The Grand Tour, Part I
Part I
Dear Kevin,
I thought the Paris airport would be pretty classy, since it’s Paris, but it’s even worse than the one in Philadelphia. It’s dirty and crowded and the bathrooms are disgusting. Joe keeps reading all the signs out loud even though they’re in French. If he gets murdered by someone in a beret, you’ll know why. Anyway, we’re here and we’re safe, and I’m sure it’ll be great once we get outside.
Love,
Nick
Nick realizes after the fact that it’s a bummer of a first email to send to his brother from Europe, but they’ve basically been on a plane all night, Nick subject to Joe’s surprisingly sharp elbows every time Joe moved in his sleep. And he’s pretty sure Kevin won’t mind.
There are twenty of them on the trip, half kids from their school and half from someplace else, and they’re all milling around outside the arrivals gate waiting to be told what to do next. Nick wants to hide behind Joe the way he did when he was four and still shy, because this many strangers is a little intimidating, but Joe’s investigating a French rental car kiosk and Nick doesn’t want to get unduly involved in that. He sits down on his suitcase and pulls out his French phrase book. He’s only had one year of French, and he’s the youngest kid on the trip, so he feels like he has something to prove. But then he often feels like he has something to prove.
“Eyes over here, please!” calls Mrs. Davis. She’s 5’1” and has to stand on her toes and wave her arms to be heard, but they all turn towards her - as does half the rest of the airport. “We will now be making our way to the commuter train station. We will take the train to the Gare du Nord, which is a major train station serving the city, and rendezvous there for a headcount before we make our way to the hostel. The trains are likely to be very crowded, so I expect you all to stick close to your buddy and keep at least one of the chaperones in sight at all times.”
Joe steps up next to him and leans his elbow on Nick’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy,” Joe says lightly. Nick feels more comfortable and also slightly embarrassed with Joe at his side. Nick wants to be as inconspicuous as possible while they’re in Europe, and he’s pretty sure Joe doesn’t even know what inconspicuous means.
Dear Kevin,
Our hostel is kind of weird. Not in a bad way, but there’s a huge trashcan in the hallway shaped like a bear, and Joe keeps taking pictures of it every time he passes. Which he does a lot because as soon as we got here, he made friends with these girls from England who are staying down the hall. Their names are Moira and Lauren, and they’re in college, “university.” They think Joe’s hilarious, which he loves, as you can imagine.
Love,
Nick
“Are you going to university in the fall, Joe?” Moira asks. She’s sitting on Nick’s bed, which makes him feel both awkward and annoyed. It’s not as though he was actually going to go to sleep, not with Joe up talking to the girls and everybody else running up and down the halls between each other’s rooms, laughing and introducing themselves to the other people in the hostel. But still. It’s his bed, and Moira is sitting with her feet up on it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Yeah,” says Joe, and that’s a sore spot too, that Joe’s going away at the end of the summer. Only as far as Rutgers, but far enough that Nick won’t see him every day in school, or be subjected to all the dumb stories he secretly loves listening to Joe tell. It’s a big change, one Nick isn’t sure how to navigate. That was supposed to be part of the point of this trip, that they could spend some time together before Joe disappears off to the wonderful world of college and forgets all about his dorky, overly serious kid brother. But like always, Joe is making new friends and drawing people in; and Nick’s much better with people at a distance. He starts talking about what happened on his campus visit back in April, and the girls are laughing and egging him on, looking at him with a kind of fascination that makes jealousy boil up in Nick’s stomach. He sets his back against the wall and folds his arms. He’s sulking like a little kid and he knows it, but whatever, it’s his room too.
Joe glances at Nick for confirmation in some story he’s telling, but his smiles droops when he sees the expression on Nick’s face. Nick lets his eyes skate disdainfully over the girls, just to make sure Joe gets the message. They’re cool enough, but that’s not the point. Moira looks thoughtfully between Nick and Joe, gives Nick this patronizing smile when he keeps glaring at her. “Well, it’s obvious you’ve had quite enough excitement for one day,” she says breezily. “We’ll just be going. Have a good night.”
Nick’s not going to write to Kevin back home saying that he spent his first night in France policing Joe’s new friends, even if that’s close to the truth. “They seem nice, right?” asks Joe hesitantly, nodding at the door the girls have just gone through. “And it sounds like they know a ton of good stuff to do in the city.”
“We have an itinerary for that,” Nick says tartly. “We’re on a very tight schedule here. They planned this tour specifically so that we can see the ‘good stuff’. We don’t need,” he waves his hand vaguely, “interlopers.”
Joe’s face goes blank, his eyes wide like maybe he’s going to cry, which would be terrible, but then he whispers, “Interlopers,” and falls over laughing, dragging his face against the blanket. “Oh man, Nick, you are my favorite. Come here.” He holds out his arms, and Nick rolls his eyes. As if he’s going to let Joe hug him right now. He watches Joe laughing, repeating, “interlopers” like it’s a great joke, and he feels this surge of confused annoyance and affection for his brother. He swallows back his smile, but Joe can tell. He can always tell. He wraps his arms around Nick’s shoulders and clasps him tight, grinning into the side of his neck.
Dear Kevin,
Today we went to the Louvre and the Tuileries and then we walked up the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. I took a lot of pictures and Joe didn’t get yelled at by any French security guards for touching the paintings, although he did wander off to talk to a guy playing violin on the street and then get us lost in the museum. It was a really beautiful day to be outside, and the view from the Arc de Triomphe was really awesome. We’re starting to talk more with some other kids on the tour too. Some of them are pretty cool.
Love,
Nick
They have to get up really early to get to the Louvre just as it opens. Nick sets his alarm and diligently rolls out of bed when it goes off. Their double room shares a bathroom with the next room down, but the door is unlocked when he tries it, so he showers and brushes his teeth before Joe has so much as turned over in his sleep. Nick flicks a wet towel at him, and Joe responds with a garbled protest. It’s exactly like any morning getting up for school at home, and Nick’s kind of glad Joe’s with him on the trip, grounding him and reminding him what he’s going home to in the end.
Joe drags himself out of bed with only a few minutes to spare, and then spends so long in the bathroom fixing his hair that they’re almost the last ones downstairs, where Mrs. Davis is taking roll in the lobby. They have to take the métro to get to the museum, and Mrs. Davis counts them off two by two when they reach the station, just to make sure no one gets lost. Joe slips his arm through Nick’s when they’re through the turnstile, keeps their elbows hooked all the way to the platform and onto a crowded train. Nick isn’t even sure it’s the right train, and he’s very sure that with the speed Joe’s moving most of their classmates aren’t going to make it on board before the train pulls out even if it is the right one. “Wait,” Nick tries to say, “Wait! Attend! Arrête!”
“Sorry, Nick,” Joe replies, pushing Nick into an empty seat and practically straddling his knees, “I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Joe, did you even look to see if this was the right train?” Nick asks, craning around to see the destination board above the doors, which are closed now.
“Of course I did. I’ll always look out for you, Nicky.”
Nick is caught somewhere between a smile and an annoyed grimace. Because it’s pretty much true, at the same time that Joe gets him in trouble all the time and drags him into all sorts of situations that border on scary and out of control. Like his friends’ parties when Nick was in middle school, and there were people drinking and a smell suspiciously like that fake marijuana stuff from their DARE lecture in fifth grade.
But Joe apparently knows his way around public transportation in Paris the same way he does in New York, and they tumble out of the train at the Palais Royal station. Nick stops on the sidewalk, turning in circles, blinking in the sun as he becomes more and more sure that no one else from their group had made it onto their train. His ears start to buzz with panic, even though he knows, knows that they’ll be coming on the next train and they’re in exactly the place they should be. And Joe’s with him, so it’s not as though he’s actually alone in this strange city where he only barely speaks the language.
Except that Joe’s not next to him anymore, and Nick almost has a heart attack before he hears the fiddler on the corner and sees Joe dancing like the biggest geek in the world, rocking his hips and twirling, right there on the sidewalk, where people have to step around him just to walk by. The fiddler stops playing, laughing too hard to keep steady on his chin rest, and Nick’s still twenty feet away, but he can see his brother striking up a conversation with this total stranger on the street, elaborate hand gestures doing the work that words can’t. Nick strides confidently forward, thinking he can help by translating, thinking he’ll show Joe he needs Nick while they’re in France. But when he gets up close he realizes they aren’t even speaking French. Joe’s using his four years of Italian, a little slow but confident with his words, and the fiddler is nodding, answering back. Nick has no idea what they’re saying, and for a second he’s angry, so angry that Joe’s ignoring him and that Joe can make friends with anybody anywhere and that Joe makes speaking a foreign language in public look so easy while Nick stalls and second-guesses himself on even the simplest phrases.
He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, watching Joe laughing and talking and miming playing the guitar. He’s magnetic, with his big stupid smile and his expressive eyes and his hand gestures, and there’s a flutter low in Nick’s belly that might be jealousy. He takes a deep breath and starts walking again, calling, “Joe, there you are!” like he’s only just noticed them.
“Nick!” Joe calls back, beckoning Nick closer. “You have to meet this guy. This is Niccolo. He’s an amazing violinist. And he’s got your name!” Joe turns to Niccolo and says something that must mean “play” because Niccolo swings his violin back onto his shoulder and starts playing something low and dirge-like, sawing his bow slowly across the strings, his fingers vibrating against the fret. Nick doesn’t play the violin, but he recognizes good technique. And then Niccolo picks up the pace, a little at a time until his song morphs into something totally different, quick and leaping with tension. Nick is impressed in spite of himself. He finds himself nodding along with the swoop and sway of the music, watching the play of Niccolo’s fingers over the strings.
Joe grabs his hand and swings him into a clumsy dance, somewhere between a tango and a waltz, a hand on Nick’s waist guiding him. “Just follow my lead,” Joe says, and Nick is dancing across a Parisian sidewalk in his brother’s arms. Joe dips him and then pulls him up into a spin, and Nick almost trips over his own feet. He’s not used to playing the girl. And then Mrs. Davis calls, “Nick and Joe!” from down the block, and Joe manages to elbow Nick in the ribs when Nick stops moving.
“Grazi,” he says to Niccolo, because he doesn’t know how to say anything else in Italian. He waves sheepishly to Mrs. Davis while Joe writes out his email address on a scrap of paper and hands it to Niccolo. He’s chattering away in Italian, talking faster than before as Nick tugs at his arm. The shape of his mouth around the unfamiliar words is fascinating, the way each syllable trips off his tongue.
“I didn’t know you were that good at Italian,” Nick says, walking Joe back along the sidewalk.
Joe shrugs. “It’s the language of love, little bro. And I am nothing if not a lover.”
“You’re nothing if not a dork,” Nick replies.
“Why can’t a guy do both?” Joe bounds ahead of him, and doesn’t seem to care one bit about the lecture they get about “staying with the group” and “the dangers of big cities”. Nick’s embarrassed and ashamed - it’s only the first full day, and Joe’s already gotten him in trouble - but Joe just nods and looks thoughtful and when it’s all over he whispers in Nick’s ear, “So worth it.”
They get lost again in the Louvre, but that isn’t totally their fault. One minute there’s a long sunny hallway full of Classical and Renaissance sculpture, some of the kids snickering over so many naked marble bodies, and the next minute Joe says, “Let’s go to this wing now,” and they’re in an unmarked stairway leading down. Nick suspects visitors aren’t actually supposed to come through this way, since it definitely isn’t on his map and it’s totally deserted, but they end up in the middle of the Egyptian collection and Joe says, “See?” as though this was his intention all along.
