Beautiful Americans (14 page)

I look around the classroom. He’s right. I don’t know everyone’s names yet.

“Like that there is Katie Dinkus,” he says in a low voice, pointing to a curly-haired girl in jeans and a lavender crewneck sweater. “Katie’s from Ohio. Last year, she started a nonprofit at her school that benefits teen mothers. She’s a major feminist.”

“So?” I say. Sounds like Katie’s a nice person, and I would like to get to know her better. I don’t understand why Zack’s tone is so accusing.

“Well, at the party, I found out, while we were shot gunning beers with Sara-Louise,” Zack continues, “that Katie Dinkus has been getting freaky with that Justin Timberlake look-alike from Orlando over there.” He cocks his head at a baby-faced guy who’s in my French section named Robbie.

“That’s Robbie,” I say, to prove that I’m not totally out of the loop. “I’ve worked with him in our conversational French exercises.” Because of this, I know that Robbie dreams of being in a band one day and used to perform in musicals at his old school. I also know that he thinks women shouldn’t work but should stay home and raise their families. He told me this during an ill-advised exercise our French teacher created in which we all expounded on our political beliefs in French so that we could eventually understand how to argue with the French kids who will likely attack us for our beliefs if they ever deign to talk to us. This exercise, of course, broke out into general hostility.

“Well, him and Katie are like, nymphos. They do it every night, because Katie’s host mom is a nurse who works until almost midnight. Bet you didn’t know that about them,” he tells me.

Alex looks at me. “It’s true,” she says solemnly. “They do it every day. But they never talk at school. They pretend like they don’t even know each other!”

I burst out laughing. I glance from Katie to Robbie and back to Katie. There is no way they are a couple. “You guys are full of it. Tell me another one,” I say.

“PJ!” Alex scolds me. She reapplies her lip-gloss and smacks her lips together. “Zack would never repeat a rumor unless it was true. Would you, Zack?”

“On the grave of my daddy’s daddy,” Zack says with a goofy twang, “I cannot tell a lie.”

I can’t stop laughing at them. “What do Robbie and Katie have to do with me having a party?”

“PJ,” Alex says, tucking her makeup case back into her leather tote bag and slinging the strap over the back of her chair. “We tell you these things because we want to be your friend.”

I stare at her. Alex has been icy to me since day one. What changed?

“We do, Miss Penelope Jane,” Zack backs her up. “We want you to know that we don’t want you to be left out. And the easiest way to fit in is to have an awesome welcoming bash at your apartment and everyone will get drunk and throw up and bond and then we can all call it a day. Don’t you want to?”

“Well, thanks,” I say, meaning it. “I mean, for not wanting me to be left out. But there’s so much I need to catch up on before the Louvre trip.”

“You sound like Olivia, always
catching up
on everything,” Alex scoffs. “What’s there to catch up on in Paris? Paris is about living. It’s about loving. Laughing. Having fun. It’s not about some stupid trip to the Louvre.”

“Louvre, schmouvre,” Zack chimes in. “I’m so sick of museums.”

I can’t help laughing. “We haven’t even been to one as a class yet. Have you guys been going to a lot of them on your own?”

“Well, no,” Zack divulges. “But Alex has been to them all already, and besides, I prefer the
real
Paris. The Paris that can’t be contained by
institutions
.” Even though his tenor is pretentious, I can tell that Zack is mocking himself. It’s times like these when I really want to get to know him—and even Alex, really—better than I do. Both of them are really witty, and I’m envious of how they are taking Paris by storm, going out, eating in great restaurants, getting up and dancing when they feel like it.

They were actually the kind of people I’d been hoping to meet here, carefree, as in love with Paris as I am, but so far, I’ve been too torn up about my parents, and Annabel, to really put my best foot forward.

“The day of the Louvre trip would be perfect!” Alex says, the bangles on her thin wrists jangling as she claps her hands together with pleasure. “We can all celebrate getting through the dreadful field trip alive.”

“No!” I gasp in horror. “Alex, I
can’t
.” It’s only now that I’m getting how serious they are. It was funny to joke about it with them, but the idea of our entire class coming over and potentially wreaking havoc on the Marquets’ apartment makes me nauseated.

