“I like that,” I said. “We can do a grassroots publicity campaign. Maybe an interactive map of where your work is. Let’s make you famous. Like even more famous than Le Bec.”
“Yes,” Noor smiled. “Let us make me more famous thanLa Joconde.”
Chapter 6
Eleven Weeks Ago
“Bonjour,” Madame Dupuy called from the kitchen as I dragged myself through the door on Friday. Since it was our first week, we’d had to go only for the morning session, to give us the rest of the day for all the homework Professeur Joubert assigned. I was starting to understand what Nick meant about torture being a part of French school. I dropped my pack in my room and walked the six paces down the hallway and into the kitchen, thinking,I don’t know if I can do this. She was peeling carrots. In Portland, we had a walk-in pantry the size of our whole kitchen here, yet she served us three courses for dinner every night, all of it cooked in a kitchen that barely fit two people.
“And how was your first week of classes, Mademoiselle Tosh?” she asked me.
I opened my mouth to say, “It was fine,” but instead I started crying. Grammar had been springing traps on me allweek—gender, prepositions, irregular verbs—and I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to manage an entire year of all my classes taught in French. Professeur Joubert had informed us that next week he would stop saying everything twice, and I despaired of getting through class with a decent grade. I couldn’t even think about how hellish it would be in full-time, all-French classes. I’d aced three years of French in Portland, but I was struggling here. I’d need a full-time tutor. Or better, a translator. And now, I was standing in the kitchen bawling like a preschooler. Madame Dupuy didn’t say anything; she just folded me into an embrace, holding me until I got myself under control. Then she said we were going out.
The sidewalks swarmed with lunchtime crowds, and the streets were noisy with cars. I clung to her hand like a six-year-old, my bubble-tank deflated. I was sure I’d be swallowed up if I let go. The warm aroma of freshly baked bread wafted reassuringly down the block, and she led me into the dim boulangerie where she always bought our baguettes. With its old-fashioned black-and-white marble checkerboard floor and chrome-and-black-accented pastry cases, it looked like it had been there forever. The tiny counter barely had room for the cash register, the one modern thing in the place. Shoppers packed the space, jostling us.
“Bonjour, madame, mademoiselle,” the woman behind the counter sang out.
“Bonjour, tout le monde,” Madame Dupuy sang back, getting a chorus of “bonjours” from the other customers.
“Bonjour,” I mumbled. I also had yet to master the lilting, singing cadences of French.
When it was our turn to order, Madame Dupuy spoke soquickly that another wave of hopelessness washed over me. I was never going to speak French fluently enough to talk to people. She put exact change into the change tray, and the woman behind the counter handed her a white paper bag and a baguette wrapped around the middle with a square of paper. Then she scooped the change into the register, sang “Merci” to Madame Dupuy, and turned to the next customer in one practiced, graceful swoop.
In the street, Madame Dupuy handed me the bag. “Vas-y,” she said. I let go of her hand and opened it to look inside. “Go on, eat it.” I fished out a pain au chocolat and gave her a questioning look. It was lunchtime, and pain au chocolat was for breakfast or an afternoon snack. She smiled. “Sometimes chocolate is the only cure for tears.” I took a bite. The chocolate was warm and melty, and the pastry crackled and flaked. It tasted safe. Like home. And love.
We walked slowly as I ate. Pigeons waddled in front of us on the sidewalk, too cynical to fly up out of the way of such slow pedestrians. Madame Dupuy didn’t say anything else, just held my hand the whole way home. At the apartment, I said, “Thank you.”
She hugged me again. “You are welcome. Come help me with lunch.”
After we’d eaten, I felt strong enough to wade into my homework, starting with the assigned chapters inThe Hunchback of Notre Dame. Nick the lifesaver had given me a bilingual version—French on the left page, English on the right. I needed it. Between the archaic writing style and the literary tense with its confusing conjugations, I kept losing track of the story. The book slid from my hands, flopping onto mylap, and I realized I’d been staring out the window at the Eiffel Tower, thinking about Nick, for several minutes. I picked up my phone and texted him: “Looking at the Eiffel Tower rn instead of reading Hunchback.”
