Genevieve, Part 1
Oct 24 '02
The Bottom Line Well, due to (somewhat) popular demand, here's another story.. written about a year earlier than the previous one.
Genevieve
It was a Thursday evening, very late. The night air became increasingly frigid; the third week of January, and the first true month of the winter season. The days of wet snow and blistering wind grew common.
A young woman named Genevieve shudders as she walks across the sloppy terrain of the winter-ravaged parking lot. Genevieve was twenty-three, gliding into the dreaded workforce with this call-centre job. Maybe not quite where she dreamed of being, but for now, it helped to pay the bills. At this moment, the clock was slightly past 12:30 AM, and her shift at the call-centre was complete. Home was where she was about to go.
She entered her car and turned the key. Her car was a difficult beast to co-operate with, especially during this type of evening; if Gen were to shift to drive immediately upon the turning of the key, the car would stall. As a consequence, Gen would have to shudder a bit longer, while her used vehicle grudgingly brought warmth to the inside.
Sometimes her radio would be turned to the local pop station, or oldies station, or what have you. Occasionally, when the empty repetitive banter of deejays and commericals drove her nuts, she'd bring along a CD for the ride. Tonight was one of those special nights. Her CD of choice this week was a Celine Dion disc, but in French. It was one of the older albums she had made when she was famous in Quebec but not anywhere else. Back then, few would have predicted that she'd be one of the more popular people in the world.
There were a lot of French CD's in the glove compartment, resting up for the next trip inside the CD player. Occassionally, an English artist would storm into the unilingual gathering, jarring the proceedings with less elegant language and imagery. Comments like these in our narration should not imply that there is something wrong with English, but it does imply the true nature of Gen's music collection. Sharp-tounged rap artists shared the coveted space with the classy French artists.
She moved the car into reverse and pulled out of her coveted parking space, breathing a sigh of relief that the car did not stall on her, and she'd have to start the car yet again. The tires crushed the crystalized snow, and slithered gently over the glassy ice. Soon she was on the road, which was as treacherous on wheels as the parking lot was on foot. Celine's voice skipped and jumped due to the beating of the potholes and ice-chunks beneath the car. The tires valiantly endeavoured to remain on the thin tracks made by countless other tires during the evening, but, more often than not, they were caught in the thin film of snow created during the past two or three hours. Gen rarely had to deal with slippery conditions when she was in the West Coast. But ever since she moved here two years ago, she slowly became resigned to the fact of the bitter conditions affecting regular citizens in the winter. For them, harsh wind, wet snow, and tiny tracks on the road were taken for granted, and it was more of a shock to them when winters were warmer than usual, rather than colder.
A second-floor apartment, on the other side of town, was her home, but it was more like a furnished icebox. When she entered, she was still wearing her sweater, and yet chills still crawled over her arms and sides. Nothing could be done about it. Not tonight, at least.
"It's not going to get any better tonight, babe.", her roommate snarled. "The heater's on the fritz again, the stupid landlord...."
Gen rubbed her hands vainly, craving for any slither of heat. Renee was much more vocal about the lack of warmth, and more willing to make idle threats.
"You know, if I had a better job, and....", she smiled to Gen, "...if you weren't such a great friend, I`d move to another apartment!"
"But you love it here. And you know that they are always hiring new people at the call centre.", she says without much conviction, already knowing Renee`s response.
"But the bookstore needs me! I can't abandon them.... it's not exactly Chapters, it's the local independent store. It needs all the help they can get.... and I love everyone there.", praised Renee, the devoted, principled, employee.
"Anyway, I'm tired; I'll see you in the morning, okay.", Gen said attentively.
She walked into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her before getting undressed to crawl under the covers. Gen said that she was tired, but sleep didn't always come quickly to her. Most nights, she would just lie in the bed, stare at the ceiling, think about random things. She would extract anything from her memories, and allow her mind to proceed with its own inexplicable logic.
*
.........Genevieve.
Her name, given to her at birth, of course, somewhere in the endless stretch of the city of Vancouver. Her childhood was imperfect, like everybody's, even if they do not like to admit to it.
Her parents, her French father and her English mother, divorced while she was young, and she and her sister, Catherine, had very different takes on the situation. Gen related in relatively positive ways to both the remaining mother and the absent father, but Catherine could not stand her father at all. Before Catherine's adolescence, she gave him the silent treatment, but once she grew older and more temperamental, like any teenager, she became the aggressor, lashing out at his miserly attempts at fathering.
