Dear Sully

by Jill Cox

  “Whoo! Fancy!” He whistled. “Where are you off to this time, Russell? Lunch with the dean?”

  “Paris,” I barked over my shoulder. “See you around, Sutton.”

  Maybe you know this, but the Sigma Phi Beta fraternity house was built in the fifties, which means the floors are creaky, rendering it impossible to tail somebody without their knowledge. I knew Sutton was following me – down the stairs to the basement storage while I looked for the flags, up three flights to explain my situation to the president in his room, and back downstairs again through the living room.

  He followed me all the way outside to my car without saying a word. And when I finally turned around to confront him, Sutton’s face was so white it appeared gray.

  “You’re… are you seriously going to Paris?”

  “Yes.” I crossed my arms. “My flight leaves in three hours, Sutton. Did you need something? Or can I leave?”

  Oh, Sully. I actually felt sorry for the kid for a moment. I don’t know if it was my new-and-improved hygiene or my sudden resolve, but I could see that Sutton finally accepted me as his competition. It might’ve made me laugh if it hadn’t also hurt my feelings.

  Really, Sutton? I thought. I visit the barber and now you’re scared?

  “I told you a million times, Russell,” he growled, the color returning to his face. “Stay away from her. Or else.”

  I willed my expression to neutral. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but whoever she is, does it matter? Because I’m pretty sure I saw Lindsay Foster attached to your face Thursday night. Or did I imagine that?”

  “I mean it, Russell! Keep away from Meredith!” He shouted so loudly that some guys appeared at the window of the frat house. “She’s not some shiny new toy for you to play with.”

  “No, she’s not,” I retorted. “How about you turn that accusatory finger back on yourself? Last time I checked, it was bad form to string along more than one woman at a time. You’ve already got your hands full with Lindsay. So don’t worry; I’ll watch over the ginger for you.”

  I turned around to leave, but he grabbed my elbow and turned me back to face him. “Meredith and I have a history! We have inside jokes that you know nothing about. Go ahead and ask her yourself.”

  “Sutton, I don’t really have time to talk about your little hometown Hallmark movie right now.”

  “It’s not little!” His voice went sky high. “You ask her, man. Ask her what she promised me on the lake a couple of weeks ago. Ask her why I said not to settle for anything less than a marquis. Because if you ask, her answer will prove why you can’t have her. What we have is sacred.”

  I don’t know what it was about his protest that emboldened me. But I smiled, I climbed in my car, and I left Drew Sutton behind.

  The original plan was to ask you about the marquis nonsense on the plane, but the truth is, Sully, I could see I annoyed you that day. So I tucked the clue away, and waited.

  A week later, on the bus to Normandy, you saw Lindsay wearing Drew’s lavaliere. And when you didn’t punch me that night at karaoke – when you actually seemed grateful at my attempt to cheer you up – I could feel my doubt lifting. So at the cemetery the next day, I finally scrounged up enough courage to ask.

  “Sutton asked me to remind you not to settle for anything less than a marquis,” I blurted out of the blue. “What did he mean?”

  Your entire body went pink, which I might have taken as proof of a schoolgirl crush. Except you seemed… I don’t know, is ashamed too strong a word?

  “It’s nothing,” you said, waving me off. “Drew thinks it’s funny to pretend I’ll meet an aristocrat while I’m here. Like that will ever happen.”

  Um… what? I thought. Does he even know this girl? She doesn’t care about money. She could spend years in an aristocrat’s orbit and never once notice.

  I know you felt terrible about the Romanov jokes after you realized my parents were dead, but I’m secretly glad you roasted me that day. Because when I flipped your joke about the Grand Duke of St. Petersburg on its head, you turned bright, scorching crimson.

  Maybe it was proof of a schoolgirl crush. Only this time, the object of your crush was me. Except you had no idea the world had rotated backward on its axis.

  Edith de Nantes

  It’s now Thursday morning, June 28th. When Dr. Keating gave me this assignment, I wondered how I would write a single letter, and now, three days later, I’ve already written eight. And you know what? I don’t hate the process. Probably because it feels like I’m talking to you.

