Nick chuckled. “Deal. One for you and one for me. What would you like to see next, mademoiselle?”
I thought for a minute. “I want to see your favorite thing in this museum.”
He didn’t stop to think but led me to a room in a different wing and pointed to a small painting of an old man sitting behind a desk in a room full of wiggly kids. It was calledThe Schoolmaster. A couple of the kids were playing on the floor, and one little guy was trying to climb out the window. Some of the others might have been doing schoolwork. Or running a preschool numbers racket. It was that kind of chaotic.
“Okay, why?” I asked, trying to discern any Art-with-a-capital-Aaspect to it. “It’s cute, but isn’t it a little, I don’t know, minor?”
“It’s a view straight into the past,” he said. “This is how schools used to look. Can you imagine how hard it must have been to learn anything in a roomful of kids presided over by one exhausted old man? They didn’t even have books or enough tables and chairs. Things like this make the past a real place. I think that’s magic.”
I loved that he’d trust me enough to show me a funny little painting and tell me the truth about why he loved it instead of picking something famous and safe and blathering about composition or artistic whatever.
As we rode the escalator under the pyramid up to the exit, Nick said, “Well? What do you think? Did you like it?”
I gave him my biggest smile. “You’re definitely getting a five-star review on Yelp.”
Chapter 4
Eleven Weeks Ago
“N’oubliez pas que vos exposés doivent être prêts à présenter lundi,” Professeur Joubert admonished us before he dismissed us from immersion class. I sighed as I loaded my books into my pack. Class had started only yesterday, and we already had a reading assignment and a huge report due Monday that we were supposed to memorize and present in front of the class, as well as handing in a written copy. Mine was barely started. I’d already discovered that I couldn’t just write it in English and run it through Google Translate. Madame Dupuy had been quite sarcastic when she’d proofread that version. I’d admitted about Google, and she’d told me I had to rewrite the whole report without using the internet. I was only partway through because I had to look up every third word, and I still also had the reading to do, so there went all my free time.
I clomped down the stairs of the school building, feeling like a prisoner. Outside, Paris waited for me to sample itspastries, walk its neighborhoods, and linger in its parks, but instead I had an appointment with a Bescherelle guide to verb conjugations, a French-English dictionary, and Victor Hugo.
I crossed the lobby heading for the front doors, wishing Nick weren’t in school all day. It would be fun to get lunch with him in a café where we could sit outside and people-watch. I reminded myself that I’d get to see him later, after his classes got out. That was my reward for doing my homework. I’d find a bench in the little park that was the heart of our block, the one he walked through on his way home, and he’d join me for a couple of hours before we both had to go in for dinner. The way he grinned when he caught sight of me waiting gave me tingles.
I waded diligently through my homework, taking a break late in the afternoon to go to the boulangerie with Madame Dupuy to get a baguette. She always bought me a snack, too, one of the pastries they made in addition to bread. “You need un goûter,” she’d tell me. “Dinner is still far away.” Every time we went there I got a different kind of pastry because I had this idea that I’d try all the pastries in the shop. So far my favorite was pain au chocolat. When we got back from the boulangerie, I finished up my homework, then changed into my flirty green tank dress. I told Madame Dupuy where I’d be, and she raised an eyebrow, then smiled. I trotted down to the park and found a bench with a view of the gate Nick would be coming through. I wondered why more people didn’t cross the interior of our block on their way to wherever they were going. It was such a refuge from the noise and people. The wide walkways between the park and the buildings never had more than a few people on them, even though the street-sidewalkways were always crammed. At night, the gate to the park was locked, but there were benches right outside its fence. They were the perfect place to sit on a summer evening after dusk.
Nick pushed through the gate, and I waved. His face lit up, and he hurried over.
“Hi.” I smiled.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle.” He flopped beside me on the bench, dropping his enormous pack. “How were les dieux de la grammaire today?”
“The grammar gods were random and capricious, as always. I mean, why is ‘solde’ both masculine and feminine? That’s just mean and unnecessary.”
He put on a heavy French accent. “Eet ees zee jobe of zee grammair gods to be mean, mademoiselle.”
“Tell me it gets better.”
“It gets…different. I felt like I had a new superpower when I could finally swear in French without making people laugh.” I sighed, wondering if I would ever be able to achieve that. “Let’s go get a Coca,” he said. “I’m parched.”
The café was starting to fill up, but we found a good table under the shade of the awning. “What’s your curfew tomorrow night?” he asked as we sat down.
“I don’t have a curfew. Dad trusts me. And he’s in the UK till Friday, anyway.” He’d called me from the Eurostar just before it went into the Chunnel, all excited about crossing the English Channel in a train. Dad loved train travel. He geeked on trains like I geeked on research.
“You may not have a curfew from your dad, but I bet you do from Madame Dupuy. She came over and talked to mymom after I took you to the Louvre, basically doing a background check on my whole family. She told Mom she was responsible for you when your dad was out of town, and she wanted you to be safe.”
“She what?” I was mortified. But also kind of touched. If my mom were alive, I knew I’d have a curfew. So it was really nice that Madame Dupuy cared enough about me to intrude on my privacy. I mean, she seemed to like me; she took me shopping with her and praised me when I said things correctly. Sometimes when I was helping her in the kitchen, she told me stories about growing up in Croatia and what it was like to move here when she was seventeen. But she wouldn’t go to the trouble of talking to Nick’s parents if I didn’t really mean something to her. It made me kind of love her, to be honest. I told Nick I’d ask about the curfew.
—
After dinner, I flopped onto the couch with my phone.
Me:You were right. I do have a curfew. But she says it depends on what we’re doing
Nick:There’s this great club over in the 11th arrondissement. You like to dance?
Me:I’m the queen of awkward dancing
