Eternal Spring A Young Adult Short Story Collection (26 page)

As I walk I forget a little of the drama that’s left me on
my own. All around me the buildings are lit to stunning perfection; colored
floodlights on pale
stone walls
, amber street lamps
that could pass for gas light, and little white fairy lights wound through
trellises and trees. I don’t know whether these lights are for the residents or
the tourists, but I fall in love with them either way.

This is Montmartre, home of the Moulin Rouge and Picasso,
sinners and artists, basilica and bars. I traveled thousands of miles to
experience this city with my friends, and I only have a few short hours here on
this hill. I might as well enjoy the scenery for this brief time, forget about
Mark’s kiss and Stacy’s anger and Bowie’s eyes. I can snack on a crepe and
laugh at the stars and leave the worry of smoothing over friendships for
another day. I can….

…until I turn the corner onto a road I know at once I
shouldn’t be on. I shouldn’t be here alone, at night. I shouldn’t be here at
all. I should be back in the bustling heart of Montmartre, I should be
exploring Sacre Couer, I should be wondering about Bowie in the Place de
Tertre. Instead I stand rooted to the spot, staring slack-jawed at Mark and one
of his basketball buddies as they throw their arms around the shoulders of a
pair of half-dressed hookers and disappear indoors.

Room service leaves continental breakfast in the room I’m
sharing with Stacy and the French club girls. Thankfully, the little substitute
for a meal includes coffee — heaven bless Paris — and I pour a
half cup
and grab a plain croissant and sit cross-legged on
the end of the bed, waiting for Stacy to emerge from the bathroom.

The French club girls are stretched out on the other bed,
heads bowed together over a map of the city, whispering their plans for the
morning. They’re nice enough, really, and I feel bad they had to put up with
the tension and silence Stacy and I dragged into the room last night, but a
girl can only apologize just so much.

I nibble on the edge of the croissant and regret - out of
the clear blue nowhere - not bringing my mp3 player along. I would feel better
if I could just hear some familiar music, some sound that could shatter the
silence with memories of home.

The latch on the bathroom door rattles. The moist croissant
goes dry in my mouth. On the next bed, the club girls each suck in a breath.

I wash down the croissant with a swig of coffee, cough at
the bitterness as Stacy emerges from the bathroom. “Stacy, you got a second?” I
ask.

“Not for you.” She breezes past, her pajamas and makeup bag
tucked in her arm. She’s already dressed for the day, makeup in place, hair
twisted and pinned with decorative chopsticks.

“I need to talk to you,” I say.

As she passes by, she slams her makeup bag down on the
dresser. “I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit.” She throws her
pajamas into the closet and rips her jacket off its hanger. “Ever.”

The club girls whisper in French and scramble off their bed.

“Stace, I know you’re pissed and I understand it, I do. But
you have to believe — no.” I shake my head. “I don’t care if you believe
me about the museum, but there’s something you need to know, something more
important.”

I spent the bulk of my free time in Montmartre last night
sipping Orangina at a dusty café near the Abbesses station. Watching the clock,
waiting for my classmates to return, I turned over all the options in my mind. No
matter how else I arrived at the conclusion, the conclusion remained the same:
Stacy needs to know her boyfriend was with a hooker. And that the hooker was
the plan all along and I
wasn’t
lying about the kiss.

Stacy shrugs into her jacket and turns on me, leaning over
me, her face inches from mine. Her skin is flushed and her eyes are narrowed.
“I know everything I need to. You’re jealous of
me and Mark,
you always have been. And you’ll make up any bullshit lie to try and break us
up so you have someone else to be lonely and pathetic with.”

“Stacy, that’s—”

“I have. Nothing. To say to you. Ever.” Her nostrils flare,
her lips pinch, and she storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

I flinch at the noise, splashing coffee over my hand.
“Shit.”

French club girls scuttle past me and flee the room
wordlessly. I’m left alone with a croissant and a cup of bitter coffee. A
hollowness fills my chest. How did I get myself into this? Why? Why does
telling someone the truth, telling a
friend
the truth, end up being a punishable
offense? And how long will it take before I learn to keep my mouth shut?

