Rosie groaned in response.
“I was just teasing. Kind of.”
Rosie turned her head to consider him, wondering if he could possibly still be hungry after all that food, if she’d finally found someone who could eat even more baked goods than she could. The grass tickled her cheek and she tried not to think about what kinds of Parisian bugs might or might not be crawling all over her. Henry was lying on his side, elbow in the grass, head propped up in his hand, and it struck her again how near he was. It didn’t help that she could see the bulge of his very distracting bicep through his long-sleeved shirt, and now all Rosie could think about was what Henry’s arms would feel like wrapped around her.
“I almost forgot! There’s one more.” Henry popped up to a seated position in a manner that was far too sprightly for someone who had just consumed that much butter.
“More? Are you trying to kill me?” Rosie laughed, maybe a little too loudly, like that would keep Henry from guessing she’d been ogling his arms.
“I saved the best for last.”
By the time Rosie struggled to sit up, Henry sat in front of her with a pink pastry box. He lifted the lid, and Rosie peered inside to see a tiny apple rose tart, the “petals” impossibly thin, caramelized and shining with a dusting of sugar.
“It’s a rose—get it?” Henry said, and Rosie felt her breath catch in her throat.
“It’s beautiful.” Carefully, Rosie lifted the tart out of the box. “Look at how thin the petals are—they must have used a mandoline. And the bake on the bottom is so even. It’s hard to be so accurate with something so small.”
“Are you going to analyze it or eat it?” he joked.
It looked delicious, but she almost didn’t want to eat it. Henry had gotten her a rose, something far more beautiful than any flower could ever be. She wished she could keep it in her room forever, but that was part of the magic of food. It didn’t last. It couldn’t. Each bite was only a moment that transformed into a memory. So she bit into the tart, and then handed the other half over to Henry.
“Saved the best bite for last,” she said after swallowing.
“Guess you weren’t too full after all.”
“I am definitely too full.”
“Not too full to explore,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Rosie groaned in protest, but when Henry stretched out his hands to her, she took them and let him help her up. His grip was strong, and his hands weren’t greasy at all, despite their buttery feast. Rosie wasn’t sure if she imagined it, or if he held on a bit longer than was necessary once she got to her feet.
“What are we exploring?” Rosie asked.
“Anything you want,” he answered, hopping over the low fence. “What are you curious about?”
“Who’s that guy on the horse?” She pointed to the statue. “What are these buildings? Are they homes? A hotel?”
“I was thinking we’d explore Paris, not just, you know, this park. But why not? Let’s start small.”
They made their way over to the bronze statue, stopping to dump their empty bags and boxes in a trash can, and stood, gazing up at the man on the horse. LOUIS XIII, the plaque said. Must have been a king of France. About what Rosie expected. She was more curious about what was inside the buildings ringing the square. They followed one of the white gravelly paths until it led them right up to a surprisingly modern automated sliding glass door.
“Is this a museum?” Henry asked, peering in. “I think that’s a security guard. Is it open to the public?”
Rosie noticed a small, weather-beaten gray stone plaque with gold lettering.
“Maison de Victor Hugo,” Rosie read out loud, pretty confident she’d said maison wrong. “So . . . Victor Hugo must have lived here. The author?”
“Probably. Les Miz, right?”
“Yeah. And The Hunchback of Notre Dame, too.” Rosie hadn’t read anything by Victor Hugo—she felt silly talking about him. “Is Notre Dame around here?”
“I don’t think it’s far?” Henry cocked his head, like he thought that might help him judge the distance. “I do not know enough about Paris. I should have done more research before I came here. But I was too busy trying to make sure I could brunoise an onion flawlessly.”
“I should have done more of that,” Rosie said ruefully. “We’ll probably start knife cuts next week, and spoiler alert: my knife cuts are probably worse than my eggs.”
