house to find the darkness. It found me. It’s weird to think that this blog used to be all about a wannabe writer with no life experience to write about. Now that life in France has taken a dark turn and real stuff has happened, I should be unblocked, but I’m not. Now for once I find myself wishing my life was more ordinary.
It’s almost dawn and I’ve given up on trying to sleep. I’ve taken my meds early—clonazepam, Wellbutrin, Depakote, lorazepam—hoping to calm down, but they didn’t make me any less anxious or depressed, so now I feel drowsy and stressed.
In the cold light of day, it will seem less scary, I guess, but I still have that papery feeling. Like something’s about to go wrong. I’ve turned around and around and around in the starched sheets all night and haven’t actually slept. That video thing freaked me out way too much.
Any suggestions, people? Maybe y’all are asleep.
At least Noémie’s home now. I heard the noises of her door creaking open, the whisper of her clothes falling to the floor, the rusty metal groan of her climbing into bed. I felt such relief to hear those familiar sounds, so much that I almost went in to tell her about what happened … but I didn’t know what to say. The video is gone. I put the text message into Google Translate. It said, This is real. That’s all. Pretty weird, huh? And I don’t know her well enough to guess how she would react.
Though after three months here, I should, right? I came here just after Easter, hoping to complete my very last quarter of high school speaking fluent French. Since then, I’ve walked with Noémie each day to the shiny new lycée for fast-talking French lessons and head-spinning economics lessons (not sure if the latter is useful preparation for being an English major at Bryn Mawr in a couple of months, but Noé’s studying it for her baccalaureate so I’m tagging along). Each weekend—as stipulated by my study abroad program—we’ve gone on an odyssey of cultural discovery in Charente-Maritime: exploring the Vieux Port, the amphitheater and the big old church in La Rochelle, the museums of commerce and automata and the son et lumière at the castle (that place about a hundred times!). The Sacred Heart Travel Scholarship promised a chance to “soak in the French way of life through full cultural immersion, expanding academic horizons as much as comprehension.”
If anything, I have less comprehension. Noé is more of a mystery to me than when I arrived. Back in April she seemed excited to have an American friend, giving me friendship bracelets and mixtapes, throwing me parties. Since the holiday started, she’s been quieter, staying in her bedroom a lot … sang-froid, maybe, or plain old-fashioned dislike. We were hurled together by the freak weather conditions of cultural exchange, matched by an educational eHarmony through a database of hobbies that couldn’t possibly tell if we had much in common. Secretly, though, I think we have too much in common—living in our heads, not being, as the French say, bien dans sa peau. It makes for a lot of awkward silences at dinner, that’s for sure.
It makes for being lonely. I even tried to phone my dad, but I think he’s too busy getting ready for the trip to Tahiti with Meghan. They’re superbusy, anyway, preparing for the new baby, the tiny half sister or brother who’s arriving just in time to fill in for me when I go off to college. Pity that kid! I mean, Meghan’s nice enough. I’m sure she’ll make a good mom. She turns twenty-five in a few weeks, so she’ll be exactly half Dad’s age by the time she goes into labor. He was supervising her PhD when they started sneaking around, and I think she thought he was a catch.
She came to dinner once before they knew I knew and after a bottle of wine she told me “your dad is such a good listener, even when I talk about my feelings.” Then I really knew. Though I still didn’t know whether to hug her or warn her to get out while she could. So I just topped up her glass and later, in my room, I looked at some old photos Mom took of me and Dad for some photography project or other and tried to see if he listened to me back then, if we were close. But how can you tell? Just because people smile for photos doesn’t mean they’re happy.
Poor Meghan’s learning the hard way now. Postmarriage, prebaby Dad is an absent presence, working late, drinking hard, teaching summer school so he doesn’t have to spend time with anyone who’s not an adoring student. I remember feeling bitter when they got engaged and thinking, One day he’ll blame you for everything like he blames me. Like he blames me for Mom dying and for losing it after she did. Now that it’s come true, though, I just feel sad for her.
Anyhow … to make a long story short, I didn’t talk about the stalker/message situation with Dad or Meghan or Noé or anybody. In the end, I just spent the whole night feeling totally paranoid, making a bullet-point list of suspects (in other words, a list of all the people I’ve met here so far):
Noémie Blavette
her mom, Émilie
Marlene who works at the café
Émilie’s British friend Stella
the school caretaker, Monsieur Raymond
the local kids who hang around the pool
Seriously, though, I can’t think of any reason any of them would send me snuff movie texts. After all, I’m just an ordinary girl who happens to be a long, long way from home.
JULY 30, 2015
Halfway back to the hotel, a pair of headlights glared in my rearview mirror, burning full blaze. I shielded my eyes. The car came closer, going faster. I craned around, blinded by the lights. Behind me, the car was almost touching. I braced for impact, squeezed my eyes half shut. I heard the engine rev, the rubber squeal of the tires swerving around me. As it flew past, it swiped the side of my rental, jolting the car.
I almost steered into a ditch but I didn’t stop. I kept on driving, forcing the little car back on course. I could feel the sweat streaming down my collar. By the time I was straight and steady again, the red taillights of the other car were just visible in the distance like the eyes of a demon dog. Then they left me in darkness.
Everything around—the white moths shivering in the headlights, the treetops soughing in the wind, the bats, the night noises—fucking everything gave me the creeps. I drove on instinct alone. No higher brain function available. Just getting towards people, lights, civilization as fast as I could, away from the silent house and whoever was in there with me. Twice I drove into one of the loose-dirt ditches that run the length of the narrow roads, once out of sheer nerves, once because a car came straight at me around a bend, headlights blazing, radio blaring. We almost crashed. I swerved. It was only sitting in the ditch, the other car’s horn blaring angrily into the distance, that I realized I was on the wrong side of the road. I sat, took a deep breath, took out a cigarette.
I pride myself on my stoic nature. I always have, from my tree-climbing, bottle-rocket-building childhood onward. I talk straight. I swear loud. I honor promises. Like John Wayne, but female and much less right wing. If you asked me to describe myself in a word it would be tough. Or bitch. Or maybe tough bitch, but after the scrabble out of the Blavette house, the headlights on the way home, it took a full ten minutes until my hands stopped shaking enough that I could light that cigarette.
I couldn’t help wondering if it was Monsieur Raymond who had opened the door at the house, followed me along the dark road. Take it from your unreliable narrator: there was something creepy about that creepy caretaker. No way of knowing for sure, though.
My
