Anna and the French Kiss (15 page)

St. Clair was absent again at breakfast. And I think he’s not even coming to class today (and who could blame him?), when he appears in English, fifteen minutes late. I worry that Professeur Cole will yell at him, but the faculty must have been notified of the situation, because she doesn’t say a word. She just gives him a pitying look and pushes ahead with our lesson. “So why aren’t Americans interested in translated novels? Why are so few foreign works published in English every year?”

I try to meet St. Clair’s gaze, but he stares down at his copy of
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
. Or rather, stares through it. He’s pale, practically translucent.

“Well,” she continues. “It’s often suggested that as a culture, we’re only interested in immediate gratification. Fast food. Self-checkout. Downloadable music, movies, books. Instant coffee, instant rebates, instant messaging. Instant weight loss! Shall I go on?”

The class laughs, but St. Clair is quiet. I watch him nervously. Dark stubble is beginning to shadow his face. I hadn’t realized he needed to shave so often.

“Foreign novels are less action-oriented.They have a different pace; they’re more reflective. They challenge us to
look
for the story, find the story
within
the story. Take
Balzac
. Whose story is this? The narrator’s? The little seamstress’s? China’s?”

I want to reach out and squeeze his hand and tell him everything will be okay. He shouldn’t be here. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I were in his situation. His dad should have pulled him from school. He should be in California.

Professeur Cole taps the novel’s cover. “Dai Sijie, born and raised in China. Moved to France. He wrote
Balzac
in French, but set the story in his homeland. And then it was translated into English. So how many steps away from us is that? Is it the one, French to English? Or do we count the first translation, the one the author only made in his mind, from Chinese to French? What do we lose each time the story is reinterpreted?”

I’m only half listening to her. After class, Meredith and Rashmi and I walk silently with St. Clair to calculus and exchange worried glances when he’s not looking.Which I’m sure he knows we’re doing anyway. Which makes me feel worse.

My suspicions about the faculty are confirmed when Professeur Babineaux takes him aside before class begins. I can’t follow the entire conversation, but I hear him ask if St. Clair would rather spend the hour in the nurse’s office. St. Clair accepts. As soon as he leaves, Amanda Spitterton-Watts is in my face. “What’s with
St. Clair
?”

“Nothing.” Like I’d tell her.

She flips her hair, and I notice with satisfaction that a strand gets stuck to her lip gloss. “Because Steve said he and Josh were
totally
wasted Saturday night. He saw them staggering through the Halloween party, and St. Clair was
freaking out
about his dad.”

“Well, he heard wrong.”

“Steve said St. Clair wanted to
kill
his father.”

“Steve is full of shit,” Rashmi interrupts. “And where were you on Saturday, Amanda? So trashed you had to rely on Steve for the play-by-play?”

But this shuts her up only temporarily. By lunch, it’s clear the whole school knows. I’m not sure who spilled—if it was the teachers, or if Steve or one of his bonehead friends remembered something else St. Clair said—but the entire student body is buzzing. When St. Clair finally arrives in the cafeteria, it’s like a scene from a bad teen movie. Conversation screeches to a halt. Drinks are paused halfway to lips.

St. Clair stops in the doorway, assesses the situation, and marches back out. The four of us chase after him. We find him pushing through the school doors, heading to the courtyard. “I don’t want to talk about it.” His back is to us.

“Then we won’t talk about it,” Josh says. “Let’s go out for lunch.”

“Crêpes?” Mer asks. They’re St. Clair’s favorite.

“That sounds amazing,” Rashmi chimes in.

“I’m starving,” Josh says. “Come on.” We move forward, hoping he’ll follow. He does, and it’s all we can do not to sigh in relief. Mer and Rashmi lead the way, while Josh falls back with St. Clair. Josh talks about little nothings—a new pen he bought for their art class, the rap song his neighbor keeps blasting about sweaty rumps—and it helps. At least, St. Clair shows minimal signs of life. He mumbles something in reply.

I hover between the groups. I know it’s goody-goody of me, but as concerned as I am about St. Clair, I’m also worried about ditching. I don’t want to get in trouble. I glance back at SOAP, and Josh shoots me a look that says,
The school won’t care today.

I hope he’s right.