They wander through the pyramids and come out in the middle of Sumer and Babylon, and Nick’s about ready to give up on the map altogether because this is not where he thought they were at all. They wander past giant winged bulls with six legs and human faces, and Nick stops worrying that he doesn’t know where they are, distracted by trying to translate the explanatory notes next to the statues, although French I has not really given him the vocabulary for fine art. Then Joe stands by so patiently while Nick looks at Hammurabi’s code that Nick just about forgives him for getting them lost in the first place.
It’s lucky that they find the rest of the group just as they’re approaching the Mona Lisa, and there’s a big crowd in the hallway, so it’s easy to pretend they’ve been there the whole time. “Oh man, look,” Joe says, pointing to a painting of a man whose portrait has been constructed entirely out of fruit. “Now that’s the kind of art I’d want to do. Only with pizza instead.”
The crowd shifts forward and they move past the fruit painting, but Joe’s still talking about his grand plan for pizza portraits. The entrance to the Mona Lisa room is just ahead of them, and Nick can see the strobe of one camera flash after another in spite of the sign saying “No Photography” in five different languages. When they finally get to the painting itself, Nick feels sort of sorry for her, small and brown behind thick glass that will keep all those pictures from turning out anyway, he’s sure. “She’s pretty,” Joe says admiringly, cocking his head to the side for a different angle.
“That’s what we waited in line for? It’s so little,” somebody else in their group says, loudly enough that Nick’s embarrassed to be one of Those American Tourists, even though he kind of thought the same thing walking up to it. It’s not a big, grand painting; it’s probably half the size of the fruit portrait Joe liked so much. But it’s pretty, warmer than he expected, more like a real person.
The line shuffles on, and Nick doesn’t linger. He doesn’t know anything about art, and it’s hard to be interested in things he doesn’t know anything about. Mrs. Davis is waving from down the corridor, and Joe acts as though they’ve been just a few steps behind the rest of the group the whole time, as though they’d never gotten lost in the Egyptian wing at all. They have a free half hour now that they’ve done the Mona Lisa, but Nick and Joe just sit down on the steps below the winged Victory statue, and Nick tries to explain what Hammurabi’s Code meant for language and law and society. Joe listens intently, and it’s the best thing in the world to have his undivided attention. All the English college girls in the world can’t touch this.
The Tuileries are pretty, and Nick strikes up a conversation with a girl from another school as they walk. They’re the only two freshmen on the tour, and Nick’s a little embarrassed that she’s here on her own when his parents wouldn’t let him come unless Joe came, too, but she doesn’t seem to care. “If I had a brother, I bet my mom would be the same way.”
They compare notes on school and what they’re looking forward to on the trip, and Nick starts to loosen up the way Joe’s always telling him to, talking to a total stranger, and a girl at that. Her name’s Selena, and she laughs at him in this way that makes him feel good instead of dumb and angry. She’s really pretty, so pretty that he can’t seem to look at her full-on most of the time, just sneaking little glances out of the corner of his eye. There’s about a half-hour in the gardens when he doesn’t wonder where Joe is even once, and it’s sort of freeing. And then Joe leaps out from behind a bush and almost knocks Nick to the ground, and even though Selena doesn’t seem to care, Nick feels the aura of cool he’s been trying to build dissipate.
It’s probably okay though, since he knows he’ll have to keep a close eye on Joe on the walk up to the Arc de Triomphe. Who even knows how many buskers he could befriend between here and there? Joe says he wants to be stolen by gypsies when he catches Nick eying him and asks what’s going on. “I would make a great gypsy,” he adds, miming shaking a tambourine.
“You realize that’s an entire marginalized ethnic population you’re talking about, right?” Nick replies.
“You’re too smart for your own good, kid.” Joe slings an arm around Nick’s shoulder and Nick doesn’t try to shrug him off, even though they’re kind of blocking the sidewalk and Joe has just shut him down an on interesting political and socio-economic subject.
The Arc de Triomphe is big and bright in the sunshine, and all the friezes and stuff are neat, but by the time they get there Nick’s feeling a little light-headed, like his feet aren’t hitting the ground quite right. He thinks maybe he should say something, or get himself a snack, but they’re supposed to have lunch right after this, and he’ll be fine until then, he’s sure.
Joe disagrees. “You need to sit down and eat something,” he says out of nowhere, using the low, serious voice he only uses in emergencies. “Don’t argue.”
There’s a bench to their left, at the base of the arch, and Nick stumbles through a fleeing flock of pigeons, his feet heavy, every step more confusing than it should be. “For such a smart kid, you’re a fucking idiot sometimes,” Joe tells him, and Nick wants to tell him not to curse, but instead he takes the bottle Joe hands him and takes a sip. The juice is warm from being in Joe’s backpack, thicker than Nick was expecting. He swallows and says, “What is this?”
“Blackcurrant. I got it at the airport. It’s authentically European.”
Nick takes another swig and makes a face. “It tastes authentically European.” He glances over at Joe, who’s watching him carefully. “Thanks. I didn’t know you had this.”
“I also have band-aids and a ball of twine. I came prepared.”
“A ball of twine?”
“You never know when you’ll need to lash a bunch of sticks into a raft or something.”
Nick laughs weakly and hands back the rest of the little bottle of juice. Joe drinks it, smacking his lips thoughtfully. “I could get used to this authentically European juice thing.” Nick leans back, the hard stone of the bench digging into his shoulder blades. The arch looms overhead, and looking up at it makes him dizzy all over again. Nick knows he should check his levels soon, make sure he’s at least getting back to normal, but getting the kit out of his bag seems like a lot of work right now, and he hates doing it in public.
“If you end up in a diabetic coma on my watch,” Joe says, “I’ll kill you.”
“If I’m comatose, I won’t care,” Nick replies lightly, then adds more seriously, “Thanks for looking out for me.”
Joe squeezes his knee. “Thanks for letting me.”
“You’re not going to tell Mom and Dad about this, are you?” Nick says, glancing at Mrs. Davis, who’s chatting with another of the chaperones. They’re not paying any attention, and for all the scolding to stay with the group, Nick wonders whether he’s safer with Joe who knows exactly what it looks like when Nick needs something, than he would be with the adults in charge of this trip.
“If you sit here with me for another ten minutes and then check your blood sugar, no. I’m willing to figure you’re going to do better for the rest of the trip. And you know, the other kids aren’t going to think you’re uncool because you take care of yourself.” He squeezes Nick’s knee. “They’ll find plenty of other reasons to think you’re uncool.”
“That wasn’t clever,” Nick points out. “I could see it coming a mile away.”
“Whatever. Check your levels and we’ll see if we can get up to the top of this thing.”
The view is amazing, all of Paris laid out below them. “Hey,” says Selena, coming up behind them on the observation deck. “Nick, are you okay? You looked kind of sick.”
Nick ducks his head, embarrassed but pleased that she was even looking at him. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Nothing a big brother can’t handle,” Joe adds, and Nick glares at him, trying to communicate, “Go away,” with the power of his eyebrows. Joe grins and doesn’t take the hint. “It’s nice of you to think of him though. Young Nicholas appreciates your concern, I’m sure.”
“I hope so,” Selena says, looking at Nick, who kind of wants to throw Joe off the top of the arch.
“I do,” he tells her. “Thanks. Do you want to, uh, go look over that way? You should be able to see the river really well.”
“Smooth,” Joe whispers, but Nick ignores him, starting up some awkward small talk with Selena. Joe makes it look so easy, but even figuring out what to say to Selena is hard, what kind of stuff you talk about with people who aren’t in your classes or your choir. He already knows she’s an only child, so it’s harder for him to tell crazy stories about Joe because she can’t sympathize with having someone around all the time to make your life more interesting. Nick doesn’t really have crazy stories of his own.
But they can talk about the hostel, and the food, and after a while he has to explain the whole diabetes thing so she stops looking like he’s going to pass out and tip off the side of the observation deck. She’s cool about it, not patronizing or anything. When they go to a little café for lunch, he sits across from her at a sunny little outdoor table, feeling grownup and pleased as he eats his sandwich. He can almost block out the sounds of the other kids as he tells Selena some of the stuff he learned about the organization of the EU when he was getting ready for this trip. He feels smart and cool and he’s having an intelligent conversation with a pretty girl at a sidewalk café in Paris.
Nick emails Kevin from one of the computers in the little lounge off the hostel lobby, and when he comes upstairs, Joe’s loitering in the hallway, talking to his cool British friends and a couple of the other seniors from their group. “Nick!” Joe says, waving him over, and he’s got that grin on his face that never means anything good, or at least not anything Mom and Dad would approve of.
Moira and Lauren smile at him, but the other seniors look him up and down like the dumb kid he kind of is, and he stands there awkwardly with his hands in his pockets waiting for Joe to tell him what’s going on. “Lauren says there’s this great club, practically around the corner,” Joes says, head tilted in for a confidential whisper. “We’re all gonna go tonight. And you, Nicholas, should come with us!” He swings an arm around Nick’s waist and squeezes.
“I’m fourteen,” Nick reminds him.
“It’s France,” Joe replies. “Nobody even knows if there is a legal drinking age here.”
Nick knows it’s sixteen, because he actually bothers to do things like research, but right now he doesn’t want to be that kid, not with Joe’s friends looking annoyed, like Nick shouldn’t even be there. Joe’s still grinning at him, intent and enthusiastic in this way that makes Nick’s stomach ache. He has to look away. “I don’t know,” Nick says, because he can’t quite say no. He’s only like, three-quarters sure he wants to.
“But it’ll be fun,” Joe coaxes. “You can practice your French on some cute mademoiselles.” He pronounces it “madam-wazzles” and Nick can’t help smiling.
“I could translate for you when you completely mess up speaking French to them.”
“That’s the spirit!”
Joe makes him change his shirt for one of Joe’s, which is almost too small for Nick and practically skin tight on Joe, and which clearly should have stayed home in New Jersey. They wait in the lobby with Lauren and Moira while everyone else gets ready, and when they come downstairs Nick realizes it’s all girls except for him and Joe, which was not what he was expecting from the crowd in the hallway.
And then it turns out that the club is really mostly a bar with a dance floor in the back about the size of their bathroom at home. The seven of them (Nick, Joe, Moira, Lauren, and three senior girls) practically fill it completely. And Nick ends up dancing with Moira, who seems to be way more into the music than Nick is. He looks around desperately for a distraction. And then Joe cuts in, swinging Nick into his arms, and it’s even worse. He’s dancing in this way that’s nothing like dancing on the sidewalk this morning was. He drags Nick in close on the crowded dance floor, holding him with a hand at the small of his back, pulling him forward until their hips practically meet. Nick’s cheeks flush, and he’s so angry and embarrassed for a minute that he can’t do anything but let Joe move him, swing him into the rhythm of the song. Joe’s his brother and this isn’t okay, not even remotely. Nick squirms out of Joe’s arms and scrambles backward, leaving Joe staring at him in confusion, as though dancing pressed up close to your brother is something everyone does all the time. Maybe it is in France, but Joe wouldn’t even look at Nick’s guidebook, let alone do any independent research, so how would he know?
He holds out a coaxing hand, inviting Nick back in, but Nick just takes another faltering step backwards, murmuring, “Pardon,” to whoever’s toe he just stepped on. Joe says something, but it’s lost in the racing beat of the song, but Nick just turns, heading back to the bar up front, folding his arms on the bar top and waiting for Joe to realize how he really just needs to act like a normal person once in a while. He orders a Diet Coke, somewhat sheepish as the bartender looks from Nick to his dancing, grinning friends. “Not have a good night, eh?” the bartender says, insisting on speaking English the way most everyone in Paris who can seems to. “Need something to…” He holds up a bottle of rum, and Nick shakes his head. He shouldn’t screw up his blood sugar right now on top of everything else, even if it would make Joe take him back to the hostel and sit up with him all night instead of dancing with his hands on an unfamiliar girl’s waist, laughing and smiling at her.
