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Anxiously, I fingered the glass bead hanging from my neck. Glancing at myself in the mirror one last time, I tugged my dark blue skirt down and straightened my straps again. I’d already fixed the little blue ribbon in my hair like fifty times, ugh, but it still wasn’t staying up properly.
“Hey.” Etienne’s soft voice floated into my room as he stuck his head in. He grinned at me and gave a low whistle. “Wow.”
I felt myself turn red, and I looked away touching my banana necklace one more time for luck. “Shut up,” I muttered. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Ahh ahh ahhh.” He waggled his fingers at me naughtily. “You can’t tell me to shut up about how beautiful you are. Not anymore. You’re my girlfriend which means I get to compliment you however much I want.”
“Etienne!” I whirled around and poked him in the chest. “This is serious! My entire family is coming! My dad, mom, and little brother! And they’re going to meet you for the first time!”
He grinned, “Ahh nuhhh, are you embarrassed by me?”
I flushed pink at his cheerful accusation. “No! I’m not embarrassed by you! I just want them to…really like you. Like me.”
“Oh I see…” he smirked playfully. “We’re back to just really liking each other again?”
I threw up my hands in surrender. “Fine. It’s over. I’m finished. Let’s go.” He rolled his eyes.
“Don’t be melodramatic Anna. Your family will love me. Everybody loves me.” He put his hands on his hips and struck a dramatic pose. “I am absolutely irresistible.”
I groaned. “Don’t do that in front of them, I beg you.”
“Ohhhh?” he said mischievously. “There are rules? I love rules. Tell me Anna, my love” – I blushed – “what are your other regulations for shmoozing with your parents?”
I stammered, “Don’t do…” He stepped up to me, smiling brightly. His hair was perfectly mussed as always and had fallen a bit over his face. My fingers itched to push it back, but before I could act on my impulse, he’d stepped even closer.
“Don’t do what Anna? This?” He bent down and nuzzled my neck. I sucked in a breath. “This?” He grabbed the bottom of my skirt and slowly began to drag it up my thigh. Oh god. “This?” He pressed me backwards until I was pressed against the wall of my room, and traced a line with his mouth back to mine. Unable to stand it, I grabbed the back of his head, and pushed my fingers through his soft, perfect hair. He made a small noise, before kissing my fiercely, deepening the kiss and pressing my mouth open. He tasted so good. His hands rubbed warm circles on me, and my skirt was hitched past my waist, not that I cared. I was too far gone in the feeling of Etienne.
His fingers entwined themselves in my hair, and he cupped my chin with the other hand. Tilting my neck backward, his buried his face in the spot underneath my ear and inhaled. “Ahh nuhhh. I want to do this forever.” His words froze me, and I glanced at the clock. Oh no.
“Etienne get off, the ceremony starts in an hour! My parents are going to meet us downstairs in five minutes. Oh no! My hair!” I frantically started rearranging my hair, but to no use. It was horrible messed up and was sticking up in all different directions. This was bad; everyone could tell what we’d been doing! My eyes were all shiny, and my cheeks were flushed.
“Anna calm down! Here.” Etienne began working through my hair quickly untangling it. He gently pulled the crushed bow out, and combed my hair through gently. “Mmm, smells nice,” he muttered to himself. “There.” He dropped my hair so that it fell in waves around my face. “Wait no, something’s missing.” He reached into my bag and yanked out a little clip. He deftly twisted one side of my hair and clipped it up, revealing my face. “Now. Okay, you look perfect.”
I turned around surprised. “How did you do that?” I demanded. He shrugged, “You always hide behind your hair when you’re feeling shy. Sometimes I would wish for a chance to push it back and see your face. Now I get to.” He bent forward and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. A gentle kiss, different from the passionate kiss we’d just shared, but it still made my heart beat faster and my eyelashes flutter.
“We should go downstairs, your parents will be waiting, and I don’t want them to get the wrong impression. I want them to really, really like me.” I punched him in the arm.
“Shut up.”
I paced around the lobby while Etienne relaxed, straddling a chair. He looked adorable wearing a suit. Finally he sighed.
“Will you please relax?”
“I can’t! I don’t know. What if something goes wrong?”
He rolled his eyes. “Anna, what could possibly go wrong?”
“We’ve been dating less than a week!”
“We’ve been best friends for a year!”
“Anna?” My mother’s puzzled voice echoed in the lobby.