He replied immediately, which meant it was afternoon break at his school: “That reminds me. Wear sensible shoes tomorrow night.”
Me:Are sensible shoes allowed in France? I wouldn’t want to violate a fashion law
Nick:I promise they are. Just wear something you can walk in. No pointy heels, okay?
Me:You are seriously limiting my shoe options here, Nick Wallace Tour Co
Nick:Gotta go. Break’s over
Smiling, I turned my attention back to the book. Hugo really, really liked to describe stuff. By the time he was done setting the scene, I’d forgotten what was supposed to be happening. Amazingly, the story still managed a hefty amount of drama and action and pathos along with a delectably evil villain. But you had to bushwhack through a jungle of prose to get to the good bits. I realized I was reading the same page over and over, sighed, and closed the book. I told Madame Dupuy I was going out for some fresh air and went straight to Saint Martin’s to talk to Mom. I’d discovered the little churchthe week we moved in, and I’d been super happy that there was a place only two blocks away where I could light candles for her.
I’d been so young when she died that most of my memories of her were from photos and from her funeral. I was six and surrounded by weeping, black-clad people, and Mom’s absence was a frightening hole in our family. An enormous hole that threatened to pull both me and Dad into its depths. I remember the photo of her on a stand in the church, surrounded by candles. I’d focused on it, and on the love in her face. On the way she glowed in the candles’ light like she was still alive.
After the service, at the cemetery, I’d clutched Dad’s hand as they lowered the casket into the damp ground, and that was when I’d really known, with the finality of a slamming door, that she was dead. When Dad had thrown a clotted handful of mud into the grave, I’d started to wail. “You’re putting her down into the dark.” Dad had picked me up and carried me away, howling. We’d gone back to the church, Dad explaining as he drove that what was down in the grave wasn’t Mom, that she was a part of us and would always be, even if we couldn’t see her. He’d taken me to the votive stand, and we’d lit candles.
“Wherever Mom is, she’s in the light,” he’d said, “and that light will never go out. When we’re sad because we miss her, we can light a candle to remind us.” He’d been crying almost as hard as I was, and he’d had to keep stopping as sobs overwhelmed him. Strangely, that had calmed me down. He hadn’t been trying to pretend things were okay when they so clearly weren’t.
We’d gone to light candles often that first year, and I’d never stopped. After I’d lit a candle, I’d sit in the last pew and talk to her in my head. Tell her about falling off the swing at school and getting a concussion or admit that I liked our new housekeeper—not as much as her, of course. I’d told her things when I just wanted somebody to listen. I’d told her things that I couldn’t tell Dad. I’d told her about falling asleep on the way home from a debate meet and waking up in the dark, silent bus with the bulk of Cole next to me. I told her how heavy his hand felt on my chest and how it squeezed and squeezed, stopping only when I groggily asked him what was going on. I described the edge of anger in his voice when he said, “Nothing happened, okay?” I told her how he hadn’t taken the weight of his hand off me until I’d whispered, “Okay.”
She’d surrounded me with warmth and love, murmuring how sorry she was that it had happened to me. Her love had given me strength to get through State with Cole and then to make the hard decision that I wouldn’t be on the team next year. I loved using my mind and my speaking skills to win rounds, and I loved being on the team with Mina and Lily, but I knew I wouldn’t be safe around Cole.
The cool air in Saint Martin’s raised goose bumps on my arms. I lit my candle and settled into a rush-bottomed chair in the back row. “Hi, Mom,” I murmured. I waited until I could feel a slight stirring of air. “School is so hard—way harder than I thought it would be. I’m worried I won’t be able to keep up. I’m worried I’ll be ‘that dumb American’ when classes start at my new school this fall.”
The air around me seemed to warm, and I felt hertelling me I’d do great if I just kept up the studying.Learning a language is 70 percent brute-force memorization. I heard the words in my head as though she were right next to me.Repeat everything until you want to scream, and then repeat it some more.
“Ugh.”
