A third of them! Of a few hundred—maybe even thousand!—theaters.
“Some American films are dubbed into French, but mainly those are the ones for children. The rest are left in English and given French subtitles. Here,
hold on.” St. Clair plucks a magazine cal ed Pariscope from the racks of a newsstand and pays a cheerful man with a hooked nose. He thrusts the
magazine at me. “It comes out every Wednesday. ‘VO’ means version originale. ‘VF’ means version française, which means they’re dubbed. So stick to VO. The listings are also online,” he adds.
I tear through the magazine, and my eyes glaze over. I’ve never seen so many movie listings in my life.
“Christ, if I’d known that’s all it took to make you happy, I wouldn’t have bothered with the rest of this.”
“I love Paris,” I say.
“And I’m sure it loves you back.”
He’s stil talking, but I’m not listening. There’s a Buster Keaton marathon this week. And another for teen slasher flicks. And a whole program devoted to 1970s car chases.
“What?” I realize he’s waiting for an answer to a question I didn’t hear. When he doesn’t reply, I glance up from the listings. His gaze is frozen on a figure that has just stepped out of our dorm.
The girl is about my height. Her long hair is barely styled, but in a fashionable, Parisian sort of way. She’s wearing a short silver dress that sparkles in the lamplight, and a red coat. Her leather boots snap and click against the sidewalk. She’s looking back over her shoulder toward Résidence Lambert
with a slight frown, but then she turns and notices St. Clair. Her entire being lights up.
The magazine slackens in my hands. She can only be one person.
The girl breaks into a run and launches herself into his arms. They kiss, and she laces her fingers through his hair. His beautiful, perfect hair. My
stomach drops, and I turn from the spectacle.
They break apart, and she starts talking. Her voice is surprisingly low— sultry—but she speaks rapidly. “I know we weren’t gonna see each other
tonight, but I was in the neighborhood and thought you might want to go to that club I was tell ing you about. You know, the one Matthieu recommended?
But you weren’t there, so I found Mer and I’ve been talking to her for the last hour, and where were you? I cal ed your cel three times but it went straight to voice mail.”
St. Clair looks disoriented. “Er. El ie, this is Anna. She hadn’t left the dorm all week, so I thought I’d show her—”
To my amazement, El ie breaks into an ear-to-ear smile. Oddly enough, it’s this moment I realize that despite her husky voice and Parisian attire, she’s
sort of . . . plain. But friendly-looking.
That stil doesn’t mean I like her.
“Anna! From Atlanta, right? Where’d you guys go?”
She knows who I am? St. Clair describes our evening while I contemplate this strange development. Did he tell her about me? Or was it Meredith? I hope it was him, but even if it was, it’s not like he said anything she found threatening. She doesn’t seem alarmed that I’ve spent the last three hours in the company of her very attractive boyfriend. Alone.
Must be nice to have that kind of confidence.
“Okay, babe.” She cuts him off. “You can tell me the rest later. You ready to go?”
Did he say he’d go with her? I don’t remember, but he nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah, let me grab my, er—” He glances at me, and then toward the
entrance of our dorm.
“What? You’re already dressed to go out. You look great. C’mon.” She tugs his arm, linking it to hers. “It was nice to meet you, Anna.”
I find my voice. “Yeah. Nice to meet you, too.” I turn to St. Clair, but he won’t look at me properly. Fine. Whatever. I give him my best I-don’t-care-that-you-have-a-girlfriend smile and a cheerful “Bye!”