Read Online Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins - Free Book Online Page B

confused. “Yeah, of course. Lemme change first.” I let him out, and five minutes later, we’re headed north. I’ve thrown on my favorite shirt, a cute thrift-store find that hugs me in the right places, and jeans and black canvas sneakers. I know sneakers aren’t very French—I should be wearing pointy boots or scary heels—but at least they aren’t white. It’s true what they say about white sneakers. Only American tourists wear them, big ugly things made for mowing grass or painting houses.
    It’s a beautiful night.The lights of Paris are yellow and green and orange. The warm air swirls with the chatter of people in the streets and the clink of wineglasses in the restaurants. St. Clair has brightened back up and is detailing the more gruesome aspects of the Rasputin biography he finished this afternoon.
    “So the other Russians give him this dose of cyanide in his dinner, lethal enough to kill five men, right? But it’s not doing anything , so Plan B—they shoot him in the back with a revolver. Which still doesn’t kill him. In fact, Rasputin has enough energy to strangle one of them, so they shoot him three more times . And he’s still struggling to get up! So they beat the bloody crap out of him, wrap him in a sheet, and throw him into an icy river. But get this—”
    His eyes shimmer. It’s the same look Mom gets when she’s talking about turtles, or Bridge gets when she’s talking about cymbals.
    “During the autopsy, they discovered the actual cause of death was hypothermia. From the river! Not the poisoning or the shooting or the beating. Mother Nature. And not only that, but his arms were found frozen upright, like he’d tried to claw his way out from underneath the ice.”
    “What? No—”
    Some German tourists are posing in front of a storefront with peeling golden letters. We scoot around them, so as not to wreck their picture. “It gets better,” he says. “When they cremated his body, he sat up . No, he did! Probably because the bloke who prepared his body forgot to snip the tendons, so they shrank up when he burned—”
    I nod my head in appreciation. “Ew, but cool. Go on.”
    “—which made his legs and body bend, but still.” St. Clair smiles triumphantly. “Everyone went mad when they saw it.”
    “And who says history is boring?” I smile back, and everything is perfect. Almost. Because this is the moment we pass the entrance to SOAP, and now I’m farther from the school than I’ve ever been before. My smile wavers as I revert to my natural state of being: nervous and weird.
    “You know, thanks for that. The others always shut me up long before—” He notices the change in my demeanor and stops. “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Yes, and has anyone ever told you that you are a terrible liar? Horrid. The worst.”
    “It’s just—” I hesitate, embarrassed.
    “Yeeesss?”
    “Paris is so . . . foreign.” I struggle for the right word. “Intimidating.”
    “Nah.” He quickly dismisses me.
    “Easy for you to say.” We step around a dignified gentleman stooping over to pick up after his dog, a basset hound with a droopy stomach. Granddad warned me that the sidewalks of Paris were littered with doggie land mines, but it hasn’t been the case so far. “You’ve been acquainted with Paris your whole life,” I continue. “You speak fluent French, you dress European ...”
    “Pardon?”
    “You know. Nice clothes, nice shoes.”
    He holds up his left foot, booted in something scuffed and clunky. “These?”
    “Well, no. But you aren’t in sneakers. I totally stick out. And I don’t speak French and I’m scared of the métro and I should probably be wearing heels, but I hate heels—”
    “I’m glad you’re not wearing heels,” St. Clair interrupts. “Then you’d be taller than me.”
    “I am taller than you.”
    “Barely.”
    “Please. I’ve got three inches on you. And you’re wearing boots.”
    He nudges me with his shoulder, and