Moving

 Over the next couple of days we will be moving.

My next blog will be Saturday.

I will resume the serialization of Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel, writing advice columns, and eclectic topics.

Looking for women...

 

Help please. I’m trying to find women throughout time who have done remarkable things without getting the attention they deserve, at least one or more for each day of the year either their birth dates or death dates. After 8 months of research I’m missing the following dates. Does anyone know of such a woman and if so could you share that info with me.

Jan.11,17,24

Feb.1, 15

Mar. 1, 15, 28

Apr. 20, 25, 26, 27, 29

May 4, 14, 29

June 3, 8, 10, 19

July 9, 16, 18, 20, 30

Aug. 16, 20

Sep. 11

Oct. 23

Nov…..

Dec. 24

Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel

 

  Wayside Inn, Sudbury, MA. If you're in the area, try a meal.

Chapter 47

October

Argelès-sur-mer, France

I’M STILL SEARCHING for ways to tie Daphne and Florence more closely to the past.

This morning it came to me … The Wayside Inn. In the 70s and 80s I’d eaten there several times when I lived in Waltham and worked in Maynard. It put me in touch with my Yankee roots just by walking in. 

Although my ancestor on my mother’s side, John Sargent, fought in the American Revolution, I’ve not been able to trace his life enough to know if he was at the April 18^th battle in Lexington. He probably hadn’t lived there, but it was not impossible that he would have been part of the Minutemen from other towns that had rushed to support the early rebels.

I could imagine Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sitting at the Inn getting inspiration and writing about the “crimson curtains rent and thin” and Bronson Alcott leaving Fruitlands with some of his friends to eat and wax philosophical.

In other times, I would have needed to spend hours in a library or visit the site. Visits during a pandemic at a restaurant across the Atlantic were impossible. Even without the pandemic, cost would be prohibitive.

My memories were of wood and roast lamb with mint sauce.

In describing any place, Victorian writers would go overboard almost creating a visual of every petal in a flower or every thread in a chair covering. Modern writers select just enough detail to allow the reader to “see” the scene as if they were there.

In my Covid-safe office with my butterfly-decorated laptop (see only two details), I used the internet for the history of the Inn, and Google images for the way the Inn looks now. The Inn’s website provided the menu and information on historic drinks.

I also decided that if I had James stop at the Inn in his narrative, I’d better give it its historic name, Howe.

I made a mental note, that if/when I’m back in the area, I want to go there for lunch.

I am not sure where in the novel I will place the Wayside Inn chapter. I suspect I will move it around.

Chapter 48 I think

Boston, Massachusetts

November

 

“WE NEED TO compare agendas.” Gareth entered the bedroom at 5:17 p.m., much earlier than usual. He had already removed his suit coat and loosened his tie. He rummaged in his closet for a hanger. There were nights that he stayed at the consulate to win the paperwork war. Newly hired staff was helping, but it took time to train them.

 

Daphne turned from where she was sitting at her dressing table to look at him. What she wanted to say was, “Hello, Love, how are you?” but instead when she saw his scowl, she went over to him and put her hand on his arm. “Bad day?”

 

“Two of the three new women we hired quit.” He shook off her hand to pull a hanger from the closet and hung his jacket on it, aligning it with other jackets before putting his tie on the tie rack.

 

After removing his pants, he neatly folded them over another hanger. Then he dressed in sweatpants and t-shirt. He padded across the room in his stocking feet. “What’s for dinner? We can do the agendas as we eat.”

“I hadn’t planned anything because I didn’t know you were coming home.” That morning, he’d told her he’d be late. “Why did they quit?”

 

“Don’t change the subject. Is it too much to expect a meal after a hard day?”

 

“We can order out. Chinese? Japanese? Italian?”

 

“I’m going for a walk to clear my head. I’ll decide when I get back.” He slammed the door of the bedroom. A few seconds later he came back to get his sneakers. He slammed the bedroom door a second time. She heard his footsteps going down the hall. It was too far away to hear if he slammed the entryway door.

 

Daphne went back to her dressing table in the corner. It doubled as a desk.

 

Repeated questions to herself on whether she should continue her marriage were beginning to bore her. A friend once said, a woman should always talk to ex-girlfriends or wives before getting seriously involved with any male. She never learned the names of Gareth’s previous girlfriends.

 

Still, their early weekends in Boston had been wonderful. She wasn’t sure when browsing in bookstores or reading the Sunday papers in bed with the smell of fresh coffee coming from their kitchen changed to his snipping at her.

