I met my best friend in French class in seventh grade. Julie was the one who burst out laughing at my introduction, "Je m'appelle Peggy" with a pronunciation destined to provoke a chorus of oink, oinks. It was 1972 and Mademoiselle Soucy was fresh out of college - too much eye make-up and polyester bell-bottoms that strained across her thighs.

An event at Abraxus Books on Northwest 24th just before Valentine's Day resurrected my junior high and high school memories. Back then I lived in hope of a fairy tale romance that would transport my knobby-kneed self into a starring role, with no further reason to attend the daily horror that was school. The dictionary says fairy tales involve magical creatures and are primarily for children. I don't agree. Many adults still dream of fairy tale endings; but our dreams are different now than when we were children. We still want the charming prince or princess, the happily ever after without car payments or misunderstandings, the once in a lifetime love that exists in books. So that's where we usually find reliable romance, in books.

In the 70's the study of languages wasn't for practicality; studying Japanese or Arabic would have been inconceivable. Our high school offered French, German and Spanish. All the girls took French. When we dreamed our childish dreams of romance; we already knew we would need to go abroad to find it. We pictured ourselves in caf/s, sitting along the Seine. Instead we conjugated with our eye on the prize - the French exchange trip in junior year.

For two weeks we stayed with families in a Paris suburb and were taken on long bus trips: sixteen girls in long belted raincoats and one boy. In hindsight Kevin may have harbored the same romantic fantasies that we did about meeting a handsome Frenchman who would finally recognize our charms. One student actually carried and consulted a Michelin Guide. The rest of us ate pastries, tasted wine and champagne, tripe and Brie. Almost without exception we all were kissed and some of us learned to speak a little French. We returned to the United States, romantically ruined for years, sentenced to read Racine's Phedre for most of senior year.

As long as we were taking French we assumed our future would include living abroad, speaking several languages, a handsome foreign husband - and beautiful children with duel citizenship. I haven't seen those other girls since high school but last week I saw those long ago classmates in the faces of women who made their way from around the Sound, to Ballard - drawn to meet a woman and author who seems to have realized our daydreams.

Meet the author, the flyer read: Kristin Espinasse's Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language from the South of France. But most of the attendees who gathered in a tight space at Abraxus Books knew Kristi was going to be there the same way that they know many details of her life; they learned the news electronically.

Kristin Espinasse grew up in Phoenix. She moved to France 15 years ago where she wrote and worked, met and married the handsome Frenchman. She set out to sell her writing and six years ago found her "platform" in a Web log, or "blog" of what she termed caf/ letters. Stories from her life in France as shared with those "at home." Seven days a week for years she posted her French Word-a-Day stories, combining French vocabulary with stories of her life in Southern France with her husband and two children. First six readers, then 22, 68...she now has 18,500 readers for her blog and another 15,000 for her newsletter. Simon & Schuster called her; the resulting book was neatly stacked last Tuesday.

All the bookstores in Seattle, yet Kristin accompanied by her husband Jean-Marc, were only making one appearance, in Ballard. Later in the day they would be at a Franco-American Club event where his nascent Rouge-Bleu Vineyard would also be featured. Anne Brixley, a French teacher, has been reading and corresponding with Kristi for years; she had long offered to help with events if they should visit the States. With less than two months notice most bookstores were long pre-booked for author events arranged by publishers. Fortunately Anne called Abraxus owner, Tony Topalian, who was happy to host. He believes booksellers should be community meeting places, and so it was that the fairy tale lives of Kristin and Jean-Marc touched down in the site of the old Ballard library.

In writing personal vignettes about her life, Kristi has made thousands of readers feel that they are part of her life, creating an on-line community in which readers are not strangers, they are friends who look at her photos and hear her children pronounce the vocabulary words. It is through her readers that many things have come about, the air tickets, investments in their organic vineyard, book signings along the West Coast coordinated around a family reunion.

The women far outnumbered the men; women who teach French, women who study French. Couples who have been to France; others who visit vicariously. Kristi and Jean-Marc tried to meet everyone personally because although the faces weren't familiar they realized that no one there considered themselves a stranger. Kristi writes well but without her persistence and genuine reader connections, the blog and book would not be such a success. Not everyone can make 33,000 people feel like close personal friends.

It was an excellent showing for a mid-afternoon weekday book signing. Some attendees wanted to see the author in person; others had been dispatched by East Coast relatives. Perhaps some of the women and men are still seeking the romance the language seemed to promise in high school, others firmly believe the proof is in the love story of Kristin and Jean-Marc Espinasse. The heart of romance still beats in the unlikeliest chests, and Kristi now delivers it in three French-Word-a-Day emails per week and a paperback that she willingly signs in her own version of the language of love.

Peggy can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard.