“Nicole!” my French parents both call out. They rise to greet her with warm hugs.
My pulse quickens. I know her! Her face is on magazine covers and billboards. But can she be the very same Nicole I learned about on Sylvie’s blog? Based on Sylvie’s tears and the expression of joy that broke out on émile’s face, she must be. Ten years ago, before Ansel died, Nicole had nowhere to go. Sylvie and émile took her in. She was fifteen, like I am now. Her story, her very existence gave me the courage to try something crazy.
This is too perfect.
I am introduced. I mumble an awkward greeting but am soon at ease with Nicole, with her gleaming hazel eyes and ready smile. She gives me a hug when she learns I’m staying with her former family.
émile orders dessert. While I sip Orangina, I sit back and listen. Nicole speaks in rapid French I can barely follow. She was passing through Nice, had stopped by and was disappointed not to find her dear friends at home, but voilà! Here they are!
Her joyful mood is infectious. People around us turn to stare and pull out their phones to take quick photos when they think Nicole isn’t looking. She pays it no mind. Warmth spreads through me. Nicole was just what I needed. She is my shot of courage. There’s no way I’m giving up on my plan, because it will work.
Over a tray of pastries, we laugh at nothing and everything. I even manage to answer a couple of questions, speaking softly. Sylvie beams, émile’s indigo eyes gleam. Nicole doesn’t bat an eye when I screw up my words and sound weird.
Ansel’s name is mentioned. The mood grows darker in an instant.
Sylvie wipes her eyes. émile touches her face once, gently.
“I miss my baby,” Sylvie whispers down to her plate. Nicole hugs her.
“I’m sorry,” I say, at a loss for words, this time not out of fear that I won’t be understood, but because I know there are no words in any language that would ease Sylvie’s pain. My pulse quickens, then, at the thought that I need to take advantage of this moment, when Sylvie and émile are reminded so sharply of their own loss. I need to let them know that I can fill the void in their lives. Like Nicole, I can be a daughter to them. Then, guilt sweeps through me that I could be so unfeeling and selfish at such a moment.
But émile and Sylvie’s loss was one of the biggest reasons I chose them as my host family. I think of Sylvie’s blog. All her posts about Ansel. How he would endlessly draw and paint, get in trouble at school for doodling instead of listening. How he once cut his own hair. That’s it!
“Sylvie,” I say, clearing my throat. I try to ignore the guilt that rises from my stomach. “Tell me about Ansel. You said once that he, um, cut his hair?” I’m not sure of the French words I’m using, so I make gestures with my fingers, pretending they’re scissors, snipping at my shortened curls. “You were angry?” My words aren’t too clear, but I’m growing used to speaking in front of my French family, especially now that they know about my speech problems. And Nicole is so kind.
I’m rewarded by a chuckle from émile and a watery smile from Sylvie. Nicole beams at me while Sylvie reaches out to touch my own newly shorn head, and tells me in a wavering voice of the time Ansel, only thirteen, used his father’s razor to shave himself bald. Then, horrified at the result, he’d begged his mother to buy him a wig. We all laugh together. I shove my guilt down to some place where I can hardly feel it.
Nicole takes her leave. She embraces Sylvie, émile, even me. Then she asks for my cell phone and types in her phone number and email while I stare in shock. She tells me that she wants to correspond. She lives in London, now. She even says something about how I should come to visit her.
I stare at her as she walks away, along with everyone else who happens to be in the vicinity. Did I just make a friend? On my own? I curl my fingers around the cell phone in my pocket. For the first time in my life, I have more than three people on my contacts list.
We join the throng of tourists and locals on the Promenade des Anglais, walking along the shore. The summer twilight has a mellow quality, making everything glow softly as if lit from within. I’m on this weird high, thrilled by the promise of friendship with Nicole. I don’t care that she’s super-famous or celery-stick thin. Nicole, one of Sylvie and émile’s “strays,” like me, treated me like I was normal. I will never forget that.