Anna and the French Kiss

chapter sixteen

I’m mopping up his mess with a towel when there’s a knock on my door. I open it with my elbows to keep the vomit from touching my doorknob.

It’s Ellie. I nearly drop my towel. “Oh.”

Slutty nurse. I don’t believe it. Tiny white button-up dress, red crosses across the nipples. Cleavage city.

“Anna, I’m soooo sorry,” St. Clair moans behind me, and she rushes to his side.

“Ohmygod, St. Clair! Are you okay?” Again, her husky voice startles me. As if the nurse getup weren’t enough to make me feel completely juvenile and inadequate.

“’Course he’s not okay,” Josh grumbles from the bed. “He just puked on Anna.”

Josh is awake?

Ellie smacks Josh’s feet, which hang over the edge of my bed. “Get up. Help me move him to his room.”

“I can get up by my bloody self.” St. Clair tries to push himself up, and Ellie and I reach out to steady him. She glares at me, and I back up.

“How’d you know he was here?” I ask.

“Meredith called, but I was already on my way. I’d just gotten his message. He called a few hours ago, but I didn’t get it, because I was getting ready for this stupid party.” She gestures at her costume, upset with herself. “I should have been here.” She brushes St. Clair’s hair from his forehead. “It’s okay, babe. I’m here now.”

“Ellie?” St. Clair sounds confused, as if he’s just noticed her. “Anna? Why is Ellen here? She’s not supposed to be here.”

His girlfriend shoots me a hateful look, and I shrug with embarrassment. “He’s really, really drunk,” I say.

She thwacks Josh again, and he rolls off the bed. “All right, all right!” Amazingly, he stands and pulls St. Clair off the floor. They balance him between their shoulders. “Get the door,” she says sharply. I open it, and they stagger out.

St. Clair looks back. “Anna. Anna, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ve already cleaned it up. It’s fine, it’s not a big deal.”

“No. About everything else.”

Ellie’s head jerks back to me, angry and confused, but I don’t care. He looks so awful. I wish they’d put him down. He could sleep in my bed tonight; I could stay with Mer. But they’re already maneuvering him into the rickety elevator. They push aside the metal grate and squish inside. St. Clair stares at me sadly as the door shuts.

“She’ll be fine!Your mother will be fine!”

I don’t know if he hears me. The elevator creaks upward. I watch it until it disappears.

Sunday, November 1, All Saints’ Day. Oddly enough, this is the actual day that Parisians visit cemeteries. I’m told people are dropping by the graves of loved ones and leaving flowers and personal tokens.

The thought makes me ill. I hope St. Clair doesn’t remember today is a holiday.

When I wake up, I stop by Meredith’s. She’s already been to his room, and either he’s out cold or he’s not accepting visitors. Most likely both. “It’s best to let him sleep,” she says. And I’m sure she’s right, but I can’t help but tune my ear to the floor above.The first movements begin in the late afternoon, but even these are muffled. Slow shuffles and laborious thuds.

He wouldn’t come out for dinner. Josh, who is cross and bleary, says he checked in with him on his way here—a pizza place, where we always eat on Sunday night—and St. Clair didn’t want company. Josh and Rashmi have patched things up. She looks smug to see him suffering through a hangover.

My emotions are conflicted. I’m worried for St. Clair’s mother, and I’m worried for St. Clair, but I’m also furious with his father. And I can’t focus on anything for more than a second before my mind whirls back to this:

St. Clair likes me. As more than a friend.

I felt truth behind his words, but how can I overlook the fact that he was drunk? Absolutely, positively, one hundred and ten percent smashed. And as much as I want to see him, to be assured with my own eyes that he’s still alive, I don’t know what I’d say. Do we talk about it? Or do I act like it never happened?

He needs friendship right now, not relationship drama. Which is why it’s really crappy that it’s become a lot harder to kid myself that St. Clair’s attention hasn’t been as flattering—or as welcome—as it has.