 

She had been so sure that she finally had found someone who not only knew history, but the current politics of many countries. He’d fascinated her. Again she compared him to other men she’d dated that had thought mainly of sports, and although Gareth cheered for Manchester United, his interest was to check the final score.

 

Would they ever be able to get back to those early days? How long should she hang on waiting for that to happen?

 

Sexually, they’d been a good fit. After the first-time unease, which was more or less eliminated by passion, they had aligned their needs. Except for the last three weeks when Gareth was much too tired. She debated slipping him a Viagra so he would have no choice.

All marriage requires adjustments, she thought. Add in an international move, a job that was understaffed, and it was no wonder he was so uptight so often.

 

Daphne sighed. She turned to the mirror behind the laptop on her dressing table/desk. In a way she was lucky that she didn’t have to worry about a lot of the things a couple setting up a home had to worry about. It wasn’t her style to fuss about the color of walls and matching drapes and upholstery.

 

The temporary flat had come totally furnished, and if it were not to her taste, she loved that the style would have looked perfect in a Hercules Poirot mystery.

 

It was fun living there. She looked to the left of her dressing table next to the window and its view of Comm Ave. The trees which were covered in pink blossoms when they had arrived in the spring, had settled into their summer green colors, then turned red and dropped to the ground leaving bare branches.

 

The windows were thick enough that no matter how much traffic was below, it was silent inside. During the summer, air conditioning had kept the flat free of the humidity and high temperatures that could often feel like a bucket of hot water thrown over her body when she went out. Now that it was cold, the heating system was individually controlled.

 

Being English they believed in keeping temperatures low and putting on sweaters. The couple of American homes she’d been in had seemed much too hot.

 

Instead of cosmetics, of which she used very little, Daphne had installed her laptop on the dressing table. There was room for a book or a paper, but Daphne had always liked neat working spaces. If she had several books and papers to consult, she put them on the bed in an order that made referencing simple.

 

She had moved an office chair with wheels up to the dressing table to move between the bed and table, despite Gareth’s objections at how it looked. To humor him, she changed the chair for the original seat at the end of each day.

 

At times she wondered if she were a bit OCD with how neatly she tried to work, but in her teenage years, her things were scattered all over the place and she could never find anything. During her second year of university, she had developed a system that worked well in her tiny studio flat and her equally small office at Scottish Tweed.

 

Once she set up her own working space, she didn’t mind how Gareth had commandeered the spare bedroom as his office. For the two of them to try and work in the same room was impossible, although Gareth didn’t consider she had work other than as his wife. After all, he’d forbidden her to work on the comic book project.

 

On the few nights he was free, he wanted her to sit beside him on the sofa as they watched television or Netflix movies, usually James Bond or sci-fi. Neither genre interested Daphne but looking at them with her husband short-circuited his pouting and she did enjoy some of the acting.

 

Some nights if it something didn’t interest her, she mentally planned her research and writing for the next day. A week ago, she had started a knitting project during the programs.

 

“These aren’t little things for a new baby?” Gareth had asked.

 

“It’s a sweater for you, Darling.” She planted a kiss on his cheek. The two first nights she had cast on the stitches and did three rows on the back. When they’d watched a Netflix documentary a week later, she’d finished the 20^th row. At least the time sitting wasn’t wasted.

 

The nights that Gareth didn’t make it home before ten or eleven were wonderful. It added to her research/writing time. She’d already discovered the clothes her characters would wear and forwarded photos to Florence for the drawings.

 

The two women messaged almost daily on their progress. With each passing day, Daphne was growing more and more excited. Twins Abigail and Adam were becoming real to her.

 

Five trips to Lexington were fruitful. She’d photographed the houses and the landscape of Lexington and e-mailed them to Florence, who sent pencil sketches back.

 

“I picked up sushi,” Gareth called from the front door. “Meet you in the kitchen.”

 

She joined him, the tension diminished for the moment.

The Singing Trees

 

Sherlock pees on a sculptured tree, one of many along the quay of Lake Léman. He trots and pees on the other trees like that a row, stopping to commune with the other pups enjoying the walk.

It sounds like the Bird Tabernacle Choir is performing hiding within the branches. Listening at each tree is like we were backstage before a concert.

For the first time in weeks I have not needed a hat or gloves. Mont Blanc is out in all its snowy glory on the other side of the lake.

This is one of my favorite walks in Geneva.

