Mary called me in the fall, six weeks after she left America. 

“Come to Paris,” she said. 

“I don’t have the money.” 

“You can sleep in my room.” 

“For the flight, Mary.” 

“Oh.”

There was a pause. 

“I’ve got miles.” 

“I’m not letting you pay for me.” 

“I’m not letting you stay in America.” 

“I can’t come.” 

“You must. Think about it.” 

“I’ll think about it.”

“Do that.” 

“Besides, what would I do about John?” 

“Do you have to hang out with him?” 

“I’m supposed to. I told him I would go to New York. His uncle’s old place, you know, in Nantucket.”

“The dead one?”

“Yeah, the dead one. They still haven’t sold the house, apparently.”  

“My question stands.” 

“No, I don’t have to hang out with him, but it would be awkward if I didn’t.” 

“I forgot you live in the same dorm.” 

“Well, it’s not a dorm. He owns an apartment.”

“Right, right, I forgot. Jesus. You pay rent?” 

“Yes, to his dad, technically. But it’s cheaper than anywhere else. Really, he’s been very good to me, and I can’t just leave him hanging.” 

She mumbled. I didn’t ask her to repeat herself. 

“Fine, bring him. I don’t care. Get a hotel.” 

“Not a bad idea. I don’t know how he’ll take it.” 

“Something tells me he can swing it. Just promise him French bread and French circuses and French booze.” 

“And French girls.”

“And French girls.” 

“I can try. How’re you doing, by the way?”

“Good. The work here’s easy. I’m terribly bored. I guess that’s why I’m calling.”

“Oh, that makes me feel all warm inside.”

“That’s not what I meant. What about you? How’s that boyfriend of yours, with the eyes?” 

“It’s called heterochromia, and he was never my boyfriend. We don’t talk anymore.”

“Pity. He was cute.” 

“I know he was. How’s yours?”

“He’s good. Busy, apparently. You ever see him around?”

“No, not really.”

“Talk to John.”

“I will.” 

“Bye, Jake.”

“Bye.” 

 

That night I was sitting on the bed in the apartment writing an essay while John sat on the windowsill and cut his fingernails, smoking a joint and talking idly about the people that came and went on the street two stories below. I wasn’t really listening to him. A breeze sighed into the stale room which smelled of beer and cigarette smoke.

“Look. Here’s a specimen. Here’s one,” John said, leaning over and pointing down to the street.

“Sure,” I said, though I couldn’t see anything outside from where I was seated.

“Damn.” He went quiet but his eyes were still fixed on the street. I was reminded then of the odd way he looked at people, not by tracking them with his eyes, but by planting his gaze right where he knew they would be in a few moments. 

“How set are you about Nantucket?” I asked.

He turned toward me, his harsh brow coming down, “Rather set. Why?” 

“I don’t know if I am.”

“Why? Have you finally gone Mormon?” 

“No, I talked to Mary today.” 

“Mary.” 

I looked at him incredulously, “From high school.” 

“Your high school.” 

“Yes. You’ve met several times.”

“Does she go here?” 

“Yes.”  

“Are you sure I’ve met her? Let me see a picture.” 

“Here.” I showed him a picture on my phone.

He studied it for a few moments longer than he needed to jog his memory. 

“Huh, I doubt I’d forget that.” 

“Get your head out of the gutter. She’s got a boyfriend. You might know him.”

“In Paris?” 

“No. He goes here. Pete Lewski, the rower. I’m sure you know him.” 

“Yeah, that’s right. Lewski’s girl. I think I remember her.” 

“Anyway, she’s studying in Paris and she wants us to go see her.”

He sat back against the window and sighed, “That’s an idea. A pretty good one, now that I think of it.” He winked at me.

“Don’t get any more ideas.” 

He put up his hands, “But I respect boundaries. I go only where the soul allows.” 

“Shut up. I’m serious.” 

“As am I.” He held the joint out to me and asked if I wanted any. 

I told him (as he knew) that I didn’t smoke on weekdays.

“Makes my head all cloudy.” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” 

“Ha.” I rolled my eyes. My essay was due in forty-eight hours. 

 

Three weeks later we were in Paris.

