I drop the book on my chest, eyes cutting in Sadie’s direction. Do we have to? I almost ask. “That sounds great,” I say instead, holding my hand up so he can pull me to my feet. “Just let me wash my face first.”
The restaurant is tucked at the end of an alley off the main drag in town, a tiny bistro with white penny tile on the floor and flaking gold-leaf lettering on the windows. A long marble bar runs along one side of the room. Tea lights flicker inside tiny glass jars on the tables, casting the room in yellow and rose and amber; there’s a giant chalkboard on one wall covered with a map of the wine regions of France.
“A neighborhood place, sure,” Gabe mutters as the maître d’ leads us to a small table near the window. “It’s basically a TGI Fridays, no big deal.”
I’ve been thinking the same thing—what kind of life do you have to live for this to be the kind of place you come for a casual dinner?—but something about hearing Gabe say it pisses me off. After all, if it wasn’t for Ian, where would the rest of us be right now? Not here, that’s for sure. “You know what?” I snap, quietly enough so only Gabe can hear me. “Chill out, how about.”
He startles at that, all eyebrows and cheekbones. “Jesus,” he says. “Sorry.”
I brush past him, sitting down next to Ian and picking up the menu—which is, of course, entirely in French. “You order,” I say, setting it down again. “I trust you.”
It’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten, no question: crusty bread and ramekins of bright-yellow butter flecked with coarse salt and herbs; chicken cooked in wine until it falls apart at the gentlest nudge of my fork. For dessert are tiny dark-chocolate cakes topped with perfect dollops of thick sour cream, and I snap a picture to send to Imogen, who loves a well-executed baked good more than anyone I have ever met. Made it to Paris, I type, thumbs moving quickly under the table. Sort of. More soon.
The whole scene is idyllic, exactly the kind of night I might have pictured when I was planning this trip in my summer dorm room in Boston back in June—except, maybe, for the part where Gabe is sitting sullenly across the table beside his new girlfriend, swallowing wine like he’s downing a wax-coated cup of Dr Pepper at the shop in Star Lake.
Sadie raises her wineglass and smiles at Ian, her tan face luminous in the candlelight. “To our super-fancy rescuer,” she pronounces. “Thanks so much again, Ian.” Then, turning to me and Gabe: “And to you two crabs. I know you’re both still upset about the passports and everything. But this worked out kind of magically, didn’t it?”
“That’s one word for it,” Gabe mutters, and I roll my eyes at him. There’s no reason to be a dick, I nearly say. Instead I make myself smile back at Sadie and lift my glass in her direction, the four of us clinking in some dark parody of that very first night at the pub in London.
“Cheers,” I murmur, and swallow down the rest of my wine.
I’m exhausted and overfull by the time we head back to Ian’s parents’; I can’t believe it was just this morning that we woke up in Imogen’s cottage. It feels like this day has somehow lasted an age. As we’re ambling up the street we pass an open tabac with magazines fanned out on a rack in the window: Sabrina Hudson grimaces out from half a dozen covers, hair mussed and eyes glazed. Sabs Goes Knickerless, screams one of the few English headlines, across a censored photo of Sabrina climbing out of a limousine.
“Gross,” Sadie says, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but how hard is it to put on a pair of underwear before you leave your house in the morning? She’s so tacky.”
“Oh my God, can everybody please stop shitting on Sabrina Hudson?” I snap before I know it’s going to come out of my mouth, my voice echoing sharply down the empty sidewalk.
There’s a stunned silence then, just the sound of a car rumbling by somewhere in the distance; Ian raises his eyebrows. Sadie looks downright shocked. “Whoa there,” Gabe says mildly. “I didn’t know you were such a Sabrina fan.”
“I’m not,” I reply, irritable and embarrassed at my own outburst. “I just think it’s boring to pick on her all the time. I mean, accidents happen, don’t they? I think our current situation is a pretty good example of that.”
“Well, sure,” Sadie says, still pretty obviously unconvinced. “But having your luggage stolen isn’t exactly the same as showing your lady bits to the entire world. I just think some people make things more difficult for themselves. If she would stay home for once in her life, eventually everybody would leave her alone like she says she wants them to.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just think she invites it.”
