Chapter 4 #3
“You can listen to me when I say no.” Her expression remained friendly, but her voice had an edge.
Yann shrugged one shoulder, like, Ah, well, life is sad—and his eyes shifted to me.
I edged closer to Nick, shaking my head, and he didn’t even bother with the arrow of love business.
He just moved his gaze to a nearby table, all, But wait!
There are more girls over there. He drifted off to see if he could charm one of them onto the dance floor, and Martine and I shared an eye roll.
“How long have you been in Paris?” Youssef asked me.
“About a week. Nick’s been showing me around.” I told them about our trip to the Louvre, and Martine said, “Nick, why are you not taking her to do things real people do? Fun things. Museums are where you go because your professeur makes you.”
Nick smiled and shrugged. “I’m only the tour guide. I take mademoiselle where she asks to go.”
I looked at Martine and Youssef and smiled apologetically. “I mean, I really did like the Louvre. But what else should I see?”
“Flea markets,” Martine said at the same time that Youssef said, “Zombie escape room.”
Nick nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah. I’m putting that on the itinerary.”
“Zombie escape room?” I repeated.
“You have to evade a horde of zombies. It’s not really a room; you’re supposed to get from one part of Paris to another without having your brains eaten,” Nick explained. “It’s perfect dumb fun.”
Martine was shaking her head. “You did not hear? It has been stopped. A girl was attacked and bitten last week during a game.”
“By one of the zombie actors?” I said. Some people get way too far into role-playing.
She shook her head. “No, it was the man who is biting all these women.”
“Did she—” Nick didn’t finish the question.
“She lived,” Martine said.
“Okay, good.” Nick looked relieved. We didn’t say anything for a few moments.
“Is this the ‘vampire’ Sophie was talking about the other night?” I asked finally.
Nick nodded. “Our housekeeper mentioned vampires, too. Like she thought they were a real thing.” I touched the heart pendant she’d given me.
“She gave me this necklace and told me I should wear it tonight to protect against them. Which was odd, but it’s a pretty necklace, so. ” I shrugged.
“Madame Dupuy thinks there are vampires?” Nick asked.
I shrugged again. “She was all, Great-Gram fought off a vampire with this necklace, so wear it, but then she said she comes from a superstitious country, so who knows.”
“Hé, mes amis.”
We looked up. Yann was back at our table, blinding us with his teeth.
“Come over. Join us.” He nodded toward a nearby group of about ten people, crowded around three tables.
“We are celebrating, and also”—he indicated Nick with his chin—“Clément and Bastien said they want to talk to you about an expedition.”
“Celebrating what?” Martine said as Nick nodded okay.
“Le Bec finished his piece on Le Mur.”
“Le Mur Oberkampf?” Nick said. Yann nodded, and Youssef whistled, impressed.
We got up and joined the other group, squeezing in where we could.
Everyone was focused on a pale, skinny-but-muscular guy our age gripping a Champagne bottle.
I guessed he was an artist; the grubby, paint-spattered hoodie and jeans yelled, Ask me about my latest painting.
They also said, I’m famous enough to get into a nice club even though I dress like I sleep in doorways.
The fact that he looked like a debauched KJ Apa probably helped, too.
“Bonsoir, mes amis,” he crowed, climbing up onto his chair and waving the bottle.
We bonsoir-ed and started a round of kiss-kiss with his friends.
He jumped off the chair, landed right in my space, pulled me way too close, and kiss-kiss-kissed me.
I didn’t like the way this guy did bisous.
Too personal. He grinned, showing his teeth, then stepped away and embraced Nick much less ardently.
“Hé, mec,” Nick said. “I haven’t seen you around for a couple of months.”
“I was here and there,” Le Bec replied.
“Anywhere interesting?” Nick asked.
Le Bec smiled. “Where I am is always somewhere interesting.” He moved on, finishing his hellos, and I sat down between Nick and a girl wearing a fuchsia tunic and a close-fitting black headscarf with large fuchsia-and-orange flowers printed on it.
The scarf hung down under her chin in soft, loose folds, skimming back over her shoulders.
She had a wary air, but she flashed me a quick smile as more bottles of Champagne appeared.
Le Bec opened them and filled glasses. Then he stood on his chair again, holding his glass high. “To Le Mur!” he said.