Nick drinks his Coke slowly, watching Joe out of the corner of his eye, the way he moves sort of goofy and overblown, but also so natural that Nick can’t help being jealous. Joe makes it look so easy, and Nick almost wants to join him on the dance floor again, even if Joe insists on holding him too close, just to see if a little of that ease will rub off on him.
But before he can get any further than thinking about it, Joe catches his eye and comes over. He’s been sweating. Although it’s not that hot at the bar, there’s a fine sheen of it on his face, and the neck of his t-shirt is a shade darker than it was. “Do you want to go?” Joe asks kindly, and Nick realizes this the second night in a row he’s ended up sulking in Paris. Stupid. He vows there won’t be a third.
“Okay,” Nick says. Joe walks him back to the hostel with an arm around his shoulders, not even explaining to Nick how lame he is. Even though he would be totally justified in doing so. It’s so quiet when they get back, no one running up and down the hallways, one sleepy employee in the lobby and one scruffy guy making a Skype call in the computer lab, speaking something Nick thinks is Dutch into his headset.
Nick gets ready for bed as Joe digs around in the mess of his bag, looking for clean underwear. “How do you think you’re going to make it through three weeks like that?” Nick asks after a while.
Joe comes up with a fistful of polka-dot boxers, grinning. “Pure luck,” he replies, which is probably mostly true. “And a certain amount of innate stylishness.”
Nick can’t help smiling.
Dear Nick,
I’m leaving for camp today. This year my cabin is the Blue Jays, so I think I’ll have to teach the kids to strut around and screech really loudly. I bet they’ll like that. I thought about dyeing my hair blue, but I checked and it’s against the camp rules. And I don’t want them thinking I’m not a professional. I’m glad you’re meeting people. Paris sounds exciting. Say “bonjour” to the Eiffel Tower for me. Do you think it misses the Statue of Liberty all the way in New York? They were made by the same guy, right?
I’ll email you when I get to camp.
Love,
Kevin
Dear Kevin,
Paris is so busy all the time, but today we got a break. We went out to Mont St. Michel, which is an island off the coast of Normandy. Well, sometimes it’s an island. At low tide you can walk across the mudflats to get there. But you have to do it at exactly the right time. Mrs. Davis was pretty stressed out trying to get everyone there at the right moment. But once we got there it was amazing. Everything was so old and cool-looking, and we just got to walk around and look at things. Joe met this American graduate student at the café where we ate lunch and spent half the afternoon talking to him about the history of the monastery. We learned some neat stuff. I hope you’re having a good time at camp. I haven’t gone to the Eiffel Tower yet, but I’ll say hi from New York. :)
Love,
Nick
Dear Nick,
Camp is awesome! We had an all-camp game of capture the flag today and my cabin kicked butt. When we won they all did the blue jay screech I taught them, and it nearly brought tears of pride to my eyes. I’ve been reading them some of your emails, and they think France sounds really exciting. I think they’re all going to go home and tell their parents they want to go.
Love,
Kevin
Dear Kevin,
Sorry I haven’t written. I hope you weren’t worried. The last couple of days have just been one museum and tourist attraction after another, and when we get back to the hostel we haven’t done anything except sleep. Paris is so big. Right now we’re on the train to Avignon, where we’ll be for the next few days. I’m not sure where I’ll be able to send this from, but Mrs. Davis said Avignon’s a great city to walk around in, so I’m sure I’ll find someplace. It’s a really old city too, with lots of cool stuff to see, and Joe’s been humming the song about the bridge all day. I’ll tell you more once we get there.
Love,
Nick
Joe keeps his nose pressed to the window the whole ride down, and eventually he gives Nick permission to poke him if he starts humming. “My iPod battery’s dead and I can’t get that song out of my head,” Joe says, tapping his fingers against his thigh in an ominously recognizable rhythm. By the time they pass Lyon Nick has it stuck in his head too, and by Avignon, he’s arranging harmonies and making Joe sing with him. Selena walks by and stops to listen, and Joe elbows Nick in the ribs, grinning smugly. Nick misses a note and blushes darkly.
“That was really good,” Selena says.
Nick swallows down the desire to point out how totally off he was just now. “Thanks,” he says instead.
“I wonder if Avignon has karaoke bars,” Joe says thoughtfully. Nick has no idea whether that’s a good idea or a terrible one, but Selena smiles and says she’d be into it, so Nick smiles too.
The train station is very white and new-looking, and Nick’s very ready to be someplace bigger than a train compartment. It’s almost six when they arrive, and all Nick knows from here is that the program arranged host families for them in town. He isn’t expecting the middle-aged woman Mrs. Davis introduces him and Joe to, who looks alarmed and starts talking to Mrs. Davis in very rapid French. “Deux,” Nick hears, and “trompe”, “mistake”, and he’s fairly sure she only signed on to host one student, not two. He wonders if he and Joe will be split up, and he tries to make himself okay with that, tries to ignore the tight feeling in his chest when he thinks about not rehashing the day’s events with Joe every night. He smiles the woman and Mrs. Davis expectantly.
“Can you two share a bed?” asks Mrs. Davis suddenly.
“Sure,” says Joe without even hesitating. “We used to share all the time when we were kids.” Nick nods in confirmation.
“Merveilleux!” exclaims Mrs. Davis, and explains what Joe’s said to the woman. She seems enthusiastic.
“’Ello, Nick and Joe,” she says. “I am Mme. Carole. Please come with me.”
They pile into her little hatchback, Nick awkward in the back among the suitcases, elbowing forward to translate since the woman’s English is only a little better than Joe’s French. She has two children who are grown up and live elsewhere in Provence, and they don’t ask if she has a husband since she doesn’t mention it. Her house looks smaller on the outside than it does on the inside, tucked in a row of similar houses with little back gardens and narrow front windows. There’s a big kitchen and a living room on the ground floor, and two bedrooms and a bathroom with an enormous tub and a tiny shower stall on the floor above. In Nick’s French class, they learned that while Americans are inclined to give tours of their houses to visitors, in France private space is kept more, well, private. He wonders if they’re intruding by making her show them things, but she seems cheerful and happy to have them.
The room they are to share is dominated by a big bed covered in fluffy throw pillows that smell like lavender. Nick feels sleepy just looking at it, but she tells them dinner will be ready in half an hour, and if he lies down now, he won’t get up in half an hour. Joe doesn’t seem to care about that. He kicks off his shoes and sprawls out on the bed, stretching luxuriantly. “You don’t still kick, do you?” he asks, glancing over at Nick, who’s watching him from the little desk in the corner.
“Guess you’ll find out,” Nick replies. Joe looks so comfortable on the bed that Nick’s tempted to lie down next to him, shoulder to shoulder like they used to when they were little, before Mom realized how late they were staying up talking and banned them from each other’s beds.
Joe stifles a yawn in the crook of his elbow. “Wonder how everybody else is settling in,” he says conversationally, and Nick struggles not to frown. For a second it was just him and Joe in the room, like the only two people in the world, but now Nick’s thinking about all Joe’s new friends again, all the people on the trip older and cooler than he is. He tries to tell himself he won’t be jealous, that he’ll be better than that. But it’s not an easy thing to do. Joe’s practically a grown-up. He’s graduated; he’ll be going off to college almost as soon as they get home. And Nick’s still just a kid. He’s going to be just a kid for years yet.
“What’s that face, Nicholas?” Joe asks, wagging a finger at him. “That cannot possibly be a sad face when we are in France and a total stranger is making us dinner as we speak.”
“Shut up,” says Nick, cracking a smile for Joe’s sake.
“Come on, Nick. You keep getting into these weird moods, and I don’t know what’s going on. Is something wrong?”
Nick shrugs and stares at his shoes. Joe’s going to think he’s stupid, but he’ll be really nice about it, and that’s just going to make it worse. “It’s fine. We’re in France being made dinner by a really nice lady who doesn’t know us from Adam. What’s wrong with that?”
Joe rolls out of bed and sits down in front of Nick on the floor, elbows on Nick’s knees. “Tell me,” he says, leaning into Nick’s lap, eyebrows raised high.
“Come on, Joe. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t want me hanging out with loose women, is that it? You don’t want me out late on school nights? What is it? I don’t understand.”
“It’s nothing, okay?” Nick hates the little shiver that runs through him as Joe elbows his way farther up Nick’s thighs. He’s fourteen, and everything turns him on right now, everything feels like the sex he’s not going to be having for years. He glares at Joe like it’s Joe’s fault, and Joe looks up at him, all guileless and curious so that Nick has to look away. And then be more honest than he intended. “You’re going away,” he says. “You’re gonna make all these new friends. You make new friends everywhere you go. And they’re gonna be cool friends.”
“And you’re gonna be my brother,” Joe says, squeezing at Nick’s thighs. “Forever and ever and always.”
“It’ll be different.” He doesn’t like having serious conversations with Joe, heart-to-hearts of any kind, because any second now Joe’s going to make a joke and hug him and grin like everything’s fine. But for right this second, he’s looking up so sincerely that Nick just wants Joe to fix it, in the magical way he always seemed to fix everything at the haziest edges of Nick’s memory.
“I’m not dying,” Joe tells him. “I’m not going to Alaska. I’m not gonna leave you behind, Nicky. That’s not what’s happening.”
Nick purses his lips and says nothing. Because that’s still what it feels like, like Joe’s going away and Nick’s something he can cast off when he leaves.
“Seriously,” Joe says. “You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily.” He stands up and wraps his arms awkwardly around Nick’s neck. He stoops until he’s almost in Nick’s lap and nuzzles his face into Nick’s shoulder. “You’re so dumb.”
“I’m not.”
“I love you, Nicky.” He stays crowded uncomfortably into Nick’s arms until it must be uncomfortable, until he has to settle into Nick’s lap in order to keep hugging him, straddling him. Nick hugs him back, holds him tight and forgets for a little while that he doesn’t need this, that it shouldn’t matter so much that Joe’s going away, that older brothers go away to college all the time and it isn’t always like losing a limb. He lets Joe tangle a hand in his hair and curl in close. He stays like that until Mme. Carole calls them down for dinner.
Dear Kevin,
We’re in Avignon. I’m sorry I haven’t written, but the woman we’re staying with has no internet in her house and it took us a while to find an internet café. Joe’s making sure Facebook knows everything that is happening in his life in cryptic, one-sentence fashion. Mme. Carole, the woman we’re staying with, is such a good cook. She makes a lot of things I can’t even pronounce, let alone spell. I asked her for some recipes, but they’re all in French, so I’m not even sure what Mom will do with them. She made this salad with tuna and boiled eggs, and even Joe liked it.
Today is the first time we’ve really been out to explore the city. It’s pretty amazing, all the old stone buildings with little stores on the bottom floors and apartments up top. There’s this big pedestrian-only shopping area, with real cobblestone streets, and we spent all day just looking at stuff and seeing what the city is like. Tomorrow we’re going back to looking at historical sites and stuff. We’re supposed to be going out to some crazy old ruins tomorrow, and looking at a Roman aqueduct, and I’m sure I’m going to take way more pictures than anyone wants to look at. Thank you so much for the camera. I had no idea how much I would end up using it, but it’s the best thing I could have brought with me. Tell Mom and Dad we’re fine, and tell Frankie we were eaten by goats. He’ll like that.
