French Lessons: A Novel - Softcover

Sussman, Ellen

 
9780345522771: French Lessons: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 034552277X ISBN 13: 9780345522771
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world.

As they meet with their tutors—Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal—each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse Paris’s grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one another—and come to understand long-buried truths about themselves.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ellen Sussman is the author of the novel On a Night Like This. She lived in Paris for five years and now lives with her husband in Northern California.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Brilliant sunlight spills through the windows of the Vivre a la Française language school. It has been raining for days--for weeks--and the sudden flash of sun through a break in the clouds causes everyone in the dreary office to stop for a moment and turn their faces toward the light. It's early morning and no one is quite awake--one young woman murmurs, "Bonjour, soleil." Nico smiles. Then the door slams and everyone stirs, suddenly alert. Nico blinks and looks around, hoping for a sign of what he already knows: Something's different. It's not just the sun. It's the day, new and promising. Every corner of the office looks sun-washed and bright. Even the ghostly girl behind the desk offers Nico a half smile when she hands him his daily work sheet.

Sure enough, today's teaching assignment promises something new--Josie Felton. He likes the name. It's so very American, and he imagines a blond, ponytailed girl, ready to conquer Paris. His Paris. He'll show her the way. He tucks the computer printout with her name and the details of their lesson--meeting time, duration, level of French, areas of concentration--into his back pocket.

It's time to meet Chantal at the cafe.

Nico walks out of the language school onto rue de Paradis. Before he turns to the corner restaurant, he looks down the street in the other direction. Something has caught his attention--a gasp, the rustle of fabric, a bare arm. He squints in the sun and sees two people at the end of the street. A woman pushes a man up against the wall of the building. Her arms, bare and tattooed, a lightning flash zigzagging across tan flesh, pin the man's shoulders. She leans in for a kiss that takes a long time. Someone pushes through the door behind Nico and bumps into him.

"Sorry," he says and steps away.

Nico looks back. The woman saunters away. The man runs his hand through his hair and walks toward Nico. It's Philippe. Nico's first thought is of Chantal--did she see the kiss? He looks toward the cafe and Chantal is there, sitting at a table outside, reading a book. Nico takes a breath.

Philippe reaches him in a second and smacks his arm.

"I'm late, man," Philippe says in French. "Order me an espresso."

"Got it," Nico says.

Philippe heads into the language school and the door swings closed behind him.

Nico, Philippe, and Chantal have coffee together on Monday and Friday mornings after they get their assignments at the school. There are other French instructors--who teach regular classes rather than individual sessions, mostly older men and women who seem to have nothing in common with these three--though sometimes Nico wonders what he has in common with Philippe. Maybe they only really share one thing: an attraction to Chantal.

Nico hurries to the cafe. He can see the curve of Chantal's neck as she peers at her novel, her umbrella perched at her side, her cardigan neatly buttoned. He thinks of her in bed last week, after they made love, her hair fanned across the pillow, her body beaded with sweat, her features soft. A different person. He wants both of them.

He leans over and gives her a kiss on each cheek, then slides into the chair next to her. He smells her perfume, something that reminds him of the Mediterranean, and he has the odd sensation of stepping into the cool water of the sea. He looks around--the cafe is crowded and noisy--and every conversation seems too loud and hurried. A man shouts at the driver of a car who blasts his horn in response. Nico imagines a different cafe, somewhere in Provence. Let's drive to the sea, he would say.

He can feel the heat of the newly hatched sun on his back. Chantal tilts her head and looks at him as if she wants to read his thoughts. When they made love she pulled him onto her, so that all the space between them disappeared. Now he feels the need to touch her. First her mouth, where there is a hint of a smile. Her lips are full and he sees that she has worn lipstick. Does she always wear lipstick?

"Philippe is late," he says in French. "He'll be here soon."

"Of course," she says.

"Do you have your American again?" he asks.

"The last day," she tells Nico. "I'm a little sad about it."

"He's stolen your heart?"

She shakes her head. "He hasn't tried."

"And if he tried?"

"He's a happily married man," she says. "There aren't many of them. It's good to find one once in a while."

Nico imagines Chantal next to him in a convertible, like a young Catherine Deneuve, a scarf around her hair, the sea stretching along the coast, the road twisting through green hills, the air full of the smell of lavender.

The waiter appears. He's young, bored, and reeks of last night's booze. Nico wants to tell the kid to go home and take a shower. When he looks around the cafe, he realizes that most of the customers are younger than he is. He's thirty-two years old--when did he become an old guy? Nico orders a cafe creme and an espresso for Philippe. When the waiter leaves, Nico waves the stale air away.

"And you?" Chantal asks. "Who do you have today?"

"A woman. I don't know if she's young or old. Also American. High level of French."

"Lucky you."

"Apparently she's a high school French teacher. Why would a French teacher need a tutor for a day?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

Chantal tucks her hair behind her ears. She, too, looks older than the girls who flutter in their chairs, texting on cell phones, giggling with their friends. Nico hears the high-pitched voice of one girl--"Mais non, c'est pas possible!"--and the girl swats at a boy's face. The boy leans forward and brushes his thumb across the girl's lips. Nico pulls his eyes away. He looks at Chantal, who sips her espresso. She is twenty-eight. She is a woman compared to these girls. Again, he wants to touch her. He looks at her fingers resting on the table. She wears a simple silver ring, something that could be mistaken for a wedding band.

He reaches for her hand and pulls it closer to him. The band has something etched on it. Finally he sees that it's a vine, encircling her finger.

"I like that," he tells her.

"It's a broken promise," she says.

He waits for her to explain, feeling the heat of her hand in his.

"Philippe gave it to me," she tells him, and her hand drifts away.

Nico looks across the street. Still no sign of Philippe.

"I have news," he says. He wants to tell her before Philippe comes. He leans forward, ready to share his secret. He has told no one. "I sold my poetry collection yesterday!"

"Bravo!" Chantal says, her eyes wide. "And I didn't even know you were a poet!"

"I don't tell many people." In fact, he has only confessed his creative aspirations to his parents, who complained that he should give it up and devote himself to a real career. And so he didn't share the news with them last night. Besides, he's not sure how they'll react to the poems when they finally read them.

"What do you write about?" Chantal asks. Her face lights up--this is the Chantal he fell for weeks ago, the woman who listened to him tell a long story about his first girlfriend in Normandy and who asked him, with so much kindness, "Will you always love her best?" "No," he had told her, "I hope not." He did not say: Maybe I will love you best.

"It's a series of poems that are all about the same story. A boy is kidnapped from his home. He's gone for twenty-four hours. Each poem is a different version of what happens to him in those twenty-four hours."

"Who was kidnapped?" Philippe asks, dropping into a seat at their small, round table. He sets his messenger bag on the ground beside his chair.

Nico feels a tightening of his chest--he has lost the chance to tell her more.

"Were you...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2011
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
034552277X
ISBN 13 
9780345522771
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
SC
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41
Madrid
Madrid
Spanien

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