Beautiful Americans (16 page)

“I had to,” I say simply.

“I can see you did,” Thomas responds. His face is a mixture of alarm, wonder, and pride. “
Tu es ravissante
. Wow.” Finally he breaks into a smile that shows off his endearingly crooked teeth. “As a medical student, I shouldn’t tell you that, should I?”

I shake my head and lean into him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve ever touched Thomas. For some reason, it seems like the appropriate reaction. And my ankle is really starting to throb.

“
Allons-y
,” Thomas leads me to the door. “I think you’ve done enough trauma to your ankle for one day.” Seizing hold of his shoulder for balance, I let him help me up the stairs and out to the waiting Mercedes.

NOVEMBER

Wishing and Hoping

TO: Chandler, Zachariah
FROM: Randall, Pierson

 

Hey, guy! Isn’t it so crazy being here in Europe, finally? I feel like I’m about a million miles from M-town. Don’t you?

Sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond to your emails until now. I’ve been so busy with everything here in Amsterdam . . . especially my new boyfriend!

Oh, Zack, I hadn’t told you what was going on until now because I was too superstitious it wasn’t going to work out. I mean, me? With a real live, honest-to-God boyfriend? And yet, I met Hannes a few weeks ago at a club . . . and he’s amazing . . . he’s 23 . . . totally down-to-earth, gorgeous, AND he doesn’t mind going slow.

I’m in a constant state of happiness, Zack. You can’t even imagine. Unless . . . you’ve met someone, too? If you haven’t yet, all I can say is get to it. This is our last chance till college, bro.

Get a Euro boyfriend while you can!

I read over Pierson’s email a second time to make sure I’ve absorbed it correctly. Have I stepped into a parallel universe? Has Pierson Randall—short, chubby Pierson, whom I’ve known since we met in the toddler class of the Christ’s Message Baptist Church Preschool—actually gone off and found himself a boyfriend, and love, and sex, all before I’ve even managed to meet anyone datable?

What gets to me is that Pierson and I have always done everything together. We went to school and Bible-study together. We got baptized at church together, twice. (That was when we both thought we could run from this whole gay thing. Ha!) We’re both on the JV swim team. We got our drivers’ licenses on the same day and even came out to each other when we couldn’t come out to our own families. We’re like brothers, which, of course, means things that might be particularly convenient to first do together—like,
ahem
, losing our virginity—are simply out of the question. At least, not
literally
together. But that doesn’t mean that he can just run off to Amsterdam and lose his virginity to some twenty-three-year-old sex god without me doing the same thing here in Paris! That’s just not the natural order of things.

Especially when
I’ve
always been the more confident one, the one the girls are always calling (to no avail, of course), the one the swim team moms are always cooing over. Pierson is sweetly pudgy, with thick glasses and a slight lisp. His clothes are too big for him, he’s a hopeless dancer, and he wouldn’t have even made the swim team if I hadn’t busted my ass in the tryout relay to make up for his slow time. He wouldn’t even be in Amsterdam, for that matter, if it weren’t for me. As soon as I signed up for the Lycée, Pierson went out and found some second-rate program in Amsterdam that didn’t even have a language requirement!

Don’t get me wrong. I’d walk through fire for this kid. He’s my oldest friend and the one person who’s never let me down. It must be clear, however, that if Pierson or I were ever to take a step without the other one, it should be me that goes first.

I read over Pierson’s email a third time, gagging with jealousy, and finally log out of my Gmail in disgust. Alex, sprawled on the dusty old couch in the corner of the computer lab, looks up from filing her nails when I stomp over to her.

“What?” Alex says, hopping to her feet. “Did you get a letterbomb?” she gasps in horror.

A
letterbomb
is what students in the Programme Americaine call an email with bad news, made all the worse by the fact that you’re a million miles from home. A letterbomb is how Katie from Cleveland found out that her cat was hit by a car and died. It was how Drew’s mom told him she’d found his glass bong in the back of his closet and shattered it before she’d thrown it away in the garbage. Other kids have been dumped by their girlfriends and boyfriends, heard their grandparents have cancer, and in general just logged into some major buzzkill by innocently checking their email. Alex lives in a state of terror of the letterbomb. For her, the one drawback of living in Paris is that it increases your chances of being blindsided by (rather than simply made aware of) bad news from home. And if there is one thing I’ve learned about Alex, it’s that she might actually rather die than be the last to know.