“Now, why on earth not? It’s just a few people, and Zack and I will help you clean up afterward,” Alex coaxes.

Just then, Jay walks into class and takes the seat in front of mine. He swivels around to face me.

“Hey, Jay,” I say before he can remind me again of our study date. “So sorry about this weekend—I had to go out of town.”

I look over at Zack and Alex, who hover, still waiting for my answer. In a nervous flash, I decide to go for it. “I’m going to have a couple people over the night of the Louvre fieldtrip if you’d like to come. You know, like to celebrate getting through that part of the project.” I sound like I’m parroting Alex. I can’t believe this.

“Jay! You should totally come,” Zack says, overhearing us as he sits back down holding a steaming Styrofoam cup of espresso in his hands. “PJ—great idea. Jay, it should be a great little shindig. Alex and I are helping PJ organize it.”

Jay beams. Maybe I’m finally starting to do things right. Maybe I have a chance again at a normal life.

Alex passes me a note while M. Paton explains some theorem or another.
You’re doing the right thing,
it says.
Imagine what stories Zack might have to make up about you if you weren’t there to defend yourself, like Robbie and Katie
.

I look at her and roll my eyes. I
knew
Robbie and Katie weren’t a couple. I just knew it.

Besides, if someone wanted to spread rumors about me, Zack wouldn’t have to make any up. He’d just have to know where to look for them.

Before I run home for lunch, I swing by the computer lab to check my e-mail.

News from Vermont! I click it open as soon as I check to make sure no one’s behind me. It’s from Dave!

PJ—

Majorly bad news. This is awkward, but I thought you should hear it from a friend. I’ll be blunt—it’s about your house. It’s been repossessed by the bank. I guess your parents got pretty late on the mortgage. I saw them, like, carting stuff out of there yesterday morning—the rocking chair your dad built for your mom, things like that. Harsh, I know. If you ever hear from Annabel in this wacked-out mess, tell her I saved our prom photo from the dresser in your room.

If I talk to your parents, I’ll tell them I told you.

Sorry for the bad news.

Peace,
Dave

 

I stare at the screen. I almost think it’s a joke—he just got high with some friends and thought he’d prank me or something. My dad built our house from logs with his own bare hands. He and my mom have lived in the cabin since they first got married, adding on a room for Annabel and me when we got too big for our cribs on the sun porch. Set in a clearing not far from a little stream, my mom and dad always talked about growing old there together, eventually putting on another addition, helping me raise a family of my own there one day.

My parents owned that house fair and square . . . no matter what. And yet—it looks like they didn’t. They must have taken out a mortgage at some point. When they knew shit was about to hit the fan . . .

How could they have made such a terrible mistake?

I used to feel proud of my parents. But now, they are shameful and pathetic, locked up, shunned by one daughter, abandoned by the other.

Careful to log out of my email, I get up and go to the payphone on the steps of the Lycée with a heavy heart. Dave answers on the first ring.

“Have you heard from Annabel?” he asks at the same time I tell him, “I got your email.”

“No,” I say. “I haven’t heard from Annabel.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I wrote you everything I know in the email. I got nothing else to tell you, no silver lining. I was hoping
you’d
have a silver lining.”

“I’ll let you go back to sleep,” I say, and hang up.

As I walk back to Ternes, I wonder what Annabel did with her engagement ring, the little diamond in it’s gold setting. It wasn’t worth enough to sell. Does she still wear it?

I bet Dave thinks about that question all the time.

I unlock the doors of the apartment and call out for Sonia. She’s not here. Not hungry, I go straight to the living room and lie down on the glorious Persian rug that covers the whole of the living room floor, staring up at the molded ceiling.
This is your home now
, I tell myself. That house, regardless of all the memories we made there, doesn’t matter.
That house is a house of lies.

I roll over onto my stomach, my arm brushing over a ridge in the carpet near one of the end tables.
Did my notebook somehow slide under the carpet?
I worry. I’d hate for Sonia to pick something like that up and show it to the Marquets, not knowing what kinds of things I’ve written about them in my fake letters to Annabel. Also, the other things I’ve written to Annabel wouldn’t be good for the Marquets to see, either.

