Au Paris Read online

  I scoured my closet of clothes, most of which had hung unworn since I’d arrived in Paris. After my first day on the job, I’d all but chucked the effort to be fashionable in favor of concentrating on completing my nanny duties without burning the house down. But the country, I reasoned, would be more relaxed, thus allowing me to leisurely groom myself and dress in style. For the train ride to Burgundy, I chose a crisp white button-down shirt and camel-colored wool gabardine pants. I topped it off with my berry-colored cashmere cable V-neck from Brooks Brothers to adopt a true country appeal, casual and comfortable at the same time. I hated to be so provincial in suede loafer flats, but I had a feeling that kitten heels wouldn’t tread well on vineyard soil, and I was anticipating long walks through the age-old famous vineyards of Beaune. I pulled the ensemble together with a silk Coach scarf with pink trim.

  The morning of our departure, I decided to celebrate with a last tribute to Paris—lunch at Paul. Paul was my favorite bread shop in the city, and I loved it despite the fact that it was a chain restaurant, revealing my hopelessly American sensibilities. But I couldn’t resist the charming décor, I considered it an appropriate segue from city to country life—from breads, to hardwoods, to copper antiques, to walls painted every shade of caramel, wheat, and pecan. Thick, rustic oak shelves lined the back wall, where woven baskets of straw housed loaf upon loaf of bread. Some were speckled with grains, some porous in texture, some were flat, some, called boules, were shaped as round as basketballs. The bread decorated the shelves, overflowed from the baskets, and lay stacked on the countertops to prove true the slogan of Paul, the passion of bread for 116 years: “La passion du pain depuis 116 ans.” The baguettes, though, were separate from the rest. They stood alone, half as tall as me, in barreled baskets on the ground. I was tempted to tear off hunks to chew as I waited in line with the kids who were equally drooling. But since my first visit to Paul, I owed my loyalty to Le Dieppois, a signature choice from the collection de sandwiches Paul. It was a simple combination of tuna, lettuce, and tomato, but of course the bread kept me coming back for more.

  Constantin, while disappointed that a large variety of saucisson did not accompany the selection of sandwiches, quiches, pizzas, and tarts behind the glass counter, settled for the next best thing, Le Savoreux, a sandwich of rosette, or salami, et beurre. Léonie, as classic as they come, ordered her favorite of jambon et beurre, ham on buttered bread. The name of it suited her as much as it suited the components of the sandwich, Le Parisien. We found seats in the back of the store along the bar. The two kids, who hardly pushed around an ounce of pasta and a few peas during a normal weekday dinner, devoured their sandwiches, which were easily the length from my elbow to fingertips. Constantin sat humming and gabbing about what he “can” do once we arrived in Beaune, while Léonie corrected his grammar and whispered to me how excited she was to see her cousin Jeanne. Jeanne was the oldest of Estelle’s sister’s kids and would be in Beaune by the time we arrived, along with her two little brothers, Joseph and Auguste. I looked forward to meeting them all, and hoped I would be as delighted by them as I was by Léonie and Constantin, who munched their bread and butter as they talked and giggled together about their summer adventures.

  La Gare de Lyon, the gateway to the East, was magnificent in structure, and I gawked at the high ceilings and muted light as we made our way through the station with our luggage. The kids were unaffected by the grandness of the station. Train travel was so common in Europe that it was likely the kids had taken, in their short lives, more trains than I had planes. But for me, whose knowledge of train travel came solely from movies about Montana and novels about the American dream, the idea of traveling to Burgundy by train prompted thoughts of romance and European intrigue.

  Léonie insisted on charging ahead as usual, as we scoured the platforms for the train going from Paris to Dijon, Dijon to Beaune. I clutched Constantin close to my side and kept an eye on Léonie as we were swiped, bumped, and nudged by the dozens of travelers bustling in every direction. Whistles blew, engines chugged, announcements en français rang overhead, though the echoing commotion of frenzied travelers and hundreds of conversations happening all at once rendered the overhead announcements all but impossible to understand.

