A Summer in Paris (17 page)

Kristy wasn’t sure she understood, but she nodded anyway. “Go on.”

“Anyway, I secretly applied to a special program at a college with a very strong geology department, without telling them that no matter what they thought, I was still very serious about getting a Ph.D. in this field. They found out my little secret by accident, when the school wrote to me to ask for more information about my studies.” With a frown, he explained, “They happened to see the envelope before I had a chance to hide it from them.”

This was becoming more and more mysterious to Kristy. Why on earth would Alain’s parents be against his studying geology ... and getting a Ph.D. in such a respectable field, no less?

While she was trying not to prolong the introduction to his “good news” any more than necessary, she couldn’t resist asking, “Alain, why are they so against this? It sounds wonderful to me.”

He looked at her sadly. “Because they want me to take over the family business.”

“Oh.” Finally it was beginning to make some sense. “You mean their little store on the outskirts of Paris.”

Alain nodded.

“But here you have an interest in doing something so much more important than simply running a tiny shop! You want to go on to get a good education for yourself, probably to be more successful than anyone else in your family has ever been. Why aren’t they glad about that?”

“Because running the store is a family tradition. My grandfather started the business, and my father took it over after he finished his schooling. My parents always just assumed that when I finished at the Sorbonne—when I got bored with playing with my rocks and stones, was the way they put it—I, too, would be ready to learn the family business so I could continue to run it.”

Kristy shrugged. “I guess people just feel differently here than they do in America. Most people would be thrilled if their kids wanted to get a Ph.D. Anyway, go on, Alain. You still haven’t told me what your good news is.”

“A few months ago, when my parents saw the envelope from the school I had applied to, we all sat down and had a long talk about my future. I tried very hard to make them understand about the things that are important to me. When I managed to make them see how much it means to me, they finally agreed that
if—if—I
got into this special program, they would send me off with their blessing. No more talk about the store. But if I wasn’t accepted into the program—”

“But I bet you were, right?”

Alain nodded, his face relaxing into a huge grin.

“Oh, Alain! I’m so thrilled for you!” Kristy threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad you’re going to get to do what you really want.”

“Yes, but that’s not even the very best part,” Alain said, drawing away from her so he could see her face. “Kristy, I can hardly wait to tell you the rest of this.”

“Then don’t wait,” Kristy said, laughing. “What is it, Alain?”

He took a deep breath before speaking. He was still wearing his huge smile as he said, “The school I’m going to is in Boston, Massachusetts. The same city where you are going to college in the fall!”

Suddenly the true meaning of his words dawned on her. Alain was coming to the United States to study. That was wonderful for him, but it meant that he was going to find out that she was a fraud!

Her spirits instantly sank. It was suddenly clear to her that what had begun as a kind of prank, an experiment to see what life would be like if she truly were the person she had always dreamed of being, had seriously backfired. As soon as Alain found out how sneaky she had been, he would want nothing to do with her. He would see her for what she really was ... not only someone capable of tricking him for weeks on end, but also someone who, in reality, was a social zero, an absolute nothing. Whatever friendship existed between her and Alain, whatever romance was beginning to blossom ... it would all be crushed when he found out that she was a phony.

Kristy felt like crying. But she knew that, for now at least, she had to pretend that everything was fine, that her happiness for him over being accepted into the academic program that was so important to him was untainted.

“Oh, Alain, that’s so great,” she cooed. “Really. I couldn’t be happier for you.”

“Not only for me, also for us!” he proclaimed triumphantly. “Kristy, this means we can still be together in the fall! We will be living in the same city. We don’t have to go off on our separate ways just because the summer is over. Everything is working out perfectly.”

Kristy forced a smile. “Everything is perfect,” she said. “Completely, utterly perfect.”

But she could already see the writing on the wall.

“Here, let me take your picture,” Alain was saying, reaching for her camera. “I want to remember exactly how you look today. The day you found out that you and I were going to be together! I want to record this day, a day that for both of us is the best day of our lives!”