  The Parisian sky is spitting rain this morning, so I’m sitting at our favorite table at La Rotonde café near school. I’m even drinking Irish Breakfast tea. Why? Because the waitress remembered me, Sully. She just delivered a full pot to my table, asking where La Rousse was. At first, I thought she was asking if I had a dictionary, because Larousse, right? But then I realized she meant you, and for the first time in a very long time, I started to laugh. Like, belly laughing, so hard that my stomach muscles are going to ache for the next couple of days.

  What an obvious nickname that I never once considered giving my favorite ginger wordsmith. Larousse: the dictionary. La Rousse: the redhead.

  Genius.

  Remember all those September afternoons we spent here junior year – you, me, Anne, Dan – pretending to study but flirting instead? I visit those days a lot in my mind whenever I feel nostalgic for happier, simpler times. For a few moments, I let my pathetic brain recall the filtered light streaming through the window, dancing along your hair like the sunbeams drawn to your fire. The tiny flecks of gold in your gray-blue eyes when you’d tilt your head just right.

  You told me once that you imagined us as Hemingway and Hadley, and Dan and Anne as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda. You should have known better than to associate us with those poor train wrecks, but still, I love your starry-eyed dreams. It’s nice to view life through your eyes.

  Back to La Rotonde.

  One Tuesday afternoon – I think it was the last week of September – I was standing in line at the sandwich shop across the street from La Rotonde when I spotted you sitting alone at our usual table by the window. Ever since that day at the Normandy cemetery, I’d been trying to steal another moment alone with you. So I took a chance, ditched the sandwich line, and hurried across the street.

  Rain drops pelted the boulevard that afternoon, and even though it was less than a month into the school year, the air smelled like winter. You were wearing an emerald green sweater and your hair was pulled into a knot on top of your head. I’d watched you that morning in the Grande Salle reconfiguring said topknot seven different ways before leaving it alone.

  You’ve made an art out of looking effortlessly cool, Sully. I don’t even think you’re aware.

  The café was uncharacteristically empty that afternoon, which is why it shocked me that you failed to register my oafish presence hovering so close behind you. Like, horror-movie-villain close. Yet there you remained, laser-focused, shifting and re-shifting your tea pot and mug among the pens, index cards, and spiral full of history notes you’d already splayed across the table. On the left side of your spiral were twenty-six lines full of notes, and on the right side? A full-page drawing of a diner waitress in all her big-haired, small-town glory.

  “Who’s the Betty?” I said, startling you as I plopped into the chair to your right.

  You flipped the notebook shut. “Oh, hi,” you said, a slight flush creeping into your earlobes. “Um, nobody. I’m just studying for our history test tomorrow.”

  “We have a history test tomorrow?” I deadpanned. “What over?”

  You jerked to grab your spiral notebook from the table, but I grabbed it first, hugging it to my chest.

  “Give that back, Pete.”

  “Don’t worry, I will,” I smirked, curving myself slightly away from you. “But first I’m gonna need to hear an explanation for this waitress you sketched, and then we’ll negotiate the ransom
terms.”

  The look of bewilderment on your face in that moment nearly convinced me to give up the game. “Fine,” you sighed. “The waitress is named Edith.”

  “For real? Why?”

  “You know why!” Your brows knotted together. “Oh, come on. Seriously? It’s Edith of Nantes! The lady Monsieur Ludovic spent forty minutes talking about last Wednesday in class?”

  I blinked at you for a long moment. “Are you pulling my leg right now, Sullivan?”

  “What? No.” You grabbed back the notebook that had gone limp in my grasp. “Look, you probably think my little doodling habit makes me childish, but it serves an actual purpose, okay? Sketching helps focus my mind, and last Wednesday, Monsieur Ludovic was speaking so quickly that he lost me a time or two.” Your frown deepened. “Okay, he lost me for a full twenty minutes. Which is why I’m here right now instead of at the movies with the Addison girls.”

  “Movies? On a Tuesday?”