“To Le Mur!” we toasted. The girl in the headscarf raised her glass and put it down without drinking.
I leaned into Nick. “What is this wall?”
“It’s a group that invites street artists to paint the side of a building here in the eleventh arrondissement. It’s a fairly big deal.”
“So this guy did a piece on this wall?” I felt sophisticated. I was hanging out at a club in Paris with an artist. Drinking Champagne. I took a tiny sip from my glass. Nobody jumped up and yelled, “Put that down; you’re not legal yet!” I felt bold enough to chance another sip. It tickled my nose.
Nick nodded. “Remember the pigeon we saw in the Métro station? He’s the guy who did that.”
“Oh, wow.” I grinned. “You have excellent friends. I’ve never met a street artist before.”
Nick smiled. “Would you like to go see the new piece?”
I grinned bigger. I would go see an exhibition of quadratic equations with you, I thought as I said, “I’d love to.”
A guy farther down the table called out a question that I didn’t catch, and Nick turned to answer.
I settled back into my chair, happy to watch everybody and try to remember what name went with which face.
Conversations in French and English flowed around me as I sipped my Champagne.
The French ones were challenging; by the time I’d figured out what people were talking about, the conversation had turned in another direction.
And listening to English conversations surrounded by French disoriented me so much that I couldn’t anchor myself in either language.
After a while, my brain clocked out, and all the words turned to radio static.
Nick, Youssef, Martine, and a guy down the table who was probably Bastien were leaning toward each other, talking intently.
Bastien pulled out his phone and showed them a video of some guys maybe caving?
It was all shadows, jitters, and blinding headlamp flare.
In reply, Youssef showed one of his own caving videos—much better filmed.
I recognized Nick, Martine, the girl in the scarf, and Le Bec. Were there caves somewhere near Paris?
A voice next to me redirected my attention. “That is a beautiful pendant.”
I turned to see the girl with the scarf. She spoke in English, which was kind. I brushed my fingers over the pendant. “Thank you. I love your scarf. The flowers are great—so bold.”
“Bold. I like that.” She smiled. “I am Noor.”
“I’m Tosh.”
“So you are a friend of Le Bec?” she said.
I shrugged, shaking my head. “Nick knows him. I just moved here, so I don’t really know anybody yet. I only met Martine and Youssef tonight. How about you? Are you one of his friends?”
She glanced over to where he was acting out a story for three listeners, his gestures extravagant. “We used to paint together. You know—street art. He was a taggeur when we met, and now he is going to be famous.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s so great.”
She smiled, small and tight. “Yes.”
“So you’re a street artist too?” When she nodded, I said, “That’s amazing. I’ve never met a girl street artist. I mean, I’ve never met any street artists at all until you and him.” I inclined my head at Le Bec. “The city I’m from has some excellent art, though.”
“Where are you from?”
I told her and was amazed to learn that she’d heard of Portland. She said she followed several Portland artists on TikTok.
“So what kind of things do you do?” I asked.
She picked up her phone, thumbed through a couple of screens, and handed it to me. The image sent a shock of recognition through me. I looked up, excited.
“You totally nailed this. That’s what I wanted to do when I saw her.”
Noor nodded, her eyes bright. “She is too powerful to be vulnerable like that.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. Noor’s photo showed a black-and-white Banksy-style stencil of the Venus de Milo on the side of a building.
When Nick and I had seen Venus in the Louvre, beautiful but off-kilter and powerless because her arms had been broken off, I’d wanted to make her new arms. Seeing her so vulnerable distressed me.
She could have been someone I knew. She could have been me.
In the photo, a girl wearing a spring-green headscarf that matched her coveralls stood on a ladder next to the painted Venus, attaching her left arm.
The right one was already on—you could see the jagged line where it joined, and you could also see that, in contrast to the black and white of the rest of her, it was the warm color of living flesh.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “She looks strong.”
The girl helping Venus was rendered with a simple, graphic vibe, and her lively colors contrasted with the black and white of the statue.
Noor’s smile took over her face. She nodded toward Le Bec. “When he saw it, he said, ‘Why are you ruining his art?’ ”
I shook my head. “Not ruining,” I said. “You made her whole.”