“Well, so what if she does?” Even though I’m regretting starting this conversation, I’m in it now, and I’m not about to back down. “It still doesn’t make it right for the rest of us to use it as entertainment.” I’m surprised to hear myself arguing this side of it—after all, hasn’t my MO for the entire year been not to cause trouble, not to draw attention to myself? But there’s something about Sadie’s confidence—her own blissful certainty that she herself would never be caught on camera without her proverbial underwear on—that gets under my skin, bruising more deeply than I would have thought was possible at this point. In her voice I can hear the screech of a key against my car door; I hear the echo of slut from down the hall. “Like, maybe there is some part of Sabrina Hudson that likes the drama, but you know who I bet likes it way more? All the magazine people who make money off whatever wild thing she’s doing, and also every person across the world who gets to feel smug about how much better than her they supposedly are.” I look around at the three of them, at their shocked, silent faces. We’re still standing in the middle of the road.
“I just think it’s sort of mean, is all,” I finish weakly, the air and the energy going out of me all at once. “I don’t know. I’m tired. Let’s just drop it and get back.”
“Sure,” Ian agrees after a moment, just the one quiet syllable. It’s the last thing anyone says the rest of the long walk up the hill.
Day 6
I wake up early and anxious, clammy with shame over last night’s flare-up. Exhausted or not, picking a fight with Sadie—over Sabrina Hudson of all people—was a sloppy move, even by old-Molly standards. Still, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t also a tiny flicker of satisfaction burning steadfastly in my chest: the truth is it felt good not to hold my tongue for once, not to worry about what I said before I said it. It’s been a long time since I did something like that.
I climb out of bed and spend twenty full minutes trying to figure out how to work the fancy French coffeemaker in Ian’s parents’ immaculate kitchen, pulling levers and pressing buttons and swearing quietly to no avail; in desperation I dig the instruction manual out of a drawer, but it is, predictably, in French. I consider texting Imogen, who worked three years at the coffee place at home in Star Lake, before finally giving up and slipping outside, rolling the legs of yesterday’s jeans up past my ankles and dipping my feet into the chilly, leaf-speckled pool.
I don’t know how long I sit there, leaning back on my palms with my face tilted up toward the warm morning sunshine, before I hear the glass door sliding open behind me. When I open my eyes there’s Ian in his hoodie holding two cups of coffee, sunglasses perched on top of his sandy head. “Thought you might want this,” he says, holding up one of the heavy ceramic mugs.
“Oh my God, I love you,” I blurt, thrusting my hands out eagerly. Ian smiles back at me, but it doesn’t reach the top half of his face. “I do, you know,” I promise quietly, reaching up and tugging on his belt loop until he sits down beside me. “I meant that, back in London.”
Ian’s eyes narrow just a little, like he’s trying to decide whether he believes me or not. “Good,” he says finally. “I meant it, too.”
We sit there for a moment, drinking our coffee and listening to the birds waking up in the trees high above us. Eventually Ian nudges his ankle with mine. “So,” he says, sounding cautious. “That was kind of intense last night, huh?”
“What was?” I a
sk, raising my eyebrows. “Me and Sadie?” I frown. Even though I was literally just regretting the whole embarrassing situation, there’s a part of me that bristles at hearing him describe it that way. “Sorry. It just really bothered me.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Ian says, shrugging. “It just didn’t seem like something you’d normally say, that’s all.”
I hesitate for a moment. He’s not wrong, exactly—it’s not the kind of thing I’d normally say, at least not lately. But at one point it definitely was. I wonder what it would look like to try and be that person in front of Ian—intense and prone to scene-making, maybe, but also a little bit brave. I think of what Imogen said yesterday, about not being afraid to be myself even if it made things messy. I wonder what would happen if I finally let him in.
