Authors: Felicia Donovan
“I know,” Giselle said. “But they are not always accurate. Mine is not.”
“You…you have a mood ring, Giselle?”
“Sure. Would you like to have it?”
“Yes! Please!”
I followed Giselle upstairs as she rummaged through a small jewelry box and took out the ring. I slipped it on and it immediately turned a bluish-green color.
“Well, now you are almost relaxed,” Giselle said. “But they are not always accurate, you know.”
“Winnie said that but they mostly are. She said it was groovy.”
Giselle laughed. “Yes, they are groovy. You may keep that. I do not need a ring to know what mood I am in.”
“Winnie is in many of my groups, but not math. Dale Batchelder is in my math group.”
“Hmmm…”
“Giselle, why does he not like me? I do not know him at all.”
“I know,
Cherie
. His mother does not like me and she does not know me either.”
“But why, Giselle? How can you not like someone when you do not know them?”
“Come on,” Giselle said taking my hand. “You have had a long day. I think you should go into a hot tub and relax for a while before supper.”
I made sure to take the mood ring off and set it carefully on the edge of the sink before soaking in an extra-long bath. I still could not get over the wonderful feeling of having my body almost completely immersed in warm water. I was just thinking that I never wanted to get out when I heard Giselle call for me. Reluctantly, I pulled the stopper and watched the whirlpool that formed near the drain as it swirled round and round in circles like a tiny tornado. The cool air nudged at my body.
“You will start to grow fins and a tail if you stay in that water for so long,” Giselle said as she peeled potatoes over the sink. “You will look like Jean.” The sink was lined with newspaper that caught the peels as they went flying. Giselle’s hands were a blur of motion as she swiped at the sides of the small red potatoes.
Jean sat at the table with a newspaper in her hands, a glass of untouched wine in front of her. She rifled through the paper several times.
“Giselle, have you seen the Op Ed section?” she asked.
Giselle picked up the edge of the paper in the sink and winked at me. “You want it back?” she asked.
“I guess not.”
“Jean does not have fins and a tail,” I said.
“You have not seen her swim,” Giselle said in between the thwack, thwack, thwack of the peeler. “You will know what I mean when you see her swim.”
“Do you like to swim, Etoile?” Jean asked lowering the paper.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I…I do not know how to swim.”
Jean cocked her head to the side, a gesture I’d grown used to whenever something took her by surprise. “But surely having grown up on the coast…”
“Oh Jean,” Giselle said as she scooped up the peeled potatoes, put them in a big plastic bag and dribbled olive oil, salt, and other seasonings over them, “Cote Nouveau is not like your beloved New Hampshire Seacoast with sandy beaches and beautiful houses. Cote Nouveau is a fishing village. The water is filthy and contaminated by the fuel from the diesel boats and the dumping of fish guts and God only knows what else, back into the ocean. There are no beaches, just fishing piers and processing plants.”
“But where do they learn to swim?” Jean asked.
“They do not,” Giselle said.
“But all those fishermen…”
“Most fishermen from Cote Nouveau never learn to swim,” Giselle said.
“But what if they go overboard? Wouldn’t they…” Jean stopped mid-sentence as Giselle abruptly slammed the oven door and gave her a sharp glance. A silence immediately filled the small kitchen, broken only by a hissing sound from the oil coating on the potatoes as they met the heat from the oven.
Giselle came over to me and put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“I am sorry,
Cherie
,” Giselle said. “Jean did not know about your Papa.”
“No,” Jean said rising from her chair. “I’m the one who should be sorry,” she said as she tossed the paper down and walked out the front door. I went quietly into the living room and saw them both standing on the porch. The windows were wide open and I had to strain a bit to hear what they were saying.
“Relax, Jean,” I heard Giselle say as she stood behind her touching her on the shoulders. Jean stared out towards the road, her arms folded squarely across her chest. “Most people do not realize about the Cote Nouveau fishermen…”
“I always say the wrong thing.”
“Give it time, Jean.”
“It all comes so naturally to you, Giselle.”
“Not really.”
“You always know what to say to her. You even speak her language.”
“Her language is English, Jean, and you speak that, too. Better than me.”
“But you have so much in common with her.”
“Do you really think so? I do not.”
“You even look like her.”
“We are not in competition here, Jean. You will find your common ground with her. Just give it time.”
“How?”
“You are a very smart woman. You will figure it out.”
I ran back into the kitchen so they would not know I had been listening.
As we sat down to eat, Jean looked at me even more intently than she usually did.
“
Voila!
” Giselle announced as she brought the dish over and scooped some out onto our plates. “Roasted red potatoes and chicken in a balsamic marinade.”
“How was school today?” Jean asked.
“I met a very nice girl named Winnie Wickham.”
“Wickham,” Jean said tilting her head. “I don’t think I know the Wickham’s.”
“Dale Batchelder is also in my class.”
“Ahhh,” Jean said as she met Giselle’s glance.
“He does not like me.”
“I am not so sure it is you he does not like,” Giselle said.
“What do you mean, Giselle?”
Jean cleared her throat loudly as Giselle dished more potatoes onto her plate. “Thank you, that’s plenty,” Jean said, nodding. “So, Etoile, what books have you read recently?”
“I just finished
Little Lord Fauntleroy
.”
“Did you like it?”
“I liked it better in French.”
“I see. Have you finished
Anne of Green Gables
?”
