The Veranda

An elderly woman has hunkered down in a rainforest retreat in order to sift through events in her life and figure out what was important. From the streets of Paris to the beaches of Cape Cod, she revisits scene after scene, admiring some more than others. In the end, what seems to matter is the jungle retreat that was supposed to be just a setting.

The Paris I knew was the most heterosexual city imaginable. It was a kind of forced indoctrination into boy-girl coupling, with people draped all over each other everywhere you went. I had no idea how to find a respectable lesbian community, or any kind of community for that matter. So, in spite of my horror of American crassness, I kept loneliness at bay by hanging out in cafes with other American students, making one coffee last an afternoon and smoking cheap Gauloises. It was a puzzle, how to make French friends. I also dated men. It was distasteful, and unfair to both them and me. The first year I fell into a liaison with Jean-Pierre, a friend of my French hostess. He was much older and had a good job and enough money to take me to nice restaurants. I hated the sex, and I’m ashamed to admit that I stayed with Jean-Pierre because it was the only way I knew to experience Europe from the inside.

Susan LaDue is a freelance writer, proofreader and editor living in central MA. Before becoming a professional writer, she was a tenured professor at the University of MA, then a human resources manager at a Fortune 100 company. She holds a Ph.D from Yale University, and has lived and worked in Paris. Susan is an unrepentant dog lover. In addition to her freelance writing business, she owns The Doggie Den, a dog daycare and grooming facility in which she was the working manager for 13 years. She still lives and writes with her dogs beside her.