The Distance from A to Z (9 page)

I keep walking. I don't know when we shifted to English but I want to go back.
“On doît parler on français,”
I remind him. Speak French, you idiot. In French, I don't need to explain my crazy family and all the disappointment. In French, we can talk about movies and food, how Camembert tastes different than Brie. Our own little world.

“Dis-moi pourquoi tu—”

And we're back.

“It's not a big deal. Baseball is just not my thing.”

There's a pause and I begin to think that maybe . . .

“It sounds like more than just not your thing. . . .”

I'm exhausted; we've been speaking in French forever and my mouth aches from constantly making these unnatural sounds. I love French, and I'm glad I'm here. But part of me is also so damned tired that I want to sink down where
I'm standing and take a break. Close my eyes. Because right now they're filling with tears and that's got to be caused by exhaustion.

“You don't know what it's like come the middle of the summer when it becomes clear that once again the Cubs aren't going to be able win anything. My whole family goes into a depression. It ruins August. It ruins September. And October is truly the cruelest month for a Cubs fan. Because it's never going to happen for us. But—”

And suddenly there are arms around me. Thick, strong arms, and a hand that is now cradling the back of my head. It feels so good. It feels like I've been talking for years, that all this stuff that I've been holding on to for so long is finally coming out, all the gunk and sadness, all the anger and the bone-gnawing weariness. It's finally coming out. Apparently all over Zeke's shirt.

Merde
.

But Zeke doesn't make a move to change position. I know I shouldn't let myself sink like this. I should pull back. I should create distance. I should do so many things to salvage this moment, and closing my eyes and letting the tears fall isn't one of them.

“YOU NEED TO STOP STARING
at your coffee,” Alice says, peeling the wrapper from her second banana chocolate chip muffin. Apparently they're her reward for trying new things, for going out in large environments. One muffin for trying. Another if she sticks it out for a certain amount of time.

“I'd be enormous if I used your system.” I'm shifting my black coffee back and forth between my two hands, trying to see how high I can get the wave up the lip of the mug without it going over. So far I bounce rapidly between undercompensating and overcompensating. Which basically describes my relationship with Zeke in a nutshell. Being accused of being mean to crying on his shirt in under sixty minutes. A new personal best.

And as a result of my meltdown, I never got the shirt he bought me.

“You're going to be late.” Alice is eating her muffin in such tiny bites that I doubt she'll make it to a class at all.

“I'm thinking of skipping.”

If eyes could actually roll, Alice's would be falling out of her head. “It's only the second week.”

“You skipped yesterday,” I remind her.

“I had a migraine. Go to class.”

“I cried on Zeke's shirt yesterday.”

“Aha.” She smiles. “Now we're getting somewhere. You are starting to like your hot French partner.”

I laugh so hard I snort, causing my little wave of coffee to drench my hand. “You think he's hot? Remember, I go for the soulful poets.”

“Then why did you cry on his shirt?”

Why indeed. Could I blame it on baseball? Or on the memories that the discussion generated? Or maybe I was just overtired? I'd been spending every afternoon stuck in the library.

Is this going to be my life for the next seven weeks?

And is it okay that I hope the answer is yes?

“I don't know.”

Zeke shows up to class wearing his new Support Our Troops T-shirt with a photo of a crowd of Star Wars storm troopers, and we don't talk about baseball. Or about my little crying
jag. Instead, he suggests we take turns creating French speaking opportunities so that we don't spend the first half hour of every afternoon session trying to figure out what to do.

“I don't trust you.” I smirk when he waggles his eyebrows to convince me how fun it will be. Especially as it makes his glasses bounce up and down on his nose.

Trust.
Confiance
.

Which reminds me of the T-shirt he never gave me yesterday.
“Où est mon T-shirt? Je n'étais pas méchante . . .”

I wasn't mean, was I? I should get the shirt.

Zeke laughs and reaches into his backpack for the plastic bag from the used clothing store. “I was going to keep it for myself.”

Inside is a T-shirt with a picture of the cranky old guys from
The Muppet Show
(Waldorf and the one I can never remember) with the caption
Haters Gonna Hate
. It's perfect.

“Not a chance; this one's mine now.”

Zeke shrugs and bounces his glasses with his nose again. “Come on, let's trade off creating assignments?
S'il te plaît?
”

Oh god. He's giving me puppy-dog eyes.

Zut.

“D'accords.”

And now Zeke, in his Star Wars T-shirt and long plaid shorts and those bright green Chucks—how many pairs
does this boy have?—is dancing a little happy dance in front of Lederer Hall. His index fingers point up and his hips rock back and forth, and he moves to some disjointed tune he tries to sing, and I can't help it.

I laugh.

And I continue laughing later that evening when Zeke takes me on a tour of Merritt as if it were Paris.

