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  “You sound as if you’re speaking from personal experience,” my seatmate observes.

  “Well, what else am I supposed to think?” I’m babbling. I know I’m babbling. But I can’t seem to stop myself. Any more than I can stop the tears that continue to flow down my cheeks. “I mean, what kind of person—you know, who wants to be a teacher—works as a waiter, and ALSO collects the dole?”

  My seatmate seems to consider this. “A financially needy one?”

  “You would think that,” I say, sniffling into the tissue. “But what if I told you that this was also a person who lost all his money playing Texas Hold’em, then asked his girlfriend to pay his matriculation fees, and then, as if that were not enough, also told his entire family that…she’s…I mean, I’m…a fatty?”

  “You?” My seatmate sounds suitably stunned. “But you’re not. Fat, I mean.”

  “Not now,” I say with a little sob. “But I was. When we met. But I lost thirty pounds since the last time I saw him. But even if I was fat—he shouldn’t go around telling people that! Not if he really loved me. Right? If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have noticed I was fat. Or he would have, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Not enough to tell his family.”

  “That’s true,” my seatmate says.

  “But he did. He told them I was fat!” New tears erupt. “And when I got there, they were all, ‘You’re not fat!’ Which is how I knew he’d said something about it. And then he goes and gambles away the money his parents—his hardworking parents—gave him for school! I mean, his mother—his poor mother! You should have seen her. She’s a social worker, and she made me a giant breakfast and everything. Even though I don’t like tomatoes, and every single thing she made had tomatoes in it. Which is another sign Andy never loved me at all—I specifically told him I don’t like tomatoes, and yet he didn’t pay any attention. It was like he didn’t even know me at all. I mean, he e-mailed me a picture of his naked butt. What would make a guy think a girl would WANT to see a picture of his naked butt? I mean, seriously? Why would he think that was an okay thing to do?”

  “I really couldn’t say,” my seatmate says.

  I blow my nose. “But see, that’s just typical cluelessness on Andy’s part. The scariest part is, I felt sorry for him. Seriously. I didn’t know about the welfare fraud or that he was going around calling me fat, or that he was using me just to pay his gambling debts. And the worst part is…Oh God, I can’t be the only one this has ever happened to, can I? I mean, haven’t you ever thought you loved someone and done things you regretted with that person? And then wished you could get them back, only you can’t? I mean, haven’t you?”

  “What kind of things are we talking about?” my seatmate wants to know.

  “Oh,” I say. It’s amazing, but I’m starting to feel a little bit better. Maybe it’s the comfortable seat, or the golden glow flooding the train car as well as the tranquil countryside we’re passing. Maybe it’s the fact that I finally got some liquids into me. Maybe it’s the sugar from the peanuts.

  Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that saying all of this out loud is restoring my faith in myself. I mean, anyone might have been tricked by as smooth an operator as Andrew—I mean, Andy. ANYONE. Maybe not my seatmate, since he’s a guy. But any girl. ANY girl.

  “You know the kinds of things I’m talking about,” I say. I look around to make sure no one is listening. All the other passengers appear to be dozing, listening to things through headphones, or too French to understand me anyway. Still, I lower my voice. Blow job, I mouth meaningfully.

  “Oh,” my seatmate says, both of his dark eyebrows going up. “That kind of thing.”

  The thing is, he’s American. And he’s my age. And he’s so nice. I feel totally comfortable talking about this with him, because I know he’s not going to make any judgments about me.

  Besides, I’m never going to see him again.

  “Seriously,” I say, “guys have no idea. Oh, wait, maybe you do. Are you gay?”

  He nearly chokes on the water he is sipping. “No! Do I seem gay?”

  “No,” I say. “But then my gaydar isn’t the best. My last relationship before Andy was with a guy who dumped me for his roommate. His MALE roommate.”

  “Well, I’m not gay.”

