Frida Rodriguez ... En Route
October 2, 1991
Paris, France
Bonjour Puget Sound Book Company!
Greetings from my midnight view at Hôtel La Louisiane. Ivory moonlight glinting off zinc rooftops. An autumn chill in the air and me at my desk - cocooned in a baggy sweater à la Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago - as I continue to hunt for a book. Naturally! Why else would I be writing to you? I spent the whole day with my new pal Kirby scouring the City of Lights. Of course we hit the venerable Shakespeare and Company and gave Village Voice a chance and the bookstalls too - only to discover that this magnifique metropolis is awash in macho old Hemingway but good luck finding his better half.
I need Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War!
Normally I'd order from my beloved Vroman's in L.A. but Kirby won our contest for finding to-die-for moules marinières. Now I have to do something he tells me to do and he's telling me to order Martha from you - we've been debating bookstores for almost a week and he claims you're #1. He's from Seattle - clearly biased - no offense. That said, I'm a card-carrying bookstore addict and I intend to try as many as I can before I die. I've been keeping a list since I was six and I can't wait to add you to it.
I'm enclosing a traveler's check. It should be enough to splurge for air mail. See address below.
Thank you and au revoir!
Frida Rodriguez
Hôtel La Louisiane
60 rue de Seine
75006 Paris, France
P.S. Sorry about the splotches. My éclair sprung a leak!
The Puget Sound Book Company
101 South Main Street Seattle, WA 98104
10/14/91
Dear Frida,
My name is Kate Fair. I'm not the one who opened your letter, but I was told I'm the only person here who's perky enough to respond to you. It's not midnight (the store closes at eleven), and I don't have romantic rooftop views, but it's nice here at night, too. I'm at the information desk, which is actually two big old desks facing each other on a low platform in the middle of the store. When it gets really quiet like now, it feels like I walked through the wardrobe into Narnia, but instead of magical creatures I find magical books in big quiet caverns with creaking wood floors and soaring brick ceilings. It smells homey like my Bumpa's trailer because there's a café in the basement with coffee brewing all the time. We can have as much as we want for free.
Confession: When The Face of War arrived I was just going to peek at the first few pages, but I couldn't put it down. Talk about awesome eye-opening. My brain is jittering with wars I've never even heard about. I was careful, but I guess it's technically a used book now. I gave you my employee discount to make up for it and hopefully keep the store from losing #1 status with your friend Kirby.
How awesome exciting to live in Paris. When I was in junior high I had a poster of the Eiffel Tower on my wall. I planned to live in a garret in Montmartre. Obviously that didn't happen. How did you end up in France? Where are you en route to? How many moules marinières did you have to eat to find to-die-for? How many bookstores have you been to? (I'm a bookstore addict, too. I just looked up Shakespeare and Company in a Time Out guidebook in our travel section and added it to my wish list.) Sorry for all the questions. I hope you don't mind. If you do, don't feel like you have to answer.
If you need more books, I promise I won't read them first. Your credit is on your receipt.
Sincerely,
Kate
Frida Rodriguez ... En Route
October 30, 1991
Paris, France
Bonjour Perky Kate!
I come to you once again from midnight and my rooftop view. Sometimes I still can't believe I'm in Paris - that's why I end up wide awake half the night waiting for dawn so I can go out and make more discoveries. It's not like L.A. where you need a car to go everywhere - it's fun to walk here. Today Kirby and I accidentally stumbled on one of those risqué art films at Le Champo - no need for subtitles there! - followed by overindulgence at a kebab shop in the Saint-Michel district. And the Metro! It's like the transporter in Star Trek - beam me to the Moulin Rouge, Scotty! Tomorrow we're going to decide whether or not we approve of the Louvre Pyramid and the Centre Pompidou.
Merci for the book and the discount - no biggie about reading Martha before you sent her. I'm sitting here on my bed with a croissant and a glass of Beaujolais and I've already spilled wine on the cover and there's butter soaked through the introduction. No one does butter like the French - parfait!