“Voici le fameux Jardin du Luxembourg,”
he says, stopping at the very ordinary, nothing-at-all-like-Paris Daley Park. He's created one of those sticks with a sign on top that reads
A to Z Tours
and he waves it back and forth when he stops. Like there's a crowd of people we're walking through. Like there's a crowd of people following him.

“Uh, this isn't . . .”

“Look from this angle,” he says, shoving a photograph of a park in front of my face, the real Jardin du Luxembourg, his face so earnest.

“You may not be able to tell,” Zeke continues, changing the photographs as he rotates me around to see different angles of Daley Park/Jardin du Luxembourg, “but this park is actually fifty acres, and is one of the most popular places to hang out for Parisians and tourists alike.”

His French flawless, his voice like a tour guide, he tells me how the widow of King Henry IV originally lived here, how she created the gardens to remember the Boboli Gardens of
Florence.

“How do you know all this?” I ask as we finally leave the famed Jardin du Luxembourg.

“I did a bit of research this afternoon when I was waiting for . . .” He pauses and clears his throat. “But much of it I know from being there with my grandmother. She walks there every day, rain or shine. As long as there's no ice, because she's terrified of falling.”

I notice the little pause, the words he drops, and I wonder, but I don't press. Today's a good day. And plus, based on the next stack of photographs he's pulling out, I'm guessing the tiny church on the corner of Sheridan and Thorndale is actually the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Who knew?

By the time it grows too dark to see our map clearly, we've visited Palace of Versailles on the outskirts of Merritt, the Centre Pompidou (Paris's famed cultural center is Merritt's run-down movie theater), and walked down the Champs-Élysées, also known as Main Street. Thankfully, our last stop is the diner for some
chocolat chaud
, which Zeke assures me is just as delicious as the rich chocolate drinks at Angelina, the famous French teahouse.

“Is the decor just as well worn?” I tease as I put one of the unused paper placemats from our booth under my legs so that the broken vinyl seat cushion doesn't cut into my skin.
Which is when Zeke starts propping up pictures of the real Angelina all around us. Tables set with teacups and creamers filled with chocolate, the name of the
salon de thé
in Paris in uppercase gold lettering on everything. Plates of macarons in every color imaginable.

“I wish I was there right now,” I murmur, trying desperately to fill the walls of this run-down diner with the images of Paris. “I know lots of people dream of going to Paris. But I want it so badly, I can't stand it. I want these gilded mirrors and the gorgeous hot chocolate mugs and everything. I want to see the architecture, stand at the corner of Rue Saint-Martin and Rue Saint-Denis, where the unsuccessful June Rebellion took place. Where the barricades stood.”

My voice cracks and this time I'm glad that I'm able to rein it back in.

“You will,” Zeke says. “Soon. Anyone who can apparently quote back street locations from
Les Misérables
can't be kept away.” And it sounds almost like a promise. As though that was even possible.

IT'S THE SECOND FRIDAY NIGHT
at Huntington and all I want to do is sleep. I'm so grateful that the founders of this country chose July 4 as the day to mark independence, because I desperately need a break from class. I need a break from French. And from studying and from reading and from being nervous that my fluency level won't be high enough to get me into the Paris School. The long weekend can't come fast enough.

I drop onto my bed, shoes still on, and hope I can sleep until noon. That'd be . . . too many hours to count with my mushy brain. And then I'll figure out where the barbecue is and find out if there are fireworks. Tomorrow.

“There's a bunch of people going to Chutes and Lattes for a games night if you're interested,” Alice says, and all I can do is moan. Sleep. All I care about is falling asleep.

“Come on, it'll be fun.”

This time moaning feels like too much work.
Trop de travaille
. My brain is broken.
Mon cerveaux est cassé
.

I can't stop thinking in French.
Je ne peux pas arrêter de penser en français.

Merde
.

“Please, Abby. I need to get out of here.”

I roll onto my side and make out Alice's face in the low light of the room. My last act before collapsing had been to close our drapes. I figured when Alice got in, she could use her reading light for whatever she needed.

But for once, writing isn't what Alice needs. “Why do you want to go out?” My words are muffled by my pillow but I know Alice hears them because she bites her lip.

“I need to show my dad I'm participating in school life, not just going to class.” Her words are mumbled because she can see the problem. She's not participating in school life. At all. She hangs out with me, goes to class, and she's lucky if she remembers to eat. Her dad is right to be concerned.

I've been so focused on French and Zeke and speaking with Zeke in French and all the odd vibes between us that I haven't been a good friend to Alice. She really should go to trivia night. And there's no way she'll go alone.

True, I've been daydreaming about sleep since two o'clock, but for Alice I'd be willing to get out of bed.

“Any chance you have some of that delicious dark chocolate
with almonds and sea salt hidden away?” I grumble.

