chapter thirty-seven
Okay, so Dave Isn’t as attractive as St. Clai,. He’s kind of gangly, and his teeth are sort of bucked, but his tan-but-freckled nose is cute. And I like how he brushes his shaggy hair from his eyes, and his flirty smile still catches me off guard. And, sure, he’s a little immature, but he’s nothing like his friend Mike Reynard, who’s always talking about the Girl with the Pink Stripe’s chest. Even when she’s within hearing distance. And though I don’t think Dave would ever get excited by a history book or wear a funny hat made by his mom, the important thing is this: Dave is available. St. Clair is not.
It’s been a week since we’ve kissed, and we’re dating now by default. Sort of. We’ve taken a few walks, he’s paid for some meals, and we’ve made out in various locations around campus. But I don’t hang out with his friends, and he’s never hung out with mine. Which is good, because they tease me about Dave relentlessly.
I’m lounging around with them in the lobby. It’s late Friday night, so there isn’t a crowd. Nate is behind the front desk, because the regular workers are on strike. Someone is always striking in Paris; it was bound to happen here sooner or later. Josh sketches Rashmi, who is talking on the phone with her parents in Hindi, while St. Clair and Meredith quiz each other for a government test. I’m checking my email. I’m startled when one appears from Bridgette. She hasn’t written in nearly two months.
I know you don’t want to hear from me, but I thought I’d try one last time. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Toph. I was afraid, because I knew how much you liked him. I hope someday you’ll understand that I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I hope your second semester in France is going well. I’m excited there are only two months until graduation, and I can’t wait till prom! Does SOAP have a prom? Are you going with someone? Whatever happened to that English guy? It sounded like a more-than-friends situation to me. Anyway. I’m sorry, and I hope you’re okay. And I won’t bug you again. And I didn’t use any big words because I know you hate that.
“Are you all right, Anna?” St. Clair asks.
“What?” I snap my laptop shut.
“You look like the Mom and Pop Basset Hound Theater closed,” he says.
Bridgette and Toph are going to prom. Why am I upset? I’ve never cared about prom before. But they’ll get those wallet-size pictures. He’ll be in a tux that he’s punk-rocked out with safety pins and she’ll be in a fabulous vintage gown and he’ll have his hands on her waist in some awkward pose and they’ll be captured for all eternity together. And I am never going to prom.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” I keep my back to him and wipe my eyes.
St. Clair sits up. “It’s not nothing.You’re crying.”
The front door opens, and the decibel level rises as Dave, Mike, and three junior girls arrive. They’ve been drinking, and they’re laughing loudly. Emily Middlestone, the Girl with the Pink Stripe, clutches Dave’s arm. One of his hands rests casually on her waist. Prom picture. The stab of jealousy surprises me.
Emily’s cheeks are flushed, and she laughs harder than anyone else. Mer nudges me with the toe of her shoe. The others, even Josh and Rashmi, watch the situation with interest. I open my laptop back up, determined not to look as pissed off as I feel.
“Anna!” Dave gives me a gigantic, exaggerated wave. Emily’s face sours. “You missed it!” He shakes her off and staggers toward me with limp arms. He looks like a newly hatched chick with useless wings. “You know that café with the blue window? We stole their outside tables and chairs and set them up in the fountain.You should’ve seen the look on the waiters’ faces when they found them. It was awesome!”
I look at Dave’s feet. They are, indeed, wet.
“What are you doing?” He flops down next to me. “Checking your email?”
St. Clair snorts. “Give the lad a medal for his brilliant skills in detection.”
My friends smirk. I’m embarrassed again, for both Dave and myself. But Dave doesn’t even look at St. Clair, he just keeps grinning. “Well, I saw the laptop, and I saw the cute frown that means she’s concentrating so hard, and I put two and two together—”
“NO,” I tell St. Clair, who opens his mouth to say something else. He shuts it, surprised.
“Wanna come upstairs?” Dave asks. “We’re gonna chill in my room for a while.”
I probably should. He is sort of my boyfriend. Plus, I’m annoyed with St. Clair. His hostile stare only makes me more determined. “Sure.”
