Chiqui was nothing if not dramatic. It didn’t take long for us to have our first official spat. I had just had a delicious breakfast of cookies and cereal and coffee and had adorned myself in a fresh new outfit; black tank top and a blue and red patterned skirt from one of the sidewalk markets. I had packed myself a lunch for school. My make-up was done, I was running on time, I was feeling vibrant and alive and ready to flounce out the door and sashay the three miles to school. The walk back and forth was always my favorite part of the day, and I hummed as I made my way to the doorway, anticipating what poems, what songs, what marvelous daydreams might soon be dancing through my head.
I was intercepted in the hallway by Chiqui and an accompanying wave of Chanel perfume. She jangled her bracelets. She looked me up and down.
“Lunch is almost ready,” Chiqui said.
“Perdon?” I said.
I could hear the maid clattering around in the kitchen. Whatever for? Bonne was already at school, Chiqui lived on diet pills, and I rarely ate lunch at home. I had it down to a science: cookies and coffee, walk, class, picnic in the park across from school.
Chiqui went on. “Marie is preparing you a delicious stew.”
I narrowed my eyes. I’ll bet she was. Marie’s cooking was delicious- and broiled and meaty and heavy. I refused to feel full and bloated on my magical promenade.
“But I just had breakfast!” I wailed.
“Oh!” Chiqui chided. “It’s 11:30, Nina! Surely you can just have a little. We’ve even set up the table.”
Chiqui always liked to take credit for the domestic prowess of her maids. She spoke of laundry she had done, special bathroom products she had acquired, groceries she had searched high and low for, and of course, delicious meals she had prepared, all to provide us with the best possible study abroad experience.
She asked us to leave the doors to our rooms open in the morning so she could clean them. She had beamingly accepted compliments on her special gazpacho for weeks, until we found out that it was out of a box.
So when our bickering gravitated into the kitchen, and Chiqui began to look from the table to the stove-top to me with mournful eyes, I ordered myself to stand my ground.
“I’ll be late for class!” I said.
“OH!” Chiqui moaned. “The indignity! To think of the food you’re wasting. To think of the TIME I wasted in preparing this meal for you!”
A pot of water bubbled over. The maid, mixing the salad with one hand, cranked down the heat on the burner and began stirring at the pot with the other. A loud sizzling sound came from the frying pan.
“I didn’t know you were making lunch! I always pack a lunch on Tuesdays! I have to leave right now or I’m going to be LATE!” I was starting to get hysterical. My walk! My glorious walk!
“Just stay for ten minutes!” Chiqui insisted. “Your teachers will understand!”
I merely shook my head. Chiqui pulled out a chair.
“Sit!” She ordered.
“No!” I yelled. This was becoming strangely enjoyable.
Chiqui moaned again, her head in her hands, and went off in a slew of rapid Spanish. The poor maid didn’t know what to do.
Finally Chiqui straightened up tall and, with a grand flourish, swept her arm to the door.
“Fine. Go.” She said. “Get out!”
I hung my head as I made my exit.
“I’m sorry, Chiqui.” I said, turning around in the foyer. “Really I am. Next time…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she huffed, coming to loom in the entryway with one hand on the door. “You are ungrateful, and you have hurt me deeply.” She gave me one last long and disdainful look from head to toe. She stopped mid-way through, and looked down again, and her expression softened a little. She mumbled something.
"What?" I said, leaning in.
"Your skirt!" Chiqui barked. "I like your skirt!"
The last thing I saw was her smiling and the maid giggling in the kitchen as she shut the door in my face, and I took that as the end of our first spat.
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