The Paper Girl of Paris

by Jordyn Taylor

  My phone buzzes with a text message. Earlier in the evening, I texted Mom and asked if she and Dad were watching the fireworks. Her response is only five words long:

  “Not really in the mood.”

  It’s like a cinder block dragging me back down to Earth. A minute ago, I was reliving the memory of my hand in Paul’s, the sun shining and the scent of citrus in the air, but now all I can picture is Mom sitting in that corner of the couch with her knees tucked up to her chest, like always. It makes me want to cry.

  I type a response:

  “You promised you’d try to have fun tonight!”

  I’m just so helpless right now. And scared. I don’t completely get what’s going on with Mom. It’s like I’m back in the first grade, when Gram would drop me home and I’d run to see Mom, back from another doctor’s appointment, and she just wouldn’t seem excited to see me. She seemed . . . nothing. Empty. Numb. Dad told me not to ask questions. All I could do was try to cheer her up, but nothing worked. Even though I’m older now, even though I know nothing has ever worked during Mom’s phases, I feel like there has to be some way to make her feel better, if I just think hard enough. A few years ago, during the last one, I tried writing poems to let my feelings out, but they didn’t actually make anything better. They just ended up stashed at the back of my desk drawer, the ashes of my pent-up emotions.

  The wine makes me feel light-headed. It’s nice. It puts a sort of wall between me and the bad feelings. When I see Mom typing her reply to my last message, I take a big swig. And then another. Oh—I just drained the whole glass. This is more than I’ve ever had at Hannah’s.

  Mom’s message appears on the screen:

  “Sry I let you down. Guess I’m a disappointment to everyone.”

  My fingers fly across the keys.

  “You’re not a disappointment,” I type. “We all love you, Mom!”

  “K,” she writes back.

  I’m not scared anymore—I’m frustrated. Angry. I wanted Mom to at least try tonight. I mean, maybe if she actually left the Airbnb, she wouldn’t be so miserable. I lunge for the bottle of wine, but it’s empty. I want more. There must be more downstairs. I should go downstairs and get it. When I stand up, my legs feel wobbly, but my head feels clear, and that’s good. I don’t have to think about Mom’s texts. Where are the stairs? Oh, there they are. I grab the railings.

  “Alice? Are you okay?”

  That’s Paul’s voice.

  “I’m fine. I’ll be back in a second.”

  The stairs take focus. They turn and turn. I hold the railings with both hands. Finally, I’m back on flat ground. There’s a bottle of red wine on the counter, but I don’t know how corkscrews work. Aha—it’s a twist-off. Success. I fill up my glass. I bend down and suck a sip off the top so it doesn’t spill. That is really delicious. I should finish this one and fill up another before I go back upstairs. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

  “Alice, what are you doing?”

  It’s Paul again. He’s at the foot of the stairs. He looks concerned, but he shouldn’t be. I’m totally in control. I’m just irritated.

  “I promise, I’m fine,” I say.

  “Who were you texting upstairs?”

  “My mom.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It seems like a big deal.”

  “It wouldn’t be a big deal if she just tried to help herself.”

  Paul opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.

  “I know what you’re going to say, Paul.” The words are flowing faster than I can keep track of them. “You’re going to say the same thing as last time, which is that my dad and I should sit down and talk to her.”

  Now Paul is at my side. His hand is on my shoulder. I really don’t want to hear the same advice again, so I grab my wine and march out onto the balcony. Paul follows. I lean against the railing, watching fireworks erupt across the city.

  “Alice, can I tell you something? It’s something I haven’t told very many people.”

  I wish he would just come and watch the fireworks with me. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

  “You know that my parents are both doctors, yes? And that they didn’t want me to go to art school?”

  He waits for me to say something, but I don’t feel like actively participating in this conversation.

  He keeps going.

  “What I didn’t tell you is that they really wanted me to go to medical school. But you see, French medical school is ridiculous. To get from the first year to the second year, you have to take an impossible exam, and almost everybody fails. Maybe fifteen percent make it through. To put yourself through that, you have to really want it . . . and I didn’t. Not at all. I wanted to be an artist. We ended up settling on graphic design school, but I still felt my parents were not very proud of me—especially my father.

  “And so last fall, when I started at the university, I was very, very stressed out. I had all of these projects, and I was working very, very hard, but at the same time, I felt like I was disappointing my father. Every minute, I felt like I was doing the wrong thing.

  “So eventually, I start to really feel the stress. I am walking down the street or sitting in class and I have these horrible episodes where I cannot breathe all of a sudden. My whole chest gets tight and it’s hard to see, and I really believe that I am dying. This happens at least once a day. And of course, I become scared that I will have more of these attacks, so I stop going outside unless I have to. I just stay in my apartment alone . . . not making friends . . . not finishing my schoolwork . . . not really doing anything. And I did not talk about what was going on because, you know, I am already scared that people are disappointed in me.

