Plum Blossoms in Paris (5 page)

“Dad?”

“Daisy!” he barked. “I’ve forgotten the sound of your voice. It’s been weeks, you know, since you’ve deigned to call your mother and me.” I could hear him taking a sip of something, probably coffee, with a teaspoon of honey. “So how are you enjoying the bitter North?”

My dad has a habit of talking like books. And yes, I will say it: like overly ripe, second-rate novels that haven’t aged well. It’s a bit jarring to people who have never met him, but they soon settleinto the mild drama of it. I live two hours north of him, on a slow day. “Fine, Dad. How are you?”

“Struggling to put the finishing touches on my latest study: James’ iconic New York.”

“Ah.” Christ. I’d caught him postcoitus, upon finishing a paper that three dozen people may read.

“Yes. It’s fascinating how a city develops its own skin when drawn by such a writer. You can almost hear its pulse on the page, shadowing the other characters,” my dad purred, his voice warm and expansive, preparing for full lecture catharsis. Normally, I’d have relented. But time was of the essence, and damn it if my father, and Henry James, aren’t too wordy by half.

“Yeah, Dad, that’s great and all. The thing is, I’m going to Paris.”

Pause.

“Dad?”

“I don’t understand.”

I knew it wouldn’t be easy. So I tried for vague. “I’ve had a, um, personal experience lately that has, uh, caused me to reflect, yanno.” I swallowed, then rammed ahead. “And I really feel like the realm of possibilities might be opening for me in some other orbit which, until now, has not been available in this rather, well, limited scope of experience I’ve had … thus far. You see?”

Capisce
?

My dad did not mince words. “Daisy, English please?”

I don’t handle anger, or parental disapproval, all that well. Dispirited, I squeaked, “Andy dumped me, Dad. I want to go to Paris to lick my wounds.”

He offered a noise somewhere between a rumble and sigh. “I’m sorry, honey. That is an unfortunate decision on his behalf.”

I grunted my agreement. Sometimes I’d like a show of righteous indignation from my father, some reaction beyond the sobriety of well-measured words. Like challenging Andy to a duel. Or at least calling him a “dumb-ass.” Something stupid—and macho.

“How would a trip to Paris, and the responsibilities you’re neglecting, make Andy disappear? You can’t outrun your problems, Daisy. They’ll just be waiting for you when you come back.”

All of this was very sensible, and I wavered, glancing at my navy suitcase. It looked like an expectant child to me, leaning on a crutch of heavy hope. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I just want to, is all.” I sniffed.

“And your studies? You’re simply going to unburden yourself of them?”

“It’s been taken care of, Dad. They’ll let me back in next semester.”

“Daisy, I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish.” His voice keened higher. If I weren’t so constricted in the chest, I might have smiled at the boyish plaintiveness. “Hold on a second.”

I could hear him mutter, “I don’t know, Patty. Talk some sense into her.”

“Daisy?” my mom’s voice, sunny and resilient, chirped in.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, dear. Long time no talk.”

Still a little dig about not calling. “Yeah, sorry.”

“So what’s this I hear about Andy and Paris?”

“Andy broke up with me. I’m going to Paris.”

“I see.”

My mom is a dazzling woman. No one is untouched by her charms. My dad certainly wasn’t when he met her twenty-five years ago: he a grad student in Oxford, Ohio; she a piano major four years younger. She had ambitions for a jazz band and was considering dropping out of school for New York or New Orleans—someplace where she needn’t be bothered by Chopin, or any other dead, white genius who couldn’t titillate the way Thelonious Monk or Bud Powell could. Then she met Stephen Lockhart, a bookish introvert who revered Bach nearly as much as his beloved James.

I often wonder what made her fall for him. It’s not an obvious case of opposites attracting. They make a certain kind of sense, with their love of the arts, their easy acceptance of the good life, but it’s an uneasy math. Culture will only get you so far in a relationship of years, where disposition survives conversation. She’s outgoing, earthy, spontaneous. He is not. I’ve been pulled by the two extremes of their personalities, forcing myself to be an extrovert but resenting the hollowness of it. Over the years, I have felt their disappointment, one in the other, as they became stranded on opposite poles of a social divide, and understand that my brother and I are the pawns in their game of parental hegemony. I have complied by distancing myself from the board.

