Chapter 7
Eleven Weeks Ago
Back before Lily and Mina had persuaded me to join them on debate team (“Please,” Lily begged, “we are suffering a criminal lack of estrogen on the team. You have to join so we won’t be the only girls”), before I spent all my free time on research and practice debates, I used to do a lot of printmaking.
I liked it because you don’t have to be a great illustrator to make interesting art.
We’d learned linocut and silk screen in art class, and then I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole, watching hours of printmaking tutorials.
I learned how to do stencils and monotypes, gelli prints, cyanotypes, and drypoint, but collagraphy fascinated me.
I liked its immediacy and portability. You could take a piece of cardboard and a glue stick, find some interesting textures and shapes—leaves, window screen, string, cardstock cutouts—glue them to the cardboard, ink it up, and pull prints.
Cleanup was minimal, unlike screen printing.
Collagraphy was incredibly flexible, too.
I could make a plate, pull a print, add more elements to the plate, pull another print, and keep doing it until I got a keeper.
With most other forms of printmaking, you had to make a completely new plate if you wanted to change something in the image.
I loved how every print was a reflection of a moment and a place.
I could be intentional with it, too, cutting out shapes or letters to make posters or T-shirts.
So when I woke up Saturday morning with the image of a croissant surrounded by the words “Epic Pastry Quest” lingering in my head, I decided to make team tees for us.
Martine had made a spreadsheet—complete with checkboxes—of pastries and the addresses of their patisseries, along with meetup dates and times.
Noor had drawn a map of our destinations and illustrated each stop with its corresponding pastry.
It was a big, coordinated campaign, and it required T-shirts.
We were meeting up later that afternoon, after Noor closed her caricature stand, for the first stop on our quest: the réligieuse.
Nick came over after his Saturday-morning school session to help me with homework and ended up helping me with the printing, too, sliding the shirts over a piece of cardboard to prevent wrinkles and print-through.
He held each shirt steady while I inked the plate with croissant-colored ink, placed it, and burnished it down.
When I pulled the plate off the first one, he looked at me, his mouth open in amazement.
“You continue to be magical, mademoiselle. I am awestruck by your hidden skills.”
I smiled at him, delighted. “It’s not really magic. I just have the knowing of the process.”
“The knowing of the process is the magic. And the doing of the process.” I promised him I’d bring him back a réligieuse. “Two,” he said. “One for printmaking help and one for homework help.”
—
“They tied the box up with an actual ribbon,” I said, holding up the small white box that contained Nick’s pastries.
The shopkeeper at Vanille et Chocolat had wound magenta ribbon around it, dividing it into four quadrants, and then secured the bunny-ears bow on top so you could use it for a handle.
We were walking to the Métro. The réligieuses had been heavenly, and then it had felt so special when they’d wrapped up my to-go order like a present.
Martine gave me a puzzled look. “Of course they did. That is how you take pastries home.”
I laughed. “In Portland, you get an environmentally friendly brown cardboard box, but nobody does it up with ribbon and makes it festive. Portland says, It’s just food—fuel for the next protest march.
Make it sustainable, sure, but no need to get fancy.
Paris says, I beg to differ. Nice things should seem like a celebration.
Paris knows that sometimes the only thing standing between you and the abyss is the pretty ribbon on the pastry box. ”
Martine laughed. “You sound very French.”
“I think I’ve found where I belong.” I looked around at the street crowded with people.
“You know, I’ve always thought Portland was a good place to live—green, close to the ocean, close to nature—so it’s a little weird how hard I’ve fallen for this place.
It’s so relentlessly urban. But there’s a different future here for me than I’d have in Portland.
And I think the Paris future is the one I want.
Not to get away from people and city life, but to be at the vital center of it.
I want to be where things happen. I want to make things happen. ”
“And you want those things to be embellished with a pretty bow, yes?” Noor’s mouth quirked with a smile.
“Yes, I do, now that I know it’s an option. I feel bad, though.” I pointed at the rolled-up T-shirt she was carrying. “I should have put it in a pretty bag or at least tied a ribbon around it. I’ll have to remember that presentation standards are higher here.”
She laughed. “It is enough that you made them yourself.”
“I wish I could draw,” Martine said. “You and Noor create beautiful things. I just make boring spreadsheets.”
“That spreadsheet is a thing of beauty,” I informed her.
“And I have seen many a spreadsheet. I love your information hierarchy and how natural it feels. I love the checkboxes. I love the way you use color to group information. I love your font—so elegant and readable. And the hyperlinks to explanations of each pastry are genius.” She smiled.
“Also? If you want to make fun art, you don’t need to draw.
This kind of printmaking”—I pointed at her shirt—“is super friendly to all art-skill levels. It doesn’t care if you don’t draw.
You just find some interesting textures, glue them to a piece of cardboard, ink it, and print it. Voilà—art.”
“Can you show me?”
“Absolutely.”
“I think Youssef would enjoy it also.”
“I bet Nick would, too. We could do a workshop. Noor? Do you want to take a break from making fabulous street art and make fabulous collagraphs?”
“I would love to.” The street was getting crowded, and we drew closer together. I concentrated on being a tank.
“Great. When should we—” Suddenly I was grabbed and wrenched sideways. It happened so fast that it took me a couple of seconds to realize a hooded figure was grasping my arm so hard it hurt and pulling me away from my friends. I made a startled little “Oh!” and Noor turned her head.
“Tosh!” she cried, and reached out for me, grabbing my free hand with both of hers. Martine reached for me as well. I stumbled on uneven pavement and fell to my knees, breaking my attacker’s grip. Tosh and Martine helped me up.
“What happened?” Noor asked.
“Someone grabbed my arm.” I looked around for my attacker, but he’d disappeared.
Martine’s face was worried. “Did you see who it was?”
I shook my head. “He was wearing a hoodie with the hood up.” I tried to remember any more details, but it had happened so fast. Somebody had grabbed me on the street in broad daylight in front of lots of people and tried to drag me away, and I couldn’t even say what the color of his hoodie was.
My knees bounced, and adrenaline careened through my body, a few seconds too late to be helpful.
“Can we get out of here?” Noor and Martine put me between them and hustled me along the sidewalk to the Métro entrance, through the turnstiles, and onto the platform.
They stared around like Secret Service agents as I huddled into myself, still vibrating with fear.
They got me onto the train and steered me to the two facing benches in the center of the car.
Besides Mom, Lily and Mina were the only people I’d told about what Cole did to me.
After that, they made sure I was never alone with him at meets.
They even walked me to rounds, which he hated.
When Cole and I won State and he grabbed me in a hug, they swarmed us, looking like they were celebrating, too, but pushing him away from me.
And now Martine and Noor were doing much the same thing. Watching. Keeping me safe.
“Are you okay?” Martine asked.
My knees hurt from where I’d hit them on the ground, and the adrenaline was now souring in my stomach. But I hadn’t been hurt, only frightened.
“Shaken up, but I’ll be okay.” I looked down at my hands. “Oh no.”
“What?” Noor asked.
I turned my empty hands up. “I dropped Nick’s pastries.”