It’s a beautiful night.The lights of Paris are yel ow and green and orange. The warm air swirls with the chatter of people in the streets and the clink of wineglasses in the restaurants. St. Clair has brightened back up and is detailing the more gruesome aspects of the Rasputin biography he finished this
afternoon.
“So the other Russians give him this dose of cyanide in his dinner, lethal enough to kil five men, right? But it’s not doing anything, so Plan B—they shoot him in the back with a revolver. Which still doesn’t kil him. In fact, Rasputin has enough energy to strangle one of them, so they shoot him three more times. And he’s stil struggling to get up! So they beat the bloody crap out of him, wrap him in a sheet, and throw him into an icy river. But get this—”
His eyes shimmer. It’s the same look Mom gets when she’s talking about turtles, or Bridge gets when she’s talking about cymbals.
“During the autopsy, they discovered the actual cause of death was hypothermia. From the river! Not the poisoning or the shooting or the beating.
Mother Nature. And not only that, but his arms were found frozen upright, like he’d tried to claw his way out from underneath the ice.”
“What? No—”
Some German tourists are posing in front of a storefront with peeling golden letters. We scoot around them, so as not to wreck their picture. “It gets
better,” he says. “When they cremated his body, he sat up. No, he did! Probably because the bloke who prepared his body forgot to snip the tendons, so they shrank up when he burned—”
I nod my head in appreciation. “Ew, but cool. Go on.”
“—which made his legs and body bend, but stil .” St. Clair smiles triumphantly. “Everyone went mad when they saw it.”
“And who says history is boring?” I smile back, and everything is perfect. Almost. Because this is the moment we pass the entrance to SOAP, and now
I’m farther from the school than I’ve ever been before. My smile wavers as I revert to my natural state of being: nervous and weird.
“You know, thanks for that. The others always shut me up long before—” He notices the change in my demeanor and stops. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Yes, and has anyone ever told you that you are a terrible liar? Horrid. The worst.”
“It’s just—” I hesitate, embarrassed.
“Yeeesss?”
“Paris is so . . . foreign.” I struggle for the right word. “Intimidating.”
“Nah.” He quickly dismisses me.
“Easy for you to say.” We step around a dignified gentleman stooping over to pick up after his dog, a basset hound with a droopy stomach. Granddad
warned me that the sidewalks of Paris were littered with doggie land mines, but it hasn’t been the case so far. “You’ve been acquainted with Paris your
whole life,” I continue. “You speak fluent French, you dress European ...”
“Pardon?”
“You know. Nice clothes, nice shoes.”
He holds up his left foot, booted in something scuffed and clunky. “These?”
“Wel , no. But you aren’t in sneakers. I total y stick out. And I don’t speak French and I’m scared of the métro and I should probably be wearing heels, but I hate heels—”
“I’m glad you’re not wearing heels,” St. Clair interrupts. “Then you’d be tal er than me.”
“I am tal er than you.”
“Barely.”
“Please. I’ve got three inches on you. And you’re wearing boots.”
He nudges me with his shoulder, and I crack a smile. “Relax,” he says. “You’re with me. I’m practical y French.”
“You’re English.”
He grins. “I’m American.”
“An American with a English accent. Isn’t that, like, twice as much for the French to hate?”
St. Clair rol s his eyes. “You ought to stop listening to stereotypes and start forming your own opinions.”
“I’m not stereotyping.”
“Real y? Please, then, enlighten me.” He points to the feet of a girl walking ahead of us. She’s yakking in French on a cel phone. “What exactly are those?”
“Sneakers,” I mumble.
“Interesting. And the gentlemen over there, on the other side of the pavement. Would you care to explain what the one on the left is wearing? Those
peculiar contraptions strapped to his feet?”
They’re sneakers, of course. “But hey. See that guy over there?” I nod toward a man in jean shorts and a Budweiser T-shirt. “Am I that obvious?”
St. Clair squints at him. “Obviously what? Balding? Overweight? Tasteless?”
“American.”
He sighs melodramatical y. “Honestly, Anna. You must get over this.”
“I just don’t want to offend anyone. I hear they offend easily.”
“You’re not offending anyone except me right now.”
“What about her?” I point to a middle-aged woman in khaki shorts and a knit top with stars and stripes on it. She has a camera strapped to her belt and
is arguing with a man in a bucket hat. Her husband, I suppose.
“Completely offensive.”
“I mean, am I as obvious as her?”
“Considering she’s wearing the American flag, I’d venture a no on that one.” He bites his thumbnail. “Listen. I think I have a solution to your problem, but you’l have to wait for it. Just promise you’l stop asking me to compare you to fifty-year-old women, and I’l take care of everything.”
“How? With what? A French passport?”
He snorts. “I didn’t say I’d make you French.” I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. “Deal?”
“Deal,” I say uncomfortably. I don’t care for surprises. “But it better be good.”
“Oh, it’s good.” And St. Clair looks so smug that I’m about to cal him on it, when I realize I can’t see our school anymore.
I don’t believe it. He’s completely distracted me.
It takes a moment for me to recognize the symptoms, but my heels are bouncing and my stomach is fluttering. I’m final y excited to be out! “So where