The Bridge

by Jill Cox

  “Corinne? The one who looks like she might break in half?” Anne squeaked, then grabbed our empty glasses and stomped into the kitchen, with Marie-France right on her heels to protect her stemware.

  Well, at least that had made me smile. Well played, Dan Thomas.

  The following evening, the entire population of the Centre Lafayette celebrated Thanksgiving à la française at a little restaurant along the Seine called Cocorico. It was the cutest space you’ve ever seen: canary yellow walls, bookcases filled to the brim with tchotchkes, old-fashioned postcards from all over the globe decoupaged onto every surface imaginable, and planter boxes in all the windows. Even the lamps were eclectic. Feathered sconces hung on the walls, and tiny chandeliers dotted the ceiling, strung together across the room by fairy lights and hanging beads.

  Because I’d taken a call from Drew just outside the door to the restaurant, I missed out on what Anne later described as the most convoluted game of musical chairs ever. Somehow, my friends were splintered among all the other groups, and when I walked in, only one seat remained: next to Madame Beauchamp’s assistant, Michelle. Directly across from Pete and Meg.

  Which might have been a disaster, except this was Thanksgiving in a country where Thanksgiving had no place. And mercifully, for once, Meg was not the center of attention.

  It was the food.

  The turkey was cut into perfectly symmetrical one-inch cubes of meat, painstakingly piled into a tiny pyramid on each of our plates. Because nothing says America like a well-balanced turkey pyramid. Didn’t you know that’s what you see on the back of the dollar bill?

  The mashed potatoes were of the boxed variety, which should have been fine. But somewhere between the metric conversion and the chef’s unfamiliarity with factory-processed food, the faux-tatoes congealed in the middle of the serving pan like a lump of clay.

  And then there was the cranberry sauce. As far as I could tell, cranberries aren’t a staple of the French diet. In fact, I had yet to see one all year. Not to be deterred by this small detail, the clever French chef improvised, creating what he saw as an improvement to America’s favorite bitter berry. In the middle of the table where the cranberry sauce should be sat a gorgeous strawberry purée, blended to the consistency of baby food. Deeeeee-licious.

  Finally, in lieu of the traditional pumpkin, apple, or pecan pie, the chef at Cocorico had prepared the tiniest, most beautifully plated kumquat tarts, eight to a plate. And if bite-sized tropical fruit tarts weren’t bizarre enough, he’d placed tiny marzipan pilgrims on top of each tartlet, like an octet of creepy garden gnomes, including pointy red hats.

  For two hours, we all laughed so hard that none of us could breathe, let alone eat. At first, poor Michelle was offended. Not that I blamed her; she’d probably been organizing this meal for at least three months. But with tears streaming down his face and the kindest words possible, Pete Russell explained it all away. Thanks to his deft command of the language, Michelle eventually joined in on the joke, running over to Madame Beauchamp’s table to explain the insanity.

  That was when I saw it: the look. Pete shot Meg a furtive, almost imperceptible mini-glance that I might not have even noticed had I not experienced the same thing weeks before on the Pont des Arts. The two of them had a secret no one else knew. What it was, I had no idea. But I thought back to that night in Rouen, when Pete had jumped on top of that chair with Meg. Had she been his real target all along?

  Wow. Same game, different girl. Maybe Sigma Phi Beta taught all their pledges how to use ginger bait.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  December 13th. Happy twenty-one years to me.

  Early in life, I’d learned to keep my birthday expectations low. Between holiday parties and school vacations, December was one big time crunch. Why should this year be any different?

  And then there was the city-wide shutdown that started the day after Thanksgiving. Transportation employees had gone on strike to protest another year without a cost-of-living raise, and one by one, the rest of the municipal services had followed suit.

  All of them except school. (And, mercifully, waste collection.)

  For the rest of Paris, today was nothing more than Day Sixteen of a new revolution. Or so I believed until Anne burst through my door while I was video-chatting with Drew.

