Post by emiko masumi on Dec 15, 2008 19:22:26 GMT -5
Stares. It was all I saw as I walked through the hallways of Beaumont Academy. It was my first day here, and it scared me. I seemed to be the only Japanese here; everyone else was either French or English or American. I smiled at a girl who looked lonely, but she simply snickered and went off murmuring in French. My..."father" told me he sent me here to learn European culture, but I know his real reasons. Before I left with Namiko, my nurse, he came to me and said, "My child, while you are at this...this school, I would like you to broaden your...horizons. Live a little. Talk to boys. They are not all bad. And even if they are..." He drifted off here..."Look, you are an attractive young woman. Have fun with it." He finished off with a quick goodbye and closed the car door. I looked at my only friend, the woman who had raised me, and asked her what he had meant. She scoffed. "He means that he wishes you to get a boyfriend and do bad things." I gasped. It was impossible for me to even talk to boys! My nurse comforted me and told me to do as I wished. I wasn't even sure of what I wished...so for now, all that I could do was follow my father's wishes. I was trying, but so far no luck. I had no idea what I should have been doing.
The crowded hallway was very stuffy to me, and so I looked around for another place. At last, I stumbled into a beautiful room full of books. This must be the French library... I took an old book that looked good to me, called Candide[/i]. In moments I was taken into another world where I was the heroine. I wondered how my life would go, in this new place. If I would follow my father's directions. If I would find my dreams in life. If my father's wishes would become my own...I wondered what he had meant by his vague farewell...surely he could not have meant for me to get into any...real trouble, could he have? Would I even be able to? If he meant the kind of trouble I thought he did, (and I desperately hoped he didn't), I didn't think I would be able to...to...give myself over. To subject myself to what I saw as humiliation... I didn't think I would ever allow myself...But this was Paris. The City of Love & Lust. Would it become so for me? Would I be able to love what I most feared? [/size]
