Then I turn to watch Sylvie as she floats ahead of me, still chattering like one of the bright finches that flit among the trees. Joy breaks over me like a wave of the ocean. I dive into it. My plan will work. It has to. I hustle to catch up with Sylvie.
We come up to a little restaurant called La Banane de Guadaloupe. I blink a couple of times as I read and try to translate in my head. “The Banana of Guadalupe”? Or is it, “The Guadeloupian Banana”? The restaurant’s sign is a big banana (what else) and the color yellow is everywhere. Sylvie motions for me to wait. She pops into the restaurant and my heart starts to do a little tap dance. I’m alone again. Even if it’s only for a few minutes here and there, it feels so incredible. I smile stupidly at a man who sweeps by, carrying a briefcase and jabbering into his cell phone. He gazes at me with surprise and nods his head before he hurries on with a confused expression. I laugh out loud.
Then, Sylvie is back with a paper-wrapped sandwich, which she presents to me. It’s hot and smells sweet, kind of like . . . bananas?
“Croque chocolat-banane,” Sylvie says, her eyes sparkling. The crunchy, grilled sandwich is filled with banana slices and bits of dark chocolate. It’s heaven. Sylvie laughs and hugs me. “Ansel’s favorite,” she says. Then her face clouds and she turns away, pretending to rearrange the backpack, but she wasn’t fast enough to hide the tears that glisten in her eyes.
I know why she cries. It’s one more reason I chose her to be my new mom. Her son, Ansel, is dead. After he left for Paris, there was an accident. A car skidded on wet pavement and plowed into a group of art students sitting at a table outside a café. I read about it on Sylvie’s blog.
Suddenly, it’s hard to swallow.
Sylvie turns back, blinking tears away, smiling at me in a shaky sort of way. I smile back around a mouthful of mushy banana and we keep walking while I lick melted chocolate from my fingers, promising myself I’ll make my plan work. Sylvie’s son is one of my “keys.” He’s one of the reasons my plan came together. There’s a hole in his mother’s heart that I can fill. I have Ansel’s room. Soon, I’ll have his family, too.
I’m in no hurry for the art lesson, but soon the narrow street opens before us and we are suddenly in a huge open space: Place Massena, the main square of the city. My eyes take in blue sky, pink and white buildings, and green palm trees and shrubs and bushes, dotted with vivid splotches of orange, yellow, and fuchsia flowers. The pavement below my feet is a giant checkerboard of alternating black and white squares. If you’re an artist, I guess it really is the perfect place to paint, like Sylvie says. Everything is a jumble of colors and shapes, warm with sunlight and the smell of growing things and ocean.
So I’m not surprised when Sylvie stops to place her backpack on the raised edge of a small fountain and pulls out a tiny square of canvas. I help her unfold a small wooden easel that sits at the right height when placed on the edge of the fountain. I sit down to watch my first “official” art lesson. Sylvie is smiling and opening tubes, squirting blobs of paint onto her palette. Then, she hands me a brush.
“C’est pour toi,” she says with a twinkling smile. “For you.”
The color drains out of the day. Everything is now black and white.
“Me?” I sputter.
Sylvie thrusts the paintbrush into my hand, laughing. “I’ll watch and help if you need it, Rosie,” she says in her careful French, always so slow, so clear, just for me. “There is much to see here. The sky, the ocean, the trees, the fountains, the people. Paint what your heart sees.”
“But, I don’t . . . I thought . . .” I splutter in English, and then stop. My cheeks flood with warmth that has nothing to do with the hot Mediterranean sun overhead. So here is where the lies end. Here is where my plan crashes and burns to ashes. I was so sure she’d actually teach me how to paint before expecting me to do it on my own! But of course, she thinks I already know a lot about painting, because of the stolen pictures. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
There were only three paintings. A tiny cityscape that Jada’s brother did a long time ago. A field of flowers painted by a stranger, which ended up at a Goodwill store. A self-portrait my Mom did in a college art class. I sent photos of them to Sylvie, claiming they were my own. I wanted to prove that I belonged here. With her, the painter, to study art.
Why did I think this would work?