Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

Genres: Friendship; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

A journalist and activist, Canela believes passion is essential to life; but lately passion seems to be in short supply. It has disappeared from her relationship with her fiancé, who is more interested in controlling her than encouraging her. It's absent from her work, where censorship and politics keep important stories from being published. And while her family is full of outspoken individuals, the only one Canela can truly call passionate is her cousin and best friend Luna, who just took her own life. Canela can't recover from Luna's death. She is haunted by her ghost and feels acute pain for the dreams that went unrealized. Canela breaks off her engagement and uses her now un-necessary honeymoon ticket, to escape to Paris. Impulsively, she sublets a small apartment and enrolls at Le Coq Rouge, Paris's most prestigious culinary institute. Cooking school is a sensual and spiritual reawakening that brings back Canela's hunger for life. With a series of new friends and lovers, she learns to once again savor the world around her. Finally able to cope with Luna's death, Canela returns home to her family, and to the kind of life she thought she had lost forever.

Release date: March 9, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 288

Sample

This is either the longest suicide note in history or the juiciest, dirtiest, most delicious confession you’ll ever hear. Call
me Canela. That’s Spanish for Cinnamon, but don’t call me Cinnamon; that’s a stripper’s name. Not that there is anything wrong
with being an exotic dancer. With my lifestyle, I’m the last one to throw stones. Thank God I’m a modern woman living in a
so-called democracy and—aside from in Nigeria and some Middle Eastern countries I would be too scared to visit—getting killed
by stones is a thing of the past. My mother named me Canela because she loved to make buñuelos and add lots of sugar and cinnamon
to them. She would make them from scratch, using none of the shortcuts, like taking flour tortillas and frying them. You do
know what a tortilla is, don’t you? By now who doesn’t? No, she did them by hand, a mano. It was probably her sweat and tears that made them tasty. When she saw me for the first time, she was disappointed that I
was so pale. Unlike some Mexicans with internalized racism, she thought being dark and indigenous- looking was beautiful,
but she wondered if people gossiped about whether she had cheated on my father with an American to get such a white-looking
child. I did get her high cheekbones, big eyes, big breasts, black hair, and love of smells. I also got her propensity to
be fat, but let’s not talk about that right now. My mother spent most of her time in the kitchen and in the bedroom. When
she wasn’t making beans, she was making babies. Her world was tiny, as was her kitchen, but she made it delicious. So by adding
cinnamon to a buñuelo she would make it even browner. With my name she spiced me up and made me brown. She didn’t want people
to mistake me for Italian or Irish—not that there’s anything wrong with that—so she gave me a Spanish name so people would
ask, “What is Canela?” More importantly, I hope you ask, Who is Canela? Who is Canela? Thanks for asking… My psychiatrist
might have an idea. My psychic might have a better idea. My mother probably has a good idea, but after thirty years in my
skin and in my soul, I’m still finding out…


Are you ready to begin your exciting culinary career?” the cooking school admissions agent asked me in her French-accented
English. I stared blankly up at her, clutching my admissions application, not believing what I was about to do. Anyone who
knew me would think I had clearly gone insane. But what had brought me here? It had never been my dream to attend Le Coq Rouge,
the world’s most famous cooking school. Yet here I was in Paris about to lay down thirty thousand dollars to be in the kitchen
when I had sworn I would never go back there, ever.


Maybe my mother was right: I had gone crazy and I needed medication. Otherwise why would I have broken off my engagement to
a Latino surgeon, given up my journalism career, and run off to Paris by myself?


“Is there a problem?” Marie-Hélène, the admissions agent, asked with half a smile.

“Ah…” I tried to come up with a line to buy me a few more seconds. I needed to think about my past and whether I was
making the right decision.


Maybe it was Luna’s suicide that had shaken me out of my senses, or the Iraq war, or the fight with the editor, or the fight
with my fiancé, or my mother and father fighting… yes, when all else fails blame it on my childhood. All I knew was that
I didn’t want to go back to the United States, to my home in Los Angeles, and this was the only way to stay in France.


