He startles at that, all eyebrows and cheekbones. “Jesus,” he says. “Sorry.”
I brush past him, sitting down next to Ian and picking up the menu—which is, of course, entirely in French. “You order,” I say, setting it down again. “I trust you.”
It’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten, no question: crusty bread and ramekins of bright-yellow butter flecked with coarse salt and herbs; chicken cooked in wine until it falls apart at the gentlest nudge of my fork. For dessert are tiny dark-chocolate cakes topped with perfect dollops of thick sour cream, and I snap a picture to send to Imogen, who loves a well-executed baked good more than anyone I have ever met.Made it toParis, I type, thumbs moving quickly under the table.Sort of. More soon.
The whole scene is idyllic, exactly the kind of night I might have pictured when I was planning this trip in my summer dorm room in Boston back in June—except, maybe, for the part where Gabe is sitting sullenly across the table beside his new girlfriend, swallowing wine like he’s downing a wax-coated cup of Dr Pepper at the shop in Star Lake.
Sadie raises her wineglass and smiles at Ian, her tan face luminous in the candlelight. “To our super-fancy rescuer,” she pronounces. “Thanks so much again, Ian.” Then, turning to me and Gabe: “And to you two crabs. I know you’re both still upset about the passports and everything. But this worked out kind of magically, didn’t it?”
“That’s one word for it,” Gabe mutters, and I roll my eyes at him.There’s no reason to be a dick, I nearly say. Instead I make myself smile back at Sadie and lift my glass in her direction, the four of us clinking in some dark parody of that very first night at the pub in London.
“Cheers,” I murmur, and swallow down the rest of my wine.
I’m exhausted and overfull by the time we head back to Ian’s parents’; I can’t believe it was just this morning that we woke up in Imogen’s cottage. It feels like this day has somehow lasted an age. As we’re ambling up the street we pass an opentabacwith magazines fanned out on a rack in the window:Sabrina Hudson grimaces out from half a dozen covers, hair mussed and eyes glazed.Sabs Goes Knickerless, screams one of the few English headlines, across a censored photo of Sabrina climbing out of a limousine.
“Gross,” Sadie says, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but how hard is it to put on a pair of underwear before you leave your house in the morning? She’s so tacky.”
“Oh my God, can everybody please stop shitting on Sabrina Hudson?” I snap before I know it’s going to come out of my mouth, my voice echoing sharply down the empty sidewalk.
There’s a stunned silence then, just the sound of a car rumbling by somewhere in the distance; Ian raises his eyebrows. Sadie looks downright shocked. “Whoa there,” Gabe says mildly. “I didn’t know you were such a Sabrina fan.”
“I’m not,” I reply, irritable and embarrassed at my own outburst. “I just think it’s boring to pick on her all the time. I mean, accidents happen, don’t they? I think our current situation is a pretty good example of that.”
“Well, sure,” Sadie says, still pretty obviously unconvinced. “But having your luggage stolen isn’t exactly the same as showing your lady bits to the entire world. I just think some people make things more difficult for themselves. If she would stay home for once in her life, eventually everybody would leave her alone like she says she wants them to.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just think she invites it.”
“Well, so what if she does?” Even though I’m regrettingstarting this conversation, I’m in it now, and I’m not about to back down. “It still doesn’t make it right for the rest of us to use it as entertainment.” I’m surprised to hear myself arguing this side of it—after all, hasn’t my MO for the entire year been not to cause trouble, not to draw attention to myself? But there’s something about Sadie’s confidence—her own blissful certainty that she herself would never be caught on camera without her proverbial underwear on—that gets under my skin, bruising more deeply than I would have thought was possible at this point. In her voice I can hear the screech of a key against my car door; I hear the echo ofslutfrom down the hall. “Like, maybe there is some part of Sabrina Hudson that likes the drama, but you know who I bet likes it way more? All the magazine people who make money off whatever wild thing she’s doing, and also every person across the world who gets to feel smug about how much better than her they supposedly are.” I look around at the three of them, at their shocked, silent faces. We’re still standing in the middle of the road.
