Read Online Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father by Alysia Abbott - Free Book Online
Authors: Alysia Abbott
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off the dress, grabbed a handful of blouses, stockings, and skirts, and paid for them. We drove home in silence.
UNLIKE THE OTHER students in my new class, I didn’t know any French. So Dad set me up with a summer tutor. I enjoyed my books, especially Babar in French: “Babar est sorti de la grande forêt et arrive près d’une ville. Il est étonné parce que ç’est la première fois qu’il voit tant de maisons.” “Babar has left the big forest and arrived at the edge of a city. He’s shocked because it’s the first time he’s seen so many homes.”
At first-day orientation Dad introduced me to my French teacher, Hortense, but I couldn’t understand anything she said. Mornings were conducted exclusively in French. Like Babar, I felt like a true foreigner, walking on all fours, unused to the ways of civilization. What made matters worse was the fact that Dad and I arrived late nearly every day. No matter how much he tried to get me to school on time—setting the alarm, locating my one pair of shoes—we always seemed to sleep in, to run out of milk or clean stockings. We’d inevitably rush out the door and fall into the dingy VW bug out of breath. After racing down Oak Street, Dad would pull up in front of the school, move the stick shift into neutral, and take a drag from his cigarette. He’d pull me up the stairs and kiss me quickly on the cheek before pushing me through the doors of the white Victorian townhouse. Outside my classroom, I could hear the muffled voice of my French teacher inside. Pulling open the heavy wooden door, her voice suddenly loud and inescapable, I hurried to my seat at the back of the class.
I watched as Hortense moved up and down the aisle that split the classroom, her arms folded behind her back, her triangle of frizzy hair bouncing with each step. Behind rectangular wire frames, Hortense had deep-set, suspicious eyes. She surveyed the students, then she found me.
“Alysia . . . quel jour est-il? ”
I stared at Hortense dumbly, then looked away.
“Ah-lee-see-YAH.” Her heels tapped on the wooden floor as she approached my desk and stood before me in flesh-colored stockings and a brown wool skirt. Her mouth was tight and thin: “Quel. Jour. Eh-TEEL?”
The liaison of “t’il” was quick and sharp like a whip. Involuntarily I straightened my back. But the question was still impenetrable, like a tangle that couldn’t be combed out.
“I don’t know.”
“En fran-ÇAIS, s’il vous plaît.”
“Je . . . Je . . .” A girl kicked my seat and I heard laughing.
“Attention!” Hortense commanded sharply, and the class was again silent.
Hortense pivoted on one foot and turned. “Quelqu’un?” And a sea of hands shot up. She called on a girl in the front row.
“Il est lundi, Madame Hortense.”
“Très bien, Nicola.”
Nicola wore two parallel dark brown braids down her back and a shelf of bangs cut straight across her forehead. Her pleated skirt fanned around small knees. Her argyle socks were pulled over firm calves, which crossed discreetly under her chair, ending in polished loafers, perched as if ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
I looked down. My own blouse was rumpled, tucked unevenly into my navy skirt. My chalky white stockings were too small and crept down my backside.
The next morning I asked my dad to tie my hair up like Nicola’s, but braids were beyond him. He managed a lopsided ponytail but fastened it with a sticky rubber band pulled from around our morning Chronicle . When he removed it that night, he took several strands of my hair as well.
September 12, 1976: Alysia’s been having quite an adjustment to her new school. Friday she spilled her juice and had to wipe it up. Monday, she skinned her knee and a girl behind her was kicking her chair. She says she can’t understand her French teacher. A lot of groaning in the mornings. One night she kept me awake grinding her teeth.
Dad, in the meantime, was finally finding his voice as a
UNLIKE THE OTHER students in my new class, I didn’t know any French. So Dad set me up with a summer tutor. I enjoyed my books, especially Babar in French: “Babar est sorti de la grande forêt et arrive près d’une ville. Il est étonné parce que ç’est la première fois qu’il voit tant de maisons.” “Babar has left the big forest and arrived at the edge of a city. He’s shocked because it’s the first time he’s seen so many homes.”
At first-day orientation Dad introduced me to my French teacher, Hortense, but I couldn’t understand anything she said. Mornings were conducted exclusively in French. Like Babar, I felt like a true foreigner, walking on all fours, unused to the ways of civilization. What made matters worse was the fact that Dad and I arrived late nearly every day. No matter how much he tried to get me to school on time—setting the alarm, locating my one pair of shoes—we always seemed to sleep in, to run out of milk or clean stockings. We’d inevitably rush out the door and fall into the dingy VW bug out of breath. After racing down Oak Street, Dad would pull up in front of the school, move the stick shift into neutral, and take a drag from his cigarette. He’d pull me up the stairs and kiss me quickly on the cheek before pushing me through the doors of the white Victorian townhouse. Outside my classroom, I could hear the muffled voice of my French teacher inside. Pulling open the heavy wooden door, her voice suddenly loud and inescapable, I hurried to my seat at the back of the class.
I watched as Hortense moved up and down the aisle that split the classroom, her arms folded behind her back, her triangle of frizzy hair bouncing with each step. Behind rectangular wire frames, Hortense had deep-set, suspicious eyes. She surveyed the students, then she found me.
“Alysia . . . quel jour est-il? ”
I stared at Hortense dumbly, then looked away.
“Ah-lee-see-YAH.” Her heels tapped on the wooden floor as she approached my desk and stood before me in flesh-colored stockings and a brown wool skirt. Her mouth was tight and thin: “Quel. Jour. Eh-TEEL?”
The liaison of “t’il” was quick and sharp like a whip. Involuntarily I straightened my back. But the question was still impenetrable, like a tangle that couldn’t be combed out.
“I don’t know.”
“En fran-ÇAIS, s’il vous plaît.”
“Je . . . Je . . .” A girl kicked my seat and I heard laughing.
“Attention!” Hortense commanded sharply, and the class was again silent.
Hortense pivoted on one foot and turned. “Quelqu’un?” And a sea of hands shot up. She called on a girl in the front row.
“Il est lundi, Madame Hortense.”
“Très bien, Nicola.”
Nicola wore two parallel dark brown braids down her back and a shelf of bangs cut straight across her forehead. Her pleated skirt fanned around small knees. Her argyle socks were pulled over firm calves, which crossed discreetly under her chair, ending in polished loafers, perched as if ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
I looked down. My own blouse was rumpled, tucked unevenly into my navy skirt. My chalky white stockings were too small and crept down my backside.
The next morning I asked my dad to tie my hair up like Nicola’s, but braids were beyond him. He managed a lopsided ponytail but fastened it with a sticky rubber band pulled from around our morning Chronicle . When he removed it that night, he took several strands of my hair as well.
September 12, 1976: Alysia’s been having quite an adjustment to her new school. Friday she spilled her juice and had to wipe it up. Monday, she skinned her knee and a girl behind her was kicking her chair. She says she can’t understand her French teacher. A lot of groaning in the mornings. One night she kept me awake grinding her teeth.
Dad, in the meantime, was finally finding his voice as a
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