  “Oh. Well, the thing is, unless you’ve given one, you can’t know. It’s a major deal.”

  “What is?”

  “Blow job,” I whisper again.

  “Oh,” he says. “Right.”

  “I mean, I know you guys all want them, but they’re not easy. And the thing is, did he so much as attempt to give me anything in return? No! Of course not! Not that I didn’t take care of, you know. Myself. But still. That’s just impolite. Especially since I only did it out of pity for him.”

  “A…pity blow job?” My seatmate has the strangest expression on his face. Sort of like he’s trying not to laugh. Or that he can’t believe he’s having this conversation. Or maybe a combination of both.

  Oh well. Now he’ll have a funny story to tell his family when he gets back home. If he is from the kind of family where it’s okay to talk about blow jobs. Which I am definitely not. Except with Grandma, maybe.

  “Right,” I say. “I did it out of pity for him because he couldn’t come. But now I realize that the whole couldn’t-come thing was just a ruse. He was faking it! So I’d blow him! I feel so used. I’m telling you…I want it back.”

  “The…blow job?” he asks.

  “Exactly. If only there was a way I could take it back.”

  “Well,” my seatmate says, “it sounds like you did. You left. If that’s not taking a blow job back, I don’t know what is.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” I say dejectedly.

  “Billets.” I see someone in a uniform standing in the aisle. “Billets, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Do you have your ticket?” my seatmate asks me.

  I nod, and open my purse. I manage to locate my ticket, and the guy next to me takes it. A second later the conductor moves on, and my seatmate says, “You’re going to Souillac, I see. Any particular reason? Do you know someone there?”

  “My best friend, Shari,” I say. “She’s supposed to meet me there. At the station. If she gets my message. Which I don’t even know if she did, since she doesn’t seem to be picking up her phone. Which she’s probably dropped in the toilet again. Because she’s always doing things like that.”

  “So…Shari doesn’t even know you’re coming?”

  “No. I mean, she invited me. But I said no. Because back then I thought I could work things out with Andy. Only it turned out I couldn’t.”

  “Well, not through any fault of your own.”

  I look at him then. The sun, sliding into the car, has outlined his profile in gold. I notice that he has really long eyelashes. Sort of like a girl. Also that his lips are very full and squishy-looking. In a good way.

  “You’re really nice,” I say to him. My tears have totally dried up now. It’s amazing how therapeutic telling all your problems to a total stranger can be. No wonder so many of my peers are in therapy. “Thanks for listening to me. Although I must sound completely psychotic to you. I bet you’re wondering what you did to deserve having such a total wack job sit down next to you.”

  “I think you’ve just been through a rotten time,” my seatmate says with a smile. “And so you have every right to sound psychotic. But I don’t consider you a wack job. At least, not a total one.”

  “Really?” He also has, in addition to the lovely eyelashes and lips, really nice-looking hands. Strong and clean—tanned, too—with just a light spatter of dark hair on the back of them. “I just don’t want you to think I go around giving blow jobs to all the guys I feel sorry for. I really don’t. That was my first one. Ever.”

  “You don’t? That’s too bad. I was going to tell you about how I was raised in a Romanian orphanage.”

  I stare at him. “You’re Romanian?”

  “That was a j
oke,” he says. “To make you feel sorry for me. So you’ll—”

  “I get it,” I say. “Funny.”

  “Not really,” he says with a sigh. “I suck at jokes. I always have. Hey, listen. Are you hungry? Want to go to the dining car? It’s a long way to Souillac, and you’ve eaten all my nuts.”

  I look down at the empty plastic bag in my lap.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “I’m so sorry! I was starving—yes, let’s go to the dining car. I’ll buy you dinner. To make up for the nuts. And the crying. And the thing about the blow job. I’m really sorry about that.”

  “I’ll take you to dinner,” he says gallantly. “To make up for your recent mistreatment at the hands of one of my gender. How’s that?”

