Isla and the Happily Ever After

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.”

A painful blush erupts across my face and neck. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I like girls who challenge me.”

“I didn’t mean to be challen—”

“You aren’t.”

I raise an eyebrow, and he laughs.

“Really,” he says. “I like smart girls.”

My blush deepens. I wonder if he knows that I’m the top student in our class. I never talk about it, because I don’t want people to judge me. But it’s true that his ex-girlfriend was smart, too. Rashmi was last year’s salutatorian.

Josh says something else, but the noise level in the restaurant has been increasing, and it’s finally reached its maximum volume. I shake my head. He tries again, but I still can’t hear him so he takes my hand. We down the rest of our drinks as we squeeze through the revellery. He plunks the empty glasses on a passing tray, leads me past a final throng of partygoers, and we emerge gasping and laughing into the hall.

“Well,” Josh says. “Now that that’s done.”

I gesture towards the galleries. We stroll through them hand in hand. But the air here is cold, almost reminiscent of mortuaries, and the sparsely furnished rooms grow stranger and stranger. Miniature sculptures of mundane objects that you have to get on your knees to see. A short film of a fast-food joint being purposefully flooded with water. A collection of puppets with crayons shoved up their asses.

“That looks…”

“Uncomfortable?” Josh finishes.

“I was going to say like a very colourful suppository.”

He bursts into laughter, and an elderly woman with a dead fox around her shoulders glares at us. The fox has been dyed an alarming shade of purple. Josh whispers into my ear, “That’s how it became such a vibrant colour. Crayons. Up its butt.”

I cover my giggling, but it’s no use. She glares again, and we scurry into the next room. “Ohmygod. This whole thing is…not what I’d hoped.”

“Don’t say that.” But he’s still laughing.

I shake my head. “I wanted weird, but maybe it’s too weird?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m with you. I’m happy to be anywhere with you.”

My heart puddles. “Me too.”

Josh squeezes my hand. “Come on.” He pulls me closer as we walk, and our bodies bump against each other. It’s amazing how solid he is. How real. Muscle and skin and bone. “We still haven’t seen your Finnish artist. Maybe he’s over here?”