33
“Do you dare to run away?”
I’m almost serious when I confront Vadim with this question, as soon as he arrives on campus on Monday morning.
“Okay, but we’ll have to run fast. We’ll have Keith, the dean, and the head of the community service program on our heels. Ready?”
“Hmm… The only good things about going back to class here are: first, we don’t have to wear as many clothes, and second, I only have to close my eyes to remember you in Paris wearing that ridiculous pom-pom hat.”
“That’s the last time you make me wear something like that, Lancaster.”
“Good thing I filmed you with it on.”
“You did what?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Alma, if you show that video to anyone, I’ll tell everyone that you dance to the Spice Girls in your pajamas with your little sister!”
“First of all, it was Just a Girl by No Doubt. And second, you were humming it in the shower!”
“No way!”
“I have the proof right here,” I say, tapping the front pocket of my bag before running away.
Shouting my name, along with a few fresh threats, Vadim chases after me. I bump into a few students as I flee, before stumbling and finding myself in the arms of Clémentine, who was quietly waiting for class to start.
“Alma, careful! You almost made me drop my croissant!”
“Hey, Clem. Sorry. Wait, you’re cheating on Twix? Is something wrong?”
“Well, since I didn’t get an invitation to France, I’m bringing France to me.”
“Oh, Clemy, darling! It wasn’t planned, I swear. We decided at the last minute.”
“Well, he had time to get ready and jump on the plane, didn’t he?!” my best friend blurts out, shooting a dark look at Vadim.
“Hey, D’Aragon!” He flashes the kind of wide, toothy smile you would see on someone in a holiday photo.
“It was already a miracle my mom said yes—I was afraid she’d change her mind if I invited you too,” I try, attempting to make amends.
“I don’t care. I have a life too,” she says with a shrug. “Besides, I have a new guy.”
“What? Who? How? Do I know him?!”
“Oh, now suddenly you’re interested in your old friend Clémentine, huh?” She tries to look mysterious, but has a hard time hiding her smile.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vadim says. “Not that I’m not interested, but… actually, yes, that’s exactly it!”
“That’s right, get lost, Arcadi! Go find your friends. Oh, shoot, you don’t have any, what a shame…”
Clem puts on a mock-sad pout that amuses me.
“Clémentine D’Aragon, you are a ‘trou du cou,’” he says in French, very proud of himself.
Lily’s doing, of course.
My best friend snorts. “If you want to call me an asshole, it’s trou du cul. Cou means neck, you trou du cul!”
Vadim turns on his heel and stalks across the classroom, before leaning on the wall and taking out his cell phone to text I-don’t-know-who.
Cheyenne? Maybe.
Paranoid? Probably.
I keep pushing, try to bargain with, then bribe Clémentine, but I can’t manage to get the name of her new flame out of her.
Either she’s making me pay for going to Paris without her, or she’s a bit embarrassed about who it is.
Andrew Clark, her snacking accomplice? Or is Cassius Banks, the basketball player, back on the scene?
Perhaps it’s Aaron Goldberg, the valedictorian’s older brother she dreamed of marrying?
Or another student, one I’ve never met? All I know is that she spent the holidays going to campus parties and doesn’t always remember how she got home. Conclusion: anything is possible.
Even after a full week of classes, I still haven’t gotten her to talk.
And I know Clem inside and out; she isn’t the type to keep a secret for this long.
It’s usually beyond her capabilities. But my best friend has changed.
She spends almost all her evenings with him, barely answers my texts, and sometimes arrives in class with dark circles under her eyes and a goofy smile on her lips.
Vadim, meanwhile, is kept busy with his community service group—and his “interesting” new friend.
When he recounts snippets of their conversations to me, I pretend to find them trivial and dull.
He tells me that he doesn’t see her outside of the community service work and doesn’t particularly want to, and I promise him I won’t become the kind of easily freaked-out, jealous, suspicious girlfriend that can’t handle a simple boy-girl friendship.
But it’s still weird, community service that ends so late in the day, right? And on top of everything, Clem isn’t even around to dream up crazy scenarios with me.
So I spend a lot of my evenings at Abrams’s place.
He’s satisfied with the footage I shot in Paris, impressed by my work—which he says is heading in the right direction—and a little bitter whenever the discussion turns to Vadim Arcadi.
Caleb is often around, a little more relaxed with me than before, but still as harsh and critical toward his father.
It’s actually kind of entertaining to witness this sociological spectacle: hearing him speak in a way I would never dare speak to my own father—not even in my dreams—and seeing my professor, so uncompromising with his students, back down in front of his twenty-year-old son, just to avoid breaking the fragile bond they have recently started to rebuild.
“You spend quite a bit of time here, don’t you?” Cal asks me one evening as I’m getting ready to leave.
“Yes. I’ve got a film project to finish. Your father agreed to help me.”
“Yeah, right! He’s only doing it for the company—and because he knows I like you and it’ll make me come round more often.”
“Then everyone’s happy, right?”
“But that doesn’t explain why you come here. Don’t you have better things to do? What does your boyfriend say about it?”
“Nothing. He’s not the possessive type.”
“And you?”
“Me… I give him his freedom, he gives me mine; it works for us.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a terrible liar, Alma?
The truth is, you don’t really know what he does with his evenings.
You’re dying to hound him with questions, but you don’t want to smother him, so you come here to kill time and think about something else.
And maybe to make him a little jealous…”
“Okay, let me ask you the same thing: you’re supposed to see your dad every other weekend, but right now it’s more like two nights out of three. So, what’s your excuse?”
“You.”
The silence that settles in weighs a ton.
The elephant in the room.
“But don’t worry,” Caleb continues, not remotely embarrassed. “I won’t ask you out as long as my dad thinks all this is thanks to him.”