  “Joyeux anniversaire!” She unhinged the volet shutters, then stepped in front of the monitor. “See ya, Drew!” She waved to the screen. “The sky’s celebrating, so your girl has to go!”

  Though it was still dark at seven a.m., I followed Anne to the window, pushing wide the outside shutters. Quarter-sized snowflakes spiraled lazily through the air, landing softly in the courtyard below. “This is like that painting from art history,” Anne whispered, wide-eyed, ignoring the flakes landing in her hair. “The one with the rooftops. Who was that by again?”

  “Caillebotte,” I smiled, thinking back to what Pete had said our first day here. By December, you’ll have your very own Rooftops Under Snow out here. Yep. Right on time.

  We zoomed through our normal morning rituals, then clambered downstairs, where Marie-France was preparing my favorite breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon (the Irish kind), and toast. All I Want for Christmas Is You streamed through the whole apartment, and the three of us danced around the kitchen like a bunch of elfin lunatics while we set the table. Marie-France boogied so vigorously that she split her pencil skirt right up the back.

  The French educational calendar was divided into trimesters, so while this wasn’t finals week, it certainly felt like it. Monsieur Ludovic had warned us today’s history test would cover both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and for a week Pete had been hassling us all to come early this morning for a last-minute review.

  So when Anne and I walked into the Grande Salle, I wasn’t surprised to see so many people. Pete Russell was a tyrant. Snow and the lack of public transport were insufficient reasons to provoke his wrath. Except some of these people weren’t in our history class.

  Just then, everyone began to sing “Happy Birthday” to me in French. Never, not once in my whole life, had so many people gathered to celebrate me. And before I knew it, I was ugly crying in the best way possible.

  Harper handed me a daintily wrapped bouquet of multi-colored tulips, and Kelly handed me two dozen red roses.

  “Drew slipped me fifty euros the night of Dan’s party,” she bubbled. “Major swoon avec sigh, my friend. No guy I know plans that far ahead.”

  “Yeah, we know, hashtag Movie Love,” Harper smirked. “Come on, Meredith. Time to get the birthday girl caffeinated. You’ve got a big day ahead.”

  Dan and Pete were at a table at the far end of the Grande Salle setting out chocolate croissants and pouring coffee from what I assumed were the faculty break room carafes. When I reached them, Dan handed me the largest cup on the table.

  “December birthdays always get shafted, but yours fell on a particularly bad week this year,” he said apologetically. “Everyone deserves to be celebrated, strike or no strike.”

  “Yes, yes, isn’t December tragic? Now drink up, Sully.” A grin spread across Pete’s face as he handed me a second cup of coffee. “Test review starts in thirty minutes.”

  As I watched his grin spread sideways, a sickening ache crept into my chest. Until this year, I’d never known you could miss someone you saw all day, every day. But I did. I missed Pete. Not just because his attention felt like sunlight shining through the window on the coldest day of the year. It was worse than that. I missed the person who saw things about me that most people missed. The person most likely to challenge me to try harder, even without saying a word.

  I missed Pete Russell. Even when he was standing right in front of me.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Monsieur Ludovic allowed us four hours to complete the history test that afternoon, but my brain gave out after three and my hand quickly followed. So I turned in my blue exam booklet, grabbed my bag, and sauntered outside.

  As though it
was its own microcosm, hidden away from the Parisian din just over the wall, the Centre Lafayette courtyard was so silent that I could actually hear the snowflakes as they pirouetted to the ground. I walked to the far end of the space, lowered myself gently onto an ancient green bench, closed my eyes, and breathed in Paris on my twenty-first birthday.

  The crunch of boots on the frosty ground behind me stirred my attention. Pete plunked down beside me on the bench, the famous chullo hat perched lackadaisically on his head.

  “If you have to take a test on your birthday, that one wasn’t so bad.” From his gloved hand, he offered me a cup of vending machine coffee, steam swirling and dancing among the snowflakes. I took it in both hands, and lifted it to my face, breathing in the warmth.

