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Chapters (45)
  1. Cover
  2. Blame Iton Paris
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  5. Book One
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-one
  27. Book Two
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. Twenty-four
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Twenty-six
  33. Twenty-seven
  34. Twenty-eight
  35. Twenty-nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-one
  38. Thirty-two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-four
  41. Thirty-five
  42. Thirty-six
  43. Thirty-seven
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine

“He was trying to sell you drugs.” Sébastien brushed the incident away with a hand.

Me? I scrubbed at my eyes, taking that personally. The dealer had looked at Sébastien, with his earrings and tattoo and tough, unshaved look, and decided that I was the more likely drug buyer? Did I look like I was suffering from withdrawal or did the man just think a joint would do me a world of good?

Sébastien went back to staring out over the Seine. A peniche or houseboat crawled past on the brown river, a little blue Fiat locked in place on top of it. A red Converse shoe bobbed in its wake.

“I don’t know if I will go,” I whispered. “To Cambridge. But the thing is, even if I don’t, I have to go back to the U.S. in mid-August. I have to finish my degree.”

There was a long silence. Sébastien picked up my hand and studied it. He matched our palms so that mine grew very small against his, the tips of my nails reaching to just halfway between the creases of his knuckles. I noticed my pale polish was chipped, and my skin was dry and could really stand some lotion. Somebody who deserved to be in this story would have had a perfect manicure and silken skin. His hand looked large and dark around mine, already bronzing from the few days of summer sunlight. His hand flexed and closed around mine, and he stood. “Let’s go get something to eat. I didn’t have lunch; I fell asleep when I got back to my apartment.”

Ten

We walked up to the rue des Rosiers, not because there weren’t closer places to eat, but because any excuse was a good excuse to walk through the Marais and eat falafel.

“Falafel?” Sébastien asked.

“I didn’t know what it was either before I moved here,” I confessed. “Of course, I grew up in a small town in Georgia, so I don’t know what your excuse is. It’s good. At least it’s good at the place we’re going.”

“No, I know what falafel is.” Darn. If only I could keep my mouth shut, I might occasionally impress someone with my sophistication. “I’m just not sure why we would go out of our way to eat it. I was thinking we would just grab a sandwich from somewhere near the Seine.”

“I’m trying to show you a culinary landmark of your city,” I said. “Cooperate. Besides, why would you eat ordinary food when there’s fantastic food within a couple kilometers’ walk?”