There is some guilt in being the catalyst for the mild suburban melancholy affecting them. After all, it was my cellular reality that settled the matter of their marriage, that unhappy accident replacing my mother’s jazz ambitions with serial maternal monotony. I know it was an unsatisfying improvisation for Patricia Lyons to go from jazz pianist to sometime piano teacher/child entertainer. She can make balloon animals while playing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Kids love it. They ask for The Balloon Lady at all their parties. She handles it with aplomb. Yet there is something violent about the way she twists and grinds the latex to form cute little giraffes, elephants, whatnot.

I groaned, tired of my mother’s delaying tactic. “Mom, just say it already.”

“Go.”

The word landed soft, like a benediction.

“What?” my father, undoubtedly pacing, and I both said.

“I think you should go.”

I smiled, feeling the first hint of happiness since Andy’s e-mail, because deciding on Paris hadn’t made me any less miserable than anyone who goes to the doctor, set on medicine, therapy, something palliative. You’re still sick, naked, and chafing under a piece of plastic. Only now there is a process in place for restoration. This surprise reaction from my mom, though, was different, like a tiny salve on the bigness of my hurt. I heard my dad bellow, “Are you out of your mind, Patty?” and smiled further. It was an extra gift to hear my father so confounded. He of the iron will, the steady disposition, the unbearable self-righteousness. I love him, but he’s a bit of a prick.

Her voice scooped up momentum. “Go, Daisy. You’ve been too tightly wrapped all your life. Find some freedom in Paris.”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes a little. “Okay, Mom. Thanks,” I interjected, hoping to ward off a recitation of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

A second phone picked up. “Daisy, your father here.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Stephen, let the girl be. She’s twenty-three years old.”

“Now, Patty, you’ve had your say. And I couldn’t disagree more ardently, by the way—”

“Big surprise there,” my mom squeezed in.

I sighed, deflating.

“Daisy, I would like to remind you that it is unwise to believe that one’s environment can cure unhappiness. The distance between the physical and emotional states won’t be bridged by a mere change of scenery.” He floundered a bit, coughing, and fell back on, “The grass is no greener in Paris, my dear.”

“No, Dad, it isn’t,” I said quietly, but with urgency. “But maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe I just want to escape, and Paris sounds nice, like a destination I can believe in right now. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?”

He pulled out the last stop. “But
why
Paris? Why not someplace American at least, like, I don’t know … Boston. You know, Daisy, James warned a century ago that Americans are too apt to think of Paris as the celestial city. It will only disappoint.”

I was ready for this. I must always consider this dead man’s likely opinion when debating my father about my twenty-first century life. He is like the evil stepparent who will never earn a place in my heart, but whose wisdom must be consulted, if only for show. “Dad, I’m surprised you’d say that. What about
The Ambassadors
?”

“W-well …” he sputtered.

Triumph. “I have it right in front of me.”

Actually, I’d googled “Paris Henry James” earlier. I got, on the thirty-second hit, a Miss Barrace saying, in
The Ambassadors
, “We’re all looking at each other—and in the light of Paris one sees what things resemble. That’s what the light of Paris seems always to show. It’s the fault of the light of Paris—dear old light!” Someone named little Bilham echoed, “Dear Old Paris!” I didn’t know these people, but anyone with “little” or “tiny” in front of his name must have the author’s true feelings at heart. My dad knows little Bilham well;
The Ambassadors
is his, and James’, favorite novel.

My mom snorted while my dad grumbled, “You will not find the Paris from
The Ambassadors
in the Paris of today, I assure you. Instead, you’ll find a segment of people so self-satisfied and insulated from the world around them that they’ll scorn your existence and your country.”

“Oh, honey, your dad’s just mad at Jacques Chirac for trying to spoil George W’s warmongering efforts. Pay no attention.”

