He sounded tired and looked it as he turned on his side to face me. His lids fought to remain open.
“So why did you leave your wife and your newborn baby to do this trip, then?”
“Ah, that’s part of those unnecessarily boring details I didn’t want to burden you with earlier,” he purred, hugging himself, visibly giving in to sleep. “I hope to tell you someday.”
“Don’t they say that the truth is in the details?” I wanted to keep him awake and talking.
“Hmm, no, I think the saying goes ‘God is in the details,’ and I certainly wouldn’t know anything about that,” he smiled to answer, his eyes already closed. “Or is it ‘the devil?’” he murmured.
I clicked the TV off before flipping the switch next to my side of the bed to turn off the overhead lights. Then, I erected the pro-forma wall of pillows and blankets between our bodies and closed my eyes, lying on my side to face him, picturing his slumbering face just inches away from mine in the dark.
Tired, I prayed to fall asleep quickly, to not toss and turn. To not have to think about anything—not about George, not about Paz; not about Jamie’s wife, nor about his child. Mostly, I prayed to not think about Jamie, himself.
My formerly inevitable seemed more improbable by the hour.
Chapter Eighteen: Maintenance
A black beanie cap graced the top of Paz’s glossy black mane. She wore cobalt blue platform sneakers, a gray maxi skirt, and an off the shoulder sweatshirt that revealed a yellow bra strap. Judging by her usual level of upkeep, her undergarments likely matched, and if so, yellow, I thought, was a brave choice. I’d never had enough commitment to match my underwear to my bra, earning myself the nickname “superhero” from George. If I were in her place, the yellow bra would be matched with a pair of underwear of some random color—maybe red, maybe green. I tried to remember what I’d hurriedly put on my damp body after my rushed shower earlier that morning (hurrying to dress and let Jamie in to brush his teeth); for all I knew, my bra was black and my underwear purple, I wasn’t even sure.
Paz sat down with a plop on her side of the bed she shared with Veronika, knocking off Veronika’s purse, which was sitting dangerously close to the edge as it was—it had it coming.
“Well, I don’t want to go home,” she announced, crossing both her arms and her ankles.
“Well, your parents want you on the next available flight, which is in five hours,” Abbott said, matter-of-factly, as he dragged a suitcase out of the closet, having rightly presumed it to be Paz’s (judging solely by its pristine condition and its brand name plastered all over its leather surface). Veronika’s duffel bag fell out of the closet along with it, landing with a muted thud on the mauve carpet.
“It’s not fair. I paid for this trip. Literally, I paid for it. You know that, Mr. Abbott,” she hissed, squinting her perfectly lined eyes, peering at Abbott from behind her heavy bangs. “And who comes to Paris and doesn’t want to go up to the viewing platform at the friggin’ Eiffel Tower, anyway? We are like half an hour late, or not even, and that’s it—you’re shipping me back? How convenient!” Her delivery was faultless, convincing. “What about Veronika—why does she get to stay, I wonder?” she added with a chuckle.
“Her parents feel comfortable giving her another chance,” I chimed in to say as I leaned against the small desk by the girls’ window. Their room was almost a carbon copy of ours, but their view was of a simple traffic circle, a roundabout, not unlike any unremarkable traffic circle in D.C. When I had first brought my car out there during my first year at American, they were my very own little versions of personal hell. The expletives I’d heard spewed at me while I sat there trying to figure some of those out, I hadn’t heard before or since. The mere sight of the things still gave me heart palpitations, so I took a step away from the window and closer to Paz on the bed. The girl narrowed her eyes in my direction this time. I wasn’t sure if it was on my account or because of the hesitant sun peeking out from behind the thick curtains.
Abbott hurried around the room, throwing whatever looked like it belonged to Paz inside her expensive suitcase. Determined, he didn’t seem to hear (or even notice) Paz anymore.
“Is it because of what allegedly happened with Sola?” Paz asked, her lips stretching into a smile too confident to belong on a face of an eighteen-year-old, no matter the sophistication or the C.V. It made my insides burn. I imagined my blood boiling inside the veins stretching across my chest; I could feel the bubbles fizzle and pop as I steadied my jaw. This smugness, it was common at Talents. That confidence, that arrogance—it was as infuriating as it was legitimately enviable. Paz excelled at this.