I take my time dressing, polishing off the croissant as I do
so, leaving the bitter coffee in its pot. By the time I leave the room it’s
after nine. The MacArthur High group is required to assemble at the Eiffel
Tower at 1:30. I have hours to kill and no idea how. But it’s Paris. There must
be something.

Grabbing my camera and my jacket, I head out. The little
shop in Montmartre had a map of attractions. I figure I can find something
similar close enough to the hotel.

When the elevator reaches the lobby I realize the concierge
might have a map. If only I can find the concierge desk.

I approach a cluster of chairs, eyes on the line of bronze
marble check-in desks stretching against the far wall.

“Hey, Rachel!”

Bowie. He stands among that same cluster of chairs, and I
realize the rest are occupied by kids from school - choir kids and drama kids
and kids I only know from passing in the halls. I freeze, not certain what to
do.

And then Bowie smiles. A flutter tickles my belly, and I
smile in return. Without further doubt or question, I turn toward him, cross
the lobby in his direction. One by one the rest of the kids are slowly rising
from the chairs, pulling on their coats and checking phones.

“We’re going to do the ten o’clock tour at the Opera House.
Want to come with?”

There’s a hopeful glint in his dark eyes, and a sudden
melting in my spine. “Sounds good.”

“What about your friend Stacy? You two don’t have some other
plan?”

Again I experience the sensation that he sees more than the
face I present to the world. I look at the carpet rather than hold his gaze.
“She’s, uh, off with her … Mark.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see him nod. “All right. Let’s
go then. This way.” He sweeps his arm in the direction of the antique revolving
doors, and walks beside me as we cross the lobby.

“So after you blew off my invitation to Place de Tertre,
what’d you and Stacy end up doing last night?” he asks.

I search for something to tell him, something so dull he
won’t ask more questions. The words are nearly formed when I hear Stacy
accusing me of lying when I was telling the truth. I realize I’d rather tell
Bowie the truth than a lie. “We ended up fighting,” I say, and step by myself
into the revolving door.

On the street Bowie gazes at me with concern and a kindness
that makes my throat ache with the warning of impending tears. We are
surrounded, though, with the rest of the crew. Bowie steers the chatter
effortlessly toward their discoveries in Montmartre - a cross-dressing painter,
a
drunk
crepe maker, and a street corner busker whose
skill they prevailed upon to back them up in singing some classic Beatles
tunes. Their stories and reminiscences continue until we board a morning-crowded
Metro, and
the tales are swallowed by Paris residents
starting their day
.

It’s not until we’re standing at the foot of the Grand
Staircase within the opulent Paris Opera House, gazing up at the sweeping
steps, the ornate candelabrum, the carved archways that Bowie pursues my remark
about Stacy.

“So, bad fight, huh?” he asks.

“You could say that.” I wander away from him to study the
sculpture atop the newel post. Noreen and one of the drama kids shuffle up the
stairs while the rest of the tour group meanders around the spacious lobby,
oohing and aahing and snapping pictures.

“Sorry, it’s not my business,” Bowie says, coming up next to
me.

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s just…” He sighs, folds his arms. “You’re not you, you
know?”

“I’m not me?”

“The girl that sat with us at dinner last night was, like,
distracted. The girl I’m looking at today is on a whole different plane.”

I shake my head, amble toward the center of the lobby. High
overhead, a circular domed skylight lets through the meager morning sunshine.
“You know me so well you can determine my moods?”

“No, I don’t know you that well.” He smiles a little,
shuffles closer, eyes on the classic marble floor. “I just, you know, pay
attention is all.”

His statement draws my attention away from the ceiling. I
try to read the emotion on his face, get some clue from his eyes, but he’s
studying the floor as though memorizing the pattern. I want to ask him what he
means, but I’d rather not be embarrassed if I’m reading too much into things.

But I can’t stop looking at him, and wondering. So when he
glances up, he catches my stare. The thoughtful, almost sad slant of his lips
transforms to his usual broad grin. He stands straight and his gaze sweeps the
lobby. “What do you think the acoustics are like in here?”

