First Oyster

by Kathy Davis

A group of us were going to Mont St.Michael for a little dinner party during a week - end excursion in Normandy. I was by far the youngest,and the only American. Just six months before, I was in a plaid uniform with a gray blazer and knee socks with penny loafers and here I was living in Paris and posturing as a French sophisticate in a Christian Dior smoking {tuxedo} with a pale pink voile dress shirt and black suede evening ankle boots. I so did not want to resemble the Californian teen queen that I had been for five years prior to moving to Paris to work as a model. I was making every effort to access my "mojo" and dispel any links to my California girl high school personna.

I was successful playing my new role at the dinner party in the beautiful restaurant in Mont St. Michael until the dinner guest across from me offered an oyster to me and I accepted it with studied pretension, as if I ate oysters every Friday night.

To my shock and humiliation, the nano second the oyster entered my mouth I gagged, making the most disturbing noise for all of the guests to witness and hawked the oyster involuntarily across the flowers and the candles. I ran to the bathroom in horror and humiliation, for I could not fathom how the oyster ejected from my mouth into the face of the gentleman in front of me. My posturing as a French sophisticate was betrayed and the California girl in me just wanted to hide and regroup and practice my French and all things related,mostly culinary. I yearn to return, and to try again.