  “Well, yes. Kelly insists we make time for girls’ night every week. So she scours Pariscope magazine to find the cheapest acceptable movie in town. For example: today, they’re taking the bus up to some indie theater in Montmartre showing Amélie. I freaking love that movie, yet here I am, all alone, facing down hours of research on this Edith of Nantes lady.”

  “Alone?” I waved my hand back and forth in front of your face. “Am I invisible?”

  You swatted my hand away. “Look, I can’t afford to fail this test. Do you want Monsieur Ludovic telling the faculty what a backwards bumpkin I am? Next thing you know, Madame Beauchamp will call me into her office to tell me thanks but no thanks, my fourth of the Beckett Scholarship money’s been revoked. Then she’ll book me in steerage on the first cargo ship headed across the Atlantic, and I’ll have to hitchhike my way westward across America from wherever the sailors dump me in Newark.”

  “Relax,” I said, plucking the spiral out of your fingers yet again. “I’ve already studied for the test. If you want, we can go over your notes together. It’ll be fun.”

  Your face was a kaleidoscope for the next few seconds, shifting from doubt to desperation, then settling on acceptance. I choose to believe that in that moment, you genuinely wanted my help for the first time in your life.

  You gave a tiny sigh, pulling the pen off your cap as you slid your index cards closer. “Okay, I’m in. But let’s make it snappy, okay? I’ve still got fifty pages of art history to read before tomorrow.”

  “Right. Let’s see what you’ve got here.” I opened your notebook again, skimming your notes on the left-hand side of the page. “Hold up, do you write your notes on the back side of the page so your left hand doesn’t have to battle the spiral binding? Genius! That drives me –”

  “Pete!”

  “Sorry, sorry,” I pretended to wince. “Okay. Well, first of all, no one named Edith will appear on our test tomorrow, so let’s start there.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s right here in my notes – Edith of Nantes! A Protestant who married some guy named Hugh Guennot. Or maybe Hugues. I missed whatever Monsieur Ludovic said about Henry the Fourth and the island of St. Barth’s. That’s why Edith is standing on an island balancing a bottle of rum – to remind me to look it up later.”

  “Huh. Well, that’s… something.” I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t laugh. “I mean, we could look it up. But I think Monsieur Ludovic was talking about the Edict of Nantes. L’Édit, not Édith. It was a law signed by Henri IV which gave the Huguenots the right to worship as Protestants in Catholic France. Sort of like a peace offering, you know? Thousands of Huguenots were slaughtered a couple of decades earlier at the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. At least I think that’s correct. I’m not so great with the actual dates.”

  Your face drained of color for a second, and then it went all splotchy, like some invisible swarm of mosquitos had just attacked you in the blink of an eye. You covered your mouth for a long moment, staring at me like I’d just slapped you right across the face. And then, just as I opened my mouth to apologize… you began to laugh.

  No, wait. Not laugh.

  Guffaw.

  Cackle.

  Chortle.

  You were laughing so hard that you could not breathe, like a silent scream into the universe. And then you grabbed my forearm and squeezed so hard that I thought you might be stroking out.

  “Meredith? You okay?” My eyes searched yours. “Wrap your hands around your throat if you’re choking.”

  You shoved me in the chest with your free hand. “No, I’m not choking, you lunatic. I’m just… I can’t… I can’t breathe, and I can’t believe… why aren’t you horrified?”

  “Horrified? By what?”

  “I drew a WAITRESS, Pete! A waitress named Edith. Why? Because I’m an idiot who needs her scholarship revoked and – oh my word.” You poked your finger at your notebook. “Hugh! Guennot!”

  Hysterical giggles overtook you just then, and oh, man, Sully – I finally lost it. The two of us made such a scene that people on the outside of the window started laughing. The waitress appeared with the check and stole your teapot and cup from the table, like, get out of here, you crazy Americans, which only made me laugh so hard that I’m pretty sure I pulled a muscle loose from my ribs.

  The rain had paused for a moment, so I snagged your check off the table and left your waitress fifteen euros while you gathered all of your stuff and shoved it into your messenger bag. The two of us hustled back to school, still laughing our heads off like we were the only two people in the world.

