Romancing the Dark in the City of Light (3 page)

“No kidding. I’ve spent time there. Nice city. You don’t
sound
like you’re from Arkansas.”

“Been gone too long, I guess.” She’s only visited a few times in the last five years, most recently for Grandpa’s funeral. “You’re here on
business
? What kind of business are you in?” she asks.

“Sales. International.” The wind tousles his hair.

“International sales?”

Yeah, right. Unless he means drugs, which might explain the expensive clothes and that flashy Swiss watch. Maybe he recognized her as a potential client. Good radar if he does. She’s never bought any drugs in France, though. The laws are harsher here.

And jail would really suck.

“My name is Kurt, by the way.” He doesn’t extend his hand. Neither does she.

Summer blinks.

He looks familiar because he’s the guy from the M
é
tro.

FIVE

“You were at the accident!” Summer cries, springing up from the cemetery park bench. “At
É
toile the other night.”

Kurt’s smile fades. “That was you, then. I wasn’t sure. Also wasn’t sure whether to bring it up or not.”

“Her scream has been bouncing around my head ever since.”

“That was a witness,” he says quietly.

“Oh.” Ding dong. Of course. Someone who saw it and was alive to scream. “I looked but never found anything about it. In the paper.” She sits on the bench then stands up again. “So, I guess it was a suicide?”

“Yeah. An accident or a homicide would be a story. Suicide isn’t news since it happens every day. Plus no one wants to hear about them. Unless it’s a celebrity, of course.”

She nods. “I know, right? Why wouldn’t people be totally fascinated?” She smiles to show she’s kidding. Kurt looks into her eyes, as if searching for something. He is so hot, her cheeks warm. “Um, do you always stare at people like that?”

“Was I staring? Sorry,” he says, looking down, almost shyly.

A slight dizziness knocks her. She needs to get out of here. Which way?

Downhill.

“I was just heading out,” she says, slinging her pack over her shoulder.

“Mind if I walk with you? I’ll grab a taxi outside the main gate.” He actually seems sort of lonely.

“Whatever.” She steers toward a wide lane through the grand, iron-colored mausoleums.

He scrambles to catch up. “I don’t want you to think I’m sketchy. I’m just happy to find a fellow American. A literary one.” She glances at him now. There’s that grin again.

Moving relaxes her a little. He keeps stride with her, his tall form strong, his movements graceful and confident. Brown leaves whirlpool before them.

“Have you been here long?” she asks, pulling her shoulders back and sucking in her stomach. Yay for being thinner.

“Just got here. How about you?”

“A couple of weeks now.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m a student.” She is
not
going to say she’s in her
second
senior year of high school.

“How’s your French?” he asks.

“It sucks,” she says. “Yours?”

“I have to speak it well for business.”

“Oh, right, sales,” she says. She glances at him sideways.

He pulls out a package of fancy British cigarettes and offers her one.

“No thanks, I quit.”

“Are you sure?”

“What the hell. Might as well.” Just one. She sniffs the fresh, rich tobacco. He lights hers, then his.

“Ah, nicotine,” she says, exhaling. “What my life has been missing. Whoo—head rush.”

He laughs. She’s not sure she’s really that funny but she’s liking him better by the minute. They smoke and walk the last half block without talking.

“Here we are,” Kurt says. They’re under the huge stone arch at the main entrance, and a taxi idles at the stand on the street. He turns to her. His dark, soulful eyes say,
You’re gorgeous, I want you.

Like a hen eyeing a june bug, she thinks. But sincere. And intoxicating.

Here he is. A made-to-order ten. New in town.
Tr
è
s
sophisticated. A guy Mom would probably not only approve of, depending on his business, but lust after herself. Actually a strike against him.

Someone to hold hands or drink champagne with. Someone who could make life a little more meaningful.

“Thanks for keeping me company,” he says. “It’s been a pleasure…” He waits, a not-so-subtle hint that he doesn’t know her name.

“Summer. Summer Barnes.”

“Barnes.” He frowns in thought. “Of Little Rock. Any relation to the chicken Barnes?”

