1
Ten months earlier
“Alma Lancaster and Vadim Arcadi.”
The gravelly voice, thick with tobacco and whiskey, reels off the names of the assigned pairs for our first-semester project.
Sitting in the front row, I listen attentively to Mr. Abrams, who is as impressive to look at as he is to listen to, even though his thick American accent is sometimes difficult to understand.
His corduroy jacket must have once looked stylish, but it’s now shapeless, faded, and threadbare at the elbows.
His lined, weary face bears the traces of past good looks.
I tear my eyes away from the professor I already consider a mentor and look toward the back of the classroom. Toward where Vadim Arcadi always sits. Or rather, where he has slumped, rocking on his chair and staring out the window, since the beginning of the school year.
He turns away from the outdoor scene that had captivated him, and his gaze settles on me. While the other students in the class get up to either trade hugs and fist bumps or gripe about the partner they’ve just been assigned, Vadim fixes his pale gray eyes on me. It’s an impossible gaze to hold.
His expression radiates the insolent charm of a campus heartbreaker, but also the contempt he has for girls like me. The French girls. The rich kids. The ones who don’t need scholarships. The ones who treat film school like summer camp.
He doesn’t know me, but he probably hates me.
And I’m already wondering how we’re going to get along.
Or even just have a conversation.
“No objections, no swaps, no complaints. I don’t want to hear any grumbling.
You’re not in high school anymore, so you’re going to learn how to work together.
In this crazy world, there’s nothing you’ll ever do completely alone.
And don’t assume the pairs I’ve chosen are random.
Nothing happens by chance! You wanted to make movies?
Then make them. Whatever the conditions. ”
“But, Professor…” Nicki Scott, the girl sitting behind me, protests in a whiny voice.
“Quiet! You have an hour to decide on the topic of a short film and then pitch it to me. Give it everything you’ve got.
Put your life into it. Listen, discuss, decide.
Don’t let yourselves get steamrolled. Fight for your ideas.
Well… if they’re good ones. Otherwise, keep looking.
Understood? No more whining, Scott. Now get to work! ”
“Yes, Mr. Abrams,” Nicki replies, resigned.
Leonard Abrams, a failed artist but a charismatic teacher. Defining trait: had the whole class eating out of his hand in less than a month.
“Arcadi, Lancaster, do I have to hold your hands? Are you both going to wait for the other one to make the first move? Come on, Romeo and Juliet, get moving. One hour! Time is money!”
Bristling, Vadim tips his chair forward until the metal legs crash loudly against the tile floor.
Slowly, he stands and shuffles toward the front row, his eyes shooting daggers at the teacher.
Neither of them is willing to look away.
And I would rather have the ground swallow me whole than be the trophy in this doomed cockfight.
Ultimately Abrams caves in first, probably in a hurry to go outside for a smoke.
With a sigh, Vadim flops into the empty chair next to me and sinks back into his worn leather jacket.
A heavy silence settles in, crackling with tension.
I rack my brains for something intelligent to say, but I’m too transfixed by his profile, which is somehow boyish and manly at the same time.
I take in his delicate features; the texture of his fair skin, tanned by the Californian summer; his straight, almost arrogant nose; and his full, well-defined lips, whose only imperfection is a small scar running through one of them.
And the mess of wavy, tousled hair that contrasts with his angelic face.
Beneath his long, brown eyelashes, his eyes—always distant—are such a pale gray they sometimes seem transparent.
But they grow dark when he suddenly turns them toward me, brows furrowed in annoyance.
“I made the first move, Chanel. It’s your turn.”
He casts a mocking glance at the oversized, vintage handbag I swiped from my mother. I feel ashamed without really knowing why.
“My name’s Alma.”
“I know what your name is, Alma Lancaster.”
“Then I’d prefer you use my first name, Vadim Arcadi. My real one.”
“And I’d prefer to work alone. But we don’t always get what we want in life. Oh, sorry, unless we’re like you, Lancaster,” he shoots back, mimicking my British accent.
Even though I speak English fluently, the London accent I inherited from my father still makes me something of a foreigner here, in the United States.
I give Vadim a sarcastic thumbs-up, as if to say that I find him hilarious, and at that moment I catch the amused look of my friend Clémentine, a Frenchwoman through and through.
She couldn’t care less about her terrible accent, just as she couldn’t care less about a lot of other things.
She doesn’t miss much either, so she’s probably already picked up on the tension simmering between Vadim and me.
We’ve exchanged five sentences, and we’re already butting heads.
But there’s more to it than that.
I don’t really know why, but I’m intrigued by Vadim. He’s a puzzle, and I want to understand what makes him tick. The guy unsettles me, yet I have this urge to please him. I’m attracted to him, but at the same time I feel like running for my life.
This is the first time I’ve seen him shake off his dark, brooding persona to crack a joke.
In fact, it’s the first time he’s spoken to me—although I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen him talk to anyone, except when he challenges the teachers, who do their best to assert their authority over him, and all the girls on campus who have succumbed to his charms, but to whom he has apparently promised nothing.
Word gets around here. For the past month, there’s been a rumor going around that this loner has no problem luring girls from the university to his bachelor pad around the corner.
He doesn’t burden himself with friends, just the occasional acquaintance whose company he tolerates. Unlike many of us, he doesn’t need to surround himself with people to prove he exists.
The college boys are afraid of him, feigning contempt so they don’t have to confront him.
As for the girls, when it comes to Arcadi, they tend to fall into one of three groups.
There are the heartbroken ones who’ve already been rejected.
They usually continue to pursue him, but he politely lets them down, using the same charm offensive that made them fall for him in the first place.
This means they end up becoming even more obsessed.
Then, there are the confident ones who brazenly try to catch his attention and whom he pretends to ignore until he discreetly sets his sights on one of them.
And finally, there are the shy ones—like me—who have never dared speak to him, either because they’re too afraid of that one indifferent glance that signals rejection or because he isn’t part of their world, and their upbringing prevents them from crossing that line.
Of course, I had already noticed Vadim Arcadi.
At eighteen, I’ve already seen a lot, thanks to my parents’ many relocations and travels, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a boy so strikingly good-looking.
Guys our age often like to act the rebel, but Vadim has absolutely nothing in common with them.
He’s so self-possessed, as if he alone knows the secrets of our existence.
He likes to come across as a slacker, but his passion for cinema is greater than all of ours combined.
And in this university, where most students come from a wealthy background, he stands out, without complaining about it or trying to hide it.
No one knows much about him, but everyone gets the impression that life has already taken a toll on him.
He lives alone, regularly skips classes for activities we know nothing about, drives a dilapidated pickup truck that doesn’t have any of the charm of vintage American cars, and his only family is a tall, muscular Black man who often visits him on campus.
There’s a lot about Vadim Arcadi that sparks curiosity.
Though he doesn’t realize it, he also sparks jealousy among the young people here, with their overly polished and orderly lives.
Of which I am the perfect example.