My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1) Read online

  Published by Grape Books

  Copyright 2015 Laura Bradbury

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For more information contact Grape Books, 523 Oliver Street, Victoria, British Columbia V8S 4W2, Canada.

  ISBN: 978-0-9921583-6-1

  Visit: www. laurabradbury. com

  To Franck, for the coup de foudre of a lifetime.

  Also, for our daughters Charlotte, Camille, and Clémentine. Believe in fairytales, because you are proof they exist.

  “Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien.”

  -Edith Piaf “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien”

  CHAPTER 1

  RULES FOR 1990–91 OUTBOUND EXCHANGE STUDENTS – THE FOUR “D”s

  1. No Drinking

  2. No Drugs

  3. No Driving

  4. No Dating

  By signing this contract, I hearby accept my role as Ursus Youth Ambassador for the 1990–91 exchange year abroad and agree to abide by all four of the “Rules for Exchange Students.”

  The other outbound exchange students around me were scribbling their signatures on the forms.

  No Drinking. I knew I was heading to Europe, Switzerland if everything went according to plan, and even though I was drawn by the history and beauty and exoticism, I was also hoping to be able to enjoy a nice glass of beer or wine from time to time. I was seventeen and was graduating from high school in three short months, so I hoped they wouldn’t take this rule too seriously in what my grandmother always referred to as “the old country.”

  No Drugs. I seriously doubted that marijuana was as ubiquitous in Europe as it was on Vancouver Island, Canada, where it self-seeded in many people’s back gardens. And since I had no intention of ever trying any other type of drug, this rule wasn’t an issue.

  No Driving. It would be weird to no longer be able to drive nor enjoy the independence that came with that. Still, like many Canadians, I knew how to drive only an automatic and didn’t like traffic very much, so I could live with this rule.

  No Dating. This rule bothered me the most. It had just been explained to us that as Ursus Youth Ambassadors we would have to be available and open to all people we encountered during our year abroad. Having an exclusive romantic relationship would interfere with that goal. Also, the Ursus Club hosting us would be responsible for our welfare during our year in their country, and that would be far simpler to ensure when we students remained single. I could see the logic of it all, but my romantic life during my high school years had been seriously disappointing, if not to say practically nonexistent. My heart longed for romance and love.

  Still, I felt like the whole world was out there waiting for me, and I needed to take the step to meet it. If that meant signing this contract, then I would do whatever it took.

  I picked up my pen and signed my name.

  The men’s polyester pants were off-gassing in the stuffy hotel room. The scorched smell of synthetic fabric tickled my nostrils. March was generally a cool month in Victoria, so the hotel staff hosting the annual Ursus District Convention hadn’t anticipated the heat wave. The Rotary and Lions Clubs, similar community service organizations, had recently begun to welcome female members, which I was sure lessened the polyester quotient. Ursus, though, stubbornly remained a men-only group, aside from their female International Youth Exchange Ambassadors like me.

  A makeshift fan had been unearthed and stuck in the corner of the room, but sweat trickled inside my navy wool blazer, which had already been festooned with at least forty pins. Pins were the currency of the incoming and outgoing exchange students and were traded with the fervor of stocks on Wall Street.

  The interview was almost over, thank God. If they liked me, I would get the final confirmation that I would be spending the 1990–1991 academic year as an exchange student in what I hoped would be my first choice of host country, Switzerland. There was only one available spot in Switzerland, and it was contested hotly every year. Belgium, my second choice, was better than nothing. Germany was my third choice, but I knew I definitely didn’t want to end up in Germany. I’d never found blond men attractive, and I vastly preferred wine to beer. It was a crime that Italy, France, and Spain weren’t options. I could completely envision myself at some Spanish or Italian bar, dancing on the tables after a night fueled by Sangria or Prosecco—though I’d apparently signed away my rights to drink either of these.

  “I see Switzerland was your first choice, Laura,” the head of the committee observed.

  Was? Not is?

  Every one of the ten or so men around the table had a copy of my application in front of him. “Can you explain your reasons for that?”

  I had answered this question so many times in previous interviews that I could do it in my sleep. “One of my main motivations for going on a year abroad is to learn a foreign language,” I said. “Switzerland has not one but three official languages—French, German, and Italian. I would love to be exposed to more than one language during my year as an Ursus Youth Ambassador.” Actually, I was hell-bent on a year abroad because I sensed this huge, marvelous world waiting for me beyond the mossy shores of my island home; and I vibrated with the need to meet it.

  The Ursunian who was chairing the interview cleared his throat. “That is an excellent answer, Miss Bradbury. However, we just received the news that the Switzerland spot was nabbed by another district.” The men exchanged shocked looks at this breach of fair play.

  What? What about my fantasies of racing up and down the Swiss hills like Maria from Sound of Music and warming myself up with some lovely cheese fondue and wine in a wooden chalet afterwards, preferably with an entourage of handsome Swiss men? I knew I would have to deal with my disappointment later; right then wasn’t the time. I dug my nails into my palms and smiled brightly. “I’ll go to Belgium, then.”