It must have been the fight at the wake that made me realize I was exhausted from fighting everyone, including myself.

Why is it that when someone dies everyone only says good things about her at the funeral? Death makes angels of everyone,
I suppose. No, I think it’s out of superstition. At the root of every fear is death, so if you speak badly of someone who
is dead and they can’t defend themselves, then death might strike you. At my funeral I want people to say I was a bitch if
I truly was one to them. All I hope is that the people who experienced my kindness will speak up and say, “Yes, but…”
Maybe then people can have authentic conversations instead of the stupid ones in which everyone knows the person is dead but,
aside from this exception, pretends death doesn’t really exist, thus freeing them to converse about silly things. Silly things
like my broken-off engagement.


“Is it true what I just heard?” asked my mother in her metiche mode. My mother was usually my favorite person on the planet,
but also the one that drove me to tears and insanity at the push of an emotional button whose location only she knew.


“You hear a lot of things, including ghosts, so it depends on what you heard,” I replied.

“You and Armando—what’s going on?” she demanded to know. “Your sister told me she thinks you are depressed. I think you should
get on medication. You are not thinking straight. You can’t break it off. He’s a doctor and he loves you! Do you realize how
hard it is to get a good man in Los Angeles? Es una locura!” she hissed at me like a cat about to get mauled by a dog.


I got up from my pew and went to look at the body. My mother did not follow me. Nobody wanted to be first. I was glad to have
a few seconds with Luna, my favorite cousin, before anyone else had the courage to go up after me. I smiled at Luna’s over-made-up
face. She hated pink lipstick, but here she was in pink for eternity. Luna was more of a red. She loved living life in extremes,
like me. When we were little girls we played like boys and hated dolls. We were a pair of mocosas, rascals always getting
into trouble. We swore that when we got older we would travel the world and never marry or have children because we would
always play. We wanted to be a part of history and make history. We wished we could have been born around the time writers
and artists hung out in Paris, like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, or in Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution, like Diego
and Frida. Luna was special. She could guess things or predict things before they happened. Her family thought she was just
weird, but I knew she was psychic. She was silly when she wanted to be, but wise beyond her years. When everyone around me
told me I was crazy for wanting to be a journalist covering all sorts of dangerous stories, Luna would join me on my adventures
to catch a story.


In female friendships, a man always comes between them—isn’t that the predictable plot? In our story, Luna met a guy and I
remained single. I was never jealous of him, but he wasn’t good enough for her. He was Mr. Now, but Luna was forced to make
him into Mr. Forever when her parents grew concerned that “the neighbors were talking.” They married her off before she “got
knocked up,” to this poor guy who could barely afford to support her and keep her gold-plated birdcage locked. Luna couldn’t
go to college and had to play the housewife, a role she was never born for. She got so depressed she gained weight and developed
diabetes. When she wanted to get pregnant she couldn’t, because the doctors warned her it might kill her. She tried anyway
but had miscarriages, which made her even more depressed. Her world kept shrinking, but her body kept growing. Her dreams
were larger than life, too big to exist in this world in a woman’s body.


I covered my eyes and started crying. Flashes of my life with Luna exploded like the big bang onto the little movie theater
of my mind. I remembered my first bicycle ride with her and all the promises we made to each other. We were ten, hiding in
the attic, leafing through a dirty magazine we had found on the street near an alley. We criticized all the couples and laughed
together, not understanding what would motivate adults to make such funny faces. We laughed so hard, thinking we were so smart,
knowing that we shared true happiness. Luna told me I was not just her cousin but her best of best friends and said that if
I were not alive, she would not want to live anymore. I hugged her and said that I would not want to live in a world without
her either.