“Oh, true, he tries to set you up with a new student every year.”
“No, with his favorite student. But he won’t succeed this time either, right…?”
I don’t know if he expects an answer. I use the late hour as an excuse and leave before another awkward silence falls over the room like a lead weight. Abrams Junior and Hitchcock, the old Basset Hound, watch me go with the same look on their faces: tired, sad, jaded, or maybe all three at once.
I hurry to Vadim’s place just to check if he’s there. When I spot the light in his window from the street, I feel relieved. But the feeling only lasts a split second… before I start wondering if he’s alone.
And if he’s finished his work for tonight, why didn’t he call me?
So I go up, knock, and hold my breath. Vadim doesn’t open the door for me, though: he cracks it barely two inches.
I try to stop myself from thinking about Cheyenne, right there behind him, either naked or getting there, or perhaps hiding somewhere trying to stay quiet. Holding her breath—the only thing we would have in common.
I’m going to kill her.
No, him first.
“Ah, it’s you, Koala. I’d let you in, but in about five seconds, you’re going to be pissed.”
“Oh yeah? Who do I kill first?” I intended my voice to be hard and sharp, but it comes out only just audible.
Vadim steps aside to let me in. I take a few slow, unsteady steps forward, my hand sliding along the wall to keep me from falling in case of shock.
“Alma Lancaster, it’s been a while! Come here, Frenchie!” Felix exclaims with wildly exaggerated enthusiasm, throwing his arms open.
I remain frozen to the spot, speechless.
“Well, don’t look too excited.” His arms fall to his sides and his brow furrows.
“I did say you wouldn’t be happy,” Vadim chimes in with a smirk.
I don’t break my silence.
“I know Keith doesn’t want us seeing each other, but damn it, he’s my best friend. Can you imagine if someone tried to stop you from seeing Clémentine?”
“By the way, how is my favorite redhead?” Felix asks smoothly.
I shoot him a glare.
“I’m not in jail. No one has the right to tell me who I can or cannot see,” Vadim says.
“Do you know what Keith is doing? He’s separating us so he can control us,” Fe insists.
“Divide and conquer—that’s the expression,” I reply, finally finding my words.
“Oh, you’ve found your voice, have you?”
“It’s just that Keith might have good reasons for doing this, right? It all ended pretty badly, last time…” I add, staring at Felix.
“No more messing around,” Vadim says, in an attempt to reassure me. “I go to college. I don’t skip any classes. I gave up the homework hustle. I clock in every day for that damn community service. I’m not going to screw up this time.”
“Still doesn’t change the fact that we’re both broke, man.”
“Stop relying on other people and find yourself a job, Alonso!” I shoot back, holding the slacker’s gaze.
“You know where you can shove your advice, Lancaster?”
“Speaking of jobs, I have something crazy to tell you, Alma,” Vadim cuts in.
“Alright, I’m out of here, I’ve already heard this story three times.”
Felix shuffles off, his baggy pants rustling loudly between his legs, then slams the door behind him, muttering a few curse words in Spanish as he goes.
“That means: ‘I was really happy to see you. Thanks for your encouragement. Take care, and see you very soon!’” Vadim translates for me, laughing.
I laugh as well and go to kiss him. “I missed you. Alright, what’s your story?”
“So earlier, I’m walking down the street and this super classy woman, maybe forty or forty-five, taps me on the shoulder.”
“And?”
“She starts telling me that I’ve got extremely beautiful eyes and a strong presence, that she loves my hair, my smile…”
“Hmm… So, I’m going to have to watch out for super classy, 45-year-old women now, too?”
“Wait. Then she asked me if I’ve ever modeled and told me that I could make quite a bit of money from this face,” he says, pointing at himself.
“Modeling?”
“Why does that surprise you, Lancaster?”
Vadim pretends to be offended while I contemplate his dark yet luminous presence—which still fascinates me—his hypnotic, light-colored eyes, his mess of curls, and his gorgeous smile. Of course it doesn’t surprise me.
“Look, she gave me her card,” he continues. “She’s a talent agent and casting director.”
“Michelle Kerry, Talent Agency.”
“She told me to drop by her agency tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, we’re going to meet your brother.”
“I know, I’ll go after. But I’ll probably turn down anything she offers me. I’d end up hating everyone involved: aging playboys who’d examine me from every angle, pretentious advertisers, photographers who think they’re God…”
“No, you should think about it, Vadim. You might meet interesting people, directors perhaps. It could open doors for you.”
“I doubt it. What interests me most is that, apparently, it pays very well. Felix was right when he said I need to find a way to make some money.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, you know I can give you—”
“Okay, end of discussion,” he says, jumping up.
“Wait! Man, they can be so touchy, these supermodels!
I catch up to him in the open kitchen and hug him from behind. Vadim turns around, wraps his arms around my shoulders, and rests his forehead against mine.
“I knew you were a good catch,” I whisper to him, smiling. “Do you remember the first time we talked? I didn’t say anything. I just looked at your profile, unable to take my eyes off you. I couldn’t believe such a detestable guy could be so good-looking.”
“And I couldn’t believe a good girl like you could look me right in the eye and challenge me. When all the others like you were afraid of me.”
“I could spend my life looking at you, Vadim Arcadi.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about it again in twenty years, Alma Lancaster. We might as well just enjoy it now…”
And he kisses my neck, making me shiver all over.
“No, let’s talk about it tomorrow. I have to go home. Pick me up at ten?”
“Okay. I’ve been waiting for this for seventeen years, you know? But now that it’s finally here, I feel like I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“I know. But try to remember that he must be even more nervous than you. He’s going to meet his big brother. You must be a legend to him.”
Is there a single person on this earth who doesn’t find Vadim Arcadi fascinating?