Free Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! by Robin Jones Gunn Page A

her.
    “Amy, don’t worry about translating for me. You can just answer everything so that things go faster.”
    If these young men spoke English, they weren’t planning to use it. Instead, they tested Amy’s weary French vocabulary to its limits. I was proud of her. She kept on task and tried hard to communicate.
    I wished I could have been some help. The shorter officer bounced between listening to Amy’s descriptions and trying to engage me in the conversation. I did a lot of sideways nodding, trying to get him to pay attention to Amy. My stomach grumbled loudly at one point, and I placed my hand over it as if to silence it. The officer asked me something, and Amy said he was offering us food.
    “That’s okay.” I held up my hand to let him know I was okay. “We can eat later.”
    Amy looked at me and then at the officer. She spoke to him, and with a nod he slipped out the front door.
    “What did you say?”
    “I told him we were hungry.”
    “Amy, he doesn’t have to feed us.”
    “It’s okay. Relax.”
    I was not at all relaxed as I saw the young man take off on a Vespa and putter down the narrow street. He returned less than five minutes later with a long loaf of French bread tucked under his arm. Entering the station, he held up the bread and a small bag of Roma tomatoes and said something to Amy.
    “He went to his apartment,” Amy said. “That was nice of him. Merci.”
    I watched him slice the crusty bread with a pocketknife and hold out a chunk for me on the tip of the blade. My first thoughts were, “I don’t want the section of bread that was under his armpit,” followed by, “I hope he washed those tomatoes.” Then I realized what a germ-freak I was being. Growing up I had eaten everything placed before me.
    “Merci.” I received the gift that was being offered so sincerely. Something inside me stepped down a notch in that moment. I was a guest in a foreign country. Practically a refugee, since we were without luggage. I should just be quiet and be appreciative.
    The dry bread and ripe tomatoes were nice. Tasty, even.
    Half an hour later Amy finished providing the men with all the particulars. Paperwork completed, she told them in English and then again in French where we could be reached if any news came in about the taxi or our luggage.
    The men smiled for the first time that night, and one of them said something to Amy that made her blush. She smiled and shook her head saying no and thanking him. I thought I noticed a hint of tears glistening in her eyes. As soon as we were out of the station, I asked Amy what he had said.
    “He offered us a ride back to the hotel on his Vespa,” she said with a crooked grin. “But he could only take us one at a time, so I declined.”
    “Good choice. Not that I wasn’t secretly hoping you would leave me at the police station while you took off scooting about Paris with your arms around the middle of a man young enough to be your son.”
    Amy started to cry.
    “I was only teasing, Amy.”
    “I know. And what you just said was hilarious.” She propped open a wobbly, upside-down umbrella smile that caught her spring shower of tears.
    “Then why are you crying?”
    “Because for that brief moment I believed I actually could fit on the back of a Vespa!”
    “Of course you could fit on the back of a Vespa. In your skinny jeans, no less!”
    Amy’s shower of tears turned into a downpour.
    “What? Amy, what’s wrong?”
    “My skinny jeans are in our stolen luggage!” she wailed.

I tumbled in my shoulder bag
for a tissue and handed it to Amy under the glow of the streetlight. “It’s been a long day. We’ll go shopping tomorrow and buy you some new skinny jeans. Shopping in Paris! Ooh la la, right? How fun will that be?”
    “Lisa, it’s not the jeans. It’s more than that.” She sniffed. “Don’t you see? We’re in Paris. It’s spring. Springtime in Paris! You and I are finally here. A French guy just offered me a ride on the back