by Zelda French
“Are you really so helpless?” Miss Eugénie snatches the bottle and hands it over to Michael.
“I’ll show you how it’s done,” Michael whispers, once Eugénie is back into the kitchen.
I jerk my head away. “I’m not even going to bother looking at you.”
Once the bottle is open, Eugénie joins us and we quickly move past superficial introductions toward the topic of music. The three of us having widely different tastes in music, the conversation quickly turns lively. I’m passionate about rock music, even refuses to hear Miss Eugenie’s arguments that good rock music died with the seventies. Michael comments that he’s never liked anything more than Ravel and Debussy. To which Eugénie retorts that the true soul of music comes from blues, and opens the large doors of her TV stands to reveal an incredible collection of records.
In a second Michael is on the floor, tearing at his curls in awe.
“Not the hair!” I beg, bolting after him.
Eugénie leans back in her chair, a smile of her face. “Go on, kids. Get them out, play what you like.”
Two hours and a full bottle of Porto later, records are scattered everywhere in the sitting room. Billie Holiday voice rises, mournful, from the record player. Eugénie is teaching me how to do a perfect smoke ring while Michael watches, a tipsy smile on his face.
I’m not a cheerful person. I might never be. But as such, I can recognise my moments of happiness right as they unfold before me.
In that exact moment, I know myself to be happy.
When was I straight? I’m trying to remember what it really feels like to see a girl and want nothing but to settle into her arms and peel her clothes off, layer by layer. Lucie’s beauty always mesmerised me. But is appreciation of her beauty truly desire? I have kissed her so many times, felt the soft touch of her lips in my hair, tasted her cherry-flavoured lipstick, kissed the inside of her arms. But none of these moments compare to the feeling of Michael’s tongue against mine, his powerful hands pressing on my hips, his flat chest against the palm of my hand.
Not say nothing that the only time I slept with a girl, I was so drunk I can’t remember it.
Michael looks up, his gaze unfocused. Seeing my face, he smiles, and a deep-seated yearning starts flooding through me.
If I ever slept with Michael, I would want to remember it all, make sure to taste every part of his skin, his tears, his sweat. I crave him like a starved man craves sustenance.
Is this it, then? What will happen to me when he finds out? No one should have this much power over me. No one should have this much power at all.
After her third demonstration, Eugénie doubles up, overcome with a nasty cough. I help her back to the sofa, administrating small taps on her back in a gentler approach to Michael’s cure earlier.
“Miss Eugénie, sit down and rest.”
Eugénie hushes me, but sits all the same. “Louis thinks I’m at death’s door.”
“Louis worries too much,” Michael says softly.
His remark offends me. Only because people who aren’t afflicted with a need for control always act like we act this by choice. The fact is, our need for control is also controlling us. All we can do is accept it as it is, because we’re stuck with it.
“I only worry so much because everything always turns sour. Nothing is safe, you can’t trust people.”
“Fearful people are always right, in the end,” Miss Eugenie says with a solemn nod.
“I’m not fearful.”
“You do worry a lot,” Michael chimes in.
“Not the same.”
“They worry about the weather,” Eugénie says. “They worry about change. They worry people will leave them. They worry about death. Eventually, it rains, everything changes, everybody leaves, and everybody dies.”
“Oh great,” I says, clapping, “really nice, Eugenie. Way to bomb a party. You must have been a great pilot during World War II.”
Michael snorts into his glass of port and apologises, his chin dripping wine.
“Little shit.” Eugénie picks up a rolled-up issue of Le Monde and pretends to swat me like a fly. “All I’m saying is, bad things happen. You won’t have control over them. They’ll happen anyway. Might as well enjoy the ride, don’t you think?”
Michael nods wisely. “I agree, Miss Eugénie.”
I lean back in the sofa, scowling. “Don’t you gang up against me.”
Eugénie laughs. “And you’re paranoid, too.”
She gets up to change the record. But we won’t be staying any longer. From the way Michael is staring at me, and the way his gaze is engulfing every relevant part of my body in unquenchable flames, I have suddenly decided we have outstayed our welcome.
I scramble up to my feet, my whole face burning.
“Thank you Eugénie, for your wise words. God knows you’ve had time to prepare them.” Miss Eugénie slaps the rolled up LeMonde on top of my head. “But we have to go. Thank you for your hospitality again.”
Michael offers to clean up the mess, but Eugénie pushes him toward the exit, claiming he’s probably got more important things to do. She follows us into the corridor. Michael takes notice of one her framed photographs and stops.
“Is that you and Paul Newman?” His eyebrows rise up to his hairline.
She nods. The small black and white picture shows a much younger Eugénie standing in a bikini on a beach with some stud. On closer look, I notice he’s wearing the shades she let me borrow the other night.
“I told Louis I had better friends than him, once.”
Michael looks astonished. “I must come back and ask you about that.”
“Come back anytime, my darling.” Eugénie, not skipping a beat, leaves a wet kiss on my handsome British nerd’s cheek, and opens the door. Michael slips out, but I hang back.
“Who’s Paul Newman?”
Miss Eugénie shakes her head. “My dear Louis. Don’t you know anything?”