So what's Frida Rodriguez doing in Paris besides not sleeping? She's en route to her future! It started last year when I read that Time article about twentysomethings. The part about mass apathy got to me and when that writer called us the New Petulants I had an epiphany. Not even twenty-five and I was on my fourth writing job - and I'd whined about every one of them! Even worse, the aforementioned fourth job was with West Coast Commerce disguising advertorials as financial news. I blame that one on my fleeting Ayn Rand phase in college. By the way - "Greed is good" is the stupidest thing a person can say!
Anyway I'm thinking - seriously Frida! Why'd you even bother getting a journalism degree? That's when it hit me. Get out of L.A. and pursue my dream of writing something meaningful. So I saved up my money and came to Paris - just like Martha back in her day - to see the world and be close to all the history in the making around here. Is this letter sounding like the unabridged version of a personal ad in the back of the L.A. Times? Single brownish-whitish girl, nonsmoking, loves kebabs and long walks on the beach, tired of yuppies and New Petulance and wants to do something of consequence before she wakes up one day and she's thirty and it's too late!
How's that for a slapdash answer to your questions? My problem is I can type on my mom's old très chic portable Hermes Rocket faster than I can think. Well one of my problems. To spend that credit - what are you reading right now that you absolutely LOVE? Surprise me! I play this game with my dad when we go to bookstores. We tell them a little about ourselves and then rate the store by the surprise.
Au revoir!
Frida
P.S. Nothing wrong with being Perky Peggy. I'll take it over Gloomy Gertie any day.
P.S. Deux. Adding Paris, I've been to thirty-six different bookstores in my life so far, mostly in L.A. and Mexico.
P.S. Trois. I almost forgot to explain the moules marinières competition. Fellow American Kirby Olsson is on an exchange from the University of Washington at l'École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-Belleville - how's that for a mouthful! He lives here at the hotel too and I discovered he's a Fellow Glutton. I told him about some disappointing moules marinières I had and he said he heard where to get good ones but it turned out they were just decent and that set off our contest. We each chose five restaurants and may the best moules marinières win! Kirby hit on to-die-for at Chez Lisette - a cozy bistro a few blocks from the hotel with a view of the Seine to boot - and that is how I wound up ordering Martha from his favorite bookstore. You're officially added to my list but I'll wait to rate you until I receive my surprise. No pressure!
The Puget Sound Book Company
101 South Main Street - Seattle, WA 98101
11/15/91
Dear Frida,
Paris sounds awesome divine. I totally admire you for following your dream. I'm pretty much trying to do that, too. My dad and I have a thing for bookstores like you and your dad, and when I was growing up he'd do these special daughter days for my little sis, Franny, and me. Every year we got to come to Seattle with him by ourselves for a Seahawks game. Before heading to the Kingdome we'd walk around Pioneer Square. We always visited this one little bookshop. I remember thinking how awesome incredible it would be to work there someday. The little bookshop grew up, and guess what? I'm working in it right now.
Not that it feels like work. I love it, especially when I manage to help a customer find what they want. A little while ago a man came up, and this is how he described the book he was looking for. "It has bright colors on the cover, and I think the word betrayal is in the title, or maybe not, but it's about South Africa or maybe South America." That's why I spend so much time browsing covers and titles in different sections. This kind of thing happens a lot. It was my own private victory to figure out he wanted My Traitor's Heart.
Confession: When I asked you about the moules marinières competition, I didn't know what moules marinières were. I went up to Campagne (this French restaurant in Pike Place Market) to see if I could try them, and when asked about them, I was totally embarrassed. Moules are mussels. I should know that because (a) I took two years of French in high school and (b) Seattle serves more than its fair share of mussels. The restaurant was way too Thurston Howell the 3rd too lavish for an impoverished bookseller, so I walked down to Ivar's and got my favorite fried clam strips and chips. I sat on the pier and watched the ferries glide out to the islands. People think it's just rain and gray skies in Seattle, but we get these flawless days. The bay was dark blue satin, and whitecaps danced with silver sunlight. In the distance, the Olympic Mountains looked like glaciers floating in the sky. It was parfait, as you say.
