I follow the direction of her nod and sure enough a black VW Golf is parallel parking almost immediately in front of the shop. It's mid-October so the days are starting to get shorter, and it's already dark outside, the streetlights notproviding much illumination to see the driver. But when a tall, thin figure steps out of the vehicle, I hold my breath.
Mari is moving again, grabbing their jacket and bag and rattling some keys. But I'm not looking at them. I'm looking at the slim white man walking to the studio’s front door. I’m watching him peer into the glass front and I’m feeling increasingly uncomfortable at noticing his prominent nose and sharp cheekbones.
“Dion, the keys, yeah?” Mari says a little louder. I hadn't even realised they'd been talking.
“Yeah, of course,” I say.Yes, I need the keys. I'm in charge for the next three days so of course I need keys.
“Great.” Mari comes back to me and snaps my attention away from the door with a quick peck on the cheek. “Hope his kid is named Leo or Mia or something very short.”
I know I should laugh and hug Mari goodbye properly but I'm simply much too preoccupied with seeing Ben Smith burst through the door.
Because it'sthatBen Smith. It's Benji.
TWO
DION
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - SEPTEMBER
“Alors,”Mademoiselle Bonneville says with a clap of her hands. “Because we lost a few students at the end of last year...”
I suppress my snort as she continues talking. We didn'tlosethem. They dropped out because French at A-Level is not for the faint-hearted and the thirteen students she's referring to realised it's also a waste of time when the majority of people speak English anyway. I considered it myself but it's my best subject even if I put half as much effort into it as I do Art and English Lit. I guess I just have thatje ne sais quoi.
Or maybe it's the French movies I binge-watch while painting and sketching all night because I sure as hell don't seem to need sleep like normal humans.
It's a lie. I do need sleep. Although I am anything but normal. Apparently.
“So we are now a small group of eight,” Mlle Bonnevillecontinues, “and I would like to welcome Claire, Greg, Benjamin and Hashimi to our class.”
She gives another clap, and it echoes in the ensuing silence. Are we supposed to say something? Wave? Sing a song? I ask Raquelle all these questions with my eyebrows when she catches my eye. She shrugs and goes back to doodling Miles Richards’ name on her notebook, dotting the eyes with love hearts.
I barely suppress my groan. That girl will never learn. He's already finger-banged her twice at two separate house parties over the summer, and then ignored her for weeks afterwards. What makes her think he's going to suddenly fall for her, or even acknowledge her for that matter. He’s a football-playing, hair gel over-using, Lynx-drenched popular boy. And she's like me, a weird alternative kid who cuts and dyes their own hair, listens to emo music from any of the last four decades and never wears anything that hasn't experienced our wrath in the form of a pair of scissors or a Tipp-Ex pen. She's one of my best friends but she's so delusional she makes even my own daydreams seem possible.
Not that I'd ever share what they are with her. Or anyone.
Not yet at least. Maybe one day.
Or maybe never.
“Bon,” Mlle Bonneville says when the silence lingers approximately twenty seconds too long. She switches to French and instructs us to pair up with the new additions and to talk about ourselves and our summer.
Racquelle is paired with Claire, and Greg and Hashimi are quickly joined with the other two girls who I knew from last year, which leaves me with Benjamin Smith, aka Miles’ best friend who also spends too much time kicking balls,spraying cheap deodorant and styling his hair so it looks like a bird’s nest.
Fucking great.
Reluctantly, I swap places with Greg and find myself sitting next to Benjamin Smith and his Adidas-tracksuit, Nike Air trainers and Reebok backpack. Vom.
“BonjourD—,” he says, applying a damn near perfect French accent to the name I was born with. “Ca va?”
I answer his question with absolutely no enthusiasm and ask him the same one with even less. He answers with more animation than anyone should have in first period French on the first day back at school, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes at him. It's when he's been talking for nearly two solid minutes, and he's lost me more than a couple of times that I tell him to stop.
“Hold on, hold on. Are you making words up or are you ridiculously good at French?” I ask in my best hiss-whisper English.
A blush creeps across his high cheekbones. He's a skinny, tall man. And yes, he is a man. Even at seventeen or eighteen, and dressed like a walking advert for Footlocker, he's got a more mature appearance than most of the male students in our year. He has stubble and broad shoulders and feet the size of canoes. And when he smiles, which, much to my horror, he's doing now, laughter lines bunch up in his cheeks and in the corner of his bright blue eyes.
“Sorry, I spent the summer in France,” he explains. Deep voice, another manly attribute. “I'm actually still thinking in French more than English.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head at him. “I'm sorry, what?”
