Chapter 2 #2
I feel a small chill of worry. There is no way I’m losing that privilege—I have my list to get through!
“Do you understand me?” Mademoiselle Alvarez repeats.
Everyone stands up straighter and shouts, as if we’re army recruits at boot camp, “Oui, oui, mademoiselle!”
“Good. You’ll have your first hour of free time tonight. But before that, we have our group visit to the Musée du Louvre.”
My stomach jumps in anticipation. The Louvre Museum! I can’t believe I’m about to see the queen of Resting Bitch Face herself, the Mona Lisa. The very first item on my to-do list.
“We’ll only have two hours,” Mademoiselle Alvarez goes on.
“That isn’t even close to enough time for a museum like the Louvre, but it’s a start.
Then we’ll have dinner at a historic French bistro not far from the museum, and after that, your hour of independent exploration begins.
You’re free to roam, and there are many excellent activities listed in your itinerary packets.
I do suggest that you go back to see more of the Louvre.
They’re actually having special long hours today, since it’s the last Friday of the month during peak tourist season.
It’s staying open until midnight—not that any of you will be out at that hour.
You must be through this hostel door not a minute later than ten p.m. if you don’t want to be expelled from high school right before your senior year. ”
I gulp.
I’ve worked too hard, and Mom has sacrificed too much, for me to ruin my entire future by breaking rules on a spring break school trip. I won’t just be back here at the hostel at ten—I’ll be back through that giant medieval door at nine forty-five, or you can send me to the guillotines.
I’ll just have to be extra efficient getting through some items on my list in the limited amount of solo time I have. It’ll be like streaming a bunch of movies at one-point-five speed, which is something I like to do when I’m rewatching my favorites for the fourth or fifth time.
“During your solo time,” Mademoiselle Alvarez adds, pacing back and forth like an actual drill sergeant, “you must keep your phones on. I will be tracking each of your locations on the Find My Phone app. If you need anything, or anything goes wrong, please do not hesitate to text the group chat. And remember, this youth hostel—l’auberge de jeunesse, in French—is at the intersection of Rue La Fayette and Rue La Fleur, if for some reason you need to ask for directions.
“Now,” continues Mademoiselle Alvarez, forcing a smile that looks like a grimace, “since Monsieur Higgins came down with his very ill-timed case of, um … mal d’estomac …”
Gaston snickers. “That means ‘diarrhea,’ ” he says. Nneka thwacks his shoulder.
“… I won’t be able to check in on the boys’ dorm in person.” Mademoiselle Alvarez eyes me, Gaston, and Tyler one by one.
Girls outnumber boys on this trip nine to three (there’s an unspoken perception at Sandy Springs High that French is for the girls and the gays, which I have zero problem with).
“However, that doesn’t mean you have any leeway,” our chaperone continues. “Nothing gets past Monsieur and Madame Mouton. They’ve been overseeing American teen tourists since before your parents were born.”
I look over at the ancient couple. I’m sure they’ve been here since before even my grandparents were born, but I’m not sure how carefully they’re watching anyone. Monsieur Mouton is standing so still behind the reception desk that I wonder if the wispy gray beard on his chin is actually cobwebs.
“All right!” says Mademoiselle Alvarez, clapping her hands and breaking into a genuine smile.
“Go upstairs, get unpacked, please give your parents a quick call to let them know you got here okay, and be back down here in exactly half an hour. Femmes, come up the right elevator with me, and hommes, go up the left elevator to the fourth floor, straight to your dorm.”
“C’est magnifique!” Tyler whoops, slinging his giant Sandy Springs Basketball duffel bag over his shoulder. It’s impossible to tell from his exaggerated, open-mouthed grin whether he’s being sarcastic. Then, of course, as if we didn’t all understand his basic French, he adds: “Hooray!”
I grab my roll-y bag, ignoring him.
Before they go to their separate elevators, Nneka and Gaston give each other a parting kiss so passionate that Mademoiselle Alvarez has to pry them apart.
I crinkle my nose. I can’t decide whether I’m grossed out by those two or slightly jealous.
