“Except when you are nowhere,” Youssef said. “We were looking for you for an excursion last month, and it was as if you had disappeared. Again.”
“I unplugged. I needed a break.”
“Let us know when you’re going dark, mec,” Nick said.
“It would ruin my air of mystery.” He turned back to me and gestured at the wall with a smug half smile. “You have not said what you think.”
“I like how they’re real, but more than real, but you always know they’re just paint on a wall, too. I mean, the way you use strokes of so many colors to make the feathers look real and dimensional, but at the same time the paint strokes are obvious and graphic. Realistic is hard, and this is so real you can almost feel how soft the feathers are. But also it’s more than real. It’s so huge and impressive.” Sometimes when I feel really uncomfortable or surprised, I babble. A year of debating had gotten that mostly under control, but Le Bec just made me that nervous.
He gave me a cool look. “The beautiful girl has opinions about my technique.”
“I mean—why wouldn’t I?”
His expression was hard and closed, like Cole’s when I’d critique one of his arguments. Only I’d said complimentary things. I wasn’t sure what he was upset about. “It’s amazing,” I finished lamely. He smiled, satisfied. Nick and Youssef told him the mural was formidable, and he turned his attention away from me. He told us the names of all the people who’d complimented it, described how he’d scored an endorsement from a spray-paint manufacturer, and bragged about how many thousands of new followers he had. Everyone said, “Waou,” and told him how much they liked it, but he seemed to want us to keep telling him how great he was. Cole did that. He was always looking for applause, telling mewhom he’d beaten and which colleges were trying to recruit him. He’d pout if I wasn’t quick enough with my praise for his wonderfulness. When I did something good, though, he brushed it off like it didn’t matter. Finally, Le Bec paused.
“I need a snack,” I said quickly, before he could start talking again. “Is anyone besides me hungry?”
“I am always hungry,” he replied, eyeing me. I moved closer to Nick, who slipped his arm around me.
“Pâtisseries!” Martine said, her face lighting up. “There is a place not too far away that has the best Paris-Brest in the city.”
“Take us there now, please,” I said. “Also, what is Paris-Brest?”
“You will love it,” she assured me.
Paris-Brest is crisp-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside edible perfection filled with whipped caramel-hazelnut bliss. We all got one, except Le Bec, and crowded around the shop’s single available table, losing ourselves in pastry-induced rapture. When I finally glanced up, he was staring at me. I wondered if he was still mad at me for daring to have an opinion on his painting skills. I quickly looked away and gently shoulder-checked Martine. “You have next-level snack-choosing skills. I want to live in this shop.” I gestured at the huge display case. “I want to be best friends with the baker and eat a different pastry for every meal.”
Martine laughed. “There are many more pâtisseries in Paris.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you challenging me to try every kind of pastry in this city?”
She raised an eyebrow right back. “Are you accepting my challenge?”
We agreed to meet the next day at a tearoom on the Right Bank. According to her, they made mille-feuille the perfection of which caused angels to weep. The boys begged off; they had a football game, and Le Bec dismissed the tearoom as “touristique.” Noor’s eyes had lit up as brightly as mine, though. I flourished my phone and asked, “What’s our strategy? Check reviews and try everything that’s three-plus stars? Try to find the best purveyor of each type of pastry? We’ll need a master list of all the different pastries to start.” I was typing notes as I spoke. I loved this part of research, where you’re starting to figure out the parameters and it’s fresh and exciting. Martine grinned an excited-little-kid grin, and we mapped out our quest. Noor turned to a fresh page in her sketchbook and drew a quick outline of Paris, asking where we should put our quest boundaries—Paris only, or suburbs, too? Nick and Youssef, realizing we were in research heaven, left us to it and started talking football. Le Bec remained aloof, too superior for us but not willing to leave. I had homework waiting, but I wanted to stay in this moment. I felt like I could see my future from here. Things would happen to me in Paris—big, interesting things—that wouldn’t happen in Portland. Paris has gravitational force. It pulls things into its orbit and makes them part of itself, and then that force influences people, events—history. What I did here would ripple farther and faster than anything I could do in Portland. It was an exhilarating revelation.
My phone barked myFun time’s overalarm, and I was about to tell Nick that I really had to go do homework when Martine mentioned that Noor’s Venus de Milo piece wasnearby. Le Bec frowned, but I bounced in my chair, excited. “Oh, I’d love to see it in person,” I said.
He made a dismissive sound. “I am sure she showed you the photo. That is sufficient. She is very proud of that thing, and I do not know why.” I sucked in a shocked breath. “You should see more of my work instead. I would be happy to take you to it right now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, like I had actual regret. There was a sharp edge to him that I didn’t want to make worse. “I’m supposed to be home by six-thirty. I’ll just swoop by Noor’s piece since it’s so close. I want to see your work when I have time to enjoy it.” I hated myself the minute the last sentence was out of my mouth. Now he’d think I wanted to see his work. I mean, I would have loved to see more of his work, but not if I had to see it with him.
He seemed pleased, and he stood up. “I must go. Be careful; I have heard the Paris vampire is often in the neighborhood where Noor has her piece.” He turned abruptly and left.
Despite the apparent high vampire risk, we found the tiny street where Noor’s mural was without getting bitten.
“Waou,” Youssef said.
Definitely wow. It was about five feet tall and full of detail that the photo hadn’t captured: the determined set of Headscarf Girl’s mouth as she sewed Venus’s arm back on with spring-green thread; the slow bloom of color from the flat black and white of the stencil to the statue’s new arms.
“You should be in a gallery,” I told her.
“Or on Le Mur,” Martine added.
“You need a signal boost,” I said.
“We can do that.”Youssef snapped a photo and posted it to his feeds. Nick grinned at me and did the same.
“We should do this for all your pieces,” Martine said, taking her own photo.