  “But then one day, Vivi shows up at my room. I think I missed her Christmas party the night before. And she says, ‘Paul, I am not leaving until we talk about what is happening to you, and we figure out how to make it better.’ Alice, I never would have brought it up if she did not say this to me. She made me talk about it for the first time, and she made me go see a therapist, who was very, very helpful.”

  He’s standing next to me, gazing out at the sky.

  “If Vivi did not have this conversation with me, then I never would have fixed the problem. I never would have gone to the bakery and used my sketchbook just for fun . . . and I never would have met you. So . . . I think you should try.”

  Paul tries to hold my hand again, but I pull it away and retreat to the corner.

  “Alice?”

  His speech stings like salt in a wound.

  I’m about to explode from the pain.

  “Paul, do you think I haven’t been trying until now?” I am seething. “My mom’s been having these weird episodes on and off since I was in the first grade. What do you think I do every time she—”

  “Alice . . . I didn’t know . . . I didn’t mean to offend you . . . I was just trying to—”

  “Tell me I clearly don’t care about my mom as much as your sister cares about you?”

  Paul looks as though I’ve just slapped him. Good. He thinks he can waltz in and fix my family just like that, but he doesn’t know us. He doesn’t know our problems. And he doesn’t get that my family has never talked about a single feeling ever, in history—not once.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Paul says quietly.

  He’s trying to make peace, but I’m still fuming.

  “I do the absolute best I can to help her—”

  “I believe you, I’m sorry—”

  “And I don’t need your criticism,” I snap. “I can handle it on my own. I’ll probably just sell the stupid apartment and move on.”

  “What?” Paul asks.

  I don’t feel like explaining.

  The fireworks have mostly died down. It’s quieter now. The sky is black. I stand there with my arms crossed, breathing heavily. I can’t believe that earlier today, we were holding hands without a care in th
e world.

  “I’m really sorry,” Paul says after a minute or two. “Can we talk about what just happened?” He pauses and chews his lip. His beautiful lip. I can’t look at it right now. “Do you want to tell me about your mom? And what do you mean, ‘sell the apartment’?”

  Talk, talk, talk. Paul must think he can solve everything just by talking. He probably wants to demonstrate how productive it can be.

  “I think I just want to go home,” I reply.

  His face goes from desperate to defeated.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  We go upstairs and say our goodbyes to Vivi, Theo, Claudette, and Lucie, who are spending the night. Then Paul calls a taxi to take us to the train station. On board, I slump against the window and close my eyes to the dark landscape passing by.

  We ride the whole way back to Paris in silence.

  Chapter 10

  Adalyn

  At half past ten, I follow the directions on the scrap of paper to the southern edge of Parc Monceau. I count out the park benches and find the one third from the end, next to the lamppost. I take a seat, trying to appear nonchalant, but my heart is hammering. Is he watching me right now? There are people all around, and he could be any of them: the businessman with the black umbrella, the elderly gentleman with the wooden cane, the father reading a picture book to his young daughter.

  A shadow falls across my lap, and just like that, there’s a man sitting next to me. He’s in his sixties, maybe, with an unkempt gray beard and a face like a gnarled tree trunk. There’s a deep scar that runs down his cheek, as though the bark had been struck by a bolt of lightning.

  So—this is the man they call Geronte.

  “If you’re planning on taking the train, I hear they’re running behind schedule today,” he says gruffly.

  This is my cue. In one swift movement, I pull the half ticket from my pocket and pass it to him. He holds our two pieces together, nods curtly, and stuffs them into his breast pocket.

  “I need you to memorize what I am about to tell you,” he grunts. “Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “You will go to 27, rue Cambacérès tomorrow morning,” he says. “Tell the concierge you are collecting a package for your uncle, and she will hand you an envelope. There will be letters inside, and addresses. You will deliver them by the end of the week.”

  This must be the kind of work that Luc was doing. I remember the bags under his eyes and the worry lines that formed on his handsome face.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Geronte grunts.

  “So you’re the girl they put in all the magazines—the one who goes to all the parties,” he says, still staring straight ahead. “Luc speaks very highly of you.”

  My heart beats even faster. “That is very kind of—”

  “I will have to judge you for myself, of course.”

  Luc always saw it as an advantage that I kept an active social life. Geronte, I can tell, is more skeptical. I understand; for all he knows, I could run and tell the Germans at Madame Marbot’s next party about the package at 27, rue Cambacérès. But I need him to know he can trust me. I need him to see what an asset I am.

  I must tell him the idea that came to me as I listened to Ulrich the Hotel Belmont.

  “Geronte, last night I met the German who manages the train schedules at the Gare de l’Est.”

  I pause to make sure he’s interested.

  “Go on,” he says.

  “I have as little interest in fraternizing with Germans as I’m sure you do, but this man revealed many details about supplies coming in and out of Germany.”

  “And why do you suppose he did such a stupid thing?”

  “Because he thought he was talking to a harmless girl.”

