“You don’t mean that,” I say, joking.
“What if I do? I grew up with two parents who were so passionate about their jobs that nothing else ever seemed to matter.”
“But…,” I start. I don’t know what to say, though. I couldn’t imagine not having a passion, something that makes me want to jump out of bed every morning. To me it sounds pretty amazing to have grown up with two artistic parents who went after their dreams and became very successful. But what do I know about Louis’s family life?
He’s silent for a while, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep.
“Mia?” he says at last. “I didn’t really come to the Musée d’Orsay to hang out with Max this morning. I saw your name on the list at school. I wanted to see you again….”
I grin into the darkness. My ears fill up with the drumming of my heartbeat, and it sounds like pointe shoes thundering across the stage. I close my eyes. Ballerinas dance all around me, their arms fluttering as they twirl and whisper, Maybe you don’t have to pick between love and ballet, Mia. Maybe you can have both.
I look across the room, where Louis is, just inches away from me, listening to his soft breathing. Today was…perfect. Well, maybe not perfect. I picture Louis’s full lips, how pink and bright they look when he’s laughing. They seem so soft, too. I grunt in my head. Alone with my thoughts, I can finally admit it: I wish he’d kissed me. That should be part of the French experience, right? Yes, I know he’s my teacher’s son. I can’t deny that it could look pretty bad if anyone from school found out what Louis and I did today, even though we didn’tdoanything….All right, Mia, enough. You need to rest for the big day tomorrow. But, as I fall asleep, I think, yes, maybe I can have it all. With Louis, everything feels possible.
“WAKE UP!WAKEup!WAKE UP!”
There’s a moment this morning, after I open my eyes in a dark and unfamiliar place, when I think I’m going to have to leave without Louis. It takes clicking my fingers many times, shaking him gently, then not so gently, and finally screaming in his ear to get him to join the living again. Not to mention the blaring alarm on my phone that wokemeup in the first place.
As we make our way downstairs, we’re greeted with the two most distinctive smells of France: coffee and fresh croissants. Louis’s whole face lights up as Vivienne invites us to sit down and eat before Madeleine drives us back to the station.
But as Louis is about to do just that, I put my hand on his arm. “We have to go.”
“Tu devrais manger quelque chose,”Vivienne says to me as she pours coffee into a bowl. Like, a cereal bowl.
You should eat something.She says a few more things, so Louis translates. “Madeleine went to theboulangerieespecially for us.”
I don’t need to respond; the look on my face says it all.
“Thank you so much, but we have to take these to go,” Louis explains to Vivienne in French. She looks a little disappointed but doesn’t protest as she wraps the pastries in the paper bag they came in. Just as I’m about to step out of the kitchen, Louis holds up his index finger, asking me to wait. He grabs the bowl of coffee and gulps it down in onego.
“Didn’t you burn your tongue?” I ask.
Louis nods, his face scrunched up. “Worth it,” he says, his voice coarse.
Kisses, croissants, and promises to see Vivienne and Madeleine again are exchanged, but my shoulders remain tense until Louis and I are sitting on a moving train, back to Paris, and back to reality.
He immediately tucks into the croissants, offering me one. “We’re finding out about the roles inSwan Laketoday,” I say, shaking my head. The weekend has been a fun escape, but now my stomach is in a knot. All I can think is that, by the end of the day, I will either be delirious with joy or crushed with disappointment. All my hope of ABT hinges on today.
“I know,” Louis says between mouthfuls, half his face covered in buttery flakes. His tone is completely neutral, but my mind starts spinning anyway. Does he know something I don’t? What if his dad had shared his picks for the roles? Monsieur Dabrowski carries a notebook everywhere—a black leather-bound one in which he writes notes at the end of every class. Maybe he left it open on the dining-room table, and Louis just happened to see it?
Oh my God, I think. He knows.
I turn to Louis, who’s suppressing a yawn. “So youdoknow?” I ask, my eyes growing wide with fear.
Louis raises an eyebrow and yawns once more.
I try to remain calm. It doesn’t work. “You do!” I say, too loudly.
Louis raises the other eyebrow. “Hmm…one thingyoumight need to know about me is that I really need my eight—or preferably nine or ten—hours of sleep a night. Right now I’m extremely sleep deprived, so you’re going to have to be a little clearer about what you think I know.”
Part of me wants to just ask him and get it over with. But what if he tells me I haven’t even snagged a role as a page girl? I might burst into tears or yelp in rage. Given the choice, I’d rather look like a complete mess in front of my entire classandMonsieur Dabrowski than in front of Louis. “It’s nothing,” I reply, trying to play it cool. It will have to wait.
“It sounds like something.”
I eye the pastry bag on his lap. “You know what? I think Iamhungry,” I say, helping myself to the remaining croissant and ignoring the strange look he’s giving me.
“Okay, then I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute,” Louis says, leaning his head against the window.
He sleeps the whole way, leaving me to wonder if I will soon receive my wings or be cursed for the rest of the summer. At least the croissant is great company. For the two minutes it lasts, anyway.
