Die for Me

Page 3

One Saturday afternoon I was squeezed into my regular table in the terrace’s far left corner, reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Although this was my third time through it, some passages still brought tears to my eyes. As one was doing now.
I used my dig-fingernails-into-palm trick, which, if it hurt enough, could keep me from crying in public. Unfortunately, today it wasn’t working. I could tell my eyes were getting red and glassy. This is all I need—to cry in front of my regular café crowd just as I’m getting to know them, I thought, peering up to see if anyone had noticed me.
And there he was. Sitting a few tables away, watching me as intensely as he had the first time. It was the boy with the black hair. The scene from the river, with him leaping off a bridge to save someone’s life, felt like it had been nothing but a surreal dream. Here he was, in broad daylight, drinking coffee with one of his friends.
Why? I almost said it out loud. Why did I have to get all teary about a book while this too-cute-to-be-true French guy was staring at me from a mere ten feet away?
I snapped my book closed and laid some money on the table. But just as I started toward the exit, the elderly women at the table next to mine stood and began fiddling with their massive pile of shopping bags. I fidgeted impatiently until finally one of them turned around. “So sorry, dear, but we’ll be another minute. Just go around us.” And she practically shoved me toward where the guys were sitting.
I had hardly gotten a step beyond their table when I heard a low voice coming from behind me.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” someone asked in French.
I turned to see the boy standing inches away from me. He was even more handsome than he had seemed from afar, though his looks were sharpened by that same flinty coldness I had noticed the first time I had seen him. I ignored the sudden jolt in my chest.
“Your bag,” he said, holding my book bag out toward me, balancing the strap on two fingers.
“Um,” I said, thrown off by his proximity. Then, seeing his wry expression, I pulled myself together. He thinks I’m a total idiot for leaving my bag behind. “How kind of you,” I said stiffly, reaching for the bag, as I tried to salvage any remaining scrap of confidence left in me.
He pulled his arm back, leaving me grasping air. “What?” he asked, amused. “Why be angry at me? It’s not like I swiped it.”
“No, of course not,” I huffed, waiting.
“So . . . ,” he said.
“So . . . if it’s okay with you, I’ll just take my bag now,” I said, reaching out and catching the straps in my hand this time. He didn’t let go.
“How about an exchange?” he offered, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “I’ll give you the bag if you tell me your name.”
I gawped at him, incredulous, and then gave the bag a hard tug—just as he let go. Its contents spilled in a heap across the sidewalk. I shook my head in disbelief. “Great! Thanks a lot!”
As gracefully as I could, I got down on my knees and began cramming my lipstick, mascara, wallet, phone, and what seemed like a million pens and tiny scraps of paper into my bag. I looked back up to see him inspecting my book.
“To Kill a Mockingbird. En anglais!” he commented, his voice tinged with surprise. And then, in slightly accented but perfect English, he said, “Great book—have you ever seen the film . . . Kate?”
My mouth fell open. “But . . . how do you know my name?” I managed to utter.
He raised his other hand and showed me my driver’s license, which featured an exceptionally bad head shot. By this point my humiliation was so great that I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, although I felt his gaze burning into me.
“Listen,” he said, leaning closer. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you drop your bag.”
“Stop flaunting your impeccable language skills, Vincent, help the girl to her feet, and let her take her leave,” came another voice in French. I turned to see my tormentor’s friend—the guy with the curly hair—holding out my hairbrush, with an expression of mild amusement creasing his razor-stubbled face.
Ignoring the hand “Vincent” was extending to help me up, I staggered to my feet and brushed myself off. “Here you go,” he said, handing me my book.
I took it with an embarrassed nod. “Thanks,” I replied curtly, trying not to run as I made the quickest possible exit out of the café and onto the street. As I waited for the crosswalk light to change, I made the mistake of glancing back. Both of the boys were staring my way. Vincent’s friend said something to him and shook his head. I can’t even imagine what they’re saying about me, I thought, and groaned.
Turning as red as the stoplight, I crossed the street without looking their way again.
For the next few days I saw Vincent’s face everywhere. In the corner grocery store, coming up the steps from the Métro, sitting at every café terrace I passed. Of course, when I got a better look at each of these guys, it was never actually him. Much to my annoyance, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and even more annoyingly, my feelings were equally divided between self-protective cautiousness and unabashed crush.
To be honest, I wasn’t ungrateful for the diversion. For once I had something else to think about besides fatal car crashes and what the hell I was going to do for the rest of my life. I’d thought I had it pretty much figured out before the accident, but now my future stretched before me like a mile-long question mark. It struck me that my fixation on this “mystery guy” might just be my mind’s way of giving me a breather from my confusion and grief. And I finally decided, if that were the case, I didn’t mind.
* * *
Almost a week had passed since my standoff with Vincent at the Café Sainte-Lucie, and though I had made my reading sessions there a daily habit, I hadn’t seen a trace of him or his friends. I was ensconced in what I now considered my private corner table, finishing off yet another Wharton novel from the school syllabus (my future English teacher was obviously a big fan), when I noticed a couple of teenagers sitting across the terrace from me. The girl had short-cropped blond hair and a shy laugh, and the natural way she kept leaning in toward the boy next to her made me think they were a couple. But upon turning my scrutiny to him, I realized how similar their features were, though his hair was golden red. They had to be brother and sister. And once that idea popped into my mind, I knew I was right.
The girl suddenly held up her hand to stop her brother from talking and began scanning the terrace, as if searching for someone. Her eyes settled on me. For a second she hesitated, and then waved urgently at me. I pointed to myself with a questioning look. She nodded and then gestured, beckoning me to come over.