John booked the two of us a spacious studio at a place called the Oberkampf Grand, a gaudy ten-floor boutique a ten-minute Metro ride from Mary’s apartment. Our first day we arrived at one in the morning local time, so jetlagged that we passed out the moment we arrived and slept in through the afternoon. Then we met Mary for lunch at a bistro not far from the hotel. John was excited to learn that it was already Friday. Tonight we would go out to the bars. John tried to impress us with his boarding-school French, but the severe middle-aged waiter did not play along with it. 

“In English?” the man asked.

John frowned and glanced toward me, “Two beers.” 

Mary smiled and ordered in good French, which pleased the waiter. 

 

The first night Mary took us to a bar thirty minutes away by Metro. Mary said she knew it well: it was popular, drinks were cheap, and the music was alright. We sat at a table in the back corner and John ordered four vodkas with limes — in English. 

“You much of a vodka girl, Mary?” John asked, “I forgot to ask.” 

“I drink what’s available,” she answered with a small laugh.

“I would’ve asked what you wanted if I was more of a gentleman.” 

“Really, it’s fine,” she said, her voice going stern, “vodka’s alright.”

“Alright.” 

Mary took her shots without a faint flinch, one after the other as John ordered. I tapped out at four, but by seven she was still sitting tall. John, a former rugby hooker of some two hundred and twenty pounds, was beginning to slur his words.

“I could do another,” Mary said.

“Christ, when are you gonna call it a night?” I asked.

“I was,” John started, “going to ask something similar.”

“Okay. I’m happy.” I was relieved when Mary said that. 

As we went on talking John entered brief but intense silences, his eyes fixed unyielding on static objects.

“I’m–I’ve gotta piss,” he eventually said.

“You good?” I asked.

“Oh, sure. Right, fine.” He rose to his feet like the feeling had only just come to them and nearly swiped a glass off the table with the hand he used to support himself. Then he went off.

“He’ll be alright, right?” Mary asked.

“Sure. I’ve seen him worse,” I said, though I couldn’t recall when.

I studied Mary wordlessly. 

“What?” she asked. 

“You said you barely went out at all.” 

“I don’t.” 

“That man weighs as much as the both of us combined.” 

Mary raised her hands, “it’s my Polish side.”  

“I’m serious.” 

“So am I.” 

“You blacked out from half that, what, two years ago?”

Mary rolled her eyes, “when are you talking about?” 

“New Year’s Eve, two years ago.”

“In 2023.” 

“Yeah.”

“That’s three years ago. It’s November.” 

“Mary.” 

“Just saying. If we’re being technical.” 

We went quiet for a very long time. John returned, still shaky, and we ignored anything that had been said.

 

Eventually we began talking about Pete.

“Has Pete ever come to Paris?” John asked.

“Oh,” Mary’s expression went harsh, “no, no. He’s busy with his rowing. Can’t get the time off.” 

“Figures. It’s how they all are. Trying to see them on campus is hard enough. Could only imagine your situation.” 

“Yep.” 

“I mean, though, you are his girlfriend.” 

She nodded as though along to a familiar song. 

“You know, I like him, though. I see him pretty often. Of all those guys, he’s the real life of the party.” 

“Really.” 

“Mhm. I mean, he drinks too much, goes kinda off the rails. It’s honestly a little scary sometimes.” 

“Says you,” I muttered.

I turned to John, trying to meet his eyes with the gravity in mine, but he dodged me. 

“But I’m sure you’re already aware of his… habits.” 

Mary had a blank look on her face. “No, I’m not,” she said.

“Well it’s probably not the sort of thing you talk to your girlfriend about.” 

“What are you trying to say?” 

“I’m just saying,” John sat back in his chair, “sometimes he acts like he’s a single man. It’d bother me a little bit if I were you.” 

“You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Maybe not,” John conceded, “but I do know him pretty well. Maybe I see a side of him you don’t.” 

Mary was silent. Her face was stone and I couldn’t see through it.

“I’m not trying to–” John began. 

“Enough. Okay? I hear you. Can we just change the subject?” 

“Sure, sure,” John said, withdrawing his voice until it was almost a whisper. Then he returned my eye contact. He looked pleased with himself.  

 

 Not long after that we realized there was little else to do where we were, so we stood up and headed out, us two boys stumbling through the cold night behind Mary. 

 

We split up at the Metro, John and I taking a silent ride back toward the hotel. 

“Jake,” John asked.

“What.” 

