I smile up at him. “I don’t think you’re a creep.”
But Josh looks at an ornate iron balcony, a carved stone archway, an enormous poster for the Winter Olympics in Chambéry. Anything but me. “It’s just that last weekend I realized that even if you were, um, taken, I still wanted to hang out with you.”
He wanted me as more than a friend first. My chest tightens happily. “Last weekend?”
“Yom Kippur?” Josh glances at me to see if I’m following his train of thought. I’m not, and I’m grateful when he launches into it without me having to ask. He seems relieved for the new topic. “Okay, so the period of time between Rosh Hashanah – which was the day before we came back to school—”
“That’s the Jewish New Year?”
He nods. “Yeah. So the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is for reflection. You’re supposed to think about mistakes, ask forgiveness, make resolutions. That sort of thing. And then Yom Kippur is, essentially, the deadline.”
We split apart to pass a gentleman walking a basset hound, and when we reunite, the distance between us halves. “So. Wait. You contemplated your life and…resolved to become my friend? Even though you’re no longer a practising Jew?”
Josh gives me a wicked smile. “Is that a requirement for your friendship?”
I give him a look.
He laughs, but he follows it with a wistful shrug. “I don’t know. There’s something…poetic about this time of year. And it’s not like I’ve figured out everything spiritually or whatever, but I do think it’s still okay to make resolutions. On my own terms.”
“Sure it’s okay. My family is Catholic, both sides, but they never go to Mass. I don’t even know if my parents believe in God. But we still put up a Christmas tree, and it still gives us a sense of peace. Traditions can be nice.”
“Do you believe in God?” he asks.
For some reason, his directness doesn’t surprise me. The real Notre-Dame is ahead of us, gigantic and humbling, and its reflection shimmers in the dark river below. I stare at it for a while before answering. “I don’t know what I believe. I guess that makes me a Christmas Tree Agnostic.”
He smiles. “I like it.”
“And you’re a Yom Kippur Atheist.”
“I am.”
I’ve never had a conversation like this before, where something so sensitive was discussed with such ease. We cross a bridge towards the cathedral. It’s on the Île de la Cité, the larger of the two islands that comprise the centre of Paris.
“I have a question,” Josh says. “But I’m not sure how to ask it.”
I wish that I could give him a playful nudge. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
There’s an excruciating pause as he searches for the right phrasing. “Kurt has…autism?”
Internally, I cringe. But I spare him as he spared my own ignorance. “Yeah. What the DSM used to call Asperger’s, and what they now call high-functioning autism. It’s the same thing. But it’s not a problem, it’s not like it’s something that needs to be cured. His brain works a little differently from ours. That’s all.”
Josh gestures towards a bench in the cathedral’s small park, and I reply by moving towards it. We sit down about two feet apart.
“So how does his brain work?”
“Well.” I take a deep breath. “He’s super-rational and literal. So sarcasm, metaphor? Not his strengths.”
Josh nods. “What else?”
“It’s difficult for him to read faces. He’s worked on it a lot, so he’s way better than he used to be. But he still has to remember to make eye contact and smile. I mean, obviously he smiles, but he only does it when he means it. Unlike the rest of us.” I’m rambling, because I’m struck again by the fact that I’m sitting on a bench – a bench not even on school property – beside Joshua Wasserstein.
“So he’s honest.”
“Even when you don’t want him to be.” I laugh, but it immediately turns into worry. I don’t want Josh to get the wrong idea. “He doesn’t mean to be rude, though. Whenever he finds out that he’s accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, he’s devastated.”
“It’s kind of French, you know? Not the hurting-people’s-feelings thing. Only smiling when it’s sincere. Americans will smile at anyone, for any reason.”
“You don’t.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
Josh is taken aback. It takes him a moment to gather his thoughts. “Yeah, I’ve been told that I have a hard time…concealing my displeasure.”