Wondering what she could possibly want, I stood and slowly made my way toward their table. She rose to her feet, alarmed, and motioned for me to hurry.
Just as I left my safe little nook against the wall and stepped around my table, a huge crash came from behind me, and I was knocked flat onto the ground. I could feel my knee stinging and lifted my head to see blood on the ground beneath my face.
“Mon Dieu!” yelled one of the waiters, and scrambled over the toppled tables and chairs to help me to my feet. Tears of shock and pain welled in my eyes.
He ripped a towel from his waist apron and dabbed my face with it. “You just have a little cut on your eyebrow. Don’t worry.” I looked down at my burning leg and saw that my jeans had been torn open and my knee completely skinned.
As I checked myself over for injuries, it dawned on me that the terrace had gone completely silent. But instead of focusing on me, the astonished faces of the café-goers were looking behind me.
The waiter stopped swabbing my eyebrow to glance over my shoulder, and his eyes widened in alarm. Following his gaze, I saw that my table had been demolished by a huge piece of carved masonry that had fallen from the building’s facade. My purse was lying to one side, but my copy of House of Mirth stuck out from where it was pinned under the enormous stone, exactly where I had been sitting.
If I hadn’t moved, I would be dead, I thought, and my heart raced so fast that my chest hurt. I turned back to the table where the brother and sister had been sitting. Except for a bottle of Perrier and two full glasses sitting in the middle of a handful of change, it was empty. My saviors were gone.
Chapter Five
I WAS SO SHAKEN THAT I COULDN’T LEAVE FOR A while. Finally, after allowing the café staff to use half their first-aid kit on me, I insisted that I could make it home on my own and wobbled back, my legs feeling like rubber bands. Mamie was coming out the front door as I arrived.
“Oh, my dear Katya!” she shrieked after I explained what had happened, and dropping her beloved Hermès purse to the ground, she threw her arms around me. Then, scooping up our things and leading me back into the house, she tucked me into bed and insisted on treating me like I was a quadriplegic instead of her slightly scraped-up granddaughter.
“Now, Katya, are you sure you’re comfortable? I can bring you more pillows if you want.”
“Mamie, I’m fine, really.”
“Does your knee still hurt? I can put something else on it. Maybe it should be elevated.”
“Mamie, they treated it with a million things from their first-aid box at the café. It’s just a scrape, really.”
“Oh, my darling child. To think what could have happened.” She pressed my head to her chest and petted my hair until something in me broke and I started crying.
Mamie cooed and held me while I bawled. “I’m just crying because I’m shaky,” I protested through my tears, but the truth was that she was treating me just like my mom would have.
When Georgia got home, I heard Mamie telling her about my “near-death experience.” My door opened a minute later, and my sister raced in looking as white as a ghost. She sat silently on the edge of my bed, staring at me with wide eyes.
“It’s okay, Georgia. I’m just a little scraped up.”
“Oh my God, Katie-Bean, if anything had happened to you . . . You are all I have left. Remember that.”
“I’m fine. And nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll keep far away from disintegrating buildings from now on. Promise.”
She forced a smile and reached out her hand to touch my own, but the haunted look stayed.
The next day Mamie refused to let me leave the house, insisting that I relax and “recover from my injuries.” I obeyed, to humor her, and spent half the evening reading in the bathtub. It wasn’t until I had lost myself in the warm water and a book that my nerves got the best of me, and I sat there trembling like a leaf.
I hadn’t realized how scared the near miss with the crumbling building had left me until it took topping the tub up several times with scalding hot water to calm me down. Ultimately, I fell asleep with little plumes of steam rising up from the water around me.
When I passed the café the next day, it was closed, and the sidewalk outside the building was roped off with yellow plastic police tape. Workers in electric blue overalls were erecting scaffolding for builders to come stabilize the facade. I would have to find another location for my al fresco reading. I felt a pang of disappointment as I realized that this was the only place that I had a chance of seeing my recent obsession. Who knew how long it would be before I ran into Vincent again?
My mother began taking me to museums when I was a tiny child. When we went to Paris, she and Mamie and I would set off in the morning for “a little taste of beauty,” as my mother called it. Georgia, who was bored by the time we reached the first painting, usually opted to stay behind with my father and grandfather, who sat in cafés and chatted with friends, business associates, and whoever else happened to wander by. But together, Mamie, Mom, and I combed the museums and galleries of Paris.
So it was no great shock when Georgia gave me a vague excuse of “previous plans” when I asked her to come museum trolling with me a few days later. “Georgia, you’ve been complaining that I never do anything with you. This is a valid invite!”
“Yeah, about as valid as me inviting you to a monster truck rally. Ask again if you plan on doing something actually interesting.” To show her goodwill, she gave my arm a friendly squeeze before shutting her bedroom door in my face. Touché.
I set off alone to Le Marais, a neighborhood across town from my grandparents’ home. Weaving my way through its tiny medieval streets, I finally arrived at my destination: the palacelike building housing the Picasso Museum.
Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of a museum was my favorite place to go. My mom said I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another. And I felt ready for a calming session of art-hypnosis.
As I walked through the gigantic doors of the Musée Picasso into its sterile white rooms, I felt my heart rate slow. I let the warmth and peace of the place cover me like a soft blanket. And as was my habit, I walked until I found the first painting that really grabbed my attention, and sat down on a bench to face it.
I let the colors absorb into my skin. The composition’s convoluted, twisted shapes reminded me of how I felt inside, and my breathing slowed as I began zoning out. The other paintings in the room, the guard standing near the door, the fresh-paint smell in the air around me, even the passing tourists, faded into a gray background surrounding this one square of color and light.
I don’t know how long I sat there before my mind slowly emerged from its self-imposed trance, and I heard low voices coming from behind me.