Dave whoops and pulls me to my feet. He trips over St. Clair’s textbook, and St. Clair looks ready to commit murder. “It’s just a book,” I say.
He scowls in disgust.
Dave takes me to the fifth floor. St. Clair’s floor. I forgot they were neighbors. His room turns out to be the most . . . American place I’ve seen in Paris.The walls are covered in tacky posters—99 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL, Reefer Madness, a woman with huge boobs in a white bikini. Her cleavage is covered with sand, and she’s pouting as if to say: Can you believe this? Sand! At the beach!
The girls pile onto Dave’s unmade bed. Mike hurls himself on top of them, and they squeal and bat at him. I hover in the doorway until Dave pulls me inside and onto his lap. We sit on his desk chair. Another guy comes in. Paul? Pete? Something like that. One of the juniors, a girl with dark hair and tight jeans, stretches in a move designed to show off her belly button ring to Paul/Pete. Oh, please.
The party divides and people make out. Emily doesn’t have a partner, so she leaves, but not before shooting me another bitchy look. Dave’s tongue is in my mouth, but I can’t relax, because he’s slobbering tonight. His hand creeps underneath my shirt and rests against the small of my back. I glance down at his other hand and realize they aren’t much bigger than mine. He has little-boy hands.
“I need to take a leak.” Mike Reynard stands, knocking tonight’s date to the floor. I expect him to exit the room, but, instead, he does the unforgivable. He unzips his pants—right there in front of all of us—and pees in Dave’s shower.
And no one says anything.
“Aren’t you going to stop him?”
But Dave doesn’t reply to my question. His head has fallen back, and his mouth is open. Is he asleep?
“Everyone pisses in the showers.” Mike curls his lip at me. “What, you wait in line for the bathroom?”
I fight revulsion as I fly down the stairs to my floor. What was I thinking? I could’ve just contracted any number of life-threatening diseases. There’s no way Dave has EVER cleaned his room. I think back to St. Clair’s tidy, pleasant space, and I’m jealous of Ellie in an entirely new way. St. Clair would never hang up a poster of beer bottles or hold house parties in his room or use his shower as a toilet.
How did I end up with Dave? It was never a decision, it just happened. Was I only with him because I’m mad at St. Clair? The thought strikes a nerve. Now I feel ashamed as well as stupid. I reach for my necklace, and a new panic sets in.
Key. I don’t have my key.
Where did I leave it? I curse, because there’s no way I’m going back to Dave’s room. Maybe it’s downstairs. Or maybe I never grabbed it in the first place. Does this mean I have go to the front desk? Except—I swear again—they’re striking. Which means I have to go to Nate’s, which means I have to wake him up in middle of the night. Which means he’ll get mad at me.
Mer’s door flies open. It’s St. Clair.
“Night,” he says, clicking her door shut. She calls good night back. He glares at me, and I flinch. He knew I was out here.
“You and Higgenbaum have a nice time?” He sneers.
I don’t want to talk about Dave. I want to find my freaking room key, and I want St. Clair to go away. “Yes. Great. Thank you.”
St. Clair blinks. “You’re crying. That’s the second time tonight.” A new edge to his voice. “Did he hurt you?”
I wipe my eyes. “What?”
“I’ll KILL that bloody—”
&nbs
p; He’s already halfway to the stairs before I can yank him back. “No!” St. Clair looks at my hand on his arm, and I hastily remove it. “I’m locked out. I’m just upset because I lost my stupid key.”
“Oh.”
We stand there for a moment, unsure of what to do with ourselves. “I’m going downstairs.” I avoid his gaze. “Maybe I left it there.”
St. Clair follows me, and I’m too exhausted to argue. His boots echo in the empty stairwell. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. The lobby is dark and empty. The March wind rattles the glass on the front door. He fumbles around and switches on a light. It’s a Tiffany lamp, red dragonflies with bulbous turquoise eyes. I start lifting couch cushions.
“But you were on the floor the whole time,” he says. I think back, and he’s right. He points to a chair. “Help me lift this. Maybe it was kicked under here.”
We move it aside. No key.
“Could you have left it upstairs?” He’s uncomfortable, so I know he means at Dave’s.
