“Why, yes, it does, Ken. You’re so smart! The answer is desserts. Get it? Stressed? Desserts?”
I cracked up and said in my own voice, “How did you ever figure that one out, Amy?”
“I heard it somewhere.”
We laughed and switched back and forth from our Barbie and Ken voices as we finished clearing out the remains of the closet and stacked the boxes in the living room.
The last room to pack up was Grandmere’s bedroom. I think all of us kept that one till last because every time we went in there and opened the closet, we caught a faint wisp of her perfume or spotted an article of clothing we remembered her wearing. Grandmere had been gone for more than four years, and yet everything remained in neat order, as if she might return any day now from her long journey.
“The new owner wants to keep the bed,” Amy’s mom said. “But I told them I was taking the bedding.”
Amy and I pulled off the comforter and the sheets. I lifted the top mattress so Amy could gather the dust ruffle and there, under the mattress, was a satin envelope purse that was padded like a small pillow. Grandmere’s embroidered initials appeared in the lower right-hand corner.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Amy asked, switching to French and looking at her mother.
“I don’t know what it is. It looks as if Grandmere made it.”
I dropped the mattress, and the three of us sat on the edge of the bed, lined up like three twittering birds on the edge of a fence rail.
“Go ahead. Open it.” Mrs. DuPree said.
Amy unlooped the elaborate closure, placed her hand inside, and pulled out a handful of crumpled bills. She also pulled out an ivory linen note card sealed with wax and embossed with Grandmere’s initials.
“It’s for you,” her mother said. “It has your name on the envelope, Amelie.”
We all glanced at each other as if we had found buried treasure. What if we hadn’t lifted the mattress to remove the dust ruffle? I thought. The new owners of the bed and this house would have been in for quite a surprise one day when they moved the bed.
Amy broke the wax seal, opened the envelope, and blinked at the handwritten note. “It’s written in French, Mom. I’m going to need some help.”
Between the two of them the message was translated and the meaning made clear. Grandmere had saved all the money she had received for her seamstress work since they had moved to Memphis. Every dollar had been tucked into the elegant satin purse so Amy could use the collected sum to “experience the one thing I have longed for but will not do again in my lifetime.”
“What did she mean?” I asked.
“Paris!” Amy and her mom said in unison.
“She always wanted Amelie to go to Paris,” Elie DuPree said with a wistfulness I found as intoxicating as I had when I was a child. She always pronounced Paris as the French would, Pair-ee. And Pair-ee rhymed so nicely with Amelie, as in “Amelie must go to Pair-ee!”
The only answer that rhymes with “Amelie must go to Pair-ee” is, “Oui, oui, mon ami!” And that, I knew, meant, “Yes, yes, my friend.”
The question was, had I moved far enough away from my disastrous experience in Paris to answer Amy with, “Oui, oui, mon ami”? Then I realized a bigger question was whether I was still on Amy’s potential guest list.
“Look, Mom.” Amy turned over the note. “There’s more on the back.”
Elie translated for both of us. “Return to the linen shop of the du Bois family on Rue Cler and bless the family that first put a needle and thread into my young hands.”
Amy looked at me, her eyes sparkling. “How much money do you think is here?” She emptied it all in her lap.
She and I sorted and piled the cash with the same excitement we had shared the summer we set up our lemonade stand on the corner and hocked our overly sweetened wares for a dime a cup. Our take that day had been $4.10—enough to get us both into the air-conditioned roller skating rink for an entire afternoon. We practiced our spins in the center of the floor until our knees were bloodied and our egos bruised.
After that we both thought we would do better at tap dancing. Yet we never were motivated enough to earn the amount needed for even one lesson.
From Grandmere’s purse we extracted a total of $9,352.
“Ooh la la,” Elie said under her breath.
Amy didn’t say anything. She left the stacks of money on the bed as the three of us went back to work, side by side, silently packing up the remaining earthly treasures of a woman who had lived with seamless poise and left a silent gift behind for her only granddaughter.