Alice bounces a bit on the balls of her feet. Who knew Alice bounced? “You're the best!” she says, and she runs to get the chocolate.

“Here's the thing you should know about me,” I whisper to Alice as we follow the large crowd to Chutes and Lattes. “I'm supercompetitive.”

“Okay.” She shrugs.

“No, like crazy competitive. Like youngest-of-three-kids competitive. Only girl. I need to win.”

“Are you saying you might not want to be on my team?” Her raised eyebrows and pursed lips make it clear she thinks I'm joking, and I don't have the heart to tell her that that's exactly what I'm trying to say. So instead I smile faintly as she loops her arm through mine.

Maybe I can be in the bathroom when the teams are being chosen and—

“I can't thank you enough for doing this with me,” she says. “I wouldn't have even thought about going without you.”

And that plan is squashed. Now to think of Plan B.

Chutes and Lattes should be the set of a TV sitcom. One of those shows with best friends who come to the same coffeehouse every Friday night, who grow up and grow old together
while the decor never changes. I can tell three things about this place right away: the furniture is authentically aged, the books that line the walls have been read by more people than I can imagine, and this is the best place on earth. Barring all French-speaking places, of course. This in France? Perfect. Or rather,
parfait
.

Only thing is, it's crowded. Like Friday-night-at-the-most-popular-place-in-town crowded. Families with young children eating hot fudge sundaes (hello, perfect coffeehouse, I would like to live here) and college students working on their laptops at the coffee bar remind me it's a good thing we reserved the back room for trivia night.

Alice takes one look at the space and starts moving back on the sidewalk. “Shit,” she mutters.

“We just need to get through the main area and then we'll be home free. We've got the whole back space, and by the time we leave, the front space will be much less busy.”

Alice's head is bobbing like it's moving on its own. Her eyes are still wide and scared.

“Come on, I'll be right behind you,” I promise. As much as I didn't want to come here, now that we're here, I can't deny how badly I want one of those hot fudge sundaes. Alice takes a deep breath, and we're moving again.

Until we get stuck.

“I can't do this.” Alice's grip on my arm is tight enough
that at this point blood could easily be flowing from her hand directly into me. We're still trying to squeeze our way between the rickety tables, but Alice isn't moving. True, most of us aren't moving, but Alice is really not moving. “Let's get out of here.”

“You can do this,” I say quietly, leaning forward so that only she can hear me. There's a half dozen people still behind me and we've created a blockage through the only part of the coffee shop where there's enough room to get to the back.

“I can't do this.” Alice pushes back against me.

“You can. I'm right here.” I try to make my words as calm and soothing as possible, but Alice's shoulders are climbing higher and higher, and worst of all, her eyes are filling with tears.

“Please, please, please, please.” Her body is humming with nerves, and I don't know what to do. “Please, please, please, please.”

There's jostling behind me and I'm about to yell at whoever is making the situation worse when I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Everything okay?”

Zeke.

“I don't—” I falter.

But his focus isn't on me. “Alice?”

“I—I—” Her breath is coming out in fits and starts, and I'm terrified she's going to pass out.

“Hey, it's okay. Let's get you out of here and get a little fresh air.”

“She's—”

“It's okay, you're okay.” Zeke moves the table on our right side without even looking at the people sitting and eating, and slips past me, his body firm against mine as he squishes into the space that is still only barely big enough for one body. His eyes stay trained on Alice, on her eyes. Like she's the only one here.

The two men at the table make a wider path for Zeke. “I'm right here,” he repeats to Alice, her breathing slowly calming. “Right here. Let's get you out.”

He holds out his arm but doesn't touch her, waiting for her to come to him. “Ready to go?” he asks, as though they were hanging out in an empty park and they were thinking about maybe leaving.

Alice nods and leans toward him; Zeke pulls her closer. “You're doing great.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispers, her eyes down. “I'm sorry.”

I push back against the table behind me to give them enough room to move past me. And then I follow them out of the coffee shop.

Zeke has Alice sitting with her head down by the time I make it out of Chutes and Lattes. He's rubbing his hand up and
down her back, which is rounded like a turtle, and speaking quietly to her.

Without shifting his gaze, he angles his chin toward me. “Can you get her a cup of cold water? Or just grab my bottle from my backpack and ask them if they'll fill it.”

I nod, wondering what I would be doing if not for Zeke. Would I have known how to coax her out? To get her water? Would I have panicked?

Before Zeke can say another word, I rifle through his bag, ignoring the baseball mitt, his wallet, his French dictionary until I finally feel the smooth plastic of the water bottle.

“I'll be right back.”

It takes almost twenty minutes before Zeke calms Alice down enough for us to get her home. She insists that she doesn't need us to stay with her but neither of us wants to leave.

