“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have seen this.” I snatch the book and thrust it back onto the shelf. Another stack of novels tumbles off and crashes to the floor between us. We drop to pick them up and bash heads.
“Ow!” I say.
St. Clair rubs his head. “Are you all right?”
I wrench the books from his hands. “I’m fine. Just fine.” I pile them back on the bookcase and stumble to the back of the store, as far from him, as far
from my father, as possible. But a few minutes later, St. Clair is back at my side.
“It’s not your fault,” he says quietly. “You don’t pick your parents. I know that as well as anyone, Anna.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough.” He holds up a col ection of poetry. Pablo Neruda. “Have you read this?”
I shake my head.
“Good. Because I just bought it for you.”
“What?”
“It’s on our syl abus for next semester in English.You’d need to buy it anyway. Open it up,” he says.
Confused, I do. There’s a stamp on the front page. SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY, Kilometer Zero Paris. I blink. “Kilometer Zero? Is that the same
thing as Point Zéro?” I think about our first walk around the city together.
“For old times’ sake.” St. Clair smiles. “Come on, the rain’s stopped. Let’s get out of here.”
I’m stil quiet on the street.We cross the same bridge we did that first night—me on the outside again, St. Clair on the inside—and he keeps up the
conversation for the both of us. “Did I ever tell you I went to school in America?”
“What? No.”
“It’s true, for a year. Eighth grade. It was terrible.”
“Eighth grade is terrible for everyone,” I say.
“Wel , it was worse for me. My parents had just separated, and my mum moved back to California. I hadn’t been since I was an infant, but I went with
her, and I was put in this horrid public school—”
“Oh, no. Public school.”
He nudges me with his shoulder. “The other kids were ruthless. They made fun of everything about me—my height, my accent, the way I dressed. I
vowed I’d never go back.”
“But American girls love English accents.” I blurt this without thinking, and then pray he doesn’t notice my blush.
St. Clair picks up a pebble and tosses it into the river. “Not in middle school, they don’t. Especial y when it’s attached to a bloke who comes up to their kneecaps.”
I laugh.
“So when the year was over, my parents found a new school for me. I wanted to go back to London, where my mates were, but my father insisted on
Paris so he could keep an eye on me. And that’s how I wound up at the School of America.”
“How often do you go back? To London?”
“Not as often as I’d like. I stil have friends in England, and my grandparents—my father’s parents—live there, so I used to split my summers between
London and San—”
“Your grandparents are English?”
“Grandfather is, but Grandmère is French. And my other grandparents are American, of course.”
“Wow.You real y are a mutt.”
St. Clair smiles. “I’m told I take after my English grandfather the most, but it’s only because of the accent.”
“I don’t know. I think of you as more English than anything else. And you don’t just sound like it, you look like it, too.”
“I do?” He’s surprised.
I smile. “Yeah, it’s that . . . pasty complexion. I mean it in the best possible way,” I add, at his alarmed expression. “Honestly.”
“Huh.” St. Clair looks at me sideways. “Anyway. Last summer I couldn’t bear to face my father, so it was the first time I spent the whole holiday with me mum.”
“And how was it? I bet the girls don’t tease you about your accent anymore.”
He laughs. “No, they don’t. But I can’t help my height. I’l always be short.”
“And I’l always be a freak, just like my dad. Everyone tell s me I take after him. He’s sort of . . . neat, like me.”
He seems genuinely surprised. “What’s wrong with being neat? I wish I were more organized. And, Anna, I’ve never met your father, but I guarantee you
that you’re nothing like him.”
“How would you know?”
“Wel , for one thing, he looks like a Ken dol . And you’re beautiful.”
I trip and fal down on the sidewalk.
“Are you all right?” His eyes fil with worry.
I look away as he takes my hand and helps me up. “I’m fine. Fine!” I say, brushing the grit from my palms. Oh my God, I AM a freak.
“You’ve seen the way men look at you, right?” he continues.
“If they’re looking, it’s because I keep making a fool of myself.” I hold up my scraped hands.
“That guy over there is checking you out right now.”
“Wha—?” I turn to find a young man with long dark hair staring. “Why is he looking at me?”
“I expect he likes what he sees.”
I flush, and he keeps talking. “In Paris, it’s common to acknowledge someone attractive. The French don’t avert their gaze like other cultures do. Haven’t you noticed?”
St. Clair thinks I’m attractive. He cal ed me beautiful.