WHEN I STEPPED OUTSIDE INTO THE COMFORTING security of daylight the next morning, the events of the previous night seemed unreal. There had been nothing about what we had seen on the news. But Georgia and I couldn’t let it go that easily.
We discussed it more than a few times, although we got no closer to understanding what had taken place. Our theories ran from things as mundane as Dungeons & Dragons fanatics playacting outdoors to the more dramatic (and laugh-inducing) scenario of time-traveling damsels and knights.
Although I continued to do all my reading at the Café Sainte-Lucie, I hadn’t seen the mysterious group of gorgeous guys again. After a couple of weeks, I knew all the waiters as well as the owners, and many of the regular clients became familiar faces: Little old ladies with their teacup Yorkshire terriers, which they carried around in their handbags and fed from their plates. Businessmen with expensive-looking suits talking endlessly on cell phones and ogling every pretty girl who walked by. Couples of all ages holding hands under the tables.
One Saturday afternoon I was squeezed into my regular table in the terrace’s far left corner, reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Although this was my third time through it, some passages still brought tears to my eyes. As one was doing now.
I used my dig-fingernails-into-palm trick, which, if it hurt enough, could keep me from crying in public. Unfortunately, today it wasn’t working. I could tell my eyes were getting red and glassy. This is all I need—to cry in front of my regular café crowd just as I’m getting to know them, I thought, peering up to see if anyone had noticed me.
And there he was. Sitting a few tables away, watching me as intensely as he had the first time. It was the boy with the black hair. The scene from the river, with him leaping off a bridge to save someone’s life, felt like it had been nothing but a surreal dream. Here he was, in broad daylight, drinking coffee with one of his friends.
Why? I almost said it out loud. Why did I have to get all teary about a book while this too-cute-to-be-true French guy was staring at me from a mere ten feet away?
I snapped my book closed and laid some money on the table. But just as I started toward the exit, the elderly women at the table next to mine stood and began fiddling with their massive pile of shopping bags. I fidgeted impatiently until finally one of them turned around. “So sorry, dear, but we’ll be another minute. Just go around us.” And she practically shoved me toward where the guys were sitting.
I had hardly gotten a step beyond their table when I heard a low voice coming from behind me.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” someone asked in French.
I turned to see the boy standing inches away from me. He was even more handsome than he had seemed from afar, though his looks were sharpened by that same flinty coldness I had noticed the first time I had seen him. I ignored the sudden jolt in my chest.
“Your bag,” he said, holding my book bag out toward me, balancing the strap on two fingers.
“Um,” I said, thrown off by his proximity. Then, seeing his wry expression, I pulled myself together. He thinks I’m a total idiot for leaving my bag behind. “How kind of you,” I said stiffly, reaching for the bag, as I tried to salvage any remaining scrap of confidence left in me.
He pulled his arm back, leaving me grasping air. “What?” he asked, amused. “Why be angry at me? It’s not like I swiped it.”
“No, of course not,” I huffed, waiting.
“So . . . ,” he said.
“So . . . if it’s okay with you, I’ll just take my bag now,” I said, reaching out and catching the straps in my hand this time. He didn’t let go.
“How about an exchange?” he offered, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “I’ll give you the bag if you tell me your name.”
I gawped at him, incredulous, and then gave the bag a hard tug—just as he let go. Its contents spilled in a heap across the sidewalk. I shook my head in disbelief. “Great! Thanks a lot!”
As gracefully as I could, I got down on my knees and began cramming my lipstick, mascara, wallet, phone, and what seemed like a million pens and tiny scraps of paper into my bag. I looked back up to see him inspecting my book.
“To Kill a Mockingbird. En anglais!” he commented, his voice tinged with surprise. And then, in slightly accented but perfect English, he said, “Great book—have you ever seen the film . . . Kate?”
My mouth fell open. “But . . . how do you know my name?” I managed to utter.
He raised his other hand and showed me my driver’s license, which featured an exceptionally bad head shot. By this point my humiliation was so great that I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, although I felt his gaze burning into me.
“Listen,” he said, leaning closer. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you drop your bag.”
“Stop flaunting your impeccable language skills, Vincent, help the girl to her feet, and let her take her leave,” came another voice in French. I turned to see my tormentor’s friend—the guy with the curly hair—holding out my hairbrush, with an expression of mild amusement creasing his razor-stubbled face.
Ignoring the hand “Vincent” was extending to help me up, I staggered to my feet and brushed myself off. “Here you go,” he said, handing me my book.
I took it with an embarrassed nod. “Thanks,” I replied curtly, trying not to run as I made the quickest possible exit out of the café and onto the street. As I waited for the crosswalk light to change, I made the mistake of glancing back. Both of the boys were staring my way. Vincent’s friend said something to him and shook his head. I can’t even imagine what they’re saying about me, I thought, and groaned.
Turning as red as the stoplight, I crossed the street without looking their way again.
For the next few days I saw Vincent’s face everywhere. In the corner grocery store, coming up the steps from the Métro, sitting at every café terrace I passed. Of course, when I got a better look at each of these guys, it was never actually him. Much to my annoyance, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and even more annoyingly, my feelings were equally divided between self-protective cautiousness and unabashed crush.
To be honest, I wasn’t ungrateful for the diversion. For once I had something else to think about besides fatal car crashes and what the hell I was going to do for the rest of my life. I’d thought I had it pretty much figured out before the accident, but now my future stretched before me like a mile-long question mark. It struck me that my fixation on this “mystery guy” might just be my mind’s way of giving me a breather from my confusion and grief. And I finally decided, if that were the case, I didn’t mind.