by Jill Cox
Anne let out a whistle, her eyes wide. “I can’t even say that about my immediate family.”
“Right? So yeah, maybe Lindsay’s not my favorite person in the world. But considering those golden Greek letters around her neck, I need to get over it. Again.”
Harper watched me from the other side of the table. “So, you and this Drew guy never…”
“Please,” I laughed. “You’re talking to the supreme empress of the friend zone.”
“You sure?” She picked up my phone, swiped right, and within two seconds, she was scrolling my photos. “You guys look pretty cozy in all these two-headed selfies you took last month.”
I felt my ears redden, because what Harper saw before her was only a fraction of the truth.
I thought back to two weeks ago, before Drew had headed back to school for fraternity recruitment. We’d spent all night hanging out on Devil’s Lake, flat on our backs, shoulder-to-shoulder in his dinghy, staring at the night sky and laughing so hard I felt like my pancreas might rupture. We’d stayed awake until the sky above us shifted from midnight blue to indigo, talking our way around Paris until Drew asked the question he’d avoided all summer.
“Humor me for a minute, Fee.” Drew slid his shoulder out from under my head, then pushed himself to a seated position across from me. “Explain why it has to be Paris, because I just don’t understand. Why couldn’t you have done the summer program in Tours like the rest of the French majors?”
“Because I won the Beckett scholarship for Paris, Drew.” I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest. “Everyone wants that scholarship. You take art history classes looking at the actual paintings in the Musée d’Orsay. You learn history and literature by touring the actual places you’re studying. You don’t understand that?”
“Of course I do. But you could have done all of that on the summer program. I mean, it wouldn’t have been Paris, but…”
“Exactly. It wouldn’t have been Paris.”
He watched me for a minute, a shadow crossing his face. “So what happens if you meet the heir to the French throne in Paris and you never come back home?”
Despite the moonlight, it was too dark to get a clear read on Drew’s face, so the pleading in his voice tripped me up momentarily. Yes, he’d just set my insides fluttering, but I knew better than to take Drew seriously. Attaching meaning to his words had always been my downfall, and this time was no different. My only weapon whenever he played this game was to play along. So I smiled, plucked up my courage, and lobbed that nonsense right back his way.
“Do you even open your textbooks, Mister History Major? There’s no heir to the throne. France has been a republic for ages. See, a republic is…”
“I know what constitutes a republic, thank you very much.” Drew slid over next to me, our backs pressed against the starboard side. “But there’s still an heir to the French throne, just in case the Windsors try to take over, right?”
“How should I know?”
“Do you even open your textbooks, Mademoiselle French Major?” Drew fixed his gaze on me, his eyes lingering just a second too long on my lips. “Okay, what if you’re walking through the Tuileries one day, and Prince Charming is there, waiting to whisk you off your feet?”
“Hold on a second. How do you know about the Tuileries?”
“Former palace, burned to the ground by the Paris Commune then transformed into gardens for the public. I know things, Fee.” Drew smiled slowly, then steepled his hands, tapping his fingers together like an evil mastermind. “Listen, sweetie, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re not the most experienced gold digger on the planet. Someone has to guide you, or you’ll wind up with some creepy viscount. Hey, how do you say that word? Viz-count? Vie-count?”
“Don’t call me sweetie. And PS – I do know how to avoid stranger danger.”
“If you say so.” Drew picked up a stray piece of rope from the floor of the boat and began to twirl it absentmindedly. “Now, about this mystery prince, or duke, or whatever. Before you make him any promises, be sure he owns plenty of horses.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Everyone knows the stable boy is always the lady of the manor’s special friend.”
“Who, you?” I frowned. “But I thought you hated horses.”
“I do. They scare the crap out of me, but sacrifices must be made.” Drew moved his right hand in my direction. “Now, be a pal and shake on this with me. The second you find a nice, preferably dowdy aristocrat, give me a call, and I’ll hop on the next flight. Deal?”
