by Jill Cox
“You’re cute, Fee,” Ian waved at the camera. “I miss you.”
“Miss you back, troll. Make sure you leave the basement tomorrow to get some Vitamin D. I don’t want you getting rickets. Or do I mean scurvy?”
And with that, Ian clicked off the screen. I was scribbling Prague in my planner when my phone buzzed again from Ian. Then again. And over and over until my phone memory was filled with memes he’d created using photos he’d skimmed online from Drew, Lindsay, and even Pete.
So I pulled a Sharpie off my desk and scribbled #ByeFelicia on my own middle finger. Then sent that image on its way.
ELEVEN
La Nuit Blanche is this epic event that comes around every October in Paris. All over the city, artists and musicians from around the globe display their work or perform at various monuments and key locations. A nuit blanche literally means a “white night,” but it’s what we English speakers call an “all-nighter.” For one night, all of Paris stays up until dawn, walking the town and observing one another while they soak up the culture of the moment.
Usually La Nuit Blanche takes place on a Friday evening, but this year, because Friday was some random bank holiday, they moved it forward a day. Before the sun had gone down on Thursday evening, Anne was ready to go.
“What do you think?” She twirled around in my narrow room. “I’m going for cute but comfortable while not obviously either one.”
Anne looked almost regal standing there, half of her hair pulled up, her dark natural curls falling around her shoulders in perfect ringlets. My hair would never do that in a million years. I fought the urge to channel Ramona Quimby when she yanked Susan Kushner’s curls. BOING.
“Love the boots, love the sweater, love your hair. Why are you even asking me this? You always look perfect. I, on the other hand, look like a matron.”
She stood next to me in the mirror, scrutinizing herself while she fiddled with her curls again for the millionth time, and I had to wonder why. If she was primping for someone in particular, I didn’t know who. A couple of weeks ago at Wednesday night dinner, she’d practically morphed into the heart-eyed emoji, but I couldn’t tell yet who’d inspired the shift.
Since the day Monsieur Ludovic first mentioned La Nuit Blanche in class, Anne and Pete had been strategizing our itinerary for the evening. At any given break between classes, you could find them in the courtyard with their heads bent together, reading up on the venues, plotting the fastest route there from the other locations, and then entering their research on Anne’s spreadsheet. Their obsession bordered on psychotic, which made it hard to imagine anything romantic afoot.
But whenever we hung out in Luxembourg Gardens or after school at a café, Anne always sat next to Dan. And really, who could blame her? Besides the floppy hair and the general knowledge about interesting things, Dan Thomas was steadfast and loyal – the kind of guy you could count on in a pinch. Like the time my raven-haired next-door neighbor forgot her keys at school one Friday afternoon. Guess who volunteered to scale the outside wall of the Centre Lafayette and climb through the second story classroom window on her behalf?
Dan Thomas from Eugene, Oregon, ladies and gentleman. Which is why I secretly hoped Anne’s primp session was for him.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t change to the cardigan?” She asked, twisting from side to side. “The weather’s so weird right now. They say it’ll be cold tonight, but what if it’s not?”
“You know you think too much, right?” I bumped her hip with mine. “Go direct these questions at your own mirror. Mine has its own disaster to solve.”
“Here.” Anne opened my closet, dug around for maybe twelve seconds, then handed me the perfect jeans + sweater + boots combo. I dressed quickly and pulled my hair into a high ponytail. Then I waited for Anne while she switched tops three more times.
And then waited some more while she switched her boots.
Pete’s family’s flat was on a whimsical little street less than ten minutes north of Marie-France’s place, just a few steps from the Seine. So many streets in Paris had been widened during the Haussmann period, but not the rue Guénégaud. You could almost hear the people sing, you know? Minus the barricades and the blood and Gavroche sprinting down the street, of course.
