The American Girl (22 page)

AUGUST 8, 2015

I
t felt like I was coming down with swine flu or something. I was sweating. Everything hurt. I turned and turned in the starched sheets, the same thought circling through my head:
It's what I deserve, it's what I deserve.
Like an incubus coming to gloat over my stricken body, a message popped up on my phone.
Here's a link to the YouTube video. Bx

I deleted it angrily and then set about deleting all my other texts from that backstabber Bill and even his contact details. God, how I'd despised the news coverage of that handheld footage of Quinn, the way the wolf pack took advantage of a terrified girl at her weakest moment. Now I'd done the same thing. By now, my video of the caves would be looping on the French news, the US news, every kind of news. Everyone would know how I'd lied. I ran to the bathroom, knelt over the bowl, and threw up.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, I reasoned. Maybe it would help
with searching for the Blavettes somehow. Leaning my cheek on chilly porcelain, I tried to believe it. All the hot, prickly night as I lay awake sweating and hugging myself for comfort, I hoped for a knock on the door—Valentin checking on me one last time. A couple of hours ago, I'd crept away from him. Now that it was too late, I wished him back again.

I
N THE MORNING,
I woke to a different world, one where I was—in the words of Bill—an internet sensation. As soon as I dragged my exhausted body down to the hotel lobby, the journalists who'd been courting my attention a few days before turned their noses up in scorn. In the eyes of the world, I'd saved the day (or at least, a day). In the eyes of my fellow hacks, I was the lying scumbag who'd scooped them. As Bill always said,
Write what you like, but you never know how it'
s gonna play.

Worst of all was the fact that Bill setting up a YouTube channel for
American Confessional
in the first place was my fault: I'd urged him to get with the times and now I'd created a monster. So I'd forced myself to watch it, every cringe-worthy moment. If you link through from the relevant episode of our #AmericanGirl serial, you come to the video's black title card of the same name, followed by portentous white-on-black text:

“In the middle of this riveting case, our investigations took a darker turn. Follow our roving reporter Molly Swift as she ventures into the notoriously dangerous caves known as Les Yeux to follow a lead in the Blavette disappearances.
WARNING: Some viewers may find the following footage disturbing.
”

Framed like some found-footage horror, the film cut in to my shaky GoPro-style camerawork, beginning at the entrance of Les Yeux and ending with the discovery of Noémie. It was hard to know which was worse, the obvious fear in my voice or the fact that Bill had used every word, uncut as far as I could tell. I only read five of the comments that spilled out underneath the clip. It was all I could stand. Vindictive comments about Quinn, her supposed guilt, the look on her face in the final frame—all misspelled in various languages. I closed the YouTube app on my phone and deleted it with shaking hands.

It was naive to think I could escape it, though. The TV in the hotel bar replayed the same montage of clips over and over: me running into the big chamber to find the girls, followed by Noémie calling Quinn a murderer. This was being juxtaposed with a clip of Republic prosecutor Marcelline Masson reading out a statement about an American cultural exchange being questioned in relation to the disappearances. When I saw the way the two things had been spliced together, it was crystal clear where the guilt was being placed.

In the French papers, Quinn was being called
monstre
and
démon
. A front-page feature in
Le Monde
—a publication that had previously celebrated the miracle of her waking from the coma—smoothly recast her as some kind of serial killer. To be fair, they had a decent circumstantial case against her. There was Noémie's reaction to seeing her in Les Yeux, the fact that she'd withheld her phone from the inquiry, and motive (discovered from her blog). Some bastard had followed the trail from Quinn's
school records—reporting a term's absence coinciding with her mother's death—to three months spent in the secure psychiatric assessment unit at Boston Children's Hospital. Even the names of her medications had been published for all to see. She'd had no visitors at Sainte-Thérèse, which was taken as proof that she was a dangerous lone wolf, and there was that weird CCTV clip of her doing drugs and making out with some guy in a swimming pool, one that looked for all the world like the pool at Mas d'Or. On top of all this, a police interview had provoked her into a documented fit of rage.

A guest profiler whose qualifications were opaque to me had sketched her character, identifying her as a romantic obsessive suffering from borderline personality disorder. He went on to speculate that Quinn had fallen for Raphael Blavette so desperately that when Émilie got in the way, she killed the family and hid them somewhere in the caves. Noémie barely escaped with her life and languished for a week without being discovered. No one seemed willing to mention that it was Quinn who had enabled Noémie's rescue.

