“Well, it’s fine enough for August and maybe some Septembers, but now that we’re into October, you’re going to need a proper winter coat.”

I looked down at my cropped leather jacket. “You mean this doesn’t count? Wait. October is winter for you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Besides, if you were wearing a real sweater, you wouldn’t even need a jacket inside.”

I unzipped my jacket triumphantly to show her my cropped, V-necked, cotton sweater.

She gazed at it a second in disbelief and then closed her eyes: “You know, Americans take a lot of work.”

One of the Parisian instructors, in a gray cashmere turtleneck, paused long enough to shake her head. “Are you wearing blue? I’ll never understand your country.” No kidding. Every time Texas executed someone under twelve, she had a screaming fit, go figure. And always at me, and I wasn’t even from Texas, a defense she seemed to consider splitting hairs.

Remembering these scenes, I gazed grimly at the contents of my suitcases: several black sweaters, various black turtleneck shirts, several pairs of black pants, several black antiperspirant deodorants, and so many containers of black dental floss that my teeth could survive a nuclear winter. Okay, the deodorants and dental floss were white, but they did fill up every spare corner. On one previous extended stay in a French territory, I had been deeply embarrassed at having to ask family members to mail me dental floss, and I didn’t intend to give them any more ammunition to use against me in the annual Christmas reunion reminiscences. This French territory had been Tahiti, a little bit more remote than Paris, but still, a girl couldn’t be too careful.

Once I fit all the dental floss into my suitcases, it didn’t leave much room, so I packed all my shorts, T-shirts, and tennis shoes in boxes and told my mother if I didn’t come back within two years or took up smoking and being rude to complete strangers, to give them to Goodwill. I tucked my orange teddy bear into my carry-on, so that we didn’t risk getting separated at such a perilous moment. My father had brought Teddy back for me from his conference in France when I was a baby and given me a French-English picture dictionary to go with him, so that Teddy and I could learn to talk to each other. Poor Dad. He said he had learned from that and was only ever going to give his grandchildren safe presents, like firearms. Despite being born in Paris, Teddy had still turned out to be a boon companion, so packing him seemed like an optimistic gesture. You can’t abandon all hope.