I reach over to the edge of the rug and pull the slender object out. When I realize what it is, I drop it back down to the floor in fright.

It’s a porn magazine called
18
. Across the bottom of the magazine is a promise that all the girls photographed within the magazine
are
legal, but just barely. One of these girls smiles out at me from the front cover, her breasts large and exposed above a short schoolgirl’s kilt.

I jump up, not quite sure what to do. Finally I just kick the magazine back under the rug and sit on the couch like a normal person. Why am I always lying on the floor in here? If Mme Marquet saw me, she’d think I was a bigger freak than she does already.

I look up at the portrait of one of M. Marquet’s great-great-great-grandfathers hanging over the mantel. My stomach turning, I imagine Alex defacing it with a marker, drawing something lewd coming from the old patriarch’s sternly set mouth.

I realize I don’t know the Marquets at all. I have no idea what kind of people they are. But, who knows where the trashy magazine could have come from? It probably isn’t that weird. Isn’t that what people are always saying about Americans? That we’re priggish, shameful about the human body? And it
was
hidden.

Still, I’m not super comfortable with the idea of M. Marquet having that magazine. I’m seventeen, turning eighteen later this year. That’s almost the age of the girls in the magazine. I gag a little. Am I really going to risk it all—the only house, family, protection that I have left in this world—to have a stupid party? So that I won’t feel so guilty bailing on some half-assed plans with Jay? To get on Alex’s good side?

What would my older sister do?

Of course, Annabel would have the party. And it would be the best party anyone had ever seen. And the next day, Annabel would bag up all the trash, scrub the house till it was sparkling clean, and no one would be the wiser.

Because if there was anything my sister was good at, hiding the evidence was it.

“B
onjour!”
a friendly voice greets me as I hobble out of the wire-cage elevator. “Olivia!”

Perfect,
I think grimly.
Just what I need right now.
I’m tired from the walk home, tired from the week I’ve had, back at school, avoiding the humored comments about how I hurt myself. I’ve forced myself to take the jokes kindly, but inside I’m simmering with humiliation and resentment. jokes kindly, but inside I’m simmering with humiliation and resentment.

It’s the boy from my bed—that is, Mme Rouille’s son from the Sorbonne, a beat-up notebook tucked under one arm. Carrying his bike up the spiral staircase, he clucks his tongue in sympathy at my crutches.

The accident at Sara-Louise’s party left the ligaments in my ankle shredded, but even worse than the throbbing pain is the forced rest.

I’ve been dancing for at least four hours every day after school since I was ten. When they figured out that Brian was autistic, my parents warned me that they might not be able to send me to ballet class anymore. Then one day, as my mom and Brian waited for me to finish a recital rehearsal, the dance teacher noticed that Brian was keeping time to the music by tapping on the floor in the studio. His development coaches thought that not only the music but also the social aspect of watching my classes really helped Brian. So my mom let me take as many classes as I wanted, and by the time I could go on pointe, I was done for.

There is nothing more soothing than counting out your
degagés
at the
barre
, no greater release for your soul than that split-second in a
tour jeté
when you are actually flying. It is a joy that I cannot live without.

And for the past few weeks, I’ve had to.

 

“
Maman
told me you have hurt yourself,” he says with concern, wheeling his bike over to me. His English is just the slightest bit off, sort of like his mother. “I think I did not properly introduce myself—
je suis Thomas Rouille
.”

“Bonjour, Thomas,” I say, leaning forward for him to kiss my cheeks. “
Enchantée
.”

Of course, there are many pictures of Thomas around the apartment, but what looked like shy dorkiness in school photos actually seems to be part of Thomas’s charm in person. In a grey toggle coat and charcoal corduroy pants, he’s a picture of what a scholar should be—rumpled, academic, sweet. His face is so smooth and sweet it’s almost pretty. His curly hair makes him seem a little younger than someone in college, closer to my age. He takes my books from me with the hand not holding his bike.