“I just started it.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, very much. I feel like Anne Shirley when she arrives at her new home.”
Jean smiled. “You and Anne are quite brave and adventurous.”
I took a bite of the chicken. It was very tangy and tender.
“Did you know there were other books in the series?” Jean asked.
“Yes.”
“If you’d like, I can look in the University library to see if they have any.”
“The school has them.”
Jean made a small “hmmm” sound and went back to eating. Later on, Giselle washed dishes and handed them to Jean who dried, then handed them to me to be put away. I went to take a plate from Jean’s hands but she held on to it and tilted her head.
“Etoile?”
“Yes?”
“Would you ever like to learn how to swim?”
Giselle stopped washing for a moment and looked at us. Jean raised her eyebrows and waited for my response.
“But where? I did not think there was an ocean…”
“The university pool has just been repaired. I swim there several times a week. I used to be on the university’s swim team while I was a student and then coached it for a while. I could pick you up after school and bring you to the pool with me someday.”
“But I do not even own a swim suit.”
“Giselle?” Jean asked. “Can we find her a suit?”
“Of course, Jean, but this pool, it is deep?”
I had never been in a deep pool before. In fact, the only pool I had ever been in was when we lived in the old house by the coast and our neighbors bought a small, plastic pool for the local children. There were so many of us in it at a time, there was no chance of anyone drowning, let alone trying to swim.
“It is deep, but I would be with her the entire time.”
“Oh Jean,” Giselle began to protest, “maybe we should wait until the town pool opens. It has a shallow end.”
“It won’t be open for weeks, Giselle. I said I’ll be there with her.”
“I know, but…”
“Giselle, didn’t you just say…”
“Yes, but…”
“I would like that,” I announced though I was not sure why I even said it.
“Fine. Giselle will get you a bathing suit and I will pick you up someday after school and teach you how to tread water.”
“But I thought you were going to teach me how to swim?”
“I will, but you must learn how to tread water first. Then you will learn how to swim.”
Three days later, I waited anxiously outside the front of my school for Jean to pick me up. That morning, Giselle had packed my new bathing suit which I was not overly fond of because of the purple flowers on it. I almost missed the bus because of her lengthy lectures.
“Stay with Jean at all times,” she said. “If you go under, do not panic. Jean will be there. And remember to drain the water from your ears afterwards or you will get an earache. And Etoile, do not eat at least an hour before you swim.”
We drove in Jean’s little green car back to the campus to a building I had not seen before, a very tall, squarish looking building with “Greybolt Gymnasium” on the side. Jean led me to a small room that said “Faculty Showers.”
The big purple flowered suit fit me snugly. I stepped out of the stall and saw Jean standing in her blue Adidas suit with white stripes on either side. I would have much rather had a suit like that. Her long, angular, nearly flat body looked even longer because of the stripes. I could barely keep up with her lengthy strides as she led us to the pool. When she opened the door, the tropical air hit me in the forehead and the chlorine smell snuck up my nose.
It was the largest swimming pool I had ever seen with many lanes going up and down its length. A few swimmers with white caps on their head were in the middle swimming laps. Jean led us to the edge of the pool and gestured for me to sit down. She took her glasses off, and then hopped into the pool holding one arm on the edge. I had never seen Jean without her glasses before. Her blue eyes matched the color of her suit. She looked much younger without them. It occurred to me that I did not really know how old she was. I dipped one toe in the water. The pool may have been heated, but this was not like the big gold tub.
“Here are the rules,” Jean began. “You must never go in the water without me knowing about it, even if you become a good swimmer. When you go under the water, and you will go under at some point, do not panic. The best thing you can do is to relax your entire body and it will naturally float to the surface. If you fight it, you will forget which way is up.”
“But I know which way is up, Jean.”
“Now you do, but trust me, Etoile, I’ve seen champion swimmers panic and forget which way is up under certain conditions. If you can remember to relax your body, it will know which way is up.” Jean looked around at the other swimmers.
“Can you stay right here for a few minutes while I take a few quick laps to warm up?”
Jean pushed off the side and began to swim away from me. Her whole body glided through the water as she pumped her arms forward in front of her, alternating turns of her head as she did so. I watched in absolute fascination as she rhythmically stroked the water leaving little wake behind her. As one arm touched the far end of the pool, she ducked her head down into the water and resurfaced in the opposite direction. She looked like a seal the way her body slid through and came back up head first. Some of the other swimmers were watching her and began to fall into strokes with her, but she easily pushed ahead of them. Each time one would catch up, she’d nudge ahead, her long arms and legs stretching further than any of theirs ever could. One young woman with very thick shoulders stayed beside Jean the longest and touched the end of the pool just as Jean did, but Jean ducked her head down and came up far ahead of her. I watched as the young woman stroked and kicked twice as fast as Jean and began to edge up to her. They were head to head coming down the lane towards me. The other swimmers came over and watched.
“Go Dr. Becker!” one of them yelled.
“Come on, Lisa!” another one said.
I pulled my feet in and stood up with the others as we lined ourselves parallel to the end of the pool. Jean continued her long, even strides while the young woman stroked and pumped her body with all she had. We all crouched down to see Jean’s long arm touch the end of the pool a second before the girl’s. I applauded with the others. Jean stopped and quickly whipped around to see where I was before swimming over to the young woman to give her a congratulatory slap on the back.