Our favorite
crêperie
is only minutes away, and my fear of skipping school eases as I watch the crêpe man ladle the batter onto the griddle. I order mine the way I always do here, by pointing at the picture of a banana and Nutella crêpe and saying please.The man pours the warm chocolate-hazelnut spread over the thin, pancakelike crêpe, folds the banana in, and then drizzles more Nutella on top. As a final flourish, he adds a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Real vanilla, which is tan with black flecks.

I moan as I sink into the first bite. Warm and gooey and chocolaty and perfect.

“You have Nutella on your chin,” Rashmi says, pointing with her fork.

“Mmm,” I reply.

“It’s a good look,” Josh says. “Like a little soul patch.”

I dip my finger in the chocolate and paint on a mustache. “Better?”

“Maybe if you didn’t just give yourself a Hitler,” Rashmi says.

To my surprise, St. Clair gives a snort. I’m encouraged. I redip and paint one side up in a swirl.

“You’re getting it wrong,” Josh says. “Come here.” He dabs his finger in the edge of my sauce and adds the other half carefully, with his steady artist’s hand, and then touches up my half. I look at my reflection in the restaurant’s glass and find myself with a massive, curly mustache. They laugh and clap, and Mer snaps a picture.

The men in elaborately tied scarves sitting at the table beside us look disgusted, so I pretend to twirl the ends of my Nutella mustache.The others are cracking up, and finally,
finally
St. Clair gives the teeniest of teeny smiles.

It’s a wonderful sight.

I wipe the chocolate from my face and smile back. He shakes his head. The others launch into a discussion of weird facial hair—Rashmi has an uncle who once shaved off all of his hair except what grew around the edge his face—and St. Clair leans over to speak with me. His face is close to mine, and his eyes are hollow. His voice is scratchy. “About the other night—”

“Forget about it, it wasn’t a big deal,” I say. “It cleaned right up.”

“What cleaned right up?”

Whoops. “Nothing.”

“Did I break something?” He looks confused.

“No! You didn’t break anything. You just, kind of, you know ...” I mime it.

St. Clair hangs his head and groans. “I’m sorry, Anna. I know how clean you keep your room.”

I look away, embarrassed to be called out on this. “It’s okay. Really.”

“Did I at least hit the sink?Your shower?”

“It was on the floor. And my legs. Just a little bit!” I add, seeing the horrified expression on his face.

“I vomited
on your legs
?”

“It’s okay! I’d totally have done the same if I were in your situation.” The words are out before I have a chance to stop them. And I was trying so hard not to mention it. His face is pained, but he passes by this subject to one equally excruciating.

“Did I ...” St. Clair glances at the others, ensuring they’re still distracted by facial hair. They are. He scoots his chair even closer and lowers his voice. “Did I say anything peculiar to you? That night?”

Uh-oh. “Peculiar?”

“It’s just ... I only vaguely remember being in your room. But I could have sworn we had a conversation about . . . something.”

My heart beats faster, and it’s hard to breathe. He remembers. Sort of. What does that mean? What should I say? As anxious as I am for answers, I’m not prepared for this conversation. I bide for more time. “About what?”

He’s uncomfortable. “Did I say anything odd about . . . our friendship?”

And there it is.

“Or my girlfriend?”

And there that is. I take a long look at him. Dark undereye circles. Unwashed hair. Defeated shoulders. He’s so unhappy, so unlike himself. I won’t be the one to add to his misery, no matter how badly I want the truth. I can’t ask him. Because if he likes me, he’s not in any state to begin a relationship. Or deal with the breakup of an old one. And if he
doesn’t
like me, then I’d probably lose his friendship. Things would be too weird.

And right now St. Clair needs friendship.

I keep my face blank but sincere. “No. We talked about your mom. That’s all.”

It’s the right answer. He looks relieved.

chapter seventeen

The
pâtisserie
has thick planks of creaky hardwood and a chandelier draped with tinkly strings of topaz crystals. They glow like drops of honey. The women behind the counter lay extravagant cakes into brown-and-white-striped boxes and tie each package with turquoise ribbon and a silver bell.There’s a long line, but everyone here is patiently basking in the ambience.

