inspiration and Cubist techniques, of the esplanade of la Tour Eiffel meeting the plains of our native Montana.
Listening to her broken French, I felt a burst of affection. There was no way he could say no.
“Conventional,” he said with a dismissive sniff. “Boring.”
I opened my mouth to rip him a new one; Mary Louise told me, “It’s fine,” even though I could see it wasn’t. I placed my foot over hers, our shorthand for I love you and everything will be okay.
She didn’t speak the whole way home.
When I’d dreamed of Paris, I imagined us in Montmartre, in apartments we’d bought.
Over sparkling mimosas on my balcony, we’d watch silver clouds settle around the dome of the Panthéon.
But we still lived in the studio that was supposed to be temporary.
The only things more depressing than the rejections I received for my writing were monthly bank statements that whispered, “Failure.” But I was willing to do what it took and knew Mary Louise felt the same.
I reread the program manager job description.
My chances were slim. Everyone here was more qualified than me: I’d studied French, but Parisians learned two foreign languages in high school, plus many had college degrees in fields such as research analysis or public relations.
I didn’t want to go back to forcing bratty bankers to learn English, the sludgy bottom of the job barrel.
And I didn’t want anything to change our friendship, but I knew that Mary Louise was right: we needed to get on with our lives.
The next morning, I mailed off my résumé and cover letter. Four days later, as I opened a letter from a literary journal and absorbed the not-what-we’re-looking-for-at-this-time rejection, the ALP secretary called to schedule an interview.
On my way to the library, I strolled up Avenue Rapp, famous for its Art Nouveau building.
A cold rain drizzled, and I tugged the beret that Odile had given me down over my ears.
There was almost no one on the tree-lined sidewalk.
Parisians were either ensconced in their offices or sunning themselves on the Riviera.
I swallowed. It had been a while since I’d been able to afford a trip, even a weekend getaway.
Now I might not be able to make rent. How had I let things become so bad?
What if I botched the interview? I felt my heart hammer and told myself, “Breathe. Stay in the now.” I reached out to grasp a tree and closed my eyes. Just touching the damp bark calmed me.
When I opened my eyes, I spied a forty-something blonde striding in my direction.
She carried a turd-brown Louis Vuitton purse in one hand; in the other, a cigarette.
We reached the crosswalk at the same time.
As we waited for the light to change, her smoke wafted into my face.
I swatted it away and muttered, “Gross.”
She took a long drag and flicked the cigarette onto the sidewalk.
It lay there between us, smoldering. Parisians—whether French, Moroccan, or American—assumed street sweepers in green overalls would tidy up behind them, their own personal manservants.
Any fifth grader writing a school report could inform you that cigarette butts took up to a decade to decompose, and that each year, Parisian sanitation workers swept up 350 tons. City of Light? No, city of lighters.
My world is not your ashtray, I wanted to tell the blonde, but when I became angry, a colossal drop cloth covered the vocabulary in my mind.
I couldn’t find the word for “ashtray” in French.
The smoke from her cigarette unfurled, up and away.
The acrid odor continued to fill my nostrils, as it had days earlier when I arrived home to find Mary Louise and the stench of Gitanes.
The blonde didn’t care what she discarded, like Mary Louise with me.
Why couldn’t smokers acknowledge the damage they wrought?
Why couldn’t they treat people—or rather, Paris—with respect?
I had no French words to express my frustration but needed to take a stand. I stepped closer to the blonde, intending to ground out the butt with my heel. At least that’s what I told myself as my loafer connected with her shin.
She yelped, which gave me pause. I’d actually lashed out at a person. A litterer, but still.
“?a va pas?”
What is wrong with you? the woman’s tone screeched.
I pointed to the cigarette, then to her.
The traffic light changed, and as usual, several drivers ran the red.
No one respected rules. In Paris, you had to look after yourself, because no one else would.
The smoker crossed the street, hobbling away from me, bobbing between cars, clutching her overpriced purse to her chest like I was going to rip it from her hands.
I ground out her cigarette with my heel before continuing toward the library.
I had to acknowledge that I hadn’t exactly cleaned the street—not like my stepmom, who collected empty beer cans from the ditch on her morning walk.
Ellie would have picked up after the smoker with no fuss, no muss.
I couldn’t believe I’d kicked a stranger.
When had I become so on edge and angry? What was Paris doing to me?
But I had to stay focused. Hold it together, I told myself.
You can do this. In the foyer, I tucked my beret into the pocket of my slicker and approached the welcome table, where a pale woman with a white crew cut greeted me.
Though the hairstyle suited her, emphasizing her graceful neck and high cheekbones, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d recently gone through chemo and hoped that she’d have a clean bill of health.
When she asked to see my membership card, I explained that I’d come for a job interview.
“I’ll escort you to the director’s office.”