Waiting in the shade of wisteria
During my last week in Tournefeuille, my fellow English teachers scheduled dinners and parties for me on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Tonight I was at Therese’s house.
Her husband, Thierry, welcomed me with a list, “Gin, scotch, rum, Therese do we have rum? Fortified wines, like Port, sweet white wines, you know Jurancon or Muscat?” He kissed both of my cheeks, poised to mix the drink of my dreams.
He rattled around the liquor cabinet, so I asked Therese, “What are you having?” while guiltily reading her weekly weight-loss meals and portions: unlimited greens, one hard egg, yogurt for desert and coffee with no sugar. American women often wonder about this paradox. How do French Mademoiselles keep such a slim figure in spite of the duck liver, blood sausage, wine at every meal and dense chocolate mousse for dessert?
I learned the answer to this confounding riddle the week before this string of professional parties began.
***
My friend Emma and I had been exploring the southeastern coast of the country, where the rugged Pyrenees slope into the Mediterranean Sea. We traveled like Hemingway: armed with a friend and a small bag of clothes and bread and cheese, we purposefully neglected to buy passes for the train. Riding through the landscapes once studied and painted by Picasso, Matisse and Derain, Emma and I were pretty sure our American accents would save us if asked to show our tickets.
Every morning, after the shutters had been cranked open the sun finally bounced off the sea and into our humble room. We found the flakiest chocolate croissants and ordered café au lait at the empty café across the street. The waitress, a thin woman with a platinum bob and a ruby red smile, brought us a pitcher of coffee and a pitcher of steamed milk, two cups and saucers and two sugars apiece. We were the one of few late-April tourists. Emma stretcher her arms across the empty backs of chairs, and tilted her chin to the sky. Her eyes must have been closed behind her enigmatic Ray-Bans as she forgot about Toulouse, the stripped shirts, Chuck Taylors and J’adore Dior. Reluctant to miss a sight, I pondered the yellow awning, bearing the café’s name and wondered what they meant by “Les Glycines.”
One day, when only milky foam and clumps of sugar remained in our coffee cups and our beach dresses were dusted with crumbs from our crispy pastries, a pair of ladies parked at a table nearby. They listened to our American conversation and sipped their black espresso. When one of the two took leave for the bathroom, our neighbor asked, “Where are you from?” And I could have predicted the ensuing conversation. We had been rehearsing the most terse and unenthusiastic answers over seven months. The various curious French strangers would ask about Obama, Eva Longoria and MJ. Of course this lady cooed when Emma mentioned New York City. Actually she’s from Westchester. I meekly dropped “Wisconsin” and didn’t wait for feedback. Recognizing the crumpled bakery bags, she approved of our choice and said she hadn’t had a croissant for a month.
“Really?” I asked.
She slipped back into French to explain. “My friend and I are dieting right now. Two months on, two months off. In May you’ll find us eating parfaits and éclairs. For now just coffee, and no sugar.”
***
In Tournefeuille, my hostess’s a la carte options for breakfast, lunch and dinner included no French specialties and no booze. Perhaps I would be left alone, sipping on some French fusion of Thierry’s invention.
Therese glanced at me and then at her regimen, “Gin and juice,” she declared, and pulled a carton from the fridge. Pineapples, mangoes and bananas diluted her alcohol, as she diligently stirred the ice in her tumbler. A cocktail with Allison would be no sin against her meal plan. There was no sugar added.
Still without a beverage, Thierry suggested, “Have you ever had an Americana?”
“No,” I replied. Surely he was not referring to a shot of espresso with hot water, especially not at a French cocktail hour.
Americana. Inside my brain, a kaleidoscope of French and English words and phrases, the name strummed a chord of my American ego. I salivated. Party in the USA, American Boy and Empire State of Mind were climbing up my Itunes Top 25 Most Played song list. I would eagerly, if not vindictively, gulp down a mixed drink in the name of my home country, especially in the presence of my French hosts.
The American beverage called for one bottle of Martini & Rossi and one bottle of Campari, two tumbler glasses and four neon stir sticks, obviously a lame Italian joke or serious misnomer. Nonetheless, we chinked and cheersed. I felt girlish and patriotic, clinking the ice cubes around the red drink and sipping through both straws at once.
We moved outside, onto a patio covered by a trellis of flowering vines. Bunches of mini purple flowers hung through the criss-crossing beams above. When my nose wasn’t in my glass it lifted towards the plants. My cheeks grew a shade of Campari rose halfway through my beverage. So I breathed deeply believing the floral perfume would take off the edge.