  Waving her hand in the direction of our platform, Léonie ran back to beg me to let her punch our tickets. “I always do it,” she insisted. Unaware our tickets even needed punching, I was glad to pretend to delegate the task and ignore the fact that an eleven-year-old was more competent than me. The conductor stood on the platform outside the train, greeting each passenger with a jovial grin and firm nod. As we approached, Constantin, expecting above-average treatment, extended his small hand with utmost confidence. “Bonjour!” he said, standing strong before the conductor who, winking at me, offered a hearty handshake and a “Bonjour” in return. I smiled back at the conductor, a secret exchange from one adult to another, both of us humored by the child’s unknowingly provided entertainment.

  Léonie was first to board and again took charge, promptly loading the red canvas suitcase she and Constantin shared onto the luggage rack. I fumbled along behind, pulling Constantin and my trunk, which was big enough to contain one year’s worth of travel attire. Constantin squirmed from my grip, stubborn and reluctant to follow, as he clearly wanted to retain his place beside the conductor to continue a cordial exchange as passengers boarded. I forced him otherwise onto the train, smiling again at the indulgent conductor. Léonie and Constantin were already engrossed in a game of magnetic travel checkers when I came back from double-checking that our luggage was stored safely. I sat back in my coach seat feeling appropriately dressed and amply prepared to depart from the city behind us. There was nothing left for me to do but relax, at last. I stared out the window to my left, shuffling through the thoughts I’d forced to the recesses of my mind since becoming the au pair des Vladesco. It seemed like it was ages ago that anything occupied my mind besides grocery shopping, thin French women, and teenage drama.

  I sighed in exhaustion as the train pulled out of the station. The whistle blew and I exhaled with it, watching the graffiti of the Paris train station walls disappear as the outskirts of the city, les banlieues, spread for miles outside the window. We accelerated and the concrete and steel of the buildings outside gave way to industrial parks, which gave way to sloping valleys and pleasant pastures, until we reached the 254 kilometer per hour speed of the train à grande vitesse, the TGV. I leaned my head back against the seat, inhaled and exhaled long and slow breaths, and let thoughts of summertime vacation wash over me. I stared at the passing scenery until all that was visible through the windows were stripes of blurry greens.

  We zoomed forward to Dijon. Léonie and Constantin were now engrossed in an electronic form of Hangman. I sat still and quiet, wondering how the grandparents would receive me. Léonie said I was the first of their nannies to stay the night with them in Beaune. I wondered how their cousins would receive me; they were from Bergerac in Dordogne, a region in Southwest France, and I doubted they spoke English as well as Léonie and Constantin, if at all. I wondered what the home of French wine millionaires looked like—and what I would look like in it. Mostly, I wondered whether I would be a better fit in the country than I had been in Paris. I wanted to love Paris—and I did—but I had failed so miserably there, day after day. Perhaps the country—still, small and un petit plus old-fashioned—would suit me better.

  Constantin whined. I heard him fussing over what he “could do” in this game of Hangman; the rules according to Constantin. I gave him a quick shhsh, like Donna Reed might do whenever her otherwise perfect children exhibited typical childish behavior. In the two weeks I’d known them, I’d completely fallen in love with them, and when we were all out together, I often wondered if the people around us thought they were my children. I wanted to look old enough to be their mother but still appear young and beautiful all the same. I wanted to know them well enough to have them mind me, respect me, and desp
ite discipline and impatience, love me at the end of the day.

  My feelings toward the children made my heart ache in a way it never had before, and I wondered when I would have my own children who would love me unconditionally, who looked to me for support and guidance. And once I did, would I finally be satisfied?

  All my life I’d fluttered along, not really knowing where I belonged. My mom used to call me her “elusive butterfly.” It drove me crazy but at the same time I sort of loved it. It made me feel free and untouchable. I felt able to fly to any place at any time. And so I did. I searched for self-worth in anything that would distract me from looking where I should really find it—from Kate Spade shoes to unfulfilling jobs, and even coming to Paris. And even though I’d traveled across an ocean and was living a world away from the life I’d always known, I still didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew I wanted to work toward something with meaning, something that would fulfill me, give me purpose, keep me going. Until I could give birth to my own children (under the covenant of holy matrimony, of course), getting my master’s degree seemed like the perfect something. It sounded so good—it sounded rational and even grown-up. But was it yet another misguided search to find satisfaction in something that wasn’t right for me? Not that living (let alone marrying) for the sake of childbirth was any better, but dadgum my biological clock. I swore I felt like fertile Mother Earth since I was thirteen years old.