Pete and Dan lived just above the red awning entrance to their building on the deuxième étage (or second floor, even though we’d call it the third floor in the States). The entire west-facing wall of their flat looked out over the street, thanks to a floor-to-ceiling, glass-enclosed balcony that must have been added sometime during the last century, judging by the Art Nouveau-ish metal scrolling along the edges. And while there were surely other Parisian apartments that had added this feature over the years, theirs was the only one like it that I’d seen. It was definitely the only one on this street. Add in the exposed brick walls in the living room and the fifty-year-old hardwood floors, and it seemed pretty obvious how Pete’s grandmother had kept the place at full occupancy all these years. It was the best apartment ever.
The second Harper and Kelly arrived at the rue Guénégaud, Anne pulled her homemade quiche from the oven, and from that point forward, she made certain the entire process clipped along with military precision. Eat your quiche, hear half the itinerary. Eat your salad, hear the second half. Have one last sip of wine, and don’t dawdle on your way out the door.
As we walked the short distance from the apartment to Notre Dame Cathedral, I watched Anne and Pete chatting easily at the head of the group. Both of them spoke French so flawlessly that people regularly believed they were native speakers. They were both extraordinarily bright. But Pete was a goofball, whereas Anne was the most sophisticated person I knew. Maybe that explained why I found it so difficult to imagine them together.
I felt Dan fall in beside me on the crosswalk near the St. Michel Fountain. He brushed that floppy brown hair away from his glasses, then shot me a look. “Okay, I’m going to say something awful right now, and I’m only going to say it to you because everyone else thinks Pete Russell is swell. It’s not their fault. They’ve only known him three and a half seconds. But I have to live with the guy, and you know as well as I do that he’s not perfect, right?”
I examined Dan, whose face was pale in the moonlight. “What’s on your mind, Danny?”
“I don’t know, it’s just… well, like right now.” He lifted his right hand toward the front of the group. “Is he running for mayor or something? The guy talks to everyone. Have you noticed? The baker flirts outrageously with him every morning when we pass her shop. And heaven forbid we go to the normal grocery store to buy vegetables because Pete ‘knows a guy’ half a mile away that he doesn’t want to put out of business by convenience shopping from some chain store closer to home.”
I stifled a smile. “Helping the local economy isn’t a bad thing, you know.”
Dan shot me a sideways look. “Oh, great. He’s gotten to you, too, hasn’t he?”
“Hey, relax.” I looped my arm through his. “I’m Switzerland, my friend. No, wait. I’m better than Switzerland. I’m the Vatican. You can confess all your dirty laundry to me, and I’ll hear you out every time, but only if you tell the absolute truth. Like how your bad mood tonight has very little to do with Pete, and a whole lot to do with the girl he’s babbling at right now.”
“It’s that obvious, huh?” Dan groaned. “Oh, man. Anne’s so gorgeous that I can hardly form a complete thought around her, but not Pete. He’s all blah dee blah blah for an entire ten minutes without even taking a breath.”
“I’m fairly certain blah dee blah blah is all she’s hearing,” I said, squeezing Dan’s arm in solidarity. “What do you think he’s rambling on about? The overuse of the subjunctive in literary analysis?”
“What?” He pretended to gasp. “Why would anyone dare overuse the subjunctive? The horror.”
“Right, right. Hmm. Maybe he’s explaining why Proust is superior to Hugo in every way, if people could just get on board with all the
extra words.”
“The words, or the madeleines?” Dan chuckled, his glasses glinting in the lamplight. “Thanks. I knew you would understand.”
“Of course I understand. I’m highly intuitive, you know.”
“Sure you are,” he smiled. “Listen, I’m not an idiot, okay? Anne could have any guy she wanted, including the holy grail of junior year abroad: a real-life Parisian local, preferably not named Jacques or Pierre.”
“Don’t be glib. The Franco-American thing happens. A lot, apparently. When I asked Marshall Freeman yesterday where he zooms off to every day after class, you know what he said?”
“What?”
“‘Elle s’appelle élodie.’ That was it. Then he flew out the door.”
“élodie, his concierge’s daughter?” Dan started laughing so hard I was worried he might burst a blood vessel. “No way. They’re dating? Well played, Marshall. That girl is cute.”