“Well, no, that’s why I have you.”
She gives my wrist a playful slap, and shoves me outside before slamming the door in my face. her laughter clearly audible on the other side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SEVEN IN THE AFTERNOON
WHAT NOW? MICHAEL is gazing up the stairs, like the treasure he has been seeking for all this time is hidden up there, in the depth of my flat. Upon checking my phone, I realise I have a bit of time before my father comes back from work.
I point my set of keys upwards toward my flat. “Do you want to come up?”
His hand rises to rub the back of his neck. “Sure.”
We climb up the stairs in silence. Michael is quite possibly still tipsy from the Porto. Me, I’m just trying to remember if I’ve picked up my dirty underwear from the floor this morning.
“There’s not much to see in there,” I say, a little nervous, as I open the door, half dreading my underwear to be waiting in the doorway, ready to pounce.
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
Michael puts his palm on the small of my back. I shiver lightly under his touch.
“Don’t be disappointed when you see it.”
Michael enters after me and, standing in the doorway, takes a look around the place, the small sitting room on the left, the old TV, my father’s pile of airplane magazines. The little kitchen on the right and its crooked cupboards. He whistles in admiration at my original hardwood floors, and I catch myself smiling.
“Is your father home?”
I shake my head in answer. “He’ll be around soon.”
“Show me your room, I want to talk to you.”
I lead the way toward my room, nervous. The underwear is right here, by the desk. I kick the it under the bed while Michael gazes at the posters of singers and musicians glued to the walls. He smiles at my twin bed and its childish bed spread with little spaceships flying to the moon.
“Cute,” he says, sitting on the bed.
Choosing to remain silent, I close the door behind us, an
d roll out my desk chair to sit in front of Michael. The leather squeals under my weight, startles us. I’ve never noticed my room to be so maddeningly quiet before.
Michael thankfully finds the silence too much and slaps his knees with the palm of his hands.
“I told you I had news. Good news.”
He did, though it seems very far. “What is it?”
“My father is visiting this weekend.”
How is that so groundbreaking that he felt the need to rush over here to tell me? I had expected at least something sensational, like telling me he’s going to stay in Paris forever, and live under the covers of my bed.
Michael, as though he heard my dirty thoughts, gets off the bed and starts pacing around the room.
“He’s got us tickets for the Opera.” The way his eyes glint with excitement sends a delicious chill through my spine. “I’m hoping this means he’s gonna fix his problem with my mum! She’s been out of sorts without him. I can’t even imagine him all alone in the London flat. They’re supposed to be together, they really are, you would agree if you’d see them!” Michael sits back down, as though ashamed of his own outburst. “You’d agree.” I stare at his bottom lip pinched between his teeth. “Anyway, it seemed important to tell you…”
His voice fades away, everything fades away, dissolves into nothingness . Only his face remains, the subtle arch of his brow, the way his long lashes flutters when he blinks, the elegance of his fingers as he brushes away a stray curl.
Oh, Christ.
This is it, isn’t it?
Lucie and I are over.
The rest is too frightening to voice out loud at the present.
“… in London after the exams.” Michael concludes, bursting my bubble.
“Say what?”
Mercifully, he hasn’t noticed I had completely tuned him out. He’s picking lint off my bedspread, his cheeks flushed.
“That would be great if we could move back straight after the exams. The Universities are better in London. And as much as I love Paris, I miss my home.”
Hang on a second. Something happened while I drifted away.
“You’re moving back.” I say, unsure. “After the exams.”
“Yes.”
Michael is really leaving after the exams. Not that I’m surprised. He was always British, and his home was always London.
What should I do? I can’t exactly get into something serious with him. I can’t exactly continue to pretend I’m Lucie’s boyfriend either. What do I do?
Three people, I love. Three people will leave me if I move.
I would never ask him to upend his life just a few kisses stolen in boys’ toilets and one sorry attempt at a date at the museum. I don’t even know if he’s gay. He’s never told me, after all.
Are we for real, or are we just having fun? What’s the difference? Fun sounds nice. Fun sounds like something a guy my age would do.
Minor problem here: I don’t know how to have fun. Never did. Where’s the guide, and how did I fail to read it? I steal a glance toward my laptop on my desk. Perhaps there’s a YouTube video about it. I have to check.
“With my father around this weekend,” Michael says, “And the whole week after, I won’t have time to hang out as we planned.”
“That’s all right,” I say absently, wondering if it would rude to ask him to step away so I can check something on the internet. “I get it.”
Michael probably doesn’t worry about where this is going, or how to have fun. It’s funny that he even likes to be around me. He is everything I pretend to be. Everything I project, he is naturally. Michael is like the cool, smart, laid-back, possibly gay version of what I want to be.
And I’m… well, me.
It’s not a good time to consume myself with self-loathing, however. Michael’s here, on my bed. Wringing his hands and worrying his poor lip. “I’m sorry I put so much pressure on you, before,” he says, his eyes on his lap.
His apology startles me. “Sorry, what?”
Michael looks everywhere around the room but at me. “I have no right to ask you to break up with Lucie. You’re right, you’re not like me.” He pauses. “I get it if you don’t want to tell anyone. It’s not an easy thing to say.”
