Beautiful Americans

by Lucy Silag

  “Oh, really?” I say, going a little pallid at the mention of the Marquets.

  “All the ladies think M. Marquet is just the most handsome,” she laughs. “You should have heard them all going on about him today.”

  I wrinkle my nose. M. Marquet is an old man, over fifty. “Anyway,” she goes on, “he was this legendary bachelor until Mme Marquet snagged him a few years back. There’s a rumor that by the time she married him, he’d practically gambled away the entire family fortune in Monte Carlo! But now that he’s the magistrate of the Dordogne, she keeps him on the straight and narrow.”

  This is odd, talking to Olivia about the Marquets like this. I feel paranoid that they might be listening somehow. “That’s just chitchat,” I say. “The Marquets are loaded. Can’t you tell?” I gesture to the affluence surrounding us.

  Olivia looks embarrassed, like she didn’t mean to gossip but couldn’t help herself. “I’m sure,” she says. “They’re being nice to you, right?”

  I nod. “Of course. I’m gonna go check on the other people who just came in.” I leave her with her older friends, not sure how to process what she just told me. Are the Marquets really hurting for money? It makes the train ticket they bought for me that much sweeter.

  Zack’s already ushering in more guests, acting as the de facto host, offering drinks and showing people how to get to the balcony to smoke.

  Placing a beer into my hand, Zack drunkenly gives me a bise himself. “PJ! Lighten up, my dear,” he slobbers into my ear. “I think Jay will be here soon.”

  I swig my beer without answering him, registering with discomfort that the party has grown in mere minutes from a small get-together to a raucous house party complete with a game of beer pong being set up on the antique cherry wood refectory table in the dining room. “No!” I dash over to stop them, imagining long, crusty beer stains eating through the three-hundred-year-old varnish, but I’m intercepted by Alex, who’s decked out in a brown satin jumpsuit with her red stilettos. The collared halter top stretches low to reveal ample cleavage and the barest hint of a brown lace bra.

  “Great party, doll,” she compliments me. “It’s like Bungalow 8 in here. I’m so proud of you. Our little girl is growing up so fast!” She pinches my cheeks. “Is George here yet?”

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “Oh, too bad. I wonder where he is?” Alex ducks as Zack tosses her a beer from where he’s standing near the fridge, talking to Sara-Louise. Luckily, she catches it before it crashes to the floor. “Anyway—I told you the party would be fine. What were you so worried about? This from the girl who got the cops off our tail in Le Marais that night. You’re a pro, PJ. I’d think this would be baby stuff for you,” Alex tells me as she attempts to pop off the top of the beer with a lighter.

  “Give me that,” I say, opening the beer with a bottle opener I have on my keychain in my pocket. The bottle opener says Harvard on it—Dave gave it to Annabel as a joke. Neither of them would ever get into Harvard if they tried. They are both high school dropouts. Along with Madame Bovary, I took the keychain with me in my backpack to Paris.

  I think about what Alex said while we stand there, drinking beer and surveying the crowd. At the time, Alex looked so pissed about what I said to get the cops to go away. She’d never thanked me for saving her ass. I guess I’m a little bit pleased that she really does realize she’d have been toast if not for me.

  “Did you not have time to change?” Alex asks me, looking down at my jeans and cardigan, the same thing I wore to the Louvre today.

  Never mind. Alex has not changed a bit since her first bitchy days at the Lycée. She wanders off to find Zack again.

  Pretty soon, the Marquets’ apartment is packed with people, most of whom I’ve never seen before. George and Drew are here, tucked into a game of Kings with Patty and Tina in the dining room. I guess Alex will stumble upon them soon enough.

  I go to the guest bathroom off the foyer to collect my thoughts. I splash cold water on my face, soaking the front of my white T-shirt. I never wear makeup. Tonight, I wish I had some. My eyes are sunken and hollow. I realize I didn’t have anything to eat all day. You can see it in my face.

  My mom always told me to inhale for three counts, then exhale for six counts, ten times. No matter what, you’ll feel better, she always told me. I wonder if that tactic is making her feel any better right now. It’s not really working all that well for me.

