Free Just One Day by Gayle Forman Page B

Willem; a melancholy expression is deepening the lines on his face. I look
     back at the boats.
    “Actually, I do care,” I say. I reach into my bag for my wallet, for the hundred-dollar
     bill folded inside. I hold it up in the air and call out, “I’m looking for a ride
     down the canals. And I can pay.”
    Willem’s head jerks toward me. “Lulu, what are you doing?”
    But I’m walking away from him. “Anyone willing to give us a lift down the canals?”
     I call. “I got good old-fashioned American greenbacks.”
    A pock-faced guy with sharp features and a scrubby goatee pops onto the side of a
     blue-canopied barge. “How many greenbacks?” he asks in a very thick French accent.
    “All of them!”
    He takes the C-note and stares at it up close. Then he smells it.
    It must smell legit, because he says, “If my passengers agree, I will take you down
     the canal to Arsenal, close to Bastille. It is where we dock for the night.” He gestures
     to the back of the boat where a quartet of gray-haired people are sitting around a
     small table, playing bridge or something. He calls out to one of them.
    “Aye, Captain Jack,” the man answers. He must be sixty. His hair is white, and his
     face is burnished red from the sun.
    “We have some hitchhikers who want to come aboard with us.”
    “Can they play poker?” one of the women asks.
    I used to play seven-card stud for nickels with my grandfather before he died. He
     said I was an excellent bluffer.
    “Do not bother. She gave all her money to me,” Captain Jack says.
    “How much is he charging you?” one of the men asks.
    “I offered him a hundred dollars,” I say.
    “To go where?”
    “Down the canals.”
    “This is why we call him Captain Jack,” one of the men says. “Because he’s a pirate.”
    “No. It is because my name is Jacques, and I am your captain.”
    “A hundred dollars, Jacques?” a woman with a long gray braid and startlingly blue
     eyes asks. “That seems a little much, even for you.”
    “She offered this much.” Jacques shrugs. “Also, now I will have more money to lose
     to you in poker.”
    “Ahh, good point,” she says.
    “Are you leaving now?” I ask.
    “Soon.”
    “When is soon?” It’s after four. The day is speeding by.
    “You cannot rush these things.” He flicks his hand in the air. “Time is like the water.
     Fluid.”
    Time doesn’t seem fluid to me. It seems real and animate and hard as a rock.
    “What he means,” says the guy with the ponytail, “is that the trip to Arsenal takes
     a while and we were just about to open a bottle of claret. Come on, Captain Jack,
     let’s shove off. For a hundred bucks, you can have your wine later.”
    “We’ll continue with this fine French gin,” the braided lady says.
    He shrugs and then pockets my bill. I turn to Willem and grin. Then I nod at Captain
     Jack. He reaches out for my hand to escort me onboard.
    The four passengers introduce themselves. They are Danish, retirees, and every year,
     they tell us, they rent a barge and cruise a European country for four weeks. Agnethe
     has the braid and Karin has short spiked hair. Bert has a shock of white hair and
     Gustav has the bald spot and the rat’s tail of a ponytail and is sporting the ever-stylish
     socks-with-sandals look. Willem introduces himself, and almost automatically, I introduce
myself
as Lulu. It’s almost as if I’ve become her. Maybe I have. Never in a million years
     would Allyson have done what I just did.
    Captain Jack and Willem untie the line, and I’m about to say that maybe I should get
     some of my money back if Willem is going to play first mate but then I see that Willem
     is bounding about, having a blast. He clearly knows his way around a boat.
    The barge chugs out of the broad basin, giving a wide view of a white-columned old
     building and a silver-domed modern-looking one. The Danes return to their poker game.
    “Don’t lose all your money,” Captain Jack calls to