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
“Sébastien, look!” I said triumphantly, after we’d been wandering around in what our map suggested might be the right area for an hour. “That sign actually shows the name of the road we’re on.”
“Rue St. Gabriel” it read, like a miracle. We slowed down excitedly, and I ran my finger over our Michelin map. However, the map, I discovered, didn’t actually name any roads, or at least not with names that corresponded to the signs. It only numbered them. “Hmm. Do you think rue St. Gabriel is the same as D30 or as D40? Because if, by any chance, it’s D40, then St. Jude and Vieilles Maisons should be that way. But if it’s not, then it might be the opposite direction.”
We passed the village called Vieilles Maisons, and under the name, a sign, clearly marked “Commune de Saint Jude Vieille Maison.” That seemed promising, except that there were no hyphens, which could make all the difference in French village names. There was also one problem, no church. We gazed around a bit, hoping the organist had been mistaken about a church being right by her house, but finally had to give up and head on.
A sign pointed to St.-Jude-en-Laye. That might be promising, too, but then again it might not. France was fond of naming places nearly the same thing, even if they were twenty miles apart—Neuilly-sur-Seine and Neuilly-sur-Marne were on opposite sides of Paris, and Sancy-les-Provins was twenty minutes of country roads from Provins. Sébastien stopped beside an unshaven man walking along the road with a chain saw, always my first choice for directions when lost in the middle of nowhere, and asked him about St.-Jude-Vieille-Maison.
“It’s back there.” The man waved his chain saw in the direction of a series of forks in the road, down all of which we had just hunted for St.-Jude-Vieille-Maison without success.
“We should keep to the right where it says St.-Jude-en-Laye?” Sébastien guessed.
“Well, you can,” the man allowed, pushing back his floppy dark hair. “Or you could go the other direction, really. I mean, there are two villages.”
“Two villages called St.-Jude-Vieille-Maison?”
“No, two villages that are part of St.-Jude-Vieille-Maison. It’s a commune, not a village.”
I was going to strangle our organist.
“Where would the church be?” Sébastien asked, inspired.
“Ah, the church! Back there.” He waved again in the direction of the series of forks. “It’s in St. Jude-en-Laye.”
“Which would be part of the commune of St.-Jude-Vieille-Maison, but not the actual name of the village,” Sébastien said. “See how much clearer French road signs are than American ones, Laura? I told you our system worked better.” He really did say this. I don’t make these things up.