13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

Author:Maureen Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780061973802
Publisher: HarperCollins

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#8

Dear Gin,

So there I was, Gin, on my way from the passions of Rome to the cool romance of Paris.

I thought I was broke before, but I’d always had a little money. But I’d blown most of what I had in Rome.

There was a café I passed almost every day. An amazing smell of fresh bread always came from it, but the place was just falling to pieces—the paint was chipping, the tables were plain and ugly. It was cheap, though. So I went in and had one of the best meals of my life. No one was in there, so the owner sat down and talked to me. He told me that he was closing down the café for a month because everyone in France goes on vacation for a month in the summer. (Another thing that makes France cool.)

I had an idea.

In exchange for a little money for food and letting me sleep in the café, I would redecorate for him. The whole place, top to bottom. For the cost of a couple croque monsieurs, a few hundred cups of coffee, and a little paint, he would have his entire café decorated with original work by a woman who would stay there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was too good an offer to pass up. So he accepted it.

For the rest of the month, I lived in the café. I managed to get some blankets and pillows and I made myself a little sleeping nest behind the bar. I went to the market for food and cooked my meals in the little kitchen. It didn’t really matter if it was day or night—I painted all the time, whenever I felt like it. I slept with the paint fumes. I dreamed about the designs. I permanently stained the skin under my left thumbnail blue. I made curtains from aprons I found in a secondhand shop. I bought up old plates, smashed them in the courtyard out back, and made them into a mosaic.

My Paris was just this tiny room, and a few junk shops, and occasionally walks down the street either at night or when it was raining. This, I thought, is what Paris is all about. Remember, this city is where the peasants seized control and took over and beheaded all of the royals and the rich. It takes pride in the poor artists who have lived here in the past—all the painters, writers, poets, singers who made the bars and cafés famous. Think Les Misérables! Think Moulin Rouge! (But without the TB.) Mari lived on the streets of Paris for three years! She danced in clubs, and painted on the sidewalk, and slept wherever she could.

So this is the CHERCHE LE CAFÉ PROJECT. (I know you take French, but just in case…it means FIND THE CAFÉ.) I want you to find my café based on what I’ve told you and what you know about me.

And, of course, when you get there—have

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