You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [27]
I got home and locked the door and walked upstairs. I took off my clothes and got into the shower. I never talked to him again.
WILL
I was eating lunch at the picnic bench beneath the pine tree when Mazin sat down across from me. He’d grown over the summer and seemed so much older.
“Dude I miss your class. I hate English now. I’m going to die of boredom.”
“Come on, Maz. It’ll take some getting used to. Give it a chance.”
“No, man. It doesn’t mean anything. We don’t talk about, I don’t know, stuff. It’s all this analyzing paragraphs and shit. I miss our talks.”
“But here we are having one now.”
“Yeah, on my free period. Lame.”
“I’m flattered you’d waste your free period with me, Maz.”
“Yeah, well don’t get too excited. Anyway Silver, school’s a waste of my time.”
“Carrot?”
“No man, I don’t want a carrot, I want to know why I shouldn’t just move to LA and start a band.”
“Who says you shouldn’t?”
“Please. Everyone.”
“You realize, right, that this is a tired conversation? You know everything I’m going to tell you. It’s the height of boring.”
“No I don’t. You’re the height of boring. What are you going to tell me?”
“You’ve heard it all before, Maz.”
“Oh come on. Tell me. Please.”
“There’s nothing to tell you. You want to move to LA and start a band? Go. Otherwise, shut up and do your homework.”
“That’s it? That’s your advice?”
“You were asking for advice?”
“Obviously.”
“Look, Maz, I’ve said it a thousand times. You do what you feel is right. But it’s do what you feel is right, not talk about doing. You understand?”
“So you’re saying I should drop out of school?”
I laughed. “You know exactly what I’m saying.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe moving to LA to become a rock star isn’t the best alternative to doing your homework.”
He got up and smiled at me. “I’m glad we can still have these talks, man. You never let me down. I got to go to class. I’ll tell you if I decide to move to LA.” He gave me a complicated handshake. The hugging had stopped.
“Peace, Mr. Silver.”
* * *
That afternoon, I went with Mia to the Marché d’Aligre where we shopped for dinner. Afterward, we ate oysters and stayed late drinking too much wine at Le Baron Rouge and then went back to her apartment. I sat at the bar that separated her tiny kitchen from the living room and watched her cut small red potatoes into quarters.
I loved being there that evening—watching her cook, setting the table, following her orders, waiting for our guests. In the long cobbled courtyard below, a group of boys was playing soccer and with each goal came a burst of noise. I leaned out the window to watch the game.
Mia opened a bottle of wine and brought me a glass.
“Cheers,” she said.
“Cheers.”
“It’s getting dark earlier and earlier.”
I nodded.
“I say the same things every year,” she said.
A boy in a green T-shirt scored a goal, raised his hands above his head, did a victory lap, and then disappeared into the building. Quickly the game dissipated and soon the courtyard was empty and quiet.
We didn’t know Séb and Pauline very well, but Mia was always looking to befriend French people, who were, to her surprise and disappointment, difficult to know. So, after the four of us had drinks together a few weeks before, she called and invited them for dinner.
In those years, it felt that having dinner with other Americans was a kind of failure, that the purer, more authentic experience was always with the French and she was happy to have met Parisians she liked. She’d been taking cooking classes and had become a confident and talented cook. This would be her first dinner for a French couple and she was thrilled.
“You realize, Will, that this is one of the fantasies?”
“Which?”
“The Paris fantasies. To cook a French meal, for French people, in my Parisian apartment.”
“Well, you’ll do it beautifully.”
“Thank you, William.” She smiled at me.
“They’re here,” I said.
Séb and Pauline had pushed the heavy wooden