Running Back

Mike reached into his pocket, and I yanked harder on him, embarrassment rising. “Mike. There’s not even anything to see.”

Behind us, the entrance bell chimed, and another wave of summer air swept in. I tugged again, determined to catch the door and be on our way. Two tall girls in slimming black passed us, chattering rapid-fire in some language I didn’t understand. They looked at Mike and one giggled.

“Come on, Nat. Don’t you want to talk to them?” To the man he said, “There must be some way—”

“Non. This is a private house. You can not just barge in.” He let out a puff of air. “It is this entitled attitude—”

Mike squared his shoulders. “Come on, man—”

“Mike, let’s just go—”

From another door, a man emerged, this one short and broad. “Ce qui se passe? ”

The first man responded in rapid fire French far beyond me, but his frantic gestures made it quite clear we were disturbing the peace. “See?” I hissed at Mike. “Now it’s a whole issue.”

“Jesus, Nat, I’ve never seen you so worked up.” He pulled up his most soothing smile. “Uh, bonjour. Ma copine et moi would like to look around. Is that okay?”

Okay, he looked up how to say girlfriend in French. If I wasn’t so tense, I might find that cute.

But seriously, he couldn’t just smile and ask the same question over and over and hope the answer would change.

The second man opened his mouth, his gaze flicking over to include me as he spoke. “It is against policy —”

He stopped, and his jaw dropped almost comically. “Oh, putain.”

The other man glanced at him quickly, and then stared me down. I stood frozen.

Mike leaned over to murmur in my ear. “I’m going to assume that was something like sacre- bleu, which is the only French curse I know.”

Something like. “Hi.” I self-consciously pushed my hair back. He obviously recognized me—recognized my mother in me. “I’m Natalie Sullivan. My mother used to live here.”

“You have her eyes.” He dropped the Hs so the sentence was almost entirely a river of vowels.

I smiled uncomfortably.

“Such a great model, your mother.” He ran his eyes up and down my body. “You also?”

“Me? Model? No. No. I’m an archaeologist.”

Apparently that wasn’t as cool as modeling, because his nose crinkled slightly. He craned his head to see me from different sides, and then nodded. “You are tall enough.”

Well, excellent.

The man nodded, then turned to Mike. His gaze lingered on the red hair. “This is your boyfriend.”

“Yes. This is Mike O’Connor. He plays football—American football—in New York.”

“Ahh...” The man’s expression made his thoughts on American football very clear.

“We didn’t mean to bother you—we just thought we’d stop by—we were in the area—”

“Come. I will do your eyes.”

“No.” I would have backed away if I didn’t have a two-hundred pound weight holding my arm. “That’s okay. I just wanted to see where she lived.”

“Yes, I know. I will show you and tell you about her as I do your eyes.” He walked away, not waiting to see if we’d follow. “I met her when she first arrived. She was underfed, and underdressed, and she cried every night because she was lonely and didn’t speak French. She used to sing in Russian before she fell asleep.” His voice trailed off as he rounded a corner.

I couldn’t help it. I ran after him. “When did she learn French?”

“Mmm. I taught her. That’s why I came here, you know? Not because of my art. Ah, no, that is why I came here, but not why the agency took me. They took me because I speak Hungarian and Russian and they needed someone to help the new girls. And I wasn’t much older than them.”

“So what was she like? When she first came?”

“Like everyone. Here.” He led us up a cement staircase and into a hall. He narrowed his eyes at Mike. “Men are not allowed here.”

I grabbed Mike’s arm, not intending to let him go. Mike slid me a smile. “And yet here we are.”

The man let out a puff of air, his cheeks inflating and deflating in exasperation. “Only because you are with Mademoiselle Bocharov.”

“It’s Sullivan,” I corrected.

His nose crinkled again, and I half expected him to say something along the lines of “how plebian.” How bougie? Instead, he walked us to the end of the hall. “This is the kitchen. Each girl has a small fridge.” He gestured at a wall filled with what looked like cubbies, and opened one to reveal a one by one foot space packed with milk and fruit.

The rest of the room was pretty spartan, with just one small table by the windows. Two hot plates. One microwave. No toaster, no oven. “And they eat here?”

“Mostly they eat downstairs. But they can keep snacks here.”

He led us across the hall, and opened the door to a common room. Two couches sat on beige colored carpeting, and a bookcase filled with worn paperbacks stood against the far wall. Closer to us, a flat screen TV played a British show to the three girls in the room. They looked up briefly when we entered.

Our guide waved. “The common room.”

The smallness and gray walls would have been depressing, except that out of the corner of the window, you could just see part of the Eiffel Tower rising into the sky.

How surreal.

For the first time, I actually tried to picture Mom here. Here, in this room, which looked like it hadn’t changed since the eighties. Sitting on those flat cushions of the brown tweed couch, staring at the screen, or out the windows, at the rooftops and wires and the metal structure rising above all of it.

What did she want out of life when she was here? How did she think her life was going to end up?

Mike tugged on my hand, and I realized the man was off again, down the hall with unexpectedly fleet feet, until he reached the end of the hall. He rapped on a door. “C’est Carl.”

The door opened, and a tall, skinny girl stood before us, with prominent cheekbones and a long, thin blade of a nose. She’d bound her hair up in a sleek bun, like a ballerina. “Quoi?”

“C’est la fille de Madame Bocharov.” To me, he said, “This was your mother’s room.”

I could hardly believe he remembered her actual room, but I still found myself looking past the teenager to the tiny, boxy space. Clothes were draped over chairs and the two twin beds, black stretchy things with sparkles and oversized sweaters that confused me.

On the opposite wall, the window looked out toward another building. A tree waved its leaves at us. Above the beds, photos and posters formed colorful wallpaper.

It wasn’t depressing, exactly. It was just... I couldn’t help looking back at the girl. She watched me with narrowed eyes. They weren’t like Anna’s, who must have a year or two on this girl. Anna’s eyes were angry sometimes and young at others. This girl just looked watchful. “I didn’t know she had children.” Her accent was thick and strange.

“Just me.”

“You have her email? Her agent’s?”

Fourteen or fifteen and trying to network.

Carl scowled. “Don’t bother Mademoiselle Bocharov.”

“It’s okay.” I swallowed and smiled at the girl. “Where are you from?”

“Ukraine.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“One year.”

“And do you like it?”