“Is it true what your Tía Bonifacia is saying about you and Armando being over because you couldn’t agree on the menu?” my
mother, who had joined me at the casket, whispered into my ear, so Luna couldn’t hear. Her question jolted me back to the
present and I quickly wiped away all my tears. I couldn’t believe my Tía Bonifacia knew about the menu. How could she have
known? She should work for the CIA or the National Enquirer. Maybe she’s psychic… Actually, all women are psychic. When a man cheats on a woman and lies to her, she already knows;
she just lies to herself. This was the case with Tía Bonifacia. She was a poster child for what happens when a woman stays
married to a man who is constantly unfaithful: she turns bitter. If she were a fruit she would be a lemon, always frowning
like she just sucked on one.


“Yes. It’s true,” I whispered back. Poor Luna had to endure this pettiness even on her last day. My mother practically went
hysterical at my response. She couldn’t believe that despite all her hard work, all the guilt trips, all the bad advice about
how women are nothing without men, how careers are not as important as family and children, all the scripts in her “Third
World Woman as Servant” file in her brain that she tried to install on my mental hard drive, I was not getting married in
two months.


“Tú de veras estás loca,” she hissed again. “You really are crazy” was her usual response to anything I did that was out of
the ordinary. It used to upset me to be called loca, but I was too heartbroken by Luna’s death to care about what my mother thought about me. When she called me loca it wasn’t
the fun loca, as in Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” but the “there is really something wrong with you and we should
lock you up with the crazies” loca.


“Tell me something I don’t know,” I wanted to yell back at her to shut her up and respect Luna’s memory, but I would be seen
as the one disrespecting this sacred rite. I ignored my mother’s comment and left a red rose on Luna’s chest. My mother immediately
followed behind me and cornered me. My older sister Reina, having overheard that the wedding was off, jumped into the conversation.



“But I just bought a very expensive designer dress for your wedding and I can’t take it back,” she said, getting no sympathy
from me.


I ignored their feeding frenzy by changing the subject. I handed my mother several twenty-dollar bills.

“What’s this?” my mother asked.

“It’s a donation for Luna’s parents for the funeral. I know this is going to cost them a lot of money. Tía Lucia shouldn’t
have to worry about that on top of her grief,” I informed her. Her mood changed all of sudden.


“Yes, you may be a loca, but you have always had a good heart. We should ask all your brothers and sisters to put in money
también to give to your Tía Lucia. At least this will comfort her,” said my mother. “Does anyone have an envelope?” Reina
opened her Gucci bag and took out an envelope. She handed it to my mother and then pulled out her designer pen and wrote an
amount on one of her Republican checks. Each check order was a donation toward the Republican Party. I didn’t know they needed
money since it seems only rich people are Republicans. Oh, wait, not true: there are Hispanic Republicans, former welfare
recipients who got out, or former undocumented people, or their children, who made it and therefore think anyone who doesn’t
make it is just lazy; Cubans who hate Castro; Texans whose parents were beaten for speaking Spanish in school; and other Latinos
with internalized racism. Yeah, now I remember; I did an article on this for a newspaper I used to work for.


I rolled my eyes when I saw her check, and she came back at me with attitude.

“Yeah, well, at least he’s not screwing his interns.”

“I’d rather have a president who drops his load on blue dresses than one who drops bombs on innocent people for oil.” Then
I added something I’d seen on a bumper sticker: “When Clinton lied, no one died.”


“Cochina,” my mother reprimanded me for my sexual reference. “You talk like a man.”

“He’s doing a good job defending our country from terrorists!” Reina said.

The whole president-as-father-figure-and-protector thing has Freudian implications, and I did not want to go there with my
sister. I just wanted to be left alone to cry for Luna. Reina mistook my silence as a sign that she was right, and went on
talking about all the good “W” has done. “So what that the weapons of mass destruction were not found yadda yadda yadda. .
. .”


I went to “Lalala land,” my safe place where Republicans did not exist, where only people who cared about people and cared
to be people peopled this land… Reina had stopped talking and I was about to get away when she got up to me real close and
delivered her message à la The Graduate.


“Responsibility… You need to grow up and be responsible now. You’re going to be turning thirty and, yes, you may be beautiful
now, but you won’t be forever.”


