lines? Why the worry?
“I think we should talk.”
Now that’s never a good sign.
And so because I’m coward, a true coward, I make a decision I know in my core is the wrong one. “If this is about what happens after the program ends, let’s just not deal with it. Let’s pretend that all that matters is this lovely little bubble that we’re in right now.”
Zeke shakes his head and I know this is the beginning of the end, and I don’t want it.
“Please,” I beg. “We don’t need to worry about what happens after, not now. Let’s worry about that when it comes.”
Zeke looks away, his eyes focusing on the door to our room, on the sign explaining the evacuation route and the checkout time, and I hope . . .
“Okay,” he says, but his smile is still sad.
Zeke convinces me to leave our room when I can’t hide my growling stomach anymore. We stroll through the early morning streets, the sidewalks deserted but for the storekeepers opening their shops.
I don’t care because it’s warm, but there’s a cool breeze that feels glorious against my sunburned skin. But mostly I don’t care because I’m walking through streets that could be in France, for all I’d know; the language of my dreams is everywhere. It’s like a beautiful alternate universe where everyone is living inside my happy place. I don’t need Amélie or Paris. I am happy right here. My happy place that is made infinitely happier given Zeke’s firm grip on my hand. I want to pull him into an entryway and kiss him; we can melt into the streetscape, melt into this life, right here. There’s no baseball here. No Chicago. I don’t even need to cross the ocean; I can make my life here on this tiny street in Old Montreal, a boulangerie and pâtisserie and dépanneur to keep me fed, a librairie to keep me busy. And Zeke. Zeke for everything else.
Except Zeke isn’t relaxed. His grip is tight, like he’s afraid I’ll take off running. His usual torrent of French is silent. He’s not even peppering me with silly questions.
But I’m pretending that it doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s just too early in the morning. Maybe we both need more coffee.
“Je pense,” I start, not so much filling the silence as reveling in the morning, “I think that if I can’t go to the Sorbonne, if I don’t get in, I’ll come back here. Apply to McGill or the University of Montreal. My parents can’t get mad at that, right? Aren’t Canadian schools cheaper than American ones anyway? And classes are in English so I can live in French, or take French classes, but be able to do my degree in English.”
Zeke gives me a weak smile. A weak smile that is not even a half smile. But I’m not going to worry.
“Montreal is awesome. I know it’s not as gorgeous as Paris, but it’s a city that couldn’t even support a major-league baseball team, so that makes it fabulous in my books. And I can—”
“Monsieur, je peux donner une fleur à ta belle fille?” A white-haired gentleman in a brown suit has stopped sweeping the cobblestones in front of his store to pick up a fully bloomed red rose. He holds it delicately by the stem and points it toward me, his eyes trained on Zeke.
Zeke nods slowly and the man turns the rose to me. “Une belle rose pour une belle fille.”
A beautiful rose for a beautiful girl.
I’m definitely never leaving.
“Come, take a picture with me and my rose,” I tell Zeke, pulling him close beside me. I extend out my phone and snap the picture, our two smiling faces framed by the dull gray buildings of old Montreal in the early morning, the dark cobblestone street.
With Zeke Martin in Vieux Montreal, I write under the photograph and post it, my first post since I left Chicago. And then I shut off my phone.
We spend the day touring through Montreal, notebook pages filled with the words we look up, the conversations we have. Zeke’s exhaustion must have passed because he’s back to normal, laughing and joking as we take the Metro, hit up a drumming circle on Mount Royal, and eat the fluffiest eggs at L’Avenue. All in French.
We walk through the McGill campus, the run-down student ghetto, taking side streets up through the plateau to St-Viateur Bagel. In a small waiting area with a giant woodburning oven, we watch as dozens of bagels