Louis just laughed it off and told her that our parents should feel lucky we even have a roof over our heads tonight. I’m not sure my dad would agree with that, but I smile and nod. Hopefully he’ll never know about this.
“I need to ask you something,” I say to Louis when he stops laughing. I turn the light off, and the room is plunged into total darkness. He must have closed the outside wooden shutters while I was in the bathroom. I take a few tentative steps forward until my shins reach the edge of the bed. “Why are you helping me?” I continue, sliding under the covers. We’ve been joking around all day, and maybe it’s because we’re so close right now, but I can’t help it. I need to know more.
“Because it’s fun. I told you, I’m all about going on adventures. If you’d told me this morning that I’d end the night with a smart, pretty girl…”
I smile a big bright smile, even though he can’t see me, or maybe because he can’t see me.
There’s something else I want to ask. Was he really waiting for his friend Max that day we met on the steps? I guess it’s not really my business, but I’m having trouble believing that Louis doesn’t have…someone else to go on adventures with. I picture that someone with shiny hair, chiseled cheekbones, and the innate chic air that I’ve observed in some of the French girls my age. My heart twists with a pinch—okay, more than a pinch—of jealousy. Stop it, Mia. This would never work anyway. You’re going to be kind of busy over the next few weeks, remember?
I let out a silent sigh and decide to change the subject. “I had a great day,” I say, “but I…well, I didn’t realize it before, but I really hoped all of this was true. I still do. I know how naive it must sound, but the idea that my ancestor was so special that one of the greatest painters in history used her as a model, that a painting of her might be in a museum somewhere…it sounded like a fairy tale. I’d love to find out more, but I have way too many things on my mind already. I need to focus on the program and getting a role in Swan Lake. This legend will just have to wait.”
I pause, expecting Louis to respond, but the room, the entire house, is completely silent.
“Louis?”
More silence, then “Hmm?”
“Were you asleep?”
“Hmm,” he whispers from his bed across the room.
Seriously? I just bared my soul to him and he fell asleep?
There are a few minutes of silence before Louis speaks in a mumble. “You’re so passionate. It makes me feel like…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Like I’m missing something.”
“I’m sure you have your own passion,” I say, but it hits me that today has been all about me. Louis is still a mystery. “So what is it?” I ask. “Your passion?”
“Hmm,” he says, sounding both a little sad and sleepy. “I dunno. Maybe I don’t want one.”
“You don’t mean that,” I say, joking.
“What if I do? I grew up with two parents who were so passionate about their jobs that nothing else ever seemed to matter.”
“But…，” I start. I don’t know what to say, though. I couldn’t imagine not having a passion, something that makes me want to jump out of bed every morning. To me it sounds pretty amazing to have grown up with two artistic parents who went after their dreams and became very successful. But what do I know about Louis’s family life?
He’s silent for a while, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep.
“Mia?” he says at last. “I didn’t really come to the Musée d’Orsay to hang out with Max this morning. I saw your name on the list at school. I wanted to see you again…”
I grin into the darkness. My ears fill up with the drumming of my heartbeat, and it sounds like pointe shoes thundering across the stage. I close my eyes. Ballerinas dance all around me, their arms fluttering as they twirl and whisper, Maybe you don’t have to pick between love and ballet, Mia. Maybe you can have both.
I look across the room, where Louis is, just inches away from me, listening to his soft breathing. Today was…perfect. Well, maybe not perfect. I picture Louis’s full lips, how pink and bright they look when he’s laughing. They seem so soft, too. I grunt in my head. Alone with my thoughts, I can finally admit it: I wish he’d kissed me. That should be part of the French experience, right? Yes, I know he’s my teacher’s son. I can’t deny that it could look pretty bad if anyone from school found out what Louis and I did today, even though we didn’t do anything…All right, Mia, enough. You need to rest for the big day tomorrow. But, as I fall asleep, I think, yes, maybe I can have it all. With Louis, everything feels possible.