“You look like a soap commercial,” I tell her. “George will be smitten.”
“You think?” Alex says, taking a sip of white wine from a glass tumbler. She insisted that Sara-Louise serve her in a real glass, rather than the plastic cups she and Anouk bought for the party. She gives her reflection her most captivating glance. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Wish me luck!”
Just then, we hear a big group of French kids come into the party—Anouk’s friends. They crank the music and glare at us Americans. Alex beams at them—what she wouldn’t
do
to be good friends with just
one
of them, to count just one Frog on her list of cohorts. I’m aching to be friends with them, too. But they’re too good for us, and they all know it.
“Tay
-ex-
US!” comes a sudden, almost barbaric cry from the entryway. The twins.
I turn back around, horrified at the sheer unpleasantness of the noise my poor ears have just been subjected to. Framed by the doorway, Patty and Tina are decked out in cropped black tube tops and matching A-line miniskirts, with Mardi Gras style beads laced around their necks. True to form, Tina has her hair up in a high cheerleader-esque ponytail, and Patty’s hair is feathered out around her small face like Farrah Fawcett. That’s the only way you can tell the twins apart—they wear the same outfits every day but different hairstyles from each other. Champagne bottles in hand, they are both making rock-star poses in the doorway as if there were a group of paparazzi taking their photos. Many more partygoers shout hello to them than they did to us. Triumphant, the twins air kiss and high-five their way to the fridge to cool their champagne.
Right behind the twins are George and Drew. And right behind
them
is Olivia, gaping at the twins.
“You are never going to guess what happened to me!” Olivia moans to us when she makes her way past the crowd surrounding the Texan twins.
“Holy smokes!” I hear one of them squawk at George. “You’re lookin’
fine
tonight!”
“What?” Alex demands, keeping one eye on George and the other glued to the twins. “Tell me.” Like Mme Rouille’s yappy mini-poodles, the twins circle George and Drew, desperate to be petted. The sight of it has Alex breathing fire.
“You guys.” Olivia shakes out of her jacket, revealing a typically laid-back California outfit of a white peasant dress with a simple pink cardigan and flip flops. “You have to hear this story—I need your advice! So, I got home the other night, and I literally—I literally cannot explain just how literally—I
literally
jumped onto a strange man who was lying on my bed.”
“What?” I laugh. “How did that happen?”
“His name is Thomas,” she explains. “He’s Mme Rouille’s son. He came home from the Sorbonne to grab some books from his room and apparently got so wrapped up in Rilke’s
Letters to a Young Poet
that he didn’t notice me until I was on top of him, legs sprawled in the air. Oh, my God! I’m officially in a shame spiral.”
“Livvy, that’s
hot
,” I say. “So what happened next? Don’t leave out
any
of the sordid details.”
“Oh, Zack,” Olivia rolls her eyes, laughing. “What do you think I did? I ran to the bathroom! I was all sweaty and stinky from ballet. When I finally came out, he apologized and left. Mme Rouille was horrified by the whole thing—it was so
improper
.”
“So what do you need advice on?” I ask.
“Well, do you think I should tell Vince?” Olivia blushes.
“Ach, you’re a prude,” Alex says flippantly. “Get a beer and let’s go dance.”
“I’ll pass on the beer,” Olivia answers cheerfully, “but let’s definitely hit that dance floor.”
Olivia waits patiently as Alex and I chug some beers with Sara-Louise and her good friend Mary, the punky girl from L.A. Once everyone is good and buzzed, Alex drags us both out onto the makeshift dance floor in Sara-Louise’s miniscule living room. The apartment is already packed with kids. It seems like every single Programme Americaine student is here, with a fair amount of Anouk’s friends, too. Alex bops her way over to the stereo and turns up the volume even higher.
Olivia is, of course, a phenomenal dancer—we already knew that. But Alex isn’t too bad herself. Just watching them shake their hips seductively to the French hip-hop on the stereo makes a bunch of other kids start to move to the music alongside them, swaying and grinding to the beat.
Alex and Olivia dance on either side of me, Alex facing me and grazing the back of my neck with her hands, Olivia shimmying her back against mine. Right now, I’m likely the envy of almost every guy in this room.
