I hand the man my money, and he hands me the socca. It’s salty, has a nutty flavor, and it’s hot. I inhale it right there by the stand, and buy another by wordlessly handing the man two more euros. I munch as I walk. With food in my belly, my mood lifts just enough that I’m ready to go back to Sylvie and my self portrait.
Then, something in a shop window hits my eyes and I freeze. It’s the portrait Mrs. Thackeray was showing Sylvie earlier this morning, on display behind the glass. The shop is the kind with bars on the door. Something prickles in my brain. I hadn’t caught everything that was said this morning, but I do remember hearing Mrs. Thackeray say that she wasn’t going to sell this painting right away. And yet, only hours later, that very portrait is on sale in some snooty shop. I chew my socca without tasting it. Mrs. T. and her son didn’t come for advice. They showed up with only one thing in mind: to give me their warning.
The painted woman beams at me from behind the glass. Her dark hair curls around her ears and neck, and her eyes shine, like she’s been laughing at something. I wonder . . . Could she be the woman who lived in the dusty apartment? Marguerite from the letters, the one with the “weak” words?
A dark form appears on the glass and floats up like a ghost to fill the space of the shop window. It’s Mrs. Thackeray’s son, Thomas. Our eyes meet. His are not friendly.
I turn and speed walk down the street, wanting to put distance between myself and the shop as fast as I can.
The shop door slams into the side of the building as Thomas flings it open. Then, his familiar gruff voice shouts, “Hey!”
I walk faster.
“You, there! Kid! Wait up!”
Yeah, right.
I pass a little alley and duck in there, but it’s a dead end, so I pivot and come back out again. He’s closing the distance between us quickly.
“Hey! Stop!” he yells.
I worm myself into a group of Italian-speaking teenage girls. They exclaim in surprise as I try to disappear among them, but I can’t shake this guy. Thomas plows through the group like a big British bowling ball, knocking the girls aside, and he grabs me by my braid.
“Let go!” I scream. Terror shoots through me.
“We need to talk, girlie,” Thomas growls. The Italian girls yell angry words at him, but he pays them no attention. He lets go of my hair but grips my arm and yanks me over to the side of the street. I drop my socca.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, but you stay out of that apartment,” the man says, grating the words out with his face only inches from mine. His eyes are bloodshot, and his breath is sour.
I’m so terrified I can’t say anything. I try to pull away, but his grip is too tight. My arm is nearly numb, but then Thomas stumbles back and lets go.
“Ow!” he shouts.
Two of the Italian girls are slamming their heavy backpacks into him. Thomas holds his arms over his face in defense. More of their friends join in, shouting in shrill voices as they slug him with purses and tote bags.
A man runs out from a nearby bakery, shouting something in a shrill voice. Then, the girls all talk at once, gesturing and pointing at Thomas, who by this time has gotten away and is hurrying down the street. He glances back, once, and his face is an ugly grimace.
The girls swarm around me. They pat my shoulder, offer me bottles of water, and chatter words I can’t understand. The bakery guy asks me who Thomas was, and I shrug. He stares down the street in the direction Thomas ran, shaking his head in disgust. I don’t get away until we’ve all been given free pastries, little squares of puffy bread with bits of chocolate inside. I’m not hungry anymore, but I take my pastry and smile.
My scalp still aches where Thomas yanked on my braid. I rub my head as I walk home on shaky legs, afraid I’m going to meet his ugly face every time I turn the corner. He lives upstairs from me. What am I going to do? My brain buzzes with so many confusing thoughts I hardly see where I’m going. I collapse onto a bench and stare at discarded candy wrappers and bits of newspaper and string that litter the gutter. I add my pastry to the pile. And then, I let my hopes hurtle toward the ground.
I can’t do this. Why did I think it was a good idea to come here to France? I can’t just pick up and move to another country to ditch my mother and my old life. I’m fifteen, not twenty! How stupid was I to think this had even the slightest chance of working? I sit and watch people walk by. Most of them talk on cell phones or chatter in small groups. It’s so, so easy for everyone. Everyone but me.
After a minute or two, I take a deep breath and grimace. The air around here stinks. It’s like a thousand skunks paraded by and sprayed in unison. When I turn around I discover the source of the stench. I’ve been sitting in front of a beauty salon, and somebody got a perm.
The perm victim is an elderly woman who sits and reads while she waits for the chemicals to fry her hair. Neat rows of tiny pink curlers cover her head. A tall girl, the stylist, sweeps up a pile of dark hair from the floor. I imagine my own hair floating downward until the tiles below are covered with a scattering of black fuzz that piles up higher and higher.
My phone beeps. I get a text.
Hey, sweetie. U there?