while, St. Clair relaxes again, and we talk about little things, like the test last week in calculus and the peculiar leather jacket Steve Carver has been wearing lately.We haven’t had a normal conversation in weeks. It almost feels like it did . . . before. And then we hear a grating American voice behind us.
“Don’t walk behind him.We’l be stuck here all day.”
St. Clair tenses.
“He shoulda stayed home if he was so afraid of a couple stairs.”
I start to spin around, but St. Clair grips my arm. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.” He steers me into the next hal way, and I’m trying to read a name chiseled into the wal , but I’m so furious that I’m seeing spots. St. Clair is rigid. I have to do something.
I squint at the name until it comes into focus. “Emily Zola. That’s only the second woman I’ve seen down here. What’s up with that?”
But before St. Clair can answer, the grating voice says, “It’s Émile.” We turn around to find a smug guy in a Euro Disney sweatshirt. “Émile Zola is a man.”
My face burns. I reach for St. Clair’s arm to pul us away again, but St. Clair is already in his face. “Émile Zola was a man,” he corrects. “And you’re an
arse. Why don’t you mind your own bloody business and leave her alone!”
Leave her alone, alone, alone! His shout echoes through the crypt. Euro Disney, startled by the outburst, backs into his wife, who yelps. Everyone else stares, mouths open. St. Clair yanks my hand and drags me to the stairs, and I’m nervous, so scared of what will happen. Adrenaline carries him an entire spiral up, but then it’s as if his body has realized what’s happening, and he abruptly halts and dangerously sways backward.
I steady him from behind. “I’m here.”
He squeezes my fingers in a death grip. I gently march him upward until we’re back under the domes and columns and arches, the open space of the
main floor. St. Clair lets go of me and col apses onto the closest bench. He hangs his head, like he’s about to be sick. I wait for him to speak.
He doesn’t.
I sit on the bench beside him. It’s a memorial for Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who wrote The Little Prince. He died in a plane crash, so I suppose there aren’t any remains for a tomb downstairs. I watch people take pictures of the frescoes. I watch the guard who yel ed at us earlier. I don’t watch St. Clair.
At last, he raises his head. His voice is calm. “Shal we look for a turkey dinner?”
It takes hours of examining menus before we find something suitable.The search turns into a game, a quest, something to lose ourselves in.We need to
forget the man in the crypt.We need to forget that we aren’t home.
When we final y discover a restaurant advertising an “American Thanksgiving Dinner,” we whoop, and I perform a victory dance. The maître d’ is
alarmed by our enthusiasm but seats us anyway. “Bril iant,” St. Clair says when the main course arrives. He raises his glass of sparkling water and smiles.
“To the successful locating of a proper turkey dinner in Paris.”
I smile back. “To your mom.”
His smile falters for a moment, and then is replaced with one that’s softer. “To Mum.” We clink glasses.
“So, um.You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but how’s she doing?” The words spil from my mouth before I can stop them. “Is the radiation therapy making her tired? Is she eating enough? I read that if you don’t put on lotion every night, you can get burns, and I was just wondering ...” I trail off, seeing his expression. It’s as if I’ve sprouted tusks. “I’m sorry. I’m being nosy, I’l shut—”
“No,” he interrupts. “It’s not that. It’s just . . . you’re the first person who’s known any of that. How . . . how did ...?”
“Oh. Um. I was just worried, so I did some research. You know, so I’d . . . know,” I finish lamely.
He’s quiet for a moment. “Thank you.”
I look down at the napkin in my lap. “It’s nothing—”
“No, it is something. A big something. When I try talking to El ie about it, she has no bloody clue—” He cuts himself off, as if he’s said too much.
“Anyway. Thank you.”