  “We do have several spots there. I just feel we should let you know, though, that more than half of them are in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium.”

  Flemish? I had been so sure I was going to Switzerland that I hadn’t even considered the possibility of being sent to Flemish-speaking purgatory.

  I flashed another smile. “Of course I would make the most out of any placement,” I said. “However, French is Canada’s second official language, and growing up here on the West Coast, I have always regretted the fact that I have never learned to speak it fluently. I hope to go to McGill University in Montreal, so obviously French would be a huge advantage for me.”

  There was no need to mention that French had actually been my worst subject all through high school, and that I’d had to drop it after Grade 11 because it was torpedoing my GPA. Or that I ran out to the quad after my Grade 11 provincial exam for French and yelled, “Thank God! I will never have to speak French again in my life!”

  A slighter, bald man piped up. “You may not be aware of this, Miss Bradbury, but there is no way for us to guarantee where you will be placed. We send over the files for the incoming students, and it’s up to our Belgian brothers to allocate them as they see fit.”

  I struggled to maintain my bright-eyed demeanor.

  “There’s always France, I suppose,” mused the head man, as though thinking aloud.

  My head snapped in his direction. “I understood there were no exchange spots available in France.”

  He cleared his throat. “That was the case, but there has been a…ah…development.”

  My heart began to sommersault. France?

  A tall man at the opp
osite end of the table, who had been picking something fascinating out from under his thumbnail, jerked his head up. “With good reason!” he said, paying attention now. “Every exchange we arranged in France has ended in disaster. The families didn’t even bother to come and pick up our students from the airport, or they suddenly decided that they were sick of hosting and locked the child out of the house, or left on vacation without them. We couldn’t possibly jettison another student into—”

  The chair cleared his throat meaningfully. “I have a letter here from the Ursus Club in Beaune, France.” He waved the letter, which from what I could see was written in elaborate cursive with a fountain pen. I longed to get a closer look—it possessed a tantalizing whiff of the exotic. “They say that one of their students is being hosted this year by our district, so they would welcome one of our students. Just one student you see. It would be on a trial basis. They sound sincere.”

  “Don’t believe them,” snarled the tall man. “I was president of our club the year our poor student was abandoned at the airport in Paris. He had to take a plane back to Seattle the next day. Try explaining that to his parents!”

  “We must believe them,” the chair insisted. “Ursus spirit demands we have good faith in our French brothers. Besides, Miss Bradbury here strikes me as a competent sort of person who can deal with extreme situations. I wouldn’t even mention the possibility of France to most of our outgoing students.”

  “I…I…,” I stuttered, wondering how I was going to disabuse him of this notion. I couldn’t imagine any horror worse than leaving for a year abroad only to have to return to Canada the next day with my tail between my legs. Yet…France! I had always wanted to see Paris and the Eiffel Tower and learn how to drape scarves properly.

  “George”—the tall man’s voice was stiff with displeasure—“throwing this nice young lady here to the French would be like throwing a lamb to the wolves, and I for one—”

  “Neil,” the head man said in a quelling tone, “there is an open space for France and it needs to be filled. Miss Bradbury has explained how urgently she wants to learn French. She is mature and full of positive energy. I have complete confidence in her.”

  What is the word for “shit” in French? Merde? My mind whirred as I tried to find a way to extract myself from this fix.

  But then I thought about red wine. Little cafés. Baguettes. French men were supposed to be very charming, weren’t they? In any case, they had to be an improvement on Canadian boys. It could be a disaster, or it could be even better than Switzerland. In any case, I decided, it was definitely better than spending a year learning Flemish.

  “I’d be delighted to take that spot in France.” I straightened my shoulders.

  All the men except Neil nodded approvingly at me, as though I had just performed a selfless and heroic act. Darn. Had I?

  The chair erased Switzerland and Belgium from my application and wrote “FRANCE” in large capital letters. He scrawled something in his notes.

  “That settles it, then! You’ll be heading to France in August, Miss Bradbury. I hope you have an excellent year, or shall I say, a bon voyage?” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “Thank you,” I said, “or shall I say, merci?” This got a laugh out of all the men, and they stood up and stretched their polyester-clad legs to indicate that I was dismissed.

  I must have missed the sound over the whirr of the fan and the muffled scrape of chairs against the carpet, but when I think back to it now, I am convinced there must have been a mighty creak. There had to have been, because at that precise moment my entire life shifted on its axis.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Air Canada 747 jumbo jet was nearing Charles de Gaulle airport. I remained plastered to my oval window, admiring the patchwork of fields below the airplane’s wing. They were dotted with what looked like little villages.

  France. I had done it. I had left my little mossy island in the Pacific to explore the world. The farthest I had ever travelled was to Hawaii for our yearly spring vacation. I had never been to a place where English was not the native tongue. I sensed that I possessed an adventurer’s soul but had never been able to test my theory.