"What gives you the right to boss me around and tell me what you expect of me.... when you are not even living in this house?" was the argument she always gave, in one form or another. All he did was name her, and then leave, so why should he wonder at why she did not act up to his selfish standards? Catherine rarely gave him much attention, and often disobeyed him. Gen took a while to adjust, but after awhile, was able to keep her emotions in check, and was able to find good times with both parents.
It may be clear from these facts that Catherine developed into a wild child, while Gen remained as she always had been; quiet and reflective, perhaps too much so. Her little sister was willing to test the boundaries of responsibility. One of her friends had persuaded her to assist in the act of shoplifting. Catherine took the fall, which came back to haunt her repeatedly when she would often get into trouble, as if she didn't believe she could act any differently.
As Gen grew older, she became curious, as some children are, about why and how their parents got together, what they did, and so on. Gen found herself much more comfortable asking her mother such private queries.....
"We went out for a few years before we married.", her mother stating the obvious. "We had some good times back then --- ". Her voice failed. ".....anyway, we did everything that all us teenyboppers would do. Restaurants, malls, the drive-in.....nothing really exciting or glamourous."
"What movies did you see? Probably a bunch of old fogies!", she smirked.
"Hey!", gently chastening her. "They weren't elderly back then! John Travolta was actually a hot star..... but we didn't always go to the Hollywood movies. We went to a lot of French movies as well - a couple of the small theatres played a lot of older movies and such."
"But how could you understand them? You didn't know French very well back then, did you?"
"All of the movies had subtitles anyway. But it didn't matter.... I just liked being there with him. I was transported into such a different world. People spoke differently, acted differently..... even the images struck me. It was such an odd texture, a strange impression on the brain."
Gen tried to imagine what those films looked like. She had vague impressions of Parisian scenery, exotic fashions, romance, but nothing specific.
"Anyway,", her mother continued. "...that's why you and Catherine have the names that you do. I wanted to name you after the French actresses I've seen. You came along first, and I knew that you'd be named after Genevieve Bujoud. It was a gorgeous name, very unique. Nobody else would have that name, and you'd be a very special girl."
Gen cringed at the whole idea of being unique. Teens don't want to be singled out, they want to be led by the nose to the conformist slaughter.
"And when your sister was born, I had to pick another actress to inspire me - and Catherine Deneve came to me. She was always very beautiful, verycold and serious, all at once." She allowed herself a shrewd grin. "My Catherine is beautiful, absolutely, although I don't think she is very restrained......"
"She tries, but she's very emotional...", Gen agreed.
"You're more like my idea of Catherine than the girl who got the name!", she declared. "I know that you'll grow up to be successful, and you'll certainly be able to keep everything together...."
*
Gen did remember tuning in to a film with Bujoud. Isabel; it was very weird. She caught the tail end of it one sluggish autumn afternoon on Bravo!, and at first thought, it didn't impress her. The print was dingy, and dark, and the film was obviously low-budget. But what she saw ended up haunting her for some reason.
All she really could remember was that it took place in some Canadian town, and that the ending, the part she saw, was fairly violent. The lead was about to be gang-raped, until her knight in shining armour, she supposed, came in and fought off the three men. He was knocked about, but at least he got rid of the men, and she was grateful. Gen didn`t remember much of the ensuing dialogue, but the images remained, pestering her memory, even as she tried to say that Isabel would not have been a good movie had she watched all of it. The last shots: sinister faces moving toward her. We see things from her point of view. They approach as if to kiss her..... or to maul her?.... juxtaposed with her and her boyfriend making out, as the credits silently plaster themselves upon the screen. Gen needed more info. She had to know where those images came from; what the cause of those strange images were. But when she researched on the Internet, she found nothing of merit. The film was lost, even though it was a Paramount release, and not extremely old.
Did Gen see the film at all, or was it another one of her lazy nights where she stared at the ceiling, dreaming the night away?
*
"I guess..... I realized that life isn't the movies, even French movies. Well, I doubt that's really why we separated...... divorced."
Gen's mother paused after saying this to her daughter. Perhaps she was giving Gen a bit of a lesson, unknowingly, on how a proper relationship ought to be, and what it could very well become, if the partners focussed on the ideal rather than the real.
"It.... just wasn't meant to be. Just because a man gives you culture, a new way of speaking, an interesting view of the world.... doesn't mean that he knows you, or appreciates you as a full human being."
"So..... does that mean you'd never watch those movies anymore if I were to want you to watch them with me someday?"