It was all an obvious hatchet job, a classic trial by media. But thanks to me, there was an orgy of circumstantial evidence: stills of Quinn's disturbed-looking face from my video, and, I was horrified to see, the video I'd inadvertently taken of her meltdown in the hospital. It seemed that Bill had chosen his pitch long ago and been planning this for a while. A jokey Instagram picture of Quinn dressed as a vampire for Halloween was captioned
Bloodthirsty
. Underneath it ran a quote from one of the horror stories on her blog. The news had already spread to the
wider world: #AmericanMonster had been trending on Twitter for hours.

In the midst of my despairing iPhone news binge, a shadow fell across the table. I knew who it was even before I looked up. The expression on Valentin's face was somewhere north of anger. He cocked his head, his eyes flicking over me as if he was looking at an alien, trying to work out what made it tick and how he could kill it. I tried to hold his gaze, but couldn't. The way he was looking at me stung too much, as if I wasn't worthy of his anger. I stared down at the stubs of rouge-stained cigarettes in the overflowing ashtray. Between them were round molten scars of spent cherries fused with plastic.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He pulled out the chair opposite me with a squeal. I heard him take out a cigarette. “When are you flying back?”

“Dunno.” I offered him my light.

He batted it away. “Well, maybe you should book a flight.”

I lit my own cigarette, willing my fingers not to shake. “So I guess this is the sheriff with his six-shooter telling me I'm not welcome in this town.”

He let out a cynical snort. “You Americans with your popular cultural references, always assuming we French know what you mean. Why is it so? Because our cafés sell your Coca-Cola, you imagine we are some small colony of yours, a holiday park where you come to stand bored in museums and learn a few words and fuck strangers and go home leaving a trail of broken bodies behind. Is this your notion of a holiday?”

“A holiday?” I stood up, turning over my chair. I could feel
people's eyes on me, another scene hurtling out of control in this already overly dramatic town. “You call this a holiday? I wanted to help—”

“Always a mistake,” he said, inhaling a lungful of smoke. “I suppose you mean you were helping that girl, the one who's in a prison cell. Oh yes, I see, when you pretended to be her aunt to get a news story, you were helping
her
and not yourself.”

I could see how I looked to him, perhaps how I really was. What could I really say to justify my behavior? “I helped you,” I muttered.

His blank mask dropped away. He looked angry.
“Quoi? Hein?
”

“And Noémie. She was trapped in there, dying. I —”

“Don't give yourself airs.” He waved at the smoke hanging between us. “We all know what you were really doing in those caves. Your little art-house film.”

I leaned over the table towards him, as angry as he was now. “I knew you were macho, but this is deluded. With every passing day you were losing that case. You need to get over yourself.”

Valentin took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly. Up until then, he had really succeeded in playing it cool. But he leaned forward then, pressing the knuckles of one hand into the table until they were white. “You bitch.” He said it low so that our growing audience couldn't hear. “You hurt . . . people . . . without caring . . .” He stopped and looked away.

I reached out to touch his hand. “Whatever I did, I'm sorry.” His skin was hot and tight. He didn't respond to my touch, but
he didn't move away either. It gave me courage to finish. “Everything that happened with you was real.
Everything.
”

He frowned, his hand falling casually from under mine. “That's sad,” he said, “because it was not so for me. I would have thought a woman of your experience would know pillow talk for what it was, but you American girls, you are all the same.”

JULY 26, 2015

Draft Blog Entry

So . . . if my American friends were here, they would stage an intervention or whatever. If Dad were here, I'd be headed back to the nuthouse. The theft from the woman, the drug dealing stuff . . . that was bad enough. Today was worse. Woke up in a strange bed in a strange, awful apartment. The windows were covered with newspaper, the floor littered with joint butts, and there was something weird covering the walls, every inch of them. Don't totally remember, though, 'cause my head was spinning around hard.

Ran to the bathroom to puke and the scabby toilet just made me feel sicker. The sink was filthy. I flung open the window, got vertigo. Must've been ten floors up. The worst thing: I didn't know how we even got there, or why we were sleeping on some stained mattress in a room with other people, or why the morn
ing and afternoon had spun by without me noticing. Back in the bedroom, I tried asking Raphael, but he was in a nontalking mood, scowling down at his phone. All I could think was,
I'm in this now. We're in it together, God help me.

Everything feels out of control. After the apartment, we ended up having an argument for most of the day—Raphael needed to borrow money and I didn't have enough. I drew out what there was, hoping Dad wouldn't notice. Raphael still gave me the silent treatment, though. A few times he left me on my own for a bit and I almost slipped away into the crowd of the street. But the thing is, I know the police are looking for us. It's why we've been keeping off the roads, blending in with the crowds. Maybe I'm better off sticking with him. He seems to know what he's doing.

