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
“I don’t want to get married!” I bawled. “I never wanted to get married! I’ll be a Madame! Do you realize that? Just because I’m marrying a stupid Frenchman, I’ll be a Madame! If I were marrying an American, I could be a Ms., but no, the French are too sexist for that, so I’ll never be a Mademoiselle again!” I was pretty sure that just as soon as the judge pronounced the words “husband and wife” my breasts would sag, the skin around my eyes and mouth would turn into a map of the Alps, and I’d acquire grocery sacks and strollers, in permanent unattractive grafting to my person. I didn’t think Mesdames were allowed to wear stiletto boots and balance in toilets asking cute guys out. This might have shown a fundamental misunderstanding of French culture, but there you go.
“Honey, if you really don’t want to get married, then don’t,” my father said, his eyebrows drawing together. He looked somewhere between fuddled, anxious, and firm. “This is the time to make that decision.”
I felt a jolt of panic at this support. “I mean I don’t want to get married in a stupid office!” I caterwauled. “We have to get married! It’s the only way we can stay together. I just don’t think I should have to get married in a stupid office by a stupid judge because governments are so stupid! It’s obscene! I hate governments!”
Some people might have thought all was said on that subject at that point, but little did they understand my powers of repetition. My brothers came into the kitchen and left. My mother came into the kitchen and left. My sister came out and left. My father pressed as far back into the corner of the kitchen counters as he could and stuck with it, looking desperately stressed.
After about forty-five minutes of this, a door down the hall opened. Sébastien stalked into the kitchen, his hair looking absolutely ridiculous, like a squooshed fuzzball on the top of his head. He had pulled on his white dress shirt but not yet buttoned it. He knew very well what seeing him in an unbuttoned white dress shirt did to me. He stood with his feet braced in the kitchen and looked at me with flaring nostrils and deep impatience. “I see I’m going to have to get up and take care of this.”
“This” sat on the kitchen stool and cried.
“Have you finished?” he demanded.
I cried.
“You’re hurting my feelings,” he said. “Don’t you want to marry me?”