“WAKE UP! WAKE up! WAKE UP!”
There’s a moment this morning, after I open my eyes in a dark and unfamiliar place, when I think I’m going to have to leave without Louis. It takes clicking my fingers many times, shaking him gently, then not so gently, and finally screaming in his ear to get him to join the living again. Not to mention the blaring alarm on my phone that woke me up in the first place.
As we make our way downstairs, we’re greeted with the two most distinctive smells of France: coffee and fresh croissants. Louis’s whole face lights up as Vivienne invites us to sit down and eat before Madeleine drives us back to the station.
But as Louis is about to do just that, I put my hand on his arm. “We have to go.”
“Tu devrais manger quelque chose,” Vivienne says to me as she pours coffee into a bowl. Like, a cereal bowl.
You should eat something. She says a few more things, so Louis translates. “Madeleine went to the boulangerie especially for us.”
I don’t need to respond; the look on my face says it all.
“Thank you so much, but we have to take these to go,” Louis explains to Vivienne in French. She looks a little disappointed but doesn’t protest as she wraps the pastries in the paper bag they came in. Just as I’m about to step out of the kitchen, Louis holds up his index finger, asking me to wait. He grabs the bowl of coffee and gulps it down in one go.
“Didn’t you burn your tongue?” I ask.
Louis nods, his face scrunched up. “Worth it,” he says, his voice coarse.
Kisses, croissants, and promises to see Vivienne and Madeleine again are exchanged, but my shoulders remain tense until Louis and I are sitting on a moving train, back to Paris, and back to reality.
He immediately tucks into the croissants, offering me one. “We’re finding out about the roles in Swan Lake today,” I say, shaking my head. The weekend has been a fun escape, but now my stomach is in a knot. All I can think is that, by the end of the day, I will either be delirious with joy or crushed with disappointment. All my hope of ABT hinges on today.
“I know,” Louis says between mouthfuls, half his face covered in buttery flakes. His tone is completely neutral, but my mind starts spinning anyway. Does he know something I don’t? What if his dad had shared his picks for the roles? Monsieur Dabrowski carries a notebook everywhere—a black leather-bound one in which he writes notes at the end of every class. Maybe he left it open on the dining-room table, and Louis just happened to see it?
Oh my God, I think. He knows.
I turn to Louis, who’s suppressing a yawn. “So you do know?” I ask, my eyes growing wide with fear.
Louis raises an eyebrow and yawns once more.
I try to remain calm. It doesn’t work. “You do!” I say, too loudly.
Louis raises the other eyebrow. “Hmm…one thing you might need to know about me is that I really need my eight—or preferably nine or ten—hours of sleep a night. Right now I’m extremely sleep deprived, so you’re going to have to be a little clearer about what you think I know.”
Part of me wants to just ask him and get it over with. But what if he tells me I haven’t even snagged a role as a page girl? I might burst into tears or yelp in rage. Given the choice, I’d rather look like a complete mess in front of my entire class and Monsieur Dabrowski than in front of Louis. “It’s nothing,” I reply, trying to play it cool. It will have to wait.
“It sounds like something.”
I eye the pastry bag on his lap. “You know what? I think I am hungry,” I say, helping myself to the remaining croissant and ignoring the strange look he’s giving me.
“Okay, then I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute,” Louis says, leaning his head against the window.
He sleeps the whole way, leaving me to wonder if I will soon receive my wings or be cursed for the rest of the summer. At least the croissant is great company. For the two minutes it lasts, anyway.
* * *
I knew my summer in Paris would be physical. There was no doubt that my body would be put to all kinds of tests. But I could never have guessed that my time here would involve so…much…running. A week ago I raced through the airport after my flight was delayed, sweaty and breathless. Soon after I dashed to Repetto on the Great White Leotard Chase, and now I’m sprinting through the Gare de Lyon terminal, down the stairs to the métro, then back up after the short train ride, along Boulevard Saint-Germain, and finally, to the front door of my dorm. Phew. The second week of the program hasn’t started yet, and I’m already spent.