“Ha. No,” she lies, crossing her arms. She doesn’t want him to like her, or not like her because of—or even to have to discuss—her stupid family, the chicken Barnes. If she ever sees this guy again she can explain. She also doesn’t want him to kidnap her for ransom, if he isn’t already planning to. When she was six, her parents hired a firm that specialized in personal security. They trained her how to avoid kidnappers.

Rule number one: Never talk to strangers.

He opens the taxi door and before she can say good-bye, he slides in. Then he leans out to see her and says brightly, “I’m going to Place de la Concorde. Can I drop you anywhere on the way?”

“I’m in the sixteenth. Near Place Victor-Hugo,” she says. Considerably farther.

The taxi driver turns to look at her, too. Is she getting in or not?

“You can get the one at Place de la Concorde. Change at
É
toile.”

“Yeah, I know.” No need to inform him that she and the M
é
tro are having issues. She has to get back to Mom’s and do her work. This will be faster.

Like their old golden retriever, Polly, she follows him into the waiting car.

SIX

Inside the warm cab, they aren’t touching, but the heat of Kurt’s body and the slightly funky smell of him permeates Summer’s clothes and settles on her skin.

It’s already dusk, and car lights and neon signs burn bright in the gray dimness. Kurt chats about the differences between the French and Americans, as she studies his handsome profile and shiny, disheveled hair. She’s never been this physically close to someone so gorgeous. The warmth in her cheeks says she’s blushing.

Kurt gestures with his large but elegant, smooth, tanned hand, waving perfectly shaped fingers and nails. He displays those white teeth, and she imagines running her tongue over them.

Place de la Concorde is lit up like a rock concert and traffic zooms in giant pinwheels around the Luxor Obelisk. Kurt has no small euro bills, so she pays the taxi fare.

“Thanks. Sorry about that,” he says as they get out. “May I offer you a glass of champagne to show my appreciation? This hotel has an awesome bar. Quiet, soft lights…” He tilts his head in the direction of the
tr
è
s cher
one at the end of the block.

“Champagne!” she exclaims. “What a great idea.” She’s giddy already. Long live the French who let you drink wine and beer at sixteen. And her flask is empty.

They walk past the M
é
tro entrance. A bum wrapped in a dirty gray blanket sits on the sidewalk and she drops a euro coin into his paper cup. He nods at her, and then raises two fingers in a sort of salute at Kurt. “
Beau chapeau,
” the bum says.

Kurt nods in return. Nice hat? she wonders, looking at Kurt’s bare head.

“Do you know him?” she asks.

“We’re old pals. I’m staying nearby.”

He doesn’t strike her as kindhearted. He’s hot, not warm, she thinks. But who cares? Just as they are about to enter the brass revolving door, she feels his hand on the small of her back. Through her jacket, fleece, and T-shirt, an electric jolt of hard iciness spreads through her middle.

Fear jitters her nerve endings. It’s like when she and Katie were fourteen and convinced two townies they were college students. They realized they were in over their heads when the guys drove them to a scary apartment complex, and they bolted at the last minute.

No, it’s more than that. Something about his touch is both hot and freezing, terrifying and soothing. Violent and peaceful.

She plucks her France Telecom phone from her pocket and scans the screen as if there’s new information there. “Oh, shoot,” she says. “I—I’ve got to go home.”

He pouts. “Are you sure? Not even a quick coffee?”

“I can’t. Sorry.”

He thrusts a card into her hand. “Here. Since we’re both new in town, if you ever want to catch a movie or something, call me.”

She stuffs it into her coat. A nineteen-year-old with a business card. Kind of impressive. “Okay! See you.” Greatly relieved, guilty, and a little disappointed, she skids past the startled doorman and sprints for a taxi.

SEVEN

Monday, Summer sits alone at the end of a long table in the bright school cafeteria, trying to appear coolly oblivious to the three sophomore guys at the other end whispering and shooting her furtive looks. Their clothes, their slang, their zits, are the same as at any other American high school, except that there are more kids from more countries here, and apparently they come and go more frequently. It’s not even weird that she arrived in the middle of the semester.

All she has to do is get through this lunch, then this week of classes, then three more. And finals. She massages the bridge of her nose.

The important thing is to stay focused. Persevere.