  Looking at Léonie and Constantin across the aisle from me, so beautiful, so sweet, so well behaved, I gave in and pretended for a few more minutes that they were mine. I knew in my gut that having children would not fill my emptiness, make me feel beautiful, or give me a sense of identity or purpose—any more than an engagement ring on my left hand would. But what would? I was starting to believe grad school was just another temporary fix, my own sought-after self-importance. But if an acceptance letter didn’t come, I had no idea what to do next.

  The train slowed, turning the blurry greens and browns to recognizable hillsides once again. The hillsides became whole villages. Storybook villages, with a bell tower, a church steeple, a chimney poking from the center of the rooftops. Then the villages gave way to modern suburban communities. And in no time, graffiti appeared on the cement wall just outside my window. Dijon.

  I let the kids wander around the cabin while passengers exited and new ones boarded. These travelers were the type who only seemed to appear on these journeys. Their clothing was more rumpled than their Parisian counterparts, their hair more disheveled, and they had a distinctly stale odor. In other words, they were undoubtedly European. I watched them and wondered what their stories were. I wondered how many of them saw me with two beautiful children and envied my place in life, as I certainly envied the image I was presenting.

  We settled in for the final, shorter leg of the trip. The train was quieter, the crowd lighter than before. I gave Constantin and Léonie candy I’d been hiding in my purse, a substitute for the goûter they missed today, and an effort to postpone the whining about near-dinnertime hunger pangs. We arrived à la Gare de Beaune at 5 p.m. Mamie, as the children call their grandmother, and Léonie’s favorite cousin, Jeanne, greeted us there. While Mamie was the childrens’ affectionate name for their grandmother, when pronounced en français, it sounded too close to “Mommy” in English, so I greeted her formally as Madame Marion.

  Jeanne was beautiful with darker skin and hair, and more of a seriousness about the eyes than my darling Léonie. She also looked much older than Léonie, bigger in frame and stature, though they were about the same age. Jeanne was shy, and stood back from the scene a bit, not unlike Léonie on the first day we met. Knowing it would take time to draw her out, I hastened to greet her warmly and with open arms, hoping to overcome any initial barriers. Madame Marion was much more outgoing than her granddaughter. She was fresh, lively, and pleased to welcome three more to her already full house. She stood erect, wearing a black linen sundress, her tanned skin stretched taut over toned arms and a thin face. Briskly she shook my hand, which was sweating along with the rest of me as a result of my ill-timed sweater/blouse combo. We walked on through the gravelly train station parking lot to the car, one of those tiny European ones that would never survive on the road next to the SUVs of America. Madame Marion wore white, closed-toe mules and is the only woman I’ve seen to date who has pulled it off charmingly.

  I should have known a Frenchwoman always wears heels, thus providing me with my first inkling that perhaps we wouldn’t spend our afternoons and evenings walking the vineyards after all.

  We all piled into the tiny car, and I wondered how it was not against safety codes to cram so many bodies in such a small space. It was warmer than I thought it would be and I was forced to remove my Coach scarf from my neck. As I did so, I was reminded of my first day in Paris—how all of the primping in the airport bathroom had proved fruitless in the face of city heat. There I was not five minutes into my country experience and I’d already lost my equestrian-wannabe, country-by-catalogue, effortlessly classy appeal. Without my signature scarf, I was merely a stuffy, seasonally overdressed girl in a pink sweater and camel-colored pants. And next to Madame Marion, the wife of a wine millionaire who just breezed along with her grandchildren looking as though she’d just stepped from the pages of a magazine, I clashed completely with her style and charisma.