“I don’t know. I’m so tired.”
“Shall we check?” He hesitates. “Or . . . shall I check?”
I shake my head no, and I’m relieved when he doesn’t press me.
He looks relieved, too. “Nate?”
“I don’t want to wake him.”
St. Clair bites his thumbnail. He’s nervous. “You could sleep in my room. I’ll sleep on the floor, you can have my bed. We don’t have to, er, sleep together. Again. If you don’t want to.”
That’s only the second time, apart from one of his emails at Christmas, either of us has mentioned that weekend. I’m stunned. The temptation makes my entire body ache with longing, but it’s one hundred different kinds of a bad idea. “No. I’d—I’d better get it over with now. Because I’d still have to see Nate in the morning, and then I’d have to explain about . . . about being in your room.”
Is he disappointed? He takes a moment before replying. “Then I’ll go with you.”
“Nate’s gonna be mad.You should go to bed.”
But he marches over to Nate’s room and knocks. A minute later, Nate opens his door. He’s barefoot and wearing an old T-shirt and boxer shorts. I look away, embarrassed. He rubs his shaved head. “Ungh?”
I stare at his diamond-patterned rug. “I locked myself out.”
“Mmm?”
“She forgot her key,” St. Clair says. “Can she borrow your spare?”
Nate sighs but motions us inside. His place is much larger than ours, with a private bath, a sitting room, and a full-size (though tiny by American standards) kitchen in addition to a separate bedroom. He shuffles over to a wooden cupboard in his sitting room. It’s filled with brass keys hanging on nails, a painted golden number above each one. He grabs 408 and hands it to me. “I want that back before breakfast.”
“Of course.” I grasp the key so hard it dents my palm. “I’m sorry.”
“Out,” he says, and we scurry into the hall. I catch a glimpse of his condom bowl, which brings back another uneasy Thanksgiving memory.
“See?” St. Clair switches off the dragonfly lamp. “That wasn’t so terrible.”
The lobby is cloaked in darkness again, the only light coming from the screen saver on the front desk’s computer. I stumble forward, patting the walls for guidance. St. Clair bumps into me. “Sorry,” he says. His breath is warm on my neck. But he doesn’t adjust his body. He stays close behind me as we stumble down the hall.
My hand hits the stairwell door. I open it, and we shield our eyes from the sudden brightness. St. Clair shuts it behind us, but we don’t walk upstairs. He’s still pressed against me. I turn around. His lips are only a breath from mine. My heart beats so hard it’s practically bursting, but he falters and backs away. “So are you and Dave ...?”
I stare at his hands, resting on the door.They aren’t little-boy hands.
“We were,” I say. “Not anymore.”
He pauses, and then takes a step forward again. “And I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what that email earlier was about?”
“No.”
Another step closer. “But it upset you. Why won’t you tell me?”
I step back. “Because it’s embarrassing, and it’s none of your business.”
St. Clair furrows his brow in frustration. “Anna, if you can’t tell your best mate what’s bothering you, who can you tell?”
And just like that, I have to fight to keep from crying for a third time. Because even with all of the awkwardness and hostility, he still considers me his best friend. The news fills me with more relief than I could have imagined. I’ve missed him. I hate being mad at him. Before I know it, the words spill out about Bridgette and Toph and prom, and he listens attentively, never taking his eyes from me. “And I’ll never go to one! When Dad enrolled me here, he took that away from me, too.”
“But . . . proms are lame.” St. Clair is confused. “I thought you were glad we didn’t have one.”
We sit down together on the bottom step. “I was. Until now.”
“But ... Toph is a wanker.You hate him. And Bridgette!” He glances at me. “We still hate Bridgette, right? I haven’t missed anything?”
I shake my head. “We still hate her.”
“All right, so it’s a fitting punishment. Think about it, she’ll get dolled up in one of those satin monstrosities no rational girl would ever wear, and they’ll take one of those awful pictures—”
“The picture,” I moan.
“No. They’re awful, Anna.” And he looks genuinely revolted. “The uncomfortable poses and the terrible slogans. ‘A Night to Remember.’ ‘This Magic Moment’—”
“‘What Dreams Are Made Of.’”