Now I got it: she’s always been jealous of me. For some reason, being beautiful rendered me an idiot in her eyes and lots
of other peoples’ too. That must be one of the universal laws I didn’t know about. One of those unwritten rules women are
unconsciously told: you must be beautiful or intelligent, but you can’t be both because it confuses men.


“Is that what happened to you?” I said.

“Bitch!” she spat out. Wow, I wasn’t even dead yet and I was getting my wish.

My mother quickly jumped in between us, took my sister’s check, and added it to my money. I walked away to go comfort Tía
Lucia, who was crying in the corner. On my way to her I overheard Tía Bonifacia, with her arms crossed, telling one of my
cousins how Luna died.


“She drank six Cokes. She was a diabetic; she knew what she was doing. It was a suicide; call it what it was. There’s no shame
in the truth,” Tía Bonifacia preached.


The corpulent cousin shook her head and noted, “Suicide is a sin, qué no?”

All right, call me a metiche, but I just couldn’t stand back and say nothing. “The truth? You don’t know what the truth is!”
I yelled at Tía Bonifacia.


“Oh, no, please don’t say that movie line ‘You can’t handle the truth’—por favor, we are at a wake,” my stupid cousin said.
She was so annoying; that was the most original line she had ever said in her life.


In the midst of our soon-to-be argument, I watched my mother hand Tía Lucia the envelope full of money. Tía Lucia handed my
mother another envelope. My mother quickly put it away, folding it and hiding it between her breasts. My mother used to hide
a gun between her breasts whenever she and my father would drive back to Mexico. It was a little security measure in case
they were stopped by bandits on the empty desert roads at night. Occasionally she lost money in there and would swear that
it was like the Bermuda Triangle, but most of the time it was the safest place in the world.


“I do know what the truth is. I was there when she died.” Tía Bonifacia raised her voice, not wanting to be outdone. The mourners
stopped talking and turned to us.


I defended Luna: “It could have been an accident.”

“No! She drank six Cokes. That’s like fifty-four spoonfuls of sugar. We did the math; that’s no accident. It was suicide!”
Tía Bonifacia said it so loud to prove her point, but her insistence made everyone uncomfortable. If someone is dead, that’s
one thing, but knowing how they died, that’s another. And then knowing that they did it on purpose, well that’s just TMI,
as a shallow acquaintance once said after I shared with her that my toenail looked like the Grand Canyon. “Too much information—I’m
eating,” she said and looked back down at the Vogue she was reading.


Tía Lucia cried out like she had spilled a basket full of flour that the wind had quickly swept away. I wanted to slap Tía
Bonifacia. What gave this 250-pound gorilla the right to hurt people with her gossip?


“You’re right,” I spat at her, “if it’s the truth, there’s no shame in it. Maybe Luna did want to die rather than live a life
as miserable as yours. Maybe for her that was not good enough because she didn’t want to end up a bitter old chismosa like
you!”


My cousin looked up at me and couldn’t believe I was challenging the Goliath of Gossip. Man, I was a dead duck, but I didn’t
care. The dirt this woman was going to dig up on me, and the comments that she could throw out like daggers, but so what.
Truth be told, I was doing the best I could with my life, even if no one else thought so.


“Now I understand why your fiancé dumped you,” she said, being sure to make eye contact with her audience. “I thought it was
because you were a puta.” The aahs and gasps from our audience issued as planned to the ever-popular “puta” comment. What
a desperate attempt, how typical to always resort to “whore” for a strike at a woman’s Achilles’ heel. “Pero now I know it’s
because of that mouth of yours. Who’d want to be stuck with you forever?” The crowd around us “Ooohed” and “Aaahed” as though
they were watching the first round of a De La Hoya vs. Tyson fight. Clearly I was out of her league and her gossip weight
class, but I couldn’t let her get away with her comments.


