Free A Nice Fling is Hard to Find by Sarah Mlynowski

Tuesday, July 10, 7:22 P.M.
    Dear TJ (aka Travel Journal),
    I’m here! I’m on the plane! I did it!
    I can’t believe I’m actually going to FRANCE. I am so sophisticated.
    Okay, fine, in my ratty sweatpants, T-shirt, and ponytail, I
am not looking so sophisticated, but that’s hardly the point. I AM GOING TO
FRANCE. As soon as the plane takes off. In eight—wait, make that
seven!—minutes.
    I almost missed the plane due to my parents’ fanatical
hugging. My mom was full-on whimpering, and even my Dad’s eyes were glistening
(although he tried to pretend he got dirt stuck in his contacts). I reminded
them that I would only be gone for eleven days (one night on the plane, four
nights in Paris, one night on a train, two nights in the Alps, and three nights
in Nice—pronounced Niece —which is on the Riviera), but my mom would not
calm down.
    “Are you sure you want to go?” she asked, her voice shaking.
    I nodded.
    “But what if you break something?”
    “Then I’ll go to the hospital,” I said, attempting to sound
calm.
    “But you don’t speak French!”
    “Mom, there’s a translator with the tour.”
    “Well, then stay with the tour at all times,” she ordered.
    “Of course.” Maybe.
    “And don’t talk to strangers, Lindsay,” she warned.
    “Sure.” Please. The entire point of this trip is TO talk to
strangers. Because in France, I will be wild. I will be wild and have a mad
fling with a gorgeous Frenchman named Jacques or Jean-Claude who will look deep
into my eyes and feed me Brie on bite-sized baguettes.
    “Better safe than sorry,” my mom said, and I rolled my eyes.
    See, so far everything about my life has been careful. I’ve
never been out of the US before. I’ve barely been out of New York State (one
trip to Florida does not a world traveler make). I have a younger brother named
Jack, a dog named Ralph, I live in a nice house in Long Island, I have a 3.8
GPA, my parents are happily married . . . and I’ve probably put you, dear TJ,
to sleep. Because there is nothing remotely interesting, remotely scandalous,
about my existence thus far. I never skip school. I never yell at my parents.
I’ve never run for student council. Not that I’m dying to be class president or
anything, but my point is that I never take any risks. My mom has always been
ridiculously overprotective, especially since I’m a tad bit accident-prone. I
wasn’t allowed to do anything growing up—no gymnastics, no skating, no skiing.
No fun. This trip is my chance to escape from my mother’s overprotectiveness
and live a little.
    My chance to finally have a fling—with a hot foreign boy.
    The snarky French flight attendant in her cleavage-revealing
uniform is ordering me to put up my tray-table for take off. We haven’t even
left yet and I’m already causing trouble! Go me! J
    No-Clue-What-Time-It-Is-Since-We-Keep-Crossing-Time-Zones p.m.
    Dear TJ,
    We’re in the air! Wahoo! I think we’re somewhere over the
Atlantic. Perhaps over the Bahamas? Not that I can see the Bahamas. Looking out
the window is like staring into a pool of black ink.
    Becca is sitting next to me in the middle seat, paging
through a Seventeen . Tommy, her twin brother, is on her other side,
reading Let’s Go France . About fifteen others from our teen tour are on
this flight. Mike, one of our tour guides, who is sitting diagonally from us,
is already balding, even though he can’t be older than thirty. Joanna, the
second tour guide, is sitting next to him. She’s wearing tight jeans and a Teens
Tour France! T-shirt. I’d peg her as around twenty-three, at least eight
years older than we are. Her teeth are blindingly white and she keeps turning
back to us and smiling as though she’s in school and this is her class photo.
She has outrageously long fingernails painted bright pink. If she keeps those
florescent fingers away from my foreign fling we’ll get along just fine.
    Becca and I have already outlined our rules. We are very
good