“Exactly.” He nudges me with his elbow. “Oh, and don’t forget the commemorative photo key chain. Bridgette is bound to buy one. And it’ll embarrass Toph, and he’ll break up with her, and that’ll be it. The prom picture will be their complete undoing.”
“They still get to dress up.”
“You hate dressing up.”
“And they still get to dance.”
“You dance here! You danced across the lobby desk on Thanksgiving.” He laughs. “There’s no way Bridgette will get to dance on a desk at the prom.”
I’m trying to stay upset. “Unless she’s trashed.”
“Exactly.”
“Which she probably will be.”
“No ‘probably’ about it. She’ll be bombed out of her skull.”
“So it’ll be really embarrassing when she loses her dinner—”
He throws up his hands. “The terrible prom food! How could I have forgotten? Rubbery chicken, bottled barbecue sauce—”
“—on Toph’s shoes.”
“Mortifying,” he says. “And it’ll happen during the photo shoot, I guarantee it.”
I finally crack a smile, and he grins. “That’s more like it.”
We hold each other’s gaze. His smile softens, and he nudges me again. I rest my head on his shoulder as the stairwell light turns off. They’re all on timers.
“Thanks, Étienne.”
He stiffens at hearing his first name. In the darkness, I take one of his hands into my lap and squeeze it. He squeezes back. His nails are bitten short, but I love his hands.
They’re just the right size.
chapter thirty-eight
Now I know why people are always carrying on about Paris in the springtime. The leaves are bright green with birth, the chestnut trees are clustered with pink buds, and the walkways are lined with lemon yellow tulips. Everywhere I look, Parisians are smiling. They’ve shed their woolen scarves for scarves that are thinner, lighter, softer. Le Jardin du Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Gardens, is busy today, but it’s a pleasant crowd. Everyone is happy because it’s the first warm day of the year.We haven’t seen sunshine in months.
But I’m grateful for a different reason.
This morning, Étienne received a phone call. Susan St. Clair is not going to be the protagonist in a James Ashley nove
l. Her PET/CT scan was clear—no evidence of cancer. She’ll still be tested every three months, but as of right now, this very moment, his mother is alive in the fullest sense of the word.
We’re out celebrating.
Étienne and I are sprawled before the Grand Bassin, an octagonal pool popular for sailing toy boats. Meredith is playing a league football game in an indoor field across the street, and Josh and Rashmi are watching. We watched, too, for a while. She’s fantastic, but our attention to organized sports only lasts so long. Fifteen minutes into it, and Étienne was whispering in my ear and prodding me with lifted brows.
I didn’t take much convincing. We’ll head back in a bit, to catch the end.
It’s strange that this is my first time here, because the garden rests against the Latin Quarter. I’ve been missing out. So far Étienne has shown me a beekeeping school, an orchard, a puppet theater, a carousel, and a courtyard of gentlemen lost in boules, lawn bowling. He says we’re in the best park in all of Paris, but I think it’s the best park in the world. I wish I could take Seany here.
A tiny sailboat breezes behind us, and I sigh happily. “Étienne?”
We’re lying next to each other, propped up against the ledge of the Bassin. He shifts, and his legs find a comfortable spot against me. Our eyes are closed. “Hmm?” he asks.
“This is sooo much better than a football game.”
“Mm, isn’t it, though?”
“We’re so rotten,” I say.
He slaps me with a lazy arm, and we laugh quietly. Sometime later, I realize he’s calling my name.
“Wha?” I must have drifted asleep.
“There’s a sailboat in your hair.”
“Huh?”
“I said, ‘There’s a sailboat in your hair.’”
I try to lift my head, but it snaps back, snagged. He wasn’t kidding. An agitated boy about Seany’s age approaches, speaking in rapid French. Étienne laughs as I try to pry the toy’s sails from my head.The boat tips over, and my hair dips into the Bassin.The young boy shouts at me.
“Hello, help?” I throw an exasperated look at Étienne, whose laughter has reduced him into a fit of giggles. He struggles up as the boy reaches for my hair, tearing at the wet tangles.