Anna and the French Kiss

chapter thirty-one

I study him. He bites his left pinkie nail, so his book must be good. Pinkie means excited or happy, thumb means thinking or worried. I’m surprised I know the meaning of these gestures. How closely have I been paying attention to him?

Two elderly women in fur coats and matching hats shuffle past. One of them pauses and turns back around. She asks me a question in French. I can’t make the direct translation, but I know she’s concerned if I’m okay. I nod and tell her thank you. She flashes me another look of unease but moves on.

I can’t walk. What am I supposed to say? Fourteen consecutive days of telephone conversations and now that he’s here in person, I doubt I can stammer a hello. One of the diners at the café stands up to help me. I let go of the round table and stumble across the street. I’m weak in the knees. The closer I get, the more overwhelming it gets. The Panthéon is huge. The steps seem so far away.

He looks up.

Our eyes lock, and he breaks into a slow smile. My heart beats faster and faster. Almost there. He sets down his book and stands. And then this—the moment he calls my name—is the real moment everything changes.

He is no longer St. Clair, everyone’s pal, everyone’s friend.

He is Étienne. Étienne, like the night we met. He is Étienne; he is my friend.

He is so much more.

Étienne. My feet trip in three syllables. É-ti-enne, É-ti-enne, É-ti-enne. His name coats my tongue like melting chocolate. He is so beautiful, so perfect.

My throat catches as he opens his arms and wraps me in a hug. My heart pounds furiously, and I’m embarrassed, because I know he feels it. We break apart, and I stagger backward. He catches me before I fall down the stairs.

“Whoa,” he says. But I don’t think he means me falling.

I blush and blame it on clumsiness. “Yeesh, that could’ve been bad.”

Phew. A steady voice.

He looks dazed. “Are you all right?”

I realize his hands are still on my shoulders, and my entire body stiffens underneath his touch. “Yeah. Great. Super!”

“Hey, Anna. How was your break?”

Josh. I forgot he was here. Étienne lets go of me carefully as I acknowledge Josh, but the whole time we’re chatting, I wish he’d return to drawing and leave us alone. After a minute, he glances behind me—to where Étienne is standing—and gets a funny expression on his face. His speech trails off, and he buries his nose in his sketchbook. I look back, but Étienne’s own face has been wiped blank.

We sit on the steps together. I haven’t been this nervous around him since the first week of school. My mind is tangled, my tongue tied, my stomach in knots. “Well,” he says, after an excruciating minute. “Did we use up all of our conversation over the holiday?”

The pressure inside me eases enough to speak. “Guess I’ll go back to the dorm.” I pretend to stand, and he laughs.

“I have something for you.” He pulls me back down by my sleeve. “A late Christmas present.”

“For me? But I didn’t get you anything!”

He reaches into a coat pocket and brings out his hand in a fist, closed around something very small. “It’s not much, so don’t get excited.”

“Ooo, what is it?”

“I saw it when I was out with Mum, and it made me think of you—”

“Étienne! Come on!”

He blinks at hearing his first name. My face turns red, and I’m filled with the overwhelming sensation that he knows exactly what I’m thinking. His expression turns to amazement as he says, “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

Still blushing, I hold one out. His fingers brush against my palm, and my hand jerks back as if he were electrified. Something goes flying and lands with a faint dink behind us. I open my eyes. He’s staring at me, equally stunned.

“Whoops,” I say.

He tilts his head at me.

“I think . . . I think it landed back here.” I scramble to my feet, but I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I never felt what he placed in my hands. I only felt him. “I don’t see anything! Just pebbles and pigeon droppings,” I add, trying to act normal.

Where is it? What is it?

“Here.” He plucks something tiny and yellow from the steps above him. I fumble back and hold out my hand again, bracing myself for the contact. Étienne pauses and then drops it from a few inches above my hand. As if he’s avoiding touching me, too.

It’s a glass bead. A banana.

He clears his throat. “I know you said Bridgette was the only one who could call you ‘Banana,’ but Mum was feeling better last weekend, so I took her to her favorite bead shop. I saw that and thought of you. I hope you don’t mind someone else adding to your collection. Especially since you and Bridgette . . . you know . . .”

I close my hand around the bead. “Thank you.”

“Mum wondered why I wanted it.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That it was for you, of course.” He says this like, duh.

I beam. The bead is so lightweight I hardly feel it, except for the teeny cold patch it leaves in my palm. Speaking of cold . . .

I shiver. “Has the temperature dropped, or is it just me?”

“Here.” Étienne unwraps the black scarf that had been tied loosely around his neck, and hands it to me. I take it, gently, and wrap it around mine. It makes me dizzy. It smells like freshly scrubbed boy. It smells like him.

“Your hair looks nice,” he says. “You bleached it again.”

I touch the stripe self-consciously. “Mom helped me.”

“That breeze is wicked, I’m going for coffee.” Josh snaps his sketchbook closed. I’d forgotten he was here again. “You coming?”

Étienne looks at me, waiting to see how I answer.

Coffee! I’m dying for a real cup. I smile at Josh. “Sounds perfect.”

And then I’m heading down the steps of the Panthéon, cool and white and glittering, in the most beautiful city in the world. I’m with two attractive, intelligent, funny boys and I’m grinning ear to ear. If Bridgette could see me now.

I mean, who needs Christopher when Étienne St. Clair is in the world?

But as soon as I think of Toph, I get that same stomach churning I always do when I think about him now. Shame that I ever thought he might wait.That I wasted so much time on him. Ahead of me, Étienne laughs at something Josh said. And the sound sends me spiraling into panic as the information hits me again and again and again.

What am I going to do? I’m in love with my new best friend.