It is also a pleasure after weeks of diddly squat problems:

• Finding a new flat
• Electricity, heating, hot water that doesn't want to work
• A new car needed and bought. It considers starting optional.
• Codes that do not arrive. One bank code arrives with five digits but six are needed.
• A broken tooth
• Misc. aches and pains
• Taxes and other government forms to be filled out.
  

In themselves, none is horrendous. Together they create a What Now ??? Moments. Thus this walk, after a lunch at Le Cottage, is truly a gift.

 

A French Farm

 

IF HER LIFE were a romance novel, she would fall in love with the disgustingly handsome widower Nicholas Martin. His face belonged on romance novel covers.

Denise Sullivan was the American semi-nanny spending the summer with the Martin family. The object was for her to improve her French while improving the nine-year old twins’s, Sylvie and Anton’s, English. They would speak only French Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and English Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays could be either, Franglais, whatever.

“Call me Nicky,” Nicholas, who spoke perfect English, albeit it with a sexy accent, said, when he picked her up at the Montpellier train station after her overnight flight into Charles De Gaulle. Tomorrow we’ll be going to my parents’ farm in the middle of France.”

They didn’t go.

“Papa’s in one of his sad moods, triste,” Sylvie said and went off to join her friend next door. Anton went to his room. She heard the click of computer keys. She took over the meals.

“Mama cooked better,” Anton said.

“But anything is better than Papa's,” Sylvie said.

Nicky didn’t merge until Monday morning, full of energy and packed up the car. “It’s the first of July, half of France is on holiday. The roads can be a catastrophe.”

The roads weren’t that much of a problem. They were not going south but northwest, mostly on national roads, through little French villages that belonged in the movies. Denise had never seen so many sunflowers.

The family farm was a huge 400-year-old plus house with additions cobbled on from who knew what century. Only one other house was anywhere nearby. Its barn reeked of cows that could be seen grazing in a nearby field.

Coming from Washington, D.C., Denise felt not that she was in another country but on another planet.

Besides Nicky’s parents, whom she was told to call Monsieur and Madame, there were Nicky’s two brothers, their wives and children, six of them from age four to 12. And there was Rosco, a big black lab who burst out the door each morning. He ran in circles until exhausted and then slept the rest of the morning.

On her third morning, she went with Monsieur into the village, a 20-minute drive, to pick up food from the farmer’s market. Monsieur rocketed around the narrow roads circumventing a tractor that left Denise thinking she might need to become religious before the month was out.

Monsieur spoke no English, but he did slow his French down to a point that she understood some of it. He spoke Arabic, Russian and German, she learned. He was the first person she ever met who spoke Arabic and Russian, but that didn’t surprise her. Nicky had told her on her first night after the twins were in bed and they were sipping a mint tisane on the terrace that the family had lived in Alexandria.

Nicky had been born and lived there until he was ten. He said he dreamed of living in Egypt again. “My father would never tell me why we moved. I woke up one morning and instead of going to school, I was poured onto an airplane with the rest of the family. We stayed with my grandparents in Paris until we found our own place. We’re not really black feet.”

She’d found herself staring at his sandaled feet.

“French who lived a long time in Africa and move back to France area called black feet, pieds noirs,” Nicky said.

“Frank Sinatra? Aimez vous?” Monsieur asked on the way back from the marché.

“Oui.”

He handed her a box full of old-fashioned tapes. They were all Sinatra and he pointed to a place for her to insert a tape.

“C'est vous qui choisissez.” He motioned with his hands. She didn’t know how to say, please keep your hands on the wheel so we don’t die.

The first song was Strangers in the Night, which Denise found almost appropriate. She was stranger in the day.

The village had a café, pharmacy, a doctor’s office, bakery and a news stand. Five stands sold fish, meat, cheese, and a few vegetables and fruits. Denise guessed since the people who came were mostly farmers, they had their own crops.

Every time Monsieur went to the village, he invited Denise. They worked their way through the Sinatra tapes. Denise began to appreciate music from her grandparents’ era: My Way, April in Paris, The Birth of the Blues, Come Fly with Me and more.

When they weren’t listening to Sinatra, Monsieur talked about his life in Egypt, how hard it had been for his wife with three babies under three even with household help.

Only once did Monsieur put his hand on Denise’s knew and he withdrew it so fast she wondered if it were an accident. He was an older version of his son, or maybe that should be vice versa. She thought Nicky would look like his father looked now in another 30 years.