"No.... it's not that bad. I`d still watch them if I had the chance. I just don't have to be a slave to it any longer. That was..... the problem with your dad. He wanted me to be French... which was impossible! I wasn't even born French, so how could I be it. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a brute. He was just very insistent. He demanded that you girls went to French immersion, and learn the language. He wanted French to be spoken at the table. He wanted to keep the culture alive, even if it was just in our little house." She sounded nearly apologetic of his actions, or perhaps it was humbled. "But... he didn't really love me as I was, only as he wanted me to be......"
*
The next night was only slightly more improved than the previous. The roads were still covered in snow, but the tires did not slip. It was much easier to reach the desired speed limit.
Gen went to her job with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Dealing with the public was a troubling beast; she felt ill-equipped to handle the demands somedays, and other days she had to try very hard to push those feelings away. As she entered the building, she passed her friend Tisha speaking to Frank, somebody she knew from work but not all that well. Their conversation seemed pretty intense, but Gen was not in the business of inquisition. Besides, she was focussed on her job; the mental weight of this experience was enough to make her forget about the other events of the world. It had been so long since she had time for frivolous things....
.......first call.
*
Voices filled the large room, all with intentions of assisting strangers from god-knows-where with pertinent information. Gen, Tisha, Frank, many others, fielded many requests, from renewal and cancellations of subscriptions, to the payment of bills, to singular items which only the stranger can truly understand, despite much attempts to get the meaning through to the assistant.
Gen had been on the job for four hours today, and needed to fill her belly. Yet she was not asked to leave her post, and had to pick up the receiver yet again.....
"Hello, Customer assistance."
"Hi, I was wanting to cancel my subscription."
"Yes, we can do that for you...", why would they bother subscribing if all they were going to do was abandon the title four months later? But the customer was always correct, so no asking petty questions like that.
"So, where are you from, dear?"
Her eyes blinked at the bluntness and unexpectedness of this question, from a complete stranger. What would she gain from acquiring such information.
"Ah...... from Vancouver, actually.", she grudgingly began. "I moved here to Prince Edward Island a few years ago."
"Oh..... because I detected a slight bit of francais in your voice.", she suspected.
Really? She never really thought her accent had any French. She learned French, mainly at home, true, and was bilingual, but she didn't really see herself as une femme de la francaise.
The stranger asked more questions. "So what's your name, again?"
"Gen..." Gen? "Well, it's Genevieve, actually. Everybody just calls me Gen."
"What a sweet name... Genevieve sounds much better."
"Thanks. Mom named me after Genevieve Bujoud." Gen thought it odd to reveal all this to a faceless customer.
"She must be a fan of French movies, then...."
Gen noticed, as the stranger spoke of people she knew who were French, qualifying her for knowledge of the French accent, that the computer had completed its process, and successfully cancelled her subscription.
"Well, the job is done. You're no longer on the list, so nobody should bug you anymore!", she joked.
"Thanks, dear, I won't take up any more of your time. Bye-bye."
"Bye...."
Gen thought about that name. Gen. The term was easy to use. Everybody remembered it, and it bounced easily off the tongue. But was it truly the name that she ought to call herself, being a French girl and all......?
"Gen....?"
She was lost somewhere in the recesses of herself.
"Gen....?!"
"Oh..... hi, Tish?", still perplexed.
"The voices must be ringing in your head again!", Tisha jibed. "How about a much-needed coffee break?"
"I supposed I can be persuaded.", she agreed fondly.
"Good..... I have an offer you ought not to pass up!"
*
"So, have any plans for the weekend?", Tisha asked, pouring her cream into the coffee cup.
"No, I've had too many hours this week, so....I'm too strung out to go and party..", she grinned.
"Too bad.... because I fixed you up with a date!", she moaned mockingly.
Gen was stunned. "Not a blind date, now?! With who?"
"Frank, actually." Gen's face relaxed somewhat at the knowledge that the guy was a known commodity. "He talked about you.... and he wondered if you were free at all.....", hinting not so subtly as to the definition of free.
"So as to talk my ear off, I suppose.", she smirked.
"Well, you can talk his ear off... you can say all the things you wish you could tell those who call you.", she attempted to reassure her.
Gen looked down at her half-filled cup. A date would be a good thing; she had been too anti-social, lately. "Frank's a pretty good guy...... I think I could go with him."
"I hope that you don't mind. I just thought it'd be a good idea.", Tisha said candidly. "If you hit it off, perhaps we should all go out one night."
"Well, let me talk to him, Tisha.", Gen declared. "I don't think you have to do all of our dirty work!"
Part 2
http://www.epinions.com/content_2926813316
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Epinions.com ID:
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Member: David Macdonald
Location: Prince Edward Island
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About Me:
Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
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