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Sunbeams in Paris

A young woman escapes her fundamentalist Christian upbringing and finds freedom while facing her bisexual identity in The City Of Lights.

By Kayla Noelle Foster-BrandtPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Ceiling of The Louvre, 2018

Cool silk slips over my buzzing skin and I pad across plush carpet to stare out onto the busy Paris street below. The frenzied summer rain beats down on the window and it’s humidity infuses my hotel room with the scent of menthols puffed in the shelter of the awning and the perfumes of the fleuriste below.

The silk slip dress makes me feel fluid and catlike and I find myself wondering what my date will think of my Alabama tan lines, if they’ll notice how I clumsily tried to blend them in with self-tanner. I am a sunflower blonde wearing cornflower blue. How will I compare to the icy ash-blondes that I saw traipsing about the Louvre on my first day here? Or the richly warm brunettes sunbathing by the Seine? Or the girl at the table beside mine about two weeks ago at the Boulangerie, the one with caramel and golden honey streaking through her afro like sunbeams?

There were so many beautiful women in this city it made my head feel hazy, and sometimes, it made my heart beat just a little bit quicker. Reactions I am still fighting not to despise. Feelings that shouldn’t fill me with shame and disgust at myself, but feelings that still do. Hating myself was as familiar as pulling on a well-worn pair of jeans. That pain came to me so naturally it felt almost sickly nostalgic now. I was born specifically to be an arrow for God. Yet Cupid, conniving little Eros, insisted upon shooting me through with awe for people regardless of their gender.

The Eiffel Tower, 2018

My body is here, in this summer rainstorm in Paris, in this faraway city bursting with life, but my brain is still stuck in the cult. In the musty old prayer closet. With the smell of crayons and the desperate sweat of my hoard of siblings. I’m lucky that father didn’t sniff out my truest self until I was nearly twenty-four. I was still living at home, my parents advertising me along with my other my marriageable sisters at any opportunity. My sweet and submissive disposition, my tendency to work diligently without complaint, I was steadily becoming the Proverbs 31 woman! An ideal wife, despite approaching my mid-twenties. Can’t waste those child-bearing years! Get her while she’s young and malleable, train her like a little dog.

Just like the Proverbs 31 woman, I had always been industrious, creative, thrifty. That is how I made my escape. My pants-wearing cousin, Bethany, had parents who were somewhat liberal with her upbringing, where mine were not. She had an online store which she used to sell her handmade crystal jewelry, and while I could not use the internet so freely, my parents had allowed me to stock her shop with my cross-stitching for years. It encouraged an “admirable and feminine skill” while also shielding me from direct access to the worldly web. Dear Bethany, sensing my plans for the money, refused to charge me the commission that my parents suggested. She gave me every cent, and mislead my parents about how much each piece was selling for. I had a secret bank account by the age of nineteen.

My savings were considerable by the time my father caught me kissing the neighbour girl and kicked me out of my childhood home. “The big house”, is what the married siblings had taken to calling it, the building I now consider to be a sort of single-family cult compound. I wasn’t like the neighbour girl, I didn’t have the kind of unconditional love that sparked in her parent’s eyes when they looked at her. Part of me actually wanted to see my father’s eyes fill with tar-black disgust when he caught me, part of me wanted my suspicions to be undeniably proven, and they had been. I didn’t even love her. She was just pretty, in the typical way that farmer’s daughters are. She hadn’t been wrung through The Institute of Basic Life Principles like a bleached and washed towel. Sadie was warm in a real way that I could feel. That’s all I needed.

Once I was out I was out. However, my married siblings couldn’t be prevented by my parents from contacting me, my married sisters, husbands allowing of course. I just couldn’t be allowed to corrupt the ones still living at home. With so many siblings varying wildly in age it was difficult to be close with all of them anyway. Of the fourteen other children born into my family I was still in contact with a grand total of three at the moment. I sent them all letters on beautiful French stationery, sometimes unintentionally stained with wine, or intentionally spritzed with French perfume. Sometimes I pressed in a flower. It felt very old-fashioned but in a fashionable, deliciously worldly way.

Cafe in Paris, 2018

The first thing I did upon my hasty flight from the big house was to buy myself the newest smartphone. It was a treasure, a little refuge for my caged brain. Something I could fill with photos of the new places I saw. Fragments of poetry I thought of while on a stroll. And when I had my odd, quiet panic attacks on the bus, I could fill my head with bouncing jazz to soothe myself. Any music that wasn’t related to the faith was banned in my home and jazz held the possibilities of my new life in every effervescent note. My new phone held a wealth of possibilities too, it helped me navigate my new reality which had so recently exploded into vivid colour and dizzying complexity. It helped me figure out how to get a flight to Paris. It gave me access to dating apps which I had been so far too nervous to try.