“No, Paz, it isn’t because you threw yourself at Mr. Sola in front of all of us, embarrassing yourself like a drunken clown,” I smiled back, making sure to cross my arms and square my shoulders just so to look convincing enough. She held my stare, her gorgeous lashes making her eyes look downright enormous. During the standoff, I tried to recall what glowing terms I’d used when writing the girl’s college letter of recommendation.
I blinked first, leaving Paz to shoot Veronika a look across the room. The girl fidgeted in response, fingering the stitching of her sweater before bending down to pick up her dusty duffel bag. Slowly, she put it back inside the mirrored doors of the floor-to-ceiling closet; her shoulders revealed a sigh that accompanied the gesture.
“Ms. Levit will come with you to the airport,” Abbott informed Paz, throwing her suitcase closed, her belongings in full disarray inside. Paz glanced at it with fire in her eyes as she sucked on her teeth, a gesture I’d watched Abbott himself perfect over the years.
“Veronika, tell them!” she suddenly demanded, her eyes back on her friend. “Tell them he came in and—”
“Paz—” Veronika moaned in response, interrupting. Her back squirmed under our collective gazes as she stood as still as she could, studying the dark closet.
“Okay, that’s enough, Paz!” Abbott barked, quite authoritatively; I was sure I saw even Paz jump. She planted her impractical shoes on the floor and fixed her sweater as she stood up.
“Oh well,” she shrugged, smiling too sweetly, first in my direction and then in the direction of Veronika’s back; her eyes seemed to want to avoid Abbott altogether. “Let’s go, then, sweet Levit,” she invited, gesturing with her arm out the door. “Just give me a minute to make sure Abbott got all my shit.”
~ ~ ~
As trained by Hamish Abbott himself, as soon as I folded myself into the backseat of the vaguely beige taxicab that would take me back to the hotel, I fished out one of the dozen of the hotel’s business cards I’d stashed inside my coat pocket and handed it to the driver. I closed my eyes as soon as we pushed off the curb, relieved that Paz was now on the other side of the security gates at the airport. Bumps in the road were welcome distractions from my whirling mind.
“Do you like him?” she had asked on our way in. She sat with her legs crossed so tightly, it’d hurt my thighs to look. Her top sneaker was hooked behind her rooted leg’s calf. For a girl comprised of sizable but proportional curves, she sure had a way of taking up her space in the most elegant of ways.
I’d shot a look in her direction, but the girl’s eyes were on the window. Rather, they seemed to be on the Parisian streets whizzing by our car. Or maybe she was simply trying to make out her reflection in the glass.
Saying nothing but instead inhaling slowly to steady my heart’s rhythm, I’d tried to take in her scent. She smelled of lotions I would’ve never dared to dab on my skin in high school—strong and pronounced, demanding to be acknowledged. I never saw the point of a daily moisturizing routine to begin with, so all of this was out of my league, really. George always commended me on my low maintenance.
“Mr. Sola…Ms. Levit—do you like him?” she’d repeated without turning to so much as give me a glance. Her beanie sat so perfectly on top of her head, I wondered if it were secured there by Velcro. How a child could possess such belabored e
ffortlessness about her escaped me.
I had to do my best to keep my mouth shut. To keep busy, I’d sat rubbing the ring finger of my left hand as dictated by habit. The newly exposed skin that had been hiding underneath the ring that was now in George’s kitchen drawer still felt different—smoother, somehow.
“I know you aren’t engaged anymore, Ms. Levit,” Paz had groaned, finally taking her eyes off the window.
It had shaken me—the gall of it, the lie. I hoped I could somehow not let it show, but, unlike Paz, I had always been a shitty actress (my short time as a musical theatre minor had taught me that, if nothing else); I must’ve flustered immediately, my face lighting up like a window in a red-light district.
I could feel her eyes on me but refused to take the bait. Instead, I took to flicking my nails. The nail polish of my manicure had already begun to chip, but luckily, the color of the varnish was what the manicurist referred to as the color of sperm, so this wouldn’t obvious to anyone not intent on studying my fingers up close. And, the way it was looking, I was going to be able to dodge a bullet there.
