Chapter 1
Alice
My family’s first language is small talk. It’s a fact I learned a long time ago, when I started going over to friends’ houses by myself. At home, other people slip into banter like they’re pulling on an old pair of sweatpants, but at the Prewitt residence, we make polite conversation like we’re permanently trussed up in our Sunday best. In some ways, it’s a blessing. It means we hardly ever fight, which isn’t something most teenagers can say about their parents. But it can also be a curse—like right now, as we sit shoulder to shoulder in the back seat of this sweltering cab.
“So—what brings you to Paris?”
The taxi driver smiles at us in the rearview mirror. He must think we didn’t hear him the first time around. But we heard him all right, loud and clear. This I know, because when he asked the question, I noticed all three of our bodies go rigid.
The ride was going well, though, given the circumstances. Dad and I listened like star pupils as the guy gave us a history lesson on Sacré-Coeur, the famous hilltop basilica off in the distance. We nodded our heads in all the right places and made empty promises to go up and watch the sunset when we could. The whole time, we kept our hands resting on Mom’s legs, like she was a package meant to be handled with care.
The driver is still looking at us expectantly. He’s probably wondering why the well-mannered family from New Jersey has gone silent all of a sudden. We’re stuck in traffic on the boulevard Haussmann, where construction barriers are forcing all the cars into one lane. The light just doesn’t want to change, so I make a point of staring down the intersection at the three white domes towering over Paris. The driver said there’s only one point higher than Sacré-Coeur in the whole city, and it’s the top of the Eiffel Tower. I’d give anything to be in either place right now—or really anywhere that isn’t here, having to tell a stranger the bizarre reason why the three of us are in Paris for the summer.
Dad clears his throat.
“Family,” he says quickly.
Mom shifts in her seat.
The light finally turns green, and we trundle on in silence.
We turn off the sunny boulevard and begin weaving through shadowy streets that zigzag in unexpected directions. It seems absurd that none of us has any idea where we’re headed, but then again, Gram always liked surprises and had a flare for the dramatic. She was the anomaly in our family. I reach into the pocket of my denim shorts and touch the strange brass key, wondering what in the world my grandmother was thinking before she died.
With every bump in the road, the questions rattle around my head like metal screws in a glass jar. After all these years, why did Gram still own an apartment in Paris? She left France to marry Gramps at the end of the Second World War, and she never went back. She never even talked about it. In the sixteen years I was lucky enough to have with her, I never once heard her mention her childhood. There were no old photographs in her condo, no keepsakes—nothing. Only after she died did I realize how strange it was, this massive gap in her history. Gram never held back in telling me about the times she cut work to join civil rights marches, or how she and Gramps once smoked weed on the roof of their apartment building, so it never occurred to me that she would be hiding something else. For some reason, my brain just accepted that Gram’s life began when she first set foot on American soil.
We drive along a one-way street nestled between rows of uniform cream-colored apartment buildings with white shutters and tiny Juliet balconies. There are restaurants and coffee shops wedged beneath them at street level, full of people enjoying a peaceful Saturday morning. At a cross street, I spot the sign on the wall that says Rue de Marquis, 9e Arr. Earlier in the ride, our driver explained that the “Arr” stood for “arrondissement,” which is the name for the districts that divide Paris. There are twenty of them in total, and Gram’s apartment is in the ninth. We’re here. My heart pounds in my chest. If Mom and Dad see the street sign, they don’t say anything.
The taxi driver makes the turn. We’re at the mouth of a crescent-shaped street that twists sharply to the left, so you can’t see where it ends. There are no shops here, only residential buildings with concave faces, keeping with the curve of the road. They aren’t identical like the others we passed; there’s a wide one with black shutters followed by a skinny one with no shutters at all. Finally, the driver comes to a stop in front of an ancient-looking building with a yellowing façade, stuffed between its neighbors like a snaggletooth.
“Numéro trente-six,” he says.
Dad pays the fare with the euros he got from the bank, and the three of us climb out onto the sidewalk in front of number thirty-six. Surveying the building through my round tortoiseshell glasses, I note that it looks like the oldest on the block. There are cracks in the plaster and chips of paint missing from the emerald-green double doors. Dad goes to inspect the electronic keypad next to the entrance, while I hang back at the curb next to Mom. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and notice how bony they feel under her baggy gray cardigan, which she’s somehow wearing despite the heat. She’d normally be in a sundress, something showing off the legs toned from hiking in the hills behind our house, but then again, she hasn’t done that in a while either.
“You never know, Mom. This might be kind of fun.”
She wraps her sweater tighter around her body and gazes up at an unspecific spot on the building. She could be smiling or wincing. It’s tough to tell.
“We’ll see, Alice.”
Poor Mom. First she lost Gram, which was hard enough on its own, but then we read the will, and Mom learned there were things she never knew about her own mother. Big things. Mom has been a mess for the past two months, barely able to pull herself out of bed and get dressed for work. Dad had to remind her the fifth graders wouldn’t have an English teacher if she didn’t get moving. I always did what I could to make her happy when we both got home from our respective schools, like baking cookies or finding something stupid to watch on Netflix—anything to take her mind off Gram. None of it seemed to have much of an effect . . . but I’m going to keep on trying. It seems like the least I can do, given that I’m the one who ended up with this apartment.
“We’re in,” Dad says triumphantly, holding open the door. It’s a good thing Gram’s lawyer left a note about the code in the will.
The lobby looks as old as the outside of the building, with peeling wallpaper, a dusty chandelier, and a tile floor that might have been white once, decades ago. It’s mostly quiet, save for the faint sounds of footsteps coming from the floors above. Any minute now, I feel like Gram is going to jump out and yell, “Surprise!”
“Who remembers which apartment we’re going to?” Dad asks. He’s using the upbeat voice he typically reserves for prospective home buyers. I guess we both have our own ways of trying to cheer Mom up.
“It’s number five,” I volunteer.
The wooden stairs creak and groan under our feet. Mom doesn’t respond to any of Dad’s cheerful observations about the banisters and the crown moldings, and I wonder if he’s having second guesses about relocating us to Paris for the next six weeks.
The trip was supposed to help us unwind after a difficult few months. “You two are off for the summer, and Todd’s practically forcing me to take a good, long vacation now that the Willow Street mansion is out of the way,” Dad said over dinner one night. (This was after we read the will.) “We can all go check out the apartment, and I’ll work on settling Gram’s estate while you gals explore a new city. What do you say?”