Free Beautiful Americans by Lucy Silag Page A

staring at PJ and me, knowing all of our fates at the Lycée rest on our ability to charm these cops silly. If we screw this up, Olivia can kiss her scholarship goodbye, Zack will get sent back to the Bible-bangers in Tennessee, and George and Drew will never speak to me again. I pray PJ knows what she’s doing.
    “Now, is there anything else you’d like to know about me? I mean, my friends and I?” PJ titters attractively. I half expect her to ask one of them to sit in her lap next.
    She purses her full lips together. “ Monsieurs , we are so sorry to have caused any trouble.”
    As if transfixed, the cops shrug and shift their weight. They can’t seem to figure out what they are doing with us.
    “ Non, non, ” one of the cops says with a small smile. One of the other cops takes a long look at me, and then at PJ—quick-witted, beautiful PJ—and shakes his head. Still nestled in the crook of her thin, pale arm, I give the cops my most innocent look.
    “Go home now, kids,” another cop says with a flick of his wrist. “Don’t forget to pay your bill on your way out.”
    The cops saunter away. I hear one of them say something like, “What a shame the girls were so young!” and all of them laugh. Blech .
    PJ drops her arm from around me and puts her cardigan back on.
    “PJ! You are incredible!” Olivia squeals once the cops are out of earshot. She does a triumphant leap into the air and hugs herself. “Wow!”
    “Seriously, great job—those cops didn’t know what hit them,” Drew agrees. “That was pure witchcraft.”
    Zack, his brow dripping with nervous sweat, just nods emphatically and pulls at the damp collar of his button-down shirt.
    George sighs with dramatic gratitude, staggering comically toward PJ with outstretched arms. “Oh, man, that was close! You really saved our hides there, Miss PJ. I thought I was Boston-bound for sure. How can I ever repay you?”
    I feel the vomit creep into my throat when he actually puts his arms around her in a grateful hug. It’s a little too friendly for my comfort.
    “Yeah, thanks,” I say quietly. Now I’m going to have to be eternally grateful to you, you freak!
    PJ just shrugs. “This kind of thing has to stop happening to me,” she says.
    “What, are you in the business of saving everyone’s ass all the time?” George gibes, still standing right next to me.
    “With varying success rates,” PJ comments. Everyone laughs. Everyone but me.

OCTOBER

6. OLIVIA
    Keeping the Faith
    “ D o your host parents actually talk to you in French, like they’re supposed to?” Zack asks us over lunch at Café Dumont, the Ternes café where he and Alex can often be found during lunch and after school.
    The French kids all go home for lunch. (Yet another reason that none of us has really gotten the chance to know them . . . that and they avoid us like our lack of worldliness will somehow rub off on them.) Some American guys, like Jay and some of his friends, and George and Drew and their hangers-on, eat at this fast-food kebab place on the main drag, Boulevard de Courcelles. The rest of us split ourselves up between one of a few other dimly-lit cafés near the Parc Monceau.
    Most Americans who live in this ritzy neighborhood near our school (like me) go home, too, but today I’m in the mood for a Parisian café. I like this one best because it makes every day feel like a cozy rainy day— the café is dark and moody, with small candles in red votives, and the air is heavy with steam from hot drinks and the delectable smell of the roast chickens rotating in the rotisserie behind the bar. Today is one of those days when I just want to lounge around and soak up the atmosphere. Paris must be rubbing off on me.
    “Mme Rouille barely talks to me at all!” I groan. “And when she does, it is always in English. How am I ever supposed to learn how to speak naturally if we only speak French with our teachers and other Americans?”
    The waitress has long since cleared