Honestly, would a boyfriend help her do that? Or hurt? And where
is
she going to meet someone?

She pushes the chicken nuggets around her plate, thinking yet again about Kurt. His intense stare and cold heat. That fluffy hair. Her wish practically dropped in her lap. The hottest guy she’s ever seen, let alone talked to, and she totally blew it. Freaked out for nothing, probably.

Withdraw and retreat.

She absently cuts a nugget in half then nibbles the edge of a piece. Yuck. They do
not
know how to fry chicken here.

She’s had very little practice with hot guys. With any guys. And that’s because she’s chunky and doggy. Or was. Even at parties where everyone else is hooking up, she’s always the odd woman out. She freezes up or says dumb things. Or offensive things.

He seemed so genuinely interested though. Eyes don’t lie.

And out of the corner of hers she sees the drama guy, Moony, limping toward her. She doesn’t look up, hoping he’ll go by.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asks. She does, and is about to respond with something about head lice but checks herself. His eyes are bright and his lopsided smile wide.

“Okay. Just don’t try and recruit me.”

He grins and places his tray across from her.

It really is raining men.

She’s five eight and usually weighs in around 175 pounds, which sounds better as eighty kilos. But in tenth grade she was briefly down to 133 and was amazed, alarmed, and then distressed at the attention she got. She must be there or near again. Which is weird, because for the first time since she was eleven she hasn’t even been trying. But she also hasn’t much wanted to eat.

Moony falls into his seat ungracefully, holding his leg out at a funny angle.

“What’s up with your leg, anyway?” she asks.

“Bad car accident,” he says, forking a French fry into his mouth. “Age ten.”

“Whoa. What happened?”

He smiles. “Cousin was driving. Totaled the car. Obliterated my right side. Didn’t do my left any good.” He sticks out his leg and, with his right hand that she now sees is thin and deformed, clutches his jean pants leg up to midcalf. Masses of thick and thin scars crisscross his skin. A few dark leg hairs sprout in between the silver lines and byways. Some sort of plastic brace supports his ankle, and his right high-top sneaker has a three-inch-thick false bottom. “Could show you more, don’t want to ruin your lunch.”

“Jeez,” she exhales. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

He shrugs, no problem.

“Did your cousin, um, survive?”

“Yeah. Smashed up, too, but fine now. He’s a paramedic.” Moony looks pleased.

He works well with his left arm and leg, and from far away moves almost normally, except for the limp. His shoulders are broad but uneven. His face would be classically handsome but the one eye is funny and the right side of his jaw is lumpy like it’s made of Lego pieces. That right arm under his long-sleeved T-shirt is thin and misshapen. He makes a huge effort to compensate and it almost works, but he’s seriously messed up.

A buff black guy brushes by them. “Yo, Moony,” he says.

“Javier,” says Moony back.

“Is Moony like, a nickname?” asks Summer.

“Yeah. For Munir.”

“Arabic. You’re
Muslim
?” With that drawl she thought he was from South Carolina.

“Yeah. I’m Christian, too. Father’s Kuwaiti. Mom’s American. Teaches third grade in the lower school.”

“Is that allowed?”

“She’s fully qualified.”

“No.” Summer smiles. “Being both religions.”

“Depends who you ask.” He laughs, and takes a bite of lasagna with the fork in his left hand. He rests his thin, scarred, curled right one on the table near his plate, exhibiting good European table manners.

“You’re a modern poster boy for interfaith understanding.” He’s so relaxed about something so many people freak out about. At least in Arkansas.

“I wish,” he says through ricotta and meat sauce.

“Don’t people usually ask about … your leg?” He showed her his scars with an almost enthusiasm.

“No. I like people to ask. Better than pretending I’m normal.”

“May I?” she asks. He nods and she takes a French fry with her fingers, bad European table manners. “So was it here? The accident? In Paris?”

“Kuwait City.”

“Oh. What happened?” She leans forward as the cafeteria is now full of gossiping teens and clanking cutlery.

“Don’t remember anything. Abdul went too fast, lost control.”

“How old was he?”

Moony looks down. “Thirteen.”

“Ohmigod!” she squeals.

“Was a maniac,” he explains patiently. “Didn’t have permission.”

“Obviously.”