“Sure, Alain. Go ahead.”

Halfheartedly Kristy struck a pose, hoping the two-dimensional, black-and-white image wouldn’t expose the truth—that instead of its being the best day of her life, this was one of the worst.

* * * *

“How about waitressing?” Kristy suggested, her tone of voice making it clear that she was trying to be helpful.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the sunny front room on the third floor of Madame Rousseau’s sister’s house, the room that Nina was planning to turn into a living room and study when she moved in at the end of the summer. Immediately after their morning classes that day, Nina had insisted on bringing her two best friends over for a look at the dream apartment that, hopefully, would soon be hers.

“If you worked as a waitress, you could make a lot of money from tips,” Kristy went on enthusiastically. “Hey, I know. Since you speak English, maybe you could work in a restaurant that specializes in tourists.”

Nina, sitting on the floor beside her, made a face. “I don’t want to live in Paris so that I can work around other Americans! Besides, restaurants are run differently here, remember? We learned that in our class on French culture. Waiters and waitresses don’t get tipped in cash, the way they do at home. In France, a fifteen-percent service charge is automatically added on to every bill.”

“Why anybody would want to stay here at
all
is beyond me,” Jennifer grumbled, lounging on the threadbare couch. The oversized piece of furniture looked rather lonely, parked the way it was in the middle of the room. “I mean, this apartment is nice and everything, but I’m already counting the days until I can go home.”

“Jen, you’ve been doing that since the moment we stepped off the plane,” Kristy shot back.

Nina, meanwhile, chose to ignore Jennifer.

“Even waitressing would require working papers,” she said, staring out the window at the charming town houses lined up below. There was also a small grocery across the street, an
épicier.
Already she was longing to make stopping in there for cheese and fruit and French bread a part of her everyday routine. In fact, just thinking about it made her heart ache with longing for the romantic, totally free existence that she imagined living in Paris would provide for her.

She let out a long, loud sigh. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to get a job.”

“If you need these ... these working papers,” Kristy said, “then why don’t you just go get them?”

“It’s not that simple,” Nina replied. “Getting them requires applications, proof of residence, special documents ... all kinds of maddening paperwork. Mostly, it requires time.

“And time happens to be the one thing I haven’t got. We have less than two weeks left before we’re scheduled to go home. If I don’t have a job by then ...”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Kristy insisted. “You’ve already got yourself a great apartment. You’ve got good friends here, like Pierre and the Rousseaus. You even stood up to your parents and told them that, whether they liked it or not, you were going to stay. And they seem to have accepted it.

“Face it, you’ve been pretty lucky so far. And there’s no reason in the world why your luck shouldn’t hold up.”

Nina just nodded. She had to believe that Kristy was right. To believe she wasn’t right, after all, would have been just too depressing.

“How about you, Kristy?” she asked. “Are you like Jennifer here, already starting to think about going back home?”

“Well....” Kristy swallowed hard. She was thinking about Alain—and the news he had delivered to her just the day before. “I guess I have started thinking about what it’s going to be like going to school in Boston in the fall.”

She was debating whether or not to say anything to her friends about the latest development with Alain when Jennifer cut in.

“What about Alain?” Mindlessly she pulled a loose thread out of the couch’s slipcover fabric. “Aren’t you two, like, madly in love or something? Aren’t you going to miss him?”

“Yes, what about Alain?” Nina asked.

“As a matter of fact,” Kristy said slowly, “he got some rather interesting news just the other day. He’s, uh, going to school in Boston in the fall.”

Nina jerked her head up. “Boston? You mean Boston, Massachusetts? The same Boston where you’re going to college in September?”

Kristy just nodded.

“That’s fantastic!” Nina cried. “Kristy, you must be in seventh heaven! I mean, it’s been obvious from the start that you really like Alain. And he’s made it clear that he’s crazy about you. And now he’s going to go back to the States the same time as you ... things couldn’t be better!”

