It's our Tuesday morning free write. Rick and I are back in Vandoeuvrues 10 minutes outside of Geneva. There are about 2400 residents, a combination of farmers, diplomats and business people.
We go to the boulangerie and eat fresh baked croissants, drink tea, hot chocolate.
Sherlock, our dog, agrees reluctantly to sit on the floor when we take out our pens and notebooks to start to write.
Rick's Free Write
It had been a dreary start to the day. Streaked layers of gray and grayer clouds. A light drizzle. everything damp from yesterday's steady rain.
But finally there appeared patches of blue sky, so Jacques decided that he and Felicity could walk to the village marché after all.
Down the elevator in his daughter's apartment building, then up the gentle slope of the sidewalk he pushed the pram, two-year old Felicity chattering away as they rolled.
His destination was the first vegetable stand, hers the chocalatier. who had returned at last after the hot summer and unseasonably warm autumn.
Some of the other villagers avoided them. Was it his shabby clothes? Felicity's brown skin?
Wendy didn't care about about either. She was an outsider in the enclave of privilege herself. She gestured for Jacques to sit at the small, round, metal table then offered Felicity a piece of the best dark chocolate in Switzerland.
"How is Angela?" she asked him.
"She's working," he replied matter-of-factly.
"But how is she?" she persisted.
"She has her good and bad days. Don't we all?"
"Don't we all."
D-L's Free Write
Paul wasn't sure how he ended up pushing the stroller, even if it was his granddaughter. It was a first. He'd never pushed his own children. He'd always been too busy.
A lawyer wanting to make partner worked 60 hours a week and that was an easy week. Eighty to a hundred hours was more like it.
And he'd made partner.
Now he was retired, not his choice. The heart attack and triple bypass had done him in. Even with his recovery, he knew he couldn't go back.
"I'm tired of you sulking around the house," May had said. His constant presence was frustrating. "Go see Holly."
His daughter wasn't sure what to do with him either. "Take Jennifer for a walk."
Before he could say no, his three-year old granddaughter was bundled up and they were out the door.
He pushed her stroller to the center of the village. She chattered endlessly about fallen leaves, a dog and two pigeons.
"Judy, Judy," his granddaughter called.
The woman pushing her son smiled. "You must be Holly's father. She looks like you. Without the mustache of course."
She suggested they go for coffee, which she did every weekday morning. At the café, three other mothers drank coffee as they watched their kids play in the nearby sandbox. Jennifer ran to join them.
Paul wondered it he could become one of the girls. That wouldn't be too awful. Would it?
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