Back at the farm, she helped Monsieur unload his straw basket onto the kitchen table, which looked really old.  Denise wondered what the lives had been like for those who had sat there over the years. “L'agneau et le bœuf pour nous et le foie est pour Rosco,” Monsieur told his wife.

Denise thought Madame asked, “How would the dog like it cooked?” but she wasn’t sure until one of the wives who had just come into the kitchen said. “Flambeé avec Cognac.”

At the point, Denise excused herself to round up the kids for their English lesson. The cousins agreed to the English-only days every other day. Denise couldn’t make them stick to it, and the language every day was more of a Franglais. The mixture would probably give a language purist a heart attack, she thought, but it did make understanding what was going on around her a little easier.

The days melted into meals, naps, walks and trips to the pond at the back of the family’s land. The pond was surrounded on two sides by some kind of straw-colored reeds. The path to the pond was through a grove of trees that lent its shade to the grassy beach area. All the children must have fish genes in their DNA, she decided as she watched them swim. They beat her in all the races. She was helped in watching them by a frog on a lily pad.

One afternoon, the farmer next door, Pierre, came over and asked if the kids would like to see the birth of a calf. They traipsed over to his barn just as the calf emerged from his mother. Pierre covered the calf in salt.

Denise worried he was preparing the calf for dinner, but he explained that it encouraged the mother to lick the calf, giving it strength. Anton translated for Denise, because she found Pierre’s French as hard to understand as if he’d been speaking Icelandic or some African tribal language.

Nicky spent some days when he never left his room. His mother would take him a tray ladened with a meal that would have cost a fortune at an upscale French restaurant in D.C. Mostly they came back untouched making Rosco happy.

When Nicky emerged, he was full of plans for the kids. They had treasure hunts, became cowboys and Indians and took long hikes. On one they discovered a giant ant hill, almost as tall as the three-year old daughter of . . . Denise still couldn’t place which kid was with which parent.

Halfway through the month, everyone but Monsieur and Madame left. The house grew quiet. The kids spent more time in their rooms as the heat wave made being outside unless they were at the pond unbearable. The French/English division of days became ingrained in their daily lives.

On a Friday, Marc and his two teenagers arrived and were warmly greeted by everyone. He and Nicky had gone to university together and stayed friends. Marc was now divorced. July was his month to keep the kids and they were on the way to the south of France to go sailing.

It was no problem for Marc’s kids to speak English. The family lived in London. Marc wanted them to speak French on the two days they were there. He didn’t want them to lose their mother tongue.

The first night, after everyone went to bed, Denise padded into the kitchen for a glass of water. There was an old-fashioned pump instead of a faucet in the sink.

She found Marc sitting at the table with a glass of wine.

“Join me,” he said.

His pass was half-hearted. Her reaction was not. At 18 she’d read about men making passes. Marc was her first. She locked her bedroom door in case his acceptance shrug was a delaying tactic.

After Marc left, Nicky seemed normal. He suggested that he and Denise go for a walk through the nearby forest.

“We’ll be back in Montpellier next week, and I’ll be back at work. You’ll be alone with the twins. Have you enjoyed the farm?”

“It wasn’t what I expected, but it has been fantastic.” She meant it. Never had she had a holiday like this. Her parents would take her to historical sights around the U.S., Cape Cod, skiing in Colorado, but nothing like, like, like. . . Denise wasn’t sure of the word. Authentic maybe? Seeing how French farmers live?

Her French had made some progress. At the dinner table, especially before the brothers and their families left, when everyone was talking at once, she didn’t stand a chance. However, after dinner, when they were sitting on the terrace, just the brothers and their wives, they spoke more slowly for her, or at least they did until politics came up.

Nicky and Paul were liberal while Guillaume was conservative. Then the pace and the talking over each other made any hopes of understanding impossible.

The wives would remind their husbands to slow down for Denise. Sometimes it worked. Denise just tuned them out unless they asked her a question.

Denise picked her way carefully as she and Nicky walked. The path was strewn with fallen branches, pine cones and stones. She should have worn her sneakers, or baskets as the French called them.

She tripped and would have fallen had Nicky not caught her.

This was the moment in a romance novel where their eyes should have met, and his lips would caress her soft ones. Their bodies would have sought each other out and they would live happily ever after.

Denise knew, no matter how handsome Nicky was, how lovely the month had been, how great the kids were, she did not want to spend her life with a bi-polar French man. She looked forward to her next adventure.