Love,
Nick
With the number of alleys Joe drags him into and out of, Nick’s pretty sure they’ll be lost or run over by noon. People in France don’t seem to care much about things like traffic laws, and Nick keeps having to grab his arm at intersections. They go to Les Halles, the big indoor market in the middle of the city, and Joe points to practically everything and says, “We could get one of those for Mom.” Except the whole skinned rabbits, which he just finds fascinatingly gross.
They end up with some little jars of preserves, which don’t seem all that exciting to Nick, but they do have handwritten labels in French, so that’s something. Then Joe pulls him on along a side street, pointing at more things: a lamp shaped like a sea anemone, a bunch of ugly hemp jewelry, a tobacco store they can smell from the middle of the road. They find a stand selling crepes, and it smells so good that they buy two from the man behind the griddle. Nick tries greeting him in French, but he answers back in English, and pretty soon Joe has found out that he’s from Glasgow and is discussing independent film with him in an eerily intelligent way. Joe apparently has a secret talent for finding non-French people in France. Nick eats his crepe in silence.
“Everyone here is so much friendlier than in Paris,” Joe says as they walk away.
“Uh-huh,” Nick replies blankly. They go into a narrow, crowded record store full of albums Nick has never heard of. There’s a rap song playing overhead, and Nick finds himself nodding along to it, even if he only understands maybe one word out of five, and even those he’s not sure of. There’s something about beat and the flow of unfamiliar words that Nick likes, that he wants to hear more of. But Joe sees a comic book store across the street and he drags Nick off before Nick can even ask what the song was.
They walk out along the Rue de la République, the main street in the shopping district, ducking into the big stone tourism office when the sun gets too hot. Nick has a map, but he tries to be discreet about looking at it, as if he could pass as anything but American. There are little fashionable clothing stores to either side of the street, and Joe bounces back and forth like a pinball, carding through racks of overpriced, colorful pants and saying, “Nick, this is so you!” in a loud, ridiculous voice about things Nick would never ever wear. They keep walking for a long time into the afternoon, only stopping long enough to buy ham and cheese rolls from a bakery down a side street.
Nick doesn’t realize Joe has pulled him into some kind of weird fetish shop until it’s too late and he’s surrounded by slick vinyl and wicked-looking heels. There are handcuffs behind the counter, and Nick bolts for the door before Joe can say, “Nick, this is so you!” about any of the tiny underwear on the rack at the rear of the store. Because Joe would. Because Joe is a weirdo who was born without a sense of shame.
Dear Kevin,
Today we went out to this little town called Baux-de-Provence, which is basically a tourist trap built around this amazing tenth century castle. The castle was carved into the side of the mountain, and even though it’s kind of fallen apart now, you can walk through the rooms and up the stairs and see where they kept the pigeons they used to carry messages. It must have taken forever to just carve out the steps, but now there are these deep grooves in the middle where people have been stepping for a millennium.
Then we went down to the Pont du Gard, which is a giant Roman aqueduct. It was really beautiful. We got to walk out onto it, and it was so huge. It’s another I don’t even know how they built without modern equipment. I took some really good pictures. I’m excited to show them to you. Tomorrow we’re taking the train down to Marseille, where we’ll be for the next few days.
Love,
Nick
“You didn’t tell Kevin we went swimming,” says Joe, reading over Nick’s shoulder as he waits for the email to send.
“That’s because we didn’t go swimming. You and David Henrie took off all your clothes and jumped into the Gard River just to say you’d done it. I also didn’t tell him how you almost killed yourself falling off the side of a mountain. I know how to be tactful.”
Joe ruffles his hair in the way that makes Nick feel like he’s about five. “At least someone in our family does.”
Dear Nick,
That ruins place sounds so cool. The kids in my cabin made a castle out of popsicle sticks yesterday. I don’t think it will last for a millennium. In fact I’m pretty sure we’re going to arrange for the dinosaurs they made in Quail cabin to destroy it tomorrow. But as the French say, “That’s life.” Isn’t that what they say? Do they say that a lot to you in France? I hope you aren’t anyplace that gets destroyed by dinosaurs.
Love,
Kevin
The bad part of sharing a bed with Joe in Avignon had been that Joe was literally always around. The shower stall was tiny and the shower itself was this handheld thing that hung from a hook on the wall when it wasn’t in use. There was no way Nick could jerk off in there, no matter how coordinated he was. So by the time they get to Marseille, he’s feeling kind of jittery and in need of a hand. He begs off going out with Joe and the others after dinner the first night, saying he owes Kevin an email, which he does, since they’ve been on a train for a while, and internet access in Avignon was spotty at best. But after he’s filled Kevin in on the last couple of days, he goes back to their room, so thankful that it’s a double and not one of the dorm-style ones across the hall. He checks the lock three times before taking off his clothes and lying down on the narrow bed.
Nick doesn’t even have to think about anything in order to get hard. Just knowing he’s about to finally get a hand on his dick after days without is good enough. He wonders if it makes him some kind of pervert that a few days feels so long, that this was what he thought about on the train down. Not all the great history and culture in Marseille, just how long it would be until he could be alone. He’s got a lot of self-control; that’s one of those things people always say to him, how disciplined he is. But when it comes to his dick, it’s like he’s got no control at all. He cups a hand around himself, stroking gently, savoring it a little because who knows when he’s going to have time to do it slow again. Nick shuts his eyes and licks his lips, vague images flickering behind his eyelids: the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, the little patch of skin he glimpses when Selena’s shirt rides up in the back, the full curve of Joe’s lower lip. Joe’s belly, with the little trail of hair running down into his shorts. Joe’s collarbone when he bends his head to the side and the skin stretches taut over it. Nick’s breath hitches and he squeezes his dick harder, fingers trembling. He has to stop, has to make his brain go some other way, some way that doesn’t involve his brother. It’s been a long day and Joe’s been everywhere lately; it must just be stress. But it’s still weird, upsetting.
Some girl, Nick thinks, some beautiful girl who would press up against him, soft curves and smelling like flowers, push him up against a wall and kiss him hard, her body flush against his. He imagines the softness of her body, her skin so warm under his hands. She would spread her legs around his, opening up for him so he could feel the heat between her legs. He would slide his hands up her thighs, under her short little skirt, and she’d be wet for him. Nick doesn’t even know what that would feel like under his fingers, how it would be to sink into a girl like that. But it would be good, so good, he’s sure, around his fingers, around his dick. He strokes himself faster, curls his toes against the mattress and knows he’s about to come. And there’s Joe again, Joe’s mouth parting all wet for him, sliding down his dick, slick and hot. But Nick’s too close to care now, breath punching out of him in shallow bursts as he comes, thick spurts across his stomach, creamy on his skin. He won’t think about it. And if he doesn’t think about it, it won’t be real, and maybe by the time Joe gets back, Nick will be able to look him in the face again.
Dear Nick,
Is Marseille the place with the palace and the mirrors and stuff? Or is that Versailles? I don’t want to tell the kids the wrong thing. I hope you’ll do lots of cool stuff there even if there isn’t a palace. Oh, what am I talking about? Everywhere in France has palaces, right?
Love,
Kevin
“Dear Kevin,” Nick types, “Joe’s idea of fun is going out and trying to permanently damage his liver with a bunch of people he’s only known for a week.” He stares at the cursor for a minute and then deletes the sentence. Just because Nick decided to go back to the hostel and Joe decided to stay is no reason to rat him out for something that’s perfectly legal in France. He wishes he thought Kevin wasn’t forwarding all his emails to Mom and Dad because he could really use some advice from an older brother who isn’t drunk right now.
A little later, there’s a scrabbling sound outside the door, and Nick would be a little bit worried, but he can hear Joe giggling. He gets out of bed and stands there with his hand on the knob, debating. If Joe’s out there with someone else, one of those Spanish girls who invited him to dance before Nick left, he can keep pawing at the lock for as long as he pleases. Nick can’t deal with Joe’s many, many new friends anymore tonight, all those strangers hanging all over him and talking in his ear so Nick didn’t know what they were saying except that it made Joe smile. But he doesn’t hear anyone else now, just the distant slam of doors down the hall, low chatter farther away. And Joe seems to be having a lot of trouble with the door.
When Nick opens it, Joe stumbles heavily in, and he’s much, much drunker than he was an hour and a half ago, curling around Nick in a cloud of vinegary breath, arms loose around Nick’s shoulders. “Nick,” he says, burrowing into the side of Nick’s neck, rubbing his stubbly cheek against Nick’s skin, his mouth hitting hot and wet. Nick squirms, uncomfortable, trying to get out from under his brother’s weight as he maneuvers him to the bed. It’s scary that Joe’s this drunk, and maybe even scarier the way Nick’s stomach clenches up when Joe’s mouth parts against his skin. He doesn’t want to feel that good with Joe slobbering all over him, not even with the excuse that he’s fourteen and his body is only barely in his control.
“That was terrible wine,” Joe says, flopping back obediently on the thin mattress.
“Then why’d you drink so much of it?” Nick asks, trying to keep his tone calm, not anxious and scared and a little angry like he feels. He watches Joe wiggle his feet out of his flip-flops, letting them thump to the floor as he thinks about it.
“I do not know,” he say finally, solemnly.
“Do you think you need to throw up?” Nick asks.
Joe licks his lips, tilts his head towards Nick, blinking through a curtain of fallen hair. “It’s possible,” he says, drawing out the first syllable into “paaaah.”
Nick kicks the trashcan over next to the bed. If Joe pukes in it, Nick’ll make him wash it out tomorrow. “I’ll get you some water,” he tells Joe, because he can’t think what else to do. The bathroom is down the hall, and Nick jams Joe’s shoe in the door to keep it from closing. He tells Joe not to move it and Joe murmurs agreeably, but he’s pretty sure Joe’s not actually going anywhere anytime soon. He fills his water bottle at the tap, looking at his pale face in the mirror and silently assuring his reflection that everything’s gonna be fine.
Joe’s sprawled out like a starfish on the narrow bed when Nick gets back, arms and legs splayed. “I can’t feel my toes,” Joe says wonderingly, wagging his feet against the end of the mattress. “I still have toes, right?”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Mom would kill you if she could see you like this,” he tells Joe. Joe frowns at the ceiling.
“Mom loves me,” Joe says. “I’m a ray of sunshine.”
Nick kneels by the head of the bed, guiding Joe’s face to the water bottle. “You’re drunk. Are you going to choke if I tip this?” He points the bottle towards Joe’s mouth. Joe makes a noise Nick thinks is “no” and struggles up onto his elbows. Nick watches the bob of his adam’s apple as he swallows, the slack “o” of his mouth around the bottle. He feels hot all over, embarrassed and angry that looking at his brother’s mouth makes him ache down low in his belly, that he can’t get that ache to just go away, no matter how much he wants it to.
“You take good care of me, Nicky,” Joe says, pushing the bottle away and wiping a hand across his mouth. “Just like -- it’s reciprot - recipe… we both do it. It’s good.” He reaches for Nick’s free hand, and Nick lets him twist their fingers together, flexing and squeezing until Joe falls asleep.
Dear Kevin,
Today we’re going on a boat tour of the harbor and some of the islands near Marseille. It’s really beautiful outside already and it should be really fun. We’re going to wear plenty of sunblock and keep hydrated. Joe’s not feeling very well, but I think it’s just a 24-hour bug and he’ll be fine soon. Gotta go catch a boat!
