AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But it’s so crass. The French are tasteful.”
“Dude, those people sainted Jerry Lewis. They’re human just like you and me.” He pauses, then grins. “Except for the women. They’re superhuman.”
I think of Céline and get a bad feeling in my stomach.
Another one of the waiters loans me his Rosetta Stone CDs, and I start practicing with those too. After a few weeks, I start to notice that my French is improving, that when Madame Lambert calls on me to describe what I’m eating for lunch, I can handle it. I start to speak in phrases, then sentences, sentences I don’t have to map out beforehand like I do with Mandarin. Somehow, it’s happening. I’m doing it.
One morning, toward the end of the month, I come downstairs to find Mom at the kitchen table. In front of her is the catalog from the community college and her checkbook. I say good morning and go the fridge for some orange juice. Mom just watches me. I’m about to take my juice out to the back patio, which is sort of what we’ve done if Dad’s not home as a buffer—if she’s in one room, I go into another—when she tells me to sit down.
“Your father and I have decided to reimburse you for your French class,” she says, ripping off the check. “It doesn’t mean we condone any part of this trip. Or condone your duplicity. We absolutely don’t. But the French class is part of your education, and you’re obviously taking it seriously, so you shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
She hands me the check. It’s for four hundred dollars. It’s a lot of money. But I’ve already saved nearly a thousand dollars, even with the money I paid for my class, and I just put a deposit down on an airplane ticket to Paris, and Babs is advancing me a week’s wages so I can buy it next week. And I have a month yet to save. The four hundred dollars would take the edge off. But the thing is, maybe I don’t need the edge to be off.
“It’s okay,” I tell Mom, handing back the check. “But thank you.”
“What, you don’t want it?”
“It’s not that. I don’t need it.”
“Of course you need it,” she retorts. “Paris is expensive.”
“I know, but I’m saving a lot of money from my job, and I’m hardly spending anything this summer. I don’t even have to pay for gas.” I try to make a joke out of it.”
“That’s another thing. If you’re going to be working until all hours, you should take the car at night.”
“That’s okay. I don’t want to leave you stranded.”
“Well, call me for a ride.”
“It’s late. And I usually get a lift home from someone.”
She takes the check back and with a violence that surprises me, rips it up. “Well, I can’t do anything for you anymore, can I?”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t want my money or my car or my ride. I tried to help you get a job, and you don’t need me for that.”
“I’m nineteen,” I say.
“I am aware of how old you are, Allyson. I did give birth to you!” Her voice cracks like a whip, and the snap of it seems to startle even her.
Sometimes, you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty space it leaves behind. As I look at Mom, all pissed and pinched, I finally get that she’s not just angry. She’s hurt. A wave of sympathy washes over me, taking away a chink of my anger. Once it’s gone, I realize how much of it I have. How angry I am at her. Have been for this past year. Maybe a lot longer.
“I know you gave birth to me,” I tell her.
“It’s just I’ve spent nineteen years raising you, and now I’m being shut out of your life. I can’t know anything about you. I don’t know what classes you’re taking. I don’t know who you’re friends with anymore. I don’t know why you’re going to Paris.” She lets out something between a shudder and a sigh.
“But I know,” I tell her. “And for now, can’t that be enough?”
“No, it can’t,” she snaps.
“Well, it’ll have to be,” I snap back.
“So you dictate the rules now, is that it?”
“There aren’t any rules. I’m not dictating anything. I’m just saying you have to trust the job you did raising me.”
“Did. Past tense. I wish you’d stop talking like you’re laying me off from my job.”