  “Um,” I say, “okay. But…I don’t even know your name. I’m Lizzie Nichols.”

  “I’m Jean-Luc de Villiers,” he says, holding out his right hand. “And I think you should know, I’m an investment banker. But I don’t own a McMansion or a BMW. I swear.”

  I automatically take his hand, but instead of shaking it, I just stare at him, momentarily flustered.

  “Oh,” I say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I’m sure not all investment bankers are bad—”

  “It’s okay,” Jean-Luc says, giving my hand a squeeze. “Most of us are. Just not me. Now come on. Let’s go eat.”

  His fingers are warm and just slightly rough. I gaze up at him, wondering if the rosy glow all around him is really just caused by the setting sun, or if he is, by some chance, an angel sent down from heaven to rescue me.

  Hey. You never know. Even an investment banker could be an angel. God moves in mysterious ways.

  The “Empire waist”—a waistline beginning just beneath the bust—was popularized by Napoléon Bonaparte’s wife, Joséphine, who, during her husband’s reign as emperor beginning in 1804, favored the “classical” style of Greek art, and emulated the togalike robes worn by figures on ancient pottery from that time.

  In order to better simulate the look of the pottery figures, many young women dampened their skirts so that their legs, beneath the sopping garments, were more apparent. It is from this tradition that the modern-day “wet T-shirt contest” is believed to have derived.

  History of Fashion

  SENIOR THESIS BY ELIZABETH NICHOLS

  Chapter 10

  The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about him, and then gradually lead the conversation around to yourself—and keep it there.

  —Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949), U.S. author

  He isn’t an angel. At least, not unless angels are born and raised in Houston, which is where he’s from.

  Also, angels don’t have degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the way Jean-Luc does.

  Also, angels don’t have parents who are going through an acrimonious divorce, the way Jean-Luc’s are, so that when they want to come visit their father—the way Jean-Luc’s taken a few weeks off from his job at the investment firm of Lazard Frères to do—they have to come all the way to France, since that’s where Jean-Luc’s dad, a Frenchman, lives.

  Also, angels tell better jokes. He wasn’t lying about the joke thing. He really does suck at them.

  But that’s okay. Because I would rather be with a bad joke-teller who remembers I hate tomatoes than with a gambling welfare cheat who doesn’t.

  Because Jean-Luc does—remember about the tomatoes, I mean. When I come back from the ladies’ room (picturesquely referred to on French trains as the “toilet”), where I went to repair the damage done to my face by my tears—fortunately, nothing a new application of eyeliner, undereye cover-up, lipstick, and powder couldn’t cure, along with some hair combing—I find the waiter already at our table, taking our order. Jean-Luc does all the talking because, being half French, he speaks the language fluently. And quickly. I can’t catch everything he says, but I hear “pas de tomates” several times.

  Which even I, with my summer-school French, know means “no tomatoes.”

  It is all I can do to keep from bursting into tears all over again. Because Jean-Luc has renewed my faith in men. There are nice, funny, totally good-looking guys out there. You just have to know where to look…and apparently, where NOT to look. Which is in the ladies’ shower of your dorm.

  Of course, I’ve found this one on a train…which means after I get off this train, I’ll probably never see him again.

  But that’s okay. It’s fine. I mean, what did I expect, to walk out of one relationship right into another? Right. Like that’s even healthy. Like it would have had a chance of lasting, since I’m so obviously on the rebound from Andy.

  Plus, you know. The whole two-ships-passing-in-the-night thing.

  Oh, and the fact that I told him about the blow job. (WHY? WHY DID I DO THAT??? WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE THE BIGGEST MOUTH IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE???)

  Still. He’s just so…cute. And not married—no ring. Maybe he’s got a girlfriend—actually, no guy this cute could not have a girlfriend—but if so, he certainly isn’t talking about her.