Mer and I wait between tiered displays as tall as we are. One is a tree made from
macarons
, round sandwich cookies with crusts as fragile as eggshells and fillings so moist and flavorful that I swoon on sight. The other is an arrangement of miniature cakes,
gâteaux
, glazed with almond frosting and pressed with sugared pansies.

Our conversation is back on St. Clair. He’s all we talk about anymore. “I’m just afraid they’ll kick him out,” I say, on tiptoe. I’m trying to peek inside the glass case at the front of the line, but a man in pinstripes carrying a wiggling puppy blocks my view. There are several dogs inside the shop today, which isn’t unusual for Paris.

Mer shakes her head, and her curls bounce from underneath her knitted hat. Unlike St. Clair’s, hers is robin’s egg blue and very respectable.

I like St. Clair’s better.

“He won’t be kicked out,” she says. “Josh hasn’t been expelled, and he’s been skipping classes for a lot longer. And the head would never expel someone whose mother is . . . you know.”

She’s not doing well. Cervical cancer. Stage 2B. An advanced stage.

Words I never want to hear associated with someone I love—external radiation therapy, chemotherapy—are now a daily part of St. Clair’s life. Susan, his mother, started treatments one week after Halloween. His father is in California, driving her five days a week to radiation therapy and once a week to chemo.

St. Clair is here.

I want to kill his father. His parents have lived separately for years, but his father won’t let his mother get a divorce. And he keeps mistresses in Paris and in London, while Susan lives alone in San Francisco. Every few months, his father will visit her. Stay for a few nights. Reestablish dominance or whatever it is he holds over her. And then he leaves again.

But now
he’s
the one watching her, while St. Clair suffers six thousand miles away. The whole situation makes me so sick I can hardly bear to think about it. Obviously, St. Clair hasn’t been himself these last few weeks. He’s ditching school, and his grades are dropping. He doesn’t come to breakfast anymore, and he eats every dinner with Ellie. Apart from class and lunch, where he sits cold and stonelike beside me, the only times I see him are the mornings I wake him up for school.

Meredith and I take turns. If we don’t pound on his door, he won’t show up at all.

The
pâtisserie
door opens and a chilly wind whips through the shop. The chandelier sways like gelatin. “I feel so helpless,” I say. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Mer shivers and rubs her arms. Her rings are made of fine glass today.They look like spun sugar. “I know. Me too. And I still can’t believe his dad isn’t letting him visit her for Thanksgiving.”

“He’s not?” I’m shocked. “When did this happen?” And why did Mer know about it and not me?

“Since his dad heard about his dropping grades. Josh told me the head called his father—because she was concerned about him—and instead of letting him go home, he said St. Clair couldn’t fly out there until he started ‘acting responsibly’ again.”

“But there’s no way he’ll be able to focus on
anything
until he sees her! And she needs him there; she needs his support. They should be together!”

“This is so typical of his dad to use a situation like this against him.”

Gnawing curiosity gets the best of me again. “Have you ever met him? His father?” I know he lives near SOAP, but I’ve never seen him. And St. Clair certainly doesn’t own a framed portrait.

“Yeah,” she says cautiously. “I have.”

“And?”

“He was . . . nice.”

“NICE? How can he be nice? The man is a monster!”

“I know, I know, but he has these . . . impeccable manners in person. Smiles a lot. Very handsome.” She changes the subject suddenly. “Do you think Josh is a bad influence on St. Clair?”

“Josh? No. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. No.” I shake my head, and the line inches forward.We’re almost in viewing range of the display case. I see a hint of golden apple
tarte tatins
. The edge of a glossy chocolate-and-raspberry
gâteau
.

At first everything seemed too sophisticated for my tastes, but three months into this, and I understand why the French are famous for their cuisine. Meals here are savored. Restaurant dinners are measured in hours, not minutes. It’s so different from America. Parisians swing by the markets every day for the ripest fruit and vegetables, and they frequent specialty shops for cheese, fish, meat, poultry, and wine. And cake.

I like the cake shops the best.

“It just seems like Josh is telling him it’s okay to stop caring,” Mer presses. “I feel like I’m always the bad guy. ‘Get up. Go to school. Do your homework.’ You know? While Josh is like, ‘Screw it, man. Just leave.’ ”