The White Bicycle Read online

  "Roquefort, gross? Mmmm, my favorite," says Alan Phoenix, helping himself to a big chunk. "Thank you, 'ewe'!"

  I don't know what he is talking about but I try a tiny crumb of the blue cheese. Martin Phoenix is right. It is gross. I spit it out on my plate and Martin Phoenix makes laughing sounds, which he can do without his Tango. Then we hear a bird calling from the nearby trees. "Cuck-oo, cuck-oo."

  "'Sing on, sing on, you gray-brown bird,'" quotes Luke Phoenix. " 'Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes.' Walt Whitman, 1865."

  The cuckoo waits for a moment as if it has heard him, and then it calls again. I count the units of birdsong. Seven.

  Luke Phoenix eats an olive and then spits the pit at his brother. He hits him in the head. Luke Phoenix says, "Hot cross buns!" and Martin Phoenix uses his Tango to say, "Bastard."

  "Stop using bad words," says Alan Phoenix to his youngest son, "or I'll take away that Tango and you'll just have to use thought transference." He is smiling when he says that last part, so I don't think he means it.

  At 5:20 pm, I go and look into the front yard. There is no luggage vehicle coming up the driveway.

  "It'll come, Taylor, don't worry!" says Alan Phoenix.

  "I have extra clothes here if you need to borrow anything," says Luke Phoenix.

  "Do you have a jean dress?" I ask. That is what I am missing most of all out of my suitcase. My mother convinced me to wear pants on the airplane, and now I have no jean dress.

  "Ha ha," says Luke Phoenix. "Very funny."

  "His jean dress is in the wash," says Martin Phoenix with his Tango.

  There is ice cream for dessert, and although I haven't eaten any main course I try some of the ice cream. It is coconut, although its label just says Coco. Martin Phoenix gets his with skim-milk powder stirred into it. When he's finished the milk and ice cream, Alan Phoenix wipes his son's face and hands and then they go to the bathroom where Martin Phoenix has his teeth brushed. I pay close attention because tomorrow after breakfast I will be doing these things with Martin Phoenix.

  I look out the window at 5:40. No luggage.

  "Taylor, come and take your mind off our suitcases," says my mother. "We can get all sorts of tv channels here, English as well as French, but I don't know how to use the remote."

  "How could a mind be on a suitcase?" I ask, coming out of the bathroom. My mother doesn't answer. She just hands me the remote.

  "All the instructions are in French," she says.

  I do not want to watch television. It makes me mad that my mother expects me to figure out how to use it when I'm not the one who wants to watch. But I look at the universal symbols on the remote and activate the television.

  "Whose turn is it to do the dishes?" calls Alan Phoenix, who is still in the bathroom with Martin Phoenix.

  "Not mine!" says Luke Phoenix.

  "Taylor, you could lend a hand," my mother tells me. "This family is kind enough to invite you to France—the least you can do is the dishes."

  "I was hired to babysit," I say, "not clean. Cleaning is what I'm trying to get away from."

  "Taylor, just go and do the dishes!" my mother says. Her voice is quickly going up the loudness scale.

  "I thought you wanted me to figure out how to use the television!" I say. She grabs the remote from my hand.

  "I can do it from here," she says, which is confusing. She is sitting in the same spot she was sitting in five minutes ago.

  Luke Phoenix goes and checks a piece of paper on the fridge.

  "It's your turn, Dad. Excellent! Martin and I are going to play boules on the driveway. Taylor, wanna come?"

  "What are boules?" I ask.

  "Come on, I'll show you," he says.

  I leave my mother with the television and go outside. Boules is a game where players each have two silver balls. You take turns throwing them to see who can be closest to a small green rubber ball that the first player throws away from where everyone is standing. You get a point if you are the closest with one ball, and two points if both your balls are the closest.

  I am the first to get twenty points, which we count in French. "Vingt!" Martin Phoenix announces on his Tango. Martin Phoenix is second with fifteen: quinze. Luke Phoenix is third with onze. "Eleven is still respectable," he says. "Anything over 'dix' is decent." After we put the balls away in the garage, we walk by some sunflowers growing by the back door.

