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In the Metro/RER interchange beneath Gare du Nord, I get lost again trying to find the right Metro line, and then I misplace my little ticket, which you need not only to get out of RER but into the Metro. Then I almost get on the Metro going the wrong direction but figure it out right before the doors close and jump off. When I finally arrive at my stop, I’m completely exhausted and totally disoriented. It takes about fifteen minutes poring over the map just to figure where I am. I take a half dozen more wrong turns until I hit the canals, which is the first sign that I’m in the right area.
But I still have no idea where the hostel is, and I’m exhausted, frustrated, and near tears. I can’t even find the hostel. And I have an address. And a map. What in the world makes me think I can find him?
But then just when I’m about to lose it, I stop, look out at the canals, and I just breathe. And my panic subsides. Because this place, it feels familiar. It is familiar, because I’ve been here before.
I fold up my map and put it away. I breathe some more. I look around. There are the same gray bicycles. There are the same stylish women, teetering across the cobblestones on heels. The cafés, crowded, as though no one ever has to work. I take another deep breath, and a sort of sense memory takes over. And somehow I just know where I am. To the left is the park with the lake where we met Jacques and the Danes. To my right, a few blocks back, is the cafe where we had crêpes. I take the map out again. I find myself. Five minutes later, I’m at the youth hostel.
My room is on the sixth floor, and the elevator is out of order, so I walk up a winding stairway. A guy with a tattoo of some sort of Greek god on his arm points out the breakfast room, the communal bathrooms (coed), and then my room, with seven beds. He gives me a lock and shows me where I can store my stuff when I go out. Then he leaves me with a bonne chance, which means good luck, and I wonder if he says that to everyone or if he senses that I’ll need it.
>“Mom,” I interrupt, “it’s okay. I’ll text you.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah! And you can text me back from Hawaii. And does this thing have a photo function?” I peer at the camera. “I’ll send you pictures.”
“You will?”
“Of course I will.”
By the look on her face, you’d think I’d given her the present.
Penn Station is mobbed, but I find Dee right away, under the departure board, wearing a pair of lemon-lime paneled nylon shorts and a tank top with UNICORNS ARE REAL emblazoned on it. He scoops me up in a big hug.
“Where’s your suitcase?” he asks.
I turn around, show off the olive backpack I got from the Army-Navy surplus store in Philadelphia.
Dee whistles. “How’d you fit your ball gown?”
“It folds down really small.”
“I thought you’d have a bigger bag, and I told Mama we’d come back home before we went out exploring, so she made lunch.”
“I like lunch.”
Dee throws up his hands. “Actually, Mama planned a surprise party for you. Don’t tell her I told.”
“A party? She doesn’t even know me.”
“She thinks she does by how much I talk about you, and she’ll use any excuse to cook. My family’s coming, including my cousin Tanya. I told you about her?”
“The one who does hair?”
Dee nods. “I asked her if she’d do yours. She does white-girl hair too, works in a fancy salon in Manhattan. I thought maybe you could get a bob again, go all Louise Brooks. Look just like you did when you met. You gotta do something with that mop.” He fingers my hair, up, as usual, in a clip.
We take the subway all the way uptown, to the last stop on the train. We get out and transfer to a bus. I look out the window, expecting the rough-and-tumble streets of the South Bronx, but the bus passes a bunch of pretty brick buildings all shaded by mature trees.
“This is the South Bronx?” I ask Dee.
“I never said I lived in the South Bronx.”
I look at him. “Are you serious? I’ve heard you say a bunch of times that you’re from the South Bronx.”
“I only said that I was from the Bronx. This is the Bronx, technically. It’s Riverdale.”
“But you told Kendra you were from the South Bronx. You told her you went to South Bronx High School. . . .” I pause, remembering that first conversation. “Which does not even exist.”
“I left the girl to her own jumped conclusions.” He gives me a knowing smirk. He rings the bell to get off the bus. We exit onto a busy street full of tall apartment buildings. It’s not fancy, but it’s nice.