I can’t deal. Alex’s hair keeps getting in my eyes, and Olivia keeps knocking me off balance, bumping me with her little rear end. I extricate Alex’s arms from around my neck and leave them to each other.
“
Salut!
” one of Anouk’s French friends calls to me, motioning for me to join her on the couch. I perch on the armrest next to her.
“Hi,” I greet her, forcing a smile. She’s petite, with a cute pixie haircut and dimples in either cheek.
“What’s your name?” she says.
“I’m Zack,” I say, trying to stay friendly.
“You’re American,” she notes. “I couldn’t tell.”
“Really?” I’m flattered.
“You’re very handsome,” she says, reaching out and stroking my face. She takes a long sip of her beer. “
Voulez-vous danser avec moi?
” She puts her hand on my knee and squeezes it a little bit.
I want to laugh at the irony—a beautiful girl throwing herself at me, when all I want is a beautiful
boy
to throw himself at me.
“No, thanks. I’m not really fixin’ to dance right now,” I cringe at how my Southern accent just crept right out without me doing anything to stop it. Often happens when I’m nervous.
In the middle of all the action in the living room, Olivia and Alex jump up on the coffee table. In a blissed-out trance, Olivia twirls with her arms over her head. The neck of her dress is hanging off of her tanned shoulders, leaving them bare and sexy. Alex, gyrating like a stripper next to her, could be auditioning for a rap video. Her skirt is hoisted so far up from her outrageous dancing that she might as well be in her underwear.
“Come on, kiss,” I hear Drew heckle them. “Just once! We’ll give you five euros. Ten!” A group of guys around him dissolve into laughter. Alex and Olivia remain totally oblivious.
The Texan twins, for their part, glower in the corner. Alex and Olivia are the hottest show in town. Despite Patty and Tina’s bold entrance (not to mention the fact that they came with the two most desired guys at the Lycée), no one is paying any attention to them at all.
“I’m Tallis,” the pixie girl breathes in my ear. Quickly and gracefully, she hoists herself up onto my lap. With one leg on either side of me, she leans down and kisses me on the lips, softly, but obviously wanting more.
Whoa. I can feel my heartbeat hammering. I’m trapped!
“Sorry—I’ve got to go—there’s someone over there I want to talk to,” I squeal.
Tallis is so little I can easily lift her up off my lap and set her right back down to where she was sitting on the couch. She pouts at me, her arms folded angrily across her chest.
“Don’t worry,
cherie
,” I say as I walk away, though she can’t hear me. “There’s plenty of other takers here tonight. You’ll get over it.”
Jay’s sipping a beer by himself in the dining room, checking out some book on the shelf in there.
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” I say, giving Jay’s arm a friendly punch.
“What’s going on, man?” Jay says, shaking my hand. “I didn’t think I’d see you coming up for air for awhile.” He nods behind me, toward Tallis.
He was watching?
“Oh, well,” I say, not knowing how best to deflect the truth of why I couldn’t hook up with Tallis. “She was hot, but . . .”
But what?
“You just couldn’t do it?” Jay asks. “I know what you mean.” He leans back against the bookshelf.
“You do?” I say, nearly spitting out my beer. Could it be?
“Oh, yeah, man, I’ve been there,” Jay says easily. “Wrong person, wrong time. Someone much better will come along, I guarantee it.”
I’d thought Jay was straight, but this was too weird. Could Jay be gay, too? Is that why he said “wrong person” and not “wrong girl”? Because he knew what it felt like to have a girl hit on him and wish it was a guy? Or maybe I’ve had one too many beers. I search his smooth, angular face for a clue.
All of a sudden, a loud crash comes from the living room. “Oh, shit,” I say before I even see the damage. It’s got to be Alex—she was drunk even before the party really got going, and just before Tallis kissed me I saw someone passing out some kind of shots on the dance floor. When the shots come out, Alex is done for.
I push through the thick crowd of people. I’m shocked to find Olivia—Olivia who is usually so together—crying in hysterics on the living room floor. Most of the dancers have moved out of the way.
“What happened?” I ask. “Where’s Alex?”
Olivia shakes her head, sobbing. “I fell—I fell on my ankle—please help me up, Zack . . .”
I bend down and lift Olivia to her feet, but she crumbles in pain. She can’t put any weight on her ankle.