  "'Ah, Sunflower! weary of time,'" quotes Luke Phoenix.

  "What?" Martin asks with his Tango. And then in French: "Quoi?" The French voice on the Tango sounds a lot like Luke Phoenix's voice.

  "Who programmed it in French?" I ask Luke Phoenix.

  "I did," he says. "On the airplane. 'Ah, Sunflower! weary of time,'" he repeats. "William Blake, 1794. 'Who countest the steps of the Sun/Seeking after that sweet golden clime/ Where the traveler's journey is done …' "

  Luke Phoenix often quotes poetry. I don't know why he does it. I Googled this passage by William Blake so I could get the line lengths right, in case that makes a difference. At first I didn't know what the words meant, but now I do. I am just as weary of time as that sunflower. I go inside to the front window and look out. Still no luggage. It is 6:30.

  "Shouldn't we call them on the phone?" I ask.

  My mother is fiddling with channels on the television.

  "Mom?"

  "Well, I did try, but all there is now is an answering message in French," she says. "The luggage will come tomorrow morning."

  But the next morning the luggage does not come! I look out the window while my mother sleeps in. The rest of them have biked to town to buy groceries, because Alan Phoenix is not painting today. He says my job will start tomorrow. Alan Phoenix has rented a special cart that rides behind his bicycle and today Martin Phoenix sits inside it. Luke Phoenix rides another bike. There is a third bike in the garage that I can use if I want. It is the white bicycle and I do want to ride it sometime. Just not today.

  I walk around the villa and look in all the cupboards and drawers. Then I open the windows because the air in the house is stuffy from the night. The windows are just single panes of glass and they have no screens. I hope nothing flies in when they are open. Then I look at the bookshelf in my room and take out a small gray book by Jean-Paul Sartre. The cover is soft and I like the feel of it in my hands. The phone rings three times while I am looking at the book, but I don't answer it.

  Finally, I get so tired of waiting for our luggage that I call the number on the sheet my mother was given at the airport and I talk to the woman who answers. She understands some English and she tells me the luggage has been in the van since yesterday, but the driver can't find our house. Apparently he has tried to phone us several times, but no one answered. "Are you in Lourmarin?" she asks.

  "No," I say. "We're in the countryside. It's a villa called Le Colombier." The woman gives me the phone number of the driver and I telephone him. He does not speak English. I am glad I have written down some French sentences that I have translated with the help of my laptop

  "Il est difficile de trouver notre maison?" I ask. Is it difficult to find our house?

  "Oui," says the man.

  "Voulez-vous nous rencontrer quelque part en ville?" Do you want to meet us somewhere in town?

  "Oui," says the man. "Rencontrez-moi ô l'église de Vaugines en une heure."

  "What?" I say. "Quoi?"

  "Onze heures," says the man. There is a pause. He goes on. "Time. Onze heures. Vaugines. église. Oui?"

  "Oui," I answer. "Merci."

  I hang up the phone. I tell my mother I have arranged to meet the person who has our baggage in Vaugines at 11 AM.

  "Where in Vaugines?" she asks, standing up.

  "I don't know," I answer. "Just wait, I have to look it up."

  I type various spellings of "église" into my laptop and eventually get the answer. "It's the church!" I yell.

  "Where is the church in Vaugines?" she calls back.

 
; I have no idea and all Google can tell me is that the church is at the edge of the village. We get into the car and my mother uses bad language.

  "I don't like driving here," she says. "And this car is a standard. Hang on."

  "What should I hang on to?" I ask, but she doesn't answer.

  In seconds we are careering down the driveway and onto the road, heading toward Vaugines.

