I thought it was sweet, rather than ominous, when Sébastien rented more protections for me than you see on football players: knee pads, elbow pads, wrist braces, helmet. But once I got the skates and protections on, we didn’t stop at the flat space before the canal where other people were practicing skating. When I tried to brake, he grabbed my waist to keep me from falling over in the attempt and pushed me across the crosswalk toward the glossy techno-shimmer of the Opéra Bastille. Cars swirled madly around us and the Colonne de Juillet, a greened copper obelisk commemorating the site of the old Bastille prison that had been the first target of the French Revolution.

My voice rose to a full screech in protest: “What are you doing? I could fall in front of a car!” On cue, the light changed, leaving me with half the street still to wobble across. Horns erupted like wasps from a prodded nest; by the time Sébastien pushed me to safety, I was nearly deaf. “Why couldn’t we practice back there?” I indicated the much safer, less populated space before the canal.

“Because I told Éric and Fabien we’d meet them here.”

A long pause. “Why are you inviting your friends?” I said. “Won’t they get bored? And won’t I look ridiculous?”

“Oh, they might get bored, but they don’t care if you look ridiculous. They’ll just think it’s funny.”

That had been, oddly enough, my point.

“Besides, it will be a good chance for you to get to know Éric and Fabien better.”

Oh, dear. He was inviting me another step into his life, a major step. He, his two best friends, and I were going to become a group that did things together, not just casual acquaintances.

I decided, therefore, to be tolerant. If three grown men wanted to drift around in circles for a while, laughing at me, that was their problem.

“Circles?” Sébastien said.

“Circles?” Éric and Fabien said. The looked disconcertingly competent in their skating equipment and only half-familiar: Éric, thin and wired; Fabien, a study in roundness above his shoulders, with his round face, round glasses, and balding pate. From his shoulders down, round-headed Fabien was paradoxically thin and gangly. I had learned he faced life with a slouch, from which position he could fling himself into extravagantly gawky slapstick routines at the slightest opportunity. I also knew now that he was saving up money to move to Québec, apparently having long nurtured dreams of freezing to death. Éric had just failed his driver’s license for the third time. This time, he had lost a sideview mirror parking, nearly hit the examiner (with his fist, not his car), and was told he couldn’t retake the test for a while. I got the impression he lived a little bit more on his nerves than his comic routine at first suggested.