Intermediate French
by Darren Stone

Nadine first met Isaac Thursday night, 7:00 p.m., third semester evening French class.
San Diego State University.
Spring semester.

Her grandmother was French, so she had the advantage of a regular practice partner, not to mention a lot of dusty French opera records. Other than that, she had no idea why she continued studying the language.
She had noticed Isaac in one of the other French courses on campus, but there was never an occassion for the two to meet. So at 7:00, the first Thursday night of the semester, when Margret Pillsbury (like the muffin) told the class to mingle "in French," Nadine did the unthinkable, crossed the room, and introduced herself. Technically, it couldn’t be called "flirting." It was an assignment.
"I think I told him I saw Paris when I was four," she later confided to her cat. That was as much as Nadine would ever remember of their first conversation.

But twice a week, every week, she would come to class, smile sheepishly at his intense, grey eyes, and let her mind wander.
And she always wandered to the same place. His lips.
He had lips like a movie star.
Nadine studied those lips so thoroughly, she could draw them at home, from memory. It was not unusual to find Isaac’s lips sketched on notepads near her kitchen phone, in newspapers by the back door, or even on random pages of her French reader. She once rendered a lipstick likeness on the bathroom mirror, but wiped it clean during a week of chocolate and depression.
Nadine questioned the design of her own lips, and determined, sadly, they did not match Isaac’s.

Isaac was the type who always entered the room with confidence. Nadine hid in the back row.
His clothes fit well; she had piles of laundry to do.
He was beautiful, and she was.......well, she was Nadine.
She struggled with French grammar while he effortlessly recited a poem he had written about love and pain.

Now, make no mistake - she could charm the birds out of the trees.
But the birds, it seemed, weren’t lining up like they used to.

Within a week of "The Poem," as it was later dubbed, Isaac announced his Engagement (to some bombshell, no doubt), and Nadine slammed her first White Russian.
Four of them, to be exact.
"I’ll bet the two of them sit up every night, giggling and writing French poetry to each other," she said to her lampshade. Then she reached inside, and with one simple, deliberate twist, turned off The Fairy Tale of Isaac and Nadine, fell back into her pillow, and dreamed about him anyway.


"Your French is very good, you know." Isaac wasn’t kidding either. "It’s nice to see someone studying for something other than three credit hours."
"Well, it’s not really my major.......but I love the language and I want to be able to express all my thoughts," said Nadine.
"Don’t tell me.........some sort of Foreign Political Studies?"
"Oils."
"There’s oil in Paris?"
"No........as in oil painting," and she rolled her eyes to fit her grin. Isaac had a way of making any statement sound absolutely ridiculous, but the twinkle in his eye always accompanied his teasing, silver tongue. He was the Devil’s Advocate and the Poet Laureate, combined.
"I mostly work with watercolors, but I’m looking for a new voice." She braced herself for the famous, stinging, waste-of-time remark, but it didn’t happen.
Noticeably impressed, Isaac smiled instead. "I paint a little too, but haven’t done a thing in years. Just haven’t been inspired."
Then, after a long pause, he added, "Maybe you’ll show me your work someday."
And at that, Mrs. Pillsbury Muffin had Isaac by the sleeve, leading him away, to some inspiring passage in some thick, dingy green book of letters.


Spring semester ended, summer came and went, and Nadine managed several decent watercolors and one proud oil, entitled, "Room With A View."
After some deliberation, she registered for the follow-up course, "People and Places - Intermediate Conversational French for the Adult Student." She enjoyed Mrs. Pillsbury’s teaching, and this was the next logical step. She hoped this would be the semester to overcome her shyness, make some friends, and find a study partner who didn’t actually remember Paris before the War.

And just to prove that life is often sweet torture, the gods convinced Isaac to join the class and sit beside Nadine.

The summer had been good to Isaac and Mimi, his betrothed. But Nadine could not even pretend to find interest in the details. "Why take a fishing pole to an empty pond?" she thought. "And who goes around calling herself ‘Mimi?’"
Nevertheless, she was anxious to show Isaac the new watercolors, and hear his opinion.


Something about Isaac changed just after Halloween. There were still six or seven weeks of class, but he stopped showing up early and staying late. He sat quietly throughout most of the three-hour lessons, and seemed to distance himself from everyone in the class.
Everyone except Nadine.
"Of course I’ll stay in touch," assured Isaac from one side of the elevator. "It’s not like we’re leaving for the moon. It’s only France."
Nadine’s heart had already disappeared into her stomach, having just learned of Isaac’s and Mimi’s relocation plans. It was the 8:00 coffee break, and she and Isaac had recently begun to explore the snack machines throughout the campus. In truth, they had recently begun a nice six-hour-a-week friendship, and both seemed to enjoy their limited platonic moments.
"I’ve always wanted to go back to France, now that I’m more than four," Nadine thought outloud. "I can even picture myself living there someday."
"Well, now you’ll have some friends to stay with, won’t you?" Isaac offered.
Nadine’s smile was real enough, but she supposed she would never do time in Mimi’s French guest room.

