Chapter 4
Eleven Weeks Ago
“N’oubliez pas que vos exposés doivent être prêts à présenter lundi,” Professeur Joubert admonished us before he dismissed us from immersion class.
I sighed as I loaded my books into my pack.
Class had started only yesterday, and we already had a reading assignment and a huge report due Monday that we were supposed to memorize and present in front of the class, as well as handing in a written copy.
Mine was barely started. I’d already discovered that I couldn’t just write it in English and run it through Google Translate.
Madame Dupuy had been quite sarcastic when she’d proofread that version.
I’d admitted about Google, and she’d told me I had to rewrite the whole report without using the internet.
I was only partway through because I had to look up every third word, and I still also had the reading to do, so there went all my free time.
I clomped down the stairs of the school building, feeling like a prisoner.
Outside, Paris waited for me to sample its pastries, walk its neighborhoods, and linger in its parks, but instead I had an appointment with a Bescherelle guide to verb conjugations, a French-English dictionary, and Victor Hugo.
I crossed the lobby heading for the front doors, wishing Nick weren’t in school all day.
It would be fun to get lunch with him in a café where we could sit outside and people-watch.
I reminded myself that I’d get to see him later, after his classes got out.
That was my reward for doing my homework.
I’d find a bench in the little park that was the heart of our block, the one he walked through on his way home, and he’d join me for a couple of hours before we both had to go in for dinner.
The way he grinned when he caught sight of me waiting gave me tingles.
I waded diligently through my homework, taking a break late in the afternoon to go to the boulangerie with Madame Dupuy to get a baguette.
She always bought me a snack, too, one of the pastries they made in addition to bread.
“You need un go?ter,” she’d tell me. “Dinner is still far away.” Every time we went there I got a different kind of pastry because I had this idea that I’d try all the pastries in the shop.
So far my favorite was pain au chocolat.
When we got back from the boulangerie, I finished up my homework, then changed into my flirty green tank dress.
I told Madame Dupuy where I’d be, and she raised an eyebrow, then smiled.
I trotted down to the park and found a bench with a view of the gate Nick would be coming through.
I wondered why more people didn’t cross the interior of our block on their way to wherever they were going.
It was such a refuge from the noise and people.
The wide walkways between the park and the buildings never had more than a few people on them, even though the street-side walkways were always crammed.
At night, the gate to the park was locked, but there were benches right outside its fence.
They were the perfect place to sit on a summer evening after dusk.
Nick pushed through the gate, and I waved. His face lit up, and he hurried over.
“Hi.” I smiled.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle.” He flopped beside me on the bench, dropping his enormous pack. “How were les dieux de la grammaire today?”
“The grammar gods were random and capricious, as always. I mean, why is ‘solde’ both masculine and feminine? That’s just mean and unnecessary.”
He put on a heavy French accent. “Eet ees zee jobe of zee grammair gods to be mean, mademoiselle.”
“Tell me it gets better.”
“It gets…different. I felt like I had a new superpower when I could finally swear in French without making people laugh.” I sighed, wondering if I would ever be able to achieve that. “Let’s go get a Coca,” he said. “I’m parched.”
The café was starting to fill up, but we found a good table under the shade of the awning. “What’s your curfew tomorrow night?” he asked as we sat down.
“I don’t have a curfew. Dad trusts me. And he’s in the UK till Friday, anyway.” He’d called me from the Eurostar just before it went into the Chunnel, all excited about crossing the English Channel in a train. Dad loved train travel. He geeked on trains like I geeked on research.
“You may not have a curfew from your dad, but I bet you do from Madame Dupuy. She came over and talked to my mom after I took you to the Louvre, basically doing a background check on my whole family. She told Mom she was responsible for you when your dad was out of town, and she wanted you to be safe.”
“She what?” I was mortified. But also kind of touched.
If my mom were alive, I knew I’d have a curfew.
So it was really nice that Madame Dupuy cared enough about me to intrude on my privacy.
I mean, she seemed to like me; she took me shopping with her and praised me when I said things correctly.
Sometimes when I was helping her in the kitchen, she told me stories about growing up in Croatia and what it was like to move here when she was seventeen.
