Romancing the Dark in the City of Light (2 page)

Don’t forget Mme. LF. Ask about colleges for January.

Crap. She did forget. She’s late for her appointment with the college counselor.

She peeks out the door then leans her head heavily against the cool jamb. What’s his name—Josh—wasn’t trying to insult her. At least at first. She was supposed to say something witty or flirty back.

Not burn him.

Twenty–sixty hindsight.

But she will have to hunt beyond the International School if she wants to meet someone. Where and how is going to take planning

The coast is clear and she dashes.

Madame Laforge is an American, married to a Frenchman. She sits behind a blond wood desk in a small office that smells like pickles, frowning at Summer’s tardiness.

“Sorry about that,” Summer says, plopping into the chair. She’s still revved from her unsocial encounter. Deep breath.

Madame rifles through Summer’s file, purple-framed glasses perched on her nose. “I spoke with your mother, who was
quite
insistent that I help you as soon as possible. And she’s out of the country, I understand.”

“Yep.” Exhale.

“I have received your transcripts.” She adds, “You were a straight-A student in eighth and ninth grades.”

Summer knows the shocked tone well. Her average has declined a tad since then. Her last school was for disabled, unable, and unwilling rich kids. Ironically, her one relationship experience, if you could call it that, was there.

Madame goes on, “I understand you’ll actually finish at the end of this semester.” She glances at the IB art students’ calendar on the wall. “In five weeks.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Thanks to her mother’s high-level negotiations and maybe a large donation, the school will let her graduate—even with her abysmal record.

If she passes everything.

Madame’s expression says,
Good luck with that
. “Your academic record is one thing, but I’m not sure how we can downplay this disciplinary history.” She purses her lips. “Being asked to leave four schools will be problematic any way we cut it.”

Summer gazes out the window at the gloomy day. At Verde Valley School in Arizona, at least the sun always shone. She was there for eleventh and most of her first senior year. It’s the only one she misses. St. Jude’s was a train wreck.

“While we’re on the subject, you do understand that PAIS will absolutely not tolerate the use of drugs or alcohol?”

Summer knows to look directly at her interrogator. “Yes, I do.”

Before shuttling her to the airport, the disciplinary committee at St. Jude’s played her the grainy clip that some brainless freshman videoed—and the dean confiscated—of her staggering hammered across the dorm lobby and then face-planting outside in the hedge.

If only someone were casting for a last-one-standing party reality show, she thinks wistfully. She’d be a shoo-in.

Madame regards Summer over her glasses. “Is your father here in France?”

Why is she asking? “No.” Now
he
had some drinking issues, but Summer doesn’t say that. “He died. Six years ago, next month.”

“I see. I’m sorry. Normal procedure is a first meeting with a student’s parents, but we’ll have to forego that.” Madame focuses back on her laptop screen. “We’ll be targeting only US colleges, as UK or EU universities are out of the question. Your verbal SAT scores aren’t bad. If you can bring your grades up for this semester—and there isn’t much time, it’ll all be over December twentieth—we might be able to swing it.” She sighs.

“Right. I’ve turned in more homework in the last two weeks than I did in the previous year.” Totally true.

“Well.” Madame licks her thumb and flips through several more pages. “You desperately need some extracurricular activities.”

“That could be a problem,” says Summer drily.

Madame beams her a look of disbelief.

She shifts in her seat. “Okay, not a problem. I was actually just thinking about helping with the school musical.”

“You understand you will need
high
grades to prove that you have a new attitude.”

Remembering Mom’s instructions, Summer asks, “Are there any schools that start late January that I could apply to fast?”

“
This
January? May I ask why?”

“Because my grandpa wants me to.” She doesn’t clarify that he’s dead and left her money that she’ll receive only if she graduates from a four-year university by age twenty-two.

“First-semester grades won’t be out in time. And based on your records, no.” Madame observes Summer over her glasses. “You do understand that we cannot give you another chance if you fail to pass all your classes in the next weeks.”

“Yes. I
do
understand. Everything.” She notes that familiar cold, falling feeling. But it’s not leaden. It’s wispy. Like snowflakes.