He leaned all the way back in the seat so his head hung over the headrest, his face pale yellow in the fluorescent overheads of the traincar. 

“Does she really love him? Ol’ Pete. Lewski. Lewskies, Lewskies…” John trailed off, giggling. His eyes were closed and he was going to sleep.

“Yes,” I said. “She loves him, and him only,” I said. I said it quietly, after I knew he was out.

 

I thought about the last time I’d seen John and Mary’s boyfriend in the same place. It was by the engineering building, down a long paved pathway. John and I were walking together and he came down the opposite way and closely passed us. I saw their eye contact, the registration of two passing people, strangers, empty and passive. Nothing more. I remember smiling and nodding, because I remembered his face. 

 

If I could have accomplished anything speaking to John then, I like to imagine I would have woken him. When we got back to the hotel we didn’t speak and went immediately to sleep. We slept in through the early afternoon.

 

Mary was busy until the evening. John and I played tourist until dinnertime. Then we three went out again that night after drinking two bottles of cheap white wine in the hotel room.

“Some wine should just be for cooking,” Mary had whispered, nudging me on the shoulder and sticking out her tongue in disgust.

“Quit drinking it, then, if you’re such a snob,” I replied.

She shrugged with a hop of her eyebrows. “I didn’t expect the boy to have taste, but this…” 

I laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” John asked.

“Nothing,” Mary and I replied in unison. 

 

 We went at Mary’s suggestion to a more vibrant bar which was playing louder music and was more full of life. We went in and joined everyone else that was dancing in the dark room swept over by bruise-colored strobe lights, full of smoke and the smell of sweat. Eventually and on account of all the wine, we grew tired of dancing and went to the back of the place where the music was quieter and there were some empty tables. 

 

John ordered mixed drinks and we took some care to drink them more slowly. It seemed that Mary had forgotten about anything that had been said last night, at least judging by how she spoke to John and laughed at his jokes. I was hoping he might apologize, but then I thought he might not remember. Both of these dreams would be short-lived. 

 

Some time later we went outside and smoked cigarettes beside a group of French students. I held out my lighter to John’s cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but he backed away and said sternly, “Hey. I’m not a pretty girl.” 

“You’re not a pretty anything,” I said. “Fine,” and I handed the lighter over.

He lit his and turned to Mary, wordlessly offering the lighter out to her. She inhaled without comment, lowering the hand she’d halfway raised back to rest by her waist. If she blushed it was too dark to tell. The French students burst into a bout of raucous laughter which, though they weren’t looking in our direction and didn’t seem to speak English, seemed to be somehow at our expense.  

We went in, energized, and began to dance again. 

John and Mary danced close and I stood on the outside, trying to meet eyes with a young man by the bar, to no avail. I felt a vague, unpleasant rising in my stomach.

 

Shortly after that I went to the restroom. I passed by the man I had seen earlier at the bar, but I did not look at him. The restroom was as crowded as the rest of the place with a long queue for the stalls, a few clusters of people handling tiny plastic bags, red-eyed and breathing with their mouths. I had to lean over with my hand on the wall when I got to the urinal, or I would have passed out. The world started to spin out of my vision, and I was so nauseous that it was hard to breathe. 

 

When I eventually went out back to find John and Mary they were sitting back down, now on the same side of the table. I couldn’t see their hands. Mary’s lipstick was smudged and she seemed bothered by my presence.

“I’m sick,” I mumbled and leaned over the table.

Mary turned to me, backed slightly away from John. “I’ve got medicine in my apartment.” 

“Ok.” 

She fished her keys out of her pocket. “303. Turn the key twice. Go behind the bathroom mirror.” 

“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked, sounding more pathetic than I hoped.

“Do you need me to?” 

I looked at her and bit my lip. I said, “No, I guess not,” and walked off and out the door. 

 

Moving in the night among the lights and with the crisp air in my lungs, I found it suddenly easy to believe the city had dreams, that the afterimages crossing crookedly across my vision were all part of some grand carousel. 

 

The apartment was dark and I couldn’t find the light switch, so I fumbled around with my phone’s flashlight. The room was very messy, the floor matted with clumps of clothing and a few books and many clear plastic bottles. I thought they must have been mineral water. I found the Dramamine pills in the bathroom and took three of the little pink pills with a handful of water from the sink. I sat on the counter for a moment. The whole room smelled like antiseptic. Then I went out into the room and found a lamp, which I was able to switch on, flooding the space with warm orange light. The mess was only clearer. I saw that the bottles on the floor were not mineral water. Looking at the room I was seized with remorse and I went quickly out the door and ran down the street back to the bar. 