  I step out of the bathroom, running into a long line of waiting partygoers. The girls glare at me for taking so long.

  “It’s my party,” I bark at them. “It’s my house. I can take as long as I want.”

  “Doctor’s orders!” I hear Olivia’s host-brother yell over the energetic pop-punk record one of his friends has spinning in the Marquet’s ancient turntable. “I have to carry you everywhere you want to go!”

  I go back into the living room and see Thomas, whose tweed jacket has been tossed aside, carrying Olivia on his back around the living room, piggyback style. The portrait above the mantle stares down at the party in extreme disapproval.

  “Let’s get more beer!” she cries with glee. “Take me to the fridge!”

  “No, Olivia!” I shout as I see what’s about to happen.

  Olivia’s outstretched, pointed foot whacks firmly into the oversized antique vase on the end table Zack and I just moved across the room for safety’s sake, pushing it off its stand and shattering it all over the marble floor.

  “Oh, no she didn’t. That wasn’t a Ming vase, was it?” Alex says in horror, for once her face registering a stricken look appropriate to the situation. “Oh, God, PJ.”

  Thomas and Olivia tumble to the floor, wasted and barely coherent. “Olivia!” I yell. “Look what you did!”

  “Oh, Peej,” Olivia mumbles sloppily. “I’m so sorry . . . I made Thomas carry me because my ankle was hurting so bad . . . . Didn’t you carry me, Thomas?” She giggles, pulling herself onto her knees and crawling over to Thomas in hysterics. He reaches out for her and pulls her on top of him.

  What happened to Vince? I wonder briefly as I gather the pieces of the vase into a paper bag and take them into the kitchen.

  Jay must have arrived sometime in all the madness. He follows me into the kitchen, obviously concerned.

  “I can’t talk right now,” I say, without meeting his eyes. “Olivia and some college guy just broke this vase. Alex thinks it was super expensive.”

  “No, I know,” he says. “I just thought that I could help you clean up. . . .”

  “I’m so stupid,” I say bitterly, spreading out the larger pieces of the broken vase onto the kitchen table. “I thought I might be able to put the vase back together, but this is hopeless. I’ve always hated putting puzzles together.”

  “I like puzzles okay,” Jay comments, surveying the pieces. “Some puzzles are more satisfying to figure out than others, though.”

  Jay takes the dustpan out of my hand and holds it for me so that I can sweep the smaller shards into the waste basket in the kitchen.

  “Listen, PJ,” Jay says kindly. “Just because you broke the vase doesn’t mean you had a party. You could even—you could blame it on your maid. An apartment like this surely must have a housekeeper, am I right?”

  “What?” I choke out. “Are you kidding? What kind of person do you think I am?”

  Jay chuckles. Not for the first time, I notice what a nice smile he has. “My mom cleans houses. You should see the stuff she has to take the flack for. It sucks, but it’s kind of part of the job description. Don’t sweat this. I’m sure your host parents could afford another. No one would blame you if you were forced to tell a little white lie to save yourself.”

  Jay’s right. The vase—Ming vase or not—was an accident. I would never blame it on Sonia, but the Marquets don’t necessarily have to find out about the party. It’s not like the Marquets ever have to know that Olivia was overcome by a sudden and out-of-character wild streak and knocked it over as she was b
eing seduced by some older dude who’s not her boyfriend. I could pretend I knocked it over trying to get a better look at it during a quiet weekend night at home.

  No one would blame you if you were forced to tell a little white lie . . .

  Tears pricking my eyes, I look at Jay. He’s so sweet, so chill. I wonder if he does like me; if what Zack was hinting at was true. Will there ever be a point this year where I could get beyond all the things on my mind and explore whether or not I like him back?

  I imagine him taking me on a date, maybe coming over here to work on the Louvre project instead of meeting at the library at the Lycée. In my mind we’re walking down the Boulevard de Courcelles with the leaves on the trees turning orange and red and yellow; we’re passing the Parc Monceau as the schoolkids in plaid uniforms climb all over the statues. I’d have my periwinkle hat on, the one that my mom knitted for me last winter from wool she’d shorn and spun herself. Jay would be wearing his North Face beanie, and we’d both be wearing our Converse sneakers. About the same height, with his dark coloring and my pale skin and hair, we’d make a cute couple. In my fantasy of us, I’d ask him questions about growing up in Guatemala before he moved to the U.S. in kindergarten, and I could tell him all about my parents, and Annabel, and how everything got so messed up. And he wouldn’t scorn me, or want nothing to do with me.