“Just wait until we start having to bake. Then you’ll kick all of our asses.” He said it so casually, not like he was trying to pump her up, or stroke her ego, just like it was a fact. “I can’t even bake a boxed cake mix. They always come out with craters.”
“That’s not your fault. Boxed cake mix is crap,” Rosie said vehemently, and Henry laughed. “What! It is!”
“Your birthday must be a minefield.”
“I make my own cake,” Rosie said.
“That surprises me not at all. So?” He jerked his head toward the door. “Should we go in? Check it out? See what we can learn about the life and times of Victor Hugo?”
“Not today,” Rosie said. With the sun on her face, warming her, she couldn’t quite bear the idea of heading indoors. “It’s so nice outside. Maybe we should just walk around?”
“That sounds awesome,” he said. “Should we find the Seine? I feel like it’s weird we haven’t seen it.”
“Totally,” Rosie agreed. “That’s the one bit of Paris geography I know: there is a river in the middle of the city, and it’s called the Seine.”
“Also sums up everything I know. Let’s go find it.”
They crossed under an archway next to the Victor Hugo house, leaving the square, and Rosie promised herself that she’d look it up on Google Maps later so she could figure out what it was. Back out in the streets, Paris had definitely woken up a little bit. They passed an older couple walking in nearly identical coats, and then a dad holding hands with a little girl, her hair in one long braid down her back. Every couple steps, he’d pick her up and swing her down the sidewalk as she roared with laughter. Rosie looked away, trying to shut out the burning in her eyes and the painful prick in the back of her throat.
“You okay?”
Henry was watching her, concerned, like she was about to cry. Which she wasn’t.
“Of course,” Rosie said brightly, too brightly, and the concern in his eyes went nowhere. “Look!” She pointed, directing his attention away from her, anywhere but at her. “There it is!”
And, luckily, there it was, or otherwise, Rosie would have looked legit crazy-pants. They had made it to the banks of the Seine—whether it was the left bank or the right bank neither of them knew, but they did know that was a designation. Rosie ran the last couple feet up to the edge of the river, resting her arms on the low stone wall. There were things that looked like big green boxes along the wall near her, most decorated with graffiti; no idea what those were. She looked down and saw yet another road, lined with trees, and next to that was the Seine. Wide and brownish-green, but appealing nonetheless, for some reason she couldn’t quite articulate.
“It flooded, when my dad was here,” Henry said.
“Your dad was here?”
“For culinary school. Before he met my mom and they had me. It rained so much, the Seine overflowed and flooded that road down there. Well, maybe not literally that stretch of road, but you know what I mean.”
“Your dad’s a chef?” Rosie asked. Here she was. Talking about dads. And she was fine. She fought against a memory that threatened to claw its way to the surface: her own father swinging her along the sidewalk as they walked to the ice cream truck, her braid bouncing, the summer heat warm on her back. No. Fine. She was fine. She pushed it away and turned toward Henry, taking in the determined set of his jaw.
“Yeah. He’s incredible,” Henry said emphatically, like he had to prove it. “You might not know it if you came to the restaurant—not that the restaurant’s not good, because it is—but he can just do
more.”
“And that’s what you want. More,” Rosie said, and then couldn’t believe she’d said something like that.
But he didn’t say she didn’t know him, or how dare she, or anything like that. He just turned his eyes away from the Seine, looked at her, and said, “Yeah. Exactly. I want more.”
And Rosie didn’t say it out loud, but for the first time, she could admit to herself that she did, too. That was the reason she’d applied. The reason she wanted to leave East Liberty. To see more. To do more. To cook things that didn’t just win bake-offs in church basements, but dishes that could be served in the finest restaurants in the world. To have a life that was more than she had dared to want for herself.
Rosie wanted more. And something about the way Henry looked at her made Rosie feel like she was already more, more than she’d let herself believe. And almost before she’d decided she was going to do it, she rose up slightly and pressed her lips against his.