“No,” I sigh. “No letterbomb. Not really, anyways. It’s just Pierson . . . and his new Dutch boyfriend, Hannes.” I spit out the ugly, hard sounds of the name as I picture Pierson saying it with his forced Dutch accent.

“Oh, honey,” Alex, says, wrapping her arms around me. “Sounds like we need a little trip to the Galeries Lafayette to cheer us up.” I shrug unenthusiastically. “Come on,” Alex twists my arm, tilting her head coyly at me. “I’ll buy you a latte at Maxim’s.” Maxim’s is Alex’s go-to destination for all refreshments at the Galeries Lafayette.

I grudgingly agree, despite what I know will be huge crowds and lines at the most famous department store in Paris. But sugar and heavy cream are maybe the only things that could make me feel better right now.

 

Alex’s hyper anxious prattling about George does little to distract me, though it does bolster my ego a bit to think that if the fabulous Alex Nguyen doesn’t have a boyfriend after two months in Paris, how can anyone expect me to either?

“I mean, he offered the rest of his
pain au chocolat
to Patty yesterday morning!” Alex moans. “And I was
right
there. And don’t even get me started on La Cinémathèque Française . . .”

One afternoon last week, Mme Cuchon took us all to the famous French film center to see a remastered screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s
Breathless
. The trip had been a rare school outing that Alex and I had enjoyed more than anyone else. Unlike Notre Dame, which was too crowded and full of docent douche-bags who kept shushing us every time we said
anything
, or the
Tour Eiffel
, where Madame forced us to walk all the way to the top and I had to practically carry Alex in her stilettos. No, seeing
Breathless
in the cool, austere theatres of La Cinémathèque Française’s glamorous new building designed by Frank Gehry was a welcome, sophisticated change. Alex and I, giddy with excitement, sat in the first row. George, in preparation for a long nap, took a seat in the back of the auditorium. Alex was furious, at least until she became temporarily distracted by Jean Seberg and she forgot.

I consider for a moment. “George probably assumed someone as thin as you would scorn his highly caloric castoffs,” I reason aloud. “And Alex—isn’t the whole point of George that he doesn’t go ape shit over Godard and the like? Wouldn’t you like him less if he was rabid for French New Wave?”

We dart around fancy French ladies, vendors selling crappy souvenirs to tourists, and the very beginnings of holiday shoppers picking through gaudy, glittery merchandise. I guess if your country doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, it would be hard to know that Christmas decorations the first week of November are tacky.

“You’re right,” Alex calls to me brightly as we hurry along. “So totally right!” She shivers in her lightweight Marc Jacobs army jacket and skinny jeans. “Okay,” she says determinedly when we enter the store, facing the crowds like a bullfighter entering the ring. “Let’s be sure and stop off at outerwear before we go up to Maxim’s. I’ve got to find something for winter before I freeze to death.”

The Galeries Lafayette is an enormous department store bigger and much fancier than anything in Memphis. Alex will even admit that it is better than any of the stores in New York. From the outside, the Galeries Lafayette looks like a palace or a museum but for the scores of blazing lights and advertisements hanging from its carved façade. Inside, tiers of boutiques—Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton—reach up on all sides to a high ceiling arching into a grand, cathedral-like glass dome. Alex jokes that she could live here, with the restaurants, the beauty salon and spa, the travel agency, and all the other services that the store offers its customers. I joke back that she does practically live here—she trolls the aisles enough that she might as well.

“The only place to beat it is Harrods,” Alex told me decisively on our first trip. I didn’t tell her I had to Google “Harrods” to find out that store is in London.

“Honestly,” Alex says, eyeing a purple Longchamp overnight bag and matching makeup case. “I haven’t even been worrying about George. He and I are doing great. We’re taking things slow, getting to know each other. What with the birthday party I’m planning at L’Atelier, I’ve hardly had time to even think about George. Do you want that?” she asks abruptly, pointing to the sleek black leather passport cover I’m fondling on the counter.

“Of course I do! It’s gorgeous,” I say with a laugh. “But it costs eighty euros.”