I immediately wanted to defend myself, but if I did, I would be validating her comments and I would lose. I took three deep
breaths. That’s what Buddhist monks do, I’ve been told, and I let her comments pass like water being flushed down a toilet
at a Tijuana bar. Then I went for the throat, metaphorically speaking. I should have bit her ear, but instead I nonchalantly
said, “Then I must congratulate your husband for being a saint and staying with you… Oh, wait, he’s cheated on you with
your neighbor, your cousin, and even your own sister.” Someone gasped. Yes, I had scored a point. “I guess being stuck with
you forever is his punishment, qué no?” I said this with a smile the size of the dam blocking all my rage. I heard small murmurs
of agreement from the crowd. I was about to talk about her bastard grandchildren, pothead son, welfare scam, and all the other
crap that Jerry Springer and Spanish talk-show knockoffs feed off, but thank God my Tía Lucia stepped in before I went for
a knockout.


“Por favor, stop this! Please respect Luna’s memory and stop this!”

I lowered my guard and made for the door. My mother and all my siblings hurried after me. I headed to the parking lot, trying
to make a fast escape.


“Go apologize to your Tía Bonifacia and your Tía Lucia for that escándalo you just made!” my mother demanded.

“No. Tell her to apologize to me first,” I yelled back, marching toward my Prius. My father also walked up to talk to me.

“I knew you weren’t going to go through with it. You’re not a woman men marry.” I stopped for a second, hooked by his mean
comment. Then I decided to let it go and kept on walking.


“If you leave like this, you’re not going to be welcome at the funeral,” my mother warned me. I hesitated and stopped to consider
the consequences. I wanted to attend Luna’s funeral, but how could she have committed suicide? Why hadn’t she called me to
let me know things were so bad? Why hadn’t she come to me for help?


“Think about what you are doing,” my sister Rosie said. “Armando is a good guy. He really loves you.” Rosie was my favorite
sister, she always came from a good place, but I was in so much pain even her beautiful words annoyed the hell out of me.
How come everyone else knew everything I needed to do right with my life except for me? How come everyone knew what was good
for me except for me? How come I was supposed to listen to all this crap just because it came from my family?


I jumped in my car and locked the door immediately. If I’d been a little girl, my mother would have yanked me out of the car
and taken me back inside to apologize, but I was too big for her to do that anymore. Her last hope was guilt.


“How can I go back in there and face your tías and our relatives after what you have done?” she asked with one of those faces
painted on tortured saints you see in the million and one churches in Mexico.


“Tell Tía Lucia I’m sorry,” I blurted and drove off.

For a few weeks after that I stayed in bed. “Why didn’t I stop her?” and “Why didn’t I go with her?” were the two questions
that kept repeating in my head. I stayed in bed until my loneliness scared me and La Calaca Flaca sat next to me. She looked
like a skeleton lady in a Posada drawing. She would keep me company and remind me why life was shitty and unfair.


“If life is not an adventure, it’s not worth living,” she would whisper to me. I don’t know if I created her or if she created
me to keep her company, but I was used to her. She was like Luna, a loyal friend who promised never to leave me, until I finally
joined her and died one day. La Calaca Flaca had shown up in my life on many occasions when life had dealt me a blow too painful
to overcome. I always thanked her for her company and shared my stories of hardship with her. I purposely kept busy to avoid
seeing her around me, but when she did show up to remind me I wasn’t alone, I actually felt a tiny bit better.


“Why don’t you join Luna?” she asked, as if recommending a solution. I cried in her arms and she hugged me.

“Just go to the bathroom and grab the sleeping pills. I’ll start the bath for you,” she suggested, like the loving and comforting
mother I did not have.


I got up and went to the bathroom. I saw my face and couldn’t believe how bloated it was from sleeping so much. I stared at
myself in the mirror and wondered why anyone would think I was beautiful. At least the texture of my light skin was still
resilient. I reached into the medicine cabinet for face cream and my hand hit the bottle of sleeping pills. It fell and cracked,
sleeping pills rolling into the sink, and I picked them up to examine them. I turned around and heard the bath running. Did
I turn it on? I asked myself. I stared at the water and knew it was nice and hot, and how wonderful it wou. . .