Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
“Oh, boy.” His hand flexed around the skillet handle, and his mouth set. He didn’t look at me. He worked from ten to seven officially, but usually that ran over to 7:30, so that he got home at 8. Before my installation in his apartment, he got home to a place of relaxation. Sometimes he went out for a drink with the guys from work, and then he came home and worked out, and maybe played an hour of video games to relax. Now he couldn’t do any of that: he didn’t want to go out with friends and leave me by myself even longer, he didn’t want to work out with me only a few inches away in the small space, and I didn’t want him to play video games instead of talking to me and reminding me why I had sacrificed so much to come here. I needed some positive reinforcement, and he was the only positive reinforcement I had.
“I had another job interview this morning. And the interviewer sniffed and said, ‘We’re looking for people with teaching experience.’”
He frowned. “I thought you had teaching experience.”
“I do. Four years teaching languages in a high school and one year teaching at one of the best universities in the U.S.” As a graduate instructor, but on a CV, that was just “instructor.” I had even volunteered teaching ESL in the evenings to Hispanic immigrants for a while, so that not only did I have second language teaching experience, I specifically had English-as-a-second-language experience. “But she said, ‘Well, we mean experience teaching English to corporate clients.’ Which is so much B.S., Sébastien. Most of the people working for them are British teenagers trying to get a few months in Paris. She just wanted to make sure I was grateful for their miserly offer of five dollars an hour, not counting transport time back and forth between different factories.”
“But she did offer you a job?” Sébastien asked quickly.
“Oh, of course. They all offer me jobs, if I can survive on the SMIC.” Minimum wage. “But they won’t sponsor my work permit. I have to find someone who will sponsor my work permit. Or I have to get the government to give me one without a sponsor.” I laughed, a tad hysterically. “She asked me what a Fulbright was and why I should mention it on my CV.”
Sébastien glanced at me warily. “What is a Fulbright? Isn’t that when the government paid for you to study in Tahiti?”
My teeth snapped together. “It’s not need-based.” A bourse in French was a scholarship, but all it suggested was that the French government had given you a handout, as it did so many people. Merit wasn’t implied. “Do you see me as anything but a half-wit babydoll with a cute accent?”