I kept thinking about how $9,352 represented an awful lot of tiny stitches. And all of those stitches had been made after Grandmere was fifty years old.
Not until we had sorted, organized, and packed up Grandmere’s belongings did Amy say anything. “I have a question for you, Mom.”
As I hung back, Amy asked her mother if she would go to Paris with her.
The DuPree graciousness shone through as Amy’s seventy-eight-year-old mother said, “Amelie, you will enjoy your first trip more if you aren’t waiting for me to catch up with every step. I have my memories. It’s time for you to gather your own. Promise me you’ll go while you’re young.”
Amy and I were forty-four, and that didn’t feel young to either of us. We had a hard time figuring out how we had grown that old so fast. But then, I’m sure Amy’s mom would have said the same thing, if we asked her.
I thought Amy would invite me on the Parisian adventure next, but she didn’t. We slept in a forest of boxes that night and the following. In between sleeps, we worked hard to designate every box either for Elie’s new place at Monarch Manor or for “storage,” which was Mark and Amy’s garage.
Amy didn’t bring up the Paris trip again until Monday afternoon when the three of us were seated in the front cab of the U-Rent truck heading for Kentucky. We were following the moving van that contained all of the furniture and dozens of the boxes. The experience of sifting a lifetime of belongings down to the essentials that would fit into a two-room living space had been sobering for all three of us. No one thinks she is materialistic until she has to decide what to give up and what to keep.
For the past few days I’d watched Amy’s mom tell her stories about lamps and porcelain curios simply because we were there to listen. That had been my gift to this woman who had filled my childhood with all the sweetness and frills that had never sprouted in the garden my mother had planted for her children. The DuPree women planted daffodils and forget-me-nots in the garden of life. My mother raised eggplants and parsley.
When traffic on I-40 slowed down, Amy released a telling sigh. I knew that sigh. She was resolved.
“Lisa?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
I had been thinking, too, and was pretty sure I knew what she was going to say. She wouldn’t ask Mark to go to Paris with her. Mark was a lot like my husband. Both Mark and Joel were great at family road trips to Lake Michigan or mission trips with the youth group to any place the old church van would take them. Mark enjoyed fishing for hours from a collapsible chair set up on a river’s edge.
Asking a man like that to fly across the Atlantic for the first time in his life to look at statues and buildings and art, to take pictures under the Eiffel Tower, and then to top it off by sipping dark coffee at a cramped sidewalk café where no one was speaking English was more than Amy would be willing to ask of her husband. He would be lost and silent the entire time and ruin the ambience for her. We all knew that.
Amy’s daughters weren’t ready for Paris. Bright Jeanette was immersed in her job at a local pizza place that doubled as the meeting spot for all her friends. Her college plans were in full swing. Amy’s thirteen-year-old, Elizabeth, was a lot like her father when it came to vacation preferences. Lizzie forever had a paperback novel in her hand and would undoubtedly rather read about Paris than actually go there.
In the end, I was the best ch
oice for Amy’s travel companion to Paris. She had asked me to go with her three decades ago. I was pretty sure she was going to ask me again.
“Lisa, I want to ask you something, but you don’t have to give me your answer right away.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to think about going to Paris with me.”
“Of course I’ll go to Paris with you.” I grinned. “I told you I’d go all the way to Monarch Manor and help you unload this stuff at your mom’s new place.”
For a moment Amy didn’t catch my silly joke. Then she looked irritated. “No! Not Paris, Kentucky. I mean the other Paris.”
“The one with the big pointed tower and the fancy cathedral where the hunchback lived?”
Ignoring my poor attempt at humor, she pushed through the conversation. “Lisa, I know you said a long time ago that you would never go to Paris again, but I’m asking you to reconsider. That’s all. Just reconsider.”
Amy’s mom reached over from the passenger’s seat by the window and patted both of us on the leg. “I think this is what Grandmere hoped for all along.”