  We drove around the centre ville, and Madame Marion pointed out the stunning château of Chanson, which had belonged to the Marion family for centuries before they sold it. Then we pulled through an electronic gate into the current chez Marion, a surprisingly modern structure painted in bright oranges and pale yellows, with wide white stone steps leading to the front door. Monsieur Marion, Joseph, and Auguste greeted us from the front steps. Until that moment, it hadn’t really registered that during my time in the country, I would be a nanny of five. Jeanne and Léonie were the same age, so I felt no immediate concern to tend to them—they would happily occupy themselves. Joseph was one year younger than them, at age ten. I wasn’t exactly sure where he would fit in among the group. He was sweet, with dark hair, skin, and eyes like his older sister. Auguste, the youngest of all at five years of age, stood apart from the others, dazed from the flurry of activity. I greeted him first, and when he smiled, I noticed that his two front teeth were missing. Charmant! He had the same tan skin and brown eyes as his brother and sister, but his hair was dirty blond, perhaps yet to turn dark.

  Monsieur Marion was the quintessential Frenchman, dressed in dark khaki trousers, a light-colored button-down shirt topped with a houndstooth blazer, and a dark paisley silk scarf wrapped around his neck in a neat cuff. He looked so elegant that I wished I hadn’t succumbed to the heat and removed my own scarf, which I’d longed to wear throughout my arrival in the same cuff-like fashion. As we shook hands, I felt an instant affection toward him, very much like the way I would feel toward a grandfather. He had kind eyes, slightly droopy at the corners, capped with bushy eyebrows. A pair of silver-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his bulbous, red-veined nose—a nose proficient at wine sniffing, no doubt. I had a feeling we’d get along well. Unlike his more youthful wife, who moved with an ease and grace that defied her age, Monsieur Marion hobbled up the steps to open the door for us all. A gracious host, he assured me that I had my own room and that dinner was just about ready. Something about the steady nod of his head and attentive raising of his bushy eyebrows as he ushered me inside both captivated and relaxed me. I had a feeling I would enjoy the country even more than I’d thought.

  Inside, I was pleased to find les Marion went against the grain of the rest of France (or Paris, at least), and utilized the modern luxury of air-conditioning. The house was cool and clean, and for the most part free of clutter, a way of life I found more typical of the French the longer I was in their country. The kids immediately dispersed, taking full rein of the house, which seemed an accepted routine. Madame Marion showed me downstairs to my room. We entered the house on the main floor—the r
ez-de-chausée, to be proper—but there was a downstairs where the boys and I would sleep. Mamie et Grandpère, along with the girls, would sleep in the rooms upstairs. On the top floor were two other bedrooms that went largely unused. And next to the main house was a kids’ clubhouse, built as sturdy as its larger counterpart, but complete with stone walls and shutters.

  We had an hour before dinner, so, as Madame Marion had instructed, I unloaded my clothes into the bureau and hung my coats in the armoire in the hall. I decided it wouldn’t be too awful if I just lay down for a petite rest before dinnertime. I hadn’t slept much the night before, as I’d spent half of it planning my outfit, and in the after-midnight hours making international phone calls when, at home in central time, friends and family were just getting off work. I was exhausted. Between the train ride and traveling alone with two kids and all of that luggage, I could have sacked out for the rest of the night. But even thirty minutes would have been a welcome retreat.

  I rolled back the white matelassé coverlet and climbed beneath the lilac-printed sheets, charmed to discover they really did smell like lavender. The down pillows were large and square, and heavenly relief for my travel-weary head. But I hadn’t closed my eyes for more than two minutes when my back bedroom door, which led to the outside courtyard, swung open. I jolted awake in time to see the girls run through the door, through my room, and out the main door into the hallway. They did not slow down or even notice me lying in the bed, and before I could even question their activity, they were gone. Just as I got up to shut both doors, the boys barreled through, hollering in their kiddie French about a chase, and proclaiming victory of boys over girls. Normally, I would have been amused by their antics. But instead, I was just irritated. Great—we’d been in the country less than an hour, and my fantasies of a quiet retreat were already crushed. I longed for a quiet place to lie down, but there wasn’t another appropriate place for me to get my beauty sleep, so I gave up and headed to the kitchen to help with dinner preparations.