Forlorn
Caroline and Francine immediately understood what Amira meant. Sylvain was indeed delicate. His face was full of loss, although a cheerful twinkle pierced his naturally forlorn expression each time they met.
Sylvain
“From what little I know of Sylvain, he is an extraordinarily delicate man,” Amira told them. “He learned from his father, who was a forger for the Resistance. Sylvain came to Los Angeles the same as the Egyptians when Nasser came to power. If there is a more...
Fridays
On Fridays Amira, Caroline and Francine drove downtown and dropped the passports off with Sylvain. His photography studio on Figueroa Street had been in business since 1952. Sylvain paid Amira a thousand dollars apiece. Amira was handed back passports in progress,...
Amira Fell
Amira fell into a routine that allowed her, with little or no self-imposed pressure, to create the frameworks of 49 passports a week for a man she knew only as Sylvain. She worked at the kitchen table, turning them out in batches of seven. Her favorite countries to...
Ramon
They knew him as Ramon. He sent two of his men up to Los Angeles every day and each drove a car Caroline or Francine had stolen back to Tijuana. That wasn’t enough to unclog the bottleneck. Within a week, four cars headed south every day.
In From Marseilles
Francine’s mother was tempted to pay a visit to Los Angeles but thought the better of it and stayed put in Marseilles. She emailed back an introduction to a man in Tijuana she had once worked with, who, it turned out, would be pleased to buy all the cars Francine and...
The Rarest Of Teachers
Caroline found Francine to be the rarest of teachers, one who stitched together the finer points of an exercise with its broader objectives in a way that appeared natural, even anticipated. Francine saw in Caroline the rarest of students, a tempered thirst for...
Vaguely Drawn Into A Study
Only vaguely could he imagine being drawn into reading this study. Detached researchers could only hunt and peck. Rarely would they cross over wretched waters to the essential questions. Would a marriage be more likely to dissolve if a child’s death was sudden and...
Father
Caroline’s father figured that somewhere a study had been published on the impact of a death of a child, how the loss sears the family and ultimately scorches its once sturdy framework.
The Cheltenham Ladies College
Six years of boarding school at the Cheltenham Ladies College did nothing to lure Caroline into British ways. The opposite unfolded. Each passing day intensified her yearning to be back in the States.
Francine
Francine, the girl from Corsica, took Caroline out every day and taught her how to steal cars. At night, in the spare bedroom of their house in Silver Lake, Amira taught them the finer points of forgery.
In A Parking Lot
In a parking lot in Glendale, Caroline and Francine left the cars they had stolen. They had no idea what to do with them so Francine emailed her mother for advice.
Graduated
Somehow she was graduated and flew home to Los Angeles. A week later, Caroline was joined by her two friends from Cheltenham, the girl from the Emirates whose father was still in prison for forging financial documents and the Corsican girl whose parents continued to...
Unwound Again In The Stadium
They couldn’t hear her coming, She was making too much noise. Soaring past the goalposts, Taunting all the boys.
The Mythology Of New Friends
Her two new friends pressed Caroline to tell them stories of California, whose mythology was already embedded in their minds. They soon came to realize that the myths they were so tightly drawn to were actually incorrigible truths.
Caroline
Caroline soon befriended a quiet girl with impossibly large emerald eyes from the Emirates. Her father was in a British prison for forging financial documents. The two of them soon took up with a Corsican girl whose parents, they learned one night when the three of...
Outcast
She was quickly branded as an unsophisticated outcast. There was nothing for Caroline to do but take pride in her new identity. This was not because she was an American. There were other girls from the States she considered as condescending and spineless as the...
Dulwich
When her parents left Dulwich for Southern France, they moved Caroline to a boarding school. Under different circumstances, The Cheltenham Ladies College may have proven satisfactory, but a cruel collection of frictions soon surfaced.
