1


The Umbrellas of San Francisco
Aunt Theodora isn't our real aunt, though. She's just this older woman who Mom got to know in Paris and has been friends with ever since. Aunt Theodora has lived the whole world over—we get postcards and letters postmarked from New York or Paris or Budapest or Rome—but she was born in Boston to one of those old families that had something to do with founding the country way back. Her full name is Theodora Wentworth Whitin Bell, and I guess in Boston all those names are supposed to be a big deal. I don't know about that; I just know I like the sounds of them. Theodora. Wentworth. Whitin. Bell.
Aunt Theo is old-fashioned, and proud of it. She doesn't do e-mail. She rarely does the phone. She doesn't do a lot of things, but she does do letters. Not predictable birthday and Christmas cards with tidy little checks like what other older relatives send you. And never cards from the drugstore with a vase of flowers on the front and cute sayings inside. No, just letters, arriving out of the blue on a random crummy day and giving you a little lift. I always look forward to them. Val says: "Didn't Aunt Theodora get the memo that nobody sends letters anymore?"
The only time Val and I ever send letters is when Mom makes us write thank-you notes after we get presents on Christmas and our birthdays. But still, I like getting letters even though I don't send them that often. Letters are special, and especially Aunt Theo's.
Valentine was born in Paris and nobody knows who her father is. She has copper curls and violet eyes. Mom says not to call them violet, just dark blue. But that's because Mom has the same eyes and she's too modest to call them violet, which sounds so dramatic. Violet is one of my favorite words.
When Mom was a young woman, she moved to Paris after graduate school and worked for some famous Italian architect. His big thing was designing opera houses around the world. Everybody used to say she looked just like Elizabeth Taylor, that old actress with the violet eyes and all the ex-husbands.
It's so unfair. Valentine's name is French, and mine is only English. Mom likes for people to pronounce Valentine in the French fashion, so the last syllable rhymes with lean rather than line. Say it to yourself: Valentine. Oh, it's another lovely sounding word. I should tell you right away though that Mom isn't of French heritage or anything like that, just a Francophile, she says. We go to French school, where pronouncing Valentine's name right is not a problem, and where some of our classmates are named things like Isabelle, Thérèse, and Celeste. But outside of school, people get it wrong, even though Mom has this stern way of saying "And this is my daughter Valentine" with an emphasis on the last syllable. Actually, though, she only started going by Valentine recently. It used to be that everybody but Mom called her Val, which I think still suits her much better, but don't tell her that. Mom always insisted on the full name because that way you can tell it's French. Her eyes used to just snap whenever a new person addressed Valentine as Val instead.
Mom's eyes can really snap because, just like Elizabeth Taylor, she also has these dramatic, satiny black eyebrows. I wish I had them too, but so far, there is nothing too dramatic to report about me. Mom always says I have chestnut hair but I know I don't. I know it's just plain mousy. And it's straight. I know some girls like straight hair these days, but I think curly is much prettier. Val can put her hair up in this big twist with the curls slipping out up front, and it's so pretty. She knows it too! She'll practice sweeping up her hair in front of the mirror when she thinks I'm not looking.
I was born three years after Val in San Francisco, and my father is Val's stepfather; he adopted her so now we all have the same last name. Well anyway, Mom and Dad got married when Val was so young, he might just as well be her real father. Dad works in real estate and is big on the opera. He's the type of father who's always trying to educate you at the dinner table. Sometimes I get the feeling Mom is kind of bored with him, but maybe that's just what marriage is like. But he's very nice to us and pays for the fancy school we go to. Mom is an architect who designs wineries in Napa Valley. We live in one of those Victorian houses with all the crazy colors in Pacific Heights. Peacock-blue door, rose trim on the windows. That's where I was born. A home birth, Mom always says, like it was this really great thing.
Valentine was born in a hospital somewhere in Paris and Mom was all alone. But that's another story.
When we were little, Mom used to tell us stories of her life in Paris as a young woman, and then she would break off in the middle and sigh.
The mystery of who Val's father might have been was the only thing in our lives that was the least bit romantic. When Mom and Dad weren't there, we talked about him all the time. The story of the circumstances surrounding Valentine's birth was like a favorite story we'd listen to again and again at bedtime, changing certain details to suit our mood. Sometimes her father was a penniless artist in a garret. Other times we wanted him to be wildly rich and own a chateau stocked with the most fabulous wine cellar. Not that we drink wine—yet.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Valentine and I are both really into singing. Mom and Dad saw to it that we took lessons, though we like to sing just about anything really, silly songs and new songs too. We sing in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. On rainy days when we were little Mom would always play an old record of the sound track to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg—Les Parapluies de Cherbourg—and make us sing along. That's our favorite movie because the songs are in French and it has all of these crazy bright colors; you could just eat it up, that movie's so yummy-looking. One day Valentine stopped singing and asked:
"Is that what it's like?"
