Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
“I just wanted to. You were so shy, all the time you were coming to the restaurant. You were so sweet and so shy, and I knew it must have taken all your courage to leave that invitation.” His face softened just at the memory, as if something were melting inside him all over again. “And I just wanted to. Crevette.” He reached out and ruffled my hair. I noticed he didn’t say I’d knocked him off his feet with my suave, sophisticated air and my overwhelming beauty.
We were nearly at the RER station now. We passed a couple of tweens doing wheelies on their bikes at an hour when they should have been at home in bed. “Why did Claire break up with you?”
He lit another cigarette. He was smoking way too much tonight. “She said I wasn’t romantic enough.”
I blinked and stared at him.
Five days later, the man who wasn’t romantic enough showed up for my birthday with a floppy white Gund puppy, a bouquet of flowers, a pencil drawing of me warts and all, and brochures. I studied the drawing. It was of a photo of me from earlier that spring. On a trip to Rocamadour, my friend Kam and I had gotten lost on a short stroll through the hills of the Dordogne and ended up hiking for eight hours on an orange and a bottle of water. A smiling snail engraved on a concrete signpost was supposed to indicate the right path, and we searched desperately for it or even a road or any other sign of civilization. When we finally did find the snail, I dropped to my knees and embraced it, and Kam took a picture. Sébastien, flipping through my photos after I got back from the trip, had spotted this one and asked to keep it. At the time, I was touched. Now I studied the drawing he’d made from it, not sure how to take the fact that he had drawn me with a couple of pimples, my hair frizzing out all over the place, and tired but happy eyes. Somehow, I kept hoping Sébastien was delusional and saw me with perfect skin and perfect hair even after an accidental eight-hour hike. “What are those?” I pointed at the dots on my face suspiciously, just to make sure.
“Well, they were in the picture,” he said. “Don’t you like it?”
Of course, I liked it. He had made me a present. He had drawn me, as if I were worthy of art. No one had ever drawn me before. I wondered if he could erase the pimples.
He spread the brochures on my bed. “For London. For your birthday present.”
I stared at him.