  That afternoon, you huddled up next to me in one of the study rooms behind the Grande Salle while I retaught everything you’d missed in class. For those two hours, I felt like we were filming montage scenes for some cheesy rom-com movie, because WHAT THE WHAT? I’d never seen you so soft. Like, ever.

  You know what I learned that day? That the girl who’d spent two years side-eyeing me for no apparent reason finally trusted me enough to let me inside her fortress of solitude. Instead of covering up your error, you let me see it. Even then, I recognized what a huge step we’d taken, because let’s face it: you do not like to be wrong. The fact that you didn’t push me away that afternoon meant more to me than I could have imagined.

  You gave me hope, Sully. And hope was exactly what I needed that year.

  Dan the Man

  For the next couple of weeks, I’m not ashamed to admit I walked around in a bit of a Sully-induced haze. On the day of La Nuit Blanche, Dan finally called me out.

  We were cleaning the apartment a few hours before you and the Addison girls were meant to arrive, and I guess my head was totally in the clouds because four times in a row, Dan asked me to take out the trash, and four times in a row, I thought he said to empty the vacuum filter.

  “You’ve already done that,” he said, taking the vacuum from my hand and replacing it with a black plastic trash bag. “Dude. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Of course,” I said, dropping the trash all over the floor just as I opened the front door. By the time I’d cleaned up the mess and delivered the trash to the bin, Dan had settled into his usual chair at the breakfast table.

  “Sit,” he commanded, sliding a glass of water my way. I felt like a suspect on one of those crime series they show in perpetual reruns on cable TV.

  I lifted the glass to my lips. “What’s up?”

  “You know what’s up.” Detective Dan crossed his arms over his chest. “Stop acting nervous, man. You and I both know she’s totally into you.”

  My stomach flipped. “Who’s into me?”

  “Don’t be cute, Russell. You know I’m talking about Meredith.”

  “Sullivan?”

  “I told you not to be cute. This is me you’re talking to. And if you’re going to pretend you haven’t spent every second since orientation trying to win over our favorite ginger, I’ll call you out in front of her and the Addison girls tonight. You know I’ll do it. Do not tempt me.”

  T
his may surprise you, but Dan and I had never talked about any girl in this way before. Sure, we’d given each other a hard time about making out with our formal dates in the back of the party bus (sorry, sorry…TMI). And yeah, we may have had an understanding about who sat by whom at La Rotonde (sorry again). But an actual conversation about feelings?

  Um, no thank you. Never. Nope. N-to-the-NOOOOOO.

  I took another sip of my water, then crossed my own arms over my chest. “What makes you think Meredith’s into me? Like, what specifically has she done to give you that impression?”

  Dan rolled his eyes. “Look, I know you think you’re charming, and in general that must be true, because you never have a shortage of ladies hanging around at any given time. But Meredith Sullivan has never given you two seconds’ worth of attention in the whole time we’ve known her.” His cheeks tugged up in a grin. “Not until this semester, that is.”

  “Are you messing with me right now?”

  “Dude.” He fixed me with a look. “She laughed at your Monsieur Dufresne imitation in class this morning. And it is terrible. Instead of a half-blind octogenarian, you look like a turtle.”

  “Maybe Meredith has a more refined sense of humor than you.”

  “Oh, she absolutely does. Which is how I know she’s into you, because she would never laugh at something so ridiculous if she were in her right mind.”

  He was correct, you know. I can’t think of a single time you laughed at me before Paris. On a good day, you’d tolerated me, but laughter? This was unprecedented. And the weirdest part was that your attitude had shifted with very little effort on my part.

  “What about Sutton?” I asked, finally.

  “What about him?”

  “You know what I’m asking. Isn’t he Meredith’s soul mate or something?”

  Dan looked around the apartment, under the table, then looked back at me. “Is he here?”

  “No. But –”

  “But nothing. Sutton’s MIA, Pete. And even if he weren’t, he’s had his whole life to lock down that soul mate thing. If you ask me, he’s only got himself to blame if Meredith’s over his games. Plus, we’re in Paris. City of Love, blah-dee-blah-blah. So take a chance and ask her out already. What’s the worst that can happen?”