 

When I reached the entrance I heard an unfamiliar voice call out to me. I turned to my right toward a group of young men drinking halfway out in the street. 

“Looking for your friends?” asked one of them, a British tourist in a black puffer vest with a half-empty red glass in his hand. 

“Well, yes, I’m–”

“The tall bloke and the brunette?” 

“That’s them,” I replied, a little surprised.  

He raised his hand with the drink and pointed down the street toward John’s hotel and said, “They went down the way a few minutes ago.” The glass banked in his hand and one of the cherry ice cubes rolled out and broke on the sidewalk. “I should warn you, though.” 

“What.”

“Didn’t seem like they wanted any company.” He grinned and the rest of his group snickered.

“Thanks a lot,” I said and went walking down the street in the opposite direction. The wind was rising and I buried my hands deep into my jacket, pushing the shivers down. I imagined myself recorded on an infrared camera, the bright red amoeba inside my chest melting to orange, yellow, and eventually settling to blue if I didn’t get warm. I didn’t know where I was going. I took out a cigarette and turned right around to light it against the headwind. Far down the way I could see a grand old façade with cubes of light, warm and scattered. One of them went dark.  

 

After a while walking I decided to return to Mary’s room. I didn’t bother to turn on the light and I collapsed onto the unmade bed. I was still drunk, the blood dully rocking back-and-forth in my ears and the thoughtless contents of my skull reeling on steep invisible coaster tracks. It was all moving too fast for coherent thoughts to share the space. 

When I awoke sunlight was tilting in through the thin linen curtains. I judged from the color of the hanging dust gleam in the room that it was late morning. One of the windows was slightly ajar, and from the street below I heard bright birdsong and the silvery crackle of coasting bicycles. My head throbbed and my vision was blurry. As I was rubbing my eyes I heard a sharp, sudden hiss from the kitchen. It startled me and I rose fast to my feet.

“Mary?” 

“Yeah?” her voice answered. She must have just come in. 

“Oh, sorry. Shit. You scared me. What’re you doing in there?” 

“Espresso. Want any?” 

“Sure. Some sugar, too, please.” 

I sat back down on the foot of the bed, feeling the world reeling, blinking lightly since the darkness spun faster. I felt very sick, but I was confident I wouldn’t vomit. Coffee would help. 

 

Mary came in a few minutes later with a Carrefour sugar shaker and the espressos in small white cups. Her hair was wet and black and she wasn’t wearing any makeup; there were grayish bags like dark sand beaches for her watery blue eyes which betrayed tears shed along her return. We sat in silence and drank our coffees, both wearing the same clothes we had on the night before, while I thought of something I could say that I wouldn’t regret. 

“Are you alright?” was what I decided to say.

Mary sniffled and her bottom lip quivered. “What do you think?” 

“I think not.”

“There you go.” 

“Should I leave?” 

“Yes, I think that would be good. Maybe I can meet you for dinner.”

“Sure, why not.” 

I stood and put on my shirt and began to lace my shoes. I turned back to look at Mary. She was looking at me just below my eyes and her whole body had begun to rock quietly; I knew that when I closed the door she would shatter.

“Jake?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Don’t lie to me. Is John full of shit?” 

I said with a sigh, “I don’t know. I don’t know Pete. I hardly ever see him.”

“Does John really know him? Could it be true?” 

“I don’t know. It’s possible.” 

“Okay.”

I walked over to the door and opened it.

“Jake?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Are we bad people?” 

“Who?” 

“Forget it. Please, just go.” 

“Ok,” I said and shut the door behind me. My footsteps sounded massive in the tight empty hallway. 

 

I walked from there to the hotel, through the lobby and to the elevator, but I hesitated before the door. My heart began to race and my mind went blank. I hadn’t thought of what I would say to John. Suddenly the whole idea of even seeing him made me sick to my stomach. I turned around and went back out into the street, walked three blocks and stopped at a park, sat down on the bench and looked around at the strangers around me. Suddenly they were all just like newborns, and I knew only their unblemished faces and soft brows, and I couldn’t fathom their debts to one another.