“Is she? Here I’ve been imagining a tiny waif with chocolate brown hair and kale green eyes,” I sighed. “You know, Dan, if Marshall won over Élodie, why can’t you date Anne?”
Dan slowed his pace a bit and shrugged. “Seems kind of pointless. At the end of the year, we’ll all go back to our own schools. She’s from Boston. I’m a backwoods bumpkin from Oregon.”
“Come on. Eugene is hardly backwoods. And aren’t your parents professors?”
“Okay, fine. So it wouldn’t be the weirdest match in history.” Dan looked again to the front of the group, then stopped walking, full stop. “But what about Pete?”
“What about him?”
Dan gave me a funny look. “He’s my best friend, Meredith.”
Ignoring the unexpected pang in my gut at his implication, I took Dan’s elbow again, steering him forward. “I heard tonight’s moon would be the brightest it will ever be for the next four hundred years. Surely that’s a good sign, right?”
He looked up at the sky. “No pressure, moon.”
I lifted my hand to my eyes and peered up. “You hear that, bro? Don’t let our boy down!”
When Dan laughed he sounded like a little kid. “You’ve been hanging out with Pete too much, bro. If you start calling me every nickname under the sun, I’ll have to find a new route to school because I can’t handle two of you.”
“Suit yourself, Clark Kent. Get it? Suit yourself?”
“Meredith…”
“It’s cool, Quasimodo. I got your back.”
Dan snorted, and within two seconds I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. By the time we finally stumbled up to the sound-and-light show at Notre Dame, the rest of our group had disappeared into the masses. Lasers trailed across the Gothic façade. Different spotlights jumped and illuminated the cathedral to the sounds of Mozart’s Magic Flute. But I couldn’t stop staring at the moon. If something that beautiful could overpower the beauty of somewhere like Paris, then surely Anne could see adorkable Dan for the gem that he was. Otherwise, everything I’d ever believed about life and love was a total sham.
Come on, moon. Don’t fail us now.
TWELVE
The Notre Dame installation only lasted a few minutes. A couple of the spotlights died, which turned the whole scene sort of wonky. So we headed over to the modern dance performance at the Hotel de Ville, which was interesting… mostly because three of the dancers ran screaming offstage after their headpieces caught on fire. Acrobats filled the courtyard of the Centre Pompidou, twirling ribbons and tubes that burped out confetti, which might have been fun if it hadn’t been for the countdown clock inside my brain. The Tuileries Big Band concert started at midnight, and it was the one and only event on the itinerary I actually wanted to see.
When we reached the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel fifteen minutes before show time, Anne checked her notes again and gestured for us to circle up. “Okay,” she said, teeth chattering. “We have two choices at this venue: American Bandstand outside here at the Tuileries, or the film inside the Louvre, where it will be comfy and warm.”
“Not American Bandstand, Annie,” I corrected. “Big Band. We talked about this.”
“Oh, right,” she said, glancing back down at the paper in her hand. “So, the film showing here at the Louvre won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last spring. But to be honest, it could be about matchsticks and I’d still go, because plush seats plus no wind is a good enough reason for me. Who wants to join me?”
Dan was the first to move over to Team Anne, which made me beam a little bit. But then, as if on cue, a blustery wind blew in off the river and sent everyone into a frenzy. When I looked up again, three people huddled around Anne.
And one stood by me.
“Didn’t you two hear me?” Anne shot Pete a withering look. “You’re headed to a band concert in this cold.”
“It’s Big Band, Annie,” Pete imitated me perfectly, scorn and all. “Look, Meredith has her reasons for going to this concert. Is it her fault you guys didn’t dress warmly enough?”
Anne’s eyes shifted from Pete to me several times, a crooked grin tugging at her mouth. “No worries,” she said coolly. “We’ll just meet you back here. What time?”
Pete kicked his foot a little on the gravel. “I dunno. Three? On the Pont des Arts?”
“Can we go?” Tiny Harper bounced up and down in place. “I’m turning into a popsicle out here.”
And just like that, the rest of our friends zoomed away down the secret staircase to the Louvre Carrousel. Pete and I watched them until the last head disappeared, and then, just like at the Normandy cemetery, our feet fell into step together down the gravel path.
