He nods and slips off the bed. Based on the sounds of bodies moving, I assume that Zeke is following.
“Will you be okay for tomorrow?” Zeke asks as he slips past me, following Colin.
Will I be okay? Does he mean because I’m so tired? Or because I’m reacting poorly to a kiss that shouldn’t have happened?
I’m so exhausted I may just tumble into bed wearing this soft blue tank top, even without taking off my uncomfortable bra. Especially since I can’t be certain that Zeke won’t wait it out in the hallway for me to go to the bathroom and force me to have a humiliating conversation.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, and he’s so close that I can feel the air move as he passes me.
Zeke and I struggle through our dialogue in class. The whole class has turned into a restaurant, partners together by table. Except Zeke and I have lost the ability to make eye contact with each other, which means we’re constantly interrupting and talking over each other’s words. When I actually remember words. I forget what bread is in French. I rely heavily on words that I think are the same in both languages.
I’m going to flunk out of my first French class because I kissed my study partner four days ago, and this is such a stereotypical college problem that I’d be excited if I wasn’t so appalled.
I need this. I need to get it together. I need to work on pretending I’m a twelve-year-old girl talking to her father (as per the situation card we received) about wanting to go to a concert. And I need to order my pretend food and answer Marianne’s questions about my allergies (according to the card, nuts and dairy).
I pull up the image on my wall of the Paris School, the vines that cover the stone walls. I can do this.
“Pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle,” I say to Marianne. Excuse me, miss. “Je suis allergique au . . .” shoot. Peanuts. Peanuts.
How the eff do I say peanuts in French?
“Ma fille est allergique aux cacahuètes,” Zeke interrupts. “Abby, n’aie pas peur de lui dire. C’est important.”
He saved me. He told Marianne that I’m too afraid to tell people about my allergies.
Catching his eyes, I notice his little smile and then the nod. The nod like at the park. The nod that says I know you’re flustered but you can do it.
I don’t know how to deal with all this. So I do all I can do.
“Mais papa, c’est tellement embarrassant,” I say, trying to sound annoyed and petulant about the embarrassment of telling people about my allergies.
And then we’re in rapid-fire French mode, because Zeke tells tween me that if I want to go to the concert, I need to prove to him that I’m adult enough to be honest about my limitations. And then I attack him for forgetting about my dairy allergy, and I try to go into great detail about the different effects of my peanut and dairy allergies, and he reminds me of the time I ate too much vanilla ice cream, and I was sick all over the floor of his brand-new car.
Pretty soon we’re laughing so hard that we don’t notice that Marianne has dismissed the class, because I’m insisting that I can eat my (plastic) chocolate cake even though it’s filled with butter and cream (beurre et crème) and he’s accusing me of polluting the room with my farting.
When Marianne (in her server role) tells us it’s time to go because the restaurant is closing, Zeke replies that the service was terrible and that we expect a refund on our meal.
“Are you guys doing all right with the class?” Marianne asks us in French when we’ve finally stopped laughing enough to grab our bags and make our way to the hallway.
Zeke glances over at me, and I smile back. “We’re good,” I say.
“You’re both trying hard, I can tell. And I’m enjoying reading your conversation logs. I’m glad it’s working out. Hopefully it will mean that more high school students will consider taking these intensive language courses. Maybe we can get you guys to write something up at the end of the program, and we’ll use it in our recruitment brochures?”
I nod quickly and Zeke’s head bobs alongside mine. “Can I ask you a question, actually? Speaking of writing things up?” I look at Zeke and he hitches his backpack higher on his left side.
“I’ll get going,” he says, but he moves slowly, as though willing me to stop him.
“It’ll just be a second.” And then I turn back to Marianne. “I don’t know if you know the Paris School, but they have a special half-year program for graduating seniors. I was wondering if you’d consider writing me a recommendation to go in January. I have my general school recommendations but they need to know that I’m fluent.”