There were only a few more snack-machine raids, and the class Christmas party, and Isaac was gone.
Nadine never brought a painting to show him. She wanted to. But she never dared. Afterall, their new friendship had not made her blind, and she was still somewhat intimidated by this Adonis. And what if he didn’t see the passion she put into each brushstroke? Who could?
Why bother?


"Greetings from France," read the first line of the letter. "It’s like a whole different country here!" Nadine smiled at Isaac’s silliness. "We are definitely going to be in our ‘tourist’ stage for awhile, but hopefully it will start to feel like home, soon." Then he went on about their tiny apartment, the currency transition and his unsuccessful hunt for a good taco stand.
"I miss tacos. I miss San Diego. I miss you."
Nadine read this last line about thirty times, each time looking for some hidden message. "Am I the walking equivalent of a taco? Am I bigger than San Diego? Is this the only way Isaac is able to profess his undying love for me? Is he planning to catch the next plane back to The States, where I will be waiting at the gate with a big sign, ‘Viva Mon Isaac!’
"I hope he likes cats."
Nadine let a day pass before writing Isaac. She asked about weather and music and The Louvre, and decided not to mention her cat, just in case.

The months rolled along, and Nadine was surprised to find herself with a consistent and attentive pen pal. She had never managed a long-term, letter-based friendship before; both parties usually just lost interest, and replaced the "friend-hole" with someone local. But Isaac was surprisingly true-to-the-cause, and always wrote about feelings, and goals, and finding peace. His thoughts were much deeper than any of Nadine’s other friends’, and his observations were generally accurate.
Sometimes he wrote in French, and Nadine was able to respond likewise. It felt good to actually use the language for something other than translating her grandmother’s recipes. Her French letters were far from romantic, as she had always imagined French letters should be; they were more like the sentence-construction exercises in Mrs. Pillsbury’s class. Lately, though, she was beginning to sense a certain command of the language, and felt herself becoming more adept at expressing her thoughts.
"Now I can have no life to tell you about, in two languages," she joked to Isaac in one letter.

"Then tell me about your paintings," came the reply. "I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, really, but since moving here, I’ve been inspired to start painting again, myself. (I’m sure some of it came from talking to you) Funny thing is, I’m painting things I remember about home, not France. I should tell you, I’ve been having dreams every night about home and my old job, and school.......really weird, huh? I guess all us Americanos have to deal with homesickness over here! Anyway, my painting is helping me find some peace.
"Mimi is really into her job, and all this French fashion, and God knows what, but I’m happiest just sitting on the porch trying to paint what I remember about the small boats in Mission Bay. You don’t get that in Gay Paree.
"I remember last Fall when Mimi said, ‘We should move to Paris.’ I’m sure anybody would jump at the chance, and after all, you’re only young once, right? Well, anyway, here I am, and no matter what, it’s a great experience.
"Anyway, sorry to get weird. I really am curious about your work, though."
And it was signed simply, "I miss you."

"Je t’en prie, tombe pas amoureux de moi." Nadine sang along with the scratchy, vinyl baritone. "Please, please don’t fall in love with me." The opera was well into the last wine cooler, and Nadine was almost finished with her parcel. It wasn’t an easy decision to send Isaac one of her recent watercolors, "Vanishing Hope." It was moody. It was dark. And it was genuine.
"Tell me what you think," is the only note she included with the piece.

One week later, Nadine came home to her answering machine which announced, "Greetings from France! I got your painting and I’ll be sending you my thoughts shortly. One question, though. I can tell from your letters, and your paintings, and our talks at school - you sometimes seem kinda down.
"You're truly gifted, Nadine. I know you've got people around you, right? I mean, how many is that? How many people do you think love you for who you are? Don't give me identities or relationships for now..........just a number.
"Anyway, I'll be finalizing my thoughts on your latest work......but you come up with a number for me.
"I’ll be waiting."

"Christ, he sees it," Nadine saw herself say in the mirror. "He sees my pain.
"But in a way, maybe that’s complimentary. I mean, I was pretty depressed when I painted that thing, and that’s kinda what I was trying to say. I guess my sad life is more obvious than I thought.
"How weird a question is that to ask me, though? I mean, of course, there’s Mom and Dad and Wendy...." And Nadine closed her eyes as she asked herself, "Who loves me for who I am?"

The next day, Nadine licked the seal on an Air Mail Express letter containing the following words: "The number of people who love me for who I am is 5 (five). Now tell me what you think of my painting. I get all crazy waiting to hear people’s impression of my work, and you’re making me wait too long! Again, the answer is FIVE."

A few more days passed. And then a few more.
Nadine was going crazy, just like she said. She knew his thoughts would be intelligent and honest, and she would take this kind of sensible honesty to heart. "He’ll probably tell me not to be so hard on myself, and to remember to draw inspiration from the five who love me. Yep, that sounds like Isaac.
"He’ll have something positive to say, I’m sure. Yeah, I think five is a pretty good number for a single person, my age.
"Five. Yeah, I’m ok."
Nine days had passed and finally the waiting was over.


Isaac’s envelope arrived Saturday morning.
It was postmarked, "Mission Bay, California."
Inside were two items: a sketch of Nadine’s lips on an old airline ticket, and a sheet of paper with one word handwritten across the middle........

SIX