“I’m glad you’re in a good mood,” he says.
I don’t answer. I swipe away humor-induced tears and munch as I walk. I’m not in a good mood. I just can’t believe that my neighborhood grocery story has fat naked babies flying around on the ceiling. I love France!
“Do you know how Sylvie and I met?” émile asks, totally out of the blue, while some guy on a motorcycle zips by and shouts something. I shake my head.
“I was at the beach,” émile says. “A group of kids started to make fun of me. You know, of my strange hair and eyes and skin. They called me names and threw sand and rocks.”
Oh. I know why he’s telling me this. This is how he and Sylvie decided they would approach their discussion of last night’s occurrence with me. I guess they figure since émile knows what it’s like to be an oddball, he’s the one to do the honors. I take another bite of chocolate and think about cherubs on the ceiling above the pasta aisle, but this time, it doesn’t make me smile.
“Out of nowhere,” émile continues, “a woman wearing a blue sun hat ran up to us. She shouted at the boys and even grabbed one of them by his ear. You should have seen his face! She threw a few rocks after them as they ran, telling them they should know how it feels,” he says. His eyes crinkle with amusement. “And then she turned to me, took off her hat, and I saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. I was embarrassed that she had seen the need to defend me,” he says with a rueful expression.
We turn the corner and head toward Sylvie’s shop. I wonder if I’m supposed to say something, but émile keeps talking. “As this woman walked over to me, she tripped and fell. She’d twisted her ankle. So,” he says, opening the shop door and motioning for me to go inside, “I picked her up and carried her to my car, and took her to the hospital.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Did I understand? The thought of émile, barely taller than I am, carrying the much taller Sylvie . . .
“I’m stronger than I appear,” émile finishes with a grin, reading my mind.
I laugh and émile joins in.
“Many people stare at me,” émile says as we climb the stairs to the apartment. “Like that woman at the store. I don’t mind. At the beach, years ago, if I had been a tall, handsome man . . .”
“You are handsome,” Sylvie says, sweeping over to us. She kisses émile and winks at me.
émile places his groceries onto the counter, turns to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. He looks me in the eye.
“So, now you know how I met Sylvie,” he says.
I love him for the things he doesn’t say. I understand what he’s trying to tell me. I’m grateful for the affection I read in his eyes but everything inside me still feels kind of twisted. émile could have told those boys to go away. He has a power I don’t have.
Part of the reason I came here was to be seen as a normal girl. I wanted somebody to think that I was. Last night ruined that for me.
“We love having you here, Rosie,” Sylvie says as she puts the pasta into the cupboard. “What does it matter if you cannot speak clearly?”
It matters a lot, I want to tell her. To me. But I stay silent.
Some things would be way too hard to explain, even if I could talk like a normal person.
“Shall we paint, Rosie?” Sylvie asks, brushing her hands together. “It is time for another lesson, no?”
I look up at Sylvie’s soft smile and try to return it. They think it’s all good now that we’ve cleared the air. Sylvie gives me a squeeze before we clomp downstairs to her studio. She hands me an apron and as I tie it around my waist, I mull over what happened. It might actually be to my advantage. Sylvie and émile could be that much easier to convince to keep me forever. Rosie, the poor girl who can’t speak clearly, needs their help.
The blank canvas before me is no longer the frightening challenge it used to be. I might try to paint a naked baby with wings.
“Self-portraits,” Sylvie says. She points to a mirror propped up nearby.
Oh. Well, whatever.
I decide to make a tiny admission. “I don’t know how to paint people, yet,” I say, wincing at my “weak” words and hoping that Sylvie understood me.
“I will help you, like before,” she answers. “We’ll start with a quick drawing before we paint.” And then we’re making sketches on paper, drawing ovals for faces and adding dividing lines to help us know where the features should be. It’s kind of cool to learn this. Before I know it, Sylvie says we’re ready to start painting.
“Do not worry about being exact,” she tells me as she squeezes paint onto her palette. “Like your Impressionists, Rosie, you do not have to recreate reality exactly as you see it. You paint how you see something. Today you paint how your reflection makes you feel. What would your portrait say about you? Understand?”