Love,
Nick
Part II | Masterpost & Soundtrack
Dear Kevin,
I thought the Paris airport would be pretty classy, since it’s Paris, but it’s even worse than the one in Philadelphia. It’s dirty and crowded and the bathrooms are disgusting. Joe keeps reading all the signs out loud even though they’re in French. If he gets murdered by someone in a beret, you’ll know why. Anyway, we’re here and we’re safe, and I’m sure it’ll be great once we get outside.
Love,
Nick
Nick realizes after the fact that it’s a bummer of a first email to send to his brother from Europe, but they’ve basically been on a plane all night, Nick subject to Joe’s surprisingly sharp elbows every time Joe moved in his sleep. And he’s pretty sure Kevin won’t mind.
There are twenty of them on the trip, half kids from their school and half from someplace else, and they’re all milling around outside the arrivals gate waiting to be told what to do next. Nick wants to hide behind Joe the way he did when he was four and still shy, because this many strangers is a little intimidating, but Joe’s investigating a French rental car kiosk and Nick doesn’t want to get unduly involved in that. He sits down on his suitcase and pulls out his French phrase book. He’s only had one year of French, and he’s the youngest kid on the trip, so he feels like he has something to prove. But then he often feels like he has something to prove.
“Eyes over here, please!” calls Mrs. Davis. She’s 5’1” and has to stand on her toes and wave her arms to be heard, but they all turn towards her - as does half the rest of the airport. “We will now be making our way to the commuter train station. We will take the train to the Gare du Nord, which is a major train station serving the city, and rendezvous there for a headcount before we make our way to the hostel. The trains are likely to be very crowded, so I expect you all to stick close to your buddy and keep at least one of the chaperones in sight at all times.”
Joe steps up next to him and leans his elbow on Nick’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy,” Joe says lightly. Nick feels more comfortable and also slightly embarrassed with Joe at his side. Nick wants to be as inconspicuous as possible while they’re in Europe, and he’s pretty sure Joe doesn’t even know what inconspicuous means.
Dear Kevin,
Our hostel is kind of weird. Not in a bad way, but there’s a huge trashcan in the hallway shaped like a bear, and Joe keeps taking pictures of it every time he passes. Which he does a lot because as soon as we got here, he made friends with these girls from England who are staying down the hall. Their names are Moira and Lauren, and they’re in college, “university.” They think Joe’s hilarious, which he loves, as you can imagine.
Love,
Nick
“Are you going to university in the fall, Joe?” Moira asks. She’s sitting on Nick’s bed, which makes him feel both awkward and annoyed. It’s not as though he was actually going to go to sleep, not with Joe up talking to the girls and everybody else running up and down the halls between each other’s rooms, laughing and introducing themselves to the other people in the hostel. But still. It’s his bed, and Moira is sitting with her feet up on it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Yeah,” says Joe, and that’s a sore spot too, that Joe’s going away at the end of the summer. Only as far as Rutgers, but far enough that Nick won’t see him every day in school, or be subjected to all the dumb stories he secretly loves listening to Joe tell. It’s a big change, one Nick isn’t sure how to navigate. That was supposed to be part of the point of this trip, that they could spend some time together before Joe disappears off to the wonderful world of college and forgets all about his dorky, overly serious kid brother. But like always, Joe is making new friends and drawing people in; and Nick’s much better with people at a distance. He starts talking about what happened on his campus visit back in April, and the girls are laughing and egging him on, looking at him with a kind of fascination that makes jealousy boil up in Nick’s stomach. He sets his back against the wall and folds his arms. He’s sulking like a little kid and he knows it, but whatever, it’s his room too.
Joe glances at Nick for confirmation in some story he’s telling, but his smiles droops when he sees the expression on Nick’s face. Nick lets his eyes skate disdainfully over the girls, just to make sure Joe gets the message. They’re cool enough, but that’s not the point. Moira looks thoughtfully between Nick and Joe, gives Nick this patronizing smile when he keeps glaring at her. “Well, it’s obvious you’ve had quite enough excitement for one day,” she says breezily. “We’ll just be going. Have a good night.”
Nick’s not going to write to Kevin back home saying that he spent his first night in France policing Joe’s new friends, even if that’s close to the truth. “They seem nice, right?” asks Joe hesitantly, nodding at the door the girls have just gone through. “And it sounds like they know a ton of good stuff to do in the city.”
“We have an itinerary for that,” Nick says tartly. “We’re on a very tight schedule here. They planned this tour specifically so that we can see the ‘good stuff’. We don’t need,” he waves his hand vaguely, “interlopers.”
Joe’s face goes blank, his eyes wide like maybe he’s going to cry, which would be terrible, but then he whispers, “Interlopers,” and falls over laughing, dragging his face against the blanket. “Oh man, Nick, you are my favorite. Come here.” He holds out his arms, and Nick rolls his eyes. As if he’s going to let Joe hug him right now. He watches Joe laughing, repeating, “interlopers” like it’s a great joke, and he feels this surge of confused annoyance and affection for his brother. He swallows back his smile, but Joe can tell. He can always tell. He wraps his arms around Nick’s shoulders and clasps him tight, grinning into the side of his neck.
Dear Kevin,
Today we went to the Louvre and the Tuileries and then we walked up the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. I took a lot of pictures and Joe didn’t get yelled at by any French security guards for touching the paintings, although he did wander off to talk to a guy playing violin on the street and then get us lost in the museum. It was a really beautiful day to be outside, and the view from the Arc de Triomphe was really awesome. We’re starting to talk more with some other kids on the tour too. Some of them are pretty cool.
Love,
Nick
They have to get up really early to get to the Louvre just as it opens. Nick sets his alarm and diligently rolls out of bed when it goes off. Their double room shares a bathroom with the next room down, but the door is unlocked when he tries it, so he showers and brushes his teeth before Joe has so much as turned over in his sleep. Nick flicks a wet towel at him, and Joe responds with a garbled protest. It’s exactly like any morning getting up for school at home, and Nick’s kind of glad Joe’s with him on the trip, grounding him and reminding him what he’s going home to in the end.
Joe drags himself out of bed with only a few minutes to spare, and then spends so long in the bathroom fixing his hair that they’re almost the last ones downstairs, where Mrs. Davis is taking roll in the lobby. They have to take the métro to get to the museum, and Mrs. Davis counts them off two by two when they reach the station, just to make sure no one gets lost. Joe slips his arm through Nick’s when they’re through the turnstile, keeps their elbows hooked all the way to the platform and onto a crowded train. Nick isn’t even sure it’s the right train, and he’s very sure that with the speed Joe’s moving most of their classmates aren’t going to make it on board before the train pulls out even if it is the right one. “Wait,” Nick tries to say, “Wait! Attend! Arrête!”
“Sorry, Nick,” Joe replies, pushing Nick into an empty seat and practically straddling his knees, “I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Joe, did you even look to see if this was the right train?” Nick asks, craning around to see the destination board above the doors, which are closed now.
“Of course I did. I’ll always look out for you, Nicky.”
Nick is caught somewhere between a smile and an annoyed grimace. Because it’s pretty much true, at the same time that Joe gets him in trouble all the time and drags him into all sorts of situations that border on scary and out of control. Like his friends’ parties when Nick was in middle school, and there were people drinking and a smell suspiciously like that fake marijuana stuff from their DARE lecture in fifth grade.
But Joe apparently knows his way around public transportation in Paris the same way he does in New York, and they tumble out of the train at the Palais Royal station. Nick stops on the sidewalk, turning in circles, blinking in the sun as he becomes more and more sure that no one else from their group had made it onto their train. His ears start to buzz with panic, even though he knows, knows that they’ll be coming on the next train and they’re in exactly the place they should be. And Joe’s with him, so it’s not as though he’s actually alone in this strange city where he only barely speaks the language.
Except that Joe’s not next to him anymore, and Nick almost has a heart attack before he hears the fiddler on the corner and sees Joe dancing like the biggest geek in the world, rocking his hips and twirling, right there on the sidewalk, where people have to step around him just to walk by. The fiddler stops playing, laughing too hard to keep steady on his chin rest, and Nick’s still twenty feet away, but he can see his brother striking up a conversation with this total stranger on the street, elaborate hand gestures doing the work that words can’t. Nick strides confidently forward, thinking he can help by translating, thinking he’ll show Joe he needs Nick while they’re in France. But when he gets up close he realizes they aren’t even speaking French. Joe’s using his four years of Italian, a little slow but confident with his words, and the fiddler is nodding, answering back. Nick has no idea what they’re saying, and for a second he’s angry, so angry that Joe’s ignoring him and that Joe can make friends with anybody anywhere and that Joe makes speaking a foreign language in public look so easy while Nick stalls and second-guesses himself on even the simplest phrases.
He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, watching Joe laughing and talking and miming playing the guitar. He’s magnetic, with his big stupid smile and his expressive eyes and his hand gestures, and there’s a flutter low in Nick’s belly that might be jealousy. He takes a deep breath and starts walking again, calling, “Joe, there you are!” like he’s only just noticed them.
“Nick!” Joe calls back, beckoning Nick closer. “You have to meet this guy. This is Niccolo. He’s an amazing violinist. And he’s got your name!” Joe turns to Niccolo and says something that must mean “play” because Niccolo swings his violin back onto his shoulder and starts playing something low and dirge-like, sawing his bow slowly across the strings, his fingers vibrating against the fret. Nick doesn’t play the violin, but he recognizes good technique. And then Niccolo picks up the pace, a little at a time until his song morphs into something totally different, quick and leaping with tension. Nick is impressed in spite of himself. He finds himself nodding along with the swoop and sway of the music, watching the play of Niccolo’s fingers over the strings.
Joe grabs his hand and swings him into a clumsy dance, somewhere between a tango and a waltz, a hand on Nick’s waist guiding him. “Just follow my lead,” Joe says, and Nick is dancing across a Parisian sidewalk in his brother’s arms. Joe dips him and then pulls him up into a spin, and Nick almost trips over his own feet. He’s not used to playing the girl. And then Mrs. Davis calls, “Nick and Joe!” from down the block, and Joe manages to elbow Nick in the ribs when Nick stops moving.
“Grazi,” he says to Niccolo, because he doesn’t know how to say anything else in Italian. He waves sheepishly to Mrs. Davis while Joe writes out his email address on a scrap of paper and hands it to Niccolo. He’s chattering away in Italian, talking faster than before as Nick tugs at his arm. The shape of his mouth around the unfamiliar words is fascinating, the way each syllable trips off his tongue.
“I didn’t know you were that good at Italian,” Nick says, walking Joe back along the sidewalk.
Joe shrugs. “It’s the language of love, little bro. And I am nothing if not a lover.”
“You’re nothing if not a dork,” Nick replies.
“Why can’t a guy do both?” Joe bounds ahead of him, and doesn’t seem to care one bit about the lecture they get about “staying with the group” and “the dangers of big cities”. Nick’s embarrassed and ashamed - it’s only the first full day, and Joe’s already gotten him in trouble - but Joe just nods and looks thoughtful and when it’s all over he whispers in Nick’s ear, “So worth it.”
They get lost again in the Louvre, but that isn’t totally their fault. One minute there’s a long sunny hallway full of Classical and Renaissance sculpture, some of the kids snickering over so many naked marble bodies, and the next minute Joe says, “Let’s go to this wing now,” and they’re in an unmarked stairway leading down. Nick suspects visitors aren’t actually supposed to come through this way, since it definitely isn’t on his map and it’s totally deserted, but they end up in the middle of the Egyptian collection and Joe says, “See?” as though this was his intention all along.
