“So my friends and I are planning a trip to Giverny,” I lied when he asked me out again. We weren’t, but I’d have something arranged in a few phone calls. “Would you like to come with us?”

“Monet’s gardens?” he asked. “They’re supposed to be beautiful this time of year. I haven’t seen them since my art class went there in grade school.”

How can any American possibly compete with a European in terms of culture? As school trips, I went to see the local zoo’s new gorillas. For kids who didn’t have four brothers, I guess this was a fascinating rather than a redundant excursion. Sébastien, meanwhile, went to see Monet’s actual gardens, designed by the artist, and source of some of the most sold notecards in the world. Come to think of it, when Sébastien heard the word “Monet,” did a vision of a notecard or of a painting flash through his head? If a painting, we had a fundamental gap in our levels of civilization. I was getting better these days, what with my art history professor card and all, but I had a lot of distance to make up.

I had five friends ready to go out to Giverny that Saturday in five calls. About half an hour after the last one, Adela called back. “But why aren’t you doing something with Sébastien? You should ask him to come, too.”

“He is coming,” I admitted thoughtlessly.

“Oh.”

I’d promised Sébastien we would meet him at the train station at noon, and Saturday morning my phone rang off the hook. Marina: “I can’t make it after all. I’ve got a cold.” Totally fake coughing.

Kam: “My fourth cousin flew into town without warning. Family is very important.”

My best friend, Philippe: “Just forget it, Laura. I’m not playing buffer to your romance. Go with Sébastien and have fun.”

Eva: “Laura, I heard you were organizing an outing. Why didn’t you invite me?”

Adela: “I’ve got to study.”

“Adela, you always say that, but you never study. Were you the one who told everyone Sébastien was coming?”

“I study! What are you talking about?! The professors just need to know their subject better. The questions they ask in the orals are ridiculous. They’re not logical. Why would anyone have learned that?”

“Adela, I don’t care about your professors! You’ve got to go! Otherwise, I’ll be all alone with Sébastien.”

“Oh, what a horrible shame,” Adela said and hung up.

Sébastien found me in line, all by myself, in the nineteenth-century Gare St.-Lazare. “Bonjour, crevette.” He leaned down to kiss me.

I blinked. “Are you wearing a Hawaiian shirt?”

He looked down at his short-sleeve shirt, white flowers against a black background, hanging loose over his jeans. “You don’t like it?”