He tasted like apples and caramelized sugar. Surprised, he hesitated for a moment, and then his hands were around her waist, pulling Rosie into his chest. She threaded her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. Henry groaned softly as his tongue met hers, and Rosie felt like she was somehow both shivering and warm all over. Her heart pounded like it did when she had to run, but unlike running, Rosie never wanted this to stop.
For the first time in her life, Rosie had found something she liked better than baking.
School in France was awesome.
Okay, fine, it was still school, and it still sucked, but Henry couldn’t have cared less. Because he may have been stuck in four hours of academic classes every morning, but he was stuck in those classes with Rosie. Rosie, who had kissed him. Henry could still barely believe it had really happened, that they had made out for what felt like hours before heading back to the École to eat dinner with their friends with matching goofy grins on their faces. In pre-calc, Henry started coloring in some of the squares in his graph paper to keep himself from doodling Rosie, Rosie, Rosie like a fifth grader.
All of the academic classrooms were on the second floor in a previously unexplored area of the École. He’d sat next to Rosie in the room where Monsieur Reynaud taught France and Europe: 1700–2000, in Mr. Bertram’s English class, in Ms. Cooper’s Environmental Science class, Madame Huppert’s French class, and here in pre-calc. But Henry couldn’t have said with confidence what they’d done in any of those classes. He was too busy thinking about Rosie. And when he could kiss her again. And where he should take her when he asked her out. And how soon would be too soon to ask her to be his girlfriend. Or if that was a lame thing to ask? Was it just supposed to be, like, understood? Henry still had no idea what he was doing. But he didn’t care, because Rosie had kissed him.
This morning, Henry hadn’t even minded being woken up by Hampus, who had, presumably, already finished his squats routine, because he was standing, showered and dressed, mere inches from Henry’s face, when he shouted, “HENRY! IT IS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!” Henry responded with a sound kind of like “Nnnnghhh,” but then he remembered that Rosie had kissed him, and he’d grinned through his shower and with a mouth full of toothpaste and all the way down to breakfast, where he ran into Rosie in front of the pain au chocolat, and the way she smiled at him almost killed him. In a good way. In the best way.
“And that’s it!” Ms. Whitman said. Class was over? Already? Henry admired the snakelike pattern he’d doodled down the side of his paper. “Homework’s in the bin on your way out the door—grab it, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Henry sprang to his feet with energy he hadn’t felt since before he’d been subjected to four solid hours of learning. He couldn’t wait to get to lunch. To talk to Rosie. Maybe he’d even hold her hand while they waited in line for food. Right now, Henry felt like anything was possible.
“Henry, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Ms. Whitman stopped his rocket-fueled progression out of pre-calc. Henry dragged his feet up to her desk, waiting for her to tell him off for doodling all class. But when he finally met her eyes, she was smiling at him like he’d raised his hand for every question.
“I got the nicest e-mail from your mom this weekend,” she said.
And just like that, Henry plummeted back down to earth. Whatever Ms. Whitman was about to say, he knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“I think it’s so great that you want to focus on extra academic work while you’re here. You know, there’s a lot of business involved in running a restaurant. It’s not all dicing cilantro!”
“You don’t dice cilantro,” Henry stammered, although that was the least of it. He didn’t buy any of the BS Mom might have fed Ms. Whitman about the business of running a restaurant. This was part of some horrible plan to make his college applications look more enticing. Mom was probably hoping he’d write an admissions essay entitled “How a Math Packet in Paris Revolutionized My Relationship with Numbers” or something equally asinine.
“I’ve devised a curriculum that I think is going to be really exciting,” Ms. Whitman continued, apparently unconcerned about the proper way to prepare cilantro. “It’s a combination of accelerated math work, an introduction to econ, and some real-world business development that I think you’ll really enjoy.”