  When Alan Phoenix was driving, I did not notice how narrow the roads in France are or how close the other cars come to us when they arrive from the opposite direction. Sometimes, my mother has to pull off the road onto what little space there is, to avoid being hit. Twice somebody shows us the middle finger when they pass us from behind. When we drive ahead of two cyclists attempting to turn onto the road, one of them pushes the back of his fingers under his chin and brushes them forward at us. I'm not sure what this means but I think it's something rude.

  My mother swears when he does this and the car bounces forward. I don't know why she is driving a standard when she doesn't know how.

  "You should not drive this car," I say. "And you should not say those words."

  "Never mind," she says. "Just look for the church." I do not see anything that looks like my church back home. Then my mother pulls into a parking lot by a big stone building. There is a bell at the top of one of its towers. There is another vehicle in the parking lot. It is a van.

  I do not want to get out of our car. I do not want to see what is in that van in case it is not our suitcases. Anything could be in there. Even the Mafia.

  "Let's go," says my mother.

  I close my eyes.

  "Taylor, don't be ridiculous," she says, and exits the car. I open my eyes a crack and peek out at the van. Inside, I see a white-haired man and a white-haired woman. The back door of the van is open. I see the fabric of suitcases.

  I take a deep breath and open my door. The man with white hair gets out of the van. He waves at us and my mother waves back, even though you are not supposed to wave at strangers.

  The man goes around to the back of the van. I get out of the car, put one foot after the other, and follow my mother.

  There is my suitcase on the pavement! I am so glad to see it that I run over and hug it to my chest. Then I open it and some underwear falls out, but I find my little blue and white alarm clock and it is still working.

  "Taylor," my mother is saying to me in a low voice. "Do you think we have to pay?"

  "Est-il possible de payer avec une carte de crédit?" I ask the man. This is what I heard Alan Phoenix asking at the restaurant yesterday after we had lunch.

  "Non, je vous remercie. C'est déjô payé." I don't understand any of this except for "non." The man smiles and shakes his head and climbs back into the driver's seat. I wave because he is not a stranger any more—and now I have my suitcase, which makes me very delighted.

  I watch my mother put her suitcase into our car and then I do the same, and she slams down the trunk. She does not look happy.

  "Are you feeling okay?" I ask.

  "I can't communicate properly here," she says. "I do know some French words, but I just can't seem to think of them when I need them. It makes me feel … I don't know … childish … inadequate."

  "Being able to communicate is an art and a craft," I tell her, and she looks at me with a strange expression. This is something Shauna used to say to me at school and I think it means that communication takes work.

  We drive home a little faster, with no bumps or swearing. Just before we turn into our lane, we pass a bus stop. The shelter is the same shape as the bus stops at home.

  My First Day of Work

  I am excited about my first morning of work and everything goes well. Martin Phoenix and I make lunch for everyone and while we are sitting out under the umbrella in the back yard, potter wasps are attracted to the food. When all we have left to eat is dessert, we go inside. It is crème brûlée and we made it by baking a custard base of cream, vanilla, eggs, and sugar, and then burning sugar on top by putting the dish under the grill. My mother says I should really think of becoming a chef, but I think she should just shut up about that.

  My favorite foods are pancakes and hamburgers, even though I didn't want to eat a hamburger once with a boyfriend I met last summer. At least I think he was my boyfriend. There were two boyfriends then, one for a few days, and one for just a few minutes. I hope soon I will collect another boyfriend who likes me and who I like, and that the relationship lasts longer than it did with those two.

  I like the crème brûlée, even if Martin Phoenix told everyone it was called poop pie.

  This afternoon, I get the white bicycle out of the garage and follow the lane. I pass the garbage cans. I pass the recycling unit. I pass a green wire fence and see that clusters of small white snails have gathered on the top of each post.

  I stop the bicycle and go over for a closer look. I wonder why they have chosen this particular fence to climb. I wonder why they went to the highest points possible on the fence and why they are gathered together. Maybe they are mating. It seems disrespectful to look at them, if they are doing some kind of group sex, but I study them for a minute more before I go. Most of them seem to know the rules about clustering as high as possible, but there are a few snails lower down on the fence that haven't caught up to the others. I feel sad for them but I leave them there. They will find their way. I am sure of it. They just might take a little longer than the rest.