Jay, who’s right behind me, helps me get Olivia to the kitchen to make an ice pack. “It looks like you sprained it,” he tells her sympathetically.
“It can’t be! Nooooooooooooooo,” she wails.
“I better get you home,” I say, and pray Jay sees me looking hopelessly strong and handsome as I carry Olivia out to the street to hail a cab.
In the cab, Olivia passes out. When I wake her to take her up to her room, she starts to cry again. “Oh, Zack, now I’ll never get my scholarship,” she frets. “And Brian . . . and my future . . . I didn’t tell you this, but Brian is autistic . . . I have to get this scholarship, for nothing else if not for him.”
Autistic? Olivia never mentioned that her brother was autistic. And what does that have to do with her scholarship?
“Livvy,” I tell her as we hobble into the elevator, “you’re going to be fine. Tomorrow morning you’ll feel fantastic. I bet you’ll be dancing on it by next week.”
In truth, I think she’s going to have to stay off that ankle for at least a month, and I’d bet my cab fare that she’ll be at the doctor for a good portion of tomorrow morning—feeling anything but fantastic.
“Really?” she asks me sleepily, giving me her keys and letting me guide her into her room and put her on the bed.
As I remove her flip-flops and cover her in her bedspread, I look wistfully at all the pictures of Olivia and Vince on the walls. It would suck to have to miss each other so much, but Vince and Olivia don’t know how good they have it. To know, to actually
know
in your soul, that someone loves you more than anyone else on the whole planet—what would that even be like? To be absolutely secure that you wanted to be with that person in college and for the rest of your life? I can’t even begin to imagine that.
As I run back down to the waiting cab, I wonder if Jay got home okay. I didn’t even really get a chance to say goodbye.
9. ALEX
The Best Laid Plans
Y
ou know, I was relieved when Olivia told me that PJ would have to miss Sara-Louise’s party because she’d be in the Dordogne. But as I watch Patty and Tina unpack the supplies for body shots—salt, limes, a handle of tequila—I realize how foolish I’ve been worrying about PJ’s supposed hotness. It’s
Patty
sprinkling salt on George’s neck right now. Patty’s the competition here.
My vision might be hazy from all the shots I’ve taken tonight, but even I can see that George isn’t exactly pushing Patty off of him, either.
I stumble over to them before Patty can get her tongue anywhere near
my
George. Tina may already be getting close to scoring with Drew—the nerve! After Drew is clearly meant to be
Olivia’s
boyfriend—but there is nothing I can do about that right now. I have other, much more important matters to attend to. And the more I hang out with Drew, the less I actually believe he’s boyfriend material for anyone. He never quits with that annoying drumming thing. He’s doing it right now on the countertop. Tina seems to think it’s actually really cool and interesting.
“Hey, babe,” I say to George, nuzzling his neck in greeting. He smells like Old Spice, one of my all-time favorite smells. “I haven’t seen much of you tonight.”
Patty hasn’t gotten the hint yet. Having taken her shot without the salt, she’s now rubbing her ass—oh, excuse me, is that what she calls dancing?—up on George far too suggestively for me to let it go on any longer.
“Al!” George says, taking me in appreciatively. “You’re looking awfully hot tonight. What’s the occasion?”
“Do I need an occasion to turn you on?” I say, turning him around so that Patty’s rear isn’t so close to his Abercrombie cargos anymore.
George’s eyes register a little surprise at my forwardness—all along, I’ve been trying to keep my game sweet and simple. You’ve got to be careful with guys like George—there might be less bullshit with a straightforward guy like him, but I’ve had to be careful to act like a lady at all times. A common whore might be able to get his attention at a party (see Example A—Texan Twin Patty humping his leg in Sara-Louise’s kitchen), but that’s not the kind of girl (Example B—me) George wants to spend his time with in Paris. He needs someone
cultured
, with
class
, who wouldn’t throw herself on him at a house party.
But desperate times call for desperate measures. The more shots Patty and her slutty sister Tina take, the more likely they’ll chuck their virginity promise rings out the window and trap George and Drew into some sort of highly unnecessary hookup scandal that I just can’t have right now.
I slip my arms around George’s neck. “What are you doing in here with Patty?” I say in a sultry whisper. “It’s been so lonely at this party without you. And this apartment is amazing! You want to see the view from the master bedroom?”