The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor

Author:Jordyn Taylor [Jordyn Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Alice

Another evening at home. Another rigid dinner around the kitchen table with Mom sitting in sullen silence, and me and Dad taking turns trying to start some kind of conversation.

“So, Alice, it sounds like you and Paul have a fun day in Versailles planned tomorrow. He seems like a good guy, doesn’t he, Diane?”

“Mhmm.”

“It was really nice of him to invite me,” I chime in. “He did it out of the blue, as we were leaving Gram’s apartment.”

Shoot. I wasn’t thinking—it just slipped out. The second I mention the apartment, Mom’s body visibly tenses. She stops chewing, her jaw clenches, and she squeezes her fork so tight her knuckles turn white. Oh no, no, no. I feel terrible. Mom’s still so sensitive to anything involving Gram, and I just dropped that bomb without any warning.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ve been trying not to talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” she says, swallowing her food with what looks like difficulty. “It’s fine.”

But it clearly isn’t fine. Nobody speaks for the rest of the meal; the only sound is the forks and knives scraping against china. When we’re finished, we clear our plates, and Mom returns to her corner of the couch; Dad, to his laptop. Mom probably needs a little space right now, so I go to my room to keep translating Adalyn’s diary.

Tonight, I have the diary open on one side of my lap and my great-grandmother’s day planner open on the other. I’ve been cross-referencing dates to see if I can find any links. Suddenly, I find something that makes my heart leap.

There’s a diary entry dated September 26, 1942. The day before, Adalyn’s mom visited the Hotel Belmont for the first time. What if Adalyn went with her? And what if she wrote about Ulrich Becker III? I start typing into Google Translate as fast as I can.

September 26th, 1942

I thought Chloe would yell at us when we came in from the party, but it was worse. She was standing in the foyer, looking like she was about to cry. Then she stormed to her room and slammed the door.

So I guessed right. Adalyn was there.

I hated knowing that I disappointed her, so the next morning I begged her, please, come for a walk with me down by the river. The river is the only place that doesn’t feel claustrophobic in this city, where the buildings give way to wide-open water and air. You can think there. You can breathe. It was a long walk to get there, but the weather was agreeable, and since Maman and Papa were handling rations that day, I said, what else did we have to do?

She was reluctant, but she agreed. I bought us two cups of so-called coffee along the way, which tasted terrible, but our mutual revulsion broke the ice. We played our old game again, starting with a cup of rich, dark espresso for me and a steaming mug of hot chocolate for Chloe.

At the river, we returned to the more serious matter.

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