“Eh, what’s eighty euros? You’ve had a rough day,” Alex shrugs dismissively, grabbing it from me. “Hey, do you like this?”

Alex holds up a long cardigan with a rolled collar and covered leather buttons. It looks like the perfect thing to wear with jeans and boots, Gisele-style, for a walk around the city when you are running errands and still need to be fashion-forward. She flips it so that we can see the back. On either elbow is a grandfatherly suede patch.

“Oh, my God!” Alex shrieks. “It’s just like PJ’s. Get it away from me!” She tosses it back onto the rack as if it were crawling with lice.

“Oh, shush,” I say. “That sweater is cute. You’re just mad because PJ started the trend and you didn’t.” All the girls at the Lycée are wearing long, oversize grandpa cardigans lately, just like the one PJ’s always wrapped up in. If you have elbow patches, you’re at the height of sophistication these days.

We’ve barely made it off the first floor before Alex has bought me the Longchamp passport cover, a flashy new camo belt, and some very expensive hair-molding crème to keep my hair artfully disheveled. And that’s just the stuff for me! Alex has the set of Longchamp bags (which she said she just resolutely needed to have for the class trip to Lyon later in the term); a black cashmere scarf, hat and mitten set; and an at-home facial kit from the Clinique counter.

“But Alex,” I protest as the salesgirl rings the last item up. “You go for facials at the salon every month. What are you going to do with the at-home kit?”

Alex rolls her eyes impatiently. “For in between!” she explains.

Once up the escalators, Alex throws all of her bags into my arms and dives into the task of finding a new winter coat.

“Did I tell you that I found out Jay is here on a scholarship?” I ask Alex, wondering if she had known that all along.

“Oh, really?” Alex says without really listening.

“Yeah,” I tell her as I wander closer to the men’s section, lured by the soft wool gabardine of the winter suits on the mannequins. What is it about a suit that makes every man just that much more appealing? “He can’t come back after the winter break if he doesn’t score 90 or higher on the Final Comp.”

A sales guy wanders over to me, but I give a short jerk of my head to indicate I’m just a lowly window shopper not in need of real assistance. I imagine myself in one of the suits—a Hugo Boss one with bold chalky grey strips, cut skinny all over, would look, if I do say so myself,
marvelous
on me.

“Jay never seems to hit on any of the girls on our program,” I call over to Alex, still buried in the coat racks. “Have you noticed?” She doesn’t answer.

I start back over to where Alex is trying on a stack of possible purchases in front of a mirror. Alex eschews dressing rooms—even when she is not shopping for a coat. I’ve even seen her try on a bra right out in the middle of the sales floor! “It’s the French way,” she always tells me, but the French saleswomen always seem pretty annoyed about it.

I exhale loudly. “What’s a boy to do? Single in Paris, alone in the world . . .” I try to sound blithe, but there is a harsh undertone—the reality of the situation—that makes me come off sounding bitter and morose. Alex turns around, piling the rejected winter coats into the arms of a waiting salesgirl.

“Zack,” she says, with a mischievous glint in her brown eyes. “L’Atelier is a terribly glamorous place. You’re going to need a new suit for the party I’m having there.” Alex’s birthday party is coming up in a couple of weeks.

“I have a suit, Alex,” I say, feeling awkward, on the spot all of a sudden.

“I’ve seen that suit, Zack, and we both know it was a hand-me-down from your dad that should have been given to a Halfway House or a work-release program. The fabric alone gives me hives—let’s not even get into the cut,” Alex frowns. She pulls me back over to the mannequin in the Hugo Boss suit and snaps her fingers towards the sales guy I’d brushed off before.

“
Je voudrais que vous lui fassiez un costume Hugo Boss
,” Alex commands. I’m shocked to hear her French sounding so good. Must have to do with the luxury goods we are surrounded by. “The pants should have a slim fit.” The sales guy, a young, effeminate dandy, leads me over to the fitting rooms and prods me onto the tailor’s platform.

“A
very
slim fit,” Alex intones suggestively with a wink as the sales guy starts taking my inseam.

“
Je m’appelle Matthieu
,” the guy says, his voice high and shrill. “This suit will flatter you very well.”