“I feel ridiculous,” she says as I get her settled in our room, a cup of hot tea in her quote mug, and her notebook nearby.

“Don't be silly. Truthfully, that place looked totally lame. I'll tell Zeke not to wait because I think I'd rather stay back with you. We can watch a dumb action movie or a silly romance if you want.”

“No.” Alice's voice is firm and there's a tinge of anger there. “I'll feel awful if you stay for me. Don't even think about it.”

“I only went because you wanted to go. Come on, it'll be fun.”

“Please.” Alice doesn't look at me this time. Her voice is thin. “I'm going to take a pill and go to sleep. I won't be good company.”

I consider my options. If she's going to sleep, I could just wait outside for a few minutes and come back when she's asleep.

“Please,” Alice repeats.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Do you need anything else?”

She shakes her head and smiles. “Zeke's a good guy.”

I think about the way he protected her from the crowds of people, how calming his voice had been. “He is.”

Zeke's sitting out in the corridor, texting. “How's Alice?” he asks when I shut the door. For once, the hallway isn't teeming with people and part of me just wants to sink down beside him. Instead, I offer him my hand and help him up.

“How did you know what to do?”

He holds the door open for me as we walk back into the night air. “My sister also suffers from anxiety and has issues with crowds. I just talked to Alice the way I usually talk to Olivia.”

“What's your sister like?”

It's dark outside but I can tell he's smiling. “She's awesome.
She's a writer and her books are brilliant. And I'd say that even if she wasn't my sister.”

“Would I know any of them?”

He names an author whose name I recognize from the spines of books in bookstores, but I've never read. I make a mental note to pick up a few of her books when I get a break from French. If I get a break from French.

“Does she still have anxiety issues?”

He shrugs. “I don't see her as much as I'd like to because she lives outside of DC. But I'm sure most people wouldn't know it to see her. She's pretty and successful, has a great boyfriend who she's been with forever. She seems to manage her book tours fine. So, maybe?”

We reach downtown just as Zeke's stomach starts growling. “They have food at Chutes,” I assure him.

Zeke grimaces. “Any chance I could convince you to go for pizza first? I can't deal with ten-dollar nachos. I'd rather get a few slices for that money.”

“Pizza it is, then.” We make our way to the place where Alice and I went the first day, and push through the crowd of a dozen guys who all seem to be leaving as we come in.

I don't usually have issues with crowds, but even I feel like I can't breathe with this crowd of linebacker wannabes. Until Zeke's hand comes to rest on my lower back and my nervousness dissipates.

“I'm good for at least four slices,” he says when we finally get to the counter. “Want to share a small pizza?”

Veux-tu partager une petite pizza?

“Have we been speaking in French all this time?” I ask, as Zeke pays and grabs the hot pie.

“I think so,” he says in English, and then shakes his head.
“Je pense que oui.”

According to the clock above the pizza oven, it's almost nine, which means it's been a full hour since we left Alice. “Too bad we already did our ten hours or we could have counted this.”

If I wasn't watching closely, I would have missed the way his face drops for a split second. “Wait, I didn't mean . . .”

But he's already regrouped and the smile he wears now is nothing like the smile from before. “How about we take this to go and we can eat on the way to Chutes?”

“Zeke . . .” I try, putting my hand on his arm.

“No, you're right. We should totally have been keeping track. Do you remember any of the words we used? We could just try to re-create the list.”

“We don't need to. This wasn't about French class.”

Ce n'etait pas pour notre cours.

He opens the door but this time doesn't hold it for me. He walks right through, and I have to thrust my hand out to block it from slamming in my face.

Zeke folds two pieces together and shoves it into his mouth. “Want some?” he grunts. “Truth is, if we don't need to speak French, we should talk in English. It's like we have French class Stockholm syndrome.”

No, no, no, no, no. Because things are different in English. We're different.

“Arrête,”
I plead.
“Je suis désolée.”
I'm sorry.

Zeke stops, but it's only to pull out napkins from his pocket and wipe the tomato sauce from his chin. We're almost at Chutes and he's still not looking at me. “Have a piece,” he says, grabbing another two slices and holding out the box with only the last two slices.

“I'm fine,” I say.

“Your choice.” Zeke shrugs. He hands the box to two guys walking out of the coffee shop. “Free pizza.”

They watch Zeke shove his two slices in his mouth, and grab the box. “Cool. Thanks, man.”

“No worries.”

Zeke finishes chewing, opens the door, and then glances at me. “You coming?”

I want to say no. I want to say,
Ce n'est pas ce que je voulais dire
,
I didn't mean it that way. I want to say
écoute-moi
, listen to me,
arrête
, stop.

I want to go home.

I want him to apologize for being an ass.

But I follow him inside instead. And not because I don't want to walk back to campus by myself.