Just One Day(74)

My room is on the sixth floor, and the elevator is out of order, so I walk up a winding stairway. A guy with a tattoo of some sort of Greek god on his arm points out the breakfast room, the communal bathrooms (coed), and then my room, with seven beds. He gives me a lock and shows me where I can store my stuff when I go out. Then he leaves me with a bonne chance, which means good luck, and I wonder if he says that to everyone or if he senses that I’ll need it.
I sit down on the bed and unhook the sleeping bag from the top of my backpack, and as I slump into the springy mattress, I wonder if Willem has stayed here. Has slept in this very bed. It’s not likely, but it’s not impossible either. This is the neighborhood he introduced me to. And everything seems possible right now, this feeling of rightness, throbbing right alongside my heartbeat, soothing me to sleep.
I wake up a few hours later with drool on my pillow and static in my head. I take a lukewarm shower, shampooing the jet lag out of my hair. Then I towel it try and put in the gel like Tanya showed me—wash and wear, she said. It’s very different, all chunks and layers, and I like it.
Downstairs, the clock on the lobby wall behind the giant spray-painted peace sign reads seven o’clock; I haven’t eaten anything since the hard roll and yogurt they gave me on the plane over from London, and I’m woozy with hunger. The little café in the lobby only serves drinks. I know that part of traveling alone means eating alone and ordering in French, and I practiced that a lot with Madame Lambert. And it’s not like I haven’t eaten alone plenty of times in the dining hall this past year. But I decide I’ve conquered enough things for one day. Tonight, I can get a sandwich and eat in my room.
In front of the hostel, a bunch of people are hanging out in the drizzle. They’re speaking English in what I think are Australian accents. I take a breath and walk over and ask them if they know of a place to get a good sandwich nearby.
One muscular girl with streaky brown hair and a ruddy face turns to me and smiles brightly. “Oh, there’s a place over the canal that makes gorgeous smoked salmon sandwiches,” she says. She points out the way and then she resumes talking to her friend about a bistro that supposedly sells a prix fixe for twelve euro, fifteen with a glass of wine.
My mouth waters at the mere thought of it, the food, the company. It seems incredibly presumptuous to invite myself, the kind of thing I would never do.
But then again, I’m alone in Paris, so this is all virgin territory. I tap the Australian girl on her sunburnt shoulder and ask if I can tag along with them for dinner. “It’s my first day traveling, and I’m not sure where to go,” I explain.
“Good on you,” she replies. “We’ve all been at it for ages. We’re on our OAs.”
“OAs?”
“Overseas Adventures. It’s so bloody expensive to get out of Australia that once you go, you stay gone. I’m Kelly, by the way. This is Mick, that’s Nick, that’s Nico, short for Nicola, and that’s Shazzer. She’s from England, but we love her anyway.”
Shazzer sticks her tongue out at Kelly, smiles at me.
“I’m Allyson.”
“That’s my mum’s name!” Kelly says. “And I was just saying I was missing my mum! Wasn’t I? It’s karma!”
“Kismet,” Nico corrects.
“That too.”
Kelly looks at me, and for half a second, I stand there, because she hasn’t said yes and I’m going to feel like an idiot if she says no. Still, maybe it’s all that prep in French class, but I’m kind of okay with feeling like an idiot. The group starts to walk off, and I start to turn toward the sandwich place. Then Kelly turns around.
“Come on, then,” she says to me. “Don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.”
“You might do. They eat those here,” Shazzer says.
“No they don’t,” one of the guys says. Mick or Nick. I’m not quite sure who’s who.
“That’s Japan,” Nico says. “It’s a delicacy there.”
We start walking, and I listen as the rest of them argue over whether or not the French eat horse meat, and as I amble along, it hits me that I’m doing it. Going to dinner. In Paris. With people I met five minutes ago. Somehow, more than anything else that’s happened in the last year, this blows my mind.
On the way to the restaurant, we stop so I can get a SIM card for my phone. Then, after getting slightly lost, we find the place and wait for a table big enough to seat us all. The menu’s in French, but I can understand it. I order a delicious salad with beets that’s so beautiful I take a picture of it to text my mom. She immediately texts me back the less artful looking loco moco that Dad is having for breakfast. For my entrée, it’s some kind of mystery fish in a peppery sauce. I’m having such a nice time, mostly listening to their outrageous travel tales, that it’s only when it’s time for dessert that I remember my promise to Babs. I check out the menu, but there are no macarons on it. It’s already ten o’clock, and the shops are closed. Day one, and I’ve already blown my promise.
“Shit,” I say. “Or make that merde!”
“What’s wrong?” Mick/Nick asks.’’
I explain about the macarons, and everyone listens, rapt.
“You should ask the waiter,” Nico says. “I used to work at a place in Sydney, and we had a whole menu that wasn’t on the menu. For VIPs.” We all give her a look. “It never hurts to ask.”
So I do. I explain, in French that would make Madame Lambert proud, about ma promesse du manger des macarons tous les jours. The waiter listens intently, as though this is serious business and goes into the kitchen. He returns with everyone else’s dessert—crèmes br?lée and chocolate mousse—and, miraculously, one perfect creamy macaron just for me. The inside is filled with brown, sweet, gritty paste, figs I think. It’s dusted with powdered sugar so artfully it’s like a painting. I take another picture. Then I eat it.