  I open my mouth and close it again. I can’t do it.

  “I have to go,” I say, grabbing the paper bag holding the larger chunks of expensive pottery and opening the door to the terrace so that I can empty it into the larger dumpster out there, where I’ve been putting the beer bottles so they won’t stink up the apartment.

  “PJ, wait! What were you going to say?” Jay follows me out onto the terrace. “Whatever’s going on under there, whatever made you so weak at the Louvre, you can tell me about it! I promise you, I will never judge you!”

  The temptation to unload on someone is too great for me to ignore. I exhale slowly, searching his eyes for a sign that this is the right thing to do.

  “Jay,” I begin. “It’s so hard for me to say this . . .”

  “Wait, don’t. Not yet,” Jay says. “I think we have some company out here.”

  “Oh, God.” I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

  15. OLIVIA

  Some People Cheat, Some People Steal

  After we fall onto the ground, I crawl over to Thomas. The short cap-sleeved black dress I got with Alex at H&M is riding A dangerously short. I’m wearing opaque black ballet tights underneath it, which I suppose was a good act of foresight, considering Thomas has been picking me up and carrying me around like an invalid all night, making sure I don’t hurt my ankle again. The other kids at the party seem surprised to meet Thomas, but I explain over and over again that he’s not my boyfriend—he’s my host mother’s son. We have to spend time together—it’s practically mandatory according to Mme Cuchon!

  “Viens ici,” he grunts at me. “May we go onto the balcony for some time?”

  I snort. I know I must be drunk because normally I would never laugh at someone’s language abilities. It is just too comical listening to Thomas, the intellectual, the prized med student and the apple of my host mother’s eye, bumble around his English.

  “Quoi?” Thomas says, trying to look put out. “Are you making fun?”

  “Thomas!” I affect astonishment. “I would never!”

  “So can I take you to the balcony or no?” He pulls me up off the thick Persian carpet and hoists me onto his back for another piggyback ride.

  “Mais oui,” I say. Thomas pushes open the French doors leading to the terrace. He adjusts a curled iron patio chair so that it faces the view of the Place de Ternes below, sets me carefully into it, then crouches on the stone floor in front of me.

  I look down over the railing and spot a group of revelers, probably in their mid-twenties, raising glasses of champagne right there in the traffic circle. They had to celebrate so badly they couldn’t even wait to get to a bar.

  “That’s what I love about Paris,” I say. Cars honk as they drive past the group. “Everyone lives right here in the present. Not all stuck in the future.”

  Thomas listens quietly.

  “I love how everyone just wants to party all the time!” I watch one of the men do a cartwheel for his friends, and the women he’s with cheer and beg for an encore.

  At least, that’s how Paris feels to me. I’ve never felt like I had so much to celebrate before I got to Paris, even though I’m thousands of miles away from my family and my boyfriend, ballet is kicking my ass, I screwed up my ankle not once, but twice, and I live with a woman whose only compliments toward me have been behind my back. Yet Paris makes me feel light. It sweeps me off my feet. For no reason at all.

  “Why did you come to Paris, Olivia?”

  “You know,” I say, hanging on to the railing and leaning backward. “To dance at the Opera!”

  “There are ballet schools all over the world,” Thomas says. “Why Paris? Why not Moscow? New York? Even Los Angeles?”

  “Well,” I say. “Do you really want to know?”

  “I would not have asked if I did not want to know.”

  “I came to Paris because of Madame Brigitte,” I say. “Mme Brigitte runs the ballet school I go to in the hills above San Diego. She’s amazing—she’s this teeny tiny woman who used to dance with the American Ballet Theatre in New York. She grew up in Paris, in a nightclub that her dad owned in the sixties. Everyone thought that she was too wild to be a professional ballet dancer, but she lit up the stage every time she danced. After she’d been dancing with the ABT for a long time, she scandalized everyone by running away to California with a movie soundtrack composer they’d hired to score a performance. They were so in love, and one day, during a rainstorm, his car was the first in an eighteen-car pileup on the 405 right near Long Beach. Mme Brigitte went to live in San Diego with the composer’s father, who’s like Stevie Wonder. He’s blind but he plays the piano so beautifully you would never know. Mme Brigitte and her father-in-law used the money they inherited from the composer to set up a dance school.”