Thinking back, I wonder if Lucas was ever that into me, even when we started dating last summer.
I flash back to our first kiss on the HomeGoods pillow loft.
It was sweet, but was it ever that passionate?
Was I just convenient for him because I was available?
I don’t know if I can trust my own judgment about anything anymore.
No wallowing in Paris!
I drag my bag toward the boys’ elevator. Across the lobby, the girls line up to take two trips in their elevator. Meanwhile Gaston, Tyler, and I cram into ours.
“Smallest in the middle, Ben!” pipes up Gaston.
I give a deep sigh. Gaston is so massive and Tyler is so tall that they practically take up the entire seventeenth-century death trap.
I squeeze myself and my luggage into the remaining space.
When Monsieur Mouton finally manages to close the door behind us, he rasps “Bon voyage, garcons” in a voice so ominous I feel myself tense up.
The little cage lurches upward at a glacial pace. My cheek is almost pressed against Tyler, in that nook between his throat and his heart. And ugh, of course he smells kind of good—like fabric softener.
“Guess we’re going to get to know each other super well, huh?” says Tyler with a little laugh. I can feel his breath on the top of my head.
We’ve known each other our entire lives, you unfathomable jerk! I want to scream at the top of my lungs. But instead, I murmur, “Yep, can’t wait.”
I hope there’s no mistaking from my tone that I’m being extremely sarcastic.
As the cables and pulleys strain against our weight, the elevator starts shuddering. I close my eyes. I have a nightmare flash of us plummeting to the stone floor below.
We come to an abrupt stop, and I open my eyes again—I can hardly wait to burst from this cage—but we’re not at the fourth floor. We’ve stalled in between the second and third floors.
And it’s Tyler that’s trembling, not the elevator car.
“Umm … this is an authentic experience, wouldn’t you say?” Tyler stammers.
I hear Monsieur Mouton call up from below. “Sorry, garcons. Zis vill be fixed soon. Zis happens all the time.”
“No problem-o, Monsieur Mouton!” booms Gaston.
Speak for yourself.
I’m definitely uncomfortable. But I also can’t help but feel a small flicker of that Paris enchantment. This rickety elevator is just another example of the city’s quaint charm—a reminder of how Paris respects its history instead of updating everything all the time.
Tyler lets out a barely audible groan—it’s more like a whimper. I think I can hear his pulse pounding against my ear.
Oh yeah. Of course. Tyler has always been terrified of heights.
I conjure up an old memory from childhood, from before Tyler moved away to New York—back when we were still friends.
We used to hang out in his super-fancy tree house in his backyard, which was full of Pottery Barn furniture and even had a flat-screen TV.
But to get to it, you had to climb up a wiggly rope ladder.
Tyler always shook so hard climbing up or down the ladder that I had to distract him by talking and talking and talking about one of our favorite subjects—usually the Star Wars prequel movies, the ones with Jar Jar Binks.
All these years later, I’m surprised that my former friend—the shy, sensitive, pudgy kid in glasses with whom I bonded in the first grade over the fact that we both preferred rainy-day recess—might still be buried somewhere inside this new Chris Evans–looking body.
I reach around and pat his back lightly.
“Don’t tell me you’re still afraid of heights?” I say, trying to sound comforting.
I feel him go rigid. His jaw clenches.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, offended. He deepens his voice in a way that I hate—the voice that lots of guys, both straight and queer, put on when they’re hiding the fact that they’re really just soft, vulnerable sacks of goo on the inside like everyone else. “And what do you mean still?”
I don’t respond. Just like that, all my warm feelings run cold again. So he doesn’t remember at all.
Ever since Tyler returned to Sandy Springs, I haven’t been sure if a basketball hit him really hard in the head while he was in New York and he genuinely lost all memory of our many years of friendship—or if he’s just pretending not to remember for some sick, twisted, gaslighty reason.
That’s right. Tyler Travers, my former childhood friend, acts like he never knew me before he left Sandy Springs.
But fine, I think as the elevator finally lurches back to life. I’m going to pretend not to remember Tyler, either. And I will not let him—or anyone—ruin my next four days in Paris.