“It’s not anyone’s business,” I say, unprompted.
“Exactly.” He gives a slow, sympathetic nod. “But I don’t like that you’re lying to Lucie. It makes me feel awful.”
“I know. I have to break up with her.” Michael’s gaze snaps up. “Not that it means that…”
I’ve got to say cool, he can’t see that I’m sinking, that I don’t know how to be fun, and I don’t want him to leave.
“No,” he says, “of course not.”
I can do fun. I can steal moments together until the exams, then I can let him go. That sounds like what a grown-up would do.
My phone rings in my pocket, startling us both. It’s Lucie. I turn off the call and put the phone on the desk. A veil of sadness descends on my shoulders.
“Lucie and I were never a good match.” My voice comes out choked. “She deserves better. I know I have to set her free. I’ll tell her. Very soon. When the moment’s right.”
And when I do, will I regret it? Is her bee or polar bear backpack the last thing I’ll ever see of her, as she walks away from me? Does Michael not care about Abby the way I do about Lucie? He doesn’t have a Tony to add to the mix. He clearly doesn’t understand me.
“You know, Michael...” I try not to sound bitter. “I feel bad about Abby, too.”
Michael gives me a surprised look. “Why?”
“I’m not the only one with a girlfriend, here.”
Michael springs up and kneels between my legs. He couldn’t have thought of anything more distracting.
“Don’t worry about Abby,” he says. He both my knees with both hands. “We’ve been broken up for months. Before I came here.”
I don’t understand a word he’s saying.
“For months? But I saw her—”
He waves my concerns away with a flick of his wrist.
“Yes. She’s calling me, a lot. But that doesn’t mean we’re together. We’re friends.”
The way he said ‘friends’ rings false to me. A shifty glint darkens his eyes, giving me pause.
“But Sacha said…”
“You think I would have been able to stay friends with Sacha if I hadn’t lied to her? She’s been all over me since the day I arrived and even then, she still tried to get into my pants at her party. The way she was throwing herself at you to make me jealous was unbearable. It drove me crazy.”
That’s why she thought I was so wonderful lately! Then it wasn’t Eugénie’s sunglasses. I might be able to borrow them again, drive Michael mad with them.
“Did you tell Sacha that—”
“I never said a word to anyone.”
“And you were never into her?”
“No! I’m—” He stops, looking a little frustrated. “I’m really, really not.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Why didn’t you simply tell her you weren’t interested?”
Michael shifts in his seat. “Yasmine and I really get along. And I do like Sacha too, you know. She’s always happy and motivated about everything. And I like François, when he’s not angry all the time. You know, the three of them really have an awesome friendship. And I want to be their friends too.”
I get up from my chair, laughing despite myself. An awesome friendship? The one you’ve almost ruined the day you barged into their lives? Poor François, too angry for Michael. If he knew… He gave me more trouble than Sacha ever did.
I turn to Michael, a smirk dancing on my lips. “You know François’s in love with you, right?”
Surprisingly, Michael doesn’t seem aware of it, even though it’s about as plain as getting hit in the face by a bulldozer.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“He is, I’m telling you. He has been acting like a complete maniac si
nce you moved in, and we used to be friendly, you know.”
“Not too friendly, I hope.”
“Ha!” I let out an unseemly cackle. “Fat chance.”
Michael approaches, pulls me to him. His intoxicating perfume sends my head reeling. His hands travel from my shoulders to my ribs, to my hips, settle there. Despite my layers of clothes, I feel naked, afraid. We kiss.
“When did you notice that you liked me?” Michael whispers against my cheek.
Unexpected question. Does it matter?
“Why are you asking me this?”
“I want to know.”
“Why?”
He sighs, and his breath against my neck sends my heartbeat flying straight to tachycardia levels. “It makes me happy to know.”
“Fine.”
I rack my brain trying to find when exactly I decide I wanted to fondle him a little. Memories of his blue underwear, the dimples in his cheeks when I made him laugh, the sweet tyranny of his bouncing curls come rushing by. A strange image keeps coming back. The uncomfortable first time we gazed at each other in the toilet at Colette’s.
No. That can’t be it. It doesn’t make any sense. I wasn’t even gay back then.
Or was I?
“I don’t know. I don’t know yet. It was many things. I’m sure it’s the same for you.”
“No, I recall.”
“You do?” I meet his gaze, surprised.
“I saw you in the mirror with your leather jacket and your sunglasses. You looked like you were pulled out of a magazine, like you’d seen it all and done it all. I’d never seen anyone look so blasé, you know. Damn, you were hot that day.”
“Really! That’s funny.” I hid by embarrassment by laughing nervously.
Didn’t I tell you that he thinks I’m cooler than I am? I have deceived him just as I did everyone else.
Michael’s hands travel south. Oddly enough, all the blood in my bloody seem to race in the same direction.“You’re pretty hot now.” His plump lips graze my earlobe. My hands fly to his arms for support.
That’s it, he’s complimenting me because he wants to get in my pants. Classic. And it’s going to happen. There’s no way I won’t let him. I just need to keep my sweating under control.