Toph calls around midnight. We haven’t talked on the phone in weeks, but with everything happening here, I’m distracted the entire time. I just want to go back to bed. It’s too confusing. Everything is too confusing.

St. Clair was absent again at breakfast. And I think he’s not even coming to class today (and who could blame him?), when he appears in English, fifteen minutes late. I worry that Professeur Cole will yell at him, but the faculty must have been notified of the situation, because she doesn’t say a word. She just gives him a pitying look and pushes ahead with our lesson. “So why aren’t Americans interested in translated novels? Why are so few foreign works published in English every year?”

I try to meet St. Clair’s gaze, but he stares down at his copy of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Or rather, stares through it. He’s pale, practically translucent.

“Well,” she continues. “It’s often suggested that as a culture, we’re only interested in immediate gratification. Fast food. Self-checkout. Downloadable music, movies, books. Instant coffee, instant rebates, instant messaging. Instant weight loss! Shall I go on?”

The class laughs, but St. Clair is quiet. I watch him nervously. Dark stubble is beginning to shadow his face. I hadn’t realized he needed to shave so often.

“Foreign novels are less action-oriented.They have a different pace; they’re more reflective. They challenge us to look for the story, find the story within the story. Take Balzac. Whose story is this? The narrator’s? The little seamstress’s? China’s?”

I want to reach out and squeeze his hand and tell him everything will be okay. He shouldn’t be here. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I were in his situation. His dad should have pulled him from school. He should be in California.

Professeur Cole taps the novel’s cover. “Dai Sijie, born and raised in China. Moved to France. He wrote Balzac in French, but set the story in his homeland. And then it was translated into English. So how many steps away from us is that? Is it the one, French to English? Or do we count the first translation, the one the author only made in his mind, from Chinese to French? What do we lose each time the story is reinterpreted?”

I’m only half listening to her. After class, Meredith and Rashmi and I walk silently with St. Clair to calculus and exchange worried glances when he’s not looking.Which I’m sure he knows we’re doing anyway. Which makes me feel worse.

My suspicions about the faculty are confirmed when Professeur Babineaux takes him aside before class begins. I can’t follow the entire conversation, but I hear him ask if St. Clair would rather spend the hour in the nurse’s office. St. Clair accepts. As soon as he leaves, Amanda Spitterton-Watts is in my face. “What’s with St. Clair?”

“Nothing.” Like I’d tell her.

She flips her hair, and I notice with satisfaction that a strand gets stuck to her lip gloss. “Because Steve said he and Josh were totally wasted Saturday night. He saw them staggering through the Halloween party, and St. Clair was freaking out about his dad.”

“Well, he heard wrong.”

“Steve said St. Clair wanted to kill his father.”

“Steve is full of shit,” Rashmi interrupts. “And where were you on Saturday, Amanda? So trashed you had to rely on Steve for the play-by-play?”

But this shuts her up only temporarily. By lunch, it’s clear the whole school knows. I’m not sure who spilled—if it was the teachers, or if Steve or one of his bonehead friends remembered something else St. Clair said—but the entire student body is buzzing. When St. Clair finally arrives in the cafeteria, it’s like a scene from a bad teen movie. Conversation screeches to a halt. Drinks are paused halfway to lips.

St. Clair stops in the doorway, assesses the situation, and marches back out. The four of us chase after him. We find him pushing through the school doors, heading to the courtyard. “I don’t want to talk about it.” His back is to us.

“Then we won’t talk about it,” Josh says. “Let’s go out for lunch.”

“Crêpes?” Mer asks. They’re St. Clair’s favorite.

“That sounds amazing,” Rashmi chimes in.

“I’m starving,” Josh says. “Come on.” We move forward, hoping he’ll follow. He does, and it’s all we can do not to sigh in relief. Mer and Rashmi lead the way, while Josh falls back with St. Clair. Josh talks about little nothings—a new pen he bought for their art class, the rap song his neighbor keeps blasting about sweaty rumps—and it helps. At least, St. Clair shows minimal signs of life. He mumbles something in reply.