They wander through the pyramids and come out in the middle of Sumer and Babylon, and Nick’s about ready to give up on the map altogether because this is not where he thought they were at all. They wander past giant winged bulls with six legs and human faces, and Nick stops worrying that he doesn’t know where they are, distracted by trying to translate the explanatory notes next to the statues, although French I has not really given him the vocabulary for fine art. Then Joe stands by so patiently while Nick looks at Hammurabi’s code that Nick just about forgives him for getting them lost in the first place.
It’s lucky that they find the rest of the group just as they’re approaching the Mona Lisa, and there’s a big crowd in the hallway, so it’s easy to pretend they’ve been there the whole time. “Oh man, look,” Joe says, pointing to a painting of a man whose portrait has been constructed entirely out of fruit. “Now that’s the kind of art I’d want to do. Only with pizza instead.”
The crowd shifts forward and they move past the fruit painting, but Joe’s still talking about his grand plan for pizza portraits. The entrance to the Mona Lisa room is just ahead of them, and Nick can see the strobe of one camera flash after another in spite of the sign saying “No Photography” in five different languages. When they finally get to the painting itself, Nick feels sort of sorry for her, small and brown behind thick glass that will keep all those pictures from turning out anyway, he’s sure. “She’s pretty,” Joe says admiringly, cocking his head to the side for a different angle.
“That’s what we waited in line for? It’s so little,” somebody else in their group says, loudly enough that Nick’s embarrassed to be one of Those American Tourists, even though he kind of thought the same thing walking up to it. It’s not a big, grand painting; it’s probably half the size of the fruit portrait Joe liked so much. But it’s pretty, warmer than he expected, more like a real person.
The line shuffles on, and Nick doesn’t linger. He doesn’t know anything about art, and it’s hard to be interested in things he doesn’t know anything about. Mrs. Davis is waving from down the corridor, and Joe acts as though they’ve been just a few steps behind the rest of the group the whole time, as though they’d never gotten lost in the Egyptian wing at all. They have a free half hour now that they’ve done the Mona Lisa, but Nick and Joe just sit down on the steps below the winged Victory statue, and Nick tries to explain what Hammurabi’s Code meant for language and law and society. Joe listens intently, and it’s the best thing in the world to have his undivided attention. All the English college girls in the world can’t touch this.
The Tuileries are pretty, and Nick strikes up a conversation with a girl from another school as they walk. They’re the only two freshmen on the tour, and Nick’s a little embarrassed that she’s here on her own when his parents wouldn’t let him come unless Joe came, too, but she doesn’t seem to care. “If I had a brother, I bet my mom would be the same way.”
They compare notes on school and what they’re looking forward to on the trip, and Nick starts to loosen up the way Joe’s always telling him to, talking to a total stranger, and a girl at that. Her name’s Selena, and she laughs at him in this way that makes him feel good instead of dumb and angry. She’s really pretty, so pretty that he can’t seem to look at her full-on most of the time, just sneaking little glances out of the corner of his eye. There’s about a half-hour in the gardens when he doesn’t wonder where Joe is even once, and it’s sort of freeing. And then Joe leaps out from behind a bush and almost knocks Nick to the ground, and even though Selena doesn’t seem to care, Nick feels the aura of cool he’s been trying to build dissipate.
It’s probably okay though, since he knows he’ll have to keep a close eye on Joe on the walk up to the Arc de Triomphe. Who even knows how many buskers he could befriend between here and there? Joe says he wants to be stolen by gypsies when he catches Nick eying him and asks what’s going on. “I would make a great gypsy,” he adds, miming shaking a tambourine.
“You realize that’s an entire marginalized ethnic population you’re talking about, right?” Nick replies.
“You’re too smart for your own good, kid.” Joe slings an arm around Nick’s shoulder and Nick doesn’t try to shrug him off, even though they’re kind of blocking the sidewalk and Joe has just shut him down an on interesting political and socio-economic subject.
The Arc de Triomphe is big and bright in the sunshine, and all the friezes and stuff are neat, but by the time they get there Nick’s feeling a little light-headed, like his feet aren’t hitting the ground quite right. He thinks maybe he should say something, or get himself a snack, but they’re supposed to have lunch right after this, and he’ll be fine until then, he’s sure.
Joe disagrees. “You need to sit down and eat something,” he says out of nowhere, using the low, serious voice he only uses in emergencies. “Don’t argue.”
There’s a bench to their left, at the base of the arch, and Nick stumbles through a fleeing flock of pigeons, his feet heavy, every step more confusing than it should be. “For such a smart kid, you’re a fucking idiot sometimes,” Joe tells him, and Nick wants to tell him not to curse, but instead he takes the bottle Joe hands him and takes a sip. The juice is warm from being in Joe’s backpack, thicker than Nick was expecting. He swallows and says, “What is this?”
“Blackcurrant. I got it at the airport. It’s authentically European.”
Nick takes another swig and makes a face. “It tastes authentically European.” He glances over at Joe, who’s watching him carefully. “Thanks. I didn’t know you had this.”
“I also have band-aids and a ball of twine. I came prepared.”
“A ball of twine?”
“You never know when you’ll need to lash a bunch of sticks into a raft or something.”
Nick laughs weakly and hands back the rest of the little bottle of juice. Joe drinks it, smacking his lips thoughtfully. “I could get used to this authentically European juice thing.” Nick leans back, the hard stone of the bench digging into his shoulder blades. The arch looms overhead, and looking up at it makes him dizzy all over again. Nick knows he should check his levels soon, make sure he’s at least getting back to normal, but getting the kit out of his bag seems like a lot of work right now, and he hates doing it in public.
“If you end up in a diabetic coma on my watch,” Joe says, “I’ll kill you.”
“If I’m comatose, I won’t care,” Nick replies lightly, then adds more seriously, “Thanks for looking out for me.”
Joe squeezes his knee. “Thanks for letting me.”
“You’re not going to tell Mom and Dad about this, are you?” Nick says, glancing at Mrs. Davis, who’s chatting with another of the chaperones. They’re not paying any attention, and for all the scolding to stay with the group, Nick wonders whether he’s safer with Joe who knows exactly what it looks like when Nick needs something, than he would be with the adults in charge of this trip.
“If you sit here with me for another ten minutes and then check your blood sugar, no. I’m willing to figure you’re going to do better for the rest of the trip. And you know, the other kids aren’t going to think you’re uncool because you take care of yourself.” He squeezes Nick’s knee. “They’ll find plenty of other reasons to think you’re uncool.”
“That wasn’t clever,” Nick points out. “I could see it coming a mile away.”
“Whatever. Check your levels and we’ll see if we can get up to the top of this thing.”
The view is amazing, all of Paris laid out below them. “Hey,” says Selena, coming up behind them on the observation deck. “Nick, are you okay? You looked kind of sick.”
Nick ducks his head, embarrassed but pleased that she was even looking at him. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Nothing a big brother can’t handle,” Joe adds, and Nick glares at him, trying to communicate, “Go away,” with the power of his eyebrows. Joe grins and doesn’t take the hint. “It’s nice of you to think of him though. Young Nicholas appreciates your concern, I’m sure.”
“I hope so,” Selena says, looking at Nick, who kind of wants to throw Joe off the top of the arch.
“I do,” he tells her. “Thanks. Do you want to, uh, go look over that way? You should be able to see the river really well.”
“Smooth,” Joe whispers, but Nick ignores him, starting up some awkward small talk with Selena. Joe makes it look so easy, but even figuring out what to say to Selena is hard, what kind of stuff you talk about with people who aren’t in your classes or your choir. He already knows she’s an only child, so it’s harder for him to tell crazy stories about Joe because she can’t sympathize with having someone around all the time to make your life more interesting. Nick doesn’t really have crazy stories of his own.
But they can talk about the hostel, and the food, and after a while he has to explain the whole diabetes thing so she stops looking like he’s going to pass out and tip off the side of the observation deck. She’s cool about it, not patronizing or anything. When they go to a little café for lunch, he sits across from her at a sunny little outdoor table, feeling grownup and pleased as he eats his sandwich. He can almost block out the sounds of the other kids as he tells Selena some of the stuff he learned about the organization of the EU when he was getting ready for this trip. He feels smart and cool and he’s having an intelligent conversation with a pretty girl at a sidewalk café in Paris.
Nick emails Kevin from one of the computers in the little lounge off the hostel lobby, and when he comes upstairs, Joe’s loitering in the hallway, talking to his cool British friends and a couple of the other seniors from their group. “Nick!” Joe says, waving him over, and he’s got that grin on his face that never means anything good, or at least not anything Mom and Dad would approve of.
Moira and Lauren smile at him, but the other seniors look him up and down like the dumb kid he kind of is, and he stands there awkwardly with his hands in his pockets waiting for Joe to tell him what’s going on. “Lauren says there’s this great club, practically around the corner,” Joes says, head tilted in for a confidential whisper. “We’re all gonna go tonight. And you, Nicholas, should come with us!” He swings an arm around Nick’s waist and squeezes.
“I’m fourteen,” Nick reminds him.
“It’s France,” Joe replies. “Nobody even knows if there is a legal drinking age here.”
Nick knows it’s sixteen, because he actually bothers to do things like research, but right now he doesn’t want to be that kid, not with Joe’s friends looking annoyed, like Nick shouldn’t even be there. Joe’s still grinning at him, intent and enthusiastic in this way that makes Nick’s stomach ache. He has to look away. “I don’t know,” Nick says, because he can’t quite say no. He’s only like, three-quarters sure he wants to.
“But it’ll be fun,” Joe coaxes. “You can practice your French on some cute mademoiselles.” He pronounces it “madam-wazzles” and Nick can’t help smiling.
“I could translate for you when you completely mess up speaking French to them.”
“That’s the spirit!”
Joe makes him change his shirt for one of Joe’s, which is almost too small for Nick and practically skin tight on Joe, and which clearly should have stayed home in New Jersey. They wait in the lobby with Lauren and Moira while everyone else gets ready, and when they come downstairs Nick realizes it’s all girls except for him and Joe, which was not what he was expecting from the crowd in the hallway.
And then it turns out that the club is really mostly a bar with a dance floor in the back about the size of their bathroom at home. The seven of them (Nick, Joe, Moira, Lauren, and three senior girls) practically fill it completely. And Nick ends up dancing with Moira, who seems to be way more into the music than Nick is. He looks around desperately for a distraction. And then Joe cuts in, swinging Nick into his arms, and it’s even worse. He’s dancing in this way that’s nothing like dancing on the sidewalk this morning was. He drags Nick in close on the crowded dance floor, holding him with a hand at the small of his back, pulling him forward until their hips practically meet. Nick’s cheeks flush, and he’s so angry and embarrassed for a minute that he can’t do anything but let Joe move him, swing him into the rhythm of the song. Joe’s his brother and this isn’t okay, not even remotely. Nick squirms out of Joe’s arms and scrambles backward, leaving Joe staring at him in confusion, as though dancing pressed up close to your brother is something everyone does all the time. Maybe it is in France, but Joe wouldn’t even look at Nick’s guidebook, let alone do any independent research, so how would he know?
He holds out a coaxing hand, inviting Nick back in, but Nick just takes another faltering step backwards, murmuring, “Pardon,” to whoever’s toe he just stepped on. Joe says something, but it’s lost in the racing beat of the song, but Nick just turns, heading back to the bar up front, folding his arms on the bar top and waiting for Joe to realize how he really just needs to act like a normal person once in a while. He orders a Diet Coke, somewhat sheepish as the bartender looks from Nick to his dancing, grinning friends. “Not have a good night, eh?” the bartender says, insisting on speaking English the way most everyone in Paris who can seems to. “Need something to…” He holds up a bottle of rum, and Nick shakes his head. He shouldn’t screw up his blood sugar right now on top of everything else, even if it would make Joe take him back to the hostel and sit up with him all night instead of dancing with his hands on an unfamiliar girl’s waist, laughing and smiling at her.