  I stop to take a breath, embarrassed by how much I’ve been talking.

  “Is the academy prestigious?” Thomas asks me, sipping his red wine. The way he’s leaning in toward me makes me all of a sudden feel like he really does find this the most fascinating thing he has ever heard.

  “Oh, no,” I laugh. “That’s why I came here. My mom wanted me to switch to a more institutionalized program. She thought it would help me get a scholarship. I thought I wouldn’t be able to bear it, leaving my family, learning ballet from someone new. But my mom really did think it would be the best thing for my future. I thought, Well, if I can’t be with Mme Brigitte, then I at least want to be in her city.”

  It dawns on me how much Paris has captivated me. Now, even though I sometimes ache to be with my family and Vince, I haven’t for a long time doubted my decision to come here. My mom was right. This was the very best thing for my future, no matter how much it hurts to be away from California. I’m learning so much.

  “Olivia,” Thomas breathes. “Tu es si belle ce soir.” He rests his head in my lap like a little boy. His curly hair looks golden in the lantern light on the terrace. Once again, I’m struck by how young and innocent Thomas seems, while also so wise. For being so smart, so driven, so infatuated with school, Thomas is playful and joyous. He closes his eyes. His eyelashes are long and dark.

  “You think?” I ask nervously.

  “Tu es toujours si belle,” Thomas says softly. “You’re ravishing.”

  His eyes still closed, I lean down toward his smooth face. Something pulls my lips toward the soft skin of his cheek, his forehead, the tip of his nose. With each soft, tiny kiss, Thomas makes a low, hungry noise in the back of his throat.

  I’m almost to his mouth, stained purple from the cabernet he was sipping as he carried me around the living room. I open my lips the tiniest bit and exha
le. Thomas shifts, lifts his head, straightens up, and suddenly I know he wants to kiss me. The moment of expectancy is so flawless I don’t want it to end.

  Finally. We kiss. He’s on his knees, at the same height as me sitting in the patio chair, and we kiss and kiss and kiss. My fear of what’s happening keeps the rest of my body stiff, removed from him, until I can’t take that anymore either. Soon I can’t keep my hands off him, clinging to his thin frame, running my fingertips through his silky hair and down the back of his neck.

  We’re not just goofing around any more.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” I murmur, though I can’t remember why not.

  Then I do. Oh, Jesus, what I have I done?

  I pull away from Thomas.

  I remember Vince and me lying side by side in his single bed in the UCLA dorms, promising to save ourselves for each other, for when I get back from Paris. We didn’t just mean save ourselves for sex—we meant everything.

  I recoil from Thomas. I can’t look at him. Thomas takes my face in his hands.

  “What’s the matter? Qu’est ce qui s’est passé?” Tears of shame roll down my cheeks.

  “Olivia!” I hear the creak of the sliding glass door to the Marquets’ kitchen opening. PJ stands frozen in front of us. Jay is behind her, but when he sees me in Thomas’s arms, his eyes widen and he goes back inside.

  “Olivia,” PJ repeats. “I—I’m sorry . . . What happened to Vince?”

  “PJ!” I struggle for breath.

  “Who’s Vince?” Thomas asks, letting go of me. “Qu’est ce que tu racontes?”

  I rush to PJ’s side, shivering in my sleeveless dress. “Please don’t tell anyone what you saw. Can you promise?”

  PJ nods at me. “Yeah, sure.” She can’t look at Thomas.

  “Who is Vince?” Thomas asks again, still confused, though growing more perturbed.

  “Vince est mon petit ami,” I tell Thomas plainly, so ashamed of myself I could break down and sob. “In California. We’ve been dating for two years.”

  “Oh,” Thomas says. “I better get my friends and go then. Thanks for telling me.”