"What?" said Mom.
"Being in love."
And Mom sighed and said, "No, not really."
The day Aunt Theo's invitation arrived it was a Saturday morning and we were eating breakfast. During the week, we always eat breakfast in the kitchen, and Dad's so busy that by the time Val and I get up he's already at work. But on Saturdays and Sundays we all sit at the dining room table with the French paperweights on it. Dad makes our favorite breakfast, which is Nutella crepes and fresh-squeezed tangerine juice. Mom and Dad drink coffee, of course, which I would love to drink too (with plenty of sugar!), but we're only ever allowed to drink it when we're in Europe. Because I guess in Europe anything can happen.
Mom held up the mystery letter and said, "Girls, who do you think this is from?"
"Who?" I asked, looking at the letter. Val wasn't paying the least bit attention. She was too busy spreading her crepe with gobs and gobs of Nutella. I put just a neat layer of Nutella and fold the crepe and sprinkle it with powdered sugar. Val puts powdered sugar, plus she squeezes a tangerine over it so the juices are all running.
But as soon as I glanced at the envelope, I guessed who it was from. Aunt Theo's handwriting is inky and dramatic, like Mom's eyebrows. She always has the most gorgeous stationery, heavy, with hand-cut scalloped edges. I think it's always the same brand of stationery, French stationery, but she uses different colors. It's never girly or happy colors with Aunt Theo, never those wonderful candy-box colors like they have in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It's always rich, sorrowful colors, deep purples, coffee browns, dusty reds. They're a woman's colors.
"I have a question," I said. "Why, if Aunt Theo's such a big traveler, doesn't she ever come and visit us?"
"Oh, but she hates Northern California," said Mom, laughing. "It's one of her positions in life. Hating Northern California."
"But we're here," I protested.
"Theodora Bell is a woman of inflexible principles, Franny," Dad said.
Then Val made a good point: "But that doesn't make any sense. I thought most East Coast people even if they disliked California still liked Northern California. I mean, everybody loves San Francisco."
"Valentine! Theodora Bell is not everybody."
"Oh, please," said Val, with a roll of violet eyes. And she went back to eating her crepe. Which meant that I got to read the letter first.
"Oh my God, this is so exciting!" I announced.
"What is?" said Val, finally paying attention. And when she got to the end of the letter, she too said right away: "Oh my God, Franny's right. This is so exciting!"
"What is?" Mom wanted to know.
"New York City!" Val burst out.
"New York City?" said Mom.
"New York City?" said Dad.
So then he took the letter from Val, and Mom read it over his shoulder, like couples do.
"Well," she said afterward, "that's Theo all over. I suppose you're dying to go?"
"Now, now—" Dad began, in the voice that means: not so fast.
"Oh, Edward, but Theo's arranged it so perfectly," said Mom. "They're going to have a chaperone. And we've met Clover before. In Paris once, don't you remember?"
"I remember," said Dad.
"Clover Leslie is a lovely young woman and I'm sure she'll be a most responsible chaperone," said Mom. "I feel all right sending the girls away if they'll be staying with somebody we know. You thought she was lovely, Edward, remember. Remember," she kept on saying, really begging him to let us go.
Meanwhile, Valentine was getting carried away, as if our parents had already said we could go, no questions asked.
"New York City!" exclaimed Valentine. "New York City! An apartment in the Village! Oh, just wait till I tell my friends. They're going to be sooo jealous."
"Valentine," began Mom, to admonish her for being bratty.
But Valentine didn't listen. Instead she leaned over and whispered into my ear, "There will be cute boys there," and I started to feel a little bit left out because I could already imagine a whole summer ahead of us in which she would be more excited about meeting cute boys in New York City than hanging out with me.
"Well, Edward?" said Mom. "What do you think?" It was clear that she already had decided to let us go, but then Mom can be kind of a pushover. Still, I could tell that she really did want us to get to go, because she said: "Remember, Theodora Bell was such a great influence on me when I was a young woman, and I'd love for her to be an influence on the girls' life too. Also"—she reached for the letter across the table and skimmed it again—"it says that she'll be joining Clover in New York the middle of August. So, she'll be there too! The girls will get to meet her."
By the end of breakfast, we'd all convinced Dad to say yes. I think it was the idea of us having a chaperone for part of the time that sold him. He remarked that Aunt Theo's unusual proposal sounded like a very "educational" experiment. And Mom said: "Girls, it will be a summer to remember all your life."


Text copyright © 2014 by Charlotte Silver