Isla And The Happily Ever After Part 8

"California. Berkeley. He said he was getting a job at a movie theatre, but I didn't believe him." Josh shakes his head again as we grab the final escalator. "He's never worked a day in his life."

"Have you?" Because not many people who've been to our school have.

Josh frowns. He's ashamed of his answer, and it comes out like a one-word confession. "No."

"Me neither." We both hold the guilt of privilege.

Josh glances at his phone again. I lean in and examine the picture closer. "Oof. That's one seriously ugly uniform. Does anyone look good in maroon polyester?"

He cracks a smile.

The escalator ends. Josh types a quick reply, silences his phone, and returns it to his pocket. I wonder if he told St. Clair about our date. I wonder if I'm newsworthy.

We head towards the galleries, but the mob inside the top-floor restaurant gives us pause. The tables have been removed, and an army of svelte models in frizzy white wigs, white lipstick, and marionette circles of white blush are manoeuvring trays of champagne through the swarm of bodies. Josh turns to me and c.o.c.ks his head. "Shall we?"

"Why, yes." I respond with a matching twinkle. "I believe we shall."

We slip inside, and he grabs two flutes as the first tray whizzes by. We're the youngest people here, by far. It must be a private party. The clamour of excited voices and the outlandish, kaleidoscopic music make the room unusually loud for Paris. "It's like New Year's Eve in here," I shout.

He bends down to shout back. "But not the real one. That glamorous, fake one you see in films. I always spend the real one watching television alone in my bedroom."

"Yes! Exactly!"

Josh hands me a gla.s.s and nods towards one of the restaurant's giant decorative-aluminium sh.e.l.ls. We duck underneath it. The noise becomes somewhat m.u.f.fled, and I raise my gla.s.s. "To the new year? Our new school year?"

He places a dramatic hand across his heart. "I'm sorry. But I can't toast that place."

I laugh. "Okay, how about...comics? Or Joann Sfar?"

"I propose a toast" Josh raises his gla.s.s with mock gravitas "to new beginnings."

"To new beginnings."

"And Joann Sfar."

I laugh again. "And Joann Sfar." Our gla.s.ses clink, and his eyes stay carefully fixed upon mine in the French tradition. My smile widens into a grin. "Ha! I knew it."

"Knew what?"

"You held eye contact with me. I've seen you pretend like you don't know how things go around here, but you do know. I knew you knew. You're too good of an observer." I take a triumphant sip of champagne. The pristine fizz tickles the tip of my tongue, and my smile grows so enormous that he breaks into laughter.

Thank you, France, for allowing alcohol to be legal for teenagers.

Well, eighteen year olds. And we're close enough.

Josh is amused. "How do you know I wasn't looking at you simply because I want to look at you?"

"I'll bet you speak French better than you let on, too. You never use it at school, but I bet you're fluent. People can play dumb all they want, but they always give themselves away in actions. In the small moments, like that."

The bubbles seem to go down the wrong hole. He coughs and sputters. "Play dumb?"

"I'm right, right? You're fluent."

Josh shakes his head. "Not all of us grew up in a half-French household."

"But I'll bet you're still good."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Thankfully, he's amused again.

"So why do you pretend not to know things?" My fingers play with the stem of my gla.s.s. "Or not to care?"

"I don't care. About most things," he adds.

"But why play dumb?"

He takes another sizable gulp of champagne. "You know, you ask really tough questions for a first date."

A painful blush erupts across my face and neck. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I like girls who challenge me."

"I didn't mean to be challen-"

"You aren't."

I raise an eyebrow, and he laughs.

"Really," he says. "I like smart girls."

My blush deepens. I wonder if he knows that I'm the top student in our cla.s.s. I never talk about it, because I don't want people to judge me. But it's true that his ex-girlfriend was smart, too. Rashmi was last year's salutatorian.

Josh says something else, but the noise level in the restaurant has been increasing, and it's finally reached its maximum volume. I shake my head. He tries again, but I still can't hear him so he takes my hand. We down the rest of our drinks as we squeeze through the revellery. He plunks the empty gla.s.ses on a pa.s.sing tray, leads me past a final throng of partygoers, and we emerge gasping and laughing into the hall.

"Well," Josh says. "Now that that's done."

I gesture towards the galleries. We stroll through them hand in hand. But the air here is cold, almost reminiscent of mortuaries, and the spa.r.s.ely furnished rooms grow stranger and stranger. Miniature sculptures of mundane objects that you have to get on your knees to see. A short film of a fast-food joint being purposefully flooded with water. A collection of puppets with crayons shoved up their a.s.ses.

"That looks..."

"Uncomfortable?" Josh finishes.

"I was going to say like a very colourful suppository."

He bursts into laughter, and an elderly woman with a dead fox around her shoulders glares at us. The fox has been dyed an alarming shade of purple. Josh whispers into my ear, "That's how it became such a vibrant colour. Crayons. Up its b.u.t.t."

I cover my giggling, but it's no use. She glares again, and we scurry into the next room. "OhmyG.o.d. This whole thing is...not what I'd hoped."

"Don't say that." But he's still laughing.

I shake my head. "I wanted weird, but maybe it's too weird?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm with you. I'm happy to be anywhere with you."

My heart puddles. "Me too."

Josh squeezes my hand. "Come on." He pulls me closer as we walk, and our bodies b.u.mp against each other. It's amazing how solid he is. How real. Muscle and skin and bone. "We still haven't seen your Finnish artist. Maybe he's over here?"

We find the exhibit hidden away in a back corner of the museum. The walls are collaged with hundreds, maybe thousands, of grainy, unframed photographs. We peer closer at one of a crumpled single-serving potato-chip bag. The artist had laid a scribbled note beside the object as some kind of label before snapping the picture. It's written in Finnish, but it's also been marked with a date.