“I guess so.”

Nina frowned. “You don’t seem very enthusiastic. Is there something wrong?”

Here it is, Kristy was thinking, another chance to tell them, another chance to get their advice. But the more her little white lie snowballed, the less likely it seemed that she would ever be able to tell anyone about it, no matter how much she wanted to.

So she just shrugged and said, “I guess I’m just surprised by the whole thing, that’s all. I never expected in a million years that my relationship with Alain would continue past the summer.”

“You don’t have to continue it, you know,” Nina said gently. “If you’re not sure about him, that is.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s just that ... well, I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.” Anxious to change the topic of conversation before she said any more, Kristy said, “How about you, Jennifer? How has Danny been doing without you all summer? Has he been writing you letters?”

“Almost every day,” Jennifer replied proudly. “And I’ve been writing to him every day, too. I’ve been telling him everything that’s been happening to me.”

“You must be writing very short reports,” Kristy couldn’t help commenting.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Jennifer shot back.

“Nothing. Just that... well, you haven’t exactly been going out of your way to make the most of your time in Paris. Even you have to admit that, Jen.”

“I’ve been doing some interesting things,” Jennifer sniffed, not wanting to be left out. “Just the other night, the Cartiers’ granddaughter, Michèle, took me to a party so I could meet some of her friends.”

“That was considerate of her,” Nina said. “What were they like?”

Jennifer thought for a few seconds. “Some of them were really creepy. There was this one girl, Monique or something, who was all over me, criticizing Americans. I didn’t like her at all.”

“Weren’t any of them nice?” Kristy asked, exasperated.

“Well ... there was this one boy—”

“A boy?” Kristy and Nina cried in unison, instantly sitting up straighter. The two of them looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

“Okay,” said Kristy. “Come on, spill the beans, Jen. Tell us all about him.”

“To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure I liked him all that much,” Jennifer said slowly. “It’s just that at this party, he was so darned nice to me.”

“What’s this?” Kristy said teasingly. “Jennifer Johnson met a French person who was actually
nice
? I think I’m going to faint!”

“Well, maybe they’re not all bad,” Jennifer admitted with great reluctance.

“So are you going to go out with this boy?” Nina asked eagerly.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Jennifer said. “Louis— that’s his name—Louis didn’t even ask me for my telephone number. Besides, it’s just as well.”

Kristy looked at Nina, rolling her eyes upward. “Why is that, Jennifer? What’s your excuse this time?”

“I’m just busy, that’s all. Don’t forget, we just got assigned those stupid oral reports on French history that we have to give the last week of classes.”

“I’m looking forward to doing mine,” Nina said. “I was lucky. The topic I was assigned is really interesting. I’m supposed to give a report on France right after the French Revolution.”

“That’s funny,” Kristy said. “My topic is France right before the French Revolution. How about you, Jen? What’s your topic?”

Jennifer made a face. “France during World War II. What could possibly be more boring than that? Even so, I want to do a decent job on it. I mean, we do have to stand up in front of the entire class and give a twenty-minute report. I don’t want to make a total fool of myself.”

For a long time, the girls lapsed into silence. Each one was thinking about her own problems. For Jennifer, it was researching and writing a report that she was anything but enthusiastic about. For Kristy, it was worrying about how she would ever manage to maintain her false identity once Alain was on her home turf. For Nina, it was finding a job so that her dream of living in Paris could really come true. What was supposed to be a special, carefree time for each of the three girls was, at least at the moment, looking very, very complicated.

* * * *

“Nina, I’ve had a brainstorm,” Pierre said, appearing on the Rousseaus’ doorstep late one afternoon. He was so excited about his “
idée de génie
” that he didn’t even notice the distraught expression on Nina’s face as she answered the door.

“A brainstorm?” Nina repeated. “Wait, Pierre, before you say anything, there’s something important I have to tell you.”