“Mom!” I ran over to her and hugged her tightly, while Etienne got up and politely made his way over. My dad harrumphed behind me, so I turned and gave him a hug too, keeping my fingers crossed that this would go well. God, I really was a worrier. Etienne could charm the pants off of anyone. But this time it mattered.
Seany hugged my waist happily, “Anna!” Then he pulled away and saw Etienne waiting patiently with a huge smile on his face. “Anna, is this your booooyyy-friend??” Shite. Seany was already starting with this. I put on a brave face. I’d introduced Matt to my parents but we’d gone to the same school, and of course our parents had known each other. Plus it was Matt, who I had never really cared about. This was so, so different. Crap, crap, crap.
“Uh yes, actually. Mom, Dad, this is my boyfriend Etienne St. Clair.” A stunned silence followed this pronouncement as my parents took him in. His messy hair was perfection, and he was all dressed up. A chocolate truffle. He smiled and bent forward confidently.
“Hullo, it’s lovely to meet you.” The British accent, this was another point in Etienne’s favor. My mother looked absolutely startled. Etienne continued, “You have a beautiful daughter.”
Oh my god. He did not just say that. I sent a quick glare at him, but thankfully Seany chose that moment to start yelling loudly, “Anna has a booooyyy-friend, ANNA HAS A BOOOOYY-FRIEND!”
This was not going as planned, but at least Seany had distracted my parents who quickly turned to shush him. “Seany be polite. Now wait a moment, Anna is this the boy you spent all of Christmas talking to on the phone?"
I nodded mutely, but Etienne simply looked pleased. “Anna talked so much about her family,” he said cheerfully. “It’s really wonderful to finally meet you all.” He bent down to Seany, “Hey there. Keeping away from Red Dye #40?” Seany stared at him, suddenly solemn.
“Anna always keeps me safe from Red Dye #40. She says it could kill me. Anna is really smart.” Etienne grinned wider.
“Oh I know. Here’s why I need your help. You see, Anna knows a lot about Star Wars, but I’ve never seen the movies! And I don’t want to see them with her, because I need an expert to help me understand what’s going on. And you’re the Star Wars expert according to her. Can you help me sometime?”
Seany’s eyes lit up. He stared at me for a second and then back to St. Clair with adoration written clearly across his face. “Yeah! I am the expert! I even had a Star Wars cake! I know everything.” He patted Etienne’s hand pityingly, “I can teach you, don’t worry.”
My parents stared at Etienne in astonishment. My dad cleared his throat again. “So how long have you been seeing my daughter?”
“Dad!” I exclaimed in total embarrassment.
“Honey, I have a right to know who exactly is dating my daughter.”
Oh no, he was doing the whole, tough dad act. Ugh, like he was even around for most of the time. But Etienne easily deflected the question, “Not for long, but I plan to stick around for a while. I understand you write novels, sir?”
Sir? Nobody was going to be fooled by that! Except maybe my pompous dad. He straightened his back with pride and launched into a monologue about the latest sales of his novels. I hated him and his stupid books about stupid cancer and leukemia. But Etienne took it all in stride and feigned interest perfectly. He knew just when to ask questions, and make exclamations. We started walking out to where SOAP would be having the graduation ceremony.
I ended up next to my mom who leaned over conspiratorially, “I can see why you like him so much.” I blushed.
“Mom.”
“No really, my god he can charm anyone. Even your father.”
I shook my head, “That’s just Etienne. He’s nice to everyone.”
“Oh really?” She chuckled, “He seems to really like you Anna.”
I flushed remembering our earlier conversation. I want them to really, really like me. I tried to clear my thoughts.
“It’s just…” My mother hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Wait mom, what?”
She watched as Seany bounced around Etienne excitedly jabbering about Jar-Jar Binks, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Etienne was now conversing with him in what seemed to be a fascinating conversation. I loved that about Etienne, he made you feel special when he looked at you.
She turned back to me. “It’s nothing Anna. It’s just, a boy like that can break your heart really easily. He’s a charmer, how can you be sure he won’t turn out to be the wrong kind?”
“He’s not Mom, how can you say that?! You don’t even know him!”
“Sweetheart, don’t get upset, but that’s exactly why I’m wary. You’ve known him for a year. We barely know him.”
“Well you’ll get a chance to know him! He’ll be going to college in Berkeley, 20 minutes from my college!” I smiled at her satisfied, wiling to show how much Etienne cared for me. Instead her face went white.
“He’s moving to California for you? Aren’t you moving too fast??”