I watched his face for a minute, just in case this was some sort of trick. When I took his hand, I gripped it playfully, pumping it up and down like a politician. But Drew didn’t return my silly gesture. He closed his hand around mine and brought it toward him, holding it so securely against his chest that I could feel his heart pounding.
“Our future depends on you, Fee,” he said softly, eyes back on my lips. “It’s up to you to get the best pre-nup possible, because I have my heart set on retiring in Maui before I’m thirty. Or the Maldives. Or Madeira. I’m not picky.”
“You’d have to learn Portuguese if you move to Madeira,” I said quietly, hyper aware of Drew’s fingers against mine.
“See why I need you in my life? Without you, I’d be speaking the wrong language, and then how would I survive?”
Drew’s eyes softened, then his lips curled into the flirtiest grin he’d ever given me. And even though I knew better than to play his game, my insides fluttered more than ever. “It’s a good thing you’ve got that beach blond surfer vibe going on these days,” I quipped. “Someone with your looks should always make the most of his youth. Botox will only get you so far in life, you know.”
“So true, so true.” Drew slid his thumb slowly along my wrist. “Maybe after I dump you, I can find some cougar who’s still a couple of decades older than me. Someone whose millions will make your royal divorce settlement look like Monopoly money.”
“Have you learned nothing, Drew Sutton?” I scowled. “Cougars are so early 2000s. You can do better than that.”
Drew looked up at the sky for a minute, then back at me. “A reality star?”
“Now you’re on the right track. Dream big, Sutton. There’s someone for everyone, even for you. I have faith.”
He squeezed my hand tighter against his chest, smiling sadly. “What will I do without you this year, Fee? You’re the only person who knows how to insult and flatter me in the same breath.”
The banter. The butterflies. Sitting there with him in the boat that night, I’d wished upon every star in the galaxy that nine time zones would be enough to set me free from this boy who’d held my heart prisoner for far too long. So when on-again-off-again Lindsay made her reappearance in the Drew-verse three days later, I took it as a sign.
The two-headed selfies, the nights on the lake, the wistful glances? Nothing but Lindsay bait. The second I realized that, I stopped questioning my move to Paris.
And now, here I was, with three new friends studying my face for the truth. And not a single one of them looked like they believed me anymore than I believed myself.
“You okay, Meredith?” Anne asked. “You look like you might be sick.”
“Never better,” I breathed in deeply. “Hey, does someone have a deck of cards? Seems silly to waste time on our phones when we’ve got this table between us just waiting to be used.”
Kelly dug in her bag, produced a deck of cards, and the four of us poker-faced one another the rest of the drive to Giverny. Of course, I did not win a single round, but that wasn’t the point. Today was the day I would finally see Monet’s home in person, and no one got to ruin that. Right?
Wrong. For the rest of my life, whenever I looked back on this weekend, my brain would draw a blank on the manor’s salmon-colored exterior and the splendor of the gardens thanks to that stupid lavaliere. The only image I’d recall was the koi in the lily pad po
nd.
Madame Beauchamp explained that the Japanese word for that particular species of carp is also a homonym with the word for friendship and love. As she waxed on and on about the famous bridge over the lily pad ponds, I fought the urge to raise my fists in defiance.
Time to re-evaluate this lesson plan, Madame, I thought. Sure, love and friendship might seem all noble, but in the end, they’re nothing but scavengers, sucking scum from the murky waters of life.
Yeah, that’s right. Try painting that symbolism, Monet.
SIX
It was Seventies Karaoke Night at Le Somnambuliste, the gritty, cave-like establishment we found after dinner just down the street from our hotel in Rouen. Take my advice: never enter a bar called “The Sleepwalker.” At ten o’clock on the dot, the flashing lights began to polka-dot the walls behind us, and the world’s worst ABBA impersonators took to the stage, decked out in neon satin jumpsuits and platform heels.
By the second verse of Waterloo, I noticed Pete Russell hovering to my left behind Anne, whispering something in her ear. Then, just as suddenly, he cheered and whooped so loudly for the satin sisters on stage that I was momentarily distracted and didn’t notice Anne slip away. The next instant, there sat Pete in Anne’s chair, the usual Russell smirk plastered across his face, his eyes fixed on mine.