We ended up at that shady club, La Gorda, again. I didn't know why we were there because Raphael still wouldn't talk to me. He just strolled in, nodding hello to this girl and that, while I trailed behind. Away from the outside world and the threat of arrest, he was up and charming again, introducing me to everyone: the unfriendly, hot, white-haired barmaid, Lolo; the bouncer, an old guy called Bruno with black Michael Bolton hair in a ponytail. Raphael ordered vodkas all around.

As Lolo poured, he said in my ear, “She is Latvian or something. She does not speak much French, but seriously she is the queen of La Gorda. Look at her go, man.”

I don't know you
, I wanted to say. It was true. I didn't know any of the new stuff I'd been finding out about Raphael—the drug dealing, the reckless driving, the mean streak when he didn't get
his way. I didn't know what kind of boyfriend would keep feeding me pills that made me pass out and wake up in strange bedrooms. And I didn't know why I kept swallowing them, except that I was scared now. I felt stranded. Everything was happening too fast.

I sit at the bar of La Gorda, face drooping in my hands, drearily watching Lolo pour vodka shots, all skinny and commanding. After she pours out the drinks, she toasts Raphael with her Evian bottle and kisses him on both cheeks. It kind of bugs me that there's this weird vibe between them, but then there seems to be some weird vibe between Raphael and pretty much everyone. He's just one of those intense people who flirts with men, women . . . lampposts.

A large man comes up to us grinning broadly, an aging, jowly Gérard Depardieu type in jeans paired with a black suit coat and a wide white-collared shirt. He's a big man, not just in the sense of being fat or tall (though he's both), but in that he's impressive. For a moment he hovers behind Raphael, before clapping him on the back with great bonhomie.

“Raphael! Mon fils!”

For a moment—just a split second, really, so brief that I think I only notice it because I'm watching Raphael so closely—Raphael blanches. The expression on his face is even worse than that night at Stella's or yesterday after the robbery. Pure fear. Terror even. And then it's gone and he's grinning wide and kissing the older man, hugging him like a father.

We all hug and kiss and everyone is family and shots of flaming Sambuca follow vodka shots, sticky Sambuca with bitter
coffee beans floating in it and the flame flickering blue in the darkness. Raphael and Séverin—the Depardieu guy—drink like Hemingway heroes, slamming palms down hard on the bar, downing each shot.

“Aha!
Fantastique!
” cries Séverin jovially after each one. Then he laughs until he's wheezing for breath, until you think he's about to die from a coronary.

It all seems like good fun, but that look of fear never quite fades from Raphael's face: he's pale, as if he has seen a ghost. His own ghost, maybe.

Perhaps because Raphael's so quiet, Séverin gets me talking—about where I'm from, what it's like at home. Really, though, he's more keen to talk about him than me. Soon he's in full flow, describing the farm he grew up on in Sicily and his French grandfather, who died a hero defying the Nazis during World War II. When he fleetingly inquires about my parents, I mention that my mom died. Suddenly we're best friends; Momma Séverin died last year and he dreams about her every night.

“The world lost its greatest gnocchi the day she died,” he says, wiping away tears, “and its greatest meatballs.”

Still, there are good things in life, stuff he loves: his stylish wife, Venetia (“that woman has given me everything worthwhile in life but,
mio Dio
, she thinks she's the boss”), his kids (“the girl is beautiful, but the boy is so lazy, a momma's boy”), his grandkids, and his brand-new kitchen cabinets. The longest time is spent talking about his Italian greyhound, Virgil, who was run over by a truck the same week his momma died.

“I loved that dog more than life. Since Momma and Virgil
died, life has been hard. I work like a slave to keep this place going . . . and the other clubs, well . . .” He mops his brow.

Reading between the lines, though, I'd say he spends most of his time drinking Turkish coffee and keeping an eye on Lolo at the club, or at home, playing with his grandkids, being waited on hand and foot, cleaning a gun or two. Oh yes, he hunts wild boar. At least I think that's what he tells me. By this point, I'm wobbly from all the free drinks, the sticky sweetness of the Sambuca coating my mouth and skin. Suddenly Raphael leans forward, lips at my cheek. I think he's going to kiss me.

Instead, he whispers in my ear, “He likes you. Keep him talking for me, will you?”

I nod hazily, not really getting it. As Séverin starts sharing his passion for breeding Italian greyhounds with me, Raphael weaves through the crowd towards the back of the club. I sit at the bar uneasy in the midst of all the Saturday night fun and high spirits. The punks in the club dance. Scowling Lolo keeps the drinks flowing. Bruno bustles behind the counter. He's always fixing things, Bruno, pulling the place together with another piece of gaffer tape. I kind of warm to him, watching his endless hopeless task, because looking around with newly cynical eyes, I notice that the place is practically held together by gaffer tape. Séverin talks and talks and I hardly listen. Raphael's not back. Could he be in the bathroom still?