  Geronte grunts again. He must not be interested. This must be his way of dismissing me. Embarrassed for going beyond the simple task he asked of me, I tighten my scarf and stand up.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Geronte growls, stopping me in my tracks. He pats the spot on the bench where I was just sitting. “Sit down and tell me every damn word that man said.”

  Two weeks later, Madame Marbot plans another salon. I agonize for hours over how to explain myself to Chloe, until at last, I come up with a plan: I tell her I’m going to the salon so I can keep an eye on Maman, to make sure she doesn’t come into direct contact with any Germans. Incredibly, Chloe not only believes me—she likes the idea.

  “I wish she didn’t go to those parties at all, but this makes me feel a tiny bit better,” she whispers through the darkness. It isn’t a terribly cold night, but we decided to share her bed anyway. “Maman needs someone to keep her in check,” Chloe continues. “She’ll talk to anybody. Especially when she’s been drinking champagne.”

  “The LaRoches will be there,” I tell her. “I can make sure we talk to them all night.”

  Chloe groans into her pillow. “Another whole evening with the LaRoches? Oh, Adalyn,” she says, “you’re a saint.”

  So Maman and I return to the Hotel Belmont. I find Ulrich in the same spot by the fire, and he is still homesick, and therefore still very happy to see me. I let him talk to me all evening long, absorbing his words like a sponge.

  The very next day, I meet Geronte on the park bench to wring out every last detail.

  September becomes October, and the country careens closer and closer to what is sure to be another brutal winter. In November, we learn that Germany has invaded Vichy France, dissolving the border between the Occupied and Unoccupied Zones. We are all together in the same prison now. Down in Toulon, the French Navy deliberately sinks dozens of its own ships to avoid them being captured by the Germans. This small victory buoys my spirits, if only for a little while.

  At least everyone sees that Pétain is nothing more than a German puppet now. For anyone who was still telling themselves the Old Marshal would rescue France like he did back in the Great War, it’s now impossible to suspend their disbelief any further. Geronte says that more and more people are joining the resistance movement.

  At home, Maman doesn’t praise Pétain at all anymore, but she’s still trying her best to stay positive. After reading the news of the invasion in Les Nouveaux Temps, she calmly folded up the newspaper and placed it on her lap. In the armchair next to her, Papa—who had also seen the story—was staring at the ground numbly. Maman reached over and squeezed his hand. “We’ll be all right, my love,” she said. “We’ll just keep living our lives and wait and see what happens.”

  Meanwhile, I carry on passing information from Ulrich to Geronte, while also making time to complete my new assignments. I courier messages from one location to another, from one strange hand to the next. I am perpetually exhausted from running and hiding all over the city, but the memory of Arnaud pushes me to keep fighting, just as Luc said.

  One snowy morning in December, Chloe and I pile all our blankets onto my bed and huddle underneath them to keep warm. We sleep this way, too, on the colder nights. The frigid cold is already settling over Paris, and there isn’t enough fuel to keep the apartment as warm as we’d like. When I went to collect our rations the other week, the man handed me only three sacks of coal.

  “This is to last the month?” I asked him in disbelief.

  “No,” he replied, “this is to last the winter.”

  Today, to pass the time, Chloe and I read Baudelaire’s poems out loud to each other, taking turns flipping the pages so our fingers don’t get too cold. We’re wearing our warmest coats indoors, and we’re still shivering.

  “I never want to leave this burrow of ours,” Chloe says.

  “Neither do I, but I have to go out later,” I remind her. There’s another party at the Hotel Belmont tonight.

  “I expect the Germans will be there?” Chloe asks darkly.

  “Yes, I think so,” I tell her. “I’m going to distract Maman all night.”

  This keeping of secrets never gets any easi
er. How I would love to tell Chloe why I’m really so eager to go to these parties—how I would love to see the relief, the excitement spread across her face . . . but I know that I mustn’t. Just the other day, Geronte told me a terrible story about the husband of a resister he knew. The Gestapo knew the man had information, so they dragged him in for questioning. They tortured him with a knife, and they cut him too deep.

  The man bled to death in their custody.

  “Adalyn,” Chloe says, “do you promise?” Her eyes search my face.

  “Do I promise what?”

  “That you really are just keeping an eye on Maman. And you’re not having any . . . any sort of relations with the enemy.”

  I wrinkle my nose.

  “Relations! Heavens no, Chloe. Why would you think that all of a sudden?”

  “A friend of mine. She found out her sister went on a date with one of them. It made me worry. . . .”

  “You don’t have to worry, Chloe.”

  I force a laugh in an attempt to defuse the tension. Chloe joins in, but it doesn’t sound altogether natural, and there’s a funny expression on her face. It’s hard to tell if she truly believes me—and the fact that I must continue to lie to her eats at me like a monster with razor-sharp teeth. All I can hope is that someday this war will be over, and she will know the truth.

  Before I get ready for the salon, there is a visit I must pay to an address Geronte gave me at our last meeting. “I need you to help me with something,” he said to me on the park bench. He disclosed no further details except where and when I had to meet him. I nodded, and the plan was set.