“Hey,” he bellowed above the music. “Why so glum tonight, Sully?”
“What?”
Pete slid his arm along my seat back, bending his face toward my ear. “I said, why so glum? Wait, let me guess. You are morally opposed to anything resembling fun.”
I rolled my eyes. “You can’t be morally opposed to fun. That makes no sense.”
Pete watched me for a minute, then grinned. “Don’t tell me you’d rather be studying?”
“Whatever you say, Pete.” I sighed, turned my head back to the stage, and for a split second, I thought he was leaving. But then he bent so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek, his lips brushing against my ear as he spoke.
“Here’s the deal, Sully,” Pete said softly. “For the past half-hour, your negative vibe has flooded this entire table. So I ask again, why so gloomy tonight? Did you forget your favorite notebook back in Paris? Or did someone steal your favorite pen again?”
I’d spent the better part of the last two years battling Pete Russell’s wit. Every day since I’d known him, I’d always been able to match him, barb for barb. But tonight was different, and not just because I’d lost my pluck somewhere between Giverny and Rouen. Tonight, despite his tone, Pete’s words didn’t feel like a weapon. And as I lifted my eyes to meet his, I realized he was actually concerned.
“I have an idea,” he said as the Swedish wannabes finally left the stage. “How about a karaoke duel?”
I blinked, then blinked again. “A what?”
“A contest. I pick a song for Dan and me, you pick one for the ladies, and we let the audience decide who wins. This is Rouen. We’ve got ourselves a room full of unbiased judges.”
“A contest, huh?” I let my forehead crinkle as I tried to read between the lines. “What are the stakes? You losers buy us a round of Lafayette machine coffee on Monday?”
“Better,” he smiled. “The loser, whoever he or she may be, must perform Sugarhill Gang’s Apache, complete with Ultimate Dance Dubs 3 choreography.”
Freshman year in the dorms, the resident advisors had organized a monthly Ultimate Dance Dubs competition in the lobby game room. The Apache dance was always in one of the semi-final rounds, and I’d made it to the championship round at least once that year. So had both guys, but I wasn’t afraid. There was no way we would lose.
I fixed Pete with a smug grin, then nodded. “Not a bad idea, Russell. But just so you know, Apache came out in the eighties, and tonight they’re featuring seventies music. Not that you care about following protocol.”
“Wow, Sully. You really do hate breaking the rules. So we have a deal?”
“We have a deal.” I shoved my hand in Pete’s direction. “You’d better start practicing that tricky lasso hop, kid, because we are going to win this battle, fair and square.”
“Yeah?” Pete took my outstretched hand, pumped it once, then smirked. “We’ll see about that. Hey, thanks for winning me some more euros, by the way. Dan bet me twenty that I couldn’t cheer you up in three minutes or less, and we’ve just made it under the wire, with twelve seconds to spare. Monday, your first cup of coffee’s on me.”
And with that, Pete Russell zoomed back to his side of the table, oblivious to the fact that he’d just pissed me off so badly I was going to take him down, no matter the cost.
For the sake of fairness, Pete and Dan headed to a remote location across the bar to decide their karaoke selection, which gave me just the right amount of privacy to organize my troops. After I explained the bet, Kelly immediately hopped on board.
“You know what we should do?” Her blue eyes brightened. “Copacabana. It’s like, the quintessential seventies song. Who wouldn’t love it?”
“Me,” Harper groaned. “Seriously, Kelly, if I hear that song one more time, I will walk out of here, find Joan of Arc’s stake, and burn myself.”
“Ever since freshman year, we’ve had this thing,” Anne explained, turning to me. “Whenever one of us has drama, the other two show up in that person’s room with Copacabana already cued up. Kelly forces us to do this crazy choreography until every person laughs. It’s ridiculous, but it works.”