“Amelie Jeanette,” I said, “I would love to go to Paris with you. I’m honored that you asked. My answer is oui, oui, mon ami!”
“Très bien!” Elie clapped her hands.
Amy added a trainful of celebratory French words, and we began to make plans. I’d become so adept at packing up the past at Amy’s childhood home that I subconsciously covered my previous memories of Paris with a layer of invisible bubble wrap. Then I taped the heart bundle so tightly closed that no one, not even my dear hubby, knew a wound hid under the padded layers.
As soon as we decided on our target date for going to Paris, Amy set about with determination to lose weight. Our departure date was April 14 of next year, so that gave Amy eleven months. She stocked her kitchen with tangible assistance from the health food store: protein powder; soy supplements; and a large, dark bottle of Norwegian fish oil capsules.
I watched her one morning as she drank a quarter cup of raw unsweetened cranberry juice followed by half of a fresh lemon squeezed into a cup of warm water.
“Are you sure that’s good for you?” I asked.
“It’s supposed to revitalize my liver.” She then methodically partook of a tablespoon of finely ground psyllium husks to clear the “preservative residue” from her colon. She had been reading a variety of books on nutrition and reminded me that my mother’s choice of after-school apples was much better for us than the sweets offered at Amy’s house.
“Look how slim you still are,” Amy said. “You never packed on the saddlebags the way I did.”
Trying to reason with her was pointless. Explaining our metabolism differences had never put a dent in Amy’s comparisons of our body types. I weighed an easily camouflaged ten pounds more than I had weighed the day I graduated from high school. I never had carried a baby inside me for nine months, so I didn’t personally appreciate the agony of extra pregnancy padding that wouldn’t go away. Amy and I had different genetics. Straight and simple. But that line of reasoning never had gone over well with her, so I didn’t resort to it now when she was in the midst of her weight management program.
In the first month she lost four pounds and was so motivated she talked me into joining an aerobics class with her. The best feature of this class was that it was for women over forty.
That sounded more appealing than the high-powered gym that offered free membership for the first month. Amy and I had visited that slick setup. We both left feeling intimidated and certain that we didn’t want to try to negotiate a roomful of exercise machines in a coed gym. For one thing, we would have to buy new workout wardrobes to fit in with the other exercisers. Then we would have to go to a tanning booth and use some sort of super-whitening product on our teeth.
“I didn’t see one person who looked like she needed to be working out at that gym,” Amy said. “I’m going to find a place where we can blend in.”
Extensive research efforts produced a lead on a place across town that was independently owned and for women only. We pulled up in front of the small strip mall before class on our first day, and I said, “So, where’s the gym?”
“Right there.”
“Where?” I saw a dry cleaner’s, a dog wash, and a Vietnamese restaurant.
“It’s that one.” Amy pointed to the front door of a bright yellow store next to a vacuum cleaner repair shop. “See the sign? ‘Lighten Up!’ ”
We entered the small sunshine yellow dance studio and joined a bunch of over-forty women who jumped and jiggled in chortling harmony. I have to admit it was fun. The music was lively. No one took the coordination of her moves too seriously. All that seemed to matter was that each of us moved something, somehow, and kept it moving until the end of the session.
Amy loved the class. Afterward, the glowing women stood in clumps, making plans for where they would go for tacos and diet colas.
The funniest woman in the class was Shirleene. She called all of us “girl.” I became Lisa-girl and Amy was Amy-girl. Shirleene had ample parts of her personage to jiggle, and yet she was by far the one who worked the hardest without ever moaning or showing a frown. Shirleene kept the rest of the group smilin’ and groovin’—especially Amy.
On our second visit, Shirleene was standing behind us. Halfway through the second song she burst out, “Come on, Amy-girl, shake what yo’ mama gave you!”
Amy ramped up her swish and wiggled like I’d never seen before. Not even when we used to dance in her bedroom with the door closed on Saturday morning and we listened to the countdown of the top ten on her transistor radio.