When she was eight and on a family skiing trip, she and Dad glided off trail and stopped beneath a ledge. He wanted a nip from his flask. They sat side-by-side in a soft, protected hollow, her body leaning into the safe warmth and weight of him. They watched through the evergreens as snow fell silent and graceful against darkening skies.

Madame says, “Your mother mentioned Arkansas State in Jonesboro, but that would be a ‘reach’ school for you. North Central Mountain College of the Ozarks in Whipperwillville is a potential safe school.”

I’m on to you, Summer thinks. You made that place up. “The Ozarks are awesome,” she says cheerfully. “Let’s aim for that.”

“I’ll be checking with your teachers. Please fill out the personal statement form for me online and I’ll see you in two weeks.”

Probably a whole ’nother year lost now. The thought occurs to Summer, as she shuffles out of the office. She might make a good tabloid headline, though.
FORMER HONOR ROLL GRANDDAUGHTER AND ONLY HEIR PROVES WORTHLESS, FLAMES OUT, AND FORFEITS FORTUNE.

At least she didn’t get the “choices” lecture today
.
It is so time to be finished with high school and she has screwed up long enough. The good thing about this bad news is it makes her want to prove everyone wrong. She’ll bust ass for the next month, and graduate if it kills her. Then worry about where to apply next.

And she still wants to find someone to hold hands with. Or else she might as well chug a can of motor oil now.

FOUR

In the kitchen the next morning, Mom’s little dog, Camus, barks at Summer when she sits down. She ignores him despite the pain it blasts through her headache. Mom’s elderly Moroccan housekeeper mutters and puts him on the other side of the pantry door, then places a plate of scrambled eggs before Summer.

“
Merci,
” Summer says. Mom’s still out of town. The
International Herald Tribune
and
Le Monde
lie before her. By the gray light from the courtyard window she scans the city section of the French paper looking for any mention of the lady who died at
É
toile station. Fire, robberies—nothing looks close.

“Ouaiba, I’m looking, uh—
je cherche … un accident
.”

Ouaiba dries her hands on a violet linen dishtowel and approaches.

Summer holds up the paper. “
Une femme … etait mort … dans le M
é
tro
.”

“
Sacrebleu!
”

“Can you help me? Find the story?
L’histoire?
”

Ouaiba takes the paper and scans the two pages of short local police reports. “
Hier
?
Yes-ter-day?” she asks.

“Thursday.
Jeudi soir
.”

Ouaiba shakes her head. She doesn’t see anything either.

No mention, as if it never even happened. It was a suicide then, Summer thinks. If it had been an accident, or a murder, it would be a
story
.

Summer dresses and heads out. Public transportation is one of the best things about Paris. She’s had free run of the city since her first visit at age thirteen. A ton of homework awaits her but she has tomorrow, too. She gets that she has to graduate. She needs to find someone to be with.

As she descends the M
é
tro stairs, her pulse quickens. She stops. Something huge and dark and cold and deadly waits patiently below for her.

Great. Trainophobia. Just what she didn’t order.

She grips the grimy handrail, as people push around her. It’s as if the lady on the tracks is still there, emitting a repelling force field. She inches forward. Shallow breathing makes her light-headed. She grabs a seat on the train, then concentrates on slow, deep breaths and listens to Kentucky’s
Safety Glass
.

A couple of sips from her silver flask help. It was given to her dad by his fraternity brothers at the University of Arkansas. He kept it filled with scotch. She’s a vodka girl, herself.

She emerges in the eleventh arrondissement, gulping in fresh air and proud of her fortitude in overcoming this new little anxiety.

A twenty-foot wall rings the outside of P
è
re Lachaise Cemetery, but she enters by a side stairway. Her mini guide has a fold-out map showing the locations of all the noteworthy residents: Oscar Wilde, Fr
é
d
é
ric Chopin, Edith Piaf, and … Jim Morrison.

“‘Hot American lead singer of The Doors and big partier who overdosed in Paris in the seventies,’” she reads. That’s the guy to visit.

