The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden

M.I.T. was SO amazing. I got to work with—”
    “ W e , ” Sébastien corrected .“ We got to work with three different Nobel Laureates.”
    “And they even put Mémé and Pépé up in this adorable little colonial house. It was so beautiful, all the xanthophylls, carotenoids and anthocyanins—”
    “She’s referring to the different colors of the changing leaves,” Sébastien translated. “They actually have four seasons in Massachusetts.”
    I gave him my all-too-familiar “ thank you for explaining her crazines s ” look.
    “But thank goodness we were able to leave before winter,” their grandmother interjected from across the room. “They got thirty inches of snow in one blizzard last year! Can you imagine? These old bones do not shovel snow.”
    “Adele! I can’t believe I forgot to ask.” Jeanne’s usual scrutinizing, aquamarine eyes grew wide with concern. “ Ta mèr e ? What was she like?”
    Everyone else pretended to go back to work as I scrambled to figure out what to say about my mother.
    All the way across the Atlantic, I had imagined one hundred different scenarios for my joyful reunion with my mother, wherein she would tell me a complicated, heartbreaking story explaining how she had been forced to abandon me and my father and had lived in agony ever since. In some versions I cried, in others I yelled, in most we ended up drinking tea next to a fireplace and talking for hours.
    But any pathetic fantasies I had entertained about finally rebuilding a relationship with my mother burst upon arrival in Paris when the only person who came to greet me at Aéroport Paris–Charles de Gaull e was her driver, Paul-Louis, who took me directly to boarding school. There was no trace of her cold-blooded heart other than a small bottle of champagne in the car with a beautiful card that said,
     
    Bienvenue à Paris, mon amour.
     
    Bisous,
    Brigitte
     
    It was probably the standard greeting she used for all of her acquaintances arriving at the airport. Not that I was surprised by my mother’s epic fail. I had just thought that maybe with the Storm and all, she might suddenly have started caring that I was alive. There had been a basket of luxurious French beauty products and boxes and boxes of Chanel dresses waiting for me in my dorm room, but I had to wait another week before even hearing from Brigitte. I was in full-on rage mode by the time our first meeting had occurred.
    “What was she like?” I repeated. “I wouldn’t really know. I saw her three times over the course of two months. We had approximately seventeen interactions, if you include voicemail, text, and email. I did, however, see ma grand-mèr e a few times. Sh e was appalled by my French but bought me racks of fancy clothes to make up for it.”
    “To make up for being appalled, or to make up for your appalling French?”
    “Hmm. Je ne sais pa s , both maybe?” We both laughed. “Whatever.” I forced a smile and tried not to roll my eyes. “I’m over it.”
    “I’m sure her intentions were good, Adele,” Mrs. Michel said loudly from across the room. “And now you are back home where you belong, safe and sound.”
    I smiled back at her and, for a moment, pretended she reall y was ma grand-mèr e .
    “So, are you coming back to work?” asked Jeanne, wagging her eyebrows.
    “Yes, please!”
    “Thank God,” she said, looking at her grandparents. “I need to get back to my lab.”
    “So do I!” chimed Sébastien from behind the counter.
    “No problem. I can hold down the fort. NOSA is closed indefinitely, so I’ve got nothing but time.”
    “I don’t see your papa letting that stand for too long,” said Mrs. Michel without turning from the window she was spritzing.
    “ Oui, oui . He says I have to go back to m y mother’ s if I can’t get into a school pronto.”
    “Don’t worry, we’ll homeschool you before we let that happen, right, Sebby?”
    Jeanne and I both looked up at him with big eyes. He walked over,