Nick drinks his Coke slowly, watching Joe out of the corner of his eye, the way he moves sort of goofy and overblown, but also so natural that Nick can’t help being jealous. Joe makes it look so easy, and Nick almost wants to join him on the dance floor again, even if Joe insists on holding him too close, just to see if a little of that ease will rub off on him.
But before he can get any further than thinking about it, Joe catches his eye and comes over. He’s been sweating. Although it’s not that hot at the bar, there’s a fine sheen of it on his face, and the neck of his t-shirt is a shade darker than it was. “Do you want to go?” Joe asks kindly, and Nick realizes this the second night in a row he’s ended up sulking in Paris. Stupid. He vows there won’t be a third.
“Okay,” Nick says. Joe walks him back to the hostel with an arm around his shoulders, not even explaining to Nick how lame he is. Even though he would be totally justified in doing so. It’s so quiet when they get back, no one running up and down the hallways, one sleepy employee in the lobby and one scruffy guy making a Skype call in the computer lab, speaking something Nick thinks is Dutch into his headset.
Nick gets ready for bed as Joe digs around in the mess of his bag, looking for clean underwear. “How do you think you’re going to make it through three weeks like that?” Nick asks after a while.
Joe comes up with a fistful of polka-dot boxers, grinning. “Pure luck,” he replies, which is probably mostly true. “And a certain amount of innate stylishness.”
Nick can’t help smiling.
Dear Nick,
I’m leaving for camp today. This year my cabin is the Blue Jays, so I think I’ll have to teach the kids to strut around and screech really loudly. I bet they’ll like that. I thought about dyeing my hair blue, but I checked and it’s against the camp rules. And I don’t want them thinking I’m not a professional. I’m glad you’re meeting people. Paris sounds exciting. Say “bonjour” to the Eiffel Tower for me. Do you think it misses the Statue of Liberty all the way in New York? They were made by the same guy, right?
I’ll email you when I get to camp.
Love,
Kevin
Dear Kevin,
Paris is so busy all the time, but today we got a break. We went out to Mont St. Michel, which is an island off the coast of Normandy. Well, sometimes it’s an island. At low tide you can walk across the mudflats to get there. But you have to do it at exactly the right time. Mrs. Davis was pretty stressed out trying to get everyone there at the right moment. But once we got there it was amazing. Everything was so old and cool-looking, and we just got to walk around and look at things. Joe met this American graduate student at the café where we ate lunch and spent half the afternoon talking to him about the history of the monastery. We learned some neat stuff. I hope you’re having a good time at camp. I haven’t gone to the Eiffel Tower yet, but I’ll say hi from New York. :)
Love,
Nick
Dear Nick,
Camp is awesome! We had an all-camp game of capture the flag today and my cabin kicked butt. When we won they all did the blue jay screech I taught them, and it nearly brought tears of pride to my eyes. I’ve been reading them some of your emails, and they think France sounds really exciting. I think they’re all going to go home and tell their parents they want to go.
Love,
Kevin
Dear Kevin,
Sorry I haven’t written. I hope you weren’t worried. The last couple of days have just been one museum and tourist attraction after another, and when we get back to the hostel we haven’t done anything except sleep. Paris is so big. Right now we’re on the train to Avignon, where we’ll be for the next few days. I’m not sure where I’ll be able to send this from, but Mrs. Davis said Avignon’s a great city to walk around in, so I’m sure I’ll find someplace. It’s a really old city too, with lots of cool stuff to see, and Joe’s been humming the song about the bridge all day. I’ll tell you more once we get there.
Love,
Nick
Joe keeps his nose pressed to the window the whole ride down, and eventually he gives Nick permission to poke him if he starts humming. “My iPod battery’s dead and I can’t get that song out of my head,” Joe says, tapping his fingers against his thigh in an ominously recognizable rhythm. By the time they pass Lyon Nick has it stuck in his head too, and by Avignon, he’s arranging harmonies and making Joe sing with him. Selena walks by and stops to listen, and Joe elbows Nick in the ribs, grinning smugly. Nick misses a note and blushes darkly.
“That was really good,” Selena says.
Nick swallows down the desire to point out how totally off he was just now. “Thanks,” he says instead.
“I wonder if Avignon has karaoke bars,” Joe says thoughtfully. Nick has no idea whether that’s a good idea or a terrible one, but Selena smiles and says she’d be into it, so Nick smiles too.
The train station is very white and new-looking, and Nick’s very ready to be someplace bigger than a train compartment. It’s almost six when they arrive, and all Nick knows from here is that the program arranged host families for them in town. He isn’t expecting the middle-aged woman Mrs. Davis introduces him and Joe to, who looks alarmed and starts talking to Mrs. Davis in very rapid French. “Deux,” Nick hears, and “trompe”, “mistake”, and he’s fairly sure she only signed on to host one student, not two. He wonders if he and Joe will be split up, and he tries to make himself okay with that, tries to ignore the tight feeling in his chest when he thinks about not rehashing the day’s events with Joe every night. He smiles the woman and Mrs. Davis expectantly.
“Can you two share a bed?” asks Mrs. Davis suddenly.
“Sure,” says Joe without even hesitating. “We used to share all the time when we were kids.” Nick nods in confirmation.
“Merveilleux!” exclaims Mrs. Davis, and explains what Joe’s said to the woman. She seems enthusiastic.
“’Ello, Nick and Joe,” she says. “I am Mme. Carole. Please come with me.”
They pile into her little hatchback, Nick awkward in the back among the suitcases, elbowing forward to translate since the woman’s English is only a little better than Joe’s French. She has two children who are grown up and live elsewhere in Provence, and they don’t ask if she has a husband since she doesn’t mention it. Her house looks smaller on the outside than it does on the inside, tucked in a row of similar houses with little back gardens and narrow front windows. There’s a big kitchen and a living room on the ground floor, and two bedrooms and a bathroom with an enormous tub and a tiny shower stall on the floor above. In Nick’s French class, they learned that while Americans are inclined to give tours of their houses to visitors, in France private space is kept more, well, private. He wonders if they’re intruding by making her show them things, but she seems cheerful and happy to have them.
The room they are to share is dominated by a big bed covered in fluffy throw pillows that smell like lavender. Nick feels sleepy just looking at it, but she tells them dinner will be ready in half an hour, and if he lies down now, he won’t get up in half an hour. Joe doesn’t seem to care about that. He kicks off his shoes and sprawls out on the bed, stretching luxuriantly. “You don’t still kick, do you?” he asks, glancing over at Nick, who’s watching him from the little desk in the corner.
“Guess you’ll find out,” Nick replies. Joe looks so comfortable on the bed that Nick’s tempted to lie down next to him, shoulder to shoulder like they used to when they were little, before Mom realized how late they were staying up talking and banned them from each other’s beds.
Joe stifles a yawn in the crook of his elbow. “Wonder how everybody else is settling in,” he says conversationally, and Nick struggles not to frown. For a second it was just him and Joe in the room, like the only two people in the world, but now Nick’s thinking about all Joe’s new friends again, all the people on the trip older and cooler than he is. He tries to tell himself he won’t be jealous, that he’ll be better than that. But it’s not an easy thing to do. Joe’s practically a grown-up. He’s graduated; he’ll be going off to college almost as soon as they get home. And Nick’s still just a kid. He’s going to be just a kid for years yet.
“What’s that face, Nicholas?” Joe asks, wagging a finger at him. “That cannot possibly be a sad face when we are in France and a total stranger is making us dinner as we speak.”
“Shut up,” says Nick, cracking a smile for Joe’s sake.
“Come on, Nick. You keep getting into these weird moods, and I don’t know what’s going on. Is something wrong?”
Nick shrugs and stares at his shoes. Joe’s going to think he’s stupid, but he’ll be really nice about it, and that’s just going to make it worse. “It’s fine. We’re in France being made dinner by a really nice lady who doesn’t know us from Adam. What’s wrong with that?”
Joe rolls out of bed and sits down in front of Nick on the floor, elbows on Nick’s knees. “Tell me,” he says, leaning into Nick’s lap, eyebrows raised high.
“Come on, Joe. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t want me hanging out with loose women, is that it? You don’t want me out late on school nights? What is it? I don’t understand.”
“It’s nothing, okay?” Nick hates the little shiver that runs through him as Joe elbows his way farther up Nick’s thighs. He’s fourteen, and everything turns him on right now, everything feels like the sex he’s not going to be having for years. He glares at Joe like it’s Joe’s fault, and Joe looks up at him, all guileless and curious so that Nick has to look away. And then be more honest than he intended. “You’re going away,” he says. “You’re gonna make all these new friends. You make new friends everywhere you go. And they’re gonna be cool friends.”
“And you’re gonna be my brother,” Joe says, squeezing at Nick’s thighs. “Forever and ever and always.”
“It’ll be different.” He doesn’t like having serious conversations with Joe, heart-to-hearts of any kind, because any second now Joe’s going to make a joke and hug him and grin like everything’s fine. But for right this second, he’s looking up so sincerely that Nick just wants Joe to fix it, in the magical way he always seemed to fix everything at the haziest edges of Nick’s memory.
“I’m not dying,” Joe tells him. “I’m not going to Alaska. I’m not gonna leave you behind, Nicky. That’s not what’s happening.”
Nick purses his lips and says nothing. Because that’s still what it feels like, like Joe’s going away and Nick’s something he can cast off when he leaves.
“Seriously,” Joe says. “You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily.” He stands up and wraps his arms awkwardly around Nick’s neck. He stoops until he’s almost in Nick’s lap and nuzzles his face into Nick’s shoulder. “You’re so dumb.”
“I’m not.”
“I love you, Nicky.” He stays crowded uncomfortably into Nick’s arms until it must be uncomfortable, until he has to settle into Nick’s lap in order to keep hugging him, straddling him. Nick hugs him back, holds him tight and forgets for a little while that he doesn’t need this, that it shouldn’t matter so much that Joe’s going away, that older brothers go away to college all the time and it isn’t always like losing a limb. He lets Joe tangle a hand in his hair and curl in close. He stays like that until Mme. Carole calls them down for dinner.
Dear Kevin,
We’re in Avignon. I’m sorry I haven’t written, but the woman we’re staying with has no internet in her house and it took us a while to find an internet café. Joe’s making sure Facebook knows everything that is happening in his life in cryptic, one-sentence fashion. Mme. Carole, the woman we’re staying with, is such a good cook. She makes a lot of things I can’t even pronounce, let alone spell. I asked her for some recipes, but they’re all in French, so I’m not even sure what Mom will do with them. She made this salad with tuna and boiled eggs, and even Joe liked it.
Today is the first time we’ve really been out to explore the city. It’s pretty amazing, all the old stone buildings with little stores on the bottom floors and apartments up top. There’s this big pedestrian-only shopping area, with real cobblestone streets, and we spent all day just looking at stuff and seeing what the city is like. Tomorrow we’re going back to looking at historical sites and stuff. We’re supposed to be going out to some crazy old ruins tomorrow, and looking at a Roman aqueduct, and I’m sure I’m going to take way more pictures than anyone wants to look at. Thank you so much for the camera. I had no idea how much I would end up using it, but it’s the best thing I could have brought with me. Tell Mom and Dad we’re fine, and tell Frankie we were eaten by goats. He’ll like that.
