Are You All Right?
Someone was splashing water on my face when I regained consciousness. I opened my eyes.
A woman I’d never seen was standing over me, smiling, speaking some sort of jibberish.
Not jibberish, I realized. She’s speaking French.
I heard my mother’s voice behind her – or had it been my mother speaking all along? I couldn’t be sure.
I tried to speak. “Where am I?”
“We’re in Paris,” my mother said. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t mention that we were in a restroom in Paris, but I could see that as I looked around. More specifically, I was lying on the floor in a restroom in Paris. The sinks from which the splashed water came were high above me.
“I’m fine,” I said. As if I were fine.
“She’s okay,” my mom said to my sisters, as if I were okay. My mom nodded, relieved, and one of my sisters bolted out the door to tell my dad I was alive.
“What happened?”
“We think you fainted,” my mom said. Some French women helped lift me to my feet. One of them had a medical box under her arm.
I felt woozy. I wasn’t sure I could stay up.
Apparently, fainting felt exactly like dropping dead. I remembered with vivid clarity thinking: I’m going to die. Then I shoved the memory to the back of my brain and moved forward with my day.
My family eventually got through customs. We got to the home where we were staying in France. Everyone suggested I eat, but I couldn’t.
I suggested I go to bed. I slept for the rest of the day and well into the next morning.
I did not drink in Paris.
On Day Two of our Paris excursion, my family headed for the Louvre.
“That’s just a museum!” I wailed. “I don’t want to go to a museum! I’m going shopping for t-shirts.”
“But we’re going to look at the palace! And the gardens!” my mom said.
“I don’t want to look at a dumb garden.”
“You’ll miss the Mona Lisa!”
“I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in books,” I grumbled.
So while they saw the world’s most famous city their way, I shopped at street vendors seeking a t-shirt for Ronnie. “Bring me a shirt that says something French,” he’d said.
After a full day of street vendors, I learned only that Paris street vendors didn’t like me. The shirt I eventually found never fit Ronnie, and I have no idea what it said because no one would translate for me. It had a kitten on it.
On Day Three of Paris, we all went to the Eiffel Tower. This was the grand finale of our French trip, and my family was excited to see the gorgeous city of Paris from a thousand feet in the air.
At the top of the tower, though, as everyone around us admired the view, I tore into my dad with a venom that should be allocated only to snakes.
“My whole life!” I spat at him. “You moved me for my whole life! How could you think taking me to this stupid city could ever make up for what you’ve done to me! I don’t need to look out at the stupid city! I don’t care that we’re in Paris! I hate this place!”
I made our trip to the Eiffel Tower memorable indeed.
We had an uneventful flight back to London and to our little house in Bletchley, where my parents would stay for three months.
Everyone went to sleep except me.