  The pilot had already lowered the landing gear. My palms were sweaty but my chest felt like it was not big enough to fit my heart. The fields grew so close that I could see the cows on them, munching away. Not just any cows! French cows! I caught a glimpse of the runway.

  Just as I was anticipating the wheels touching down, the whine of descent was replaced by the roar of engines, and the nose of the airplane tilted vertiginously back up towards the sky. I put a hand to my chest; my heart was ready to explode. I began to shake and look around for answers. The terror in the faces of my fellow passengers made me want to vomit. Was I going to die before getting to France after all? The airplane roared away from the airport and then carved a steep, curving circle in the clouds.

  “Sorry about that,” the pilot said over the speaker. He sounded calm, but then again pilots always remained calm…didn’t they…even when their plane was seconds from crashing into a field full of French cows? “Turns out there was another plane on our designated runway. We’re going to wait here for clearance to land from air traffic control.” There was a click and the pilot’s voice once again filled the cabin. “Goddamn Frogs. Will they ever get their act together? They’re probably all on a goddamn coffee break.” There was a louder click. Nervous laughter spread through the cabin.

  What had I gotten myself into? What if France was total anarchy just as the man in the Ursus interview had argued? What if there was no one to meet me at the airport because my host family had changed their mind and decided they didn’t want to be bothered with some strange Canadian teenager? Such a thing would be unthinkable to a Canadian, but then Canadians would never just leave a plane sitting in the path of an incoming 747 while they took a coffee break, either.

  I smoothed a hand over the collection of pins on my navy blue Ursus blazer. I was not used to anarchy. Everything in Canada was governed by certain unspoken rules, which were were understood and adhered to by almost everyone…such as my family at the airport when they sent me on my way that morning…or was it the morning before? With all the various time zones, I had lost track of what day it was. We’d all known that we had to hold back our tears and act stoic about my departure. Emotions didn’t follow rules, so they were scary and therefore suppressed.

  The pilot came back on again. “Sorry about earlier,” he mumbled. “Anyhow, we just received clearance, so we’ll get you on the ground in ten minutes or so. Welcome to Paris folks.”

  Once off the plane, I followed the pack of passengers into a clear plastic tube that had something inside it akin to a flat escalator that was headed downwards. I wondered if I had landed in an episode of The Jetsons by mistake. The tube was scorching hot and airless, and I was sweating profusely. Hadn’t they heard of air conditioners? Or maybe, I reflected, the person responsible for allocating the runways was also responsible for the temperature control inside the terminal.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t take off my blazer. It was how my French family, if they decided to come pick me up after all, would recognize me.

  At the end of the tube, I followed the crowd to an area dotted with luggage carrousels. In the background, muffled announcements were being made almost constantly, along with the musical series of dings from an unseen loudspeaker. Nobody seemed to be paying attention. I coughed. Everyone around me had lit up a cigarette and was smoking industriously.

  A wave of exhaustion caught me by surprise. I had been awake for… I began to count and lost track. The terminal was redolent of urinals and unwashed bodies. I sniffed at myself and crinkled my nose. I was undoubtedly contributing to the latter.

  The luggage carrousel remained sullen and motionless. I checked the flight number on the screen above it—AC Vol #805 Toronto. I was in the right place, yet I seemed to be the only one who was staring at the metal oval, willing it to move
. The other passengers acted like they weren’t expecting it to do anything any time soon. The women were wearing a lot of linen clothing and strappy sandals in earth tones, and they’d somehow clipped up the most amazing hairstyles that looked both elegant and nonchalant. The men wore crisp, open-neck shirts, and some wore purse-like things over one shoulder. They all smoked in an unhurried manner, like they were settling in for a long wait.

  For the first time in my life, I was completely alone in a foreign country. I wasn’t so much scared as intrigued by the idea. Somehow, the sensation wasn’t completely unfamiliar. In a way, I’d often felt alone. In a society of logical, rational people, I hid my over-sensitivity, my sentimentality, and my longing for romance. At school, I’d quickly learned how to construct a gregarious front, but underneath that was profound solitude. I didn’t show anyone the real me, but I lived in the hope that one day I would meet somebody who would see through all the layers of not-real-me. Not just see the real me, but love the real me. A pipe dream, I told myself. I wanted nothing less than a man who had x-ray vision specially adapted to my soul. Such a person surely didn’t exist. In any case, I was certain they didn’t exist in my hometown.

  After a few minutes of waiting, I noticed that some people were leaning on luggage carts. I located a line of them a few luggage carrousels over. I tugged one out of the line, but it didn’t budge. On closer inspection, I saw that it was connected by a chain. It required a coin of some indeterminate value. Shit. I had some French bills in my wallet but no change. Why wouldn’t the luggage carts be free anyway? I spotted one by an empty customer service desk. As I wheeled it back to the immobile carrousel, I realized why it had been abandoned. One of the front wheels was coming off, and no matter which direction I pushed it, the cart went the opposite way. I commiserated belatedly with the pilot. Goddamn Frogs.