“It’s so beautiful. Are they climbing lilacs?” I asked, not sure if such a plant existed.
“Les glycines,” she replied in French.
Bleary-eyed, I watched the near memories of ice cubes float on the last sips of my Americana. Probably eager to pull me away from my drink, Therese offered to show me the rest of her garden. One corner housed baby tomatoes plants, chives and pink radishes begging to be plucked from the dark ground. Irises lined the stucco walls of her home. I cupped my hands around an orb of blue blossoms, a springtime ornament on a modest green bush. Therese picked a skinny stalk whose white bell-shaped flowers fluttered wildly against her grip.
“Do you know this flower?” She asked. “Muguet,” she said in French. “It’s lily of the valley,” she translated for me. Her instant access to the plant’s English name impressed me. I silently vowed to learn names of plants in a foreign language, and to study up on their English names as well. I couldn’t have plucked these lilies from a bouquet.
Hours later, Therese and Thierry handed me the twig of muguet, traditionally a portent of happiness, as I walked out their door.
***
Bernadette’s car smelled like roasting leather from sitting in sun all day. She was another English teacher and had offered to drop me at the bus stop after class. The passenger window of the Volvo squeaked to halt only three-quarters of the way down. Unfortunately it would be uncomfortable to rest my elbow on the plexiglass edge, though I craved to feel the rushing wind of freedom wash over my outstretched hand.
An hour prior, her English students had invited me to a special party where Haribo crocodiles and licorice wheels fell like confetti and Diet Coke flowed like the Loire River. The princes and princesses of Eighth Grade English Class presented me signed cards, a flag of the Toulouse rugby team, a cheap silver necklace, and a t-shirt bearing a collective and original Crayola design. It read, “Good luck in future” and “We miss you” amongst dozens of smudged red and blue signatures.
This week of adieus and good-byes was no longer interesting or emotional. So I pulled out some more honest and insightful parting thoughts while the school faded into the past.
“It was so lovely eating dinner with you and the other English teachers at Francoise’s house Tuesday night,” I told her. She kept her lips pursed, and nodded. Her thick black hair swished forward and back. Francoise had been a controversial figure at school. With her retirement date looming and her health deteriorating, it was difficult to respond appropriately to her “See you later alligator” which she cackled while she suctioned a toilet plunger to the dents on her old Japanese hatchback, and pulled. Most of the time, popping the seal of the red rubber cap successfully inverted the divots. “This,” she said, “is Francoise’s Auto Body Shop.”
Bernadette still didn’t comment, so I continued.
“I’ve been thinking back on these seven months. I already talked about my experience with teaching, the kids, the culture, and language. But really I’ve spent most of my time with middle-aged women. This sounds strange I know. I’ve peeked at the life of a forty-year old mom with two kids, who wonders what life would be like without them; seen a wife, mother and teacher who is the main provider for her family after her husband was laid off last year; and talked with a sixty-year-old madam with breast cancer, whose twenty-seven year old daughter already receiving treatment in Paris. I’m glad to have seen what life could look like for me one day.”
Bernadette just nodded again. It probably did sound strange. Maybe it sounded like a trite introduction to a human-interest story in the Crossroads section of my hometown paper, an American paper.
Before I exited the car, I carefully kissed both her cheeks saying, “This is a custom I will miss.” The door slammed. The good-bye had been simple, the most efficient yet.
Waiting for the bus wouldn’t be bad. The sun shone steadily while the cotton ball clouds drifted by, and the familiar fragrance of les glycines guided me to the bus stop.
“Allison,” I heard from the curb. Bernadette was still there, leaning through the passenger window. “Allison, you are so lucky, waiting in the shade of wisteria.”
Turning, I saw the beautiful tree, the namesake of the café on the Mediterranean and my buoy during a drunken cocktail hour.
“This couldn’t be better,” I shouted back. She didn’t know that I had just learned an English word, on my last day as an English teacher.
***
My roommates and I had used a metal drying rack for our laundry. We diligently spread out every wrinkle and exposed every surface to the air, trying to speed up the drying process. Back home, I continued with this practice, gently draping every article across wooden dowels. I laid out the pink Boston shirt I’ve had since ninth grade, my flower leggings from Toulouse, and a mysterious large white shirt with an unknown brand. Holding it up to the light revealed nothing.
Washable markers. It had been my party favor from Bernadette’s students. All the farewell notes and signatures inked onto the shirt had dissolved into dirty water and swirled down the drain. Au revoir Toulouse.
