“See the Riviera” by Corey Campbell (Fiction ’12)

See the Riviera

The woman lived in a mobile home park in a neighborhood outside town meant to evoke the French Riviera. The land was a flat green like a winter postcard. Small streets were named Toulon and Cannes and Marseille, which I admit I found charming when first driving through. But only a few who lived there embraced the nautical theme. The rest weren’t swayed by attempts to transport an eastern Iowa trailer park to France’s southern coast. Even if they’d had money to live in the actual French Riviera, the sun-soaked bright carefree one, I’m not convinced they would have, opting instead for Chicago or Des Moines, someplace homey and filled with relatives. Not saying they made no effort—their small yards had their own coziness, with watering cans and spinning windmills, American flags long before and after Independence Day, bicycles with training wheels just outside the screen door, under carports.