“I just think it’s sort of mean, is all,” I finish weakly, the air and the energy going out of me all at once. “I don’t know. I’m tired. Let’s just drop it and get back.”
“Sure,” Ian agrees after a moment, just the one quiet syllable. It’s the last thing anyone says the rest of the long walk up the hill.
Day6
I wake up early and anxious, clammy with shame over last night’s flare-up. Exhausted or not, picking a fight with Sadie—over Sabrina Hudson of all people—was a sloppy move, even by old-Molly standards. Still, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t also a tiny flicker of satisfaction burning steadfastly in my chest: the truth is it feltgoodnot to hold my tongue for once, not to worry about what I said before I said it. It’s been a long time since I did something like that.
I climb out of bed and spend twenty full minutes trying to figure out how to work the fancy French coffeemaker in Ian’s parents’ immaculate kitchen, pulling levers and pressing buttons and swearing quietly to no avail; in desperation I dig the instruction manual out of a drawer, but it is, predictably, in French. I consider texting Imogen, who workedthree years at the coffee place at home in Star Lake, before finally giving up and slipping outside, rolling the legs of yesterday’s jeans up past my ankles and dipping my feet into the chilly, leaf-speckled pool.
I don’t know how long I sit there, leaning back on my palms with my face tilted up toward the warm morning sunshine, before I hear the glass door sliding open behind me. When I open my eyes there’s Ian in his hoodie holding two cups of coffee, sunglasses perched on top of his sandy head. “Thought you might want this,” he says, holding up one of the heavy ceramic mugs.
“Oh my God, Iloveyou,” I blurt, thrusting my hands out eagerly. Ian smiles back at me, but it doesn’t reach the top half of his face. “I do, you know,” I promise quietly, reaching up and tugging on his belt loop until he sits down beside me. “I meant that, back in London.”
Ian’s eyes narrow just a little, like he’s trying to decide whether he believes me or not. “Good,” he says finally. “I meant it, too.”
We sit there for a moment, drinking our coffee and listening to the birds waking up in the trees high above us. Eventually Ian nudges his ankle with mine. “So,” he says, sounding cautious. “That was kind of intense last night, huh?”
“What was?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. “Me and Sadie?” I frown. Even though I was literally just regretting the whole embarrassing situation, there’s a part of me thatbristles at hearing him describe it that way. “Sorry. It just really bothered me.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Ian says, shrugging. “It just didn’t seem like something you’d normally say, that’s all.”
I hesitate for a moment. He’s not wrong, exactly—it’snotthe kind of thing I’d normally say, at least not lately. But at one point it definitely was. I wonder what it would look like to try and be that person in front of Ian—intense and prone to scene-making, maybe, but also a little bit brave. I think of what Imogen said yesterday, about not being afraid to be myself even if it made things messy. I wonder what would happen if I finally let him in.
Once Gabe and Sadie are up Ian leads the way to the embassy so we can get our temporary passports issued in time to fly home in a couple of days. Where Ireland felt like an old-fashioned fairy tale and London reminded me of a movie set, I’m struck by howrealParis is, humming and crowded. Cars barrel down the uneven roadways; businessmen in sleek gray suits jabber into their phones. Fat pigeons take it all in from their high perches on the narrow windowsills of tall stone buildings, periodically letting out their cranky French coos.
On the way to the embassy we stop at the hostel Gabe and Sadie are booked at, where Ian and I wait outside in the white morning sunshine while they try to check in without their credit cards. “Do you want me to take a crack atit?” Ian asks when they return empty-handed a few minutes later, looking pissed and dejected. “Sometimes it’s easier if you go in there speaking the language.”
“I’m sure it is,” Gabe says, his voice just this side of testy. I watch his expression darken as he does the calculations in his head, rearranging the figures this way and that and clearly rejecting every answer he comes up with: either he can let Ian help him out of a tight spot now or get stuck taking his charity again later tonight. His eyes tick from Ian to the hostel entrance, caught.
“That would be great,” he says finally, and I can actually see him swallowing his pride down. “Thanks a lot.”