  I see some red and white marks on the trees and decide that when I get back I will ask Luke Phoenix what these mean. If he does not know, I will ask Alan Phoenix, and if he does not know, I will ask Martin Phoenix. If none of them know, I will not ask my mother. I am tired of asking her things because sometimes she just doesn't answer, and sometimes she talks too much.

  I think again about how a mind could be on a suitcase and suddenly I get it. You can make up your mind, which means you can make a decision, just like you can put your mind down on something, which means resting it there and thinking about a topic for longer than a few seconds. And while you are resting your mind, someone can ask you, "Penny for your thoughts?" just like Alan Phoenix said to my mother, even if your name isn't Penny, which hers is.

  The Red-and-White Trail

  The first week in France went by very quickly. Things are so different here. Even the sheets smell different, because they are hung on the clothesline to dry, and at first I had trouble sleeping. I am glad that I am finally getting used to things. On my second Sunday here, I take the white bicycle out of the garage and I ride past the cherry trees and down the driveway, just as I have done before. It is good that some things stay the same. It is a warm July afternoon, but when I am riding, the air feels cool and fresh. I go down the lane toward the woods, and I see the red and white lines on the trees. Luke Phoenix told me that these lines mark a hiking trail.

  I follow the red-and-white trail and it leads me into the forest on a path that changes from gravel to dirt. There are tree roots and rocks that make the path difficult to ride on, so I begin to carry the white bicycle, telling myself all the while that the road will get better up ahead. The path descends through an old stream bed and then up and around huge tree roots that I struggle to navigate. Rocks are strewn along the way and I keep stumbling, but going forward, agonizing over my decision to continue. Shall I retrace my steps? Shall I go on? Just a little further, I keep thinking. The path will get better up ahead.

  Heat from the sun is falling through the thin leaves of the olive trees and my skin hurts. The cicadas are singing their electric song.

  Off to the left, I encounter an older couple. One of them is sitting on a fallen log in the shade, and the other is standing in a ray of light.

  "Bonjour," I say, and the one standing nods.

  "Bonjour."

  They seem to be waiting for someone, I think, but I know they aren't waiting for Godot, like the people in Samuel Beckett's play. Sometimes, I feel like I'm waiting like that and I don't know what I
'm waiting for, and it's not a nice feeling. It's a panicky feeling. It's a feeling that makes me want to swear and obsessively clean things, just like I'm trying not to do.

  After I say hello, I carry the white bicycle past the two people in the woods and keep going forward, and the path grows more and more difficult, and I can hear my breath rattling in my chest. Just a little further, I keep telling myself. Scaling a sharp ridge, I fall and scrape my shin, and then finally I come to a stop. What if the path does not get better? What if I shouldn't have come into this forest in the first place? I can feel the white-out rising behind my eyes. I don't know what to do next.

  Go back. That is the best choice. I toil through the white haze that clouds my vision and start back, sweat dripping down my neck from the heat of my long hair. This time, the couple are both in the shade, one still on the log, the other stretched out on the ground. I take a deep breath and the haze clears.

  "Bonjour," I say, my voice cracking. "Bonjour," I repeat.

  They do not answer. It is possible they are asleep, except that I think the person on the log is eating pistachio nuts. It is also possible that they are confused by the way I am carrying the white bicycle back and forth in the forest, and perhaps there is ridicule in their gaze. I don't know why but I feel hotter as I pass. I feel them looking at me, judging me. Look at her, there. The Freaker. Voices echo from the past and I wonder if I'll ever stop hearing them. I wish I could climb out of my skin and be somewhere else. The heat is terrible, and in the end I'm not sure I am on the same path as before. Even the stream bed, once I come to it, looks different.

  But I emerge from the forest and put the white bicycle down on the gravel road, slip onto the seat, and put my feet to the pedals. Soon the wind is at my back and I skim along home, lost and then found. C'est la vie. Such is life.