Marianne pinches her lips together. “Send me the information about the program and let’s talk about this again toward the end of this class. I’m impressed with your French so far, but if they require total fluency, that’s something we’ll have to wait a bit to confirm. I don’t doubt you can do it, but you’re not quite there yet.”
I didn’t know how to say peanuts. And Zeke had to save me. Suddenly our rapid-fire French feels more like wishful thinking.
“Bien sûr. Merci, Marianne,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. I’ll work as hard as I need to. This will be my priority, not the feelings developing between me and Zeke. This is why I’m here. Not to flirt. Not to kiss. To become fluent. To get out of Chicago. To get to France. The combination of Hogwarts and The Secret Garden and Narnia, the place where everything will fit.
The place where I’ll fit.
And so when I see Zeke on the front steps of the building, his fingers scrolling messages on his phone, I don’t stop to talk to him. Right now, my priority is the library. Not talking to Zeke.
I work all afternoon at the library, decoding the poems I didn’t get to yesterday, reading Le Petit Prince. I want to text Colin about maybe seeing a movie together, check on Alice, wonder about Zeke, but right now French is my priority.
By five, I’m starving and almost prepared to eat my Petit Larousse dictionary. But despite how fuzzy I feel from lack of caffeine and a mounting headache, even I know that eating a dictionary published in 1971 is probably a bad idea.
I grab a tuna sandwich (sandwich au thon), an apple (une pomme), a chocolate cookie (biscuit au chocolat), and a Coke (thankfully Coke is a Coke in any language) from the cafeteria, and then head to the dorms. Except I’m so hungry that I grip my apple with the crook of my elbow as I try to simultaneously scarf down the sandwich and shove cookie pieces in my mouth.
Which is why it all winds up on the grass when Zeke says hi. Which, in his defense, he says because I’m about to walk into him. Apparently I’m no good at walking and eating at the same time.
But I’m so hungry I want to grab the food off the grass, and apparently that’s clear to Zeke because he quickly scoops up the food himself.
“I’m sorry,” he says, dropping my combination breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the garbage. Little does he know that I’m not above eating out of there either. Or gnawing on my own arm. “Let me take you to get more food.”
“Je dois . . .” I’m so tired and hungry I can’t even think of the word in French. I have to . . . “Study,” I finally say in English.
“Come, we’ll do our conversation log. I’ll even take notes for us.” He puts his left arm around me and directs me (il me dirige) toward (vers) the café (le café) that sits on the edge of campus. (I’m too tired to remember how to say that.)
Especially since Zeke’s arm is around me and it’s apparently messing with my brain’s ability to fire synapses properly.
And I will give up all sweets for a year so long as he doesn’t bring up Friday night’s kiss.
Thankfully Zeke doesn’t speak until we get to Sweetie Pies/Fake Angelina with its chipped formica tables. He orders us two burgers (which I nod my approval to), French fries (which makes me roll my eyes), and milkshakes (which unleashes my broadest smile).
“Quelle sort de milkshake est-ce que tu veux?”
“Milkshake?” I tease. “I’m quite sure that’s not the word. And chocola
te.”
“Regarde dans ton dictionnaire. Tu dis milkshake on Français.”
And when I check my dictionary, I find that he’s right. But probably only because French people would never actually drink a milkshake, so there’s no need for a proper French word for it.
Our conversation actually flows as we wait for our food. I find that it takes the entire chocolate milkshake before my headache disappears, and I’m still able to finish my burger and fries. And steal a few of Zeke’s as well.
We trade stories about bad school blunders, about being embarrassed by our friends, about themed birthday parties (princesses, ponies, and unicorns for me; trains, football, and baseball for Zeke). And that prompts a discussion about gender politics and nature versus nurture. And when the waitstaff finally kicks us out for real (with much less of a smile than Marianne used when acting the part) we shift to conversations about siblings embarrassing us. I laugh until my sides hurt hearing Zeke talk about his sister’s attempt to style his hair with tiny braids, using beads and mini elastic bands. How it took hours of pulling to remove her hard work. How he didn’t get the lollipop she’d promised him in exchange for hours of sitting still while she “worked.”