Hands deep in her ski jacket pockets, she walks along a gray cobblestone main drag. Soot-darkened, elaborate tombstones, ten-foot angels and obelisk monuments, and shed-sized mausoleums crowd together like bad teeth. Dried leaves cartwheel alongside her, and a solitary man in a dark coat crosses her path in the distance.

So beautiful this place, she thinks. Like something out of a poem. Or a dream.

When she finally finds it, Morrison’s grave is deserted, simple and anticlimactic. Wilted flowers in cellophane, a bourbon bottle, two beer cans, and folded notes litter his grave. On his tombstone, a mysterious line underneath his dates reads,
KATA TON DAIMONA EAUTOY
.

A patch of dry grass and a park bench catch her eye, and even though she must climb uphill to sit, she’s ready for a refreshment break. She sips vodka from her flask to clear her head, then pulls out her phone from her backpack. She opens her to-do app and taps:

Scope out classes. Again.
Then she deletes it.

Join a school club?
Doubtful on that one, too.

Bars. Clubs.
Not ideal.

Ballroom dancing lessons?

French dating sites. Expat dating sites.

Prisons?

Volunteer somewhere.
That would be good for her French, too. But finding something could be a major undertaking and she’s not up for it.

Through the bare trees, crowded, slate rooftops stretch out to the horizon beneath ashy skies. This would be an excellent location for eternal rest, she thinks. Assuming the inhabitants are actually
resting
.

The anniversary of Dad’s death is December 17, less than a month away. She closes her eyes and her twelve-year-old self is sitting in the hard front pew of his quiet memorial service.

“‘I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.’” A guy is standing at the other end of her bench.

“Ex-cuse me?” She clenches her fists. Some English-speaking crackhead has zeroed in on her. She has a green belt in tae kwon do, only it’s been over six years since she’s thrown a good kick.

“The poet you’re reading,” he says. “Plath.” His cologne wafts up her nose. Heavy, spicy, undertones of cider vinegar? He looks about nineteen, maybe twenty—although hard to tell with his unnecessary sunglasses—and he’s wearing jeans and hiking boots, wrapped in a black wool coat. Maybe the guy she glimpsed over on the main drag earlier.

“Oh.” She stares at the front cover of her book, as if she forgot.

He says, “Let me guess. I bet you like Dickinson, too, maybe even Virginia Woolf?”

Without making any sudden moves, she slips the book into her backpack and her phone in her pocket. “I’m going to speak to you as if you’re not insane, because I’ve heard that’s the best way to handle a lunatic.”

He looks taken aback, then laughs. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I don’t often run into women reading Plath in P
è
re Lachaise.”

She has to give him credit. She would appreciate it if everyone took her sharper remarks this well.

His gaze makes her feel like a smear under a microscope. She pulls off her ski hat and runs her hand through her uncombed hair. He’s tall and broad shouldered, with full lips and silky skin. His hair is eighteenth-century-English-poet-like in its thickness, length, slight curl, and suggestion of unkemptness.

“You hang out here regularly?” she asks, zipping her backpack.

He smiles with perfect, straight white teeth. “I’m new in town. Just had some time in between appointments.”

As a rule, guys who hit on her have tossed back a half dozen shots, some X, who knows what else, and are no great shakes themselves. Heathcliff here seems sober, so
why
is he talking to her?

Oh, yeah
,
she thinks, I’ve slipped below the
magic weight
. Deflated my chipmunk cheeks. Even though her clothes are all oversized on her lately, she feels no different. People are nicer to her though.

“You’re American.” She crosses her arms. Maybe this is some kind of prank. Or the guy’s a predator.

“Among other things. I’m here for a while on business.” There’s something familiar about him. Like when you see a stranger on the street and the shape of their eyes or mouth reminds you of a relative. “And you?” he asks. “May I?” He sits on the end of the bench.

He looks like the guy who loitered in the corridor outside of her father’s hospital room. Waiting on someone in one of the other rooms. He kept smiling sadly at her.

But there’s no way. This guy would have been too young.

She says, “I’m originally from Arkansas. Little Rock.”