I found myself grinning, then aching, because I hadn’t had that sort of girlfriend solidarity in… well, ever. Between dancing, studying, working, and Drew, girlfriends had been a luxury I couldn’t afford. Watching the Addison girls these last few days had shifted something deep inside me that I hadn’t known was missing. Secretly, I hoped they’d adopt me for a year.
Turns out four’s not such a bad number after all.
After a full thirty seconds of protest, Harper sighed. “Fine. Considering how many times Kelly’s forced it down our throats, it’s probably the only seventies song we all know by heart.”
As Kelly walked me through her homespun choreography, my eyes kept straying to the guys’ corner on the opposite end of the bar. Pete and Dan were rehearsing like a squadron of cadets getting ready for a drill. I had to hand it to Pete Russell. No matter the outcome, he’d just managed to unite a group of virtual strangers in the sole pursuit of cheering me up. Or humiliating me.
Minutes later, Pete returned, a euro coin in hand. “Heads, you’re first. Tails, we’re second.”
I took the coin and investigated both sides. “Hold on. There’s no heads or tails on a euro.”
“Picky, picky,” Pete scowled. “Come on, Ginger Rogers. Quit stalling. The numbered side is heads, country side is tails. You flip.”
So I did, and it was only when the coin was mid-air that I realized I’d fallen prey to the oldest trick in the book. No matter which side turned up, Pete and Dan won the second spot. He grabbed the coin on its descent, slammed it onto the table, then lifted his hand for the reveal.
“Tails,” he grinned. “Aw, thanks, Sully. You just won me ten more euros. Dan thought he could get back what he lost by betting you wouldn’t fall for that coin trick. Lucky for me, I know you better.”
“That’s what you think.” I grabbed the coin off the table and walked away, chiding myself for falling into his trap. That coin trick was for suckers. I made a mental note to search his backpack on Monday for Sun Tzu’s Art of War or whichever strategic playbook Pete was studying these days. The Snark-And-Nicknames Russell I’d always known was so much easier to combat than Nice-And-Friendly Pete.
SEVEN
Because there were only a handful of performers tonight, there was no formal sign-up for karaoke. Harper, Anne, and I simply followed Kelly to the bartender, who cued up Copacabana and waited for us to take the stage. There were already six mic stands on the makeshift stage, so Kelly stood at the one in the center, then nodded to Jean-Franço
is-Whatever-The-Bartender to begin our song.
As the percussion intro bled through the monitors, I could see Pete and Dan laughing their heads off back in our far corner of the bar, and I might have taken it as a compliment had I not also noticed that these uppity girls from our program – Meg Green and her minions – were sitting two tables away from the stage. All five of them were glaring at us. Wait, not glaring – judging. Something about their nose-in-the-air disdain combined with the hysterical high-fiving going on in the back corner rattled me, and I missed my first cue.
Scratch that. I missed every cue.
You know when you’re watching a children’s dance recital, and there’s always one kid half a measure behind, relying on classmates for the right steps? That was me. It might not have been so noticeable if my teammates hadn’t kept glancing back at me in horror. Kelly, Anne, and Harper did their best to keep the audience engaged, but when my shoe flew offstage, the crowd erupted in laughter. And then again when I tripped over the monitor wires.
Dear Oregon State Irish Dance Association: please strip that gingeraffe of her medal.
“Nice one, Sully,” Pete smirked, crossing my path as I stumbled off the stage. “Thanks for throwing that victory for us. You’re a peach.”
I was about to retort back but Anne grabbed me by both elbows from behind and propelled me back to our table at the far end of the bar. None of my new friends dared to look at me. We just slumped into our seats, all four heads down, eyes closed.
Then the jaunty opening bars of Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music came over the loudspeaker, and I saw Kelly’s face crumple just as I groaned. I should have known Pete and Dan would pick this song. The Sigma Phi Beta pledge class performed this on the quad during initiation our first year at Highgate. People talked about it for weeks afterward. Drew sang all the verses while Pete, Dan, and the rest of their pledge class made total fools out of themselves wearing outlandish accessories, like feather boas, crazy glasses, and enormous cowboy hats.