My parents are Democrats, by the way. I am too, though my voting record, like many of my generation, is spotty at best. Usually, my mom and dad agree on politics, the few times it jags through the surface of their self-absorption. But my dad has a militaristic streak in him that defies easy categorization. I think it has something to do with a nostalgia for grand, just causes, like World War II. He bought those Tom Brokaw books before I could cough, “sucker.” Dad’s blustery idealism is stranger stillsince he grew up in the age of Vietnam. Yet, whenever anyone brings up 9/11 his eyes grow watery, and he has to turn away, chin weakening. When he thought Dean would win the nomination, he became so incensed by the “snot-nosed, yuppie pacifist” that he threatened to vote for Bush after all, despite their divergence on 90 percent of the issues. Now that Kerry is the man, my dad seems nervous about the fellow, like he can’t quite trust someone so like himself. Anyway, the war is still a source of tension for my parents. I try to remain informed, if detached.

“Dad, I promise not to cavort with Chirac or any elder Frenchman who wants to lecture me on American imperialism. Frankly, the subject isn’t uppermost in my mind.”

Eventually, my dad gave in. What else could he do? I suppose he could revoke his financial support and refuse to see me, but for all of my father’s drama, he’s not operatic.

This is all he could muster. “Daisy, do me a favor. Go to Shakespeare & Co. It’s a bookstore near the Seine, on the Left Bank.”

My mom inhaled deeply in consent. The waves over the telephone aligned and vibrated.

“Take your time. Look around, and buy some books by authors you’ve never heard of. Take a picture while you’re at it, and show it to me when you get back, so I can imagine I was there,” he added ruefully.

My eyes welled. My parents, on the whole, are lovable creatures. “Sure, Dad. No problem,” I said.

He sighed one last time and hung up the phone, dewy in defeat.

I was about ready to hang up too, when I heard my mom venture, “Daisy?”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure you take some condoms. French men are not always so conscientious about these things.”

“Mom!”

Really, parents are insufferable.

“And honey?”

“
What
?”

“Your father isn’t always wrong.”

Click
.

There is a bleating of horns, and the moment discharges with the camera.

Shakespeare & Co. will have to wait. I require a hotel. Retrieving my map, I unfold the awkward sections, scanning its iconography until my arms ache. I am somewhere on the Left Bank. The city expands outward, its own universe, with me as an infant planet, choking on its stardust.

This camera suddenly feels like an albatross about the neck.

Rick likes the Latin Quarter. I like it because it’s near. I start the journey.

The sky is clearing, and though chilly, Paris feels warmer than Cleveland. The sunlight, bounced from the husks of pearly buildings, has found the darker people, including me, bundled in a black cardigan. I shuttle into the heart of the Latin Quarter through a network of arteries that seem familiar, culled from snapshot memories of the handful of films I’ve seen shot in this famous
quartier
. Every corner comes with a café. Most customers huddle inside, but a few hardy souls stake out positions on the sidewalk, eyeing passersby while they raise
café au lait
to thinly pressed lips. Croissants sit at their elbows, half neglected. A few have dogs with them, but most are alone. Contrary to the solitary diners in America, they do not strike me as lonely.

There are also bookshops, scores of them, boutiques, and small markets hustled like afterthoughts in between, the latter advertising their bins of fruit as appealingly as Cezanne’s still lives, luring me to stop and squeeze a few. Some of it I don’t recognize, but all of it looks fresh and honest; there is none of that waxen appearance some produce has back home. Red, enticing strawberries bleached out on the inside, little teases. Apples that turn to mush in the mouth. I take a paper bag and fill it with small apples that have a red, angry skin. The shopkeeper, an older lady wearing a fringed shawl, smiles and nods as I bumble with the euros. I am so touched by the smile, by the fringe, that tears spring to my eyes. She clucks and calls me
chérie
. I could kiss her. I hum as I walk down the road, crossing the notorious Boulevard St. Germain refreshed and ready to embrace humanity. I bet these apples really crunch.