“I know you’re not engaged because Abbott told me so before we left for this overrated place. Literally—right before. God, honestly, I don’t know how he managed to convince me to waste my money on this smog,” Paz had groaned, clearly begging me to engage. “Whatever, you don’t have to confide in me, I guess. But know this, sweet Levit, one day I’m going to make it, no matter what I have do to get there, while you and Abbott will forever be other people’s stepping stones. I won’t be a loser like Veronika or Ofir—I won’t let anyone dictate my fucking life and pretend like it was my idea all along,” she had puffed. “It’s always my idea, period. You’ll see. Eventually you won’t be able to just ship me home to keep my mouth shut.”
I remember my neck begin to itch underneath my scarf then. At once hot, I’d scratched my burning skin, feeling a stray hair under my fingertip as I did. Fighting the urge to pick at it, to try to rip it out with my nails then and there was hard.
It’s always been difficult with Paz. So talented and beautiful, she was used to getting her way, particularly with all the male teachers. Ever since coming to me in eleventh grade, she’d fought me unnecessarily hard on every assignment and deadline. It was never so much the endgame as the principle of it for her, I’d learned quickly enough. For the most part, I’d adapted, managing her and her enabling parents, but, obviously, she’d just been buying time. She was on fire now. Something about the freedom of Europe, maybe? She seemed to be after everybody.
As I sat curled up in my seat, going back now, I remembered scoffing and literally biting my lip to keep the expletives that were quickly making their way from my brain to my mouth from actually escaping; I could feel them filling my cheeks, sure that they were making them appear puffy.
“He’s a good guy,” Paz had concluded as we pulled up to the terminal. “Mr. Sola, I mean, not Abbott, of course. You two would look cute together. You should pursue that.”
Chapter Nineteen: Love Lock
The Seine looked black when I finally dared to look down at it. Our boat glided evenly despite of the gusty wind that howled around us, biting my cheeks and undoing my hair, making me regret coming out on our last night in Paris at all. I had a cup of tea (and a dose of whatever was the French brand name for Acetaminophen) with my name on it back in room 666, I thought as I wrapped my scarf an extra loop around my neck and hugged myself.
“You missed everything, Ms. Levit!” Wisdom called on her animated approach to me from across the deck. “We went to see that famous French university—”
“The Sorbonne,” Sophie helped. Her “Rs” sounded authentic enough. Abbott was a good teacher.
“Showoff!” Sage piped in without bothering to come join us, engaged in some lively conversation with Olivia, nearby.
“What she said! So, Ms. Levit, yeah, you missed that and the Jewish Quarter. And then we all went shopping at LaFayette,” Wisdom continued to report.
“Shopping? Again? All of you?” I squeezed her plump shoulders against me to allow Ofir to take a picture.
“Nah, Mr. Sola stayed to keep watch on Veronika. You know, so she doesn’t escape and go missing again,” she continued, shooting Veronika, who stood shivering next to her, a mischievous grin. “Guess he trusts her not to spread any nasty rumors. But anyway, Mr. Abbott and Stephanie walked around with us for a bit.”
I squinted in the poorly illuminated dusk to make out Jamie. It looked like he was drinking a beer, talking to either Jordan or Liam, I couldn’t tell with the shadows. Riley chatted with Megan next to them.
“Sounds like you guys had a good time without me,” I said, louder, trying, in spite of myself, to get Jamie’s attention. We hadn’t talked since his confession the night before. “So, what did you and Mr. Sola do all day, Veronika?” I asked, quieter again when Jamie failed to look in my direction. It was silly to expect him to hear me over the river and the chatter, anyway.
My eyes restless, I made out Abbott’s silhouette just a few feet away. He stood statuesquely still in the middle of the deck with Stephanie, who swayed, hunched against the wind, at his side. He appeared to be smoking—something I’d never seen him do in all our years of acquaintance. Or maybe I was that oblivious and he really did it every day. This certainly would explain all the gum.
“He let me play his guitar, Ms. Levit!” Veronika beamed up at me, huddling up to my side. The light from the bridge we were slowly sailing under gave her shapeless mop of hair a halo.