I hover between the groups. I know it’s goody-goody of me, but as concerned as I am about St. Clair, I’m also worried about ditching. I don’t want to get in trouble. I glance back at SOAP, and Josh shoots me a look that says, The school won’t care today.

I hope he’s right.

Our favorite crêperie is only minutes away, and my fear of skipping school eases as I watch the crêpe man ladle the batter onto the griddle. I order mine the way I always do here, by pointing at the picture of a banana and Nutella crêpe and saying please.The man pours the warm chocolate-hazelnut spread over the thin, pancakelike crêpe, folds the banana in, and then drizzles more Nutella on top. As a final flourish, he adds a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Real vanilla, which is tan with black flecks.

I moan as I sink into the first bite. Warm and gooey and chocolaty and perfect.

“You have Nutella on your chin,” Rashmi says, pointing with her fork.

“Mmm,” I reply.

“It’s a good look,” Josh says. “Like a little soul patch.”

I dip my finger in the chocolate and paint on a mustache. “Better?”

“Maybe if you didn’t just give yourself a Hitler,” Rashmi says.

To my surprise, St. Clair gives a snort. I’m encouraged. I redip and paint one side up in a swirl.

“You’re getting it wrong,” Josh says. “Come here.” He dabs his finger in the edge of my sauce and adds the other half carefully, with his steady artist’s hand, and then touches up my half. I look at my reflection in the restaurant’s glass and find myself with a massive, curly mustache. They laugh and clap, and Mer snaps a picture.

The men in elaborately tied scarves sitting at the table beside us look disgusted, so I pretend to twirl the ends of my Nutella mustache.The others are cracking up, and finally, finally St. Clair gives the teeniest of teeny smiles.

It’s a wonderful sight.

I wipe the chocolate from my face and smile back. He shakes his head. The others launch into a discussion of weird facial hair—Rashmi has an uncle who once shaved off all of his hair except what grew around the edge his face—and St. Clair leans over to speak with me. His face is close to mine, and his eyes are hollow. His voice is scratchy. “About the other night—”

“Forget about it, it wasn’t a big deal,” I say. “It cleaned right up.”

“What cleaned right up?”

Whoops. “Nothing.”

“Did I break something?” He looks confused.

“No! You didn’t break anything. You just, kind of, you know ...” I mime it.

St. Clair hangs his head and groans. “I’m sorry, Anna. I know how clean you keep your room.”

I look away, embarrassed to be called out on this. “It’s okay. Really.”

“Did I at least hit the sink?Your shower?”

“It was on the floor. And my legs. Just a little bit!” I add, seeing the horrified expression on his face.

“I vomited on your legs?”

“It’s okay! I’d totally have done the same if I were in your situation.” The words are out before I have a chance to stop them. And I was trying so hard not to mention it. His face is pained, but he passes by this subject to one equally excruciating.

“Did I ...” St. Clair glances at the others, ensuring they’re still distracted by facial hair. They are. He scoots his chair even closer and lowers his voice. “Did I say anything peculiar to you? That night?”

Uh-oh. “Peculiar?”

“It’s just ... I only vaguely remember being in your room. But I could have sworn we had a conversation about . . . something.”

My heart beats faster, and it’s hard to breathe. He remembers. Sort of. What does that mean? What should I say? As anxious as I am for answers, I’m not prepared for this conversation. I bide for more time. “About what?”

He’s uncomfortable. “Did I say anything odd about . . . our friendship?”

And there it is.

“Or my girlfriend?”

And there that is. I take a long look at him. Dark undereye circles. Unwashed hair. Defeated shoulders. He’s so unhappy, so unlike himself. I won’t be the one to add to his misery, no matter how badly I want the truth. I can’t ask him. Because if he likes me, he’s not in any state to begin a relationship. Or deal with the breakup of an old one. And if he doesn’t like me, then I’d probably lose his friendship. Things would be too weird.

And right now St. Clair needs friendship.

I keep my face blank but sincere. “No. We talked about your mom. That’s all.”

It’s the right answer. He looks relieved.