“I think you should demand a whole bag of lollipops to cover the missed payment, plus interest.” I giggle, once again enjoying the sound of the word sucette as it comes out of my mouth. It tastes sweet and sticky.
“How did your brothers embarrass you?” Zeke asks, his hand coming to rest in the small of my back as he slips me in front of him through a narrow path. I know all the words he’s using (tes frères, your brothers; embarrassent, embarrass) and yet the warmth of his hand on my back, the heat that radiates past my T-shirt, makes speech more challenging. In any language.
And apparently walking, because I trip on an uneven piece of stone in the walkway and were it not for Zeke’s hand grabbing my arm, I would have gone flying.
“Ça va?” Zeke asks, holding me tight.
Part of me wants to nod and break away, to keep walking and chuckle at my clumsiness. To return to what things were like five minutes ago.
Another part of me wants to stay in this position for the next few minutes, enjoying the feeling of his body against mine, his grasp tight.
But yet another part, the largest part, the part that truthfully dwarfs all the other parts, wants to spin around and pull his head toward mine. Start something totally new, something entirely different from everything that’s happened so far. Something that will unstick the residual awkwardness that clings to us.
Instead, his hand slides across my back and grasps my hand as he whispers into my ear: “How about I hold on to you in case you go flying again?”
I nod because I’m not sure what language to use, what language Zeke is even speaking except I love the sound of it.
We make it through the path without any more spills, but thankfully Zeke keeps our fingers entwined. “So how did your brothers embarrass you?” he asks again, but this time it sounds different. Maybe it’s our fingers; maybe it’s the way his thumb is sweeping across the inside of my wrist. Either way, it feels like it’s just us here. Just us in all of New Hampshire.
I snicker. “Well, they made a rule about swearing. They’re much older than me, so by the time I came around they knew all the bad words. Especially given all the sports games they attended. There was always some drunk idiot who didn’t have an issue shouting curses regardless of the small kids in front of him. And so apparently in second grade, I also started swearing. And at first it was funny because here was this cute little pint-size me, swearing like a sailor when I couldn’t find the book I wanted to read. But then it started coming out at school. And one day, in class.”
I pause, because we’re now in front of the dorm and I don’t know what to make of the fact that Zeke is still holding my hand. He’s holding my hand and we didn’t talk about Friday night and we didn’t talk about who was on the phone and how awkward things were all weekend. But he’s still holding my hand, still looking at me like he’s waiting for me to finish the story.
“Apparently,” I start again, my cheeks warming because they’re no longer hidden by the alleyways and deserted walkways of Huntington. “Apparently the teacher got an odd look on her face when I dropped the f-bomb in class, and asked me what it meant. So I said: ‘It’s what you say when you get really, really mad. Like when the bases are loaded and the batter strikes out on a pitch that any fucking moron with half a brain could hit with his eyes closed.’”
Zeke guffaws a laugh that’s so enormous, I’m shocked he’s able to continue holding my hand through it. “Tell me you’re exaggerating.”
I press my lips together, and in the process hold his hand a little more securely. Because all my muscles are connected. And then I shake my head. Slowly.
“So, wait, what happened?”
“Well, my parents got a call and had to come in for a meeting, and I needed to be taught that I wasn’t allowed to swear. And they tried for months but it had become a really bad habit and plus, it made everyone laugh. But finally they came up with a solution. I can’t remember if it was Si or Jed, but the new rule was that if I used the f-word, I would be ‘punished’ by having to wear all White Sox clothing.”
Zeke laughs and it’s an easy, happy laugh, loose and filling. Real. “I love that story,” he says, and only then does he drop my hand.
And I want to weep with gratitude that we didn’t talk about Friday night. Even if it means no sweets for a year.