June had bloomed into sizzling July before I found the blind dating app. It was a premium service, but I had since started my own online shop for my cross-stitch designs and was well on my way to finding a small apartment with a spare room to run my business out of. One white hot day, I’d had an interview with a matchmaker at a stylishly modern office on Rue Dutot. Now the agency knows everything about me and I am preparing for a date with somebody I know absolutely nothing about. Nervously, I sip my room-service wine. A Merlot that reminds me of almond tarts and cherry jam. Wine made my eyes water mere weeks ago but now I close my eyes and try to discern every hidden facet of it’s flavour. Perhaps a hint of bay leaf at the end of that first sip. How could wine be entirely evil? I can taste the affection and care that was put into this intricate collection of flavours.

A slight buoyancy is all I need from the two glasses I sip before slipping out the door. Cashmere cardigan thrown about my shoulders like I’ve seen effortlessly stylish girls do on rainy nights. Umbrella at the ready. The image of a tall, slender young man, with a mop of chestnut curls slinks into my mind’s eye. Maybe he’ll have green eyes, or grey, maybe he’ll be a local with a knowledge of all the city’s most intriguing historical sites. The address that was texted to me by the dating-service agent is entered into my navigation app. An eight minute walk. Eight minutes until I either have a very awkward first date or I trip down that first step into romance. A feeling I may not know even if it hits me since I have only ever read about it.

The air is warm and heavy, the early evening sun escapes through the cracks in the cloud cover to glaze the world below with honey. The foot traffic is slowly increasing as the sun draws people away from their hasty sheltering spots. The scent of petrichore perfumes the air. I turn a corner and my destination comes into view beside a small grocery store with bins of apples lining the front. Spanish tapas in France, to a tourist I find it a little funny but I can already smell the enticing melody of aromas coming from inside. I tell the hostess my name and she gives me a knowing grin before leading me through the restaurant and into a courtyard full of twinkling lights. She definitely knows the reservation was made through the blind dating app. I blush.

Found Rose, 2018

Under a young cherry tree, drooping with the weight of it’s own fruit, sits the girl with the permanent sunbeams in her hair. She gives me a casual wave and a calm smile that sends nervous energy fizzing through my veins. I was assured I’d be matched with someone who speaks English well and that they would meticulously calculate our compatibility. I was not, I now realized, promised any gender in particular. I had been honest about my bisexuality in my application and somehow, this elegant, glowing girl had ended up on a date with an Alabaman ex-fundamentalist who had only ever kissed a girl in secret. Suddenly she’s standing and offering me her manicured hand. Her fingernails are painted like the petals of violets.

“Amanda” she grins.

“I’m Faith.”

She sits, looking up at me through full lashes as she does. She seems to have a slight New York accent and because I can’t think of any other way to break the ice I laugh a little and say “Oh, so I see how it is. They put the two Americans together and called it a day!”

“That’s what I was thinking!” She laughs. “So where are you from? I can’t quite place your accent.”

“Alabama, it feels like it’s on another planet sitting here, in Paris. You sound like you’re from NewYork maybe?”

“I split my childhood between NewYork and Montreal, so I’ve got some muddled up mixture of an accent, I’m glad at least one of them came through to you.”

Roses bloom in her cheeks and she turns to look at the waiter as he approaches with a bottle of wine. She smiles warmly at him as he begins to pour and he gives her a bashful look. There is an odd urge somewhere in my brain to assert in some way that this gorgeous woman is my date. Then, as if she’s reading my mind, Amanda reaches across the table to lightly touch her petal fingertips to my forearm.

“I was early, and I noticed they had my favourite merlot here so I ordered us a bottle. On me of course.”

She holds out her glass to clink which I do almost robotically. I’m already distracted, the twinkling lights in the tree behind her create a backlit effect in her hair, making it look like a round medieval halo. “I love Merlot, I’m pretty new to wine of any kind, but as red wines go, it’s ... approachable.”

“I hope that reflects well on me, it being my favourite.”

“I think it does.” I take a sip, suddenly very aware of the two glasses I had in the hotel room. This wine is sweet but still dry and the flavour is round and full on the back of my tongue. It’s rich while still having a refreshing tangy quality, like well ripened blackberries. All I say is, “it’s a beautiful wine, thank you. It really tastes like blackberries and I would know, it’s the Alabama state fruit.”

“It tastes like summer in a glass to me.” She leans toward me on her elbows and pins me in place with her obsidian eyes. “Is every girl as cute as you in the heart of Dixie?”

“I wasn’t supposed to notice if they were.” The look in her eyes is slightly pained with understanding. Eros pulls back his bowstring, and despite being programmed not to respond, my heart glows like an ember.

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