“Umm….I think they’re excellent for changing the subject?”

The
curve of his ears flush
pink,
and he returns his focus to the floor. “I could help. I mean, I could listen
or…whatever.”

I can’t keep back the giggle. “You?”

“Yeah, me. Why not?”

“You’re offering to listen to me whine about a fight I had
with Stacy that didn’t involve wet t-shirts or mud?”

He appears puzzled for a moment then his brow clears. “Oh,
the girl fight thing. I get it.” He nods, edges closer to me. “I’m a good
listener. Really. I have sisters. Twins. I spend a lot of time mediating while
my mom’s at work.”

“Somehow I think this particular issue hasn’t come up.”

Our tour guide bustles to the center of the lobby, orders us
to gather together so we can move into the theater itself. She gives us the
history of the place, naming rulers and architects, and runs through an
impressive list of luminaries who performed here.

My mind, however, has returned its full attention to the
question of Stacy and Mark and what I should do. I can apologize - but for
what? I told the truth. The apology might buy me time to tell her about Mark
and the hooker, but I’d only be right back where I started from as soon as I
give her the news. She won’t believe that either. I could say nothing, but then
isn’t that lying, too?

I slump into one of the red velvet chairs filling the opera
house auditorium. Leaning back I can admire the elaborate painting on the
ceiling, the chandelier the tour guide says weighs seven tons, but the wheels
of my mind are stuck on ugly things.

As I gaze at the velvet theater boxes ringing the balcony,
Bowie drops into the seat beside me. Somehow I feel like I should be annoyed at
his persistence, but I find myself comforted by it. And that means a lot right
now.

“All problems,” he says in a voice like a mellow whisper,
“boil down to very simple questions. Get it down to its simplest form, and the
answer is easier to find.”

I roll my head against the back of the chair, meet his eyes.
“Thanks, Yoda.”

He gives me The Smile. “Happy to help.”

We stay where we are, face-to-face, silent, while the tour
guide yammers about “The Phantom of the Opera” and Noreen softly
sings
“Think of Me” - as if no one’s ever done that before.

Bowie is the first to move, shifting forward in his seat and
crossing his arms on the chair in front of him. “Bottom line. The only time
fighting with a friend is worth it, is when not having the fight makes it
impossible to live with yourself.”

I turn the words over, looking for some sensibility in them.
“Umm…”

“So is it worth it? Whatever you two are fighting about, is
it important enough to risk the friendship?”

The friendship is already at risk, already fragile, maybe
beyond repair. And that’s going to make for a long week in Paris, and a longer
school year. But I can’t think of a single solution, no way to undo what’s been
done, only make it worse.

I’m not a liar. Stacy thinks I am; Mark will tell her I am.
Even if she doubts herself, she’ll believe him.

I let me eyes slip closed. Low in a chair in a two hundred
year old theater, surrounded by ghosts and classmates, I am once again lost.
But this time, at least, I begin to have a sense of where I need to go.

The group from MacArthur High assembles at a cluster of stone
benches beneath the Eiffel Tower. At one-thirty, chaperones count heads,
teachers look annoyed, and my classmates laugh and wander and make the
chaperones’ job harder and the teachers more annoyed.

I stick close to Bowie and Noreen. Noreen, at last, has
decided I’m not an enemy, so the tension constricting my chest is all of my own
making.

As far away from me as she could possibly be and still
remain with the MacArthur group, Stacy stands wrapped in Mark’s arms, her back
to his front. He talks over her head to his buddies while she shoots daggers in
my direction.

“What exactly did you say to her?” Bowie asks quietly.

“The truth.”

He sucks air in between his teeth. “Ouch.”

The chaperones and teachers herd us toward the elevator that
will take us to the second level of the tower. We shuffle into a semblance of a
line, waiting for the double-decker cars riding the outside leg of the tower to
take us up. Stacy and Mark are further along in the line, frustrating my plan
to corner her on the elevator. Instead, at Bowie’s insistence, I gaze out the
full-length window, peering past the
cross-hatched
iron of the tower out onto the city of Paris.