The French Lesson
Free, bright, and twenty-one
It was summertime in Norfolk, Virginia, in the Age of Aquarius. I had reluctantly dropped out of college because my father had lost his job in Paris and was living on trains with 30-day Eurail Passes I would send him. He survived—perhaps even thrived—on two-franc couscous dinners at a tiny Algerian restaurant tucked into an alley somewhere along the Left Bank.
I continued taking night classes for a while, especially French class, but it became too difficult, with my new job and having to rely on public transportation. I was lucky to find work at all, not having secretarial skills like shorthand.
Maybe I should have listened to Mom. She had pushed hard for me to take shorthand and bookkeeping in high school. My only concession to her was to take typing class. I wanted to be a scientist. I was the only girl in physics and calculus classes. And I wanted to go to college. Mom also thought I should go, but for a different reason—so I could meet an educated boy, get married, and settle down.
Thus, I found myself, at the unskilled and uneducated age of seventeen, working at my first real job. A freight forwarding company hired me as a “girl Friday,” a respectable title for a scrawny kid tasked to walk the city streets several times daily, rain or shine, delivering bills of lading or customs documents to shipping company offices.
Over time, I was permitted to take on more “inside” duties between customhouse runs, like typing endless pages of tobacco barrel numbers and bills of lading. Soon I was taking bookings by phone from agents all over the country. After a couple of years, I was promoted to manager of the export department and given an office shared with “Wilkie,” the manager of the import department.
I was thrilled to be told there was sufficient budget available for me to hire an assistant! I recruited a young man from a shipping agent down the street, and he took over some of the bookings for me. I was happy there, but still unchallenged, and sorely underpaid.
“Boss, I need to talk to you about a raise. I know we aren’t supposed to know what other employees get paid, but today Mr. G. placed everyone’s paychecks upside down on their desks, and I could read through the back of my assistant’s check. He’s making more than double what I make, and I hired him! I don’t think that’s right.”
“Now, there, Dee, you know Donnie has a wife and a new baby, and they just bought a new house. He needs more money. Here’s what I can do for you. You’ve worked hard and well. I’ll give you a $25.00 raise next month.”
“Thank you, Mr. T., but that’s not enough. I’m going to resign, sir, and I’ll be taking my accounts with me to another broker. And by the way, if I were making what Donnie’s earning, I could BUY a husband!”
Moving on
Eventually, the very male-dominated shipping business obstacles became a bore, and I left them to it. At the age of twenty-one, with $75.00 in my pocket and all my worldly goods packed into a single steamer trunk, I took off to Miami Springs, Florida, home of the Eastern Airlines Stewardess Training Center.
There, I was introduced to a new principle of physics, regarding that irresistible force enveloping “stew” trainees, a force that creates an accretion disk of worthless men (aka “stew sharks”), dragging them down through the event horizon into a ghastly feeding frenzy of cosmic proportions.
Never mind all those silly men, the ones with Cessnas and yachts. I was qualified as both a Spanish and a French speaker on international flights, with plenty of free time to travel and get into trouble anywhere in the world. And, I had unlimited passes on Eastern Airlines!
I’m off to Paris to visit my father.
“DeeDee, what do you mean you’re in love again?” asked Dad, lovingly peering at me over the rim of his cheaters. “Who is it this time?”
“Oh, Dad! He’s so gorgeous! He’s tall and has beautiful eyes, and he’s so-o-o romantic! He’s Cuban, but he lives in Mexico City now. He took me to Acapulco last month, and it was fantastic! We went to see the cliff divers, and we danced all night. He’s so nice to me.”
“Well, you just be careful now. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“And Dad, the next day we went out to the beach and had lunch out there. These muchachos come around and sell suntan oil that smells like coconut. And you know what happened? I was sitting on a wooden bar stool at the beach palapa in that new bikini I bought when we went shopping in Paris. Remember? Well, we were laughing about something, having a great time, when I suddenly felt this awful burning sensation in my crotch and the tops of my legs. OW!! I looked down and saw a million red ants crawling all over me and biting me like mad. Dad! It was so embarrassing! The next thing I knew I was in the pool, yelling, slapping and scratching at myself, while all the beautiful people in Acapulco were watching and wondering what the hell happened. Rafael is probably still laughing.
“Sounds like you’re up to your usual ANTics, honey.”
“Da-ad!!”
The Lesson
Most people are cautious about leaping into new relationships. But Dad and I were very much alike in our zest for romance. We’d always heave a big sigh, mutter “What the hell!”, and just go for it, consequences be damned. My friends dreaded that phone call: “Hi! I’m in love! But, really! It’s different this time!” And it always was.
To both me and my dad, may he rest in peace, adventures and experiences were the only reasons to be alive on this wonderful planet. To rip into a blood orange at an open-air market in the south of France, with the juices running down your face and arms; to savor 40-year-old Pommard with strong-smelling chevre in Verdun; to amble down a country road in the Loire Valley feeling a cool, soft rain on your face; to inhale the warm scent of your lover’s armpits.
But above all, Dad was a gentleman, proper and well-mannered.
“Today I’m going to teach you something, DeeDee,” winked Dad over our cafés au lait at a street-side table at Maxim’s. “Flirtation is a learned skill. You must practice it at every opportunity. Observez-moi. The very next woman who walks by will fall in love with me.”
And she did. She was an ancient, bent woman laden with shopping bags and a purse too big for her shrunken body. As she passed by, my father looked deeply into her eyes and smiled at her, silently saying, “I appreciate you. You have something lovely and compelling about you. I am so happy you have entered my space today.”
He held her eyes as she beamed back at him, visibly straightening, cheeks flushing. She continued walking past us, feeling newly alive, beautiful, and very pleased.
“OK, DeeDee, now it’s your turn. Remember this: the object of this game is to make people feel good about themselves, and that will make you feel good about yourself. You can only feel alive if you communicate with people through your eyes and from your soul. And they will love you for it.”
I remember the sun slowly sinking, that almost-empty bottle of wine on the café table, and the endless embarrassment of not getting it right, over and over again. And Dad’s loving patience.
And when, late that day, it happened for me, I knew Dad was right. That electric jolt from handsome, flirtatious eyes above a broad, knowing smile confirmed I finally had learned my French lesson.