  “Easy for you to say. Judging by that study session you led earlier, I’m going to guess you’ve taken six hundred pages of notes since September.”

  “Well, those of us who lack your doodling talents have to learn this information the old-fashioned way.”

  Snowflakes collected on Pete’s hat and on the curls that peeked out from underneath it. I’d always noticed that when Pete was quiet, his face seemed much older than his twenty-two years. But today I could see what he must have looked like before his parents died. There was something boyish in the way he was looking out at me from under that hat. It made me want to tug the braids of the chullo hat down, then run cackling across the courtyard in triumph.

  “So what are you up to the rest of the day?” I asked instead, acutely aware that even in hushed tones, my voice was bouncing off every surface. “Auditioning for some folk band?”

  Pete laughed a little, tugging his hat down by both braids. “Maybe. But first, I should probably tackle that review we have to complete for Promenade Parisienne. Want to come with me to La Rotonde? Two minds are better than one.”

  He said it so nonchalantly that at first my brain didn’t register the invitation. But once it did, even my ears turned crimson. In the days before Drew’s visit, Anne and I had spent most every afternoon with Dan and Pete at Café de la Rotonde. Pete and I always sat in left-handed solidarity on the same side because it’s a pain to knock elbows all the time with your right-handed friends. At least, that’s what I’d told myself. Even though I’d secretly hoped it meant something more.

  Every time, I’d imagined us as Hemingway and Hadley, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda. I was dorky like that, but something about the Rotonde had made life magical those first few weeks.

  Sitting here in the snow, I had to admit that the magic probably had less to do with the Lost Generation than it did with the dark brown eyes holding my gaze right now.

  “Listen, Pete.” I sat up a little straighter, sipping my coffee slowly. “The Rotonde sounds fun and all, but I’m not sure what Anne has planned this afternoon. Can I check in with her first?”

  “Well, you could. But she just walked out the front door with Dan a minute ago,” Pete grinned slyly. “Come on, Sully. I don’t want to go by myself. Just come with me for a couple of hours. I promise to get you home before dinner.”

  When we got to the café, I followed Pete to our usual seats by the window, where he ordered us a pot of tea to share. I had to laugh. From the first time we’d come here in September, Pete had always insisted I share a pot of tea with him. Dan had mocked him: “Who drinks tea in France?”

  Pete had ignored him completely, until one day, the week of La Nuit Blanche. “Dude,” he’d said. “Meredith’s Irish. If she doesn’t have tea on the regular, she’ll turn into a fairy. Do you want to be the victim of her first spell?”

  “Fairies don’t cast spells,” I smirked. “They just trick fools into doing their bidding.”

  Pete’s eyes had gone playfully wide. “Fools, huh?” He’d poured the rest of the tea into my cup. “Drink up, Sully. Let’s keep you on the juice so I can sleep tonight.”

  I’d taken a slow sip of my tea, then lowered my cup a little, grinning. “If you insist. But I should warn you: fairies work their most dangerous magic while you’re sleeping.”

  And now, more than two months later, I couldn’t help smiling as I thought about the impish look in his eye as he’d turned back to our friends, his knee suddenly pressed against mine, where it had stayed the rest of that afternoon. Watching him now as he poured my cup of Irish breakfast tea, I couldn’t help but wonder if he remembered that day, too. It felt like a thousand years ago.

  “Let me see your notes, Russell,” I said, pointing to his messenger bag. “I spent half your study session this morning trying to decide if you’re having an illicit affair with some history professor at the Sorbonne or if you are, in fact, one of them.”

  Pete tilted his head slightly. “One of who?”

  “The academics.” I unwrapped my scarf from my neck. “Every professor on both continents worships your brain. Just promise me this: if they invite you back to that faculty lounge, you’ll teach me the secret handshake.”

  Another smile spread across Pete’s face as he began cleaning sugar crystals from the table with his index finger. “For all you know, I’m paying them a weekly stipend.”

  “Stop that.”

