Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [88]
“Yeah, I know. We’re going to have to motor. Get off the phone and come down.”
Before I can protest any further, he hangs up. I stare at the ceiling for a few seconds, waiting for my brain to come online, then get out of bed and fumble my way into my clothes. I’m super quiet as I head into the bathroom. I don’t want to wake my father up. I can just imagine that conversation.
Hi, Dad! Four-thirty? Is it really? Well, what do you know. What am I doing? I’m going out. With who? Oh, you don’t know him. I just met him myself. Where are we going? Good question! I have no idea.
I ease the bathroom door open when I’m done, then tiptoe down the hallway, across the living room. I let myself out, creep down the two flights of stairs, and pick my way through all the crap in the courtyard. It’s cold and dark and I can barely see where I’m going. I let myself out of the street-side door, thinking this is insane, wondering if he’s still even going to be there.
He is. He’s there. Sitting in his crappy car. Which is coughing and farting and looking even more banged up than the last time I saw it. He smiles when he sees me and opens the passenger door. I smile back. He’s got St. Vincent’s Marry Me playing on my iPod. I love that CD.
“Hey,” I say. “Hey,” he says, and kisses my cheeks.
He waits for me to buckle up, then throws the car into gear and we’re off, sputtering our way down the silent, empty street. He’s got two coffees sitting in the cup holders.
“Thought you might need it. Help yourself,” he says.
I thank him and take one. It’s black with no sugar, just the way I like it. It’s hot and strong and it warms me up.
“How was your night?” I say.
He shakes his head. “I don’t even want to talk about it.”
“That good, huh? So. Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to the most beautiful place in Paris,” he says.
“Cool,” I say. “I love that place.”
He laughs and I decide to stop asking. To just sit back and drink my coffee and listen as St. Vincent tells me that the greenest of pastures are right here on earth.
“How was your night?” he asks me.
“Short,” I say.
He asks me how I liked the catacombs. I tell him not very much. He wants to know why I went down, so I tell him about the guitar and the diary and Alex. Which makes me a little nervous because it sounds a little crazy, but he doesn’t tell me it’s crazy. He says it sounds cool and asks a lot of questions. I don’t tell him about the hallucinations I had, though. Or how I brought them on. Because I want a chance with this guy. I really do.
“Come down with me some night,” he says. “I’ll take you to the beach. And the bunker.”
“What are those?”
“The beach is a party hangout. The bunker’s a series of rooms the Nazis used during the Second World War. I usually get in via the sewers. It’s tough getting the manhole covers up, but we can usually manage with two or three guys.”
“Sewers and Nazis? Sign me right up,” I say. “Hey, maybe we can go to the dump after.”
He laughs again. I do, too. I like making him laugh. He asks what else I’ve been up to, so I tell him about my thesis. He’s really interested. He knows Malherbeau’s work, likes the musical DNA idea, and asks me tons of questions. He suggests a few parallels I didn’t think of, like tunes from Philip Glass and PJ Harvey. It’s nice talking about my thesis with someone who doesn’t think music is for idiots.
He’s zipping along as we talk, weaving his way west out of the eleventh. He picks up the Boulevard Voltaire, flies around the Place de la Republique, then heads up the Boulevard Magenta. After a few blocks, we hit roadwork, so he turns again, winding north through side streets. I watch the night city go by. I see the dark windows of shops and restaurants, the empty iron balconies of old limestone houses where husbands and wives and widows and babies and single girls and old men and dogs and cats lie sleeping. We keep traveling north, passing through the neon glare of the sex shops and peep shows