I've been agonizing over your surprise. There are so many books to choose from, and what if I totally blow it? I finally picked Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. (It's fiction. I hope you're okay with that.) It's so exceptional I gave myself a goal to hand-sell a hundred copies in a single month. Last month I sold eighty-nine. Now I've already sold sixty-eight and it's only halfway through November. Selling you a copy gets me closer, but that's not why I picked it. The main character, Claudia, is a war correspondent in Egypt during WWII, and the book is about how she reflects back on her life. I thought you'd like that. Plus it made my brain jitter. (My brain jitters a lot these days.) All those different points of view. I mean, who knew you could switch back and forth between first person and third person for the same character? Not me when I wrote my novel.
Sincerely,
Kate
P.S. How long did it take you to save up enough money to live in Paris?
Frida Rodriguez ... En Route
November 26, 1991
Paris, France
Perky Kate,
It's not midnight and I'm not in my hotel room. What better place to finish reading Martha Gellhorn than a window seat at the storied and oh so literary Café de Flore while sipping chocolat chaud poured out of a little silver teapot to keep the cold at bay? Martha is my new heroine! How did she write with a clear head about such grim situations? When I got to the section about Dachau I cried. Do you think Martha ever cried? I'm trying to figure out how she makes you feel the horror you're supposed to feel about things like that without her own emotions spilling all over the place. That's great journalism!
Friends from school say I should do TV news because I have such a big personality but I think it's the words that will last. I'm reading Martha's words all these years later in the very café where she once sat and they're still an emotional gut punch. People aren't going to dig back through old videocassettes to watch CNN clips about Desert Storm. How would they even do it? But words - wordswordswords - wow! Do you see that? The pen and the sword!
I socked away money for almost a year but unfortunately not enough to live here and indulge in cheese daily without working. I have a part-time job cleaning up English documents for a translation company. Not ideal but my choices were limited through the visa program I used. At least they pay by the project - they weren't prepared for how fast I can type - between that and my savings I can afford to base myself here. So much is happening in this part of the world. Berlin's reunited, the Soviet Union's breaking up, Yugoslavia's heating up. I'm trying to learn as much as possible while I figure out a way to get someone to hire me to cover one of the wars that keep breaking out.
Wow! Did you soak your stationery in truth serum? Besides Kirby you're the first person I've told why I'm really here. My parents think I'm taking a break to eat Camembert and soul search and I don't want any of my old friends accidentally mentioning it to them - no need for parental freak-outs until I'm actually in a war zone. They're taking it hard enough that I'm staying here for Christmas but if my plan works out there will be times when I'm in the thick of it and can't come home so I figure this is good practice even if they don't know it. I was worried I'd be lonely spending the holidays away even though I'm the independent type but Kirby said he'll take me to the Christmas markets. We plan to drink buckets of vin chaud and gorge on local delicacies. No roasted chestnuts for me - grainy mush nuggets - but the French make a crème caramel that will knock your socks off and I can't get enough raclette. Whoever came up with the idea of scraping melted cheese over bread and salami should be given a Nobel. I hope it snows!
I'm sending another traveler's check. Keep the War Journo Dames coming and I'll take another book you LOVE. Bravo on the surprise! Boy oh boy did Moon Tiger speak to me. It's like you knew exactly what I need to read right now. I love how the main character Claudia is her own woman. She doesn't second-guess herself or do anything because she thinks other people think she should. And when she said "I've grown old with this century; there's not much left of either of us. The century of war. All history, of course, is the history of wars, but this hundred years has excelled itself." Isn't that the truth! That's why I need to use my journo degree for something more important than stock trends.
Copyright © 2025 by Kim Fay. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
