The Paris Library(51)
“She’s right outside,” Mary Louise hissed. “You’re gonna get caught.”
“Something happened in Paris. There’s a reason she stayed here.”
When the sliding door opened, I slammed the drawer shut.
* * *
WHEN THE HONEYMOON was over, Dad came to get me at Odile’s, just as she and I finished my quiz on les verbes. She invited him in but he declined. We lingered on the porch, the spring sun warming us. I worried about what he was going to say. Numbers came easy to Dad. They always added up. Words were trickier. He never understood their weight.
“Thanks for taking care of Lily,” he said.
“My pleasure.” Odile beamed at me.
“Now that Ellie’s here, you can step back,” he said.
“Step back?” she repeated.
“Lily should spend more time at home.”
No way was I giving Odile up. She was on my side, no matter what. I could tell her anything. Dad bossed me around, but Odile never did. She trusted me to make the right choices.
I’d wash her car, mow her lawn, water her ferns—anything to keep taking lessons with her. Before I could tell her so, she said in French, “Same time tomorrow.”
“Oui, merci,” I said, my thanks gushing out gratefully.
* * *
ELEANOR QUIT HER job and Dad’s life went back to normal. After a long day at the bank, he came home to a wife, a daughter, and a hot dinner. On Saturday mornings, Eleanor made me vacuum and run a rag with lemon Pledge over every surface. “A young woman needs to learn these things. You’ll thank me later.” When I complained, Dad said I needed to “listen” to Eleanor. By that he meant “obey.”
Even when school let out for the summer, she got up early and sculpted her curls with mousse. Before Dad left for work, she straightened his tie ten times. Mom had never ironed my shirts, but Eleanor did. “No one’ll ever be able to say that I didn’t take care of you.” At dinner, when I spilled creamed corn on the tablecloth, she darted to the sink and returned with a rag to wipe up the blob.
I wanted a vacation from her, and couldn’t wait to start high school. I hoped that Robby would finally fall in love with me, that Tiffany would move away (or better yet, come down with a case of choléra). At night, in my room, I revised the day’s French le?on, then said what I was too timide to say in English: je t’aime, Robby, je t’adore.
On the first day of class, I slipped on my eagle T-shirt. Though it was two sizes too small and the decal had mostly peeled off, wearing it made me think of Mom.
In the kitchen, Dad jangled the car keys. “Ready to go?”
“We bought you a new outfit,” Eleanor huffed. “Will you please go put it on?”
I crossed my arms. “No.”
We looked to Dad, the unwilling referee.
“I can hear them! ‘And that waif, Lily,’?” Eleanor mimicked, “?‘wearing high-water pants and a ratty T-shirt. What would her dear mother say?’?”
“Folks talk, doesn’t mean we have to listen.” Dad pointed to his watch. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late.”
“Fine,” she said.
It was no real victory.
In homeroom, I sat in the front row, Mary Louise behind me. Robby slid into the seat across the aisle from me. When I said, “Bonjour,” he glanced around, like he thought I was talking to someone else.
“Maybe stick to English,” Mary Louise advised.
“Hush,” Miss Boyd snapped, “or I’ll assign extra homework for everyone!”
Bref, le lycée was the same disappointment played out in front of other teachers in a bigger building, and at home, Eleanor greeted me with a new list of chores. “I’m not the one who promised to love, humor, and obey,” I muttered, barely swishing the mop over the linoleum.
Sometimes I dreamed of Mom. Of the way we watched geese soar. The way we sang “Jingle Bells” at the top of our lungs. The way we baked cookies. When my alarm went off, Mom went away. Grief hit so hard, I curled up in a ball.
“Get up, lazybones!” Eleanor banged on my door. “You’ll be late for school.”
“I don’t feel good,” I whimpered.
“You sound fine to me.”
Still, at Thanksgiving, Eleanor thought to include Odile, who made the dry turkey easier to swallow. When she confided that she’d spent the holidays alone since her husband died, Dad patted Eleanor’s hand, and we could see that he was proud of her. As I moved chunks of chalky pumpkin pie around my plate, Eleanor asked Odile to take a photo for a Christmas card. My fork stilled. Dad and Eleanor rose, ready to have their pictures taken, but my heart burned at the thought of Mom being scratched off the family map.
* * *
CHRISTMAS VACATION. Homework finished. Tiffany Ivers back East visiting family. Not a cloud in my sky. Mary Louise and I sculpted a snowwoman (with marbles for her eyes, mouth, and earrings) as a surprise for Grandma Pearl. Each time she called Eleanor, she always asked to talk to me, too. And each month since the wedding, she’d sent me something—a funny card, a subscription to Seventeen, mauve moon boots. I wasn’t too sure about Eleanor, but I liked Grandma Pearl.