The following day, the festivities will continue with a cocktail party for alumni and staff. The reception will see the laying of the foundation stone for a new building dubbed the Glass Tower, a five-story structure that will stand on the site of the gymnasium, which will be demolished. This state-of-the-art building will welcome students taking preparatory courses for the Grandes Écoles. Later that evening, graduates from the classes of 1990 through 1995 will attend the Alumni Prom and have the honor of being the last to visit the gym.

The current headmistress, Madame Florence Guirard, hopes that as many alumni as possible will join in the celebrations. “I warmly invite all former students and staff to come and take part in this wonderful evening. Shared experiences and memories are a reminder of where we came from and are crucial to deciding where we are heading,” Guirard said before mentioning that a private Facebook group has been created to mark the occasion.

Forever Young

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Cherry Coke

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Sophia Antipolis, Saturday, May 13, 2017

I parked the rental under the pine trees, near the gas station, about three hundred meters from the entrance to the school. I’d driven straight from the Nice Airport after a red-eye flight from New York during which I hadn’t slept a wink.

I’d left Manhattan in a hurry the day before after someone had e-mailed me an article about the fiftieth anniversary of my old school. The e-mail, forwarded to me by my publisher, was from Maxime Biancardini—my best friend once upon a time, though I hadn’t seen him now in twenty-five years. There was a French phone number, and although at first I was reluctant to call back, I realized that there was nothing else I could do.

“Did you get the article, Thomas?” Maxime asked, skipping the small talk.

“That’s the reason I’m calling.”

“You do realize what it means?”

His voice hadn’t changed over the years, but it was distorted now by fear.

I didn’t answer his question right away. Yes, of course I knew what it meant. It meant the end of life as we knew it. It meant we’d be spending a chunk of the future behind bars.

“You’ve got to get over here, Thomas,” Maxime said after a moment’s silence. “We’ve got to think of some way to stop this. We’ve got to do something.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as I considered the potential fallout: the magnitude of the scandal, the criminal implications, the shock wave that would hit our families.