Love,
Nick
With the number of alleys Joe drags him into and out of, Nick’s pretty sure they’ll be lost or run over by noon. People in France don’t seem to care much about things like traffic laws, and Nick keeps having to grab his arm at intersections. They go to Les Halles, the big indoor market in the middle of the city, and Joe points to practically everything and says, “We could get one of those for Mom.” Except the whole skinned rabbits, which he just finds fascinatingly gross.
They end up with some little jars of preserves, which don’t seem all that exciting to Nick, but they do have handwritten labels in French, so that’s something. Then Joe pulls him on along a side street, pointing at more things: a lamp shaped like a sea anemone, a bunch of ugly hemp jewelry, a tobacco store they can smell from the middle of the road. They find a stand selling crepes, and it smells so good that they buy two from the man behind the griddle. Nick tries greeting him in French, but he answers back in English, and pretty soon Joe has found out that he’s from Glasgow and is discussing independent film with him in an eerily intelligent way. Joe apparently has a secret talent for finding non-French people in France. Nick eats his crepe in silence.
“Everyone here is so much friendlier than in Paris,” Joe says as they walk away.
“Uh-huh,” Nick replies blankly. They go into a narrow, crowded record store full of albums Nick has never heard of. There’s a rap song playing overhead, and Nick finds himself nodding along to it, even if he only understands maybe one word out of five, and even those he’s not sure of. There’s something about beat and the flow of unfamiliar words that Nick likes, that he wants to hear more of. But Joe sees a comic book store across the street and he drags Nick off before Nick can even ask what the song was.
They walk out along the Rue de la République, the main street in the shopping district, ducking into the big stone tourism office when the sun gets too hot. Nick has a map, but he tries to be discreet about looking at it, as if he could pass as anything but American. There are little fashionable clothing stores to either side of the street, and Joe bounces back and forth like a pinball, carding through racks of overpriced, colorful pants and saying, “Nick, this is so you!” in a loud, ridiculous voice about things Nick would never ever wear. They keep walking for a long time into the afternoon, only stopping long enough to buy ham and cheese rolls from a bakery down a side street.
Nick doesn’t realize Joe has pulled him into some kind of weird fetish shop until it’s too late and he’s surrounded by slick vinyl and wicked-looking heels. There are handcuffs behind the counter, and Nick bolts for the door before Joe can say, “Nick, this is so you!” about any of the tiny underwear on the rack at the rear of the store. Because Joe would. Because Joe is a weirdo who was born without a sense of shame.
Dear Kevin,
Today we went out to this little town called Baux-de-Provence, which is basically a tourist trap built around this amazing tenth century castle. The castle was carved into the side of the mountain, and even though it’s kind of fallen apart now, you can walk through the rooms and up the stairs and see where they kept the pigeons they used to carry messages. It must have taken forever to just carve out the steps, but now there are these deep grooves in the middle where people have been stepping for a millennium.
Then we went down to the Pont du Gard, which is a giant Roman aqueduct. It was really beautiful. We got to walk out onto it, and it was so huge. It’s another I don’t even know how they built without modern equipment. I took some really good pictures. I’m excited to show them to you. Tomorrow we’re taking the train down to Marseille, where we’ll be for the next few days.
Love,
Nick
“You didn’t tell Kevin we went swimming,” says Joe, reading over Nick’s shoulder as he waits for the email to send.
“That’s because we didn’t go swimming. You and David Henrie took off all your clothes and jumped into the Gard River just to say you’d done it. I also didn’t tell him how you almost killed yourself falling off the side of a mountain. I know how to be tactful.”
Joe ruffles his hair in the way that makes Nick feel like he’s about five. “At least someone in our family does.”
Dear Nick,
That ruins place sounds so cool. The kids in my cabin made a castle out of popsicle sticks yesterday. I don’t think it will last for a millennium. In fact I’m pretty sure we’re going to arrange for the dinosaurs they made in Quail cabin to destroy it tomorrow. But as the French say, “That’s life.” Isn’t that what they say? Do they say that a lot to you in France? I hope you aren’t anyplace that gets destroyed by dinosaurs.
Love,
Kevin
The bad part of sharing a bed with Joe in Avignon had been that Joe was literally always around. The shower stall was tiny and the shower itself was this handheld thing that hung from a hook on the wall when it wasn’t in use. There was no way Nick could jerk off in there, no matter how coordinated he was. So by the time they get to Marseille, he’s feeling kind of jittery and in need of a hand. He begs off going out with Joe and the others after dinner the first night, saying he owes Kevin an email, which he does, since they’ve been on a train for a while, and internet access in Avignon was spotty at best. But after he’s filled Kevin in on the last couple of days, he goes back to their room, so thankful that it’s a double and not one of the dorm-style ones across the hall. He checks the lock three times before taking off his clothes and lying down on the narrow bed.
Nick doesn’t even have to think about anything in order to get hard. Just knowing he’s about to finally get a hand on his dick after days without is good enough. He wonders if it makes him some kind of pervert that a few days feels so long, that this was what he thought about on the train down. Not all the great history and culture in Marseille, just how long it would be until he could be alone. He’s got a lot of self-control; that’s one of those things people always say to him, how disciplined he is. But when it comes to his dick, it’s like he’s got no control at all. He cups a hand around himself, stroking gently, savoring it a little because who knows when he’s going to have time to do it slow again. Nick shuts his eyes and licks his lips, vague images flickering behind his eyelids: the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, the little patch of skin he glimpses when Selena’s shirt rides up in the back, the full curve of Joe’s lower lip. Joe’s belly, with the little trail of hair running down into his shorts. Joe’s collarbone when he bends his head to the side and the skin stretches taut over it. Nick’s breath hitches and he squeezes his dick harder, fingers trembling. He has to stop, has to make his brain go some other way, some way that doesn’t involve his brother. It’s been a long day and Joe’s been everywhere lately; it must just be stress. But it’s still weird, upsetting.
Some girl, Nick thinks, some beautiful girl who would press up against him, soft curves and smelling like flowers, push him up against a wall and kiss him hard, her body flush against his. He imagines the softness of her body, her skin so warm under his hands. She would spread her legs around his, opening up for him so he could feel the heat between her legs. He would slide his hands up her thighs, under her short little skirt, and she’d be wet for him. Nick doesn’t even know what that would feel like under his fingers, how it would be to sink into a girl like that. But it would be good, so good, he’s sure, around his fingers, around his dick. He strokes himself faster, curls his toes against the mattress and knows he’s about to come. And there’s Joe again, Joe’s mouth parting all wet for him, sliding down his dick, slick and hot. But Nick’s too close to care now, breath punching out of him in shallow bursts as he comes, thick spurts across his stomach, creamy on his skin. He won’t think about it. And if he doesn’t think about it, it won’t be real, and maybe by the time Joe gets back, Nick will be able to look him in the face again.
Dear Nick,
Is Marseille the place with the palace and the mirrors and stuff? Or is that Versailles? I don’t want to tell the kids the wrong thing. I hope you’ll do lots of cool stuff there even if there isn’t a palace. Oh, what am I talking about? Everywhere in France has palaces, right?
Love,
Kevin
“Dear Kevin,” Nick types, “Joe’s idea of fun is going out and trying to permanently damage his liver with a bunch of people he’s only known for a week.” He stares at the cursor for a minute and then deletes the sentence. Just because Nick decided to go back to the hostel and Joe decided to stay is no reason to rat him out for something that’s perfectly legal in France. He wishes he thought Kevin wasn’t forwarding all his emails to Mom and Dad because he could really use some advice from an older brother who isn’t drunk right now.
A little later, there’s a scrabbling sound outside the door, and Nick would be a little bit worried, but he can hear Joe giggling. He gets out of bed and stands there with his hand on the knob, debating. If Joe’s out there with someone else, one of those Spanish girls who invited him to dance before Nick left, he can keep pawing at the lock for as long as he pleases. Nick can’t deal with Joe’s many, many new friends anymore tonight, all those strangers hanging all over him and talking in his ear so Nick didn’t know what they were saying except that it made Joe smile. But he doesn’t hear anyone else now, just the distant slam of doors down the hall, low chatter farther away. And Joe seems to be having a lot of trouble with the door.
When Nick opens it, Joe stumbles heavily in, and he’s much, much drunker than he was an hour and a half ago, curling around Nick in a cloud of vinegary breath, arms loose around Nick’s shoulders. “Nick,” he says, burrowing into the side of Nick’s neck, rubbing his stubbly cheek against Nick’s skin, his mouth hitting hot and wet. Nick squirms, uncomfortable, trying to get out from under his brother’s weight as he maneuvers him to the bed. It’s scary that Joe’s this drunk, and maybe even scarier the way Nick’s stomach clenches up when Joe’s mouth parts against his skin. He doesn’t want to feel that good with Joe slobbering all over him, not even with the excuse that he’s fourteen and his body is only barely in his control.
“That was terrible wine,” Joe says, flopping back obediently on the thin mattress.
“Then why’d you drink so much of it?” Nick asks, trying to keep his tone calm, not anxious and scared and a little angry like he feels. He watches Joe wiggle his feet out of his flip-flops, letting them thump to the floor as he thinks about it.
“I do not know,” he say finally, solemnly.
“Do you think you need to throw up?” Nick asks.
Joe licks his lips, tilts his head towards Nick, blinking through a curtain of fallen hair. “It’s possible,” he says, drawing out the first syllable into “paaaah.”
Nick kicks the trashcan over next to the bed. If Joe pukes in it, Nick’ll make him wash it out tomorrow. “I’ll get you some water,” he tells Joe, because he can’t think what else to do. The bathroom is down the hall, and Nick jams Joe’s shoe in the door to keep it from closing. He tells Joe not to move it and Joe murmurs agreeably, but he’s pretty sure Joe’s not actually going anywhere anytime soon. He fills his water bottle at the tap, looking at his pale face in the mirror and silently assuring his reflection that everything’s gonna be fine.
Joe’s sprawled out like a starfish on the narrow bed when Nick gets back, arms and legs splayed. “I can’t feel my toes,” Joe says wonderingly, wagging his feet against the end of the mattress. “I still have toes, right?”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Mom would kill you if she could see you like this,” he tells Joe. Joe frowns at the ceiling.
“Mom loves me,” Joe says. “I’m a ray of sunshine.”
Nick kneels by the head of the bed, guiding Joe’s face to the water bottle. “You’re drunk. Are you going to choke if I tip this?” He points the bottle towards Joe’s mouth. Joe makes a noise Nick thinks is “no” and struggles up onto his elbows. Nick watches the bob of his adam’s apple as he swallows, the slack “o” of his mouth around the bottle. He feels hot all over, embarrassed and angry that looking at his brother’s mouth makes him ache down low in his belly, that he can’t get that ache to just go away, no matter how much he wants it to.
“You take good care of me, Nicky,” Joe says, pushing the bottle away and wiping a hand across his mouth. “Just like -- it’s reciprot - recipe… we both do it. It’s good.” He reaches for Nick’s free hand, and Nick lets him twist their fingers together, flexing and squeezing until Joe falls asleep.
Dear Kevin,
Today we’re going on a boat tour of the harbor and some of the islands near Marseille. It’s really beautiful outside already and it should be really fun. We’re going to wear plenty of sunblock and keep hydrated. Joe’s not feeling very well, but I think it’s just a 24-hour bug and he’ll be fine soon. Gotta go catch a boat!
Love,
Nick
Part II | Masterpost & Soundtrack