  Which is good. Because why would I want to sit here and listen to this totally cute guy talk about his girlfriend? I mean, obviously, if he talked about her I would listen, since he listened so patiently when I was talking about Andy.

  But, you know. I’m glad he’s not.

  He orders wine to go with dinner, and when it arrives and the waiter pours it out for us, Jean-Luc lifts his glass, clinks it with mine, and says, “To blow jobs.”

  I nearly choke on the bread I’m scarfing down. Because even though we’re on a train, we’re on a train in France, so the food is incredible. At least the bread is. So incredible there’s no possible way I can resist it after I take a tiny nibble from a roll in the basket on the table. Perfectly crunchy crust with a warm, soft middle? How can I abstain? Sure, I’ll regret it later, when my size nine jeans won’t zip up.

  But for right now, I’m still in heaven. Because, for such a bad joke-teller, Jean-Luc is still pretty funny.

  And I’ve missed bread. I’ve really, really missed it.

  “To blow jobs we want back,” I correct him.

  “I can only pray,” Jean-Luc says, “there’s no woman out there wishing she could take back one she’s given me.”

  “Oh,” I say, gently laying a curl of salted butter on top of the center of my roll and watching it melt into the warm bread, “I’m sure there’s not. I mean, you don’t seem like a user to me.”

  “Yes,” he says, “but then neither did—what’s his name again? Blow-job boy?”

  “Andy,” I say, blushing. God, why did I ever open my big mouth about that? “And my instincts were off about him. Because of the accent. And his wardrobe. If he’d been American, I never would have fallen for him. Or his lies.”

  “His wardrobe?” Jean-Luc asks as the waiter brings over my pan-seared pork medallions and his poached salmon.

  “Sure,” I say. “You can tell a lot about a guy from what he’s wearing. But Andy was British, so that threw everything off a little. I mean, until I got there, I just figured everyone in England wore Aerosmith T-shirts, like Andy was wearing the night we met.”

  Jean-Luc’s dark eyebrows go up. “Aerosmith?”

  “Right. Obviously, I assumed he was being ironic, or possibly that it was laundry day. But then I got to London and I saw that is how he really dresses. There was nothing ironic about it. If things had worked out between us, I might eventually have gotten him into decent clothes. But…” I shrug. Which is a very French thing to do, I notice. All the other ladies in the dining car are shrugging as well, and saying, “ouais,” which is French slang for oui, at least according to the copy of Let’s Go: France I bought from Jamal and skimmed before I zonked out in the Chunnel.

  “So you’re saying,” Jean-Luc says, “that you can tell what someone is like just by the clothes they’re wearing?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I say, digging into my pork tenderloin. Which, I might add, is totally de
licious, even by non-train-food standards. “What someone wears reveals so much about themselves. Like you, for instance.”

  Jean-Luc grins. “Okay. Hit me.”

  I squint at him. “Are you sure?”

  “I can take it,” Jean-Luc assures me.

  “Well…all right, then.” I study him. “I can tell by the fact that you tuck your shirt into your jeans—which are Levi’s; I doubt you own any other brand—that you’re confident about your body and also that you care about how you look, but you aren’t vain. You probably don’t think much about how you look, but you glance in the mirror in the morning to shave and maybe make sure no tags are sticking out. Your mesh leather belt is casual and understated, but I bet it cost a lot, which means you’re willing to spend money on quality, but you don’t want it to look show-offy. Your shirt is Hugo—not Hugo Boss—which means you care, just a little, about not looking like everybody else, and you have on Cole Haan driving shoes with no socks, which means you like to be comfortable, aren’t impatient about waiting in lines, don’t mind having weird girls you’ve never met before sit next to you on trains and cry, and that you don’t suffer from any sort of glandular foot-odor problems. Oh, and you’re wearing a Fossil watch, which means you’re athletic—I bet you run to stay in shape—and that you like to cook.”

  I laid down my fork and look at him. “How am I? Close?”

  He stares at me across the bread basket.