No surprise there. My mom is a high school biology teacher, which doesn’t give us a lot of extra spending money. Dad pays for the mortgage and helps with the bil s, but it’s not enough, and Mom is too proud to ask for more. She says he’d refuse her anyway and just go buy another el iptical machine.
There may be some truth to that.
The rest of the morning passes in a blur. I like Professeur Cole, and my math teacher, Professeur Babineaux, is nice enough. He’s Parisian, and he
waggles his eyebrows and spits when he talks.To be fair, I don’t think the spitting is a French thing. I think he just has a lisp. It’s hard to tell with the accent.
After that, I have beginning French. Professeur Gil et turns out to be another Parisian. Figures. They always send in native speakers for foreign language classes. My Spanish teachers were always rol ing their eyes and exclaiming, “¡Aye, dios mio!” whenever I raised my hand. They got frustrated when I couldn’t grasp a concept that seemed obvious to them.
I stopped raising my hand.
As predicted, the class is a bunch of freshmen. And me. Oh, and one junior, the angry scheduling guy from this morning. He introduces himself enthusiastical y as Dave, and I can tell he’s as relieved as I am to not be the only upperclassman.
Maybe Dave is pretty cool after all.
At noon, I fol ow the stampede to the cafeteria. I avoid the main line and go straight to the counter with the choose-your-own fruit and bread, even though the pasta smel s amazing. I’m such a wuss. I’d rather starve than try to order in French. “Oui, oui!” I’d say, pointing at random words on the chalkboard.
Then Chef Handlebar would present me with something revolting, and I’d have to buy it out of shame. Of course I meant to order the roasted pigeon!
Mmm! Just like Nanna’s.
Meredith and her friends are lounging at the same table as this morning. I take a deep breath and join them. To my relief, no one looks surprised.
Meredith asks St. Clair if he’s seen his girlfriend yet. He relaxes into his chair. “No, but we’re meeting tonight.”
“Did you see her this summer? Have her classes started? What’s she taking this semester?” She keeps asking questions about El ie to which he gives short replies. Josh and Rashmi are making out—I can actual y see tongue—so I turn to my bread and grapes. How biblical of me.
The grapes are smal er than I’m used to, and the skin is slightly textured. Is that dirt? I dip my napkin in water and dab at the tiny purple globes. It helps, but they’re stil sort of rough. Hmm. St. Clair and Meredith stop talking. I glance up to find them staring at me in matching bemusement. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Continue your grape bath.”
“They were dirty.”
“Have you tried one?” she asks.
“No, they’ve stil got these little mud flecks.” I hold one up to show them. St. Clair plucks it from my fingers and pops it into his mouth. I’m hypnotized by his lips, his throat, as he swal ows.
I hesitate.Would I rather have clean food or his good opinion?
He picks up another and smiles. “Open up.”
I open up.
The grape brushes my lower lip as he slides it in. It explodes in my mouth, and I’m so startled by the juice that I nearly spit it out.The flavor is intense, more like grape candy than actual fruit. To say I’ve tasted nothing like it before is an understatement. Meredith and St. Clair laugh. “Wait until you try them as wine,” she says.
St. Clair twirls a forkful of pasta. “So. How was French class?”
The abrupt subject change makes me shudder. “Professeur Gil et is scary. She’s all frown lines.” I tear off a piece of baguette. The crust crackles, and the inside is light and springy. Oh, man. I shove another hunk into my mouth.
Meredith looks thoughtful. “She can be intimidating at first, but she’s real y nice once you get to know her.”
“Mer is her star pupil,” St. Clair says.
Rashmi breaks apart from Josh, who looks dazed by the fresh air. “She’s taking advanced French and advanced Spanish,” she adds.
“Maybe you can be my tutor,” I say to Meredith. “I stink at foreign languages. The only reason this place overlooked my Spanish grades was because the head reads my father’s dumb novels.”
“How do you know?” she asks.
I rol my eyes. “She mentioned it once or twice in my phone interview.” She kept asking questions about casting decisions for The Lighthouse. Like Dad has any say in that. Or like I care. She didn’t realize my cinematic tastes are a bit more sophisticated.
“I’d like to learn Italian,” Meredith says. “But they don’t offer it here. I want to go to col ege in Rome next year. Or maybe London. I could study it there, too.”
“Surely Rome is a better place to study Italian?” I ask.
“Yeah, well .” She steals a glance at St. Clair. “I’ve always liked London.”
Poor Mer. She’s got it bad.
“What do you want to do?” I ask him. “Where are you going?”
St. Clair shrugs. It’s slow and ful -bodied, surprisingly French. The same shrug the waiter at the restaurant last night gave me when I asked if they served pizza. “Don’t know. It depends, though I’d like to study history.” He leans forward, like he’s about to share a naughty secret. “I’ve always wanted to be one of those blokes they interview on BBC or PBS specials.You know, with the crazy eyebrows and suede elbow patches.”
Just like me! Sort of. “I want to be on the classic movies channel and discuss Hitchcock and Capra with Robert Osborne. He hosts most of their programs. I mean I know he’s an old dude, but he’s so freaking cool. He knows everything about film.”
“Real y?” He sounds genuinely interested.
“St. Clair’s head is always in history books the size of dictionaries,” Meredith interrupts. “It’s hard to get him out of his room.”
“That’s because El ie’s always in there,” Rashmi says drily.
“You’re one to talk.” He gestures toward Josh. “Not to mention . . . Henri.”
“Henri!” Meredith says, and she and St. Clair burst into laughter.
“One frigging afternoon, and you’l never let me forget it.” Rashmi glances at Josh, who stabs his pasta.