A couple of hours earlier, the gesture might have been surprising, but now it seemed almost natural. She had been laughing easily at his jokes, teasing him whenever he attempted to pronounce the names on the street signs, and a few times glancing at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice.
If nothing else, Nate decided, she was at least enjoying his company.
The café was one of those places that spilled out onto the sidewalk even in the fall. In deference to the weather, a cloth and plastic awning complete with front and side walls jutted out from the building, claiming a portion of concrete. Inside, heaters kept the customers warm.
A waiter looked over as they walked in. He was balding, with a close-cropped rim of dark hair. “Deux?”
“Oui,” Liz said.
He pointed at a small round table. It had been set up in a row with several others. Each had two chairs, both on the same side of the table, so customers could watch people walk by.
Nate and Liz sat down, and soon the waiter returned, looking at them expectantly.
“You want some coffee, or something a little stronger?” Liz asked Nate.
“What are you having?”
“I was thinking about a glass of wine.”
“Sounds good to me.”
She ordered two glasses of Château Cos d’Estournel Saint-Estèphe Bordeaux.
“Anything else?” the waiter asked in English.
“Non, c’est tout, merci,” Liz said.
The waiter gave her a halfhearted smile, then left.
“I don’t think he likes us,” Nate said.
“This part of town, they think Americans only really know English.”
“But you speak excellent French.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I’d better. Three years in high school. Four years of undergrad. And two years here already. Oh, and I had a French boyfriend for a while, too.”
“In Paris?”
“No, back at Michigan State,” she said.
“What about now? No French boyfriend?”
She blurted out a laugh. “Not with my schedule.”
“You can’t be studying all the time,” he said.
“Wait until you start grad school. Then think what it would be like to write all your papers in two languages.”
“Seriously?”
“I think better in English, so it’s easier to write that way first. Then I have to translate it, and make sure it reads correctly.”
“Sounds like a pain in the ass. I’d pay someone to do the translation for me.”
“That would mean I had extra money lying around.”
Nate realized he’d stumbled into an area he really hadn’t meant to get into. Quinn had told him about the scholarship, but there was no way Andrew Cain would have that information. He decided to go with a more innocent approach. “How much do they cost?”
She looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “Why? You going to pay for it for me?”
He laughed. “That would be a big no. I’m probably just as poor as you.”
“But your father sounds like he has a bit of cash.”
“He might, but I don’t. He made it very clear as I was growing up that I wasn’t getting any kind of free ride.”
“Good for him.”
Nate felt a sense of relief as the waiter approached with their drinks.
After that the conversation turned back to the safer topic of life in Paris.
Before they realized it, it was starting to get dark. At Liz’s suggestion, they headed to the Latin Quarter to get some dinner.
The area was a maze of narrow cobbled streets closed off to most traffic and reserved, instead, for pedestrians. Along each road, restaurants and clubs vied for space and customers, some using touts and others lights and aromas.
Liz chose a cozy place that was about five times longer than it was wide. There they shared a cheese fondue and a bottle of wine.
By the time they got home it was after 9 p.m. Nate excused himself to use the bathroom, where he shot off two quick texts. Both were basically the same. To Quinn he wrote:
In for the night. All clear here.
And to Julien:
Done 4 today. Bed soon.
As Nate washed his hands, his phone buzzed once in his pocket. On the screen was a reply from Julien.
What? No late-night disco?
Nate texted back:
If you’re up for it, I can suggest it.
A few seconds later, Julien responded:
Do it.
Nate smiled, then tapped in one last message:
Good night, Julien.
When he returned to the living room, he half expected Liz to have already gone to bed. But she was sitting on the couch, an open bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table in front of her.
He joined her, sitting near but not too close. She poured wine into both of the glasses, then raised hers.
“To your first night in Paris,” she said.
“To making a new friend,” he countered. They touched glasses, then each took a drink.
By now Nate was starting to feel the effects of the wine. He wasn’t drunk, but he was less in control than he should have been. He was there on a job, he reminded himself. He’d have to nurse this glass for the rest of the evening.
“So what do you think of my brother?” Liz asked.
“He seems fine,” Nate replied, as naturally as he could. “I didn’t really spend that much time with him, and I’ve only met him once before. You know how it is, right, meeting a friend of your parents? What do you talk about?”
Liz smiled as she leaned back. She looked comfortable, totally relaxed. She raised her glass to her lips and took another drink.
“When I was a little girl, Jake was my hero. You know, one of those people who can do no wrong. I wanted to hang around him all the time. He was older, he didn’t have to, but he let me anyway.”
Another dangerous topic, but for a moment Nate’s curiosity won out over his caution. “How much older?”
“Eight years.”
“That is quite a bit.”
“Eight years and seven months, actually.”
Nate instinctively knew the next question he should ask. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
She said nothing for a moment. “We did.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Nate said. “We can change the subject.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said. “We had a brother. Davey. He was in between us. But he died in a car accident when he was five, I think. I don’t remember him.”
“Oh, God. I really am sorry.”
“I was in the accident, too. The whole family was. You want to see my scar?”
She sat up suddenly, a little unsteady from the wine, and began working her fingers through her hair.
“It’s okay,” Nate said. “I believe you.”
“See?” she said.
She had created a part across her scalp that revealed a portion of a scar that looked like it ran for several inches.
“That must have hurt,” Nate said.
“I’m sure it did. I’m told there was a lot of blood.”
“Head wounds have a way of doing that.”
“Oh, really? And you know this how?”
He shrugged. “Grew up watching ER on TV.”
She snickered, then let her hair fall down as she leaned back. “I wasn’t even two yet. This is the only proof I have that the accident even happened. Well, and Davey’s grave, I guess.”
Nate tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. “So what happened between you and Jake?”
“One night he just left,” she said. “I was nine.”
That surprised Nate. “He ran away from home?”
“Can you really call someone who leaves home at seventeen a runaway?” she asked. “All I know is he was gone.”