Every class from then on included Shirleene’s prodding to “shake it,” and every time, Amy did not disappoint.
I soon noticed that Shirleene never encouraged me to shake what my mama gave me. I think I knew why. My endowment for the art of shake, rattle, and roll was lacking. I was the underachiever in the class, noticeably deficient in the area of Motown moves.
One night, when Joel was gone, I found a radio station that played music like the tunes we danced to in our aerobics class. I cleared some space, pulled down all the shades, and took my position in front of the full-length bedroom mirror. Then I began my homework, hoping the extra credit might make up for some of my deficiencies in class.
What I witnessed in that mirror will long be etched in my psyche. Unfortunately. I felt pity for the other women in my class. I also felt thankful that we didn’t exercise in front of any mirrors at the Lighten Up! studio. My skinny, white-girl body tried its best to shimmy up some R-E-S-P-E-C-T, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Amy-girl could shake it with Aretha’s songs as Shirleene’s rolling laughter egged her on. I would forever be the aerobics class nerd.
But I kept at it each week in a show of support for Amy.
By the end of the third week, I weighed in seven pounds less than my starting weight. After a month I was eleven pounds lighter. Poor Amy had only lost two pounds. I knew I had to either fake some sort of injury that would keep me out of class for a few months or bulk up on chocolate malts.
I, of course, went with the chocolate malts. It worked great until Amy caught me. We were leaving the studio after class the first week of September. Usually we drove separately, but this time I was driving us both. I’d lost another pound that week, despite the chocolate malt. Amy hadn’t lost even an ounce that week.
“I don’t know why I bother.” She sighed.
“Don’t get discouraged. You know you’ve lost inches even if the pounds aren’t showing up on the scale yet. You said your jeans feel looser. That should be encouraging.”
“I know.”
“And you’re feeling healthier. The goal is to be healthy first, and then the weight comes off naturally. Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me?”
“That’s what I’ve been preaching. You know what? I should have taken off my jewelry before I got on the scale. This watch is at least four ounces. Maybe five. And
what about these earrings?”
“Amy.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“In that case, did you shave your legs today?”
“No. I didn’t!” Her face lit up with hope. “What a great idea! Next weigh-in I’ll make sure I shave nice and close. I’ll exhale before I step on the scale. And I won’t wear an underwire bra that day. Hey, I could get my hair cut, too!”
“I was only kidding about shaving your legs. Don’t get your hair cut. Your hair is perfect the way it is. Besides, your hair doesn’t weigh a whole pound.”
“It might. It’s pretty thick. If I shaved all my hair off my head, I think it would weigh at least a pound. Maybe two pounds.”
“Amelie Jeanette DuPree Rafferty.”
She shot one of her innocent smirks in my direction. “What?”
“You are not going to shave your head, so drop that idea right now. You will have to go through the rest of your life never knowing how much your hair really weighs.”
“You take all the fun out of everything,” Amy muttered.
Without paying attention to where I was driving, I pulled into Jack in the Box, like I usually did, and heard what had become a familiar voice greet me through the speaker. I knew the regular employee could see my car in the round traffic mirror affixed to the top of the menu sign. “Welcome to Jack in the Box. The usual?”
“Ahh, no. Um. I’ll have a diet soda. A small one. And ahh … do you want anything, Amy?”
“No.”
“That’s it. One small diet soda.” I drove to the payment window with my eyes straight ahead.
“What did he mean by ‘the usual’?” Amy asked.
“Hmm?”
“The guy just asked if you wanted the usual. I didn’t know you had a usual at Jack in the Box.”
I knew I had to come clean. I confessed, and Amy stared at me with her mouth open. I thought she was going to be mad. Very mad. Maybe angrier than she had ever been with me.
To my surprise, she started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “You are such a sneak!” She swatted me on the arm as I pulled out money to pay for my diet soda. “I can’t believe you!”