Just One Day(59)

“Because he spied on her when she was sleeping,” Dee says. “There was an explanation.”
“I know. I know. Just like you say there might be a good explanation for Willem disappearing. But you know, sometimes you do have accept the evidence at face value. In one day, I saw Willem flirt with, get undressed by, and get a telephone number from a minimum of three girls, not counting me. That says ‘player’ to me. And I got played.”
“For a player, boy talked a lot about falling in love.”
“Falling in love, not being in love,” I say. “And with Céline.” Though when he spoke of his parents, of being stained, I recall the look on his face, one of unmasked yearning. And then I feel the heat on my wrist, as if his saliva were still wet there.
“Céline,” Dee says, snapping his fingers. “The hottie French girl.”
“She wasn’t that hot.”
Dee rolls his eyes. “Why didn’t we think of this? What’s the name of the club she worked at? Where you left your bag?”
“I have no idea.”
“Okay. Where was it?”
“Near the train station.”
“Which train station?”
I shrug. I’ve sort of blocked it all out.
Dee grabs my laptop. “Now you’re just being ornery.” He taps away. “If you came from London, you arrived at Gare du Nord.” He pronounces it Gary du Nord.
“Aren’t you clever?”
He pulls up Google Maps and then types something in. A cluster of red flags appear. “There.”
“What?”
“Those are the nightclubs near Gare du Nord. You call them. Presumably Céline works in one of them. Find her, find him.”
“Yeah, maybe in the same bed.”
“Allyson, you just said you had to have your eyes wide open.”
“I do. I just don’t ever want to see Céline again.”
“How bad do you want to find him?” Dee asks.
“I don’t know. I guess, more than anything, I want to find out what happened.”
“All the more reason to call this Céline person.”
“So I’m supposed to call all these clubs and ask for her? You forget, I don’t speak French.”
“How hard can it be?” He stops and arranges his face into a puckered expression. “Bon lacroix monsoir oui, tres, chic chic croissant French Ho-bag.” He smirks. “See? Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
“Is that French too?”
“No, that’s Latin. And you can ask for the other guy too, the African.”
The Giant. Him I wouldn’t mind talking to, but of course, I don’t even know his name.
“You do it. You’re better at all that than me.”
“What you on about? I studied Spanish.”
“I just mean you’re better at voices, pretending.”
“I’ve seen you do Rosalind. And you spent a day playing Lulu, and you’re currently masquerading as a pre-med student to your parents.”
I look down, pick at my nail. “That just makes me a liar.”
“No it doesn’t. You’re just trying on different identities, like everyone in those Shakespeare plays. And the people we pretend at, they’re already in us. That’s why we pretend them in the first place.”
_ _ _
Kali is taking first-year French, so I ask her, as casually as possible, how one might ask for Céline or a Senegalese bartender whose brother lives in Rochester. At first she looks at me, shocked. It’s probably the first time I’ve asked her something more involved than “Are these socks yours?” since school started.
“Well, that would depend on lots of factors,” she says. “Who are these people? What is your relationship to them? French is a language of nuance.”
“Um, can’t they just be people I’m wanting to get on the phone?”
Kali narrows her eyes at me, turns back to her work. “Try an online translation program.”
I take a deep breath, sigh out a gust. “Fine. They are, respectively, a total bitchy beauty and a really nice guy I met once. They both work at some Parisian night club, and I feel like they might hold the key to my . . . my happiness. Does that help you with your nuance?”
Kali closes her textbook and turns to me. “Yes. And no.” She grabs a piece of paper and taps it against her chin. “Do you happen to know the brother from Rochester’s name?”
I shake my head. “He told it to me once, really fast. Why?”
She shrugs. “Just seems if you had it, you could track him down in Rochester and then find his brother.”
“Oh, my God, I didn’t even think of that. Maybe I can remember it and try that too. Thank you.”
“Amazing things happen when you ask for help.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Do you want to know the whole story?”
Her raised eyebrow says Do pigs like mud?
So I tell her, Kali, the unlikeliest of confidantes, a brief version of the saga.
“Oh. My. God. So that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why you have been such a loner, always saying no to us. We thought you hated us.”
“What? No! I don’t hate you. I just felt like a reject and felt so bad you guys got stuck with me.”
Kali rolls her eyes. “I broke up with my boyfriend right before I got here, and Jenn split with her girlfriend. Why do you think I have so many pictures of Buster? Everyone was feeling sad and homesick. That’s why we partied so much.”
I shake my head. I didn’t know. I didn’t think to know. And then I laugh. “I’ve had the same best friend since I was seven. She’s the only girlfriend I’ve ever really hung out with, so it’s like I missed the integral years of learning how to be friends with people.”