Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood

Author:Shay Youngblood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: erotica, love, coming of age, travel, identity, africanamerican, paris
Publisher: Shay Youngblood

POET’S HELPER

In Paris all windows have a view. Everyone who lives here believes in the poetry of freshly washed skies instead of ordinary rain. The clean, damp, early morning air is sweet with the scent of fresh-baked croissants and buttery madeleines. My mouth waters as I stand before a window of baked goods imagining myself licking the sugary panes of glass until my lips are ruined by powdered sugar and stained with the fruity blood of raspberries.

My reflection in the bakery window startles me. More than a hungry mouth, I am young, black, female, with an oval face the color of baked bread, brown eyes recording the newness of my first month in Paris, full lips asking for directions in broken French, and a proud nose registering the perfume in the air. My demeanor is pleasant. I have been taught to smile and be gracious in most circumstances. My hair, cut close to the scalp, is covered by a mustard-colored felt hat found in the métro. My body is womanly. I am wearing a long-sleeved, knee-length blue sundress, which is covered by my heavy coat from the flea market. I do not feel particularly American, but any Frenchman can tell because I am wearing white socks and black leather running shoes and carrying a black canvas backpack slung over my right shoulder like an ordinary tourist.

I am traveling east on a sidewalk in a quiet neighborhood swept clean before dawn by North Africans in fluorescent green jumpsuits who speak to each other in Arabic and African languages and who punctuate their musical conversations by spitting into the gutter. My destination is the apartment of the poet Elizabeth,

where I work as her helper after I walk the twins to school and before I pick them up in the afternoon. The poet Elizabeth has so little imagination she thinks I steal from her. She thinks that I am trying to poison her, she thinks I hate her. In her imagination I am a heartless monster trying to devour her, an evil witch casting spells on her, an anxious beggar waiting for a taste of her bones.

Once I bought a golden square of creamy flan with change left over from a trip to the market, but she is stingy and doesn't want to pay me what I am worth. My people have a history of service to her people. Even here in Paris, thousands of miles from home and years after slavery has been officially abolished, I cannot escape her expectation that gratitude be married to servitude. Her skin is pale and privileged, mine is brown and sweaty from labor in her house. I am not thankful. Not even a little.

Once I put too much salt in the fish. An honest mistake. I do admit, the truth is this, sometimes I hate her so much that I think of little ways to hurt her, but I never do. I wait on her hand and foot, like a slave. She said to me once

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