Guilty Pleasure - Bonnie Smetts

No phone, no address, no one knew where I was. That summer was hot. The mornings were still and I listened to the sounds of Vuille waking. Farm dogs barked across the valley, I knew their voices but I had not yet ventured outside the village. The deliver carts as wide as the paths called streets rolled toward the market in the town’s center. Then the carts pushed by old men who’d maintained the strength of their work even as their backs curved with time.

From my terrace, a postage stamp of a landing, I overheard my neighbors get ready for their day. Behind the vines planted by my apartment owner (who had instructed me in exactly how to care for them), I sat each morning with coffee I’d made on the tiny stove. I chose a china cup, cracked and cherished, no doubt from my landlady’s grandmother. I could hear Monique yell at Michelle. Get ready for school. You must put your books in your bag. Michelle, do you hear me? Are you dressed yet? The father interrupted with a word that I could not understand. I never understood his French. I’d begun to think he was from somewhere else, that his French was as incomprehensible as my own. The family’s shoebox-sized dog got attention next. Oui, oui, pepè. Here’s breakfast for you. Ten minutes later the father would be out on the street with the dog. I followed his deep voice, gentle and low, down the street and as he spoke to his dog and to each shopkeeper he passed—always something about the lovely weather and the state his dog’s health.

And then, they were back in the kitchen together. This time of year, with all the windows open, I heard, kiss, kiss, mother to son. See you tonight. Be good. I don’t want to hear from your teachers. Love you. And a few minutes later the boy and his father’s voices made their way away from me toward school. In the distance the voices of other children added to my neighbors singsong. Water would run, I imagined the mother cleaning up the kitchen and getting herself ready for the day.

Then the windows slammed against the rising heat and force me inside. I hated closing my windows but I didn’t want to be the only one in the building with windows left wide open. The foreigner, the lady from somewhere else, how can she leave everything open, how can she not pull down the blinds. So I did. And then I waited for the next morning when I could start all over again.