  Pete brushed the sugar from his finger onto the floor, then lifted his eyes to mine. “Okay, confession: I know it’s not the most lucrative career, but yeah, teaching’s always been my goal. Well, teaching, then grad school. Then some more teaching. And maybe by then I’ll have enough saved to spend a couple of months in the tropics, right before I keel over from exhaustion.”

  “Sounds about right. I hear the Maldives are a nice place to spend your final days.”

  “Thanks for the tip.” He took a sip of his tea. “What about you, Sully? When do you start prepping your audition for the Former Irish Step Dance Champion World Tour?”

  “Very funny,” I pretended to scowl. “To be honest, I have no clue what I’ll do after college. I usually say grad school when people ask, but actually, I think I might copy Ian and travel for a while.”

  “By yourself? Or will Sutton join you?”

  My chest tightened. I’d never even considered that scenario. In fact, until recently, I’d never imagined Drew going anywhere outside the States, except maybe Rome. The fact that I hadn’t woven him into my future plans by now made my chest constrict further.

  “It’s not as hard as you might think, getting around the world on a dime,” Pete continued, his eyes following a couple of kids chasing each other down the sidewalk on roller skates. “I traveled around for almost nine months after high school myself.”

  “What? No, you didn’t.” I laughed so hard I nearly snorted. But then I took one look at Pete’s befuddled face, and I wanted to smack myself. What was wrong with me? Pete’s parents were dead. His family hadn’t stopped him from circling the globe because they weren’t… oh, man. Now I felt like a kangaroo was using my chest as target practice for its freaky powerful kicks.

  “Oh,” I finally sputtered, tugging my hair behind my ears. “Well, I guess that explains why you and my brother had so much to talk about when he was here last month.”

  “I guess so,” Pete grinned, and sort of shook his head. “Although, I have to tell you that your brother’s thirty-five-countries-on-a-shoestring made me feel a little… I don’t know…”

  “Silly? Juvenile? Insignificant?”

  “For starters.” Pete shook his head again, then looked back outside. I watched quietly while that clever mind whirred inside. I might have given anything to know where it was taking him.

  “So, where’d you go?” I finally asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Please don’t say Phuket.”

  “No, actually…” he paused, still looking outside. “I came here first. This friend of mine was headed here to study, so Gigi sent me over the first part of January to get the place ready for her.”

  Her? My stomach clenched. “Well, that was chivalrous of you.”

  The right side of Pete’s mouth curled up as he glanced my way. “Don’t be too impressed
. I had other motivations. It was Brooks. She was the girl down the street who used to –”

  “– drive you to school. I remember.” My skin crawled as my mind filled in blanks I hadn’t realized were there. “Wow. Paris with the famous Brooks. How long were you here?”

  “Long enough to be in the way.” Pete’s dark eyes danced in the table’s candlelight. “Good thing I had a job waiting for me in China.”

  “Okay, now you really are making things up.”

  “I promise it’s true.” Pete laid his right hand over his heart. “My parents’ best friends from college have a son named James, and he runs this non-profit in Shanghai. I stayed there from February until several work teams arrived in early June.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re also fluent in Mandarin.”

  “Hardly.” He tugged his hat from his head, then ran his fingers through his curls. “Looking back, I should have stayed through the summer. But instead, I headed to New Zealand for their winter. I worked in a ski resort outside Queenstown. That’s where I got this hat, actually.”

  “Really? I would have guessed Peru.”

  Pete laughed under his breath. “Peru might have been a better choice. New Zealand was sort of a bust.”

  By the look on his face, I figured there was a girl involved in that story, too.

  I picked up his hat from the table and tugged it onto my head. “No wonder you were so weird freshman year, Russell. If I’d known you’d been living upside down and in the wrong season, I might have cut you a little more slack that first day.”

  Pete laughed and wiggled the hat further down my forehead by the braids. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny package wrapped in Christmas paper. “Listen, I hope this isn’t weird, but I got you something. Just think of it as a hybrid birthday gift and peace offering. You know, for the years when we weren’t so friendly.”