I blinked at her. Things had been proceeding fast, but with Etienne everything felt right. “No Mom, we’re not moving too fast! And he’s not going to college at Berkeley just to be near me. Try to understand, I- I really-“ I broke off, unsure of how to describing my intense feelings for Etienne. They seemed too violent to put into words. Gosh this was a disaster. My mom hated him already. The one parent who I actually thought would be on my side wasn’t.
As if she sensed my misery, my mother put her arms around me. “No honey, don’t worry. I just don’t want you to get hurt okay? He’s a really gorgeous boy. I don’t want you to get hurt like I did.”
I turned to look at her. “Mom. Etienne isn’t like that. He’s not. Just get to know him okay?”
She nodded. “Of course I will. Your father already likes him.” She gestured at my father proudly boasting to Etienne. “And it seems like he has a way with Seany too. I trust you Anna. I’m worried for you, but I trust you.”
I nodded and hugged her tightly. “Thanks Mom. I’m really glad I came to Paris you know?”
She smiled. “I know. Me too. You’re all grown up now.”
Etienne and I left my parents who entered the giant hall. We went another way to a large room where the entire graduating class was holed up. We were supposed to be quiet and line up alphabetically, but no one really cared.
I spotted Mer, Rashmi, Josh and surprisingly Isla, who was occasionally giving Josh a very dreamy look. She really was cute. Mer smiled at me, and gave me a hug. And Rash stepped in too. Etienne made a grumbling noise.
“What, is this no boys allowed?”
Rash rolled her eyes but said, “Oh come on then. Stop whining.” She reached out a hand and yanked both Etienne and Josh in. We all hugged each other, before pulling apart sadly. It was weird. I’d barely known these people a year, but I was going to miss each and every one of them.
I smiled at them all, and Mer sniffled a bit. “Aww Mer, don’t worry,” Etienne gave her a soft smile, “we’ll all be together again. You’ll have an entourage of sexy, Italian men, Rashmi will have a bunch of degrees and win a ton of science-y and math prizes, and Josh will graduate in another year and open his own art gallery or something. It’s just a matter of time.”
Rashmi smiled, and pulled her glasses off, mumbling something about dust on the lens. She wasn’t fooling anyone, and I put my arm around her shoulder. Etienne took one look and yelled “PICTURES!”
“Wait no-” “Etienne!” “This is a bad idea, dude.” “Oh come on, stop don’t!”
Our protests fell on flat ears as Etienne yanked out a camera. “Where the hell did you get that?” I spluttered, as he started snapping pictures. We all screamed and attempted to dodge the camera, but in seconds we were laughing so hard we had to hold each other up. It felt wonderful. We took hundreds of pictures in minutes, switching the camera from hand to hand, snapping silly shots of each other. Finally, the adults decided we really were getting out of hand, and quickly began to reign us back in control.
We all sobered up and looked at each other again. Etienne said softly, “Last picture before graduating. Let’s make it count.”
He quickly snagged a student, and gave him the camera. We all huddled together, suddenly feeling the loss of our carefree senior year. Sure there’d been drama, but we’d stuck together and now we were being tossed out into the world. It felt big, but I knew I could count on every single on of the friends I’d made here at SOAP. The camera went *click* and the moment ended. Etienne took the camera back and tucked it away into a pocket.
We all separated and stood in our spots, waiting to be called up alphabetically. The last names started with “A” and progressed slowly, yet still too quickly. It felt like a dream, like just yesterday I was arriving in Paris. Just yesterday I was bumping into St. Clair and meeting everyone. It felt too fast. My name was called up. I glanced back at St. Clair who smiled and saluted me. I smiled back, and walked up the stairs to get my diploma. Written in French of course. A Parisian diploma, oui oui.
I saw my parents beam at me, as I shook hands and stood to get my picture snapped. I had now officially finished high school. I waited with the other graduates while our fellow classmates all finished. Etienne positively glowed on stage, and as he came down the stairs he winked at me. God I loved being St. Clair’s girlfriend.
He came and stood behind me as we clapped and cheered for the last student. “So Banana Elephant, what say you that you and I start our college lives together?”
“Sounds like heaven to me.” He grinned at me before snatching my cap off my head. “Here’s to the future!” And he threw my hat up, high into the air.
The rest of the students shouted, and more caps soared into the air. The noise was deafening, but it didn’t matter. Soft silky caps rained down from the ceiling and drifted over the crowd.
From now on, it would be me and Etienne, against the world.