But she wouldn’t go to the trouble of talking to Nick’s parents if I didn’t really mean something to her.
It made me kind of love her, to be honest. I told Nick I’d ask about the curfew.
—
After dinner, I flopped onto the couch with my phone.
Me: You were right. I do have a curfew. But she says it depends on what we’re doing
Nick: There’s this great club over in the 11th arrondissement. You like to dance?
Me: I’m the queen of awkward dancing
Me: But don’t we have to be 18 to get in?
Nick: Nope. 16. They’ll only card you if you try to drink
I told Madame Dupuy we were going to a club called Le Shopping. She shook her head when she heard the name. “I do not know this club, but the neighborhood is safe. I will investigate.”
While I waited, I googled the club. The name made me think it would look like a department store: shiny surfaces and angular furniture in gray and black and white.
Instead, the pictures on the website looked like Portland Saturday Market meets Mardi Gras in an architectural-salvage yard.
It looked like a wonderland. I hoped she’d let me go. I sent the link to Mina and Lily.
Me: Nick asked me to go dancing at this club tomorrow
Mina: Cute upstairs Nick?
Me:
Lily: OMG SO JEALOUS
Lily: Tomorrow I will be glamorously hosing out dog kennels
Mina: I’ll be scrubbing dried Play-Doh out of the rug. Again
Mina nannied for her neighbor during the summer, and Lily volunteered at the animal shelter. I felt a little twinge of guilt sending them amazing Paris club pics when they were stuck in Portland cleaning up after dogs and kids.
Lily: Send pics of your fabulous club experience so we can see how Paris Tosh lives
Me:
A couple of hours later, Madame Dupuy finally okayed the club.
Nobody’d ever spent that much time figuring out whether somewhere I wanted to go was safe.
Dad trusted me to be sensible and didn’t set many boundaries, and the housekeepers we’d had in Portland had taken their cues from him.
I knew he loved me, but sometimes it would have been nice if he’d shown it by holding me close instead of encouraging me to get out of the nest. Lily and Mina had always envied his relaxed approach, but once, one of them was arguing with her mom about going to a concert in one of the old warehouses near the river, and her mom said, “I just don’t think it’s a safe space, and I want to keep you safe.
” In that moment I was pierced by a longing for my mom so sudden and brutal that I had to go shut myself in their bathroom so they wouldn’t see me cry.
With Madame Dupuy’s approval secured, I took stock of my closet and panicked.
Nothing I had looked sophisticated enough to go out dancing in Paris, so I raced out to Zara after class the next day to try on every dress they had.
I finally found a sleeveless sea-blue frock with a swirly skirt.
When I got back to the apartment, Madame Dupuy eyed the shopping bag, smiled slightly, and said, “Be home by one a.m.”
I smiled back at her. “Thank you.” I would have preferred three a.m., but I was pretty sure that was an argument I’d lose if I tried it.
“And,” she continued, “if you are late this time, you will not be allowed to go out with Monsieur Nick again. You will call me when you return home to tell me you are safe. If you try to deceive me, I will know. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, wondering how she would know that I was really home unless she stayed at our apartment all night.
“Bon. This place where you are going, it is safe, but the arrondissement next to it is not so nice. Two women were attacked there last year. You should be…vigilant.” I nodded, a little worried.
Dad had made me take self-defense classes, and until the thing with Cole, I’d been confident I could defend myself.
I was still ashamed that instead, I’d frozen.
“Also, I am asking you to wear this.” Madame Dupuy unclasped the silver filigree heart pendant she wore, and before I could say anything, she fastened it around my neck.
“Um, thank you?” I didn’t mean it to come out as a question. It sounded sarcastic, which wasn’t my intention. I was just startled by the intimacy of her gesture.
“It is superstitious of me, but what can it hurt?” she said, as much to herself as to me.
I touched it. It was warm. “Is this like a good-luck charm?”
She nodded. “For protection from misfortune. My great-grandmother was wearing it when a vampire attacked, and it saved her. Silver burns vampires.” I raised my eyebrows.
A vampire? Really? She flicked her hand like she was brushing off a fly, gave me a brief smile, and said, “This is what my mother told me when she gave it to me. People are superstitious where I come from.”