cover it with a cough.
“Are you okay?” Alexandre sits up and puts his hand on the small of my back.
I put the phone down to hide the screen from him. “I’m fine. Something in my throat, is all.”
“Hold on.” Alexandre leans over, and while he fishes through his backpack, I flip my phone back over and read Zaid’s message again. Not sure what he means, FaceTime? That’s not like him. But he’s leaving for Reed in a few weeks, so what else could it be?
Alexandre hands me a bottle of water. “Here.”
I take a few gulps and remind myself to breathe. My heart beats wildly. I’m certain Alexandre can hear it. He seems inordinately concerned about my little fake cough. Damn, this is uncomfortable. Does this count as lying to him? I am concealing the truth. But is a lie of omission as bad as a lie-lie?
“What did you want me to look at?”
“Huh? Oh, the Hash Eaters. Right.” I flip through windows on my phone until I get to a page I saved from a site on the occult in Europe. It has a small paragraph about the Hash Eaters. And a line about the woman: “The Club des Hashischins experimented with the drug to heighten their awareness, believing the high provided a portal to deeper artistic expression. It is said they employed a woman of possibly Turkish or Middle Eastern descent to lead séances that allowed them to communicate with spirits of great artists and writers of the past. The woman is rumored to have been a writer herself, though there is scant evidence of her existence.”
“Ahh, the raven-haired lady might’ve been a writer, too, perhaps. Lovely,” Alexandre says.
“But thanks to misogyny, her writing is lost and her name is unknown. And she’s totally erased. How quaint,” I reply tersely.
“You’re quite the feminist, aren’t you?”
It’s an offhand remark, but my hands curl into fists. I try to respond calmly through gritted teeth. “You obviously don’t understand that word at all. It’s not a pejorative.”
“It was merely an observation. I—”
“Being a feminist means you believe that a woman’s life and her choices are her own. It means you believe in equality and that you’ll fight for it.”
Alexandre nods. “Well, then I’m a feminist,” he says. “It’s simple, I guess. Anyone who doesn’t believe in that is an ignorant asshole.”
I look into his eyes. He smiles at me. I smile back. He hears me. He listens. He course-corrects. I don’t think he should get cookies for realizing the obvious, but maybe there are some good guys, after all. “So you’ll help me get into the H?tel de Lauzun in case there’s something sitting there, waiting to be found?”
“You want to break in? Like a thief?” he asks with mock surprise.
“Well, it’s not open to the public, and I have a feeling that—” I stop. I’m not sure what I’m saying. I’ve completely made this plan up on the fly, and it’s not like me at all. I’m pretty much always the model child, but my normal way to operate landed me in dog crap, and stepping out of my comfort zone seems to be paying off, at least a little. And honestly, I don’t see how this could make anything worse. I blame it on some kind of surge in my French genes. The French seem to have a more casual relationship with rules—especially ones that seem unnecessary. It’s not only the constant jaywalking and cutting in line; it’s the sense that the rules exist but don’t always apply to you. Now here I am, American compulsion to follow rules and desi tameez cast aside, the French girl emerging.
Alexandre kisses me on the cheek. “I’m in.”
“Really?” I can’t help but be incredulous at both of us.
“Oui, bien s?r. Summer is the time for adventure. Why not make one of our own? Dumas would approve.”
Excitement surges through me. Also terror. We could get in a lot of trouble if we get busted. Breaking and entering is an actual crime, and I’m not exactly an experienced trespasser. But a part of me is pulled to this. Drawn into it