“Go ahead and say it, Sully,” Pete put up his hands in mock surrender as we left the shadow of the Arc du Carrousel. “You’re no fragile snowflake. We both know you’re capable of navigating this town just fine without me. But please don’t make me watch that film. I don’t care if it did win the Palme d’Or. It will put me to sleep.”
“Okay, but just so you know, I’m staying for the long haul. So if you get cold or bored…”
Pete shook his head and laughed. “Look, don’t go spreading this information far and wide, but I have been known to listen to Big Band with my grandmother from time to time. And by that, I mean every night while we cook dinner.”
That stopped me mid-stride. “Are you serious?”
“What? You had me pegged for the I-hate-everything-but-indie station?”
“Maybe. Didn’t I hear you were a roadie right after high school?”
Pete laughed so hard his cheeks went red. “Who in the world told you that?”
“Who knows,” I muttered as we started walking again. “I’ve heard all kinds of rumors why you’re a year older than the rest of us.”
“Really?” Pete shook his head, still laughing under his breath. “Like what?”
“Well, there’s the roadie rumor. Then I heard you did a stint in white-collar prison for hacking. But I choose to believe that you were a greenhorn on some crab boat in Alaska.”
“I had no idea my life was so fascinating,” Pete said quietly, casting a glance my way. “So how about you? Are you some sort of USO groupie? Is that why we’re here tonight?”
“No,” I laughed. “My dad plays clarinet. That’s how my parents met, at one of his gigs. He still plays in a little quintet down the coast in Newport. Do you know it?”
“Of course I know Newport.” Pete’s face lit all the way up, like I’d just admitted my dad was secretly Santa Claus, or the President of the United States. “Wow, Sully. Any favorite songs?”
“Well, my dad’s favorite is Green Dolphin Street, but no one’s ever heard of it.”
Pete smiled again, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Not only do I know it, I’ve seen that movie about fifteen times. It’s one of my grandmother’s favorites.”
My stomach flipped. He could have said he actually was a Romanov, and I would’ve been less shocked. “All right. Which version is better: the one by Miles Davis or Bill Evans?”
; “What kind of question is that?” Pete lifted an eyebrow. “Bill Evans for the win.”
Impressive. Everyone knew Miles Davis. Only real fans knew Bill Evans.
“What about your favorite song, Sully? Something by Ella Fitzgerald?”
“Good guess, but no. I love Ella, of course, but my favorite song is Caravan. The original version, not the Nat King Cole cover.”
“Duke Ellington,” Pete smiled approvingly. “You’re two for two. Not too shabby for a girl from a small coastal town.”
I couldn’t help but beam at the compliment. “Okay, now it’s your turn. No wait, don’t tell me. Your favorite song is some obscure B-side from the underground scene in war-torn Sarajevo.”
“Was there an underground scene in Sarajevo?” Pete’s eyes searched mine, like I knew something he didn’t. “No, mine’s a pretty standard choice. Do you know Begin the Beguine?”
“Are you kidding me right now? I love that song. My parents danced to it at their wedding. Did you know that Cole Porter wrote it here in Paris at the Ritz?”
Every muscle in Pete’s face twitched into a smile. “Wow, Sully. I owe you an apology. One of us hasn’t given the other enough credit the past two years.”
No lie, Russell. Make that two of us.
THIRTEEN
We reached the concert area just north of the first reflecting pool as the pianist trilled the intro to Take the A Train. Every tree in that particular section of the gardens had been lit with a million tiny lights, as though all the fairies in the world had flocked to these trees for the evening. Each member of the band was dressed to the nines in tailored tuxedos and black shoes so shiny I swear I could see the moon’s reflection from a hundred yards away.
Fifteen or sixteen round tables filled the space before us, with a handful of wooden chairs at each one. The organizers had laid a temporary parquet-like floor in front of the bandstand, and several people were already flocking up the center aisle to dance. Without hesitation, Pete grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the other dancers. But the second we reached the dance floor, my wits took hold of me and I froze in place.