Isla and the Happily Ever After(23)
We jump. His pocket blips again.
“Sorry,” he says, flustered. “Sorry.” Our hands unclasp, and he pulls out his phone to silence it. And then he bursts into an unexpected laugh.
Everything inside of me is throbbing. “What is it?”
“He got a job.” Josh shakes his head. “He really got one.” He holds up the screen, and a snapshot of a guy with mussed hair and a polyester vest grins back at me. He’s giving the V sign, the English finger. It’s his best friend, Étienne St. Clair.
I smile, despite our thwarted kiss. “Where’s St. Clair going to school now?” For reasons unknown to me, Josh’s friend goes by his last name.
“California. Berkeley. He said he was getting a job at a movie theatre, but I didn’t believe him.” Josh shakes his head again as we grab the final escalator. “He’s never worked a day in his life.”
“Have you?” Because not many people who’ve been to our school have.
Josh frowns. He’s ashamed of his answer, and it comes out like a one-word confession. “No.”
“Me neither.” We both hold the guilt of privilege.
Josh glances at his phone again. I lean in and examine the picture closer. “Oof. That’s one seriously ugly uniform. Does anyone look good in maroon polyester?”
He cracks a smile.
The escalator ends. Josh types a quick reply, silences his phone, and returns it to his pocket. I wonder if he told St. Clair about our date. I wonder if I’m newsworthy.
We head towards the galleries, but the mob inside the top-floor restaurant gives us pause. The tables have been removed, and an army of svelte models in frizzy white wigs, white lipstick, and marionette circles of white blush are manoeuvring trays of champagne through the swarm of bodies. Josh turns to me and cocks his head. “Shall we?”
“Why, yes.” I respond with a matching twinkle. “I believe we shall.”
We slip inside, and he grabs two flutes as the first tray whizzes by. We’re the youngest people here, by far. It must be a private party. The clamour of excited voices and the outlandish, kaleidoscopic music make the room unusually loud for Paris. “It’s like New Year’s Eve in here,” I shout.
He bends down to shout back. “But not the real one. That glamorous, fake one you see in films. I always spend the real one watching television alone in my bedroom.”
“Yes! Exactly!”
Josh hands me a glass and nods towards one of the restaurant’s giant decorative-aluminium shells. We duck underneath it. The noise becomes somewhat muffled, and I raise my glass. “To the new year? Our new school year?”
He places a dramatic hand across his heart. “I’m sorry. But I can’t toast that place.”
I laugh. “Okay, how about…comics? Or Joann Sfar?”
“I propose a toast” – Josh raises his glass with mock gravitas – “to new beginnings.”
“To new beginnings.”
“And Joann Sfar.”
I laugh again. “And Joann Sfar.” Our glasses clink, and his eyes stay carefully fixed upon mine in the French tradition. My smile widens into a grin. “Ha! I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“You held eye contact with me. I’ve seen you pretend like you don’t know how things go around here, but you do know. I knew you knew. You’re too good of an observer.” I take a triumphant sip of champagne. The pristine fizz tickles the tip of my tongue, and my smile grows so enormous that he breaks into laughter.
Thank you, France, for allowing alcohol to be legal for teenagers.
Well, eighteen year olds. And we’re close enough.
Josh is amused. “How do you know I wasn’t looking at you simply because I want to look at you?”
“I’ll bet you speak French better than you let on, too. You never use it at school, but I bet you’re fluent. People can play dumb all they want, but they always give themselves away in actions. In the small moments, like that.”
The bubbles seem to go down the wrong hole. He coughs and sputters. “Play dumb?”
“I’m right, right? You’re fluent.”
Josh shakes his head. “Not all of us grew up in a half-French household.”
“But I’ll bet you’re still good.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Thankfully, he’s amused again.
“So why do you pretend not to know things?” My fingers play with the stem of my glass. “Or not to care?”
“I don’t care. About most things,” he adds.
“But why play dumb?”
He takes another sizable gulp of champagne. “You know, you ask really tough questions for a first date.”