Free Beautiful Americans by Lucy Silag Page B

our dishes away, and the three of us sprawl out across the table, lazily looking over our French textbooks. What we should be doing is practicing the pluperfect tense, since it’s one of those concepts that none of us seem to be able to get a grasp on. What we’re really doing is practicing the age-old art of French lethargy.
    “I know. It’s so frustrating,” Zack says. “Finally, I just flat-out asked them to speak to me only in French.” Zack, like Alex, lives with a French family who insists on family meals every night. Both Alex and Zack have younger siblings at their homestays that they couldn’t care less about, but Zack at least knows their names. Alex calls her little host brother “ le Morceau de Merde ”—the Piece of Shit.
    “My family is all trolls,” Alex tells Zack and me in a bored voice. “I can’t figure out what language they’re speaking. English? French? Who knows? They all just mindlessly mumble at me.” She sips from her frothy café crème.
    “Alex, you should try to get to know them better,” I urge her. “That’s the whole reason you’re here. To see how the French live!”
    “Honey, I know how the French live,” Alex says exasperatedly. “I am one. My dad was raised here. My mom spent the most important years of her life here and now practices the most Francophile lifestyle possible in New York. Remember?”
    Zack giggles. “Pretty soon, Alex, we’re all going to feel like we’re as French as you are. I myself can barely remember what real barbeque tastes like—I don’t even know if I can call myself a Tennessean anymore!”
    “I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” Alex teases snottily. “I’m really going to miss it when you stop talking about fried okra and Kenney Chesney—it’s been so thrilling to hear all about your life back on the farm!” The two of them snicker at each other affectionately, reminding me once again how uncanny it is that they’ve only known each other a few weeks. Both Alex and Zack seem to have settled into Paris so easily. They hardly ever talk about home except to make fun of something cheesy Americans do for fun.
    But me? I never stop thinking about what’s going on in California—if Vince is liking school, how my mom is holding up without me, and especially about Brian. I still haven’t told anyone about my brother, and how horrible it feels to be so far away from him. I want to, but I don’t want to bring everyone down, or worse, make people feel sorry for me. Like right now—I could tell Alex and Zack, since they are supposed to be these great new friends of mine, but it would just kill the good mood they are in. They’d never understand how unresponsive Brian is over the phone if I try and get my mom to put him on when I call, and how Brian doesn’t actually comprehend what a computer is for just yet. One day, he will, but not while I’m in Paris. And I miss talking to him! I miss the way he lets me in. I miss our special bond.
    Even when Zack and Alex do complain about things they miss from the U.S., it’s things I can’t relate to. Zack misses driving around Memphis in his pickup truck with his friend Pierson, blasting hokey music like The Best of Dolly Parton , and Alex misses going to dive bars in the East Village with her cousin’s ID that doesn’t even look like her. I don’t have a car—if I need to go somewhere, I have to arrange it with my mom or ask Vince for a ride. And before the café in Le Marais where Alex almost got us all busted for smoking pot with George in the alley, I’d never been inside a bar in my life.
    Over Zack’s right shoulder, I see PJ coming into the café, letting in a gentle breeze of cool fall air when she opens the thick velvet curtains that hang in front of the vestibule. I’m not sure where PJ goes for lunch, but she never comes home with me to Mme Rouille. I’ve always wanted to ask her where she wanders off to, but I sense that she enjoys exploring the neighborhood on her