Once Gabe and Sadie are up Ian leads the way to the embassy so we can get our temporary passports issued in time to fly home in a couple of days. Where Ireland felt like an old-fashioned fairy tale and London reminded me of a movie set, I’m struck by how real Paris is, humming and crowded. Cars barrel down the uneven roadways; businessmen in sleek gray suits jabber into their phones. Fat pigeons take it all in from their high perches on the narrow windowsills of tall stone buildings, periodically letting out their cranky French coos.
On the way to the embassy we stop at the hostel Gabe and Sadie are booked at, where Ian and I wait outside in the white morning sunshine while they try to check in without their credit cards. “Do you want me to take a crack at it?” Ian asks when they return empty-handed a few minutes later, looking pissed and dejected. “Sometimes it’s easier if you go in there speaking the language.”
“I’m sure it is,” Gabe says, his voice just this side of testy. I watch his expression darken as he does the calculations in his head, rearranging the figures this way and that and clearly rejecting every answer he comes up with: either he can let Ian help him out of a tight spot now or get stuck taking his charity again later tonight. His eyes tick from Ian to the hostel entrance, caught.
“That would be great,” he says finally, and I can actually see him swallowing his pride down. “Thanks a lot.”
Ian waves him off like no problem and gamely trots inside; even he’s back a few moments later, though, shaking his head in defeat. “Sorry, dude,” he says to Gabe. “No luck. They won’t do anything without credit card and ID, I think especially since we’re young. But you guys are welcome to stay with us till it’s time to head home.”
“Thanks, Ian,” Sadie says, reaching out and patting his arm in gratitude. Gabe grumbles his agreement, stuck now with the worst of both possible worlds. I’d feel almost bad for him—normally he’s so self-reliant that I know this must chafe—if it felt like he actually wanted my sympathy.
It seems like a full night’s sleep should have taken the edge off all our various interpersonal dramas, but somehow by the time we get to the embassy the temperature among the four of us is frostier than it was at last night’s dinner. Even Sadie is uncharacteristically quiet as she sits on a bench next to Gabe in the wood-paneled waiting room, picking nervously at the ends of her long flaxen braid and sweating in yesterday’s clothes. Gabe has barely said a word all morning, especially not to me, and the last dregs of our airport argument pulse like a hangover behind my eyeballs. The faster we all can get away from each other, the better.
Once we’ve finally been belched back out onto the sidewalk I slip my hand into Ian’s, squeezing purposefully. “Let’s hang out by ourselves today, okay?” I murmur. I want to be alone with him, for things to get back to normal between us; I want the vacation I planned for so carefully back in Boston. “Just you and me.”
Ian grins at that, like possibly he was thinking something similar. “Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “I’d love that.”
We make a plan to meet up with Sadie and Gabe at the house again later, then take the Metro to the Musée de l’Orangerie to see Monet’s Water Lilies. Afterward we walk along the Seine, where a million stalls are set up to sell battered secondhand books and fruit and tourist tchotchkes, key chains shaped like the Eiffel Tower and tote bags bearing Mona Lisa’s lovely, inscrutable face. I lean over the stone wall overlooking the brown, brackish water, hit with a strange pang of homesickness for the Charles back in Boston.
Ian bumps my shoulder with his own, warm and affectionate. “Did you know that Paris has more libraries than any other city in the world?” he asks.
“I didn’t, in fact,” I tell him, unable to hide a smile. “But if that’s true then it’s no wonder you love it here so much.”
Ian grins back. “So what’s next?” he asks, motioning to my phone wedged in my back pocket. “Per the app, I mean.”
I open it up, flick through the schedule; I shuffled some things around this morning, trying to make up for lost time. “Top of the Eiffel Tower,” I report, and he makes a face.
“What?” I demand, more defensive than I necessarily mean to be. “What’s wrong with the Eiffel Tower?”
“I mean, nothing,” he clarifies mildly, “if you want to be elbow to elbow with every other tourist in Paris.” He shrugs. “We can totally go if you want to. It’s just a little . . . you know. Cliché.”
“Okay then, fancy,” I tell him, sticking my phone back in my pocket. See? I want to tell him. I can go with the flow. “What do you want to do?”