FIFTEEN
AND SLOWLY, VERY SLOWLY, LIFE returns to normal. It’s been three weeks since I arrived in Merritt, three weeks that feel like three months, and my old life feels like something that took place years ago. The life in Chicago, with the Cubs and my brothers, Lake Michigan instead of the pond. The life that I lived at home instead of eating in the cafeteria, hanging out at campus eateries, buying groceries with Alice to keep in our minifridge.
A life when I dreamed about learning French instead of practicing all day, every day, studying until I begin to dream in French. A life before Alice and Colin. A life before Zeke.
On Friday night, Colin sits with me and Alice at the poetry slam even though she isn’t ready to go onstage. It takes a full ten minutes of hanging out near the cafe before Alice is ready to go in, and that only occurs after Colin stakes it out and assures her it’s practically empty. We all make like it’s no big deal, like we were eager for the fresh air (blended with the scent of pot—thank you, New Hampshire).
Saturday we go back to last week’s brunch location and spend the day outside on the patio, reading and drinking so much coffee that by the end I’m so jumpy I don’t need to go for a run. I’m burning off energy just standing.
Colin’s back on Sunday, at my door with a pile of movies under his arm and a giant container of popcorn.
And while Colin is clearly talented as an artist, his ability to reenact a variety of classic movies is killer. And he does so apparently without any hint of embarrassment in public. Like walking down Main Street. Or in the middle of a park on campus. Or in the common room. He can single-handedly re-create entire swaths of dialogue from The Princess Bride to Harry Potter to some movie from the 1980s about misfits in high school.
He’s the perfect nonboyfriend: always there, always remembering what’s going on in my life, always ready to try something new.
And so even though there’s no kissing and no potential for kissing, there’s also no anxiety, which is a bonus.
Zeke and I don’t talk about what’s going on between us. He still disappears every afternoon, though I’ve mostly abandoned the drug dealer idea since he doesn’t seem to have lots of new expensive crap. I work on the extra assignments and stare at pictures of Paris when my brain turns to mush. I conjugate French verbs, memorize Marianne’s vocabulary lists, read articles, watch French television shows.
But when Zeke is around? It’s a whole different world. We dedicate entire evenings to talking about a
ll the places we’ve visited, the spots we want to see someday. Zeke tells me more about his grandmother Emmaline in Paris, how she moved there after his parents got married, after her own divorce. He paints a picture so vivid, so clear, that I feel like she’s walking with us, telling us her own stories. He shows me photos on his phone of her house, her backyard garden, the tall and distinguished-looking Algerian man she’s lived with for the last twenty years, a man a full decade younger than her.
“You’d love her,” Zeke says, and there’s such a wistfulness to his voice that I almost want to stop, to put my arms around him. “She’s exactly your kind of person. She says what’s on her mind, all the time. She told me once that she spent so long trying to be the person she thought others wanted her to be that she didn’t want to waste another moment not being true to herself.”
Is that what he believes about me? That I’m true to myself? That I say what’s on my mind? Because I don’t. If I did, I’d beg him to tell me where he goes all those afternoons, plead with him to let me into his real life, not just the fairy tale we create in French. I’d tell him how much it hurts my heart that I don’t have the courage to lean into him, brush my lips back against his like on that Friday night at Chutes and Lattes, feel his arms encircle me, his hands at the small of my back. I am so desperate for that I want to scream. But not desperate enough to risk what we have now. Because this is priceless.
So I turn the conversation around, hoping my voice is steady. “When will you get to see her next?”
And I hope it’s sometime in the spring, when I’ll (hopefully) also be in Paris. Because Paris with Zeke? It’s more than anything I can imagine.
It’s that image, the two of us strolling down the Champs-Elysées, that keeps me going when he calls moments before we’re supposed to go out on Wednesday night and says he’s stuck in Boston. Thankfully, we didn’t have a whole evening planned; we were just going to listen to old French folk songs and decode them.
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