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Chapters (45)
  1. Cover
  2. Blame Iton Paris
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  5. Book One
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-one
  27. Book Two
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. Twenty-four
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Twenty-six
  33. Twenty-seven
  34. Twenty-eight
  35. Twenty-nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-one
  38. Thirty-two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-four
  41. Thirty-five
  42. Thirty-six
  43. Thirty-seven
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine

I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to make him feel any better but decided not to stop him. It was like a bandage—better to rip it off in one fell swoop.

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While these questions of adaption were serious enough, on one point I had made a grave error: finding a job in America was not easier for a foreigner than finding one in France. My country was, if anything, less receptive. For some reason, at different points in time, we had both assumed that when our governments said “No work permit without an employment contract,” that meant if you did have an employment contract and no criminal record, then you could get a work permit. American companies disillusioned Sébastien on that one as quickly as French companies had done me. “We’re not even trying that again. It could be years before they finish sending back our paperwork and finally let you start work. But if you somehow find a work permit without us, we’d love to hire you.”

This catch-22 meant Sébastien, jobless, was soon going as stir-crazy in the U.S. as I had in Paris. Worse, actually. I had at least had Paris, to love and hate. Sébastien was rapidly discovering that Americans didn’t have many sources of entertainment other than television and other things that flickered on a screen. And he was a big fan of both films and video games, but—“You can’t walk anywhere,” he said. “There’s nowhere you can just go, stroll around, look in shop windows, watch people, just changer les idées. Don’t you guys ever have any human social contact with complete strangers?”

“Well . . . we have malls,” I said, and took him to one.

He came away utterly disgusted. “That was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “Do you realize there was not one bit of creativity in the whole place? That every shop was selling the same thing? And it’s so ugly. Where do you go when you want to just stroll around and enjoy life?”

I drew a blank on that one. “I guess I’d go take a walk in the woods.”

He looked at me.

“I’m seeing your point here,” I assured him hastily. “A certain human interaction issue, yes.”