Ian’s about to reply when my stomach lets out a loud, audible growl; he laughs, raising his eyebrows. “I mean, lunch, maybe?” he asks, and I laugh. “Just, like, a wild guess.”
He ducks into a shop to pick up provisions: a hunk of soft cheese and a baguette, plus a container of delicate red strawberries and bar of expensive-looking dark chocolate for dessert. We plunk ourselves down on the grass in a small park to eat, watching a gaggle of kids riding a menagerie of intricately painted carousel animals, a cheetah and an elephant and even a dolphin. Hundreds of tiny mirrored tiles catch the sunlight as tinkling, old-fashioned music fills the air.
“Back in Star Lake they do a carnival every summer,” I hear myself say, the force of the memory knocking me back a little, like I’ve lowered some invisible grate: the smell of funnel cake and the noisy hum of the generators, the squeal of kids barreling down the Fun Slide on burlap sacks. “Everybody in town turns out, it’s a whole big thing. This was the first year I missed it in . . .” I trail off, thinking about it. “Ever, actually.”
Ian raises his eyebrows, spreading cheese onto a hunk of bread with a plastic knife. “So it wasn’t always bad then,” he points out. “Star Lake, I mean.”
“I never said it was always bad!” I protest. “It’s nice, really. It was in Travel and Leisure this year actually, it’s one of the hippest getaways in the Northeast.” I look at him for a moment, hesitating, all the fear and shame and trepidation from the last couple of years conspiring to keep me from saying anything else about it. Then I take a deep breath and forge ahead.
“All right,” I say finally, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on my thighs. “You really want to know the deal about Star Lake?”
Ian sets his bread down. “Yeah,” he tells me. “I really do.”
“Okay,” I begin, before I can talk myself out of it. “So basically what happened is that I got kind of mean-girled there the last couple of years. Like, bullied, I guess is the word, although that always makes me think of a shrimpy kid getting shoved into a locker or something, like you were saying yesterday. And that’s not what it was like.”
Ian nods. “What was it like?” he asks.
“It was just . . . a few people trying to make sure I knew they didn’t like me,” I explain with an embarrassed shrug. “And guess what: I definitely knew. I got my car keyed. They egged my mom’s house right when I first got back from school.”
“Seriously?” He grimaces. “That must have been awful. And also, like, really smelly.”
“I mean, it did not smell good, no,” I admit, smiling a little. “Don’t get me wrong, a lot of it was my fault. I made thi
ngs way harder for myself in a lot of ways—same as Sadie was saying about Sabrina Hudson last night, which is probably why I got so worked up about it. But it still really, really sucked.”
“Yeah,” Ian says quietly. “I bet.”
I let a breath out, slow and careful: my heart is beating harder even telling him this much, my voice shakier than it normally is. “So anyway,” I continue, “all of that is to say that I’ve just got a lot of bad memories around Star Lake. And every time I thought about going back there, or especially bringing you with me, it just felt, like, complicated and yucky and more trouble than it was worth.” I smile cautiously. “I like how I am in Boston, you know? I like how you think of me. I didn’t want to ruin that.”
“Okay,” Ian says, looking puzzled. “I kind of don’t get it, though. You thought I wouldn’t like you anymore because you got bullied back in your hometown?”
“No, I thought you wouldn’t like me anymore because—” I break off midsentence, adrenaline surging as suddenly as if I’d driven right off the road. Even now—no, especially now—there’s no way I can tell him the entire truth. As recently as a few days ago I probably could have come all the way clean, could have explained about my past while feeling reasonably confident it would stay there. But I threw that chance away forever the moment I lied to him about Gabe.
“I thought you wouldn’t like me because I was a mess,” I hedge finally, tearing the end of the baguette into crumbs instead of looking at him. The regret is physical, copper-bitter at the back of my mouth. “The kind of person who made the same mistakes over and over, you know? Who wasn’t careful.”
He chuckles at that, faintly disbelieving. “I find it extremely hard to believe that you ever weren’t careful.”
9 Days and 9 Nights Page 15