“Econ? Business development?” Henry parroted, not sure who was more delusional: Mom or Ms. Whitman. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“This is so great!” Ms. Whitman cut him off. “You know,” she added conspiratorially, “so many of the students here treat math as an afterthought. It’s really such a treat to have someone who is taking his academic course load as seriously as he takes his work in the kitchen.”
Henry emitted a strangled noise of distress. Ms. Whitman took it as an exclamation of enthusiasm.
“I’m thinking maybe three check-ins a week to begin? Before class starts in the morning probably makes the most sense.”
“Before class?!” With Ms. Whitman talking a mile a minute Henry could barely get a word in edgewise. What was happening?!
“Let’s say Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Here’s your first packet.” Ms. Whitman rummaged around on her desk and handed Henry a depressingly thick pile of paper. “See you in class tomorrow! And bright and early on Wednesday! Let’s say seven, okay?”
“Seven?!”
“Seven it is!”
Before he could say anything else, Ms. Whitman shooed him off to lunch and shut the door behind him. Had Henry just committed himself to an extra math class? He had to stop this. But it wasn’t Ms. Whitman he needed to stop—it was Mom.
“Whoa. Henry. Are you okay?” Rosie was waiting for him in the hall, looking up at him like he might pass out. Which, at the moment, felt like a distinct possibility.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” What time was it in Chicago? Henry didn’t care. He was calling Mom now. “Just, um, just go to lunch. I’ll meet you there.”
“You sure?”
“Sure. Yeah. Sure. I’m sure.” Henry nodded at her vigorously, trying to paste a simulacrum of a smile on his face, trying to get her to leave before he lost it. And she must have bought it at least a little bit, because Rosie disappeared down the hall, only looking back once.
Henry pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed.
“Henry?” Mom answered groggily. “Is everything okay?”
“No, everything is not okay!” Maybe he was being a bit dramatic. But he was pissed. “What did you tell Ms. Whitman?”
“Oh, that.”
“C’mon, Mom,” Henry wheedled. “More work? I barely have any free time here already.”
“Alice showed me your Instagram. If you have time to take pictures of bread, you have time to focus on academics.”
Alice. Henry was going to kill her.
“I’m not doing it,” Henry said.
“Of course you are,” Mom said matter-of-factly. “If you don’t do it, you can’t stay at the École.”
The bottom drop
ped out from Henry’s stomach. She wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t.
“You can’t be serious,” Henry said. “Does Dad agree with that?”
Henry waited as he heard shuffling noises.
“Henry?” Dad answered, sounding even groggier than Mom had. “What time is it?”
“Did you know about this?” Henry demanded. “This . . . math?” He said math like the vile curse it was.
“Oh . . . uh, er . . . yes.” Henry’s heart sank. If Dad had been complicit in this, Henry had no chance. “It’s just a little bit of extra work.”
It wasn’t, though. The stack of papers Ms. Whitman had handed him was enormous. And he had to get through all of it before Wednesday?!
More rustling noises, and then Mom was back on the phone.
“Are we clear, Henry?”
“I just don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I’m trying to help you, Henry, not punish you.” She sighed. “I’m hoping with some extra work this year, you can get into AP Calculus next fall. Might be a good way to make up for that SAT score.”
“In what universe would I get into AP Calculus?” Henry demanded. She’d lost it. She’d completely lost it. AP was not a designation of math to which Henry aspired. “This is a waste of my time. I already know all the math I’d need to run a restaurant. Pretty sure sine and cosine don’t factor into it.”
“There’s more to school than just learning to run a restaurant!” Henry could tell she was starting to lose her cool a bit. “Think about next year. Colleges need to see an advanced, aggressive course load.”
“I don’t even want to go to college, Mom. I want to go to culinary school.”
“Well, forgive me if I think you should have an education that involves reading a book. Discussing philosophy. Proving a theorem. Using your brain.”
“You use your brain to cook. How do you think chefs develop new recipes?”
“I don’t want you limiting yourself. With a college education, you’ll open yourself up to so much more possibility—”
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