I
thought you might like to read the articles I’ve written about
my time here,” I said to Francois, my French father figure,
as he reached across the table and took the copy of the Ann Arbor
Paper I held out for him. His face appeared curious, yet uncertain.
“Why didn’t I know about this?” he asked me. Oh
boy.
Now,
hear me out. I told them. I really did. Last September, I mentioned
to my surrogate family that somebody back home in Michigan was interested
in my situation, that of an American male au pair living in France
for a year, and that I would be writing about it. The Pattous, however,
are busy people; when you go to work every day trying to save lives,
and come home everyday to two boys trying to kill each other, it
must be easy to gloss over your live-in babysitter’s admission
that, yes, he is taking notes. But now they know. The secret is
out. All bags have been rendered catless. And the reactions were
decidedly mixed.
It
is not every jour that one finds out they are the leading characters
in an ongoing story published halfway around the world, and I tried
to ensure a smooth transition. I chose two articles I thought to
be most representative (read: flattering), and broached the topic
in the morning, when the parents were most likely to be fresh (read:
focused on other things, like getting the kids to school, getting
themselves to work, etc.) In lieu of La Voix du Nord, the region’s
daily newspaper, the father sipped his coffee that morning while
reading an episode of “The Manny Diaries.” I could only
hope he didn’t burn someone in the room by spewing out hot
espresso in disgust.
But
instead he swallowed it all down easily. He even laughed. “This
is really quite funny, it’s good,” he told me while
reading about his youngest son needing some au pair assistance in
tracking down a public toilet. A few moments later, he chuckled
again. Sweet victory! I would have started dancing in the kitchen,
had I not been so focused on seeming oblivious to the situation.
I continued wrapping cookies in cellophane for the boys’ after-school
snack. While skimming the contents of the next article, he murmured
aloud, “’Francois’ propensity for calamari and
sleeping fully clothed on the daybed until the middle of the night’
Hey, that’s me!”
“Ha,
yep!” I kept my responses curt to facilitate a fast ending
to this public reading and to keep from vomiting on the floor. “I’m
glad you’re amused and not horrified,” I told him as
he drew the paper closed. “Of course! This is really something,”
he explained. “For the kids in 10 years, this will be a great
memory of this time.” He set down the paper and stood up.
“But I feel like this is the top of the barrel-- the worst
is yet to come, I bet,” he said, while smiling his wide, thin,
eye-squinting grin, as if he wanted to wink but couldn’t decide
with which eye, so he closed both half-way.
He
went upstairs, only to be followed back down by two shirtless, pantless
boys wearing expectant faces. Poppa had explained to them their
new stardom, and they bounded around him as he read to them aloud
certain pertinent passages. “It’s not true!” Elliot
retorted in French, after hearing of his difficulty with the bathroom.
Upon hearing his name, Max leaped up to his dad’s lap, spouting
off, “Where? Where?!” seeking his reflection in ink.
Francois read again of his own fully clothed nap sessions till the
wee hours. I cringed. “I really should try and do something
about that,” he mused.
His
wife Julie seemed a bit more withdrawn than the rest, but she told
the boys, “Maybe if you’re nice to Jonathan, he’ll
read them to you slowly so you can understand them.” This
was incredible! My pieces, uninvited reflections of their often
chaotic lives, had become catalysts for change; more than that,
they were becoming the new bedtime stories. Later that evening,
I would learn that the sharpened scythe had merely yet to fall.
All
appeared calm when the mother returned home from work. I was about
to leave when she called out to me, “Oh, I read your stories.”
I turned to face her. What followed was laced with a lot of grimaces
and inhaling. “Living in someone’s house, you see sides
of them [grimace] they wouldn’t want others to see. I can’t
help but feel like my privacy’s been invaded... [inhale].”
Some of what she read she found amusing, the rest made her feel
as if her family was the butt of a cruel joke. In one of the few
gusts of wind I myself could muster, I explained wholeheartedly
that this was never the intention, and that I was truly sorry it
came across this way.
“I
just wish you would have given us the nicer ones to read,”
she said before inhaling again. I remembered my premeditated selection,
and chose to grimace myself. “I mean, you’re a paid
employee!” she finally exhaled.
Between winces and intakes of breath, however, she acknowledged
that she understood humor is often derived from the faults of others,
and that I was just doing my job. Francois apparently eased her
troubled mind by telling her the stories were funny and that “the
truth hurts.” But maybe the truth is this: During a year at
times both traumatic and challenging for me, I might have dealt
with my own frustrations by portraying my host family in a negligent
and unfair light, while not thinking of the harmful consequences...
Nah!
These people are loons! And they know it. And I love them all the
more for it. Julie has since calmed, blaming her initial response
on paranoia. She has faxed copies to her parents, who emailed back
saying they laughed out loud. She also plans to give copies to her
English-speaking friends in the area. The blade so recently careening
down towards my fragile neck had stopped mid-fall, and has stayed
there, harmlessly gathering rust. All is well here at 22 Avenue
Henri Gruson. And a rainbow spread out across the Northern European
sky like a Frenchman’s smile, both caustic and winsome. A2P
Almost a year has passed since I arrived in France to live with
a family gracious, or desperate, enough to accept me into their
home. I have been lucky enough to share some of these au pair purgatorio
moments with you, the well-informed and physically attractive readers
of the Ann Arbor Paper, as you nibble at your sesame bagel with
jalapeno salsa spread or browse racks of used CDs. For those of
you who have multi-tasked so, let me offer you a warm and humble
“Merci.”—the Manny
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