"Huh." We say it together.

Josh points to another photograph. It's an empty bus seat, also labelled. "So he's cataloguing his day-to-day life? I guess?"

I look around for a sign in French and find it beside the door. I walk over to read it. "These aren't his things. They're some woman's."

Josh gives a low whistle. "No wonder this looks like a stalker's bedroom." He bends over. "Oh, s.h.i.+t! Look at this one. Yeah, I think that's actually s.h.i.+t."

I race back to his side. "How did he get her s.h.i.+t?!"

"Maybe he went into a public restroom after her? He was probably gonna take a picture of the seat and got lucky. Maybe it wouldn't flush."

I snort loudly.

"I mean, I've been waiting for you to leave something behind for ages, but you keep picking all of these working toilets."

I fake-gasp and shove him. He laughs and shoves me back, and I squeal as the purple-fox lady enters the room. She shoots us daggers. We straighten up, but our sn.i.g.g.e.ring is barely contained as we attempt to focus our attention on a picture of a discarded c.o.ke can. "This guy's lady love is kind of a slob, don't you think?" he whispers.

I cover my mouth with my hands again.

"A reaaaaaaaal litterbug."

"Stop it," I hiss. My eyes are watering. "OhmyG.o.d, look at this one! How did he get her toenail clippings?"

"If you were my girl," he whispers, "I'd take creepy pictures of your trash when I knew you weren't looking."

"If you were my girl," I whisper back, "I'd put the creepy pictures in a foreign museum so you wouldn't know that I take creepy pictures."

A single belly laugh escapes from Josh, and the woman spins around and actually stomps her foot. Like a cartoon character. It's the last straw. We lose control, cracking up hysterically, as we run from the room and towards the escalators.

"If you were my girl," I say, barely able to catch my breath, "I'd remove your skin, dye it purple, and wear you like a scarf at fancy gatherings!"

He stops and bends at the waist, he's laughing so hard. "Oh, f.u.c.k." He wipes a tear from his eye. Two museum guards whip around the corner. "Go, go, go, go, go!"

We tear down the hall, and the guards take off after us. We hit the escalators, and for some reason they give up. After, like, ten whole yards. They cluck their tongues as we disappear from view. "So much for security." Josh is cheerfully dismayed. "Maybe we should steal a painting?"

I laugh, and he watches me from the step below. Beaming. The current between us is so intense that it's almost visible. He takes my hand and turns it over, examining it. It's so much tinier than his. "If you were my girl?" he says. "I'd steal you away from the fancy gathering and take you somewhere less pretentious."

I rest my thumb against an ink stain on his index finger. "And if you were mine, I'd tell you that I know a good place just up the street."

He lifts his head. His eyebrows rise.

I smile.

"If you were my girl," he says, but there's an explosion outside in the courtyard, and I miss the punchline. Fireworks crackle in showers of pink, green, blue, white, green, pink, orange. The museum-goers on the escalators heading upwards erupt in a frenzy of applause as we continue heading down. "If you were my girl," Josh says, pressing his nose against my ear. I turn my head, and the lights and the noise and the people disappear. The distance between us disappears.

Our kiss is anything but shy.

His lips press deeply against mine, and mine press deeply back. Our mouths open. Our tongues meet. We're hungry, deliriously so. Even with my eyes closed, the shape of his body flashes before me, lit by the spectacle outside. Light, dark, light, dark. He tastes like champagne. He tastes like desire. He tastes like my deepest craving fulfilled.

Chapter ten.

Our mouths are still attached when Josh hits the ground floor. A number of things follow in rapid succession: his chin smacks my nose on its upwards trajectory as he quickly reclaims his height over me; I lose my balance, stumble forward, and take both of us cras.h.i.+ng to the museum's polished concrete floor.

"Holy s.h.i.+t." Josh looks up at me, and his eyes widen. "Holy s.h.i.+t!"

Blood is pouring from my nose.

"Is it broken? Did I break your nose?"

I touch it and wince, but I shake my head like it's not a big deal. I shove my dress back down over my indecently exposed upper thighs. "I'm fine." Imb fimb.

Josh pulls me up and out of the escalator's path. He pats his coat frantically, searching for something, but he's coming up empty. A concerned observer whisks out a stylish floral pocket square and hands it to me.

"Merci," I tell the dapper man. Mbear-see. I hold it to my nose for a few seconds, and it comes down looking like a crime scene.

"No. No." Josh can't stop repeating himself. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

"It's okay!" I hope he can understand my voice. "It's only a b.l.o.o.d.y nose." I hold out the pocket square, unsure, and the man furiously waves his hand. Thatsokaykeepit. I nod another thanks as Josh leads me to the closest restroom. "Really, I'm fine," I a.s.sure him. But he touches his forehead in horror as I disappear inside.

Damage inspection. My nose is still running, my chin is stained like a tomato, and tomorrow I'll be sporting a vicious bruise. At least my dress is still clean? A woman with flawless ebony skin and to-die-for cheekbones emerges from a stall. She gasps. "What happened?" she asks in French. She's already producing an entire pack of tissues from her bag. She pushes them into my hands.

"I get these all of the time," I say. "It's so embarra.s.sing."

Only the first half is a lie.

I hold up a tissue, carefully pinch the bridge of my nose, and wait for the bleeding to stop. And wait. And wait. I urge her to leave, because it's weird to have a stranger, even a well-meaning one, stare at me for this long. She finally does. Immediately, I hear Josh ask her in manic but word-perfect French if I'm okay.

Aha! I knew it.

When the blood comes to a standstill, I reappear with a whopping smile. Josh wrings his hands. "Isla, I am so sorry. Are you sure it's not broken?"