“I’m so sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t think twice about it,” she says. “Let me introduce you to your team.”
She escorts me to the lab where I’ll be overseeing the fragrance chemists, and that’s when my translator truly comes in handy.
“I’m so thrilled to meet all of you, and I’m very much looking forward to working with each and every one of you, and helping L’Artisan grow and improve and expand its reach,” I say.
Griffin instantly converts everything I say into French, though I suspect most of the team understood my brief intro. That’s because most French businesspeople speak solid English, so when Marisol first told me she was looking for a translator, I asked why we’d need one. As a French company, L’Artisan Cosmetique has only done business in French previously, she explained, and so all its chemists are accustomed to solely speaking in their native tongue. Sure, plenty of them know enough English for me to sit down and gab about the weather and popular movies over a Nicoise salad. Saying “hello” and “nice to meet you” is easy-peasy, too.
But being able to discuss the finer details of chemical formulations that make household products smell like a spring breeze is entirely another matter.
I’m not equipped to say those technical terms in French, obviously.
And it’s too risky to assume they’ll understand the precise specifics of the new production processes that I’ll share with them in English.
Ergo, Griffin is here to ensure that we don’t accidentally blow up our lab while testing a lavender-scented body lotion. Though, to be fair, the most likely candidate for combustion would be hair spray.
Incidentally, I invented a new scent for one back home, and it smells like a song. Every time I spritz some on my locks, I want to break out my microphone and belt upbeat pop tunes.
“Bonjour, Charles,” I say to a young man who looks like he graduated from college last week.
“Hello, Joy,” he says, his voice a little wobbly, perhaps from nerves. “Welcome to France.”
“Thank you. I hear you’re working on a cutting-edge new formulation for a lip balm concentrate,” I say, then explain more of the details of his formulation. “I look forward to checking it out.”
His brow furrows for a moment, and I can see the cogs turning, but once Griffin does his thing, Charles is smiling and nodding.
“I look forward to that, too,” he says.
I shake hands with a woman about my age, with fine porcelain skin and a nervous smile. “Nice to meet you, Adaline.”
“And you.”
Then, I dive into the nitty-gritty, sharing my overall approach to best practices that I fine-tuned back in Austin.
And seriously, Griffin sounds delicious speaking French on my behalf—even better when he says words like prototype, and formulation, and molecule measurements. That just gets all the combustion inside me going.
“And if I say anything inappropriate, it’s all his fault,” I joke, and I garner a few laughs before he translates. More laughter comes once he does.
“And if she says anything funny, it’s all my fault, too,” he adds in English, then he glances at me, and when no one’s looking, he winks.
Like we have a secret.
And we kind of do.
Griffin is so fast that the language barrier hardly slows us down the next day in the fragrance lab. It’s a little funny, too, to hear everything I say about calculations and mixes in his accented voice.
But when I explain how I want to approach a revamp of a body spritz for women, Charles asks a question before Griffin translates.
Charles has the name of the molecule wrong, though. I share the correct one, and Mr. Sexy Chemistry makes it sound better in French.
Charles nods. “Je comprends maintenant.”
I understand now.
Me, too! I award myself a point for understanding Charles the first time around, even though that was a very simple sentence. But hey, I have to start somewhere.
We’ve set up the schedule so Griffin’s here in the mornings, which is when I work with the others in the lab, and he also attends meetings with the other department heads and me. That turns out to be super helpful because when one of the marketing gals says to her colleague before the meeting starts on Wednesday that the mini chocolate tarts on the table are the worst she’s ever had, Griffin whispers in my ear and warns me from taking one.
Now that’s the kind of help I truly appreciate.
But I also like when he’s not here with me. When I’m alone with my work in the afternoons. I like it when I don’t have to talk, too. Somehow, that’s easier.
Silence is a language I comprehend with crystal clarity. When I inhale a formulation of jasmine for a new face cream, the scent transcends words. It evokes memories of peaceful days and private gardens. I don’t need to reword or paraphrase the smell of relaxation because it’s a state of mind, a place I want to visit.
Here in the quiet of my own thoughts, I take that trip.
The first week cruises by, and I’m busier than I ever was at home. My brain is tired, but the kind that feels like a good workout, as if I’ve been using every muscle in it for cerebral exercise. I’ve been trying vainly to understand what everyone’s saying, but all I manage are words here and there. I’ll key in on a verb—ooh, that means to buy—or a noun—someone mentioned the waste bin—but by and large, I’m floating in a sea of incomprehension. When I return to the office after lunch, the receptionist greets me in French then English, but as I walk down the hall, everyone is talking in their language.
I wish I understood them. I wish Griffin were here to translate the chocolate tart gossip.
Not because I’m a nosy nelly. Though, a little bit of me is.
I want to understand them because I feel blind. Deaf. Mute.
I’m operating at half power, with switches in me
