the air move as he passes me.
Zeke and I struggle through our dialogue in class. The whole class has turned into a restaurant, partners together by table. Except Zeke and I have lost the ability to make eye contact with each other, which means we’re constantly interrupting and talking over each other’s words. When I actually remember words. I forget what bread is in French. I rely heavily on words that I think are the same in both languages.
I’m going to flunk out of my first French class because I kissed my study partner four days ago, and this is such a stereotypical college problem that I’d be excited if I wasn’t so appalled.
I need this. I need to get it together. I need to work on pretending I’m a twelve-year-old girl talking to her father (as per the situation card we received) about wanting to go to a concert. And I need to order my pretend food and answer Marianne’s questions about my allergies (according to the card, nuts and dairy).
I pull up the image on my wall of the Paris School, the vines that cover the stone walls. I can do this.
“Pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle,” I say to Marianne. Excuse me, miss. “Je suis allergique au . . .” shoot. Peanuts. Peanuts.
How the eff do I say peanuts in French?
“Ma fille est allergique aux cacahuètes,” Zeke interrupts. “Abby, n’aie pas peur de lui dire. C’est important.”
He saved me. He told Marianne that I’m too afraid to tell people about my allergies.
Catching his eyes, I notice his little smile and then the nod. The nod like at the park. The nod that says I know you’re flustered but you can do it.
I don’t know how to deal with all this. So I do all I can do.
“Mais papa, c’est tellement embarrassant,” I say, trying to sound annoyed and petulant about the embarrassment of telling people about my allergies.
And then we’re in rapid-fire French mode, because Zeke tells tween me that if I want to go to the concert, I need to prove to him that I’m adult enough to be honest about my limitations. And then I attack him for forgetting about my dairy allergy, and I try to go into great detail about the different effects of my peanut and dairy allergies, and he reminds me of the time I ate too much vanilla ice cream, and I was sick all over the floor of his brand-new car.
Pretty soon we’re laughing so hard that we don’t notice that Marianne has dismissed the class, because I’m insisting that I can eat my (plastic) chocolate cake even though it’s filled with butter and cream (beurre et crème) and he’s accusing me of polluting the room with my farting.
When Marianne (in her server role) tells us it’s time to go because the restaurant is closing, Zeke replies that the service was terrible and that we expect a refund on our meal.
“Are you guys doing all right with the class?” Marianne asks us in French when we’ve finally stopped laughing enough to grab our bags and make our way to the hallway.
Zeke glances over at me, and I smile back. “We’re good,” I say.
“You’re both trying hard, I can tell. And I’m enjoying reading your conversation logs. I’m glad it’s working out. Hopefully it will mean that more high school students will consider taking these intensive language courses. Maybe we can get you guys to write something up at the end of the program, and we’ll use it in our recruitment brochures?”
I nod quickly and Zeke’s head bobs alongside mine. “Can I ask you a question, actually? Speaking of writing things up?” I look at Zeke and he hitches his backpack higher on his left side.
“I’ll get going,” he says, but he moves slowly, as though willing me to stop him.
“It’ll just be a second.” And then I turn back to Marianne. “I don’t know if you know the Paris School, but they have a special half-year program for graduating seniors. I was wondering if you’d consider writing me a recommendation to go in January. I have my general school recommendations but they need to know that I’m fluent.”
Marianne pinches her lips together. “Send me the information about the program and let’s talk about this again toward the end of this class. I’m impressed with your French so far, but if they require total fluency, that’s something we’ll have to wait a bit to confirm. I don’t doubt you can do it, but you’re