Like a stone it hits me. He didn't go to the bathroom at all.
Keep him talking for me, will you
, he said. Meaning,
Keep him distracted. So I can . . . case the joint? Lift some cash?
Well, he's stolen something from everyone else. Why am I even surprised?

My stomach flips nonetheless. I feel sick, desperate to go, to not be in this. The other stuff was bad, but I was pretty much a bystander. This—whatever it is—is so much worse. I feel it. I'm no bystander either. I'm the decoy.

Not a very good one, as it turns out.

While I'm busy panicking, Séverin is telling me about his pet hates: bad wine, feminists, the clap, his cigar going out, his staff. “There's dissent in the ranks in these clubs. Isn't there always?” he growls. “And sometimes other people are just incompetent, don't you think?”

Yes? No? I have no clue what he's talking about and he sees that my mind has drifted away from his life story. With a grunt, he slips from the barstool, into the dancing crowd. If I was panicked before, now the feeling is ten times that bad. Feels like I'm having a heart attack. Fuck. What if he goes back there, finds Raphael?

A cough draws my attention. I look up to see Lolo craning her neck back and growling at someone in the gloom behind her. What she says seems to me to translate as “fat girl.” Then, in English she asks me, “Who you say your name is?”

“Quinn,” I say, trying not to sound too freaked.

She looks me up and down coolly. “Why you with Raphael?”

“I'm his girlfriend,” I say wearily, palming sweat from my forehead.

Lolo cracks her face and at first I think she's having some kind of painful seizure. Then I realize she's laughing at me. Hard. The noise sounds unnatural coming out of her tiny throat, growly and a little bit unhealthy. She leans her head back into the
darkness and coughs out a remark in French to the other barmaid. I translate their talk in my mind and wish I hadn't.

“This fat girl says she's Raffi's new girlfriend! Anyway, where's he run off to?”

“Fuck should I know,” the other barmaid replies. “Run from her?” (pointing at me).

More raucous laughter. I gaze down at my hands, pale and splodgy, floating beneath the grimy cuffs of Raphael's hoodie. I wish I could just take off into the night, that I weren't trapped by Raphael being the one with the car, the one who knows how to cope with all this.

“Did Raphael tell you we used to be together?” Lolo folds her arms over her black T-shirt that says We Don't Give a Fuck and smirks.

I shrug and don't answer. Given the weird vibe between her and Raphael, I was already pretty sure they had recently been on a . . . friendly . . . basis. I knew that from their body language. But I buried it because . . . because what? I'm dumb? Or maybe because I seem to be willfully blind to everything about Raphael I don't want to see. None of it matters now, anyway. We'll get caught by Séverin and then either the cops will come (the real ones, not Léon), or some worse fate will befall us involving being fed to Italian greyhounds or something.

Dark humor shimmers over Lolo's pretty, pale face. “Well, you are feeling stupid now, I think, because you can see I am better looking than you. Photos of me are much nicer than photos of you, too.”

“Actually, I'm thinking I want to get the fuck out of this dump,” I say, mad now as well as scared. “And I have no idea what you're trying to say about photos.”

She guffaws like I just said the best thing ever. “
Putain
, you really do not know? You girls think you are educated, but you are always so slow.”

She smiles and gestures broadly to what could be anything in the tense air between us. “It is a big piece of luck for you, though. You get to sleep with someone as nice as Raffi while it lasts, which is pretty good when you are . . .” She puffs her cheeks and spreads her arms on either side of her, growing exponentially, Kirby-style. “You get to be a porn star.”

I look around and see Bruno lolling in the shadows, his hooded eyes flicking over my face, then away, to the girls at the bar, the door. Across the bar, Séverin flicks a look at me, then back to his ledger, his numbers, his Biro tapping at the paper. The end is chewed. Maybe all that drinking sobered me up, because the glamour has fallen from La Gorda. This place, the people in it, all at once look simply seedy.

I start to understand what's going on, a business run with little bags and boxes of drugs and Raphael's video camera . . . Film student, my ass! That night at Stella's, drugged up in the pool . . . that day in the caves . . . we weren't making love. We were making movies for my “boyfriend” to sell. I think of how many people could have streamed them by now, downloaded them from the internet. I don't know why I didn't notice it before, that day when the strange man came to the Blavettes' door with his
grubby money. Maybe I just liked him too much and it blinded me to what I was really getting into, had already become part of even before he stole from that woman. My mind was caught like an old vinyl record, its needle jammed in a groove.

Now the needle's jumped.