Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,62
or hell. But what comes after on earth, when you’re dead and buried and the memory of you fades from the living.
I flip absentmindedly through the pages of the book. My thoughts fly from Leila to my grand-mère and her old, sick friend who my parents went to see this morning. What happens when a person dies and there’s no one left to remember them? I see my grand-mère’s apple-cheeked smiling face. She always had a bloom about her, a youthful roundness even as she got older. At least that’s how I remember her. Maybe I need to write that down sometime, make her a character in a story. Maybe that’s the best thing we can hope for after we’re gone—that someone tells our story and makes it true. Or true enough.
My eyes stop on the poem I have to read again: The Giaour. God. This poem is twenty pages long. But this is where Leila’s story, inexplicably, improbably, first crossed my path. And I didn’t even know it. I can’t wait to blow Alexandre’s mind with this.
I’m a bit lost in a research daze and with the dizzying realization that maybe, perhaps, my Leila theory might actually be right. I step out of the dimly lit store, shielding my eyes while they adjust to the brilliant daylight. I blink a few times. A couple of pale-skinned, red-headed kids—brother and sister?—splash each other by a Wallace Fountain, one of the iconic green cast-iron fountains that dot the city landscape. It was a gift from an Englishman in the 1800s so the Parisian poor could have access to free, clean drinking water when the city was riddled with disease. They’re the prettiest drinking fountains ever. And there it is again, the history of Paris still alive, still working in the present day.
I jump back a step when a few droplets land in my direction. The parents scold the kids in English—tourists, as I suspected, because in France, redheads are “exotic.” I laugh and tell them it’s no problem. They seem surprised I speak English, also happy. It never fails when you’re in a foreign country: you’re probably friendlier to folks from back home than you’d be otherwise. Maybe it’s like Alexandre said when I was snippy with the American couple that asked me to take their photo. They’re only trying to enjoy their vacation and maybe everyone wants a little feeling of home when they’re far away. The kids wave at me as they set off.
I turn right and take a few steps to the café.
As I take in the tourists sitting outside, enjoying their coffee in the sun, I spot a Parisian. My Parisian. Alexandre huddled close over a table with a waify blonde girl.
I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
I stare at them. The detritus of afternoon coffee—empty sugar packets and milk froth–stained spoons are spread casually across their tiny, intimate table. They’re laughing, and she leans into him and whispers something in his ear. His arm is causally draped across the back of her seat.
No. No. No.
Time decelerates enough to painfully draw out every excruciating detail of this . . . stranger. Perfectly painted red lips. Flawless fair skin. Diaphanous blue silk scarf knotted on the side of her neck—an exact match for her eyes. Audrey Hepburn sunglasses positioned like a headband. As the breeze rustles her hair across her face, she tucks a few silken blonde wisps back behind her elfin ears.
Dammit.
Standing here, frozen, I’m totally aware of how opposite she and I are. Physically, obviously—I mean she’s pale enough to get sunburn on a cloudy day in winter. But it’s much more than that. I’m the girl in a Notorious RBG T-shirt, dark skinny jeans, and All-Stars the color of a robin’s egg. She’s wearing a gray linen sheath that drapes over her body perfectly. On me it would look like a potato sack; on her it’s Parisian chic. I’m too American with a slightly off French accent. She’s fluent. I’m a visitor. She’s the native. The one with home-court advantage.
A guy bumps into me; the world screeches back to full speed. He also steps on the back of my shoe, giving me a flat tire. He was walking backward, trying to get a shot