“Ooh,” I mocked. “I assume that’s a big deal?”
“Yes, yes! It was his like first guitar or something, his good luck charm. The fact that he let me play it is…it’s…it’s everything!” Veronika gushed. She was uncharacteristically giddy, practically a giggle away from squealing, which was something that never seemed to come naturally to her, no matter how much Paz would rally. As I watched her take to fussing with the zipper of her jacket in the cold, a smile too wide not to be hurting her face, I felt a gust of wind begin to unwrap my scarf. It was again hanging loosely around my neck. “So Paz is go—”
“Yes, Veronika, Paz is flying back to New York as we speak,” I finished her sentence, my eyes now on the water overboard instead of her face.
There was some fuss over the Notre Dame coming up ahead, and everyone hurried to the opposite side of the deck with their iPhones. Judging by the sound of it, Veronika and I were the only ones who weren’t in on the fun.
“Ms. Levit, it’s not what you think, really. Mr. Sola did not stop by our room or anything like that, I swear,” Veronika said to me in half-whisper. I felt her inch closer to me, though I wasn’t sure if it was for the warmth of it or the secrecy.
“So Paz is a liar?” I asked the black abyss that the Seine promised to be.
“Kind of, I guess. What’s the expression—I’m not at liberty to say?” Her voice cracked somewhere around “liberty.”
“What does that mean, Veronika? She’s saying these things about your favorite teacher—”
“No, you’re my favorite teacher, Ms. Levit,” Veronika interrupted with uncalled for urgency. “Mr. Sola is a great mentor and a fantastic musician. Honestly, it’s a dream to be able to work with him. And for free?! My folks would never be able to afford him. But still, no, you are my favorite teacher.”
I turned to look up at the cathedral, making sure to take in its grandeur one last time before it was too late. The evening lights made it look just like a painting. Majestic, it glided past us. Could I really have my wedding there if I took Javier up on one of his countless offers?
Jamie was still far from me, taking a photo. He was using his tripod, but, given the lighting and the motion, I didn’t expect the effort to result in a clear and quality image.
“I appreciate that, Veronika,” I acknowledged with a nod of my head, though my eyes were still on the shadow of a man hunched over his tripod. “But, I just don’t understand. You hear your friend saying the
se things, and you know them to be false, apparently, so why not speak up?”
Veronika’s zipper was still stuck. She shuffled in place and nodded a timid hello at Abbott passing by, his cigarette nowhere to be seen, his middle-aged girlfriend at his heels.
“It’s complicated— And I know that sounds stupid,” she admitted when she heard me smack my tongue and our eyes met in the dark. “When we get back to New York, feel free to ask Paz yourself, but I can’t speak for her. All you need to know is that Mr. Sola is a good guy.”
She said nothing else, leaving me no choice but to let out a few grotesquely exasperated sighs.
“That’s what Paz said, too,” I finally scoffed in reply.
The Eiffel Tower was lit brightly ahead, as if a lighthouse beckoning us to come hither and get disappointed all over again.
Veronika continued to say nothing.
“Are you relieved she’s gone?” I tried again, elbowing her lightly, taking a different approach.
“No, it’s not like that. I’m not a mean girl,” she grinned at me, regaining her voice.
“You’re right, that role is Paz’s,” I laughed.
I could feel Veronika’s bright eyes study me in the dark, making me self-conscious. I contemplated bringing my hand to the skin of my exposed neck, to look for that elusive stray hair, suddenly wanting to test my own urge to try to rip it out right there. Instead, I reached out to help Veronika with the zipper; her jacket, awkwardly ajar, was getting puffy with the wind, as if a parachute, a sail, or a cape.
“So, what’s this she’s saying about her not being like you—something about her pursuing her dreams against all odds?” I asked, inching the zipper up to her chin, my eyes now on her throat, careful not to touch.
“Oh my God, it’s nothing, Ms. Levit. Paz is just being dramatic,” she winked at me in the shadows of Pont des Arts—a bridge burdened with the weight of many padlocks boasting of couples’ love declarations (as of recently, anyway, as the pre-recorded voice of an audio tour guide told us over the loud speaker). I wondered if all that love weight endangered the structural integrity of the bridge at all.
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